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Title: The Wonders of Pompeii

Author: Marc Monnier

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Language: English

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[Illustration: Recent Excavations made at Pompeii under the Direction of
Inspector Fiorelli, in 1860.]




THE WONDERS OF POMPEII.

BY

MARC MONNIER.


TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL FRENCH.


NEW YORK:
CHARLES SCRIBNER & CO.,
654 BROADWAY.
1871.




=Illustrated Library of Wonders.=

PUBLISHED BY

Messrs. Charles Scribner & Co.,

654 BROADWAY, NEW YORK.

Each one volume 12mo,                        Price per volume $1.50

       *       *       *       *       *

Titles of books.                               No. of Illustrations

  THUNDER AND LIGHTNING,                                89
  WONDERS OF OPTICS,                                    70
  WONDERS OF HEAT,                                      90
  INTELLIGENCE OF ANIMALS,                              54
  GREAT HUNTS,                                          22
  EGYPT 3,300 YEARS AGO,                                40
  WONDERS OF POMPEII,                                   22
  THE SUN, BY A. GUILLEMIN,                             58
  SUBLIME IN NATURE,                                    50
  WONDERS OF GLASS-MAKING,                              63
  WONDERS OF ITALIAN ART,                               28
  WONDERS OF THE HUMAN BODY,                            45
  WONDERS OF ARCHITECTURE,                              50
  LIGHTHOUSES AND LIGHTSHIPS,                           60
  BOTTOM OF THE OCEAN,                                  68
  WONDERS OF BODILY STRENGTH AND SKILL,                 70
  WONDERFUL BALLON ASCENTS,                             80
  ACOUSTICS,                                           114
  WONDERS OF THE HEAVENS,                               48
* THE MOON, BY A. GUILLEMIN,                            60
* WONDERS OF SCULPTURE,                                 61
  WONDERS OF ENGRAVING,                                 32
* WONDERS OF VEGETATION,                                45
* WONDERS OF THE INVISIBLE WORLD,                       97
* CELEBRATED ESCAPES,                                   26
* WATER,                                                77
* HYDRAULICS,                                           40
* ELECTRICITY,                                          71
* SUBTERRANEAN WORLDS,                                  27


* In Press for early publication

_The above works sent to any address, post paid, upon receipt of the
price by the publishers._




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.


                                                 Facing page

Recent Excavations Made at Pompeii in 1860, under
  the Direction of the Inspector, Signor Fiorelli         25

The Rubbish Trucks Going up Empty                         30

Clearing out a Narrow Street in Pompeii                   33

Plan of Vesuvius                                          39

The Forum                                                 42

Discovery of Loaves Baked 1800 Years Ago, in the
  oven of a Baker                                         84

Closed House, with a Balcony, Recently Discovered         87

The Nola Gate at Pompeii                                  96

The Herculaneum Gate Restored                             99

The Tepidarium, at the Thermæ                            126

The Atrium of the House of Pansa Restored                138

Candelabra, Trinkets, and Kitchen Utensils Found at
  Pompeii                                                148

Kitchen Utensils found at Pompeii                        150

Earthenware and Bronze Lamps Found at Pompeii            154

Collar, Ring, Bracelet, and Ear-rings Found at Pompeii   158

Peristyle of the House of Quæstor, at Pompeii            167

The House of Lucretius                                   169

The Exædra of the House of the Poet                      185

The Exædra of the House of the Poet--Second View         189

The Smaller Theatre at Pompeii                           206

The Amphitheatre at Pompeii                              220

Bodies of Pompeians Cast in the Ashes of the Eruption    239




CONTENTS.


I.

THE EXHUMED CITY.
                                                              Page
The Antique Landscape.--The History of Pompeii Before
   and After its Destruction.--How it was Buried and
   Exhumed.--Winkelmann as a Prophet.--The Excavations
   in the Reign of Charles III., of Murat, and of
   Ferdinand.--The Excavations as they now are.--Signor
   Fiorelli.--Appearance of the Ruins.--What is and What
   is not found there.                                          13


II.

THE FORUM.

Diomed's Inn.--The Niche of Minerva.--The Appearance
   and The Monuments of the Forum.--The Antique
   Temple.--The Pagan ex-Voto Offerings.--The Merchants'
   City Exchange and the Petty Exchange.--The Pantheon,
   or was it a Temple, a Slaughter-house, or a
   Tavern?--The Style of Cooking, and the Form of
   Religion.--The Temple of Venus.--The Basilica.--The
   Inscriptions of Passers-by upon the Walls.--The Forum
   Rebuilt.                                                     37


III.

THE STREET.

The Plan of Pompeii.--The Princely Names of the
   Houses.--Appearance of the Streets, Pavements, Sidewalks,
   etc.--The Shops and the Signs.--The Perfumer, the Surgeon,
   etc.--An Ancient Manufactory.--Bathing
   Establishments.--Wine-shops, Disreputable Resorts.--Hanging
   Balconies, Fountains.--Public Placards: Let us
   Nominate Battur! Commit no Nuisance!--Religion on
   the Street.                                                  67


IV.

THE SUBURBS.

The Custom House.--The Fortifications and the Gates,--The
   Roman Highways.--The Cemetery of Pompeii.--Funerals:
   the Procession, the funeral Pyre, the Day of
   the Dead.--The Tombs and their Inscriptions.--Perpetual
   Leases.--Burial of the Rich, of Animals, and of
   the Poor.--The Villas of Diomed and Cicero.                  93


V.

THE THERMÆ.

The Hot Baths at Rome.--The Thermæ of Stabiæ.--A
   Tilt at Sun Dials.--A Complete Bath, as the Ancients
   Considered It: the Apartments, the Slaves, the Unguents,
   the Strigillæ.--A Saying of the Emperor Hadrian.--The
   Baths for Women.--The Reading Room.--The
   Roman Newspaper.--The Heating-Apparatus.                    120


VI.

THE DWELLINGS.

Paratus and Pansa.--The Atrium and the Peristyle.--The
   Dwelling Refurnished and Repeopled.--The Slaves, the
   Kitchen, and the Table.--The Morning Occupations of
   a Pompeian.--The Toilet of a Pompeian Lady.--A Citizen
   Supper: the Courses, the Guests.--The Homes of
   the Poor, and the Palaces of Rome.                          135


VII.

ART IN POMPEII.

The Homes of the Wealthy.--The Triangular Forum and
   the Temples.--Pompeian Architecture: Its Merits and
   its Defects.--The Artists of the Little City.--The
   Paintings here.--Landscapes, Figures, Rope-dancers,
   Dancing-girls, Centaurs, Gods, Heroes, the Iliad
   Illustrated.--Mosaics.--Statues and
   Statuettes.--Jewelry.--Carved Glass.--Art and Life.         167


VIII.

THE THEATRES.

The Arrangement of the Places of Amusement.--Entrance
   Tickets.--The Velarium, the Orchestra, the Stage.--The
   Odeon.--The Holconii.--The Side Scenes, the Masks.--The
   Atellan Farces.--The Mimes.--Jugglers, etc.--A
   Remark of Cicero on the Melodramas.--The Barrack
   of the Gladiators.--Scratched Inscriptions, Instruments
   of Torture.--The Pompeian Gladiators.--The Amphitheatre:
   Hunts, Combats, Butcheries, etc.                            199


IX.

