This Olconius or Holconius was the Marquis of Carabas of Pompeii.  His name may be read everywhere in the streets, on the monuments, and on the walls of the houses.  We have seen already that the fruiterers wanted him for aedile.  We have pointed out the position of his statue in the theatre.  We know by inscriptions that he was not the only illustrious member of his family.  There were also a Marcus Holconius Celer, a Marcus Holconius Rufus, etc.  Were this petty municipal aristocracy worth the trouble of hunting up, we could easily find it on the electoral programmes by collecting the names usually affixed thereon.  But Holconius is the one most conspicuous of them all; so, hats off to Holconius!

I return to the theatre.  Two large side windows illuminated the stage, which, being covered, had need of light.  The back scene was not carved, but painted and pierced for five doors instead of three; those at the ends, which were masked by movable side scenes served, perhaps, as entrances to the lobbies of the priestesses.

Would you like to go behind the scenes?  Passing by the barracks of the gladiators, we enter an apartment adorned with columns, which was, very likely, the common hall and dressing-room of the actors.  A celebrated mosaic in the house of the poet (or jeweller), shows us a scenic representation:  in it we observe the choragus, surrounded by masks and other accessories (the choragus was the manager and director); he is making two actors, got up as satyrs, rehearse their parts; behind them, another comedian, assisted by a costumer of some kind, is trying to put on a yellow garment which is too small for him.  Thus we can re-people the antechamber of the stage.  We see already those comic masks that were the principal resource in the wardrobe of the ancient players.  Some of them were typical; for instance, that of the young virgin, with her hair parted on her forehead and carefully combed; that of the slave-driver (or hegemonus), recognized by his raised eyelids, his wrinkled brows and his twists of hair done up in a wig; that of the wizard, with immense eyes starting from their sockets, seamed skin covered with pimples, with enormous ears, and short hair frizzed in snaky ringlets; that of the bearded, furious, staring, and sinister old man; and above all, those of the Atellan low comedians, who, born in Campania, dwell there still, and must assuredly have amused the little city through which we are passing.  Atella, the country of Maccus was only some seven or eight leagues distant from Pompeii, and numerous interests and business connections united the inhabitants of the two places.  I have frequently stated that the Oscan language, in which the Atellan farces were written, had once been the only tongue, and had continued to be the popular dialect of the Pompeians.  The Latin gradually intermingled with these pieces, and the confusion of the two idioms was an exhaustless source of witticisms,