Chapter II: Part 2

After you leave the baths perhaps you will turn down Stabian Street. It has narrow sidewalks. The broken walls of houses fence it in closely on both sides and cast black shadows across it. It is paved with clean blocks of lava. You will see wheel ruts worn deep in the hard stone. Almost two thousand years old they are, made by the carts of the farmers, perhaps, who brought in vegetables for the market. At the street crossings you will see three or four big stone blocks standing up above the pavement. They are stepping-stones for rainy weather. Evidently floods used to pour down these sloping streets. You can imagine little Roman boys skipping across from block to block and trying to keep their sandals dry.

The street will lead you to the district of good houses where the wealthy men lived. Through open doorways you will get glimpses into the old ruined courtyards. It is hard guessing how the rooms used to look. But when you come to the door of the house of Vettius you will cry out with wonder. There is a lovely garden in the corner of the house. A long passage leads to it straight from the street. Around it runs a paved porch with pretty columns. Here you will walk in the shade and look out at the gay little garden, blooming in the sunshine. In every corner tiny streams of water spurt from little statues of bronze and marble and trickle into cool basins. Marble tables stand among the flowers. You will half expect a slave to bring out old drinking cups and wine bowls and set them here for his master's pleasure, or tablets and stylus for him to write his letters. Everything is in order and beautiful. It was not quite so when the excavators uncovered this house. The statues were thrown down. The flowers were scorched and dead under the piled-up ashes. But it was easy for the modern excavators to tell from the ground where the flower beds had been and where the gravel paths. Even the lead water pipe that carried the stream to the fountain needed little repairing. So the excavators set up the statues, cleaned the marble tables and benches, planted shrubs and flowers, repaired the porch roof, and we have a garden such as the old Romans loved and such as many houses in Pompeii had.

Several rooms look out upon this garden. One of them is perhaps the most interesting place in all Pompeii. You will walk into it and look around and laugh with delight. The whole wall is painted with pictures, big and little--pictures of columns and roofs, of plants and animals, of men and gods. They are all framed in with wide spaces of beautiful red. And tucked away between them in narrow bands of black are the gayest little scenes in the world. They are worth going all the way across the ocean to see. Psyches--delicate little winged girls like fairies--are picking slender flowers and putting them into tall, graceful baskets. They are so light and so tiny that they seem to be flitting along the wall like bright butterflies. In other panels plump little cupids--winged boys--are playing at being men. They are picking grapes and working a wine press and selling wine. It is big work for tiny creatures, and they must kick up their dimpled legs and puff out their chubby cheeks to do it. They are melting gold and carrying gold dishes and selling jewelry and swinging a blacksmith's hammer with their fat little arms. They are carrying roses to market on a ragged goat and weaving rose garlands and selling them to an elegant little lady. Everywhere these gay little creatures are skipping about at their play among the beautiful red spaces and large pictures. This was surely a charming dining room in the old days. The guests must have been merry every time their eyes lighted upon the bright wall. And if they looked out at the open side, there smiled the garden with its flowers and statues and splashing fountains and columns.

There lived in this house two men by the name of Vettius. We know this because the excavators found here two seals. In those days men fastened their letters and receipts and bills with wax. While the wax was soft they stamped their names in it with a metal seal. On the stamps that were found in this house were carved Aulus Vettius Restitutus and Aulus Vettius Conviva. Perhaps they were freedmen who once had been slaves of Aulus Vettius. But they must have earned a fortune for themselves, for there were two money chests in the house. And they must have had slaves of their own to take care of their twenty rooms and more. In the tiny kitchen the excavators found a good store of charcoal and the ashes of a little fire on top of the stone stove. And on its three little legs a bronze dish was sitting over the dead fire. A slave must have been cooking his master's dinner when the volcano frightened him away.

Vettius' dining room is empty of its wooden tables and couches. But some houses had stone ones built in their gardens for pleasant summer days. These the ashes did not crush, and they are still in place. Columns stood about the tables and vines climbed up them and across to make cool shade. The tables were always long and narrow and built around three sides of a rectangle. Low couches stand along the outside edges. Here guests used to lie propped up on their left elbows with pretty cushions to make them comfortable. In the open space in the middle of the square servants came and went and passed the dishes across the narrow tables. Children used to have little wooden stools and sit in this middle space opposite their elders. But in one old ruined garden dining room you will see a little stone bench for the children, built along the end of the table. It must have been pleasant to have supper there with the sunset coloring the sky, behind old Vesuvius, the cool breeze shaking the leaves of the garden shrubs, and the fountain tinkling, and a bird chirping in a corner, and the shadows beginning to creep under the long porches, and the tiny flames of lamps fluttering in the dusky rooms behind.