THE ERUPTION.

The Deluge of Ashes.--The Deluge of Fire.--The Flight
   of the Pompeians.--The Preoccupations of the Pompeian
   Women.--The Victims: the Family of Diomed; the
   Sentinel; the Woman Walled up in a Tomb; the Priest
   of Isis; the Lovers clinging together, etc.--The
   Skeletons.--The Dead Bodies moulded by Vesuvius.            232



DIALOGUE.

(IN A BOOKSTORE AT NAPLES.)


A TRAVELLER (_entering_).--Have you any work on Pompeii?

THE SALESMAN.--Yes; we have several. Here, for instance, is
Bulwer's "Last Days of Pompeii."

TRAVELLER.--Too thoroughly romantic.

SALESMAN.--Well, here are the folios of Mazois.

TRAVELLER.--Too heavy.

SALESMAN.--Here's Dumas's "Corricolo."

TRAVELLER.--Too light.

SALESMAN.--How would Nicolini's magnificent work suit you?

TRAVELLER.--Oh! that's too dear.

SALESMAN.--Here's Commander Aloë's "Guide."

TRAVELLER.--That's too dry.

SALESMAN.--Neither dry, nor romantic, nor light, nor heavy!
What, then, would you have, sir?

TRAVELLER.--A small, portable work; accurate, conscientious,
and within everybody's reach.

SALESMAN.--Ah, sir, we have nothing of that kind; besides, it
is impossible to get up such a work.

THE AUTHOR (_aside_).--Who knows?




THE

WONDERS OF POMPEII.




I.

THE EXHUMED CITY.

     THE ANTIQUE LANDSCAPE--THE HISTORY OF POMPEII BEFORE AND AFTER
     ITS DESTRUCTION.--HOW IT WAS BURIED AND EXHUMED.--WINKELMANN AS A
     PROPHET.--THE EXCAVATIONS IN THE REIGN OF CHARLES III., OF MURAT,
     AND OF FERDINAND.--THE EXCAVATIONS AS THEY NOW ARE.--SIGNOR
     FIORELLI.--APPEARANCE OF THE RUINS.--WHAT IS AND WHAT IS NOT FOUND
     THERE.


A railroad runs from Naples to Pompeii. Are you alone? The trip occupies
one hour, and you have just time enough to read what follows, pausing
once in a while to glance at Vesuvius and the sea; the clear, bright
waters hemmed in by the gentle curve of the promontories; a bluish coast
that approaches and becomes green; a green coast that withdraws into the
distance and becomes blue; Castellamare looming up, and Naples receding.
All these lines and colors existed too at the time when Pompeii was
destroyed: the island of Prochyta, the cities of Baiæ, of Bauli, of
Neapolis, and of Surrentum bore the names that they retain. Portici was
called Herculaneum; Torre dell'Annunziata was called Oplontes;
Castellamare, Stabiæ; Misenum and Minerva designated the two extremities
of the gulf. However, Vesuvius was not what it has become; fertile and
wooded almost to the summit, covered with orchards and vines, it must
have resembled the picturesque heights of Monte San Angelo, toward which
we are rolling. The summit alone, honeycombed with caverns and covered
with black stones, betrayed to the learned a volcano "long extinct." It
was to blaze out again, however, in a terrible eruption; and, since
then, it has constantly flamed and smoked, menacing the ruins it has
made and the new cities that brave it, calmly reposing at its feet.

What do you expect to find at Pompeii? At a distance, its antiquity
seems enormous, and the word "ruins" awakens colossal conceptions in the
excited fancy of the traveller. But, be not self-deceived; that is the
first rule in knocking about over the world. Pompeii was a small city of
only thirty thousand souls; something like what Geneva was thirty years
ago. Like Geneva, too, it was marvellously situated--in the depth of a
picturesque valley between mountains shutting in the horizon on one
side, at a few steps from the sea and from a streamlet, once a river,
which plunges into it--and by its charming site attracted personages of
distinction, although it was peopled chiefly with merchants and others
in easy circumstances; shrewd, prudent folk, and probably honest and
clever enough, as well. The etymologists, after having exhausted, in
their lexicons, all the words that chime in sound with Pompeii, have, at
length, agreed in deriving the name from a Greek verb which signifies
_to send, to transport_, and hence they conclude that many of the
Pompeians were engaged in exportation, or perhaps, were emigrants sent
from a distance to form a colony. Yet these opinions are but
conjectures, and it is useless to dwell on them.

All that can be positively stated is that the city was the entrepôt of
the trade of Nola, Nocera, and Atella. Its port was large enough to
receive a naval armament, for it sheltered the fleet of P. Cornelius.
This port, mentioned by certain authors, has led many to believe that
the sea washed the walls of Pompeii, and some guides have even thought
they could discover the rings that once held the cables of the galleys.
Unfortunately for this idea, at the place which the imagination of some
of our contemporaries covered with salt water, there were one day
discovered the vestiges of old structures, and it is now conceded that
Pompeii, like many other seaside places, had its harbor at a distance.
Our little city made no great noise in history. Tacitus and Seneca speak
of it as celebrated, but the Italians of all periods have been fond of
superlatives. You will find some very old buildings in it, proclaiming
an ancient origin, and Oscan inscriptions recalling the antique language
of the country. When the Samnites invaded the whole of Campania, as
though to deliver it over more easily to Rome, they probably occupied
Pompeii, which figured in the second Samnite war, B.C. 310, and which,
revolting along with the entire valley of the Sarno from Nocera to
Stabiæ, repulsed an incursion of the Romans and drove them back to their
vessels. The third Samnite war was, as is well known, a bloody vengeance
for this, and Pompeii became Roman. Although the yoke of the conquerors
was not very heavy--the _municipii_, retaining their Senate, their
magistrates, their _comitiæ_ or councils, and paying a tribute of men
only in case of war--the Samnite populations, clinging frantically to
the idea of a separate and independent existence, rose twice again in
revolt; once just after the battle of Cannæ, when they threw themselves
into the arms of Hannibal, and then against Sylla, one hundred and
twenty-four years later--facts that prove the tenacity of their
resistance. On both occasions Pompeii was retaken, and the second time
partly dismantled and occupied by a detachment of soldiers, who did not
long remain there. And thus we have the whole history of this little
city. The Romans were fond of living there, and Cicero had a residence
in the place, to which he frequently refers in his letters. Augustus
sent thither a colony which founded the suburb of Augustus Felix,
administered by a mayor. The Emperor Claudius also had a villa at
Pompeii, and there lost one of his children, who perished by a singular
mishap. The imperial lad was amusing himself, as the Neapolitan boys do
to this day, by throwing pears up into the air and catching them in his
mouth as they fell. One of the fruits choked him by descending too far
into his throat. But the Neapolitan youngsters perform the feat with
figs, which render it infinitely less dangerous.

We are, then, going to visit a small city subordinate to Rome, much less
than Marseilles is to Paris, and a little more so than Geneva is to
Berne. Pompeii had almost nothing to do with the Senate or the Emperor.
The old tongue--the Oscan--had ceased to be official, and the
authorities issued their orders in Latin. The residents of the place
were Roman citizens, Rome being recognized as the capital and
fatherland. The local legislation was made secondary to Roman
legislation. But, excepting these reservations, Pompeii formed a little
world, apart, independent, and complete in itself. She had a miniature
Senate, composed of decurions; an aristocracy in epitome, represented by
the _Augustales_, answering to knights; and then came her _plebs_ or
common people. She chose her own pontiffs, convoked the comitiæ,
promulged municipal laws, regulated military levies, collected taxes; in
fine selected her own immediate rulers--her consuls (the duumvirs
dispensing justice), her ediles, her quæstors, etc. Hence, it is not a
provincial city that we are to survey, but a petty State which had
preserved its autonomy within the unity of the Empire, and was, as has
been cleverly said, a miniature of Rome.

