The seats were of masonry capped with slabs of tufa about seven inches thick. They had depressions in the side and in the top, as may be seen in the accompanying section (Fig. 68). They were thus made somewhat more comfortable, the person in front being less subject to disturbance from the feet of one sitting on the next seat behind; a saving of room was also effected—an important consideration in the construction of a small auditorium.

The tribunals (3, 3) differed from those in the Large Theatre in that they were shut off entirely from the seats of the cavea by a sharply inclined wall, and were entered only from the stage, by means of narrow stairways; in this way the exclusive character of the seats was made still more prominent. Besides the platform itself, measuring only about 11 by 9 feet, three seats above each tribunal were set off with it by the same division wall and were available for the occupants.

The sloping wall between the tribunal and the cavea on each side ends with a kneeling Atlas (Fig. 69); large vases probably stood on the two brackets supported by these figures. The end of the parapet on either side is embellished with a lion's foot of tufa (Fig. 70). These rather coarse sculptures illustrate the character of the art that was brought to Pompeii by the Roman colony. The workmanship is by no means fine, yet the muscles of the figures are well rendered, and the effect is pleasing.

The pavement of the orchestra (seen in Fig. 67) consists of small flags of colored marble. An inscription in bronze letters informs us that it was laid by the duumvir Marcus Oculatius Verus pro ludis, that is instead of the games which he would otherwise have been expected to provide.

At the ends of the stage, as in the case of the Large Theatre, there were two broad entrances. The wall at the rear, which was veneered with marble, had the customary three doors, and in addition two small doors, one near each end. The long dressing room behind the stage had likewise two broad entrances at the ends, besides four at the rear. Apparently the two narrow doors near the ends of the wall at the rear of the stage, and the two doors corresponding with them at the back of the dressing room, were for the use of those who had seats on the tribunals; they could thus enter and leave their places even when the large side doors of both stage and dressing room had been shut—as undoubtedly happened immediately after the procession (pompa) had passed across the stage.

CHAPTER XXIII
THE THEATRE COLONNADE, USED AS BARRACKS FOR GLADIATORS

'Behind the stage,' says Vitruvius (V. ix.), speaking of the arrangements of the theatre, 'colonnades should be built, that shelter may be afforded to spectators in case of rain and a place provided for making preparations for the stage.'

This maxim of ancient architects was applied at Pompeii in a generous way; in connection with the theatres there was an extensive system of colonnades. To understand their use it will be necessary first to view them as they were in the earlier time, and then to take account of later changes.

In the Oscan Period, and afterwards to the end of the Republic, when a performance in the Large Theatre was interrupted by a shower, the spectators in the upper seats could take refuge under the colonnade of the Forum Triangulare; those below found shelter under the rectangular colonnade at the rear, which was obviously built for the purpose, and may be called, by way of distinction, the Theatre Colonnade (Fig. 71). It contained seventy-four Doric columns, and enclosed a large open area. The main entrance (2) was near the northeast corner. The entrance hall on the side of the colonnade was supported by three Ionic columns. It was connected at the north end with a short colonnade on the east side of the area back of the stage of the Theatre; this led to the large door at the east end of the stage and the corresponding parodos of the orchestra; the wall at 4 on our plan is a later addition. The Theatre Colonnade must have been used also as a promenade on days when there was no performance; it was connected by a broad passage (1) with Stabian Street.

This colonnade seems too far away to have served as a place for making preparations for the stage; another was erected for that purpose. At the northwest corner a broad stairway leads down from the Forum Triangulare (5; cf. Fig. 65); from the foot a small and inconvenient flight of steps leads into the area at the rear of the stage. In a line with the stairway is a series of small rooms opening toward the south. These do not belong to the original structure. In their place there was once a colonnade, which faced the north and connected the large stairway with the short colonnade, the remains of which are still to be seen on the east side of the area; the back of it was at the same time the back of the north division of the Theatre Colonnade. There was thus a covered passage extending from the foot of the stairway along two sides of the area to the east entrance of the stage and of the orchestra, which would answer very well to the second part of Vitruvius's dictum; but it had also another important use.

