[Illustration: ATRIUM OF HOUSE IN POMPEII LOOKING TOWARDS THE PERISTYLIUM: present condition.] Calvus’s mansion is priced by the real estate experts at about 3,500,000 sesterces (say $140,000);[18] but there are not a few houses of richer senators worth four times as much. The structure faces a street which is reasonably clear of shops and where all the neighbors are at least equites or else very wealthy freedmen. The building does not rise as high as an insula; in fact it possesses only two stories: the first broken by mere peepholes in the solid stuccoed walls, the second by larger windows all heavily grated. One can guess part of the reason for these bars from a placard hanging in the entrance: NO SLAVE IS TO QUIT THE HOUSE WITHOUT THE MASTER’S ORDERS. PENALTY 100 LASHES =32. Entrance to the Residence.=--The entrance itself, however, is handsome. The columns on either side are of fine Luna marble. Pass between these, and you enter a vestibule, a considerable outer chamber with fine pilasters let into the walls, where at this moment a swarm of the Senator’s clients are mustering. Then you approach the actual doors of the _ostium_. These stand open but every passer is being scrutinized, and if questionable, is stopped by a janitor, a highly responsible slave, who has a seat just inside. Many a janitor is supported in his duty by a surly dog, but here there is merely a life-like mosaic creature, wrought in the tiles of the pavement, with CAVE CANEM (“Beware the dog”) written beneath him. Overhead in a gilt cage however is swinging a tame magpie, and the creature croaks out his “_Salve! Salve!_” as the guests press into the atrium. =33. The Atrium and the View across It.=--The moment we are inside the transformation of scene from the dusty, dingy street is startling. If other persons do not obstruct the view, you can see clear down the long vistas of the house from the entrance to the greenery of the garden. Before us is the atrium, a magnificent court, paved with elaborate mosaics, and with four elegant Corinthian columns in pink marble upholding the roof around a wide light-well. Under this light-well is a complicated fountain, where bronze tritons and dancing nymphs are shooting great jets into a white marble basin in which grow luxurious water plants. On the inner sides of the atrium, and on either of the numerous doors opening into the same, stand statues, bronze or marble, upon carved stone pedestals. [Illustration: PLAN OF A ROMAN MANSION (_Domus_): strictly conventionalized.]