After you leave the house of Vettius and walk down the street, you will come to a certain door. In the sidewalk before it you will see "Have" spelled with bits of colored marble. It is the old Latin word for "Welcome." It is too pleasant an invitation to refuse. Go in through the high doorway and down the narrow passage to the atrium. Every Roman house had this atrium. It is like a large reception hall with many rooms opening off it--bedrooms, dining rooms, sitting rooms. Beautiful hangings instead of doors used to shut these rooms in. The atrium had an opening in the roof where the sun shone in and softly lighted the big room. Here the master used to receive his guests. In the house of Vettius the two money chests were found in the atrium. In this same room in the house of "Welcome," there was found on the floor a little bronze statue, a dancing faun, one of the gay friends of Dionysus. It is a tiny thing only two feet high, but so pretty that the excavators named the house after it--The House of the Faun. Evidently the old owner loved beautiful things and had money to buy them. Even the floors of some of his rooms are made in mosaic pictures. There are doves at play, and ducks and fish and shells all laid under your feet in bright bits of colored marble. And beyond the pleasant court with its porches and garden is a large sitting room. In the floor of this the excavators found the most wonderful mosaic picture of all, a picture of a battle, with waving spears and prancing horses and fallen men. Two kings are facing each other to fight--Darius, king of Persia, standing in his chariot, and Alexander, king of Greece, riding his war horse. The bits of stone are so small and of such perfect color that the mosaic looks like a beautiful painting. Imagine how the excavators' hearts leaped when the spades took the gray ashes off this bright picture. It was too precious a thing to leave here in the rain and wind. So the excavators carefully took it up and put it into the museum of Naples where there are other valuable things from Pompeii.

There are many other houses almost as pleasant and beautiful as this House of the Faun. Every one has its atrium and its sunny court and its fountains and statues and its painted walls. But Pompeii was a city of business, too, and had many workshops. There is a dye shop where the excavators found large lead pots and glass bottles still full of dye. There are cleaners' shops where the slaves used to take their masters' robes to be cleaned. Here the excavators found vats and white clay for cleaning, and pictures on the wall showing men at work. There are tanneries where leather was made. The rusted tools were found which the men had thrown down so long ago. There is a pottery shop with two ovens for baking the vases. On a certain street corner you will see an old wine shop. It is a little room cut into the corner wall of a great house. Its two sides are open upon the street with broad marble counters. Below the counters are big, deep jars. Their open tops thrust themselves through the slab. You can look into their mouths where the shopkeeper used to dip out the wine. On the walls of the room are marks that show where shelves hung in ancient days to hold cups and glasses. In the outer edge of the sidewalk before the shop are two round holes cut into the stone. Long ago poles were thrust into them to hold an awning that shaded the walk in front of the counters. We can imagine men stopping in this pleasant shade as they passed. The busy slave inside the shop whips out a cup and a graceful, long-handled ladle and dips out the sweet-smelling wine from the wide-mouthed jar. And we can imagine how the cups fell clattering from the men's hands when Vesuvius thundered. In one shop, indeed, the excavators found an overturned cup on the counter and a wine stain on the marble. But the most interesting shops are the bakeries. There were twenty of them in Pompeii. You will see the ovens in the courtyard. They are big beehives built of stone or brick. The baker made a fire inside and let the walls become hot. Then he raked out the coals and cleaned the floor and put in his bread. The hot walls baked the loaves. In one oven the excavators found a burned loaf eighteen hundred years old. When the earthquake shook his house, did the baker snatch out the rest of the ovenful to feed his hungry family as they groped about for safety in the terrible darkness? In several bakeries you will see, also, the mills. They are great mortar-shaped things standing taller than a man. The heavy stone above turned around upon the stone below. A man poured wheat in at the top. It fell down and was ground between the two stones and dropped out at the bottom as flour. A horse or donkey was hitched to the mill to turn it. Around and around he walked all day. He was blindfolded to prevent his becoming dizzy. You will see on the stone floor in one bakery the path that was made by years of this walking. In the old days this silent empty court must have been an interesting place. The donkey's hoofs beat lazy time on the stone floor. Now and then a slave lifted up a bag of wheat and poured it into the mill or scooped out the white flour from the trough at the bottom. Another man sifted the flour and the breeze blew the white dust over his bare arms. Some of the ovens were smoking and glowing with fresh fire. Others were shut, with the browning bread inside, and a good smell hung in the air. And out in front was a little shop where the master sold the thin loaves and the fancy little cakes.

In the hundreds of houses and shops of this little town the excavators have found bronze tables and lamps and lamp stands and wine jars and kitchen pots and pans and spoons and glass vases and silver cups and gold hairpins and jewelry and ivory combs and bronze strigils and mirrors and several statues of bronze and marble. But where they had hoped to find thousands of precious things they have found only hundreds. Many pedestals are empty of their statues. Here and there the very paintings have been cut from the walls. Those are the pictures we should most like to see. How beautiful could they have been?

"Evidently men came back soon after the eruption," say the excavators. "The tops of their ruined houses must have stood up above the ashes. They dug down and rescued their most precious things. We have even found broken places in walls where we think men dug tunnels from one house to another. That is why the temple and market place have so few statues. That is why we find so little jewelry and money and dishes. But we have enough. The city is our treasure."