The portico of the Forum Triangulare, as we have seen, was at the same time the monumental entrance of the Theatre, and the large doorway at the left was used only for the ceremonious admission of the city officials, who with their retinue formed a procession in the Forum and wended their way hither in festal attire in order to open the performance—a formality that may be compared with the parade with which the Roman games were opened at Rome.

The route of such a procession, after entering the Forum Triangulare, is now clear. It passed along under the colonnade adjoining the Theatre, beyond the entrances to the upper portion of the cavea; turned and descended the broad stairway (5), proceeded under the colonnade along the south and east sides of the area behind the stage, and finally came upon the stage through the wide doorway at the east end. It was indeed possible to pass beyond the stage entrance and proceed through the parodos directly to the seats of the orchestra and the lowest section of the cavea; but it is more in accordance with the fondness of the ancients for display to suppose that the procession moved across the stage, receiving as it passed the plaudits of the great audience, and emerged from the entrance opposite that by which it came in, disbanding in the court, whence the members could go to their respective seats. We need not here raise the question whether the procession passed upon the stage behind the triangular side screens (periactoi), or whether these were set in place only after it had already passed.

When the colonnade on the south side of the court had been replaced by rooms, and the Theatre Colonnade itself had been transformed into barracks, this route of the processions was blocked. They could still pass down the street in front of the temple of Isis, turn into Stabian Street, and reach the stage through the passage at the rear of the Small Theatre; but it does not seem probable that they followed this course, for the reason that there are three large stepping stones in the street before one comes to the entrance of the passage; these would have proved a serious obstruction, and would undoubtedly have been removed had the processions gone this way.

We may rather believe that before the usual route was closed the processions themselves had been given up. They were still in vogue, however, when the Small Theatre was built; otherwise the purpose of the wide entrances at the ends of the stage and of the room back of it is not clear. Moreover the sidewalk in front of the Small Theatre, on Stabian Street, is of an altogether unusual width, and was apparently covered by a portico. We infer that the procession to this theatre entered at the west end of the stage, and passed out at the east end; since it could not disperse on the street, it would turn where the sidewalk was broadest, go back through the room at the rear of the stage into the court, and there disband.

The discontinuance of the processions must then be assigned to the period between the building of the Small Theatre and the changing over of the Theatre Colonnade into barracks, which, to judge from the masonry and the remains of the decoration, did not take place before the time of Nero. The processions were abandoned either in the troubled period of the Civil Wars, or in the early years of the Empire; if in the latter period, their discontinuance may have been due to legislation connected with the reorganization of the Empire under Augustus, or to the overshadowing of them by more imposing ceremonies introduced in connection with the religious festivals.

Our information in regard to the later use of the Theatre Colonnade is indeed meagre; not a single inscription bearing upon it has been found. Yet when we take into account the changes that were made in it, and the objects found there, the supposition that it was turned into barracks for gladiators in the time of the Early Empire, and so used till the destruction of the city, is seen to harmonize with almost all the facts.

First, rooms were built on all sides behind the colonnade; on the north side they took the place of the south arm of the colonnade in the area back of the stage. They were in two series, one above the other; the upper rooms were entered from a low wooden gallery accessible by three stairways. They could not have been intended for shops; they were too small, measuring on the average hardly more than twelve feet square, and the doors were too narrow. There were no doors opening from one room into the other. Both lower and upper rooms, we may conclude, were used for men's quarters.

In the middle of the south side a large room was left, with the front open toward the area, an exedra (6). On the east side was a still larger room the front of which is divided off by pillars; other rooms open from it, and among them is one (10) with several hearths, evidently intended for a mess kitchen, if the hearths are ancient; they may be modern. Over these rooms was a second story, reached by a broad stairway (9).

The immediate connection of the colonnade with the area behind the stage was now cut off by a wall (4); there was left only a small door in the corner, which could be readily fastened. The entrance from the passage leading to Stabian Street (2) was provided with doors and placed under the control of a guard, for whom a special room was built at one side (3). There was a third entrance, narrow and easily closed, at the northwest corner, where a flight of steps connected the foot of the broad stairway (5) with the landing of the stairs leading to the wooden gallery.

