The garden on which the colonnade opened contains an open-air triclinium. The table was ornamented with a mosaic top, now in the Naples Museum, with a characteristic design (Fig. 230). The principal motive is a skull; below is a butterfly on the rim of a wheel, symbols of the fluttering of the disembodied soul and of the flight of time. On the right and on the left are the spoils that short-lived man leaves behind him,--here a wanderer's staff, a wallet, and a beggar's tattered robe; there, a sceptre, with a mantle of royal purple. Over all is a level, with the plumb line hanging straight, symbolic of Fate, that sooner or later equalizes the lots of all mankind. The thought of the tanner, or of the earlier proprietor of the house, is easy to divine: _Mors aurem vellens, Vivite, ait, venio_, 'Death plucks my ear, and says, "Live!" for I come.' [Illustration: Fig. 230.--Mosaic top of the table in the garden of the tannery.] CHAPTER XLIX _INNS AND WINESHOPS_ Wineshops, _cauponae_, were numerous in Pompeii, and the remains are easily identified. Like the Italian _osterie_, they were at the same time eating houses, but the arrangements for drinking were the more conspicuous, and give character to the ruins. The Roman inn, _hospitium_, or simply _caupona_, was a wineshop with accommodations for the night, provision being also made in most cases for the care of animals. Keepers of inns, _caupones_, are frequently mentioned in Pompeian inscriptions, sometimes in election notices, more often in graffiti. Several inns have been identified from signs and from scribblings on the walls within. At the entrance of one (west side of Ins. IX. vii) is painted _Hospitium Hygini Firmi_, 'Inn of Hyginius Firmus.' The front of the 'Elephant Inn' (west side of Ins. VII. i) was ornamented with the painting of an elephant in the coils of a serpent, defended by a pygmy. The name of the proprietor is perhaps given at the side: _Sittius restituit elephantu[m]_, 'Sittius restored the elephant,' referring no doubt to the repainting of the sign. Evidently the owner, whether Sittius or some one else, was anxious to rent the premises; below the elephant is the painted notice: _Hospitium hic locatur--triclinium cum tribus lectis_,--'Inn to let. Triclinium with three couches.' The rest of the inscription is illegible.