Religion at that period entered into everything, even into trade and industry.  A secret door put the edifice of Eumachia in communication with the adjacent temple.  That temple, which was dedicated to Mercury—­why to Mercury?—­or to Quirinus—­why not to Mercury?—­at this day forms a small museum of precious relics.  The entrance to it is closed with a grating through which a sufficient view may be had of the bas-relief on the altar, representing a sacrifice.  A personage whose head is half-veiled presides at the ceremony; behind that person a child carries the consecrated water in a vase, and the victimarius, bearing an axe, leads the bull that is to be offered up.  Behind the sacrificial party are some flute-players.  On the two sides of the altar other bas-reliefs represent the instruments that were used at the sacrifices; the lituus, or curved staff of the augur; the acerra, or perfuming censer; the mantile, or consecrated cloth that—­let us simply say, the napkin,—­and, finally, the vases peculiar to these ceremonies, the patere, the simpulum, and the prefericulum.

That altar is the only curiosity in the temple.  The remainder is not worth the trouble of being studied or reconstructed.  The mural paintings form an adornment of questionable taste.  A rear door puts the temple in communication with the Senaculum, or Senate-house, as the neighboring structure was called; but the Pompeian Senators being no more than decurions, it is an ambitious title.  A vestibule that comes forward as far as the colonnade of the Forum; then a spacious saloon or hall; an arch at the end, with a broad foundation where the seats of the decemviri possibly stood; then, walls built of rough stones arranged in net-work (opus reticulatum), some niches without statues—­such is all that remains.  But with a ceiling of wood painted in bright colors (the walls could not have held up a vaulted roof), and completely paved, completely sheathed with marble, as some flags and other remnants indicate, this hall could not have been without some richness of effect.  Those who sat there were but the magistrates of a small city; but behind them loomed up Rome, whose vast shadow embraced and magnified everything.

At length we have before us the Pantheon, the strangest and the least easy to name of the edifices of Pompeii.  It is not parallel to the Forum, but its obliquity was adroitly masked by shops in which many pieces of coin have been found.  Hence the conclusion that these were tabernae argentariae, the money-changers’ offices, and I cannot prove the contrary.  The two entrance doors are separated by two Corinthian columns, between which is hollowed out a niche without a statue.  The capitals of these columns bear Caesarean eagles.  Could this Pantheon have been the temple of Augustus?  Having passed the doors, one reaches an area, in which extended, to the right and to the left, a spacious portico surrounding a