With a single exception the arrangements for heating so often met with in the remains of houses discovered in northern countries are found at Pompeii only in connection with bath-rooms; the cold was ineffectively combated by means of braziers. We are led to believe that the Pompeians were extremely sensitive to heat, but endured cold with great patience. One who makes himself familiar with the arrangements of Italian houses to-day will receive a similar impression, although the peculiarity is perhaps less obvious than in the case of the ancient dwellings. In describing the Pompeian houses it is more convenient to designate the principal rooms by the ancient names. In Fig. 115 we present an ideal plan; in it the names are given to the parts of the house, the relative location of which is subject to comparatively little variation. These parts will first be discussed; then those will be taken up which present a greater diversity in their arrangements. I. VESTIBULE, FAUCES, AND FRONT DOOR The _vestibulum_ was the space between the front door and the street. The derivation of the word (_ve-_ + the root of _stare_, 'to stand aside') suggests the purpose; the vestibule was a place where one could step aside from the bustle and confusion of the street. In many houses there was no vestibule, the front door opening directly on the sidewalk; and where vestibules did exist at Pompeii, they were much more modest than those belonging to the houses of wealthy Romans, to which reference is so frequently made in classical writers. Roman vestibules were often supported by columns of costly marbles, and adorned with statues and other works of art. Only one vestibule at Pompeii was treated as a portico, that of the house of the Vestals near the Herculaneum Gate. This was once as wide as the atrium, the roof being carried by four columns; but before the destruction of the city two partitions were built parallel with the sides dividing it into three parts, a narrow vestibule of the ordinary type, with a shop at the right and at the left. The passage inside the front door was called _fauces_, or _prothyron_. According to Vitruvius the width of it in the case of large atriums should be half, in smaller atriums two thirds, that of the tablinum; at Pompeii the width is generally less than half. In the houses of the Tufa Period the corners of the fauces where it opens into the atrium were ornamented with pilasters connected at the top by an entablature.