Another circumstance imparts a peculiar interest to Pompeii. That city,
which seemed to have no good luck, had been violently shaken by
earthquake in the year B.C. 63. Several temples had toppled down along
with the colonnade of the Forum, the great Basilica, and the theatres,
without counting the tombs and houses. Nearly every family fled from the
place, taking with them their furniture and their statuary; and the
Senate hesitated a long time before they allowed the city to be rebuilt
and the deserted district to be re-peopled. The Pompeians at last
returned; but the decurions wished to make the restoration of the place
a complete rejuvenation. The columns of the Forum speedily reappeared,
but with capitals in the fashion of the day; the Corinthian-Roman order,
adopted almost everywhere, changed the style of the monuments; the old
shafts covered with stucco were patched up for the new topwork they were
to receive, and the Oscan inscriptions disappeared. From all this there
sprang great blunders in an artistic point of view, but a uniformity
and consistency that please those who are fond of monuments and cities
of one continuous derivation. Taste loses, but harmony gains thereby,
and you pass in review a collective totality of edifices that bear their
age upon their fronts, and give a very exact and vivid idea of what a
_municeps_ a Roman colony must have been in the time of Vespasian.

They went to work, then, to rebuild the city, and the undertaking was
pushed on quite vigorously, thanks to the contributions of the
Pompeians, especially of the functionaries. The temples of Jupiter and
of Venus--we adopt the consecrated names--and those of Isis and of
Fortune, were already up; the theatres were rising again; the handsome
columns of the Forum were ranging themselves under their porticoes; the
residences were gay with brilliant paintings; work and pleasure had both
resumed their activity; life hurried to and fro through the streets, and
crowds thronged the amphitheatre, when, all at once, burst forth the
terrible eruption of 79. I will describe it further on; but here simply
recall the fact that it buried Pompeii under a deluge of stones and
ashes. This re-awakening of the volcano destroyed three cities, without
counting the villages, and depopulated the country in the twinkling of
an eye.

After the catastrophe, however, the inhabitants returned, and made the
first excavations in order to recover their valuables; and robbers,
too--we shall surprise them in the very act--crept into the subterranean
city. It is a fact that the Emperor Titus for a moment entertained the
idea of clearing and restoring it, and with that view sent two Senators
to the spot, intrusted with the mission of making the first study of the
ground; but it would appear that the magnitude of the work appalled
those dignitaries, and that the restoration in question never got beyond
the condition of a mere project. Rome soon had more serious cares to
occupy her than the fate of a petty city that ere long disappeared
beneath vineyards, orchards, and gardens, and under a thick growth of
woodland--remark this latter circumstance--until, at length, centuries
accumulated, and with them the forgetfulness that buries all things.
Pompeii was then, so to speak, lost, and the few learned men who knew it
by name could not point out its site. When, at the close of the
sixteenth century, the architect Fontana was constructing a subterranean
canal to convey the waters of the Sarno to Torre dell' Annunziata, the
conduit passed through Pompeii, from one end to the other, piercing the
walls, following the old streets, and coming upon sub structures and
inscriptions; but no one bethought him that they had discovered the
place of the buried city. However, the amphitheatre, which, roofed in by
a layer of the soil, formed a regular excavation, indicated an ancient
edifice, and the neighboring peasantry, with better information than the
learned, designated by the half-Latin name of _Civita_, which dim
tradition had handed down, the soil and debris that had accumulated
above Pompeii.

It was only in 1748, under the reign of Charles III, when the discovery
of Herculaneum had attracted the attention of the world to the
antiquities thus buried, that, some vine-dressers having struck upon
some old walls with their picks and spades, and in so doing unearthed
statues, a colonel of engineers named Don Rocco Alcubierra asked
permission of the king to make excavations in the vicinity. The king
consented and placed a dozen of galley-slaves at the colonel's
disposition. Thus it was that by a lucky chance a military engineer
discovered the city that we are about to visit. Still, eight years more
had to roll away before any one suspected that it was Pompeii which they
were thus exhuming. Learned folks thought they were dealing with Stabiæ.

Shall I relate the history of these underground researches, "badly
conducted, frequently abandoned, and resumed in obedience to the same
capriciousness that had led to their suspension," as they were? Such are
the words of the opinion Barthelemy expressed when writing, in 1755, to
the Count de Caylus. Winkelmann, who was present at these excavations a
few years later, sharply criticised the tardiness of the galley-slaves
to whom the work had been confided. "At this rate," he wrote, "our
descendants of the fourth generation will still have digging to do among
these ruins." The illustrious German hardly suspected that he was making
so accurate a prediction as it has turned out to be. The descendants of
the fourth generation are our contemporaries, and the third part of
Pompeii is not yet unearthed.

The Emperor Joseph II. visited the excavations on the 6th of April,
1796, and complained bitterly to King Ferdinand IV. of the slight degree
of zeal and the small amount of money employed. The king promised to do
better, but did not keep his word. He had neither intelligence nor
activity in prosecuting this immense task, excepting while the French
occupation lasted. At that time, however, the government carried out the
idea of Francesco La Vega, a man of sense and capacity, and purchased
all the ground that covered Pompeii. Queen Caroline, the sister of
Bonaparte and wife of Murat, took a fancy to these excavations and
pushed them vigorously, often going all the way from Naples through six
leagues of dust to visit them. In 1813 there were exactly four hundred
and seventy-six laborers employed at Pompeii. The Bourbons returned and
commenced by re-selling the ground that had been purchased under Murat;
then, little by little, the work continued, at first with some activity,
then fell off and slackened more and more until, from being neglected,
they were altogether abandoned, and were resumed only once in a while in
the presence of crowned heads. On these occasions they were got up like
New Year's surprise games: everything that happened to be at hand was
scattered about on layers of ashes and of pumice-stone and carefully
covered over. Then, upon the arrival of such-and-such a majesty, or this
or that highness, the magic wand of the superintendent or inspector of
the works, caused all these treasures to spring out of the ground. I
could name, one after the other, the august personages who were deceived
in this manner, beginning with the Kings of the Two Sicilies and of
Jerusalem.

But that is not all. Not only was nothing more discovered at Pompeii,
but even the monuments that had been found were not preserved. King
Ferdinand soon discovered that the 25,000 francs applied to the
excavations were badly employed; he reduced the sum to 10,000, and that
amount was worn down on the way by passing through so many hands.
Pompeii fell back, gradually presenting nothing but ruins upon ruins.

