His villa, which consisted of three stories, not placed one above the other, but descending in terraces from the top of the hill, deserves a visit or two.  You will there see a pretty court surrounded with columns and small rooms, one of which—­of an elliptical shape and opening on a garden, and lighted by the evening twilight, but shielded from the sun by windows and by curtains, the glass panes and rings of which have been found—­is the pleasantest nook cleared out among these ruins.  You will also be shown the baths, the saloons, the bedchambers, the garden, a host of small apartments brilliantly decorated, basins of marble, and the cellar still intact, with amphorae, inside of which were still a few drops of wine not yet dried up, the place where lay the poor suffocated family—­seventeen skeletons surprised there together by death.  The fine ashes that stifled them having hardened with time, retain the print of a young girl’s bosom.  It was this strange mould, which is now kept at the museum, that inspired the Arria Marcella of Theophile Gautier—­that author’s masterpiece, perhaps, but at all events a masterpiece.

As for Cicero, get them to show you his villa, if you choose.  You will see absolutely nothing there, and it has been filled up again.  Fine paintings were found there previously, along with superb mosaics and a rich collection of precious articles; but I shall not copy the inventory.  Was it really the house of Cicero?  Who can say?  Antiquaries will have it so, and so be it, then!  I do not deny that Cicero had a country property at Pompeii, for he often mentions it in his letters; but where it was, exactly, no one can demonstrate.  He could have descried it from Baiae or Misenum, he somewhere writes, had he possessed longer vision; but in such case he could also have seen the entire side of Pompeii that looks toward the sea.  Therefore, I put aside these useless discussions and resume our methodical tour.

I have shown you the ancients in their public life; at the Forum and in the street, in the temples and in the wine-shops, on the public promenade and in the cemeteries.  I shall now endeavor to come upon them in their private life, and, for this end, to peep at them first in a place which was a sort of intermediate point between the street and the house.  I mean the hot baths, or thermae.

V.

THE THERMAE.

     THE HOT BATHS AT ROME.—­THE THERMAE OF STABIAE.—­A TILT AT SUN
     DIALS.—­A COMPLETE BATH, AS THE ANCIENTS CONSIDERED IT; THE
     APARTMENTS, THE SLAVES, THE UNGUENTS, THE STRIGILLAE.—­A SAYING OF
     THE EMPEROR HADRIAN.—­THE BATHS FOR WOMEN.—­THE READING ROOM.—­THE
     ROMAN NEWSPAPER.—­THE HEATING APPARATUS.