CHAPTER II. INTRODUCTORY—STREET AND GENERAL ADVERTISING.

WALL INSCRIPTIONS IN POMPEII.—Signor Raphael Garrucci,
to whom we are indebted for these Plates, in commenting
upon Group 5 (LX., IIII., IIII., VII., ZV., Ε., ΓΑ., III., S., CIA.), says, “I will now give my
opinion upon this strange combination of Greek and Roman signs—it seems to me a custom introduced even at Rome
since the epoch of Augustus, to mingle the Greek numeral elements with Latin signs.” — WALL INSCRIPTIONS IN POMPEII.—Signor Raphael Garrucci, to whom we are indebted for these Plates, in commenting upon Group 5 (LX., IIII., IIII., VII., ZV., Ε., ΓΑ., III., S., CIA.), says, “I will now give my opinion upon this strange combination of Greek and Roman signs—it seems to me a custom introduced even at Rome since the epoch of Augustus, to mingle the Greek numeral elements with Latin signs.”

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Street advertising, in its most original form among us, was therefore without doubt derived from the Romans; and this system gradually grew, until, in the Middle Ages, there was hardly a house of business without its distinctive sign or advertisement; which was the more necessary, as in those days numbers to houses were unknown. “In the Middle Ages the houses of the nobility, both in town and country, when the family was absent, were used as hostelries for travellers. The family arms always hung in front of the house, and the most conspicuous object in those arms gave a name to the establishment amongst travellers, who, unacquainted with the mysteries of heraldry, called a lion gules or azure