Happily, the Italian Government established by the revolution of 1860,
came into power to set all these acts of negligence and roguery to
rights. Signor Fiorelli, who is all intelligence and activity, not to
mention his erudition, which numerous writings prove, was appointed
inspector of the excavations. Under his administration, the works which
had been vigorously resumed were pushed on by as many as seven hundred
laborers at a time, and they dug out in the lapse of three years more
treasures than had been brought to light in the thirty that preceded
them. Everything has been reformed, nay, _moralised_, as it were, in the
dead city; the visitor pays two francs at the gate and no longer has to
contend with the horde of guides, doorkeepers, rapscallions, and beggars
who formerly plundered him. A small museum, recently established,
furnishes the active inquirer the opportunity of examining upon the spot
the curiosities that have already been discovered; a library containing
the fine works of Mazois, of Raoul Rochette, of Gell, of Zahn, of
Overbeck, of Breton, etc., on Pompeii, enables the student to consult
them in Pompeii itself; workshops lately opened are continually busy in
restoring cracked walls, marbles, and bronzes, and one may there
surprise the artist Bramante, the most ingenious hand at repairing
antiquities in the world, as likewise my friend, Padiglione, who, with
admirable patience and minute fidelity, is cutting a small model in cork
of the ruins that have been cleared, which is scrupulously exact. In
fine--and this is the main point--the excavations are no longer carried
on occasionally only, and in the presence of a few privileged persons,
but before the first comer and every day, unless funds have run short.

"I have frequently been present," wrote a half-Pompeian, a year or two
ago, in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_--"I have frequently been present for
hours together, seated on a sand-bank which itself, perhaps, concealed
wonders, and witnessed this rude yet interesting toil, from which I
could not withdraw my gaze. I therefore have it in my power to write
understandingly. I do not relate what I read, but what I saw. Three
systems, to my knowledge, have been employed in these excavations. The
first, inaugurated under Charles III., was the simplest. It consisted in
hollowing out the soil, in extricating the precious objects found, and
then in re-filling the orifice--an excellent method of forming a museum
by destroying Pompeii. This method was abandoned so soon as it was
discovered that a whole city was involved. The second system, which was
gradually brought to perfection in the last century, was earnestly
pursued under Murat. The work was started in many places at once, and
the laborers, advancing one after the other, penetrating and cutting the
hill, followed the line of the streets, which they cleared little by
little before them. In following the streets on the ground-level, the
declivity of ashes and pumice-stone which obstructed them was attacked
below, and thence resulted many regrettable accidents. The whole upper
part of the houses, commencing with the roofs, fell in among the
rubbish, along with a thousand fragile articles, which were broken and
lost without there being any means of determining the point from which
they had been hurled down. In order to obviate this inconvenience,
Signor Fiorelli has started a third system. He does not follow the
streets by the ground-level, but he marks them out over the hillocks,
and thus traces among the trees and cultivated grounds wide squares
indicating the subterranean, islets. No one is ignorant of the fact that
these islets--_isole, insulæ_ in the modern as well as in the ancient
language of Italy--indicate blocks of buildings. The islet traced,
Signor Fiorelli repurchases the land which had been sold by King
Ferdinand I. and gives up the trees found upon it.[A]

"The ground, then, being bought and the vegetation removed, work begins.
The earth at the summit of the hill is taken off and carried away on a
railroad, which descends from the middle of Pompeii by a slope that
saves all expense of machinery and fuel, to a considerable distance
beyond the amphitheatre and the city. In this way, the most serious
question of all, to wit, that of clearing away the dirt, is solved.
Formerly, the ruins were covered in with it, and subsequently it was
heaped up in a huge hillock, but now it helps to construct the very
railroad that carries it away, and will, one day, tip it into the sea.

"Nothing can present a livelier scene than the excavation of these
ruins. Men diligently dig away at the earth, and bevies of young girls
run to and fro without cessation, with baskets in their hands. These
are sprightly peasant damsels collected from the adjacent villages most
of them accustomed to working in factories that have closed or curtailed
operations owing to the invasion of English tissues and the rise of
cotton. No one would have dreamed that free trade and the war in America
would have supplied female hands to work at the ruins of Pompeii. But
all things are linked together now in this great world of ours, vast as
it is. These girls then run backward and forward, filling their baskets
with soil, ashes, and _lapillo_, hoisting them on their heads, by the
help of the men, with a single quick, sharp motion, and thereupon
setting off again, in groups that incessantly replace each other, toward
the railway, passing and repassing their returning companions. Very
picturesque in their ragged gowns of brilliant colors, they walk swiftly
with lengthy strides, their long skirts defining the movements of their
naked limbs and fluttering in the wind behind them, while their arms,
with gestures like those of classic urn-bearers, sustain the heavy load
that rests upon their heads without making them even stoop. All this is
not out of keeping with the monuments that gradually appear above the
surface as the rubbish is removed. Did not the sight of foreign
visitors here and there disturb the harmony of the scene, one might
readily ask himself, in the midst of this Virgilian landscape, amid
these festooning vines, in full view of the smoking Vesuvius, and
beneath that antique sky, whether all those young girls who come and go
are not the slaves of Pansa, the ædile, or of the duumvir Holconius."

[Illustration: The Rubbish Trucks Going up Empty.]

We have just glanced over the history of Pompeii before and after its
destruction. Let us now enter the city. But a word of caution before we
start. Do not expect to find houses or monuments still erect and roofed
in like the Pantheon at Rome and the square building at Nismes, or you
will be sadly disappointed. Rather picture to yourself a small city of
low buildings and narrow streets that had been completely burned down in
a single night. You have come to look at it on the day after the
conflagration. The upper stories have disappeared, and the ceilings have
fallen in. Everything that was of wood, planks, and beams, is in ashes;
all is uncovered, and no roofs are to be seen. In these structures,
which in other days were either private dwellings or public edifices,
you now can everywhere walk under the open sky. Were a shower to come
on, you would not know where to seek shelter. It is as though you were
in a city in progress of building, with only the first stories as yet
completed, but without the flooring for the second. Here is a house:
nothing remains of it but the lower walls, with nothing resting on them.
At a distance you would suppose it to be a collection of screens set up
for parlor theatricals. Here is a public square: you will now see in it
only bottom platforms, supports that hold up nothing, shafts of columns
without galleries, pedestals without statues, mute blocks of stone,
space and emptiness. I will lead you into more than one temple. You will
see there only an eminence of masonry, side and end walls, but no front,
no portico. Where is art? Where is the presiding deity of the place? The
ruins of your stable would not be more naked a thousand years hence.
Stones on all sides, tufa, bricks, lava, here and there some slabs of
marble and travertine, then traces of destruction--paintings defaced,
pavements disjointed and full of gaps and cracks--and then marks of
spoliation, for all the precious objects found were carried off to the
museum at Naples, and I can show you now nothing but the places where
once stood the Faun, the statue of Narcissus, the mosaic of Arbelles and
the famous blue vase. Such is the Pompeii that awaits the traveller who
comes thither expecting to find another Paris, or, at least, ruins
arranged in the Parisian style, like the tower of St. Jacques, for
instance.

[Illustration: Clearing out a Narrow Street in Pompeii.]

