“It is high change, and the Forum is crowded. All Pompeii is here, and his wife. _Patres conscripti_, inclined to corpulence, taking their constitutional, exquisites lazily sauntering up and down the pavements; decurions discussing the affairs of the nation, and the last news from Rome; city magnates fussing, merchants chaffering, clients petitioning, parasites fawning, soldiers swaggering, and Belisarius begging at the gate.... It is a bright and animated scene. Beneath, the crowded Forum, with its colonnades and statues, at one end a broad flight of steps leading to the Temple of Jupiter, at the other a triumphal arch; on one side the Temple of Venus and the Basilica; on the other the Macellum, the Temple of Mercury, the Chalcidicum; overhead the deep blue sky. Mingled with the hum of many voices and the patter of feet on the travertine pavement are the ringing sounds of the stonemasons’ chisels and hammers, for the Forum is undergoing a complete restoration. Although fifteen years have elapsed since the city was last visited by earthquake, the damage then done to the public buildings has not been entirely repaired. First the Gods, then the people. The temples of Jupiter, Venus, and Mercury are completed, but the Forum and Chalcidicum are still in the workmen’s hands.”(2) With this fleeting glimpse at the public life of the city, let us now turn our attention to its domestic arrangements. Of the many houses which have been excavated of recent years under the truly admirable superintendence of Signor Fiorelli, none is better calculated to give us a striking impression of the working details of an upper-class Roman household than the private dwelling which is known equally under the two names of the Casa Nuova and the House of the Vettii;—perhaps the former name has now ceased to own any significance, since the buildings were laid bare as far back as the winter of 1894-5. An hour or two spent in a careful inspection of this house and its contents is to most persons worth four times the same amount of time occupied in aimless wandering amongst the hot glaring streets of the city, peeping into this courtyard and that, and listening to the interminable tales of guide or custodian. If we study the Casa Nuova intelligently, lovingly and minutely, it will not be long before we obtain a tolerable grasp of Roman life and manners, which will prove of immense service and of genuine delight. What then is it, the question will be asked, that makes the House of the Vettii so valuable as an example of antique architecture and decoration, in preference to other mansions which can boast an equal and often a greater distinction? The answer is simple enough: it is because this particular group of buildings has been allowed to remain as far as practicable in the exact condition wherein it was originally unearthed, when its various rooms and courts were once more exposed to the light of day. For until the clearing of this “new house” a