TO one of those parts of Pompeii, which were tenanted not by the lords of pleasure, but by its and its victims; the haunt of gladiators and prize-fighters; of the vicious and the penniless; of the and the obscene; the Alsatia of an ancient city—we are now transported.  
It was a large room, that opened at once on the confined and crowded lane. Before the threshold was a group of men, whose iron and well-strung muscles, whose short and Herculean necks, whose and reckless , indicated the champions of the . On a shelf, without the shop, were ranged jars of wine and oil; and right over this was inserted in the wall a coarse painting, which exhibited gladiators drinking—so ancient and so venerable is the custom of signs! Within the room were placed several small tables, arranged somewhat in the modern fashion of 'boxes', and round these were seated several knots of men, some drinking, some playing at , some at that more game called 'duodecim scriptae', which certain of the blundering learned have mistaken for chess, though it rather, perhaps, resembled backgammon of the two, and was usually, though not always, played by the assistance of dice. The hour was in the early forenoon, and nothing better, perhaps, than that unseasonable time itself denoted the indolence of these loungers.
 
Yet, despite the situation of the house and the character of its , it indicated none of that squalor which would have characterized a similar haunt in a modern city. The gay of all the Pompeians, who sought, at least, to gratify the sense even where they neglected the mind, was typified by the colors which decorated the walls, and the shapes, fantastic but not inelegant, in which the lamps, the drinking-cups, the commonest household , were .
 
'By Pollux!' said one of the gladiators, as he leaned against the wall of the threshold, 'the wine thou sellest us, old Silenus'—and as he he slapped a portly personage on the back—'is enough to thin the best blood in one's .'
 
The man thus , and whose bared arms, white , and keys and napkin tucked carelessly within his girdle, indicated him to be the host of the tavern, was already passed into the autumn of his years; but his form was still so and , that he might have shamed even the shapes beside him, save that the muscles had seeded, as it were, into flesh, that the cheeks were and bloated, and the increasing stomach threw into shade the vast and massive chest which rose above it.
 
'None of thy blusterings with me,' the gigantic landlord, in the gentle semi-roar of an insulted tiger; 'my wine is good enough for a carcass which shall so soon soak the dust of the spoliarium.'
 
'Croakest thou thus, old !' returned the gladiator, laughing scornfully; 'thou shalt live to hang thyself with despite when thou seest me win the palm crown; and when I get the purse at the amphitheatre, as I certainly shall, my first to Hercules shall be to forswear thee and thy potations evermore.'
 
'Hear to him—hear to this modest Pyrgopolinices! He has certainly served under Bombochides Cluninstaridysarchides,' cried the host. 'Sporus, Niger, Tetraides, he declares he shall win the purse from you. Why, by the gods! each of your muscles is strong enough to all his body, or I know nothing of the arena!'
 
'Ha!' said the gladiator, coloring with rising fury, 'our lanista would tell a different story.'
 
'What story could he tell against me, vain Lydon?' said Tetraides, frowning.
 
'Or me, who have conquered in fifteen fights?' said the gigantic Niger, stalking up to the gladiator.
 
'Or me?' Sporus, with eyes of fire.
 
'Tush!' said Lydon, folding his arms, and regarding his rivals with a reckless air of . 'The time of trial will soon come; keep your till then.'
 
'Ay, do,' said the surly host; 'and if I press down my thumb to save you, may the Fates cut my thread!'
 
'Your rope, you mean,' said Lydon, : 'here is a sesterce to buy one.'
 
The Titan wine-vender seized the hand extended to him, and griped it in so stern a that the blood spirted from the fingers' ends over the garments of the bystanders.
 
They set up a savage laugh.
 
'I will teach thee, young , to play the Macedonian with me! I am no Persian, I warrant thee! What, man! have I not fought twenty years in the ring, and never lowered my arms once? And have I not received the rod from the editor's own hand as a sign of victory, and as a grace to on my ? And am I now to be lectured by a boy?' So saying, he flung the hand from him in scorn.
 
Without changing a muscle, but with the same smiling face with which he had mine host, did the gladiator brave the painful grasp he had undergone. But no sooner was his hand released, than, for one moment as a wild cat , you might see his hair on his head and beard, and with a fierce and yell he sprang on the throat of the giant, with an that threw him, vast and sturdy as he was, from his balance—and down, with the crash of a falling rock, he fell—while over him fell also his .
 
Our host, perhaps, had had no need of the rope so recommended to him by Lydon, had he remained three minutes longer in that position. But, summoned to his assistance by the noise of his fall, a woman, who had hitherto kept in an inner apartment, rushed to the scene of battle. This new ally was in herself a match for the gladiator; she was tall, lean, and with arms that could give other than soft embraces. In fact, the gentle helpmate of Burbo the wine-seller had, like himself, fought in the lists—nay under the emperor's eye. And Burbo himself—Burbo, the unconquered in the field, according to report, now and then yielded the palm to his soft Stratonice. This sweet creature no sooner saw the that awaited her worse half, than without other weapons than those with which Nature had provided her, she upon the gladiator, and, clasping him round the waist with her long and snakelike arms, lifted him by a sudden from the body of her husband, leaving only his hands still clinging to the throat of his foe. So have we seen a dog snatched by the legs from the with a fallen rival in the arms of some ; so have we seen one half of him high in air—passive and offenceless—while the other half, head, teeth, eyes, claws, seemed buried and in the and enemy. Meanwhile, the gladiators, lapped, and , and upon blood, crowded delightedly round the combatants—their distended—their lips grinning—their eyes gloatingly on the throat of the one and the of the other.
 
'Habet! (he has got it!) habet!' cried they, with a sort of yell, rubbing their nervous hands.
 
'Non habeo, ye ; I have not got it!' shouted the host, as with a effort he himself from those deadly hands, and rose to his feet, breathless, panting, lacerated, bloody; and fronting, with reeling eyes, the glaring look and grinning teeth of his baffled foe, now struggling (but struggling with disdain) in the gripe of the sturdy amazon.
 
'Fair play!' cried the gladiators: 'one to one'; and, crowding round Lydon and the woman, they separated our pleasing host from his guest.
 
But Lydon, feeling ashamed at his present position, and endeavoring in vain to shake off the grasp of the , slipped his hand into his girdle, and drew a short knife. So menacing was his look, so brightly gleamed the blade, that Stratonice, who was used only to tha............