MEANWHILE Sallust and Glaucus were slowly strolling towards the house of Diomed. Despite the habits of his life, Sallust was not of many estimable qualities. He would have been an active friend, a useful citizen—in short, an excellent man, if he had not taken it into his head to be a philosopher. Brought up in the schools in which Roman worshipped the echo of Grecian wisdom, he had himself with those by which the later Epicureans the simple of their great master. He gave himself altogether up to pleasure, and imagined there was no like a companion. Still, however, he had a considerable degree of learning, wit, and good nature; and the frankness of his very seemed like itself beside the utter of Clodius and the effeminacy of Lepidus; and therefore Glaucus liked him the best of his companions; and he, in turn, appreciating the nobler qualities of the Athenian, loved him almost as much as a cold muraena, or a bowl of the best Falernian.  
'This is a vulgar old fellow, this Diomed,' said Sallust: 'but he has some good qualities—in his cellar!'
 
'And some charming ones—in his daughter.'
 
'True, Glaucus: but you are not much moved by them, methinks. I fancy Clodius is desirous to be your successor.'
 
'He is welcome. At the banquet of Julia's beauty, no guest, be sure, is considered a musca.'
 
'You are severe: but she has, indeed, something of the Corinthian about her—they will be well matched, after all! What good-natured fellows we are to associate with that good-for-nought.'
 
'Pleasure unites strange varieties,' answered Glaucus. 'He amuses me...'
 
'And flatters—but then he pays himself well! He powders his praise with gold-dust.'
 
'You often hint that he plays unfairly—think you so really?'
 
'My dear Glaucus, a Roman noble has his dignity to keep up—dignity is very expensive—Clodius must cheat like a scoundrel, in order to live like a gentleman.'
 
'Ha ha!—well, of late I have the . Ah! Sallust, when I am to Ione, I trust I may yet a youth of . We are both born for better things than those in which we sympathize now—born to render our worship in nobler temples than the stye of Epicurus.'
 
'!' returned Sallust, in rather a tone, 'what do we know more than this—life is short—beyond the grave all is dark? There is no wisdom like that which says "enjoy".'
 
'By Bacchus! I doubt sometimes if we do enjoy the utmost of which life is capable.'
 
'I am a moderate man,' returned Sallust, 'and do not ask "the utmost". We are like malefactors, and ourselves with wine and myrrh, as we stand on the of death; but, if we did not do so, the abyss would look very disagreeable. I own that I was inclined to be gloomy until I took so to drinking—that is a new life, my Glaucus.'
 
'Yes! but it brings us next morning to a new death.'
 
'Why, the next morning is unpleasant, I own; but, then, if it were not so, one would never be inclined to read. I study betimes—because, by the gods! I am generally unfit for anything else till noon.'
 
'Fie, Scythian!'
 
'Pshaw! the fate of Pentheus to him who denies Bacchus.'
 
'Well, Sallust, with all your faults, you are the best I ever met: and verily, if I were in danger of life, you are the only man in all Italy who would stretch out a finger to save me.'
 
'Perhaps I should not, if it were in the middle of supper. But, in truth, we Italians are fearfully selfish.'
 
'So are all men who are not free,' said Glaucus, with a sigh. 'Freedom alone makes men sacrifice to each other.'
 
'Freedom, then, must be a very thing to an Epicurean,' answered Sallust. 'But here we are at our host's.'
 
As Diomed's is one of the most considerable in point of size of any yet discovered at Pompeii, and is, moreover, built much according to the specific instructions for a villa laid down by the Roman architect, it may not be uninteresting to describe the plan of the apartments through which our visitors passed.
 
They entered, then, by the same small vestibule at which we have before been presented to the Medon, and passed at once into a , termed the peristyle; for the main difference between the suburban villa and the town consisted in placing, in the first, the said colonnade in exactly the same place as that which in the town mansion was occupied by the atrium. In the centre of the peristyle was an open court, which contained the impluvium.
 
