cave canem
       KAH-weh KAH-nem       beware of the dog

This friendly warning, commonly inscribed on doors of Roman homes, was found on the door of a house in Pompeii during excavation of that ancient city, rediscovered in1748.

Pompeii had been buried during an eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79. Finding a homely reminder of the day -today lives of ancient people whose lives were snuffed out suddenly by catastrophe reinforces the validity of the warning found on old clocks: ULTIMA FORSAN (UUL-tih-mah FAWR-sahn), "perhaps the last hour." The inhabitants of Pompeii had little warning their time had come.

How many of them had followed the injunction CARPE DIEM?