Calvus, although a member of the upper aristocracy, is not extraordinarily wealthy. He does not, like some of his friends, possess simultaneously three large city houses, often moving from one to another according to season and mood. He has only four country villas, one far in the North by the Italian lakes, one in the Etruscan hills, one fairly close to Rome, and a fourth on the delightful Bay of Naples. His city residence is inferior in magnificence not merely to those of many senators but even of many equites (second-class nobles) and of a whole cohort of rich, upstart freedmen. Nevertheless, it is a fine mansion, which has been in the Calvian family for many generations, and it is crammed with treasured heirlooms. Calvus, unlike certain noble colleagues, is happily married and rejoices in two half-grown sons and a daughter. For them a _familia_ of only one hundred and fifty slaves suffices, although the noble Gratia sometimes complains to her husband: “Our staff is disgracefully small.” The Calvi are really an extremely old family in what is now becoming a city of upstarts. Publius’s forebears have lived for centuries on the Esquiline and their domus has been rebuilt many times. In Punic War days it probably consisted only of a central atrium, with an opening in the ceiling to admit light and emit smoke, and a few dark cell-like chambers radiating from the great living room. This hall rightly received its name of the “black place” (_ater_) from the soot from the open hearth which was perpetually caked around the rafters. The walls were of rubble, the floor of simple tiles or even merely of pounded earth, and the roof was of thatch. Such a house could stow away the many children and the relatively few servants of a senator who helped to humiliate Carthage. =31. The Plan of a Large Residence.=--Very different is the domus now as we approach the lofty Ionic pillars before its portal, nevertheless, the plan of the old house has not quite vanished in the stately mansion. The Roman house is always (like the Greek) essentially the typical _southern_ dwelling built around _courts_, and getting its light thence, and with little dependence upon exterior windows. What has happened now is that the old living room has expanded into a magnificent light-bathed hall, with the sun streaming not through a smoke-hole but an ample opening. The rooms leading from this court have multiplied in number and vastly increased in size. Then through a series of passages one enters a second court even larger and handsomer, and with another array of dependent chambers. In such a house the main apartments are on the first floor, but there is a second story for the lodging of the retinues of slaves. In the rear of all there is usually a garden. Every domus has its own particular plan and pretentions but all conform to the general scheme of two main courts, just as almost every house of another civilization will demand its parlor and its dining room.