one of which was a kind of cabinet of gems; and these apartments, as well as the tablinum, communicated with a long gallery, which opened at either end upon terraces; and between the terraces, and communicating with the central part of the gallery, was a hall, in which the banquet was that day prepared.  All these apartments, though almost on a level with the street, were one story above the garden; and the terraces communicating with the gallery were continued into corridors, raised above the pillars which, to the right and left, skirted the garden below.

Beneath, and on a level with the garden, ran the apartments we have already described as chiefly appropriated to Julia.

In the gallery, then, just mentioned, Diomed received his guests.

The merchant affected greatly the man of letters, and, therefore, he also affected a passion for everything Greek; he paid particular attention to Glaucus.

‘You will see, my friend,’ said he, with a wave of his hand, ’that I am a little classical here—­a little Cecropian—­eh?  The hall in which we shall sup is borrowed from the Greeks.  It is an OEcus Cyzicene.  Noble Sallust, they have not, I am told, this sort of apartment in Rome.’

‘Oh!’ replied Sallust, with a half smile; ’you Pompeians combine all that is most eligible in Greece and in Rome; may you, Diomed, combine the viands as well as the architecture!’

‘You shall see—­you shall see, my Sallust,’ replied the merchant.  ’We have a taste at Pompeii, and we have also money.’

‘They are two excellent things,’ replied Sallust.  ’But, behold, the lady Julia!’

The main difference, as I have before remarked, in the manner of life observed among the Athenians and Romans, was, that with the first, the modest women rarely or never took part in entertainments; with the latter, they were the common ornaments of the banquet; but when they were present at the feast, it usually terminated at an early hour.

Magnificently robed in white, interwoven with pearls and threads of gold, the handsome Julia entered the apartment.

Scarcely had she received the salutation of the two guests, ere Pansa and his wife, Lepidus, Clodius, and the Roman senator, entered almost simultaneously; then came the widow Fulvia; then the poet Fulvius, like to the widow in name if in nothing else; the warrior from Herculaneum, accompanied by his umbra, next stalked in; afterwards, the less eminent of the guests.  Ione yet tarried.

It was the mode among the courteous ancients to flatter whenever it was in their power:  accordingly it was a sign of ill-breeding to seat themselves immediately on entering the house of their host.  After performing the salutation, which was usually accomplished by the same cordial shake of the right hand which we ourselves retain, and sometimes, by the yet more familiar embrace, they spent several minutes in surveying the apartment, and admiring the bronzes, the pictures, or the furniture, with which it was adorned—­a mode very impolite according to our refined English notions, which place good breeding in indifference.  We would not for the world express much admiration of another man’s house, for fear it should be thought we had never seen anything so fine before!