One rich find they did make, however. There was a pleasant farmhouse out of town on the slope of Vesuvius. Evidently the man who owned it had a vineyard and an olive grove and grain fields. For there are olive presses and wine presses and a great court full of vats for making wine and a floor for threshing wheat and a mill for grinding flour and a stable and a wide courtyard that must have held many carts. And there are bathrooms and many pleasant rooms besides. In the room with the wine presses was a stone cistern for storing the fresh grape juice. Here the excavators found a treasure and a mystery. In this cistern lay the skeleton of a man. With him were a thousand pieces of gold money, some gold jewelry, and a wonderful dinner set of silver dishes. There are a hundred and three pieces--plates, platters, cups, bowls. And every one has beaten up from it beautiful designs of flowers and people. An artist must have made them, and a rich man must have bought them. How did they come here in this farmhouse? They must have been meant for a nobleman's table. Had some thief stolen them and hidden here, only to be caught by the volcano? Did some rich lady of the city have this farm for her country place? And had she sent her treasure here to escape when the volcano burst forth? At any rate here it lay for eighteen hundred years. And now it is in a museum in Paris, far from its old owner's home.

In this buried city we find the houses in which men lived, the pictures they loved, the food they ate, the jewels they wore, the cups they drank from. But what of the people themselves? Were they real men and women? How did they look? Did they all escape? Not all, for many skeletons have been found here and there through the city--in the market place, in the streets, in the houses. And sometimes the excavators have found still stranger, sadder things. Often as a man has been digging in the hard-packed ashes, his spade has struck into a hole. Then he has called the chief excavator.

"Let us see what it is," the excavator has said, "Perhaps it will be something interesting."

So they have mixed plaster and poured it into the hole. They have given it a little time to harden and then have dug away the ashes from around it. In that way they have made a plaster cast just the shape of the hole. And several times when they have uncovered their cast they have found it to be the form of a man or woman or child. Perhaps the person had been hurrying through the street and had stumbled and fallen. The gases had choked him, the ashes had slowly covered him. Under the moistening rain and the pressure of all the hundreds of years the ashes had hardened almost to stone. Meantime the body had decayed and had sunk down into a handful of dust. But the hardened ashes still stood firm around the space where the body had been. When this hole was filled with plaster, the cast took just the form of the one who had been buried there so long ago--the folds of his clothes, the ring on his finger, the girl's knot of hair, the negro slave's woolly head. So we can really look upon the faces of some of the ancient people of Pompeii. And in another way we can learn the names of many of them.

One of the streets that leads out from the wall is called the "Street of Tombs." It is the ancient burying ground. You will walk along the paved street between rows of monuments. Some will be like great square altars of marble beautifully carved. Some will be tall platforms with steps leading up. There will be marble benches where you may sit and think of the old Pompeians who were twice buried in their beautiful tombs. And there on the marble monument you will see their names carved in old Latin letters, and kind things that their friends said about them. There are:

Marcus Cerrinius Restitutus; Aulus Veius, who was several times an officer of the city; Mamia, a priestess; Marcus Porcius; Numerius Istacidius and his wife and daughter and others of his family, all in a great tomb standing on a high platform; Titus Terentius Felix, whose wife, Fabia Sabina, built his tomb; Tyche, a slave; Aulus Umbricius Scaurus, whose statue was set up in the market place to do him honor; Gaius Calventius Quietus, who was given a seat of honor at the theater on account of his generosity; Nævoleia Tyche, who had once been a slave, but who had been freed, had married, and grown wealthy and had slaves of her own; Gnæus Vibius Saturninus, whose freedman built his tomb; Marcus Arrius Diomedes, a freedman; Numerius Velasius Gratus, twelve years old; Salvinus, six years old; and many another.

After seeing the tombs and houses and shops you will leave that little city, I think, feeling that the people of ancient times were much like us, that men and mountains have done wonderful things in this old world, that it is good to know how people of other times lived and worked and died.

PICTURES OF POMPEII

A ROMAN BOY.

This statue, now in the Metropolitan Museum, was found at Pompeii. Probably Caius was dressed just like this, and carried such a stick when he played in his father's courtyard.

THE CITY OF NAPLES, WITH MOUNT VESUVIUS ACROSS THE BAY.

VESUVIUS IN ERUPTION, FROM AN AIRPLANE.

Nowadays men know from history what may happen when Vesuvius wakes. But in 79 A.D., when Pompeii was buried, the mountain had slept for hundreds of years, and no man knew that an eruption might bury a city.

POMPEII FROM AN AIRPLANE.

The roofs are all gone and all the partitions inside the houses show. That is why it all looks so crowded and confused. But if you study it carefully you can see some interesting things. The big open space is the forum. It is about five hundred feet long, running northeast and southwest. South of it is the temple of Apollo. North of it, where you see the bases of columns in a circle, was the market. Next to the market is the place where the gods of the city were worshipped. The broad street beside the forum running southeast is the one down which Ariston fled. Then he turned into the forum, ran out the gate near the lower end into the steep street that runs southwest and ends at a city gate near the sea.

