We can readily see why the colonnade was made so high, and in two stories, when a lower structure would have afforded better protection against sun and rain. Had it been limited to the usual height the corridor behind it would have been too dark; and if instead of a double series of small columns, one above the other, there had been a single series of large columns of the usual proportions, the thickness of the latter would have shut out much light and have made the colonnade seem less roomy. The arrangement adopted had the further advantage that it harmonized the aspect of the colonnade with that of the portico, the character of which, as we have seen, was determined by that of the colonnade about the Forum.
The small rooms of irregular shape at the sides of the apse (11) were light courts, left open to the sky in order to furnish light to the corridor at the rear, which was shut off from the colonnade.
The corridor was about fourteen feet in height; its walls still have remains of decoration in the third style.
At the right of the broad niche (13), in which the statue of Eumachia was found, a door opened into the passage leading from Abbondanza Street; in the corresponding position at the left, where there was no entrance, a door was painted upon the wall. This is a folding door in three parts, of a kind quite common at Pompeii; the middle part is hung by means of hinges, like those on doors of the present day, fastened to one of the leaves at the sides, while these are represented as swinging on pivots at the top and the bottom.
A stairway at the southeast corner of the corridor, over the entrance from Abbondanza Street, led to an upper room. A similar stairway was placed in the last of the little rooms between the court and the portico, at the left of the front entrance. The upper rooms, difficult to reach, could hardly have been intended for salesrooms. They must have been low, probably no higher than the difference between the height of the colonnade and that of the corridor. They were most likely used as temporary storerooms for the goods of the dealers.
Fig. 50.—Fountain of Concordia Augusta.
In the background, steps in the side entrance of the Eumachia building.
In front of the entrance from Abbondanza Street, is a fountain of the ordinary Pompeian form; as the material is limestone it is probably of later date than the other fountains, which are generally of basalt. As may be seen in our illustration ([Fig. 50]), the inlet pipe was carried by a broad standard projecting above the edge of the basin, on the front of which a bust of a female figure with a cornucopia is carved in relief. The right side of the face has been worn away by eager drinkers pressing their mouths against the mouth of the figure, whence the jet issued; it reminds one of the attenuated right foot of the famous bronze St. Peter in Rome. Hands also have worn deep, polished hollows in the stone on either side of the standard. The figure represents Concordia Augusta, but the name Abundantia, given to it when first discovered, still lingers in the Italian name for the street, which might more appropriately have been called Strada della Concordia.