Beyond the above-mentioned bases [of the columns in the portico] some remains of the inside of the room became visible on the right. They consisted of a piece of curtain-wall, admirably constructed of brick, part of the side-wall, with a rectangular niche of large size in the form of a press (_in foggia di armadio_). One ascended to this by three steps, with a landing-place in front of them, on which it was possible to stand with ease. On the sides of this niche there still exist traces of the hinges, on which the panels and the wickets, probably of bronze, rested[95]. It seems to me that we have here an early instance, perhaps the earliest, of those presses in the thickness of the wall which were so common afterwards in the monasteries and in private libraries also. A similar press, on a smaller scale, is described by the younger Pliny: "My bedroom," he says, "has a press let into the wall which does duty as a library, and holds books not merely to be read, but read over and over again[96]." It must not, however, be supposed that cupboards were always, or even usually, sunk into the wall in Roman times. They were detached pieces of furniture, not unlike the wardrobes in which ladies hang their dresses at the present day, except that they were fitted with a certain number of horizontal shelves, and were used for various purposes according to the requirements of their owners. For instance, there is a sarcophagus in the Museo Nazionale at Rome, on which is represented a shoemaker at work. In front of him is a cupboard, exactly like those I am about to describe, on the top of which several pairs of shoes are set out. I can, however, produce three representations of such presses being used by the Romans to contain books. The first occurs on a marble sarcophagus (fig. 13), now in the garden of the Villa Balestra, Rome, where I had the good fortune to find it in 1898[97]; and Professor Petersen, of the German Archaeological School, was so kind as to have it photographed for me. He assigns the work to about 200 A.D. [Illustration: Fig. 13. A Roman reading a roll in front of a press (_armarium_). From a photograph of a sarcophagus in the garden of the Villa Balestra. Rome.]