NOLA STREET AND THE TEMPLE OF FORTUNE.

You must imagine this temple with an altar in front, a broad flight of steps, and a portico of beautiful columns. You can see the street paved with blocks of lava, the deep wheel ruts, and the stepping stones for rainy weather.

THE STABIAN GATE.

Pompeii was surrounded by two high walls fifteen feet apart, with earth between. An embankment of earth was piled up inside also. This is one of the eight gates in the wall. IN THE STREET OF TOMBS.

On the tomb of Nævoleia Tyche was a carving of a ship gliding into port, the sailors furling the sails. Within this tomb is a chamber where funeral urns stand, containing the ashes of Tyche and her husband, and of the slaves they had freed. Pompeians always burned the bodies of the dead.

THE AMPHITHEATER.

Like other Roman towns, Pompeii had an amphitheater. Here twenty thousand people could come and watch the gladiators fight in pairs till one was killed. Then the dead body was dragged off, and another pair appeared and fought. Sometimes the gladiators were prisoners captured in war, like the famous Spartacus; sometimes they were slaves; sometimes criminals condemned to death. Sometimes a man was pitted against a wild beast; sometimes two wild beasts fought each other. The amphitheater had no roof. Vesuvius, with its column of smoke, was in plain view from the seats. There was a great awning to protect the spectators. The lower seats were for officials and distinguished people; for the middle rows there was an admission fee; all the upper seats were free.

RUINS OF THE GREAT STABIAN BATHS.

A few large houses had baths of their own, but most people went every day to a great public bath which was a very gay place. This open court which you see, was for games.

THE RUINED TEMPLE OF APOLLO.

The temple was built on a high foundation. A broad flight of steps led up to it, with an altar at the foot. There was a porch all round it held up by a row of columns. Some of the columns have stood up through all the earthquakes and eruptions of two thousand years. Inside the porch was a small room for the statue of Apollo. In the paved court around this temple were many altars and statues of the gods. This was at one time the most important temple in Pompeii.

THE SCHOOL OF THE GLADIATORS.

In this large open court the gladiators had their training and practice. In small cells around the court they lived. They were kept under close guard, for they were dangerous men. Sixty-three skeletons were found here, many of them in irons.

THE SMALLER THEATER.

Pompeii had two theaters for plays and music, besides the amphitheater where the gladiators fought. The smaller theater, unlike the others, had a roof. It seated fifteen hundred people. We think perhaps contests in music were held here.

A SACRIFICE.

A boar, a ram, and a bull are to be killed, and a part of the flesh is to be burned on the altar to please the gods.

A SCENE IN THE FORUM.

On the walls of a room in a house in Pompeii men found this picture, showing how interesting the life of the forum was. At the left is a table where a man has kitchen utensils for sale. But he is dreaming and does not see a customer coming. So his friend is waking him up. Near him is a shoemaker selling sandals to some women.

IVORY HAIRPINS.

Underneath are two ivory toilet boxes. One was probably for perfumed oil.

APPLIANCES FOR THE BATH.

These were found hanging in a ring in one of the great public baths. You see a flask for oil, a saucer to pour the oil into, and four scrapers to scrape off the oil and dirt before a plunge.

PERISTYLE OF THE HOUSE OF THE VETTII.

With the columns and tables and statues that were found, this court has been built on the site of an old ruined villa. Flowers bloom and the fountain plays in it to-day just as they did over two thousand years ago. There are wall paintings in the shadows at the back. The little boys holding the ducks must look very much like Caius when he was a little boy. When he went to the farm in the hills for a hot summer, he had ducks to play with; here are statues to remind him, in the winter time, of what fun that was.

A garden like this, not generally so large, was laid out _inside_ every important house in Pompeii. The family rooms surrounded it. These rooms received most of their light and air from this garden. Caius was lying on a couch in a garden like this, when the shower of pebbles suddenly began. Ariston was painting the walls of a room that overlooked the garden.

LADY PLAYING A HARP.

This is part of a beautiful wall painting in a Pompeian house, the sort of painting that Ariston was making when the volcano burst forth. See how much the little boy looks like his mother, and what beautiful bands they both have in their hair. Chairs like this one have been found in the ruins, and the same design is on many other pieces of furniture.

The Metropolitan Museum owns the complete wall paintings for a Pompeian room. They are put up just as they were in Pompeii. There is even an iron window grating. A beautiful table from Pompeii stands in the center. The room is one of the gayest in the whole museum, with its rich reds and bright yellows, greens, and blues.

KITCHEN OF THE HOUSE OF THE VETTII.

In this house the cook must have been in the kitchen, just ready to go to work when he had to flee. He left the pot on a tripod on a bed of coals, ready for use. You can see an arched opening underneath the fireplace. This was where the cook kept his fuel. The small size of the kitchens shows that the Pompeians were not great gluttons.

