Jan., 191 2. Antiquities from Boscoreale. 179 



back it seems to rest on top of the columns but is presumably to be 

 thought of as showing above them from behind. On these ends rest 

 winged figures of a drab color, doubtless griffins. 1 Between the ends 

 rises a band resembling the cornice of a gable, which forms the top of 

 the back part of the enclosure. Its upper border of circumscribed 

 palmettes is colored yellow ochre; the remainder, though much faded, 

 shows at the bottom traces of chrome green, above which is a yellow 

 line. 



The upper part of this structure is a ring or hoop supported by four 

 long legs which rest on the cross-piece between the capitals. The two 

 front legs, which are larger than the others, seem to be constructed of 

 vertical rods with openwork between them, and are ornamented on the 

 outer edges with short spurs and a spray of tall leaves which rise from 

 the bottom. The other legs, which are round and about half as large, 

 have Ionic volutes at the top, and, at either side just below the gable- 

 band, a sort of projecting ear or leaf. At the bottom there are low bases 

 underneath all the legs, and, between the front and back legs at either 

 side, an ornamented chrome green plaque, probably conceived to be of 

 bronze. On top of the hoop, above the smaller legs, repose crouch- 

 ing winged figures, which probably represent sphinxes. The color 

 of the upper structure was probably originally for the most part yel- 

 low. The front legs show traces of greenish yellow. 



Of the horizontal bands which ornament the wall-surface the lower 

 was painted before the legs of the upper structure, and makes no allow- 

 ance for them; the upper, which is at the right of the hoop, leaves a 

 space for it. From the points where this band and the hoop are nearest 

 together, dark red stripes with edges of white extend upward nearly to 

 the top of the fresco, where a similar slightly arched stripe connects 

 them. The idea suggested is that of a canopy above the upper structure. 



The probability that the right side of the fresco is incomplete renders 

 the character of its decoration somewhat uncertain. In the lower part 

 of the field an entablature with greenish white architrave, dark, violet- 

 colored frieze and a wide cornice, which projects at the left end as far 

 as the column at the right of the blue apse, is supported at the left by 

 a slender, greenish white Ionic column, and at the right by a column 

 which is similar except that it is thicker and perhaps lacks fiutings. 

 The right end of the entablature turns backward obliquely. On the 

 frieze, there are yellowish ornaments, one of which is a spiral, the others 

 indistinct. Beneath the architrave, at the right of the second column, 

 there is a greenish object, perhaps a curtain or lambrequin. Above this 



1 They may be placed here rather than on the columns intentionally es ornaments of the back part 

 of the structure and not through carelessness in drawing. 



