“Jam ostendamcujus modi sis: quum ille ‘ostende quæso’ demonstravi digito pictum Gallum in Mariano scuto Cimbrico, sub Novis, distortum ejectâ linguâ, buccis fluentibus, risus est commotus.”[7] Pliny, after saying that Lucius Mummius was the first in Rome who affixed a picture to the outside of a house, continues:-- “Deinde video et in foro positas vulgo. Hinc enim Crassi oratoris lepos, [here follows the anecdote of the Cock of Marius the Cimberian] . . . In foro fuit et illa pastoris senis cum baculo, de qua Teutonorum legatus respondit, interrogatus quanti eum æstimaret, sibi donari nolle talem vivum verumque.”[8] Fabius also, according to some, relates the story of the cock, and his explanation is cited:--“Taberna autem erant circa Forum, ac scutum illud signi gratia positum.”[9] But we can judge even better from an inspection of the Roman signs themselves, as they have come down to us amongst the ruins of Herculaneum and Pompeii. A few were painted; but, as a rule, they appear to have been made of stone, or terra-cotta relievo, and let into the pilasters at the side of the open shop-fronts. Thus there have been found a _goat_, the sign of a dairy; a _mule_ driving a mill, the sign of a baker, (plate 1.) At the door of a schoolmaster was the not very tempting sign of a boy receiving a good birching. Very similar to our Two Jolly Brewers, carrying a tun slung on a long pole, a Pompeian public-house keeper had two slaves represented above his door, carrying an amphora; and another wine-merchant had a painting of Bacchus pressing a bunch of grapes. At a perfumer’s shop, in the street of Mercury, were represented various items of that profession--viz., four men carrying a box with vases of perfume, men occupied in laying out and perfuming a corpse, &c. There was also a sign similar to the one mentioned by Horace, the Two Gladiators, under which, in the usual Pompeian cacography, was the following imprecation:--ABIAT VENEREM POMPEIIANAMA IRADAM QUI HOC LÆSERIT, _i.e._, _Habeat Venerem Pompeianam iratam_, &c. Besides these there were the signs of the Anchor, the Ship, (perhaps a ship-chandler’s,) a sort of a Cross, the Chequers, the Phallus on a baker’s shop, with the words, HIC HABITAT FELICITAS; whilst in Herculaneum there was a very cleverly painted Amorino, or Cupid, carrying a pair of ladies’ shoes, one on his head and the other in his hand.