In what did a Pompeian's dwelling differ from a small stylish residence or villa of modern times? In a thousand and one points which we shall discover, step by step, but chiefly in this, that it was turned inwards, or, as it were, doubled upon itself; not that it was, as has been said, altogether a stranger to the street, and presented to the latter only a large painted wall, a sort of lofty screen. The upper stories of the Pompeian houses having nearly all crumbled, we are not in a position to affirm that they did not have windows opening on the public streets. I have already shown you _mæniana_ or suspended balconies from which the pretty girls of the place could ogle the passers-by. But it is certain that the first floor, consisting of the finest and best occupied apartments, grouped its rooms around two interior courts and turned their backs to the street. Hence, these two courts opening one behind the other, the development of the front was but a small affair compared with the depth of the house. These courts were called the _atrium_, and the peristyle. One might say that the atrium was the public and the peristyle the private part of the establishment; that the former belonged to the world and the second to the family. This arrangement nearly corresponded with the division of the Greek dwelling into _andronitis_ and _gynaikotis_, the side for the men and the side for the women. Around the atrium were usually ranged--we must not be too rigorously precise in these distinctions--the rooms intended for the people of the house, and those who called upon them. Around the peristyle were the rooms reserved for the private occupancy of the family. I commence with the atrium. It was reached from the street by a narrow alley (the _prothyrum_), opening, by a two-leaved door, upon the sidewalk. The doors have been burned, but we can picture them to ourselves according to the paintings, as being of oak, with narrow panels adorned with gilded nails, provided with a ring to open them by, and surmounted with a small window lighting up the alley. They opened inwards, and were secured by means of a bolt, which shot vertically downward into the threshold instead of reaching across. I enter right foot foremost, according to the Roman custom (to enter with the left foot was a bad omen); and I first salute the inscription on the threshold (_salve_) which bids me welcome. The porter's lodge (_cella ostiarii_) was usually hollowed out in the entryway, and the slave in question was sometimes chained, a precaution which held him at his post, undoubtedly, but which hindered him from, pursuing robbers. Sometimes, there was only a dog on guard, in his place, or merely the representation of a dog in mosaic: there is one in excellent preservation at the Museum in Naples retaining the famous inscription (_Cave canem_)--"Beware of the dog!" [Illustration: The Atrium in the House of Pansa, restored.]