Roman architectural ornament was simply Greek with a few variations, not always improvements. It was less refined, but in some cases, especially in the examples of large acanthus scrolls on friezes, panels, and pilasters (Fig. 319), and in their large capitals, the ornament was designed with great skill and virility. They used the softer-leaved variety of acanthus—the mollis—while the Greeks used the spinosus, or prickly-leaved variety. [Illustration: Fig. 316.—Greek Ivy Meander Border.] The decorations of the Roman mouldings were less elegant than those of the Greeks, owing to the contours being segments of circles where the Greeks used forms like conic sections, and the execution was less artistic in the Roman mouldings (Figs. 320, 321, 322). [Illustration: Fig. 317.—Decorated Mouldings from the Temple of Minerva Polias; Ogee Ovolo, and Beads.] [Illustration: Fig. 318.—The Ovolo, with Egg and Tongue, from the Erectheum.] The domestic architecture of Greece is guessed at by the remains of Pompeii and Herculaneum, which, though Roman provincial cities, were in style and decoration a fair reflection of Greek art. The remains of the art found in these cities have been styled Greco-Roman. The destruction of Pompeii was in the year A.D. 79. [Illustration: Fig. 319.—Ancient Roman Panel, Florence.] [Illustration: Fig. 320.—Ovolo and Astragal Mouldings; Roman.] [Illustration: Fig. 321.—Ogee and Fluted Cavetto Moulding; Jupiter Tonans.] The general arrangement of a Roman house was rectangular in plan, with, and sometimes without, a vestibule in front. The front door opened on a passage called the _prothyrum_ which led to the _atrium_, an open court partly roofed; the opening was in the centre, and was called the _impluvium_; exactly under it in the floor was a tank called the _compluvium_; this received the rain water. In large houses the atrium roof was supported by columns, then the atrium was sometimes called the _cavædium_, at the end of which opened out three rooms the larger and central one was called the _tablinum_, and the two side ones _alæ_; these were the rooms where the family records, documents, histories, deeds, &c., were kept. A passage led from the atrium to the principal private reception-room, called the _peristylium_, which had a roof partly open to the sky. This room was the finest in the house, and was richly decorated with rare marbles, bronzes, and fresco paintings where the owner was wealthy. Round the peristyle were arranged the smaller rooms, such as the parlours called _exedræ_, the chapels _lararia_, and the picture galleries _pinacothecæ_. Kitchens and other offices were behind, as also were the various sleeping-rooms. Some of the rooms were badly lighted, and had to depend for the light from the doors or artificial light, but in some cases windows, rather small in size, were placed high up in the walls. [Illustration: Fig. 322.—Ogee Decorated, and Astragal; Jupiter Stator.]