At length we have before us the Pantheon, the strangest and the least easy to name of the edifices of Pompeii. It is not parallel to the Forum, but its obliquity was adroitly masked by shops in which many pieces of coin have been found. Hence the conclusion that these were _tabernæ argentariæ_, the money-changers' offices, and I cannot prove the contrary. The two entrance doors are separated by two Corinthian columns, between which is hollowed out a niche without a statue. The capitals of these columns bear Cæsarean eagles. Could this Pantheon have been the temple of Augustus? Having passed the doors, one reaches an area, in which extended, to the right and to the left, a spacious portico surrounding a court, in the midst of which remain twelve pedestals that, ranged in circular order, once, perhaps, sustained the pillars of a circular temple or the statues of twelve gods. This, then, was the Pantheon. However, at the extremity of the edifice, and directly opposite to the entrance, three apartments open. The middle one formed a chapel; three statues were found there representing Drusus and Livia, the wife of Augustus, along with an arm holding a globe, and belonging, no doubt, to the consecrated statue which must have stood upon the pedestal at the end, a statue of the Emperor. Then this was the temple of Augustus. The apartment to the left shows a niche and an altar, and served, perhaps, for sacrifices; the room to the right offers a stone bench arranged in the shape of a horse-shoe. It could not be one of those triple beds (_triclinia_) which we shall find in the eating saloons of the private houses; for the slope of these benches would have forced the reclining guests to have their heads turned toward the wall or their feet higher than their heads. Moreover, in the interior of this bench runs a conduit evidently intended to afford passage to certain liquids, perhaps to the blood of animals slaughtered in the place. This, therefore, was neither a Pantheon nor a temple of Augustus, but a slaughter-house (_macellum_.) In that case, the eleven apartments abutting to the right on the long wall of the edifice would be the stalls. But these rooms, in which the regular orifices made in the wall were to hold the beams that sustained the second story, were adorned with paintings which still exist, and which must have been quite luxurious for those poor oxen. Let us interrogate these paintings and those of all these walls; they will instruct us, perhaps, with reference to the destination of the building. There are mythological and epic pieces reproducing certain sacred subjects, of which we shall speak further on. Others show us winged infants, little Cupids weaving garlands, of which the ancients were so fond; some of the bacchanalian divinities, celebrating the festival of the mills, are crowning with flowers the patient ass who is turning the wheel. Flowers on all sides--that was the fantasy of antique times. Flowers at their wild