[Footnote D: So strong was this feeling, that the very name
_inquilinus_, or lodger, was an insult. Cicero not having been born at
Rome, Catiline called him offensively _civis inquilinus_--a lodger
citizen. (_Sallust_.)]
[Footnote E: Let not fingers that are too thick, and ill-pared nails,
make gestures too conspicuous.]
[Illustration: Peristyle of the House of the Quaestor at Pompeii.]
VII.
ART IN POMPEII.
THE HOMES OF THE WEALTHY.--THE TRIANGULAR FORUM AND THE
TEMPLES.--POMPEIAN ARCHITECTURE: ITS MERITS AND ITS DEFECTS.--THE
ARTISTS OF THE LITTLE CITY.--THE PAINTINGS HERE.--LANDSCAPES,
FIGURES, ROPE-DANCERS, DANCING-GIRLS, CENTAURS, GODS, HEROES, THE
ILIAD ILLUSTRATED.--MOSAICS.--STATUES AND
STATUETTES.--JEWELRY.--CARVED GLASS.--ART AND LIFE.
The house of Pansa was large, but not much ornamented. There are others
which are shown in preference to the visitor. Let us mention them
concisely in the catalogue and inventory style:
The house of the Faun.--Fine mosaics; a masterpiece in bronze; the
Dancing Faun, of which we shall speak farther on. Besides the atrium and
the peristyle, a third court, the xysta, surrounded with forty-four
columns, duplicated on the upper story. Numberless precious things were
found there, in the presence of the son of Goethe. The owner was a
wine-merchant.(?)
The house of the Quæstor, or of Castor and Pollux.--Large safes of very
thick and very hard wood, lined with copper and ornamented with
arabesques, perhaps the public money-chests, hence this was probably the
residence of the quæstor who had charge of the public funds; a
Corinthian atrium; fine paintings--the _Bacchante_ the _Medea_, the
_Children of Niobe_, etc. Rich development of the courtyards.
The house of the Poet.--Homeric paintings; celebrated mosaics; the dog
at the doorsill, with the inscription _Cave Canem_; the _Choragus
causing the recitation of a piece_. All these are at the museum.
The house of Sallust.--A fine bronze group; Hercules pursuing a deer
(taken to the Museum at Palermo); a pretty stucco relievo in one of the
bedchambers; Three couches of masonry in the triclinium; a decent and
modest _venereum_ that ladies may visit. There is seen an Acteon
surprising Diana in the bath, the stag's antlers growing on his forehead
and the hounds tearing him. The two scenes connect in the same picture,
as in the paintings of the middle ages. Was this a warning to rash
people? This venereum contained a bedchamber, a triclinium and a
lararium, or small marble niche in which the household god was
enshrined.
[Illustration: The House of Lucretius.]
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