Now that you have been told a little concerning the ways of the Roman people, you may quit the Thermæ, but not without easting a glance at the heating apparatus visible in a small adjacent court. This you approach by a long corridor, from the _apodytera_. There you find the _hypocaust_, a spacious round fireplace which transmitted warm air through lower conduits to the stove, and heated the two boilers built into the masonry and supplied from a reservoir. From this reservoir the water fell cold into the first boiler, which sent it lukewarm into the second, and the latter, being closer to the fire, gave it forth at a boiling temperature. A conduit carried the hot water of the second boiler to the square basin of the calidarium and another conveyed the tepid water of the first boiler to the large receptacle of the labrum. In the fire-place was found a quantity of rosin which the Pompeians used in kindling their fires. Such were the Thermæ of a small Roman city. VI. THE DWELLINGS. PARATUS AND PANSA.--THE ATRIUM AND THE PERISTYLE.--THE DWELLING REFURBISHED AND REPEOPLED.--THE SLAVES, THE KITCHEN, AND THE TABLE.--THE MORNING OCCUPATIONS OF A POMPEIAN.--THE TOILET OF A POMPEIAN LADY.--A CITIZEN SUPPER: THE COURSES, THE GUESTS.--THE HOMES OF THE POOR, AND THE PALACES OF ROME. In order, now, to study the _home_ of antique times, we have but to cross the street of the baths obliquely. We thus reach the dwelling of the ædile Pansa. He, at least, is the proprietor designated by general opinion, which, according to my ideas, is wrong in this particular. An inscription painted on the door-post has given rise to this error. The inscription runs thus: _Pansam ædilem Paratus rogat_. This the early antiquarians translated: _Paratus invokes Pansa the ædile_. The early antiquaries erred. They should have rendered it: _Paratus demands Pansa for ædile_. It was not an invocation but an electoral nomination. We have already deciphered many like inscriptions. Universal suffrage put itself forward among the ancients as it does with us. Hence, the dwelling that I am about to enter was not that of Pansa, whose name is found thus suggested for the ædileship in many other places, but rather that of Paratus, who, in order to designate the candidate of his choice, wrote the name on his door-post. Such is my opinion, but, as one runs the risk of muddling everything by changing names already accepted, I do not insist upon it. So let us enter the house of Pansa the ædile. This dwelling is not the most ornate, but it is the most regular in Pompeii, and also the least complicated and the most simply complete. Thus, all the guides point it out as the model house, and perceiving that they are right in so doing, I will imitate them.