In one respect there is an essential difference between the remains of Pompeii and those of the large and famous cities of antiquity, as Rome or Athens, which have associated with them the familiar names of historical characters. Mars' Hill is clothed with human interest, if for no other reason, because of its relation to the work of the Apostle Paul; while the Roman Forum and the Palatine, barren as they seem to-day, teem with life as there rise before the mind's eye the scenes presented in the pages of classical writers. But the Campanian city played an unimportant part in contemporary history; the name of not a single great Pompeian is recorded. The ruins, deprived of the interest arising from historical associations, must be interpreted with little help from literary sources, and repeopled with aggregate rather than individual life. A few Pompeians, whose features have survived in herms or statues and whose names are known from the inscriptions, seem near to us,--such are Caecilius Jucundus and the generous priestess Eumachia; but the characters most commonly associated with the city are those of fiction. Here, in a greater degree than in most places, the work of reconstruction involves the handling of countless bits of evidence, which, when viewed by themselves, often seem too minute to be of importance; the blending of these into a complete and faithful picture is a task of infinite painstaking, the difficulty of which will best be appreciated by one who has worked in this field. It was at first proposed to place at the end of the book a series of bibliographical notes on the different chapters, giving references to the more important treatises and articles dealing with the matters presented. But on fuller consideration it seemed unnecessary thus to add to the bulk of the volume; those who are interested in the study of a particular building or aspect of Pompeian culture will naturally turn to the _Pompeianarum antiquitatum historia_, the reports in the _Notizie degli Scavi_, the reports and articles by Professor Mau in the Roman _Mittheilungen_ of the German Archaeological Institute, the Overbeck-Mau _Pompeji_, the Studies by Mau and by Nissen, the commemorative volume issued in 1879 under the title _Pompei e la regione sotterrata dal Vesuvio_, the catalogues of the paintings by Helbig and Sogliano, together with Mau's _Geschichte der decorativen Wandmalerei in Pompeji_, H. von Rohden's _Terracotten von Pompeji_, and the older illustrated works, as well as the beautiful volume, _Pompeji vor der Zerstoerung_, published in 1897 by Weichardt.