Thus a complete transformation was effected. The promenade for theatre-goers had become barracks, with a great number of cell-like rooms, a mess kitchen, and narrow, guarded entrances. Soldiers, however, could not have been kept here; in the period to which the rebuilding belongs, garrisons were not stationed in the cities of Italy except the Capital. On the other hand, gladiatorial combats in Pompeii were so frequent, and on so large a scale, that a special building for the housing and guarding of gladiators would seem to have been a necessity; such a building would naturally have been erected by the city and placed at the disposal of those who gave the games. As early as the time of Augustus, Aulus Clodius Flaccus brought forward forty pairs of gladiators in a single day, and on various occasions afterwards as many as thirty pairs were engaged. How well the colonnade was now suited for gladiators' quarters may be seen from a glance at the plan. The area would serve as a practice court, the exedra on the south side (6), protected from the sun, as the station for the trainers and lounging room for men awaiting their turn; the mess room would be the large apartment adjoining the kitchen (11), while the quarters of the chief trainer, lanista, and his assistants, would be in the second story, reached by the broad stairway (9).

The small rooms were poorly decorated, in the fourth style. There were better paintings only in the exedra. On the rear wall of this room was the oft repeated group of Mars and Venus; on the side walls, gladiatorial weapons were represented, piled up in heaps, after the manner of trophies, about eight feet high. The reference to the purpose of the building, as in the case of the paintings in the Macellum, is obvious. The columns about the area were originally white; after the rebuilding the unfluted lower part was painted red, the upper part yellow. Four columns, however, two at the middle of the east side, and the two opposite them on the west side, were painted blue, probably to serve as bounds in marking off the area for athletic exercises.

The objects found in the barracks are recorded in the journal of the excavations. They indicate that at the time of the eruption the rooms were occupied. Everything of value was removed from those on the north side by the survivors, but the south half was apparently left undisturbed, and has yielded a rich harvest.

In ten rooms the excavators found a great quantity of weapons of the kinds used by gladiators, including fifteen helmets, a shield, greaves (Fig. 72), several broad belts trimmed with metal, and a couple of armlets; there were more than a hundred scales of horn belonging to a coat of mail, and a half dozen shoulder protectors, galeri, which the net fighter, retiarius, who carried no shield and was armed only with a net and a trident, wore on his left shoulder. The weapons were mostly for defence, but remains of a few offensive weapons were found, as the head of a lance, a sword, and a couple of daggers. In the same room with the daggers and the sword (perhaps 7) were the remains of two wooden chests containing cloth with gold thread; this may have been used in gladiators' costumes.

The helmets are characteristic (Fig. 73). They are furnished with a visor, and part of them have a broad rim, richly ornamented with reliefs; their shape corresponds exactly with that of the helmets seen in paintings and reliefs representing gladiatorial combats. The shield, which is round and only about sixteen inches in diameter, would have been quite useless in military service. In a room under the stairs the skeleton of a horse was found, with remains of trappings richly mounted with bronze; one class of gladiators, the equites, fought on horseback.

One of the small rooms on the west side (8) was used as a guard room. Here were the stocks, the remains of which are shown in Fig. 74; they were fastened to a board. At one end of the under piece was a lock, by which the bar passed through the rings could be made secure. The men confined had the choice of lying down or sitting in an uncomfortable position. The four persons whose skeletons were found in this room, however, were not in the stocks at the time of the eruption. That such means of discipline should be employed in controlling gladiators is entirely consistent with ancient methods.

Besides these finds, there were others not so easily explained. In the two rooms in which the spearhead and the other offensive weapons were found, there were eighteen skeletons, among them that of a woman richly adorned with gold jewelry; she had a necklace with emeralds, earrings, and two armbands, besides rings and other ornaments, and in a casket a cameo, the elaborate setting of which is in part preserved. In a room near the southwest corner the bones of a new-born infant were found in an earthen jar. A number of weights also were discovered, and vessels of terra cotta and glass; in three rooms there were more than six dozen small saucers. Were the barracks wholly given up to gladiators at the time of the eruption, or were some other persons allowed to have quarters here, perhaps some of those whose houses had been destroyed by the earthquake of 63 and had not been rebuilt? A certain conclusion cannot be reached.

