ONE of the most difficult points of investigation throughout the whole range of Roman antiquities, which bear on domestic life, is the discussion on the several divisions of the house, their position and relation to each other. We might fancy, after all the excavations in Herculaneum, and more especially in Pompeii, where the buildings have been laid open to our view, that the greatest light would have been thrown on this point; but we should greatly err were we to take the houses in the latter city as a criterion of the regular Roman house. It is true that they have much similarity; indeed, the habitations of antiquity generally were by no means so various in their arrangements as are those of our own times; for the situation and disposition of certain parts were alike in all. Still there were many parts belonging to a large Roman mansion which those living in provincial towns did not require; and thus from its being supposed that these remains present a true picture, though on a small scale, of what the others were, additional error has crept into the matter. Comp. Hirt, Gesch. der Bauk, iii. 323.