You will say, perhaps, good reader, that I disenchant you; on the
contrary, I prevent your disenchantment. Do not prepare the way for your
own disappointment by unreasonable expectations or by ill-founded
notions; this is all that I ask of your judgment. Do not come hither to
look for the relics of Roman grandeur. Other impressions await you at
Pompeii. What you are about to see is an entire city, or at all events
the third of an ancient city, remote, detached from every modern town,
and forming in itself something isolated and complete which you will
find nowhere else. Here is no Capitol rebuilt; no Pantheon consecrated
now to the God of Christianity; no Acropolis surmounting a Danish or
Bavarian city; no Maison Carrée (as at Nismes) transformed to a gallery
of paintings and forming one of the adornments of a modern Boulevard.
At Pompeii everything is antique and eighteen centuries old; first the
sky, then the landscape, the seashore, and then the work of man,
devastated undoubtedly, but not transformed, by time. The streets are
not repaired; the high sidewalks that border them have not been lowered
for the pedestrians of our time, and we promenade upon the same stones
that were formerly trodden by the feet of Sericus the merchant and
Epaphras the slave. As we enter these narrow streets we quit, perforce,
the year in which we are living and the quarter that we inhabit. Behold
us in a moment transported to another age and into another world.
Antiquity invades and absorbs us and, were it but for an hour, we are
Romans. That, however, is not all. I have already repeatedly said that
Vesuvius did not destroy Pompeii--it has preserved it.

The structures that have been exhumed crumble away in the air in a few
months--more than they had done beneath the ashes in eighteen centuries.
When first disinterred the painted walls reappear fresh and glowing as
though their coloring were but of yesterday. Each wall thus becomes, as
it were, a page of illustrated archeology, unveiling to us some point
hitherto unknown of the manners, customs, private habits, creeds and
traditions; or, to sum all up in a word, of the life of the ancients.

The furniture one finds, the objects of art or the household utensils,
reveal to us the mansion; there is not a single panel which, when
closely examined, does not tell us something. Such and such a pillar has
retained the inscription scratched upon it with the point of his knife
by a Pompeian who had nothing else to do; such a piece of wall on the
street set apart for posters, presents in huge letters the announcement
of a public spectacle, or proclaims the candidature of some citizen for
a contested office of the state.

I say nothing of the skeletons, whose attitudes relate, in a most
striking manner, the horrors of the catastrophe and the frantic
struggles of the last moment. In fine, for any one who has the faculty
of observation, every step is a surprise, a discovery, a confession won
concerning the public and private life of the ancients. Although at
first sight mute, these blocks of stone, when interrogated, soon speak
and confide their secrets to science or to the imagination that catches
a meaning with half a word; they tell, little by little, all that they
know, and all the strange, mysterious things that took place on these
same pavements, under this same sky, in those miraculous times, the most
interesting in history, viz.: the eighth century of Rome and the first
of the Christian era.

[Footnote A: The money accruing from this sale is applied to the
Pompeian library mentioned elsewhere.]




II.

THE FORUM.

     DIOMED'S INN.--THE NICHE OF MINERVA.--THE APPEARANCE AND THE
     MONUMENTS OF THE FORUM.--THE ANTIQUE TEMPLE.--THE PAGAN EX-VOTO
     OFFERINGS.--THE MERCHANTS' CITY EXCHANGE AND THE PETTY
     EXCHANGE.--THE PANTHEON, OR WAS IT A TEMPLE, A SLAUGHTER-HOUSE, OR
     A TAVERN?--THE STYLE OF COOKING AND THE FORM OF RELIGION.--THE
     TEMPLE OF VENUS.--- THE BASILICA.--THE INSCRIPTIONS OF PASSERS-BY
     UPON THE WALLS.--THE FORUM REBUILT.


As you alight at the station, in the first place breakfast at the
_popina_ of Diomed. It is a tavern of our own day, which has assumed an
antique title to please travellers. You may there drink Falernian wine
manufactured by Scala, the Neapolitan chemist, and, should you ask for
some _jentaculum_ in the Roman style--_aliquid scitamentorum_,
_glandionidum suillam taridum_, _pernonidem_, _sinciput aut omenta
porcina_, _aut aliquid ad eum modum_--they will serve you a beefsteak
and potatoes. Your strength refreshed, you will scale the sloping
hillock of ashes and rubbish that conceals the ruins from your view; you
will pay your two francs at the office and you will pass the
gate-keeper's turnstile, astonished, as it is, to find itself in such a
place. These formalities once concluded you have nothing more that is
modern to go through unless it be the companionship of a guide in
military uniform who escorts you, in reality to _watch_, you (especially
if you belong to the country of Lord Elgin), but not to mulct you in the
least. Placards in all the known languages forbid you to offer him so
much as an _obolus_. You make your _entrée_, in a word, into the antique
life, and you are as free as a Pompeian.

The first thing one sees is an arcade and such a niche as might serve
for an image of the Madonna; but be reassured, for the niche contains a
Minerva. It is no longer the superstition of our own time that strikes
our gaze. Under the arcade open extensive store-houses that probably
served as a place of deposit for merchandise. You then enter an
ascending paved street, pass by the temple of Venus and the Basilica,
and arrive at the Forum. There, one should pause.

At first glance, the observer distinguishes nothing but a long square
space closed at the further extremity by a regular-shaped mound rising
between two arcades; lateral alleys extend lengthwise on the right and
the left between shafts of columns and dilapidated architectural
work. Here and there some compound masses of stone-work indicate altars
or the pedestals of statues no longer seen. Vesuvius, still threatening,
smokes away at the extremity of the picture.

[Illustration: Plan of Vesuvius.]

Look more closely and you will perceive that the fluted columns are of
Caserta stone, of tufa, or of brick, coated with stucco and raised two
steps above the level of the square. Under the lower step runs the
kennel. These columns sustained a gallery upon which one mounted by
narrow and abrupt steps that time has spared. This upper gallery must
have been covered. The women walked in it. A second story of columns,
most likely interrupted in front of the monuments, rested upon the other
one. Mazois has reconstructed this colonnade in two superior
orders--Doric below and Ionic above--with exquisite elegance. The
pavement of the square, on which you may still walk, was of travertine.
Thus we see the Forum rising again, as it were, in our presence.

Let us glance at the ruins that surround it. That mound at the other end
was the foundation of a temple, the diminutive size of which strikes the
newcomer at first sight. Every one is not aware that the temple, far
from being a place of assemblage for devout multitudes, was, with the
ancients, in reality, but a larger niche inclosing the statue of the
deity to be worshipped. The consecrated building received only a small
number of the elect after they had been befittingly purified, and the
crowd remained outside. It was not the palace, but the mere cell of the
god. This cell (_cella_) was, at first, the whole temple, and was just
large enough to hold the statue and the altar. By degrees it came to be
ornamented with a front portico, then with a rear portico, and then with
side colonnades, thus attaining by embellishment after embellishment the
rich elegance of the Madeleine at Paris. But the proportions of our
cathedrals were never adopted by the ancients. Thus, Christianity rarely
appropriates the Greek or Roman temples for its worship. It has
preferred the vast basilicas, the royal name of which assumes a
religious meaning.

The Romans built their temples in this wise: The augur--that is to say,
the priest who read the future in the flight of birds--traced in the sky
with his short staff a spacious square, which he then marked on the
soil. Stakes were at once fixed along the four lines, and draperies were
hung between the stakes. In the midst of this space, the area or
inclosure of the temple, the augur marked out a cross--the augural
cross, indicating the four cardinal points; the transverse lines fixed
the limits of the _cella_; the point where the two branches met was the
place for the door, and the first stone was deposited on the threshold.
Numerous lighted lamps illuminated these ceremonies, after which the
chief priest, the _pontifex maximus_, consecrated the area, and from
that moment it became settled and immovable. If it crumbled, it must be
rebuilt on the same spot, and the least change made, even should it be
to enlarge it, would be regarded as a profanation. Thus had the dwelling
of the god that rises before us at the extremity of the Forum been
consecrated.