CHAPTER XXIV
THE PALAESTRA

The oblong court north of the Large Theatre, between the entrance of the Forum Triangulare and the temple of Isis, is the Palaestra. Originally, the enclosed area was entirely surrounded by a colonnade, with ten columns on the sides and five at each end; but at a comparatively late period, probably after the earthquake of 63, the columns at the east end were removed and the space thus gained was added to the temple of Isis.

A number of the columns on the other three sides are still standing. They are Doric but of slender proportions, the height, 10½ feet, being equal to eight diameters, while the intercolumniations measure about nine feet. It is doubtful whether the columns carried a complete entablature; more likely the roof rested directly on a wooden architrave.

The building clearly dates from the pre-Roman period. The columns are of tufa coated with stucco, the dimensions of the colonnade (90 by 36 Oscan feet) reduce to the early standard of measurement; and an Oscan inscription was found here which says that the building was erected by the Quaestor Vibius Vinicius, with money which Vibius Adiranus had left by will to the Pompeian youth. The translation of the word vereiiai, 'to the youth,' otherwise doubtful, is confirmed by various facts which indicate that the building was intended as a small palaestra or open-air gymnasium for boys.

While the Palaestra had its original length, the entrance, which is now nearer the east end, was at the middle of the north side. Opposite it, near the colonnade on the south side, is a pedestal of tufa, before which stands a small table of the same stone (Fig. 76). The pedestal is reached by narrow steps. Here stood a statue of the patron divinity of the Palaestra. When an athletic contest was held, the wreath intended for the victor was laid on the stone table before the god; after the award had been made, the successful contestant took up the wreath and dedicated it to the divinity by mounting the steps and placing it on the head of the statue. It is evident from the height of the steps that the contestants were boys, not men.

On the pedestal was undoubtedly a statue of Hermes, but not of the type which we have already met with in the court of the temple of Apollo (p. 88), and shall find later in the palaestra of the Stabian Baths (p. 200); a base of this sort can hardly have been intended for a herm. No trace of the missing statue has been discovered.

Another statue stood at the foot of one of the columns on the south side. It is a copy of the doryphorus of Polyclitus, and is now in the Naples Museum (Fig. 77). Though it has been restored, there seems no good reason to believe that the restoration is incorrect, and that the figure is really a Hermes, having originally carried on the left shoulder a herald's staff with entwined snakes, caduceus, instead of a spear. For the adornment of a place devoted to athletic exercises nothing could have been more appropriate than a copy of the doryphorus as an ideal of youthful strength, of harmonious physical development; and the Elder Pliny bears witness (N. H. XXXIV. v. 18), that it was customary to set up such statues in a palaestra. This figure had no pedestal; it stood on the ground, a man among men.

It would be of interest to know what athletic exercises were practised in the Palaestra; but apart from the pedestal with its steps and table no characteristic remains were found here. The exercises in the Roman period undoubtedly differed somewhat from those practised at the time when the building was erected, when the Greek system was everywhere in vogue.

CHAPTER XXV
THE TEMPLE OF ISIS

The loftiest and purest religious conceptions of the ancient Egyptians were embodied in the myth of Isis and Osiris, which in the third millennium B.C. had already become the basis of a firmly established cult. These conceptions approached the monotheistic idea of an omnipresent god, and with them was associated a belief in a blessed immortality. Isis was the goddess of heaven, and Osiris was the Sun-god, her brother and husband, who is slain at evening by his brother Set,—the Greek Typhon,—ruler of darkness. Their child Horus, also called Harpocrates, born after the father's death, is the fresh sun of the new day, the successor and avenger of his father, the conqueror of Set; he becomes a new Osiris, while the father, ever blessed, rules in the realm of the dead, the kingdom of the West. Man, the followers of Isis taught, is an incarnation of deity, whose destiny is also his. He is himself an Osiris, and will enter upon a better state of existence beyond the grave if a favorable judgment is passed upon him in the trial given to the dead.

