Museum of Antiquity: A Description of Ancient LifeYaggy, L. W. (Levi W.)
History
Museum of Antiquity: A Description of Ancient Life
Yaggy, L. W. (Levi W.)
Civilization, Ancient; Classical antiquities
On entering, the visitor finds himself in a street, running a little
east of south, which leads to the Forum. To the right, stands a house
formerly owned by a musician; to the left, a thermopolium or shop for
hot drinks; beyond is the house of the Vestals; beyond this the
custom-house; and a little further on, where another street runs into
this one from the north at a very acute angle, stands a public
fountain. In the last-named street is a surgeon's house; at least one
so named from the quantity of surgical instruments found in it, all
made of bronze. On the right or western side of the street, by which
we entered, the houses, as we have said, are built on the declivity of
a rock, and are several stories high.
The fountain is about one hundred and fifty yards from the city gate.
About the same distance, further on, the street divides into two; the
right-hand turning seems a by-street, the left-hand turning conducts
you to the Forum. The most important feature in this space is a house
called the house of Sallust or of Actæon, from a painting in it
representing that hunter's death. It stands on an area about forty
yards square, and is encompassed on three sides by streets; by that
namely which we have been describing, by another nearly parallel to
it, and by a third, perpendicular to these two. The whole quarter at
present excavated, as far as the Street of the Baths, continued by the
Street of Fortune, is divided, by six longitudinal and one transverse
street, into what the Romans called islands, or insulated masses of
houses. Two of these are entirely occupied by the houses of Pansa and
of the Faun, which, with their courts and gardens, are about one
hundred yards long by forty wide.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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