Like most of the Roman temples, this edifice is elevated on a foundation
(the _podium_), and turned toward the north. One ascends to it by a
flight of steps that cuts in the centre a platform where, perhaps, the
altar stood. Upon the _podium_ there remain some vestiges of the twelve
columns that formed the front portico or _pronaos_. Twelve columns, did
I say?--three on each side, six in front; always an even number at the
facades, so that a central column may not mask the doorway and that the
temple may be freely entered by the intercolumnar middle space.

To the right and the left of the steps were pedestals that formerly
sustained statues probably colossal. Behind the _pronaos_ could be
recognized the place where the _cella_ used to be. Nothing remains of it
now but the mosaic pavement and the walls. Traces of columns enable us
to reconstruct this sanctuary richly. We can there raise--and it has
been done on paper--two colonnades--the first one of the Ionic order,
supporting a gallery; the second of the Corinthian order, sustaining the
light wooden platform of painted wood which no longer exists. The walls,
covered with stucco, still retain pretty decorative paintings. Three
small subterranean chambers, of very solid construction, perhaps
contained the treasury and archives of the State, or something else
entirely different--why not those of the temple? In those times the
Church was rich; the Saviour had not ordained poverty as its portion.

[Illustration: THE FORUM.]

What deity's house is it that we are visiting now? Jupiter's, says
common opinion, upon the strength of a colossal statue of which
fragments have been found that might well have fitted the King of the
Gods. Others think it the temple of Venus, the _Venus Physica_ (the
beautiful in nature, say æsthetic philosophers) being the patroness of
Pompeii. We shall frequently, hereafter, meet with the name of this
goddess. Several detached limbs in stone and in bronze, which are not
broken at the extremity as though they belonged to a statue, but are
polished on all sides and cut in such a manner as to admit of being
suspended, were found among the ruins; they were votive offerings.
Italy, in becoming Catholic, has retained these Pagan customs. Besides
her supreme God, she worships a host of demi-gods, to whom she dedicates
her towns and consecrates her temples, where garlands of ex-voto
offerings testify to the intercession of the priests and the gratitude
of the true believers.

On the two sides of the temple of Jupiter--such is the
generally-accepted name--rise arcades, as I have already remarked. The
one on the left is a vaulted entrance, which, being too low and standing
too far forward, does not correspond with the other and deranges, one
cannot exactly make out why, the symmetry of this part of the Forum. The
other arcade is evidently a triumphal portal. Nothing remains of it now
but the body of the work in brick, some niches and traces of pilasters;
but it is easy to replace the marbles and the statues which must have
adorned this monument in rather poor taste. Such was the extremity of
the Forum.

Four considerable edifices follow each other on the eastern side of this
public square. These are, going from south to north, the palace of
Eumachia, the temple of Mercury, the Senate Chamber, and the Pantheon.

What is the Eumachia palace? An inscription found at that place reads:
"Eumachia, in her name and in the name of her son, has erected to
Concord and to august Piety, a Chalcidicum, a crypt and porticoes."

What is a Chalcidicum? Long and grave have been the discussions on this
subject among the savans. They have agreed, however, on one point, that
it should be a species of structure invented at Chalcis, a city of
Eubea.

However that may be, this much-despoiled palace presents a vast open
gallery, which was, certainly, the portico mentioned above. Around the
portico ran a closed gallery along three sides, and that must have been
the crypt. Upon the fourth side--that is to say, before the entry that
fronts the Forum--stood forth a sort of porch, a large exterior
vestibule: that was probably the Chalcidicum.

The edifice is curious. Behind the vestibule are two walls, not
parallel, one of which follows the alignment of the Forum, and the other
that of the interior portico. The space between this double wall is
utilized and some shops hide themselves in its recesses. Thus the
irregularity of the plan is not merely corrected--it is turned to useful
account. The ancients were shrewd fellows. This portico rested on
fifty-eight columns, surrounding a court-yard. In the court-yard, a
large movable stone, in good preservation, with the ring that served to
lift it, covered a cistern. At the extremity of the portico, in a
hemicycle, stood a headless statue--perhaps the Piety or Concord to
which the entire edifice was dedicated. Behind the hemicycle a sort of
square niche buried itself in the wall between two doors, one of which,
painted on the wall for the sake of symmetry, is a useful and curious
document. It is separated into three long and narrow panels and is
provided with a ring that should have served to move it. Doors are
nowhere to be seen now in Pompeii, because they were of wood, and
consequently were consumed by the fire; hence, this painted
representation has filled the savants with delight; they now know that
the ancients shut themselves in at home by processes exactly like our
own.

Between, the two doors, in the square niche, the statue of Eumachia, or,
at least, a moulded model of that statue, is still erect upon its
pedestal. It is of a female of tall stature, who looks sad and ill. An
inscription informs us that the statue was erected in her honor by the
fullers. These artisans formed quite a respectable corporation at
Pompeii, and we shall presently visit the manufactory where they
worked. Everything is now explained: the edifice of Eumachia must have
been the Palace of Industry of that city and period. This is the
Pompeian Merchants' Exchange, where transactions took place in the
portico, and in winter, in the crypt. The tribunal of commerce sat in
the hemicycle, at the foot of the statue of Concord, raised there to
appease quarrels between the merchants. In the court-yard, the huge
blocks of stone still standing were the tables on which their goods were
spread. The cistern and the large vats yielded the conveniences to wash
them. In fine, the Chalcidicum was the smaller Exchange, and the niches
still seen there must have been the stands of the auctioneers. But what
was there in common between this market, this fullers' counter, and the
melancholy priestess?

Religion at that period entered into everything, even into trade and
industry. A secret door put the edifice of Eumachia in communication
with the adjacent temple. That temple, which was dedicated to
Mercury--why to Mercury?--or to Quirinus--why _not_ to Mercury?--at this
day forms a small museum of precious relics. The entrance to it is
closed with a grating through which a sufficient view may be had of the
bas-relief on the altar, representing a sacrifice. A personage whose
head is half-veiled presides at the ceremony; behind that person a child
carries the consecrated water in a vase, and the _victimarius_, bearing
an axe, leads the bull that is to be offered up. Behind the sacrificial
party are some flute-players. On the two sides of the altar other
bas-reliefs represent the instruments that were used at the sacrifices;
the _lituus_, or curved staff of the augur; the _acerra_, or perfuming
censer; the _mantile_, or consecrated cloth that--let us simply say, the
napkin,--and, finally, the vases peculiar to these ceremonies, the
_patere_, the _simpulum_, and the _prefericulum_.

That altar is the only curiosity in the temple. The remainder is not
worth the trouble of being studied or reconstructed. The mural paintings
form an adornment of questionable taste. A rear door puts the temple in
communication with the _Senaculum_, or Senate-house, as the neighboring
structure was called; but the Pompeian Senators being no more than
decurions, it is an ambitious title. A vestibule that comes forward as
far as the colonnade of the Forum; then a spacious saloon or hall; an
arch at the end, with a broad foundation where the seats of the
decemviri possibly stood; then, walls built of rough stones arranged in
net-work (_opus reticulatum_), some niches without statues--such is all
that remains. But with a ceiling of wood painted in bright colors (the
walls could not have held up a vaulted roof), and completely paved,
completely sheathed with marble, as some flags and other remnants
indicate, this hall could not have been without some richness of effect.
Those who sat there were but the magistrates of a small city; but behind
them loomed up Rome, whose vast shadow embraced and magnified
everything.

