Chapter XXII

ONLY inside the entrance did Vinicius comprehend the whole difficulty of
the undertaking. The house was large, of several stories, one of the
kind of which thousands were built in Rome, in view of profit from rent;
hence, as a rule, they were built so hurriedly and badly that scarcely a
year passed in which numbers of them did not fall on the heads of
tenants. Real hives, too high and too narrow, full of chambers and
little dens, in which poor people fixed themselves too numerously. In a
city where many streets had no names, those houses had no numbers; the
owners committed the collection of rent to slaves, who, not obliged by
the city government to give names of occupants, were ignorant themselves
of them frequently. To find some one by inquiry in such a house was
often very difficult, especially when there was no gate-keeper.

Vinicius and Croton came to a narrow, corridor-like passage walled in on
four sides, forming a kind of common atrium for the whole house, with a
fountain in the middle whose stream fell into a stone basin fixed in the
ground. At all the walls were internal stairways, some of stone, some
of wood, leading to galleries from which there were entrances to
lodgings. There were lodgings on the ground, also; some provided with
wooden doors, others separated from the yard by woollen screens only.
These, for the greater part, were worn, rent, or patched.

The hour was early, and there was not a living soul in the yard. It was
evident that all were asleep in the house except those who had returned
from Ostrianum.

"What shall we do, lord?" asked Croton, halting.