The worship of Isis, associated with Mysteries from an early period, was reorganized by the first Ptolemy with the help of Manetho, an Egyptian priest, and Timotheus, a Greek skilled in the Eleusinian Mysteries. The purpose of the king was to unite his Egyptian and Greek subjects in one faith, and the effort was more successful than might have been anticipated. In its new Alexandrian form the worship of Isis and Osiris, or Serapis, as the latter divinity was now called, spread, not only over all Egypt, but also over the other countries in the East into which Greek culture had penetrated, and soon made its way to Italy and the West.

Various causes contributed to the rapid extension of the cult. It had the charm of something foreign and full of mystery. Its doctrine, supported by the prestige of immemorial antiquity, successfully opposed the mutually destructive opinions of the philosophers, while at the same time its conception of deity was by no means inconsistent with philosophic thought; and it brought to the initiated that expectation of a future life to which the Eleusinian Mysteries owed their attractive power. The ascetic side of the worship, too, with its fastings and abstinence from the pleasures of sense, that the soul might lose itself in the mystical contemplation of deity, had a fascination for natures that were religiously susceptible; and the celebration of the Mysteries, the representation of the myth of Isis in pantomime with a musical accompaniment, appealed powerfully to the imagination. The cult also possessed elements that brought it nearer to the needs of the multitude. The activities of the Egyptian divinities were not confined to the other world; their help might be sought in the concerns of this life. Thus the chief priest could say to Apuleius that Isis summoned her elect to consecrate themselves to her service only when the term of life allotted to them had really expired, and that she lengthened their tale of years, so that all of life remaining was a direct gift from the hands of the goddess. The priests of Isis were looked upon as experts in astrology, the interpretation of dreams, and the conjuring of spirits.

A college of the Servants of Isis, Pastophori, was founded in Rome in the time of Sulla, about 80 B.C. In vain the authorities tried to drive out the worship of the Egyptian gods. Three times their temple, in the midst of the city, was destroyed by order of the consuls, in 58, 50, and 48 B.C. But after Caesar's death, in 44 B.C., the triumvirs built a temple in honor of Isis and Osiris; and a few decades later, perhaps in the reign of Caligula, their festival was recognized in the public Calendar. In Campania the Alexandrian cult gained a foothold earlier than in Rome. An inscription of the year 105 B.C., found at Puteoli, proves that a temple of Serapis was then standing in that enterprising city, which had close commercial relations with Egypt and the East. Soon after this date the earlier temple of Isis at Pompeii must have been built.

The entrance to the court of the temple (Fig. 78) is from the north. Above the door is an inscription which informs us that after an earthquake (that of the year 63) Numerius Popidius Celsinus, at his own expense, rebuilt the temple of Isis from the foundation, and that in recognition of his generosity, though he was only six years of age, the members of the city council, the decurions, admitted him without cost to their rank: N[umerius] Popidius N[umerii] f[ilius] Celsinus aedem Isidis terrae motu conlapsam a fundamento p[ecunia] s[ua] restituit; hunc decuriones ob liberalitatem, cum esset annorum sexs, ordini suo gratis adlegerunt. The temple evidently belonged to the city; and the places for statues in the court, as the inscriptions show, were assigned by vote of the city council.

Other inscriptions give information in regard to the family of the child Celsinus. His father was Numerius Popidius Ampliatus, his mother Corelia Celsa; a brother bore the same name as the father. The real rebuilders were of course the parents; by associating their munificence with the name of their son, they opened the way for him to the city offices, for which the father, a freedman, was not eligible. Ampliatus perpetuated his own name by setting up a statue of Bacchus in a niche in the outside of the rear wall of the temple (at c on the plan), with the inscription: N. Popidius Ampliatus pater p. s., 'Numerius Popidius Ampliatus the father (set up this statue) at his own expense.' The names of the two sons appear with that of their mother in the mosaic floor of the large room (6) behind the colonnade at the rear.