At length we have before us the Pantheon, the strangest and the least
easy to name of the edifices of Pompeii. It is not parallel to the
Forum, but its obliquity was adroitly masked by shops in which many
pieces of coin have been found. Hence the conclusion that these were
_tabernæ argentariæ_, the money-changers' offices, and I cannot prove
the contrary. The two entrance doors are separated by two Corinthian
columns, between which is hollowed out a niche without a statue. The
capitals of these columns bear Cæsarean eagles. Could this Pantheon have
been the temple of Augustus? Having passed the doors, one reaches an
area, in which extended, to the right and to the left, a spacious
portico surrounding a court, in the midst of which remain twelve
pedestals that, ranged in circular order, once, perhaps, sustained the
pillars of a circular temple or the statues of twelve gods. This, then,
was the Pantheon. However, at the extremity of the edifice, and directly
opposite to the entrance, three apartments open. The middle one formed a
chapel; three statues were found there representing Drusus and Livia,
the wife of Augustus, along with an arm holding a globe, and belonging,
no doubt, to the consecrated statue which must have stood upon the
pedestal at the end, a statue of the Emperor. Then this was the temple
of Augustus. The apartment to the left shows a niche and an altar, and
served, perhaps, for sacrifices; the room to the right offers a stone
bench arranged in the shape of a horse-shoe. It could not be one of
those triple beds (_triclinia_) which we shall find in the eating
saloons of the private houses; for the slope of these benches would have
forced the reclining guests to have their heads turned toward the wall
or their feet higher than their heads. Moreover, in the interior of this
bench runs a conduit evidently intended to afford passage to certain
liquids, perhaps to the blood of animals slaughtered in the place. This,
therefore, was neither a Pantheon nor a temple of Augustus, but a
slaughter-house (_macellum_.) In that case, the eleven apartments
abutting to the right on the long wall of the edifice would be the
stalls. But these rooms, in which the regular orifices made in the wall
were to hold the beams that sustained the second story, were adorned
with paintings which still exist, and which must have been quite
luxurious for those poor oxen. Let us interrogate these paintings and
those of all these walls; they will instruct us, perhaps, with reference
to the destination of the building. There are mythological and epic
pieces reproducing certain sacred subjects, of which we shall speak
further on. Others show us winged infants, little Cupids weaving
garlands, of which the ancients were so fond; some of the bacchanalian
divinities, celebrating the festival of the mills, are crowning with
flowers the patient ass who is turning the wheel. Flowers on all
sides--that was the fantasy of antique times. Flowers at their wild
banquets, at their august ceremonies, at their sacrifices, and at their
festivals; flowers on the necks of their victims and their guests, and
on the brows of their women and their gods. But the greatest number of
these paintings appear destined for banquetting-halls; dead nature
predominates in them; you see nothing but pullets, geese, ducks,
partridges, fowls, and game of all kinds, fruits, and eggs, amphoræ,
loaves of bread and cakes, hams, and I know not what all else. In the
shops attached to this palace belong all sorts of precious
articles--vases, lamps, statuettes, jewels, a handsome alabaster cup;
besides, there have been found five hundred and fifty small bottles,
without counting the goblets, and, in vases of glass, raisins, figs,
chestnuts, lentils, and near them scales and bakers' and pastry-cooks'
moulds. Could the Pantheon, then, have been a tavern, a free inn
(_hospitium_) where strangers were received under the protection of the
gods? In that case the supposed butcher-shop must have been a sort of
office, and the _triclinium_ a dormitory. However that may be, the
table and the altar, the kitchen and religion, elbow each other in this
strange palace. Our austerity revolts and our frivolity is amused at the
circumstance; but Catholics of the south are not at all surprised at it.
Their mode of worship has retained something of the antique gaiety. For
the common people of Naples, Christmas is a festival of eels, Easter a
revel of _casatelli_; they eat _zeppole_ to honor Saint Joseph; and the
greatest proof of affliction that can be given to the dying Saviour is
not to eat meat. Beneath the sky of Italy dogmas may change, but the
religion will always be the same--sensual and vivid, impassioned and
prone to excess, essentially and eternally Pagan, above all adoring
woman, Venus or Mary, and the _bambino_, that mystic Cupid whom the
poets called the first love. Catholicism and Paganism, theories and
mysteries; if there be two religions, they are that of the south and
that of the north.

You have just explored the whole eastern part of the Forum. Pass now in
front of the temple of Jupiter and reach the western part. In descending
from north to south, the first monument that strikes your attention is a
rather long portico, turned on the east toward the Forum. Different
observers have fancied that they discovered in it a _poecile_, a museum,
a divan, a club, a granary for corn; and all these opinions are equally
good.

Behind the poecile open small chambers, of which some are vaulted.
Skeletons were found in them, and the inference was that they were
prisons. Lower down extends along the Forum the lateral wall of the
temple of Venus. In this wall is hollowed a small square niche in which
there rose, at about a yard in height from the soil, a sort of table of
tufa, indented with regular cavities, which are ranged in the order of
their capacity; these were the public measures. An inscription gives us
the names of the duumvirs who had gauged them by order of the decurions.
As M. Breton has well remarked, they were the standards of measurement.
Of these five cavities, the two smallest were destined for liquids, and
we still see the holes through which those liquids flowed off when they
had been measured. The table of tufa has been taken to the museum, and
in its place has been substituted a rough imitation, which gives a
sufficient idea of this curious monument.

The temple of Venus is entered from the neighboring street which we have
already traversed. The ruin is a fine one--the finest, perhaps, in
Pompeii; a spacious inclosure, or peribolus, framing a portico of
forty-eight columns, of which many are still standing, and the portico
itself surrounding the podium, where rose the temple--properly speaking,
the house of the goddess. In front of the entrance, at the foot of the
steps that ascend to the podium, rises the altar, poorly calculated for
living sacrifices and seemingly destined for simple offerings of fruit,
cakes, and incense, which were consecrated to Venus. Besides the form of
the altar, an inscription found there and a statue of the goddess, whose
modest attitude recalls the masterpiece of Florence, sufficiently
authorize the name, in the absence of more exact information, that has
been given to this edifice. Others, however, have attributed it to the
worship of Bacchus; others again to that of Diana, and the question has
not yet been settled by the savans; but Venus being the patroness of
Pompeii, deserved the handsomest temple in the little city.

The columns of the peribolus or inclosure bear the traces of some
bungling repairs made between the earthquake of 63 and the eruption of
79. They were Doric, but the attempt was to render them Corinthian, and,
to this end, they were covered with stucco and topped with capitals that
are not becoming to them. Against one of these columns still leans a
statue in the form of a Hermes. Around the court is cut a small kennel
to carry off the rain water, which was then caught in reservoirs. The
wall along the Forum was gaily decorated with handsome paintings; one of
these, probably on wood, was burned in the eruption, and the vacant
place where it belonged is visible. Behind the temple open rooms
formerly intended for the priests; handsome paintings were found there,
also--- among them a Bacchus, resting his elbow on the shoulder of old
Silenus, who is playing the lyre. Absorbed in this music, he forgets the
wine in his goblet, and lets it fall out upon a panther crouching at his
feet.

