We could still recognize the troughs that served for the manipulation of the bread, and the oven, the arch of which is intact, with the cavity that retained the ashes, the vase for water to besprinkle the crust and make it shiny, and, finally, the triple-flued pipe that carried off the smoke—an excellent system revealed by the Pompeian excavations and successfully imitated since then. The bake-oven opened upon two small rooms by two apertures. The loaves went in at one of these in dough, and came out at the other, baked. The whole thing is in such a perfect state of preservation that one might be tempted to employ these old bricks, that have not been used for eighteen centuries, for the same purpose. The very loaves have survived. In the bakery of which I speak several were found with the stamps upon them, siligo grani (wheat flour), or e cicera (of bean flour)—a wise precaution against the bad faith of the dealers. Still more recently, in the latest excavations, Signor Fiorelli came across an oven so hermetically sealed that there was not a particle of ashes in it, and there were eighty-one loaves, a little sad, to be sure, but whole, hard, and black, found in the order in which they had been placed on the 23d of November, 79. Enchanted with this windfall, Fiorelli himself climbed into the oven and took out the precious relics with his own hands. Most of the loaves weigh about a pound; the heaviest twelve hundred and four grains. They are round, depressed in the centre, raised on the edges, and divided into eight lobes. Loaves are still made in Sicily exactly like them. Professor de Luca weighed and analyzed them minutely, and gave the result in a letter addressed to the French Academy of Sciences. Let us now imagine all these salesrooms, all these shops, open and stocked with goods, and then the display, the purchasers, the passers-by, the bustle and noise peculiar to the south, and the street will no longer seem so dead. Let us add that the doors of the houses were closed only in the evening; the promenaders and loungers could then peep, as they went along, into every alley, and make merry at the bright adornments of the atrium. Nor is this all. The upper stories, although now crumbled to dust, were in communication with the street. Windows opened discreetly, which must, here and there, have been the framework of some brown head and countenance anxious to see and to be seen. The latest excavations have revealed the existence of hanging covered balconies, long exterior corridors, pierced with casements, frequently depicted in the paintings. There the fair Pompeian could have taken her station in order to participate in the life outside. The good housewife of those times, like her counterpart in our day, could there have held out her basket to the street-merchant who went wandering about with his portable shop; and more than one handsome girl may at the same post have carried her fingers to her lips, there to cull (the ancient custom) the kiss that she flung to the young Pompeian concealed down yonder in the corner of the wall. Thus re-peopled, the old-time street, narrow as it is, was gayer than our own thoroughfares; and the brightly-painted houses, the variegated walls, the monuments, and the fountains, gave vivid animation to a picture too dazzling for our gaze.
These fountains, which were very simple, consisted of large square basins formed of five stone slabs, one for the bottom and four for the sides, fastened together with iron braces. The water fell into them from fonts more or less ornamental and usually representing the muzzle of some animal—lions' heads, masks, an eagle holding a hare in his beak, with the stream flowing into a receptacle from the hare's mouth. One of these fountains is surrounded with an iron railing to prevent passers-by from falling into it. Another is flanked by a capacious vaulted reservoir (castellum) and closed with a door. Those who have seen Rome know how important the ancients considered the water that they brought from a distance by means of the enormous aqueducts, the ruins of which still mark all the old territories of the empire. Water, abundant and limpid, ran everywhere, and was never deficient in the Roman cities. Still it has not been discovered how the supply was obtained for Pompeii, destitute of springs as that city was, and, at the same time, elevated above the river, and receiving nothing in its cisterns but the rain-water so scantily shed beneath the relentless serenity of that southern sky. The numberless conduits found, of lead, masonry, and earthenware, and above all, the spouting fountains that leaped and sparkled in the courtyards of the wealthy houses, have led us to suppose the existence of an aqueduct, no longer visible, that supplied all this part of Campania with water.
