indeed, in awkward corners
and inconvenient spaces. Nor, again, can we accept as in any degree
adequate the cause assigned by Mau for the odd orientation of the
streets next to the east side of the Forum.

[48] Mau, _Fuehrer_ (1910), p. 5, 'um die Schiefwinkeligkeit zu
vermindern.' Truly, a very inadequate reason.

These streets which lie round and east of the Forum suggest a
different development. Pompeii may have begun with a little Oscan town
planted in what became its south-western corner, near the Water-Gate
and the Forum, within the area of Regions II and IV. Here is a little
network of streets, about 300 by 400 yds. across (25 acres), which
harmonizes ill with the streets in the rest of the town, which lies
close to the river-haven on the Sarno, which includes the Forum and
Basilica--probably the oldest public sites, though not the oldest
surviving structures, in Pompeii--and which is large enough to have
formed the greater part or even the whole of a prehistoric city. The
earliest building as yet excavated at Pompeii, the Doric Temple, with
its precinct now known as the Forum Triangulare, stood on the edge of
this area looking out from its high cliff over the plain of the Sarno.
Originally this Temple may have stood just within the first town-wall,
or perhaps just without it, sheltered by the precipice which it
crowns. This area has all the appearance of an 'Altstadt'. No doubt it
has been much altered by later changes. In particular, Forum and
Basilica have grown far beyond their first proportions, and the
buildings which surround them have been added, altered, enlarged out
of all resemblance to the original plan. Nevertheless, this theory
seems to account better than any other for this curious little corner
of streets that are hardly regular even in their relations to one
another and are wholly irreconcilable to the rest of the town.

Round this primitive city grew up the greater Pompeii. The growth must
have been rather by two or three distinct accretions than a gradual
and continuous development. At present we cannot trace these stages.
To do that we must wait till the excavations can be carried deeper
down, and till the other half of the city has been uncovered, or at
least till the lines of its streets and the shapes of its house-blocks
have been determined, like those of Priene (p. 42), by special
inquiry. All that is as yet certain is that Regions I, III, V, and VI
were laid out, and their hou