From this peristyle a staircase to the offices; another narrow passage on the opposite side communicated with a garden; various small apartments surrounded the colonnade, appropriated probably to country visitors. Another door to the left on entering communicated with a small , which belonged to the baths; and behind was the wardrobe, in which were kept the vests of the holiday suits of the slaves, and, perhaps, of the master. Seventeen centuries afterwards were found those of ancient finery calcined and : kept longer, alas! than their lord foresaw.
 
Return we to the peristyle, and endeavor now to present to the reader a d'oeil of the whole of apartments, which immediately stretched before the steps of the visitors.
 
Let him then first imagine the columns of the portico, hung with festoons of flowers; the columns themselves in the lower part painted red, and the walls around glowing with various ; then, looking beyond a curtain, three parts aside, the eye caught the tablinum or saloon (which was closed at will by doors, now slid back into the walls). On either side of this tablinum were small rooms, one of which was a kind of cabinet of ; and these apartments, as well as the tablinum, communicated with a long gallery, which opened at either end upon terraces; and between the terraces, and communicating with the central part of the gallery, was a hall, in which the banquet was that day prepared. All these apartments, though almost on a level with the street, were one story above the garden; and the terraces communicating with the gallery were continued into corridors, raised above the pillars which, to the right and left, skirted the garden below.
 
Beneath, and on a level with the garden, ran the apartments we have already described as chiefly appropriated to Julia.
 
In the gallery, then, just mentioned, Diomed received his guests.
 
The merchant greatly the man of letters, and, therefore, he also affected a passion for everything Greek; he paid particular attention to Glaucus.
 
'You will see, my friend,' said he, with a wave of his hand, 'that I am a little classical here—a little Cecropian—eh? The hall in which we shall sup is borrowed from the Greeks. It is an OEcus Cyzicene. Noble Sallust, they have not, I am told, this sort of apartment in Rome.'
 
'Oh!' replied Sallust, with a half smile; 'you Pompeians combine all that is most in Greece and in Rome; may you, Diomed, combine the as well as the architecture!'
 
'You shall see—you shall see, my Sallust,' replied the merchant. 'We have a taste at Pompeii, and we have also money.'
 
'They are two excellent things,' replied Sallust. 'But, , the lady Julia!'
 
The main difference, as I have before remarked, in the manner of life observed among the Athenians and Romans, was, that with the first, the modest women rarely or never took part in entertainments; with the latter, they were the common of the banquet; but when they were present at the feast, it usually terminated at an early hour.
 
Magnificently robed in white, interwoven with pearls and threads of gold, the handsome Julia entered the apartment.
 
Scarcely had she received the salutation of the two guests, ere Pansa and his wife, Lepidus, Clodius, and the Roman senator, entered almost ; then came the widow Fulvia; then the poet Fulvius, like to the widow in name if in nothing else; the from Herculaneum, accompanied by his umbra, next stalked in; afterwards, the less of the guests. Ione yet tarried.
 
It was the mode among the ancients to flatter whenever it was in their power: accordingly it was a sign of ill-breeding to seat themselves immediately on entering the house of their host. After performing the salutation, which was usually by the same cordial shake of the right hand which we ourselves retain, and sometimes, by the yet more familiar embrace, they spent several minutes in surveying the apartment, and admiring the bronzes, the pictures, or the furniture, with which it was adorned—a mode very impolite according to our refined English notions, which place good breeding in . We would not for the world express much of another man's house, for fear it should be thought we had never seen anything so fine before!
 
'A beautiful statue this of Bacchus!' said the Roman senator.
 
'A trifle!' replied Diomed.
 
'What charming paintings!' said Fulvia.
 
'Mere trifles!' answered the owner.
 
' candelabra!' cried the warrior.
 
'Exquisite!' echoed his umbra.
 
'Trifles! trifles!' the merchant.
 
