§221. The doors and doorways gave opportunities for treatment equally artistic. The doors were richly paneled and carved, or were plated with bronze, or made of solid bronze. The threshold was often of mosaic (see the example from Pompeii in Fig. 67). The _postēs_ were sheathed with marble elaborately carved, as in the example from Pompeii, shown in Fig. 68. The floors were covered with marble tiles arranged in geometrical figures with contrasting colors, much as they are now in public buildings, or with mosaic pictures only less beautiful than those upon the walls. The most famous of these, "Darius at the Battle of Issus," is shown in black and white in all our reference books (best in Baumeister under _Mosaik_, Fig. 1000, and in colors in Overbeck after p. 612). It measures sixteen feet by eight, but despite its size has no less than one hundred and fifty separate pieces to each square inch. The ceilings were often barrel-vaulted and painted brilliant colors, or were divided into panels (_lacūs_, _lacūnae_), deeply sunk, by heavy intersecting beams of wood or marble, and then decorated in the most elaborate manner with raised stucco work, or gold or ivory, or with bronze plates heavily gilded.[2] [Footnote 2: The magnificence of some of the great houses, even in Republican times, may be inferred from the prices paid for them. Cicero paid about $140,000 for his; the consul Messala the same price for his; Clodius $600,000 for his, the most costly known to us. All these were on the Palatine Hill, where ground was costly, too.] §222. Furniture.--Our knowledge of Roman furniture is largely indirect, because only such articles have come down to us as were made of stone or metal. Fortunately the secondary sources are abundant and good. Many articles are incidentally described in works of literature, many are shown in the wall paintings mentioned above (§220), and some have been restored from casts taken in the hardened ashes of Pompeii and Herculaneum. In general we may say that the Romans had very few articles of furniture in their houses, and that they cared less for comfort, not to say luxurious ease, than they did for costly materials, fine workmanship, and artistic forms. The mansions on the Palatine were enriched with all the spoils of Greece and Asia, but it may be doubted whether there was a comfortable bed within the walls of Rome.