approached by means of a long corridor A. Before the main living-room D (oikos) is the recess or portico C, facing south so as to catch the rays of the winter sun. Its roof was supported in front by two Doric columns. This is the prostas or pastas, so arranged that, as Xenophon says,' the low winter sun would shine into it, while it would afford shade from the high summer sun. The different portions of the house inhabited by the men and women respectively cannot be clearly distinguished. Possibly the women occupied an upper storey. The small dimensions of many of the rooms, a characteristic feature of the ancient house, should be noted. Fig. 94 gives a reconstruction of this house, indicating its original appearance. In its general form it harmonises with the description of the Greek house given by the Roman architect Vitruvius.3

The Roman house. This in its final development assumed a form closely resembling that of the Greek house just described. The early Italian house, however, consisted merely of an oblong chamber, with a small opening in the roof for the admission of light and emission of smoke. This chamber was called an atrium, perhaps because walls and roof were black (ater) with soot from the smoke of the fire. Gradually the opening in the roof became larger, while the beams of the roof were sloped downwards so as to conduct the rain into an oblong basin in the floor below, called the impluvium. As early as the third century B.C. the atrium was no longer the sole living-room of the family, but a separate diningroom (tablinum) was built beyond it. In the next century, as the houses at Pompeii show, the influence of Greece led to the building of an open court beyond the atrium. This court was surrounded by columns (peristylium), and had a series of dwellingrooms ranged round it. This section of the house, which was much more light and airy than the old atrium, became the part chiefly inhabited by the members of the family, while the atrium became a mere reception hall. The appearance of the fully developed Roman house is well shown in the accompanying restoration of the house of the Vettii at Pompeii' (fig. 95), where the narrow openings in the roofs of the two atria should be contrasted with the spacious court of the peristyle behind. It is not surprising that the latter came to be preferred for every-day life. Another

1 Mem. iii. 8, 9.

2 See Wiegand, Priene, p. 285 ff., whence the illustrations are borrowed 3 Vitr. vi. 10.

4 Cf. Mau, Pompeii, p. 310 ff.

feature worthy of note is the small size of the windows and the large proportion of blank wall.

At Rome the houses of the wealthy nobles were built on this same general plan, but were frequently of an enormous size. The poorer classes inhabited great blocks of tenement buildings known as "islands" (insulae). The height of these buildings showed such a tendency to increase that Augustus set a limit of seventy, Nero of sixty feet, without apparently much effect.

After this brief sketch of the general plan of the Greek and Roman house, we may now deal with the internal arrangements and the furniture. The objects may be described as they concern

(1) the heating of the house; (2) its water-supply; (3) the bath; (4) the kitchen; (5) the lighting; (6) the general furniture.

(1) Heating. In early times houses were heated by means of a large open hearth placed in the middle of the principal room, whence the smoke escaped by the door or by the intervals between the roof-beams. Next followed the use of portable braziers of bronze, such as have been found in Etruscan tombs from the seventh century B.C. (cf. Italic Room, Cases 19-20). In the Hellenistic period high braziers of terracotta, often ornamented with grotesque masks, were in common use (Cat. of Terracottas, p. xix, C 863 ff). A system of heating by hot air was introduced by the Romans, but was used chiefly for the warming of baths. For the general heating of houses such an arrangement was, until about the third century A.D., exceptional, and Seneca, writing in

the first century A.D., regards it as an enervating luxury. Several examples of terracotta flues for the transmission of hot air are seen in the bottom of Cases 38, 39. The heating by means of portable braziers, which was the method most commonly used by the Greeks and Romans, cannot have been altogether satisfactory, but we must remember that they lived in a comparatively hot climate. That this was the method of heating usually adopted by the Greeks has been proved by the excavations at Delos and Priene.

