In its interstices Spring was forming green grass plots dotted with flowers.

Carriages,--of whose owners not even the dust was left,--had with their deep wheels opened up ridges in the pavement more than a thousand years ago.

In every crossway was a public fountain with a grotesque mask which had spouted water through its mouth.
Certain red letters on the walls were announcements of elections to be held in the beginning of that era,--candidates for aedile or duumvir who were recommended to the Pompeiian voters.

Some doors showed above, the _phallus_ for conjuring the evil eyes; others, a pair of serpents intertwined, emblem of family life.

In the corners of the alleyways, a Latin verse engraved on the walls asked the passerby to observe the laws of sanitation, and there still could be seen on the stuccoed walls caricatures and scribbling, handiwork of the little street gamins of Caesar's day.
The houses were lightly constructed upon floors cracked by minor earthquakes before the arrival of the final catastrophe.