Such was the ground-floor of a rich Pompeian dwelling.  As for the upper stories, we can say nothing about them.  Fire and time have completely destroyed them.  They were probably very light structures; the lower walls could not have supported others.  Most of the partitions must have been of wood.  We know from books that the women, slaves, and lodgers perched in these pigeon-houses, which, destitute, as they were, of the space reserved for the wide courts and the large lower halls, must have been sufficiently narrow and unpleasant.  Other more opulent houses had some rooms that were lacking in the house of Pansa:  these were, first, bathrooms, then a spherister for tennis, a pinacothek or gallery of paintings, a sacellum or family chapel, and what more I know not.  The diminutiveness of these small rooms admitted of their being infinitely multiplied.

I have not said all.  The house of Pansa formed an island (insula) all surrounded with streets, upon three of which opened shops that I have yet to visit.  At first, on the left angle, a bakery, less complete than the public ovens to which I conducted you in the second chapter preceding this one.  There were found ornaments singularly irreconcilable with each other; inscriptions, thoroughly Pagan in their character, which recalled Epicurus, and a Latin cross in relief, very sharply marked upon a wall.  This Christian symbol allows fancy to spread her wings, and Bulwer, the romance-writer, has largely profited by it.

A shop in the front, the second to the left of the entrance door, communicated with the house.  The proprietor, then, was a merchant, or, at least, he sold the products of his vineyards and orchards on his own premises, as many gentlemen vine-growers of Florence still do.  A slave called the dispensator was the manager of this business.

Some of these shops opening on a side-street, composed small rooms altogether independent of the house, and probably occupied by inquilini,[D] or lodgers, a class of people despised among the ancients, who highly esteemed the homestead idea.  A Roman who did not live under his own roof would cut as poor a figure as a Parisian who did not occupy his own furnished rooms, or a Neapolitan compelled to go afoot.  Hence, the petty townsmen clubbed together to build or buy a house, which they owned in common, preferring the inconveniences of a divided proprietorship to those of a mere temporary occupancy.  But they have greatly changed their notions in that country, for now they move every year.

[Illustration:  Candelabra, Jewelry, and Kitchen Utensils found at Pompeii.]