KITCHEN UTENSILS.

These kettles and frying pans and ladles are made of bronze, an alloy of copper and tin. They look very much like our kitchen furnishings.

CENTAUR CUP.

Some rich Pompeian had a pair of beautiful silver cups with graceful handles. The design was made in hammered silver, and showed centaurs talking to cupids that are sitting on their backs. A centaur was half man, half horse.

THE HOUSE OF THE TRAGIC POET (restored).

From the ruins and from ancient books, men know almost all the rooms of a Pompeian house. So they have pictured this one as it was before the disaster, with its many beautiful wall paintings, its mosaic floors, its tiled roofs. If you can imagine these two halves fitted together, and yourself inside, you can visit one of the most attractive houses in Pompeii. Do you see how the tiled roof slants downward from four sides to a rectangular opening in the highest part of the house? Below this opening was a shallow basin into which the rainwater fell. This basin was in the center of the atrium, the most important room in the house. The walls of this room were painted with scenes from the Trojan war. This is the house which has the mosaic picture of a dog on the floor of the long entrance hall (see next page). On each side of the hall, facing the street, are large rooms for shops, where, doubtless, the owner conducted his business. He was not a "Tragic Poet." Some people think he was a goldsmith. On each side of the atrium were sleeping rooms. Can you see that the doors are very high with a grating at the top to let in light and air? Windows were few and small, and generally the rooms took light and air from the inside courts rather than from outside. Back of the atrium was a large reception room with bedrooms on each side. And back of this was a large open court, or garden, with a colonnade on three sides and a solid wall at the back. Opening on this garden was a large dining room with beautiful wall paintings, a tiny kitchen, and some sleeping rooms. This house had stairways and second story rooms over the shops. This seems to us a very comfortable homelike house.

THE HOUSE OF THE TRAGIC POET (as it looks to-day).

Here you see the shallow basin in the floor of the atrium. This basin had two outlets. You can see the round cistern mouth near the pool. There was also an outlet to the street to carry off the overflow. At the back of the garden you can see a shrine to the household gods. At every meal a portion was set aside in little dishes for the gods.

MOSAIC OF WATCH DOG.

From the vestibule of the House of the Tragic Poet. It says loudly, "Beware the dog!" Pictures and patterns made of little pieces of polished stone like this are called mosaic. Sometimes American vestibules are tiled in a simple mosaic. Wouldn't it be fun if they had such exciting pictures as this? A real dog, or two or three, probably was standing inside the door, chained, or held by slaves.

THE HOUSE OF DIOMEDE.

There was a wine cellar under the colonnade. Here were twenty skeletons; two, children. Near the door were found skeletons of two men. One had a large key, doubtless the key of this door. He wore a gold ring and was carrying a good deal of money. He was probably the master of the house. Evidently the family thought at first that the wine cellar would be a safe place, but when they found that it was not so, the master took one slave and started out to find a way to escape. But they all perished.

RUINS OF A BAKERY, WITH MILLSTONES.

SECTION OF A MILL.

If one of the mills that were found in the bakery were sawed in two, it would look like this. You can see where the baker's man poured in the wheat, and where the flour dropped down, and the heavy timbers fastened to the upper millstone to turn it by.

PORTRAIT OF LUCIUS CÆCILIUS JUCUNDUS.

This Lucius was an auctioneer who had set free one of his slaves, Felix. Felix, in gratitude, had this portrait of his master cast in bronze. It stood on a marble pillar in the atrium of the house.

BRONZE CANDLEHOLDER.

It is the figure of the Roman God Silenus. He was the son of Pan, and the oldest of the satyrs, who were supposed to be half goat. Can you find the goat's horns among his curls? He was a rollicking old satyr, very fond of wine, always getting into mischief. The grape design at the base of the little statue, and the snake supporting the candleholder, both are symbols of the sileni.

THE DANCING FAUN.

In one of the largest and most elegant houses in Pompeii, on the floor of the atrium, or principal room of the house, men found in the ashes this bronze statue of a dancing faun. Doesn't he look as if he loved to dance, snapping his fingers to keep time? Although this great house contained on the floor of one room the most famous of ancient mosaic pictures, representing Alexander the Great in battle, and although it contains many other fine mosaics, it was named from this statue, the House of the Faun, Casa del Fauno.

HERMES IN REPOSE.

This bronze statue was found in Herculaneum, the city on the other slope of Vesuvius which was buried in liquid mud. This mud has become solid rock, from sixty to one hundred feet deep so that excavation is very difficult, and the city is still for the most part buried.

THE ARCH OF NERO.

The visitors to-day are walking where Caius walked so long ago on the same paving stones. The three stones were set up to keep chariots out of the forum.

