This picture existed in a house behind the chalcidicum and the temple called of Mercury or Romulus. Some have thought it the habitation of the chief of the Augustales, being near the Pantheon, or, as it is now called, the Temple of Augustus. The colours, which are at present subdued by a predominant tint of red, must have been changed by heat or moisture, like almost every other picture at Pompeii. The composition is agreeable ; and the porticos running far out into the sea are, in all probability, representations of scenes really existing in Italy at the time when the painting was executed. It would be difficult for a painter to invent objects which had no prototype whatever ; and the remains of piers in the sea, along the whole toast of Naples, probably point out the situations of many such colonnades, though travellers usually account for their existence by the supposition that the sea has encroached upon the shore. The house goes by the name of the House of Venus and Mars, or the Marriage of Hercules. Upon the pedestal with the long inscription was a leaden vase, according to Iorio.