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He bought up private houses and there built his palace with luxurious splendour: an atrium upheld by four pilasters and eight columns; a peristylium encompassed by fifty-six Ionic columns; private apartments all around, and all in marble; a profusion of marble, brought at great cost from foreign lands, and of the brightest hues, resplendent like gems.
I am in some anxiety to-night. Gabinius, Lucius Ahenobarbus's friend, is in the city. He means, I fear, to work me some mischief, though the cause whereby I have good reason to dread him is too long here to write. The Atrium Vestæ has nothing to protect it to-night as you well may understand from impious, violent men. Can you not guard me overnight? I do not know how.
"I thought you might be thinking of breakfast. I must be going back to my hotel. These rooms are too hot and horrible. Good night." "I will see you to the lift, if you'll allow me," he said politely. She graciously assented and they left the rooms together. In the atrium she changed her mind about the lift.
Alarm was roused in all present; for Cæsar, in communications with friends, did not employ pretorians usually, and their arrival at such times foreboded no good. Petronius alone showed not the slightest emotion, but said, like a man annoyed by continual visits, "They might let me dine in peace." Then turning to the chief of the atrium, he said, "Let him enter."
The bearers protested loudly at the weight of their burden when they lifted the lectica, but the promise of a little extra pay silenced their complaints. They were scarcely beyond the city when Beric, who was weaker from loss of blood than he imagined, dozed off to sleep, and did not wake till the lectica was set down in the atrium of the house on the Alban Hills.
'Never fear, answered Clodius; 'old Diomed is delighted at the notion of marrying his daughter to a nobleman, and will come down largely with the sesterces. You will see that I shall not lock them up in the atrium. It will be a white day for his jolly friends, when Clodius marries an heiress. 'Say you so? cried Lepidus; 'come, then, a full cup to the health of the fair Julia!
The Roman part was retained for reception rooms, and the Lar, the Penates, and Vesta, with their respective seats, retired into the new apartments for privacy. When the usual crowd of morning callers came to wait upon a great man, they would not as a rule penetrate farther than the atrium, and there he might keep them waiting as long as he pleased.
This does not occur in the Pompeian houses. Marked a, a, on the plans. Vitruvius, however, seems to use the terms atrium and cavædium as quite synonymous. Marked respectively c, and f, f, on the plan of the House of Pansa. Marked b, b, on the plans. At the Crystal Palace can be seen an interesting reproduction of a Pompeian house, which was designed by the late Sir Digby Wyatt.
There were many doors on the right and left of the atrium, leading, doubtless, to sleeping-chambers; he tried them, but they were all firmly fastened. Knocking might bring response. Ashamed to make outcry, he betook himself to a couch, and, lying down, tried to reflect. All too plainly he was a prisoner; but for what purpose? and by whom? If the work were Messala's!
Paula watched him depart; as soon as she heard the heavy door of the atrium close upon him, heedless of her own suspicious-looking position, she shouted for help, so loudly that her cries rang through the nocturnal silence of the house, and in a few minutes, from this side and that, a slave, a maid, a clerk, a cook, a watchman, came hurrying in.
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