(2) Water Supply. A few objects in Cases 38-39 illustrate the methods of water-supply among the Romans, which are characterised by their completeness and excellence. Such are

C

BD

FIG. 96.-SECTION OF ROMAN BRONZE PUMP FROM BOLSENA (No. 237). 1:5.

the lead pipes used for conveying the water, and the remains of two Roman double-action pumps in bronze from Bolsena in Etruria (No. 237). These are constructed on a principle invented by Ktesibios of Alexandria, who probably lived in the third century B.C. They were worked by alternating plungers, raised and lowered by a rocking-beam. The illustration (fig. 96) shows the more complete pump in section, and explains the method of working. The bottoms of the cylinders (A) were connected by pipes with the reservoir, and are furnished with flap-valves (B), opening upwards. When the plunger (C) was raised, a vacuum was created, and the water lifted the valve and rushed in. When the plunger was raised to its highest point the valve fell again and

2 Sen., Dial. i. 4, 9.

retained the water; when the plunger descended it forced the water from the cylinder into the central discharge pipe through another flap-valve (D) at the end of the horizontal pipe. The valves of the other pump are of the spindle-type, falling back into position by their own weight (fig. 96, E). BD in the figure shows the structure of the flap-valves, which the Greeks called doσápia ("pennies") from their likeness to coins. F is a complete plunger of the same type as those used in the pump illustrated, but not belonging to it. There are here several jets and spouts for the emission of water, one (No. 238) in the form of a pine-cone, pierced with small holes for sending out a spray, others in the form of dolphins (No. 239) and the fore-part of a horse respectively (No. 240). The bronze stop-cocks seen in Case 39 were used for controlling the flow of water from the cisterns to the various parts of the house. They were inserted in the lead water-pipes, portions of which still adhere to them. Their arrangement is excellently illustrated by those discovered at the Roman villa at Boscoreale, near Pompeii (see Mon. Ant. vii., p. 454, fig. 45a). From the water-supply we pass to

(3) The bath.-Though the public baths do not strictly come under the head of the house, it will be convenient to give a brief description of them in this section. In private houses the Greeks seem to have used large terracotta baths, such as have been found at Priene (Hellenistic period) and Thera. A swimming bath for women is represented on a vase of about 520 B.C., and the importance attached to the art is shown by the proverb describing the typical ignoramus as one ignorant alike of letters and swimming.1 On another vase youths are seen bathing at a basin marked "public" (dŋμóσra). There seems, however, to have been some prejudice against the use of public swimming baths at Athens, for Aristophanes in the Clouds makes his character Right Reason (Aikшos Aóyos) advise the youth "to shun the market-place, and to keep away from the public baths." The public bath was far more in evidence in Roman life. In the age of Constantine there were no less than 856 public baths, besides the Thermae, which were great club houses with facilities for every kind of recreation as well as bathing. The charges for entrance were very moderate, and a small bronze coin (the quadrans) procured admission to the men's baths. Women generally paid a somewhat higher price. The Stabian baths at

2

1 Plat., Leg. 689 D : ἂν τὸ λεγόμενον μήτε γράμματα μήτε νεῖν ἐπίστωνται. 2 Arist., Nub. 991.

Pompeii may be taken as typical of a Roman bathing establishment. Here there were separate sets of baths for men and women, an exercising ground (palaestra), and a large cold. swimming tank. The mode of bathing naturally varied considerably according to the constitution and taste of the individual, but was generally a very elaborate affair. Celsus, who wrote on the art of medicine probably early in the first century after Christ, recommended the bather first to go into the moderately heated room (tepidarium), and perspire slightly, then to anoint himself and to pass into the hot air room. After perspiring there he was to pour hot, warm, and cold water alternately over his head, then to scrape himself with the strigil, and finally to anoint himself—the last probably a precaution against taking cold. This description will enable us to understand the use of the implements carried by bathers, which are exhibited in Cases 37-38. Of these the strigil is most important. It was a curved piece of metal, usually bronze, but sometimes iron, employed by athletes for removing dust and oil after exercise, and by bathers for scraping away sweat and dirt. The accompanying figure (fig. 97), drawn from a Greek vase of the fifth century B.C., shows an athlete resting after exercise, and about to use the strigil. Sometimes a strigil, oil-flask, and sponge are seen on vases, suspended from the wall of the palaestra where youths are exercising. In Case 37 a small lekythos shows an athlete with a strigil, and an impression from a gem illustrates the method of using that implement. The strigils here seen range in date from about the sixth century B.C. to the third century A.D. Many of them are inscribed with the name of their owners, and some have small figures, e.g. a man dancing or a horse galloping, stamped upon them. Two strigils which deserve special mention are the silver one found in the sarcophagus of the Etruscan lady, Seianti Thanunia (second century B.C.), and exhibited with that sarcophagus in the Terracotta Room, and the beautiful bronze ornamental strigil in the Bronze Room (Pedestal 3), with the handle in the form of a girl herself using the strigil. A complete

G

FIG. 97.-ATHLETE USING
STRIGIL.