DOI Kapitel:
Chapter VII: Pompeii
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.59000#0289
Naples
The life must have been strangely lazy ! There
could have been no traffic to speak of in the narrow
streets. No trades were carried on in the town, no in-
dustries of any kind. All the labour of the town fell
upon the slaves. There could not, therefore, have been
any great luxe, since slave-labour would have proved
insufficient to administer to it. They must have com-
bined some secret of simplicity in their routine with
their passion for luxury and pleasure, which would no
doubt strike us as very comfortless. Certainly their
homes give us no impression of being other than
decorative asylums for the night or during bad weather.
Passing along the stone-worn streets, we look into
the tiny shops, with their marble counters and sliding
doors. In the counters are seen the holes where were
balanced the amphoras, so called from their ear-like
handles on either side. They were the great oil, wine,
and fruit jars which the Romans used as did the Greeks
before them.
Beyond the Forum we see the small baths of Pompeii,
the Baine ae which constituted such a favourite luxury of
that time, and in the perfecting of which our own day
seems to have taught us little. Those for men and
women were built side by side, so that one set of furnaces
served for both, and the hot-water cisterns heated both
alike. These baths must have been one of the most
crowded and popular places in the town. The entrance
fees were small, and children were admitted free. In
the first room was performed the anointing with per-
fumed oil, which was afterwards scraped off by slaves
132
The life must have been strangely lazy ! There
could have been no traffic to speak of in the narrow
streets. No trades were carried on in the town, no in-
dustries of any kind. All the labour of the town fell
upon the slaves. There could not, therefore, have been
any great luxe, since slave-labour would have proved
insufficient to administer to it. They must have com-
bined some secret of simplicity in their routine with
their passion for luxury and pleasure, which would no
doubt strike us as very comfortless. Certainly their
homes give us no impression of being other than
decorative asylums for the night or during bad weather.
Passing along the stone-worn streets, we look into
the tiny shops, with their marble counters and sliding
doors. In the counters are seen the holes where were
balanced the amphoras, so called from their ear-like
handles on either side. They were the great oil, wine,
and fruit jars which the Romans used as did the Greeks
before them.
Beyond the Forum we see the small baths of Pompeii,
the Baine ae which constituted such a favourite luxury of
that time, and in the perfecting of which our own day
seems to have taught us little. Those for men and
women were built side by side, so that one set of furnaces
served for both, and the hot-water cisterns heated both
alike. These baths must have been one of the most
crowded and popular places in the town. The entrance
fees were small, and children were admitted free. In
the first room was performed the anointing with per-
fumed oil, which was afterwards scraped off by slaves
132