OLYMPIA

TWO WINNERS OF CROWNS

The July sun was blazing over the country of Greece. Dust from the dry plain hung in the air. But what cared the happy travelers for dust or heat? They were on their way to Olympia to see the games. Every road teemed with a chattering crowd of men and boys afoot and on horses. They wound down from the high mountains to the north. They came along the valley from the east and out from among the hills to the south. Up from the sea led the sacred road, the busiest of all. A little caravan of men and horses was trying to hurry ahead through the throng. The master rode in front looking anxiously before him as though he did not see the crowd. After him rode a lad. His eyes were flashing eagerly here and there over the strange throng. A man walked beside the horse and watched the boy smilingly. Behind them came a string of pack horses with slaves to guard the loads of wine and food and tents and blankets for their master's camp.

"What a strange-looking man, Glaucon!" said the boy. "He has a dark skin."

The boy's own skin was fair, and under his hat his hair was golden. As he spoke he pointed to a man on the road who was also riding at the head of a little caravan. His skin was dark. Shining black hair covered his ears. His garment was gay with colored stripes.

"He is a merchant from Egypt," answered the man. "He will have curious things to sell--vases of glass, beads of amber, carved ivory, and scrolls gay with painted figures. You must see them, Charmides."

But already the boy had forgotten the Egyptian.

"See the chariot!" he cried.

It was slowly rolling along the stony road. A grave, handsome man stood in it holding the reins. Beside him stood another man with a staff in his hand. Behind the chariot walked two bowmen. After them followed a long line of pack horses led by slaves. "They are the delegates from Athens," explained Glaucon. "There are, doubtless, rich gifts for Zeus on the horses and perhaps some stone tablets engraved with new laws."

But the boy was not listening.

"Jugglers! Jugglers!" he cried.

And there they were at the side of the road, showing their tricks and begging for coins. One man was walking on his hands and tossing a ball about with his feet. Another was swallowing a sword.

"Stop, Glaucon!" cried Charmides, "I must see him. He will kill himself."

"No, my little master," replied the slave. "You shall see him again at Olympia. See your father. He would be vexed if we waited."

And there was the master ahead, pushing forward rapidly, looking neither to the right hand nor the left. The boy sighed.

"He is hurrying to see Creon. He forgets me!" he thought.

But immediately his eyes were caught by some new thing, and his face was gay again. So the little company traveled up the sloping road amid interesting sights. For here were people from all the corners of the known world--Greeks from Asia in trailing robes, Arabs in white turbans, black men from Egypt, kings from Sicily, Persians with their curled beards, half civilized men from the north in garments of skin. "See!" said Glaucon at last as they reached a hilltop, "the temple!"

He pointed ahead. There shone the tip of the roof and its gold ornament. Hovering above was a marble statue with spread wings.

"And there is Victory!" whispered Charmides. "She is waiting for Creon. She will never wait for me," and he sighed.

The crowd broke into a shout when they saw the temple. A company of young men flew by, singing a song. Charmides passed a sick man. The slaves had set down his litter, and he had stretched out his hands toward the temple and was praying. For the sick were sometimes cured by a visit to Olympia. The boy's father had struck his heels into his horse's sides and was galloping forward, calling to his followers to hasten.

In a few moments they reached higher land. Then they saw the sacred place spread out before them. There was the wall all around it. Inside it shone a few buildings and a thousand statues. Along one side stretched a row of little marble treasure houses. At the far corner lay the stadion with its rows of stone seats. Nearer and outside the wall was the gymnasium. Even from a distance Charmides could see men running about in the court.

"There are the athletes!" he thought. "Creon is with them."

Behind all these buildings rose a great hill, dark green with trees. Down from the hill poured a little stream. It met a wide river that wound far through the valley. In the angle of these rivers lay Olympia. The temple and walls and gymnasium were all of stone and looked as though they had been there forever. But in the meadow all around the sacred place was a city of winged tents. There were little shapeless ones of skins lying over sticks. There were round huts woven of rushes. There were sheds of poles with green boughs laid upon them. There were tall tents of gaily striped canvas. Farther off were horses tethered. And everywhere were gaily robed men moving about. Menon, Charmides' father, looking ahead from the high place, turned to a slave.

"Run on quickly," he said. "Save a camping place for us there on Mount Kronion, under the trees."

The man was off. Menon spoke to the other servants. "Push forward and make camp. I will visit the gymnasium. Come, Charmides, we will go to see Creon."

They rode down the slope toward Olympia. As they passed among the tents they saw friends and exchanged kind greetings.

"Ah, Menon!" called one. "There is good news of Creon. Every one expects great things of him."

"I have kept room for your camp next my tent, Menon," said another.

"Here are sights for you, Charmides," said a kind old man.

Charmides caught a glimpse of gleaming marble among the crowd and guessed that some sculptor was showing his statues for sale. Yonder was a barber's tent. Gentlemen were sitting in chairs and men were cutting their hair or rubbing their faces smooth with stone. In one place a man was standing on a little platform. A crowd was gathered about him listening, while he read from a scroll in his hands.

