§199. Still some memorials of the older day were left in even the most imposing _ātrium_. The altar to the Lares and Penates remained near the place where the hearth had been, though the regular sacrifices were made in a special chapel in the _peristylium_. In even the grandest houses the implements for spinning were kept in the place where the matron had once sat among her maidservants (§§86, 105), as Livy tells us in the story of Lucretia. The cabinets retained the masks of simpler and may be stronger men (§107), and the marriage couch stood opposite the _ōstium_ (hence its other name, _lectus adversus_), where it had been placed on the wedding night (§89), though no one slept in the _ātrium_. In the country much of the old-time use of the _ātrium_ survived even Augustus, and the poor, of course, had never changed their style of living. What use was made of the small rooms along the sides of the _ātrium_, after they had ceased to be bedchambers, we do not know; they served perhaps as conversation rooms, private parlors, and drawing-rooms. §200. The Alae.--The manner in which the _ālae_, or wings, were formed has been explained (§191); they were simply the rectangular recesses left on the right and left of the _ātrium_, when the smaller rooms on the sides were walled off. It must be remembered that they were entirely open to the _ātrium_, and formed a part of it, perhaps originally furnishing additional light from windows in their outer walls. In them were kept the _imāginēs_, as the wax busts of those ancestors who had held curule offices were called, arranged in cabinets in such a way that, by the help of cords running from one to another and of inscriptions under each of them, their relation to each other could be made clear and their great deeds kept in mind. Even when Roman writers or those of modern times speak of the _imāginēs_ as in the _ātrium_, it is the _ālae_ that are intended. [Illustration: FIGURE 47. VIEW FROM THE ATRIUM]