BOOK THE FOURTH
3. Chapter III
(continued)
Let him then first imagine the columns of the portico, hung with festoons of
flowers; the columns themselves in the lower part painted red, and the walls
around glowing with various frescoes; then, looking beyond a curtain, three
parts drawn aside, the eye caught the tablinum or saloon (which was closed
at will by glazed doors, now slid back into the walls). On either side of
this tablinum were small rooms, one of which was a kind of cabinet of gems;
and these apartments, as well as the tablinum, communicated with a long
gallery, which opened at either end upon terraces; and between the terraces,
and communicating with the central part of the gallery, was a hall, in which
the banquet was that day prepared. All these apartments, though almost on a
level with the street, were one story above the garden; and the terraces
communicating with the gallery were continued into corridors, raised above
the pillars which, to the right and left, skirted the garden below.
Beneath, and on a level with the garden, ran the apartments we have already
described as chiefly appropriated to Julia.
In the gallery, then, just mentioned, Diomed received his guests.
The merchant affected greatly the man of letters, and, therefore, he also
affected a passion for everything Greek; he paid particular attention to
Glaucus.
'You will see, my friend,' said he, with a wave of his hand, 'that I am a
little classical here--a little Cecropian--eh? The hall in which we shall
sup is borrowed from the Greeks. It is an OEcus Cyzicene. Noble Sallust,
they have not, I am told, this sort of apartment in Rome.'
'Oh!' replied Sallust, with a half smile; 'you Pompeians combine all that is
most eligible in Greece and in Rome; may you, Diomed, combine the viands as
well as the architecture!'
'You shall see--you shall see, my Sallust,' replied the merchant. 'We have
a taste at Pompeii, and we have also money.'
'They are two excellent things,' replied Sallust. 'But, behold, the lady
Julia!'
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