Though the rebuilding of Celsinus was 'from the foundation,' remains of the old temple were utilized, as shafts of columns and Corinthian capitals coated with white stucco; and the plan of the new building was very nearly the same as that of the old. The stylobate of the colonnade belongs to the earlier structure, but the columns originally stood nearer together, eight instead of seven at the ends, and ten on the sides.

The architectural forms and the workmanship of these remains point to a time just after the founding of the Roman colony; nevertheless the dimensions of the colonnade, approximately fifty by sixty Oscan feet, reduce to the pre-Roman standard of measurement, and the building may have been commenced earlier. In later times the increasing number of the worshippers of Isis made necessary an enlargement of the sanctuary. The two rooms at the west end (5 and 6) were added at the expense of the Palaestra, probably at the time of the rebuilding.

In the middle of the court, which is surrounded by the colonnade, is the temple, consisting of an oblong cella (2), the east side of which is treated as a front, with a portico borne by six columns (1). A pit for the refuse of sacrifices, enclosed by a wall (b) stands in the corner of the court near the entrance from the street; in the opposite corner there is a larger enclosure having the appearance of a small temple (4). Near this are two altars; a third altar stood close to the temple, and there are five others, somewhat smaller, between the columns. On the south side, between the colonnade and the Theatre, is a small area of irregular shape, east of which is a dwelling containing five rooms (7, 8, 9).

The accompanying illustrations show the temple as it is to-day (Fig. 79) and as it was before the eruption (Fig. 80). It has architecturally nothing suggestive of the Egyptian style. Yet the plan presents a marked deviation from ordinary types, as if the builders, erecting an edifice for the worship of foreign gods, strove with set purpose to produce a bizarre effect; at the right and the left of the front of the cella is a large niche, projecting beyond the sides of the portico, and inorganically connected with the main part of the temple by a pilaster. In the ornamentation of this temple, as in that of the temple of Apollo, the simple and chaste forms of the Greek architecture were replaced by gaudy stucco ornaments more in harmony with the prevailing taste.

Besides the broad flight of steps in front, a narrow stairway at the left of the temple led to a side door opening into the cella. A base of masonry about six feet high extends across the rear of the cella, on which were two pedestals of tufa, about sixteen inches square, for the statues of Isis and Osiris. In the two large niches outside other divinities stood, perhaps Anubis and Harpocrates. The latter was apparently worshipped also at the shrine in the wall on the east side of the court (3), facing the doorway of the cella. A painting from this shrine, now in the Naples Museum, represents a statue of Harpocrates of the familiar type—a boy with his finger in his mouth holding a cornucopia, with a lotus blossom resting on his forehead; before him stands a priest in a long white robe, holding a candlestick in each hand, while in the background is a temple surrounded by a colonnade, evidently intended for a free representation of the temple before us. In front of the shrine were the charred remains of a wooden bench.

No statue was found in the cella or in the two niches in front. We may suppose that the images of the four divinities, being of relatively small size, were carried off by the priests at the time of the eruption; had they been removed afterwards, the excavators would have taken also the other objects in the cella used in the services of the temple. Among these were two skulls, probably made use of in the ceremonies attending initiation into the Mysteries, and a marble hand, about four inches long, but whether a right or a left hand, the journal of the excavations does not say. A left hand was carried in the procession in honor of Isis, described by Apuleius; as the weaker of the two, and so less ready to do evil, it symbolized the even justice (aequitas) with which the deity governs the world. There were also two wooden caskets, one of which contained a diminutive gold cup, measuring less than an inch across the top, a glass vessel a trifle over an inch and a half in height, and a statuette of a god about half as high; in the other were two bronze candlesticks about ten inches high, the use of which may be inferred from the painting described above, and a bronze lamp with places for two wicks.