But the boy had only a glimpse of these things, for his father was hurrying on. In a moment they crossed a bridge over a river and stopped before a low, wide building. Glaucon helped Charmides off his horse. Menon spoke a few words to the porter at the gate. The man opened the door and led the visitors in. Charmides limped along beside his father, for he was lame. That was what had made him sigh when he had seen Victory hovering over Olympia. She would never give him the olive branch. But now he did not think of that. His heart was beating fast. His eyes were big. For before him lay a great open court baking in the sun. More than a hundred boys were at work there, leaping, wrestling, hurling the disk, throwing spears. During the past months they had been living here, training for the games. The sun had browned their bare bodies. Now their smooth skins were shining with sweat and oil. As they bent and twisted they looked like beautiful statues turned brown and come alive. Among them walked men in long purple robes. They seemed to be giving commands.

"They are the judges," whispered Glaucon. "They train the boys."

All around the hot court ran a deep, shady portico. Here boys lay on the tiled floor or on stone benches, resting from their exercise. Near Charmides stood one with his back turned. He was scraping the oil and dust from his body with a strigil. Charmides' eyes danced with joy at the beauty of the firm, round legs and the muscles moving in the shoulders. Then the athlete turned toward the visitors and Charmides cried out, "Creon!" and ran and threw his arms around him.

Then there was gay talk; Creon asked about the home and mother and sisters in Athens, for he had been here in training for almost ten months. Menon and Charmides had a thousand questions about the games.

"I know I shall win, father," said Creon softly. "Four nights ago Hermes appeared to me in my sleep and smiled upon me. I awoke suddenly and there was a strange, sweet perfume in the air."

Tears sprang into his father's eyes. "Now blessed be the gods!" he cried, "and most blessed Hermes, the god of the gymnasium!"

After a little Menon and Charmides said farewell and went away through the chattering crowd and up under the cool trees on Mount Kronion to their camp. The slaves had cut poles and set them up and thrown a wide linen cover over them. Under it they had put a little table holding lumps of brown cheese, a flat loaf of bread, a basket of figs, a pile of crisp lettuce. Just outside the tent grazed a few goats. A man in a soiled tunic was squatted milking one. Menon's slave stood waiting and, as his master came up, he took the big red bowl of foaming milk and carried it to the table. The goatherd picked up his long crook and started his flock on, calling, "Milk! Milk to sell!"

Menon was gay now. His worries were over. His camp was pitched in a pleasant place. His son was well and sure of victory.

"Come, little son," he called to Charmides. "You must be as hungry as a wolf. But first our thanks to the gods."

A slave had poured a little wine into a flat cup and stood now offering it to his master. Menon took it and held it high, looking up into the blue heavens.

"O gracious Hermes!" he cried aloud, "fulfill thy omen! And to Zeus, the father, and to all the immortals be thanks."

As he prayed he turned the cup and spilled the wine upon the ground. That was the god's portion. A slave spread down a rug for his master to lie upon and put cushions under his elbow. Glaucon did the same for Charmides, and the meal began. Menon talked gaily about their journey, the games to-morrow, Creon's training. But Charmides was silent. At last his father said:

"Well, little wolf, you surely are gulping! Are you so starved?"

"No," said Charmides with full mouth. "I'm in a hurry. I want to see things."

His father laughed and leaped to his feet.

"Just like me, lad. Come on!"

Charmides snatched a handful of figs and rolled out of the tent squealing with joy. Menon came after him, laughing, and Glaucon followed to care for them. "The sun is setting," said Menon. "It will soon be dark, and to-morrow are the games. They will keep us busy when they begin, so you must use your eyes to-day if you want to see the fair."

He stopped on the hillside and looked down into the sacred place.

"It is wonderful!" he said, half to himself. "The home of glory! I love every stone of it. I have not been here since I myself won the single race. And now my son is to win it. That was when you were a baby, Charmides."

"I know, father," whispered the boy with shining eyes. "I have kissed your olive wreath, where it hangs above our altar at home."

The father put his hand lovingly on the boy's yellow head.

"By the help of Hermes there soon will be a green one there for you to kiss, lad. The gods are very good to crown our family twice."

"I wish there were crowns for lame boys to win," said Charmides. "I would win one!"

He said that fiercely and clenched his fist. His father looked kindly into his eyes and spoke solemnly.

"I think you would, my son. Perhaps there are such crowns."

They started on thoughtfully and soon were among the crowd. There were a hundred interesting sights. They passed an outdoor oven like a little round hill of stones and clay. The baker was just raking the fire out of the little door on the side. Charmides waited to see him put the loaves into the hot cave. But before it was done a horn blew and called him away to a little table covered with cakes.

"Honey cakes! Almond cakes! Fig cakes!" sang the man. "Come buy!"

There they lay--stars and fish and ships and temples. Charmides picked up one in the shape of a lyre.

"I will take this one," he said, and solemnly ate it.

"Why are you so solemn, son?" laughed Menon.

The boy did not answer. He only looked up at his father with deep eyes and said nothing. But in a moment he was racing off to see some rope dancers.