Meanwhile, Glaucus found himself by one of the windows of the gallery, which communicated with the terraces, and the fair Julia by his side.
 
'Is it an Athenian virtue, Glaucus,' said the merchant's daughter, 'to those whom we once sought?'
 
'Fair Julia—no!'
 
'Yet methinks, it is one of the qualities of Glaucus.'
 
'Glaucus never a friend!' replied the Greek, with some emphasis on the last word.
 
'May Julia rank among the number of his friends?'
 
'It would be an honour to the emperor to find a friend in one so lovely.'
 
'You my question,' returned the enamoured Julia. 'But tell me, is it true that you admire the Neapolitan Ione?'
 
'Does not beauty our admiration?'
 
'Ah! subtle Greek, still do you fly the meaning of my words. But say, shall Julia be indeed your friend?'
 
'If she will so favor me, blessed be the gods! The day in which I am thus honored shall be ever marked in white.'
 
'Yet, even while you speak, your eye is resting—your color comes and goes—you move away involuntarily—you are impatient to join Ione!'
 
For at that moment Ione had entered, and Glaucus had indeed betrayed the emotion noticed by the jealous beauty.
 
'Can admiration to one woman make me unworthy the friendship of another? Sanction not so, O Julia the libels of the poets on your sex!'
 
'Well, you are right—or I will learn to think so. Glaucus, yet one moment! You are to Ione; is it not so?'
 
'If the Fates permit, such is my blessed hope.'
 
'Accept, then, from me, in token of our new friendship, a present for your bride. , it is the custom of friends, you know, always to present to bride and bridegroom some such little marks of their and favoring wishes.'
 
'Julia! I cannot refuse any token of friendship from one like you. I will accept the gift as an from Fortune herself.'
 
'Then, after the feast, when the guests retire, you will with me to my apartment, and receive it from my hands. Remember!' said Julia, as she joined the wife of Pansa, and left Glaucus to seek Ione.
 
The widow Fulvia and the of the aedile were engaged in high and grave discussion.
 
'O Fulvia! I assure you that the last account from Rome declares that the frizzling mode of the hair is growing ; they only now wear it built up in a tower, like Julia's, or arranged as a helmet—the Galerian fashion, like mine, you see: it has a fine effect, I think. I assure you, Vespius (Vespius was the name of the Herculaneum hero) admires it greatly.'
 
'And nobody wears the hair like yon Neapolitan, in the Greek way.'
 
'What, parted in front, with the knot behind? Oh, no; how ridiculous it is! it reminds one of the statue of Diana! Yet this Ione is handsome, eh?'
 
'So the men say; but then she is rich: she is to marry the Athenian—I wish her joy. He will not be long faithful, I suspect; those foreigners are very faithless.'
 
'Oh, Julia!' said Fulvia, as the merchant's daughter joined them; 'have you seen the tiger yet?'
 
'No!'
 
'Why, all the ladies have been to see him. He is so handsome!'
 
'I hope we shall find some criminal or other for him and the lion,' replied Julia. 'Your husband (turning to Pansa's wife) is not so active as he should be in this matter.'
 
'Why, really, the laws are too mild,' replied the of the helmet. 'There are so few offences to which the punishment of the can be awarded; and then, too, the gladiators are growing effeminate! The bestiarii declare they are willing enough to fight a boar or a bull; but as for a lion or a tiger, they think the game too much in earnest.'
 
'They are of a mitre,' replied Julia, in .
 
'Oh! have you seen the new house of Fulvius, the dear poet?' said Pansa's wife.
 
'No: is it handsome?'
 
'Very!—such good taste. But they say, my dear, that he has such pictures! He won't show them to the women: how ill-bred!'
 
'Those poets are always odd,' said the widow. 'But he is an interesting man; what pretty verses he writes! We improve very much in poetry: it is impossible to read the old stuff now.'
 
