[Illustration: Roman Scamnum or Bench.]

[Illustration: Roman Bisellium, or Seat for Two Persons. But generally
occupied by one, on occasions of festivals, etc.]

From discoveries at Herculaneum and Pompeii a great deal of information
has been gained of the domestic life of the wealthier Roman citizens, and
there is a useful illustration at the end of this chapter of the furniture
of a library or study in which the designs are very similar to the Greek
ones we have noticed; it is not improbable they were made and executed by
Greek workmen.

It will be seen that the books such as were then used, instead of being
placed on shelves or in a bookcase, were kept in round boxes called
_Scrinia_, which were generally of beech wood, and could be locked or
sealed when required. The books in rolls or sewn together were thus easily
carried about by the owner on his journeys.

Mr. Hungerford Pollen mentions that wearing apparel was kept in
_vestiaria_, or wardrobe rooms, and he quotes Plutarch's anecdote of the
purple cloaks of Lucullus, which were so numerous that they must have been
stored in capacious hanging closets rather than in chests.

In the _atrium_, or public reception room, was probably the best furniture
in the house. According to Moule's "Essay on Roman Villas," "it was here
that numbers assembled daily to pay their respects to their patron, to
consult the legislator, to attract the notice of the statesman, or to
derive importance in the eyes of the public from an apparent intimacy with
a man in power."