You passed through this saloon and entered the peristyle; and here (as I have said before was usually the case with the smaller houses of Pompeii) the mansion ended. From each of the seven columns that adorned this court hung festoons of garlands; the centre, supplying the place of a garden, bloomed with the rarest flowers, placed in vases of white marble, that were supported on pedestals. At the left end of this small garden was a diminutive fane, resembling one of those small chapels placed at the side of roads in Catholic countries, and dedicated to the Penates; before it stood a bronze tripod; to the left of the colonnade were two small cubiculi or bed rooms; to the right was the triclinium, in which the guests were now assembled.
This room is usually termed by the antiquaries of Naples, "the chamber of Leda;" and in the beautiful work of Sir William Gell, the reader will find an engraving from that most delicate and graceful painting of Leda presenting her new-born to her husband, from which the room derives its name. This beautiful apartment opened upon the fragrant garden. Round the table of citrean5 wood, highly polished and delicately wrought with silver arabesques, were placed the three couches, which were yet more common at Pompeii than the semi-circular seat that had grown lately into fashion at Rome; and on these couches of bronze, studded with richer metals, were laid thick quiltings covered with elaborate broidery, and yielding luxuriously to the pressure.
5 The most valued wood; not the modern citron tree. Some, among whom is my learned friend Mr. W. S. Landor, conjecture it, with much plausibility, to have been mahogany.
"Well, I must own," said the ædile Pansa, "that your house, though scarcely larger than a case for one's fibulæ, is a gem of its kind. How beautifully painted is that parting of Achilles and Briseis!—what a style!—what heads!—what a—hem!"
"Praise from Pansa is indeed valuable on such subjects," said Clodius, gravely. "Why, the paintings on his walls—ah! there is, indeed, the hand of a Zeuxis!"
"You flatter me, my Clodius; indeed you do," quoth the ædile, who was celebrated through Pompeii for having the worst paintings in the world; for he was patriotic, and patronised none but Pompeians,—"you flatter me: but there is something pretty—Ædepol, yes—in the colors, to say nothing of the design;—and then for the kitchen, my friends—ah! that was all my fancy."
"What is the design?" said Glaucus. "I have not yet seen your kitchen, though I have often witnessed the excellence of its cheer."
"A cook, my Athenian—a cook sacrificing the trophies of his skill on the altar of Vesta, with a beautiful muræna (taken from the life) on a spit at a distance: there is some invention there!"
At that instant the slaves appeared, bearing a tray covered with the first preparative initia of the feast. Amid delicious figs, fresh herbs strewed with snow, anchovies, and eggs, were ranged small cups of diluted wine sparingly mixed with honey. As these were placed on the table, young slaves bore round to each of the five guests (for there were no more) the silver basin of perfumed water and napkins edged with a purple fringe. But the ædile ostentatiously drew forth his own napkin, which was not, indeed, of so fine a linen, but in which the fringe was twice as broad, and wiped his hands with the parade of a man who felt he was calling for admiration.
"A splendid mappa that of yours," said Clodius; "why, the fringe is as broad as a girdle."