Phantom-like yet real there are the good citizens of a good town, parading, hustling, loafing--sturdy patricians, wretched plebeians, stern centurios, boastful soldiers, scheming politicians, crafty law-clerks, timid scribes, chattering barbers, bullying gladiators, haughty actors, dusty travelers, making for Albinus', the famous host at the _Via della Abbondanza_ or, would he give preference to Sarinus, the son of Publius, who advertised so cleverly? Or, perhaps, could he afford to stop at the "Fortunata" Hotel, centrally located? There are, too, the boorish hayseeds from out of town trying to sell their produce, unaccustomed to the fashionable Latin-Greek speech of the city folks, gaping with their mouths wide open, greedily at the steaks of sacrificial meat displayed behind enlarging glasses in the cheap cook shop windows. There they giggle and chuckle, those wily landlords with their blasé habitués and their underlings, the greasy cooks, the roguish "good mixers" at the bar and the winsome if resolute _copæ_--waitresses--all ready to go, to do business. So slippery are the cooks that Plautus calls one _Congrio_--sea eel--so black that another deserves the title _Anthrax_--coal. There they are, one and all, the characters necessary to make up what we call civilization, chattering agitatedly in a lingo of Latin-Greek-Oscan--as if life were a continuous market day. It takes no particular scholarship, only a little imagination and human sympathy to see and to hear the ghosts of Pompeii. There is no pose about this town, no _mise-en-scène_, no stage-setting. No heroic gesture. No theatricals, in short, no lies. There is to be found no shred of that vainglorious cloak which humans will deftly drape about their shoulders whenever they happen to be aware of the camera. There is no "registering" of any kind here. Pompeii's natural and pleasant disposition, therefore, is ever so much more in evidence. Not a single one of this charming city's movements was intended for posterity. Her life stands before our eyes in clear reality, in naked, unadorned truth. Indeed, there were many things that the good folks would have loved to point to with pride. You have to search for these now. There are, alas and alack, a few things they would have hidden, had they only known what was in store for them. But all these things, good, indifferent and bad, remained in their places; and here they are, unsuspecting, real, natural, charming like Diana and her wood nymphs. Were it not quite superfluous, we would urgently recommend the study of Pompeii to the students of life in general and to those of Antiquity in particular. Those who would know something about the ancient table cannot do without Pompeii. THREE ANCIENT WRITERS: ANACHARSIS, APICIUS, PETRONIUS To those who lay stress upon documentary evidence or literary testimony, to those trusting implicitly in the honesty and reliability of writers of fiction, we would recommend Petronius Arbiter.