The walls of the colonnade were painted in bright colors on a deep red ground. The lower part of the columns was red, but above they were white; the temple also was white, the purpose obviously being to give the appearance of marble. Nevertheless the same decorative framework appears both in the white stucco of the temple and the painted decoration of the colonnade: a division of the body of the wall into large panels, with a continuous garland of conventional plant forms above. In the colonnade there was a yellow base, treated as a projecting architectural member; above it large red panels alternated with light, fantastic architectural designs in yellow on a red ground. The frieze was black, with garlands in strong contrast—green, blue, and yellow—enlivened with all sorts of animal forms. In the middle of each of the large panels was a priest of Isis; in the lower part of the intervening architectural designs were marine pictures,—galleys maneuvering, and seafights. Similar pictures are found in other buildings, as the Macellum, but marine views were especially appropriate here, because Isis was a patron divinity of seamen. Apuleius gives an interesting description of the spring festival, by which the navigation of the opening season was committed to her guardian care.

Opposite the entrance of the temple the colonnade presents an interesting peculiarity of construction, which is found also in other buildings at Pompeii, as the Stabian Baths. The place of the three middle columns on that side is taken by two large pillars, higher than the rest of the colonnade, each of which is backed by an attached half-column. This arrangement made the approach to the temple more imposing, and also furnished an appropriate setting for the shrine of Harpocrates against the wall.

The principal altar, on which sacrifice was offered to the divinities worshipped in the temple, is that near the foot of the steps in front (e). The officiating priest stood on a block of stone at the side of it, with the temple at his right; on this altar were found ashes and fragments of calcined bones. The two smaller altars near by were probably consecrated to the gods whose images were placed in the exterior niches.

Two rectangular pits were used as receptacles for the refuse of sacrifices. One was quite small, and no trace of it can now be found; it was near the large altar, and contained remains of burnt figs, pine kernels and cones, nuts, and dates, with fragments of two statuettes representing divinities. The wall about the other (b), when excavated, was built up at each end in the form of a gable, and evidently once supported a wooden roof; in this pit also were charred remains of fruits. What divinities were worshipped at the altars between the columns, it is impossible to determine. The small base standing against the corner column near the entrance (seen in Fig. 79) was probably a pedestal, not an altar.

At the left of the steps leading up to the temple, and facing the large altar, is a small pillar of masonry fifteen inches square and nearly two and a half feet high. A similar pillar, which formerly stood at the right, had thin slabs of stone on three sides. One of these, that on the front of the pillar (now in the Naples Museum), was covered with hieroglyphics. It is a memorial tablet, which Hat, 'the writer of the divine word,' hierogrammateus, set up in honor of his parents and grandparents; it contains symbolic representations in three divisions, one above the other. In the upper division Hat, his brother and colleague Meran, their father and grandfather, are praying to Osiris, 'Lord of the Kingdom of the Dead'; below, Hat is bringing to his parents and grandparents offerings for the dead, while in the lower division Meran and two sisters unite with him in prayer to Osiris. The tablet could hardly have been designed for a temple, but still, by reason of its contents, it was considered appropriate for this place. It was doubtless intended that a similar tablet should be affixed to the pillar at the left, but perhaps none happened to be available; statuettes of divinities were probably placed on the pillars.

The presence of a statue of Bacchus in the niche in the rear wall of the cella is easily explained; this divinity was identified with Osiris. Two ears are moulded in the stucco beside the niche, symbolic of the listening of the god to the prayers of his worshippers.

Against the west wall of the colonnade, near the corners, were two pedestals, with statues of female divinities about one half life size. At the right was Isis, in archaic Greek costume, with the inscription: L. Caecilius Phoebus posuit l[oco] d[ato] d[ecurionum] d[ecreto], 'Set up by Lucius Caecilius Phoebus, in a place granted by a decree of the city council'; the name indicates that the donor was a freedman. The other statue, at the left, represents Venus drying her hair after the bath; it is of a common type and possesses small value as a work of art, yet is of interest because of the well preserved painting and gilding. Venus, as many other goddesses, was identified with Isis.

