Afterward the attendant turned him over to Odacis, the favorite slave, and she ushered him into the peristyle, an inner courtyard much larger than the atrium, which astonished the Greek with its polychrome decoration. The columns were painted red at their bases, and the color changed above into blue and gold on the fluting and capitals, and was dispersed over the trellis-work covering the porticos. In the unroofed part of the peristyle was a deep piscina of transparent water in which fish darted like flashes of golden lightning. Around it were marble benches supported by Hermæ; tables held by dolphins with knotted tails; clumps of roses, between the foliage of which peeped white or terra cotta statuettes in voluptuous positions, and covering the walls of the peristyle, between the doors of the rooms, were great paintings by Grecian artists--Orpheus with his heavy lyre, nude and wearing his Phrygian cap, surrounded by lions and panthers who listened to his songs with humbled heads, stifling their growls; Venus springing from the waves; Adonis allowing himself to be cured of his wounds by the Mother of Love; and other scenes eulogizing the influence of art and beauty. Actæon was conducted to the bath by two young slaves, and as he emerged from this he again met Odacis, who bade him enter the library beyond the peristyle. It was a great room paved with mosaic representing the triumph of Bacchus. The young god, beautiful as a woman, nude, and crowned with vines and roses, was riding on a panther, waving his thyrsus. The pictures on the walls illustrated famous passages from the Iliad. The more voluminous books were ranged on shelves, and the smaller ones formed bundles placed in narrow willow baskets lined with wool.