You enter then, usually, by a small entrance-passage (called
cestibulum), into a hall, sometimes with (but more frequently without)
the ornament of columns; around three sides of this hall are doors
communicating with several bedchambers (among which is the porter's),
the best of these being usually appropriated to country visitors. At
the extremity of the hall, on either side to the right and left, if the
house is large, there are two small recesses, rather than chambers,
generally devoted to the ladies of the mansion; and in the centre of the
tessellated pavement of the hall is invariably a square, shallow
reservoir for rain water (classically termed impluvium), which was
admitted by an aperture in the roof above; the said aperture being
covered at will by an awning. Near this impluvium, which had a peculiar
sanctity in the eyes of the ancients, were sometimes (but at Pompeii
more rarely than at Rome) placed images of the household gods--the
hospitable hearth, often mentioned by the Roman poets, and consecrated
to the Lares, was at Pompeii almost invariably formed by a movable
brazier; while in some corner, often the most ostentatious place, was
deposited a huge wooden chest, ornamented and strengthened by bands of
bronze or iron, and secured by strong hooks upon a stone pedestal so
firmly as to defy the attempts of any robber to detach it from its
position. It is supposed that this chest was the money-box, or coffer,
of the master of the house; though as no money has been found in any of
the chests discovered at Pompeii, it is probable that it was sometimes
rather designed for ornament than use.

In this hall (or atrium, to speak classically) the clients and visitors
of inferior rank were usually received. In the houses of the more
'respectable', an atriensis, or slave peculiarly devoted to the service
of the hall, was invariably retained, and his rank among his
fellow-slaves was high and important. The reservoir in the centre must