In the same corner with the statue of Venus, against the south wall, stood the herm of Gaius Norbanus Sorex, a marble pillar with a bronze head. According to the inscription, he was an actor who played the second part (secundarum, sc. partium), and was also magister of the suburb Pagus Augustus Felix. He was probably a generous supporter of the temple. A duplicate of the herm is found in the Eumachia building, to which also he may have made a contribution. The low social standing of the various benefactors of the temple is noteworthy; it indicates in what circles the worship of the Egyptian divinities found its adherents. As yet this was by no means an aristocratic cult, although it became such later, especially after the time of Hadrian.

While the Greek and Roman gods were honored chiefly at their festivals, the Egyptian divinities demanded worship every day, indeed several times a day. The early service, the 'opening of the temple,' is described by Apuleius, who was probably admitted to the college of the Servants of Isis in Rome in the time of the Antonines, and wrote about 160 A.D. Before daybreak the priest went into the temple by the side entrance and threw back the great doors, which were fastened on the inside. White linen curtains were hung across the doorway, shielding the interior from view. Now the street gate of the court was opened; the thronging multitude of the devout streamed in and took their places in front of the temple. The curtains were drawn aside and the image of the goddess was presented to the gaze of her worshippers, who greeted her with prayers and shaking of the sistrum, a musical rattle, the use of which was characteristic of the worship of the Egyptian gods. For a time they remained sitting, engaged in prayer and in the contemplation of the divinity; an hour after daybreak the service was closed with an invocation to the newly risen sun. This description throws light on the purpose of the bench in front of the shrine of Harpocrates.

The second service was held at two o'clock in the afternoon, but we do not possess exact information in regard to it. It is, perhaps, depicted in a fresco painting from Herculaneum (Fig. 81), the subject of which is a solemn act in the worship of Isis, the adoration of the holy water. In the portico of the temple, above the steps, two priests and a priestess are standing. The priest in the middle holds in front of him, in the folds of his robe, a vessel containing the holy water, which was supposed to be from the Nile; his two associates are shaking the sistrum. There is an altar at the foot of the steps; a priest is fanning the fire into flame. On the right and the left of the altar are the worshippers, with other priests, part of whom are shaking the sistrum, while a fluteplayer sits in the foreground at the right.

Another painting, the counterpart of that just described, seems to portray the celebration of a festival; the surroundings correspond fairly well with those of our temple. The doors are thrown back; a dark-visaged man, wearing a wreath, is dancing in the doorway. Behind him, within the temple, are the musicians, among whom can be distinguished a girl striking the cymbals and a woman with a tambourine. About the steps are priests and other worshippers, shaking the sistrum and offering prayer; in front stands a burning altar. An important festival of Isis occurred in November. It commenced with an impassioned lamentation over the death of Osiris and the search for his body. On the third day, November 12, the finding of the body by Isis was celebrated with great rejoicing. So, perhaps, in this painting the dance is a manifestation of the joy with which the festival ended, the whole picture being a scene from the observance of the Egyptian Easter.

In such celebrations use would be made of the small brazier of bronze found in the court in front of our temple, on which incense could be burned. The ablutions, which played so important a part in Egyptian rites, were performed in the rear of the court, where stood a cylindrical leaden vessel, adorned with Egyptian figures in relief; a jet fell into it from a lead pipe connected with the city aqueduct.

The small building at the southeast corner of the court, which is known as the Purgatorium, was open to the sky. It was made to look like a roofed structure by the addition of gables at the ends. On the inside, at the rear, a flight of steps leads down toward the right to a vaulted underground chamber, about five feet wide and six and a half feet long. The inner part of the chamber, divided off by a low wall, was evidently intended for a tank. In one of the corners in the front part is a low base, on which a jar could be set while it was being filled. Here the holy Nile water—more or less genuine—was kept for use in the sacred rites.

The purpose of the tank is suggested by certain of the stucco reliefs on the outside of the enclosing wall. In the gable, above the entrance, is a vase, standing out from a blue ground, with a kneeling figure on either side. The frieze contains Egyptian priests and priestesses, also on a blue ground, with their faces turned toward the vessel (Fig. 82). The figures are all worshipping the sacred water in the vase.