in another place a checker-board. Did they understand the game of
Palamedes at Pompeii? A shop near the Thermæ, or public warm baths, is
adorned on its front with a representation of a gladiatorial combat. The
author of the painting thought something of his work, which he protected
with this inscription: "_Abiat (habeat) Venerem Pompeianam iradam
(iratam) qui hoc læserit!_ (May he who injures this picture have the
wrath of the Pompeian Venus upon him!)"

Other shops have had their story written by the articles that they
contained when they were found. Thus, when there were discovered in a
suite of rooms opening on the Street of Herculaneum, certain levers one
of which ended in the foot of a pig, along with hammers, pincers, iron
rings, a wagon-spring, the felloe of a wheel, one could say without
being too bold that there had been the shop of a wagon-maker or
blacksmith. The forge occupied only one apartment, behind which opened
a bath-room and a store-room. Not far from there a pottery is indicated
by a very curious oven, the vault of which is formed of hollow tubes of
baked clay, inserted one within the other. Elsewhere was discovered the
shop of the barber who washed, brushed, shaved, clipped, combed and
perfumed the Pompeians living near the Forum. The benches of masonry are
still seen where the customers sat. As for the dealers in soap,
unguents, and essences, they must have been numerous; their products
supplied not only the toilet of the ladies, but the religious or funeral
ceremonies, and after having perfumed the living, they embalmed the
dead. Besides the shops in which the excavators have come suddenly upon
a stock of fatty and pasty substances, which, perhaps, were soaps, we
might mention one, on the pillar of which three paintings, now effaced,
represented a sacrificial attendant leading a bull to the altar, four
men bearing an enormous chest around which were suspended several vases;
then a body washed and anointed for embalming. Do you understand this