'I declare I am of your opinion, returned the lady of the helmet. 'There is so much more force and energy in the modern school.'
 
The warrior sauntered up to the ladies.
 
'It reconciles me to peace,' said he, 'when I see such faces.'
 
'Oh! you heroes are ever flatterers,' returned Fulvia, hastening to appropriate the compliment to herself.
 
'By this chain, which I received from the emperor's own hand,' replied the warrior, playing with a short chain which hung round the neck like a collar, instead of to the breast, according to the fashion of the peaceful—'By this chain, you wrong me! I am a blunt man—a soldier should be so.'
 
'How do you find the ladies of Pompeii generally?' said Julia.
 
'By Venus, most beautiful! They favor me a little, it is true, and that inclines my eyes to double their charms.'
 
'We love a warrior,' said the wife of Pansa.
 
'I see it: by Hercules! it is even disagreeable to be too in these cities. At Herculaneum they climb the roof of my atrium to catch a glimpse of me through the compluvium; the admiration of one's citizens is pleasant at first, but burthensome afterwards.'
 
'True, true, O Vespius!' cried the poet, joining the group: 'I find it so myself.'
 
'You!' said the stately warrior, scanning the small form of the poet with disdain. 'In what legion have you served?'
 
'You may see my spoils, my exuviae, in the itself,' returned the poet, with a significant glance at the women. 'I have been among the tent-companions, the contubernales, of the great Mantuan himself.'
 
'I know no general from Mantua, said the warrior, gravely. 'What campaign have you served?'
 
'That of Helicon.'
 
'I never heard of it.'
 
'Nay, Vespius, he does but joke,' said Julia, laughing.
 
'Joke! By Mars, am I a man to be joked!'
 
'Yes; Mars himself was in love with the mother of jokes,' said the poet, a little alarmed. 'Know, then, O Vespius! that I am the poet Fulvius. It is I who make !'
 
'The gods forbid!' whispered Sallust to Julia. 'If Vespius were made immortal, what a of would be transmitted to !'
 
The soldier looked puzzled; when, to the infinite relief of himself and his companions, the signal for the feast was given.
 
As we have already witnessed at the house of Glaucus the ordinary routine of a Pompeian entertainment, the reader is spared any second detail of the courses, and the manner in which they were introduced.
 
Diomed, who was rather ceremonious, had appointed a nomenclator, or appointer of places to each guest.
 
The reader understands that the board was composed of three tables; one at the centre, and one at each wing. It was only at the outer side of these tables that the guests reclined; the inner space was left untenanted, for the greater convenience of the waiters or ministri. The extreme corner of one of the wings was appropriated to Julia as the lady of the feast; that next her, to Diomed. At one corner of the centre table was placed the aedile; at the opposite corner, the Roman senator—these were the posts of honour. The other guests were arranged, so that the young (gentleman or lady) should sit next each other, and the more advanced in years be similarly matched. An agreeable provision enough, but one which must often have offended those who wished to be thought still young.
 
The chair of Ione was next to the couch of Glaucus. The seats were veneered with tortoiseshell, and covered with quilts stuffed with feathers, and with . The modern ornaments of epergne or plateau were supplied by images of the gods, in bronze, ivory, and silver. The sacred salt-cellar and the familiar Lares were not forgotten. Over the table and the seats a rich was suspended from the ceiling. At each corner of the table were lofty candelabra—for though it was early noon, the room was darkened—while from tripods, placed in different parts of the room, the odor of myrrh and frankincense; and upon the , or sideboard, large vases and various ornaments of silver were ranged, much with the same (but with more than the same taste) that we find displayed at a modern feast.
 
The custom of grace was invariably supplied by that of libations to the gods; and Vesta, as queen of the household gods, usually received first that .
 
This ceremony being performed, the slaves showered flowers upon the couches and the floor, and crowned each guest with garlands, intricately woven with ribands, tied by the rind of the linden-tree, and each intermingled with the and............