Besides these fountains, placards and posters enlivened the streets; the walls were covered with them, and, in sundry places, whitewashed patches of masonry served for the announcements so lavishly made public. These panels, dedicated entirely to the poster business, were called albums. Anybody and everybody had the right to paint thereon in delicate and slender red letters all the advertisements which now-a-days we print on the last, and even on many other pages of our newspapers. Nothing is more curious than these inscriptions, which disclose to us all the subjects engaging the attention of the little city; not only its excitements, but its language, ancient and modern, collegiate and common—the Oscan, the Greek, the Latin, and the local dialect. Were we learned, or anxious to appear so, we could, with the works of the really erudite (Fiorelli, Garrucci, Mommsen, etc.), to help us, have compiled a chapter of absolutely appalling science in reference to the epigraphic monuments of Pompeii. We could demonstrate by what gradations the Oscan language—that of the Pompeian autonomy—yielded little by little to the Roman language, which was that of the unity of the state; and to what extent Pompeii, which never was a Greek city, employed the sacred idiom of the divine Plato. We might even add some observations relative to the accent and the dialect of the Pompeians, who pronounced Latin as the Neapolitans pronounce Tuscan and with singularly analogous alterations. But what you are looking for here, hurried reader, is not erudition, but living movement. Choose then, in these inscriptions, those that teach us something relative to the manners and customs of this dead people—dead and buried, but afterward exhumed.
The most of these announcements are but the proclamations of candidates for office. Pompeii was evidently swallowed up at the period of the elections. Sometimes it is an elector, sometimes a group of citizens, then again a corporation of artisans or tradesmen, who are recommending for the office of ædile or duumvir the candidate whom they prefer. Thus, Paratus nominates Pansa, Philippus prefers Caius Aprasius Felix; Valentinus, with his pupils, chooses Sabinus and Rufus. Sometimes the elector is in a hurry; he asks to have his candidate elected quickly. The fruiterers, the public porters, the muleteers, the salt-makers, the carpenters, the truckmen, also unite to push forward the ædile who has their confidence. Frequently, in order to give more weight to its vote, the corporation declares itself unanimous. Thus, all the goldsmiths preferred a certain Photinus—a fishmonger, thinks Overbeck—for ædile. Let us not forget the sleepers, who declare for Vatia. By the way, who were these friends of sleep? Perhaps they were citizens who disliked noise; perhaps, too, some association of nocturnal revellers thus disguised under an ironical and reassuring title. Sometimes the candidate is recommended by a eulogistic epithet indicated by seals, a style of abbreviation much in use among the ancients. The person recommended is always a good man, a man of probity, an excellent citizen, a very moral individual. Sometimes positive wonders are promised on his behalf. Thus, after having designated Julius Polybius for the ædileship, an elector announces that he will bring in good bread. Electoral intrigue went still further. We are pretty well on in that respect, but I think that the ancients were our masters. I read the following bare-faced avowal on a wall: Sabinum ædilem, Procule, fac et ille te faciet. (Make Sabinus ædile, O Proculus, and he may make thee such!) Frank and cool that, it strikes me!
But enough of elections; there is no lack of announcements of another character. Some of these give us the programme of the shows in the amphitheatre; such-and-such a troop of gladiators will fight on such a day; there will be hunting matches and awnings, as well as sprinklings of perfumed waters to refresh the multitude (venatio, vela, sparsiones). Thirty couples of gladiators will ensanguine the arena.
There were, likewise, posters announcing apartments to let.
Some of these inscriptions, either scratched or painted, were witticisms or exclamations from facetious passers-by. One ran thus: "Oppius the porter is a robber, a rogue!" Sometimes there were amorous declarations: "Augea loves Arabienus." Upon a wall in the Street of Mercury, an ivy leaf, forming a heart, contained the gentle name of Psyche. Elsewhere a wag, parodying the style of monumental inscriptions, had announced that under the consulate of L. Monius Asprenas and A. Plotius, there was born to him the foal of an ass. "A wine jar has been lost and he who brings it back shall have such a reward from Varius; but he who will bring the thief shall have twice as much."