In this room, also, there were two pictures containing Cupids. In one they were represented as drinking wine and playing the lyre; in the other, as engaged in acts of worship--both appropriate decorative subjects for a room intended for sacrificial banquets. The Macellum was entered from three sides. At the front, facing the Forum, was a portico consisting of two orders of white marble columns, one above the other, supporting a roof. Fragments of the Ionic or Corinthian columns belonging to the lower order, and of the well proportioned intermediate entablature, have been preserved. Statues stood at the foot of the columns, as also at the ends of the party walls between the shops at the rear of the portico, and beside the two columns of the little vestibule at the entrance; between the two doors was a small shrine, and here, too, was a statue. The difference in direction between the front of the Macellum and the side of the Forum is concealed by increasing the depth of the shops from south to north, so that the depth of the portico remained the same. The room at the extreme right, being so shallow that it could not be used as a shop, was made into a shrine; the image or images set up in it must have been very small. What divinities were worshipped here, unless the Street Lares, cannot be conjectured. [Illustration: Fig. 39.--Statue of Marcellus, son of Octavia, found in the chapel of the Macellum.] There is another entrance on the north side, and a third near the southeast corner. In the latter are steps, and at the left as you come in is a small niche under which two serpents were painted. This humble shrine was probably dedicated to the presiding divinity of the building, the Genius Macelli. The colonnade of the Macellum was thrown down by the earthquake of 63. At the time of the eruption the stylobate on which the columns rested, and the gutter in front of it, had been renewed; but only the columns on the north side and a part of those on the west side had been set up again. Both the columns and the entablature have entirely disappeared, in consequence of excavations made in ancient times. CHAPTER XIII _THE SANCTUARY OF THE CITY LARES_ In earlier times a street opened into the Forum south of the Macellum. Later, apparently in the time of Augustus, it was closed, and the end, together with adjoining space at the south, was occupied by a building which measures approximately sixty by seventy Roman feet. In richness of material and architectural detail this was among the finest edifices at Pompeii. Its walls and floors were completely covered with marble. Now we see only rough masonry, stripped of its veneering, but enough vestiges remain to enable us to reconstruct the whole; in Figs. 41 and 42 both rear and side views of the interior are given. [Illustration: Fig. 40.--Plan of the sanctuary of the City Lares.