"Glaucon," said the master to the slave, "take care of the boy. Give him a good time. Buy him what he wants. Take him back to camp when he is tired. I have business to do."

Then he turned to talk with a friend, who had come up, and Glaucon followed his little master.

What a good time the boy had! The rope dancers, the sword swallowers, the Egyptian with his painted scroll, a trained bear that wrestled with a wild-looking man dressed in skins, a cooking tent where whole sheep were roasting and turning over a fire, another where tiny fish were boiling in a great pot of oil and jumping as if alive--he saw them all. He stood under the sculptors' awning and gazed at the marble people more beautiful than life. And when he came upon Apollo striking his lyre, his heart leaped into his mouth. He stood quiet for a long time gazing at this god of song. Then he walked out of the tent with shining eyes.

At last it grew dark, and torches began to blaze in front of the booths.

"Shall we go home, Charmides?" said Glaucon.

"Oh, no!" cried the boy. "I haven't seen it all. I am not tired. It is gayer now than ever with the torches. See all those shining flames."

And he ran to a booth where a hundred little bronze lamps hung, each with its tongue of clear light. It was an imagemaker's booth. The table stood full of little clay statues of the gods. Charmides took up one. It was a young man leaning against a tree trunk. On his arm he held a baby.

"It is a model of the great marble Hermes in the temple of Hera, my little master," said the image maker. "Great Praxiteles made that one, poor Philo made this one."

"It is beautiful," said Charmides and turned away, holding it tenderly in his hand.

Glaucon waited a moment to pay for the figure. Then he followed Charmides who had walked on. He was standing on the bridge gazing at the water.

"Glaucon," he said, "I must see that statue of Hermes."

They stood there talking about the wonderful works of Praxiteles and of many another artist. Glaucon pointed to a little wooden shed lying in the meadow.

"That," he said, "is the workshop of Phidias. There he made the gold and ivory statue of Zeus that you shall see in Zeus's temple. That workshop will stay there many a year, I think, for people to love because so great a thing was done there."

"Is it so wonderful?" asked Charmides.

"When it was finished," Glaucon answered solemnly, "Phidias stood before it and prayed to Zeus to tell him whether it pleased the god. Great Zeus heard the prayer, and in his joy at the beautiful thing he hurled a blazing thunderbolt and smote the floor before the statue as if to say, 'This image is Zeus himself.' But I have never seen it, for a slave may not pass the sacred wall."

Now the full moon had risen, and the world was swimming in silver light. The statue of Victory hung over the sacred place on spread wings. Many another great form on its high pillar seemed standing in the deep sky above the world. The little pool in the pebbly river had stars in the bottom.

"This Kladeos is a savage little river in the spring," said Glaucon. "It tries to tear away our Olympia or drown it or cover it with sand. You see, men have had to fence it in with stone walls."

But Charmides was looking at the sacred place and its soft shining statues in the sky.

"Let us walk around the wall," he said.

So they left the river and passed the gymnasium and the gate. Along this side the wall cast a wide shadow. Here they walked in silence. Here there were no tents, no torches, no noisy people. Everything was quiet in the evening air. The far-off sounds of the fair were a gentle hum. A hundred pictures were floating in Charmides' mind--Phidias, Zeus, Creon with the strigil, his own little Hermes, the strange people in the fair, the marble Apollo under the sculptor's tent. In a few moments they turned a corner and came out into the soft moonlight. A little beyond gleamed a broad river, the Alphaeus. Charmides and the slave went over and strolled along its banks. Here they were again in the crowd and among tents. They saw a group of people and went toward them. A man sat on a low knoll a little above the crowd. His hair hung about his shoulders and his long robe lay in glistening folds about his feet. A lyre rested on his knees, and he was striking the strings softly. The sweet notes floated high in the moonlit air. At last he lifted his voice and sang:

When the swan spreadeth out his wings to alight
On the whirling pools of the foaming stream,
He sendeth to thee, Apollo, a note.
When the sweet-voiced minstrel lifteth his lyre
And stretcheth his hand on the singing string,
He sendeth to thee, Apollo, a prayer.
Even so do I now, a worshiping bard,
With my heart lifted up to begin my lay,
Cry aloud to Apollo, the lord of song.

Then he sang of that lordliest of all minstrels, Orpheus--how the trees swung circling about to his music; how the savage beasts lay down at his feet to listen; how the rocks rose up at his bidding and followed him, dancing, to build a town without hands; how he went to the dismal land of the dead to seek his wife and with his clear lyre and sweet voice drew tears from the iron heart of the king of hell and won back his loved Eurydice and lost her again the same hour.

The boy, sitting there in the moonlight, went floating away on the song until he felt himself straying through that fair garden of the dead with singing lyre or riding with Artemis through the sky in her moon chariot.

When the song was ended, Glaucon said, "Come, little master, you have fallen asleep. Let us go home."

And Charmides rose and went, still clutching his image of Hermes in his hand and still holding the song fast in his heart.