Jet d'eau; from the arabesque paintings of Pompeii.

Annexed is a view of one of the public fountains which stands in biviis, that is, at the point of division between two diverging streets not far from the Gate of Herculaneum. Behind it is a square building, called by Mazois its castellum, or reservoir. There is some difficulty, as it appears to us, in acceding to this, for there is a door in the shaded side of the building (scarcely visible in our engraving), the bottom of which is hardly as high as the orifice of the fountain itself. No head of water, therefore, could have been kept here, unless we suppose that there was an interior cistern, which this outer shell was merely intended to protect. It may have been meant for the reception of the calices of private pipes, such as we have above spoken of, which must of course have been accessible to the superintendent; or to protect some large cock for opening or closing the main water-pipes, like that contained in the Museum at Naples, discovered at Capri during the excavations which were made in the palace of Tiberius. Time having firmly cemented the parts together, the water in its cavity has remained hermetically sealed during seventeen or eighteen centuries. Travellers are shown this curious piece of antiquity, which being lifted and shaken by two men, the splashing sound of the contained fluid is distinctly heard. There is nothing at all remarkable in the fountain just described, which consists, as usual, of a pipe spouting into a square trough : the mask, if ever there were any, is gone.

Fountain in Bivlis near the Gate of Herculaneum.

The figures on the castellum are a painting, now entirely effaced, representing a sacrifice to the Lares Compitales, the' deities of the highways : beneath it is a small altar dedicated to them. These little gods were the sons of Lara, who was sent down to the infernal regions for having made too free a use of her tongue, and of Mercury, who was appointed her conductor. They loitered on the road, and Lara bore twins, who, as a natural consequence of the circumstances to which they owed their birth, and of their father's vocation, became the guardians of roads. Being only two at first, they multiplied with singular rapidity. Cross roads, ships, public buildings, were all placed under the superintendence of a peculiar tribe; and they obtained the names marini, publici, familiares, compitales, &c., according to the class of objects of which they severally took charge. Augustus re-established their worship after it had fallen into disuse, and ordered that twice a year their images should be crowned with flowers, and adorned with garlands, and fruits offered on their altars. The painting on the castellum represents this ceremony. They were often, represented under the form of serpents, and the paintings which so frequently recur in Pompeii of large serpents, usually in the act of tasting offerings placed on a low altar, and often with a projecting brick or small shelf before them, to receive fruit or a lighted lamp, are in honour of the Lares, and were supposed to sanctify the spot and secure it from pollution.