We now have only to visit the temple itself, the house of the goddess.
The steps that scaled the basement story were thirteen--an odd
number--so that in ascending the first step with the right foot, the
level of the sanctuary was also reached with the right foot. The temple
was _peripterous_, that is to say, entirely surrounded with open
columns with Corinthian capitals. The portico opened broadly, and a
mosaic of marbles, pleasingly adjusted, formed the pavement of the
_cella_, of which the painted walls represented simple panels, separated
here and there by plain pilasters. Our Lady of Pompeii dwelt there.

The last monument of the Forum on the south-west side is the Basilica;
and the street by which we have entered separates it from the temple of
Venus. The construction of the edifice leaves no doubt as to its
destination, which is, moreover, confirmed by the word _Basilica_ or
_Basilaca_, scratched here and there by loungers with the points of
their knives, on the wall. _Basilica_--derived from a Greek word which
signifies _king_--might be translated with sufficient exactness by
_royal court_. At Rome, these edifices were originally mere covered
market-places sheltered from the rain and the sun. At a later period,
colonnades divided them in three, sometimes even into five naves, and
the simple niche which, intended for the judges' bench, was hollowed out
at the foot of its monuments, finally developed into a vaulted
semicircle. At last, the early Christians finding themselves crowded in
the old temples, chose the high courts of justice to therein celebrate
the worship of the new God, and the Roman Basilica imposed its
architecture and its proportions upon the Catholic Cathedral. In the
semicircle, then, where once the ancient magistracy held its justice
seat, arose the high altar and the consecrated image of the crucified
Saviour.

The Basilica of Pompeii presents to the Forum six pillars, between which
five portals slid along grooves which are still visible. A vestibule, or
sort of chalcidicum extends between these five entrances and five
others, indicated by two columns and four pillars. The vestibule once
crossed, the edifice appears in its truly Roman grandeur; at first
glance the eye reconstructs the broad brick columns, regularly truncated
in shape (they might be considered unfinished), which are still erect on
their bases and which, crowned with Ionic volutes, were to form a
monumental portico along the four sides of this majestic area paved with
marble. Half columns fixed in the lateral walls supported the gallery;
they joined each other in the angles; the middle space must have been
uncovered. Fragments of statues and even of mounted figures proclaim the
magnificence of this monument, at the extremity of which there rose, at
the height of some six feet above the soil, a tribune adorned with half
a dozen Corinthian columns and probably destined for the use of the
duumvirs. The middle columns stood more widely apart in order that the
magistrates might, from their seats, command a view of the entire
Basilica. Under this tribune was concealed a mysterious cellar with
barred windows. Some antiquaries affirm that there was the place where
prisoners were tortured. They forget that in Rome, in the antique time,
cases were adjudged publicly before the free people.

Some of the walls of the Basilica were covered with _graphites_, that is
to say, with inscriptions scratched with the point of a nail or of a
knife by loungers on the way. I do not here copy the thousand and one
insignificant inscriptions which I find in my rambles. They would teach
us nothing but the names of the Pompeian magistrates who had constructed
or reconstructed this or that monument or such-and-such a portion of an
edifice with the public money. But the graphites of the Basilica merit a
moment's attention. Sometimes, these are verses of Ovid or of Virgil or
Propertius (never of Horace, singular to say), and frequently with
curious variations. Thus, for example:

    "Quid pote durum _Saxso_ aut quid mollius unda?
    Dura tamen molli _Saxsa_ cavantur aqua."
                                          (_Ovid_.)

Notice the _s_ in the _saxo_ and the _quid pote_ instead of _quid
magis_; it is a Greekism.

Elsewhere were written these two lines:

    "Quisquis amator erit Scythiæ licet ambulet oris:
    Nemo adeo ut feriat barbarus esse volet."

Propertius had put this distich in an elegy in which he narrated a
nocturnal promenade between Rome and Tibur. Observe the word _Scythiæ_
instead of _Scythicis_, and especially, _feriat_, which is the true
reading,--the printed texts say _noceat_. Thus an excellent correction
has been preserved for us by Vesuvius.

Here are other lines, the origin of which is unknown:

    "Scribenti mi dictat Amor, monstrat que Cupido
    Ah peream, sine te si Deus esse velim!"

How many modern poets have uttered the same exclamation! They little
dreamed that a Pompeian, a slave no doubt, had, eighteen centuries
before their time, scratched, it with a nail upon the wall of a
basilica. Here is a sentence that mentions gold. It has been carried out
by the English poet, Wordsworth:

    "Minimum malum fit contemnendo maximum,
    Quod, crede mi, non contemnendo, erit minus."

Let us copy also this singular truth thrown into rhyme by some gourmand
who had counted without his host:

    "Quoi perna cocta est, si convivæ adponitur,
    Non gustat pernam, lingit ollam aut caccabum."

This _quoi_ is for _cui_; the caccabus was the kettle in which the fowl
was cooked.

Here follows some wholesome advice for the health of lovers:

    "Quisquis amat calidis noil debet fontibus uti:
    Nam nemo flammis ustus amare potest."

I should never get through were I to quote them all. But how many short
phrases there are that, scratched here and there, cause this old
monument to spring up again, by revealing the thoughts and fancies of
the loungers and passers-by who peopled it so many years ago.

A lover had written this:

    "Nemo est bellus nisi qui amavit."

A friend:

    "Vale, Messala, fac me ames."

A superlative wag, but incorrect withal:

    "Cosmus nequitiae est magnussimae."

A learned man, or a philosopher:

    "Non est exsilium ex patria sapientibus."

A complaining suitor:

    "Sara non belle facis.
    Solum me relinquis,
    Debilis...."

A wrangler and disputant threatening the other party with a law-suit:

    "Somius _Corneilio_ (Cornelio) jus _pendre_ (perendie?)"

A sceptic who cherishes no illusions as to the mode of administering
justice:

    "Quod pretium legi?"

A censor, perhaps a Christian, who knew the words addressed by the Jews
to the blind man who was cured:

    "Pyrrhus Getae conlegae salutem.
    Moleste fero quod audivi te mortuom (sic).
    Itaque vale."

A jovial wine bibber:

    "Suavis vinari sitit, rogo vas valde sitit."[B]

A wit:

     "Zetema mulier ferebat filium simulem sui nec meus erat, nec mi
     simulat; sed vellem esset meus, et ego volebam ut meus esset."

Tennis-players scribble:

     "Amianthus, Epaphra, Tertius ludant cum Hedysio, Incundus Nolanus
     petat, numeret Citus et Stacus Amianthus."

Wordsworth remarks that these two names, Tertius and Epaphras, are found
in the epistles of St. Paul. Epaphras (in Latin, Epaphra; the suppressed
letter _s_ shows that this Pompeian was merely a slave) is very often
named on the walls of the little city; he is accused, moreover, of being
beardless or destitute of hair (_Epaphra glaber est_), and of knowing
nothing about tennis. (_Epaphra pilicrepus non es_). This inscription
was found all scratched over, probably by the hand of Epaphras himself,
who had his own feelings of pride as a fine player.

Thus it is that the stones of Pompeii are full of revelations with
reference to its people. The Basilica is easy to reconstruct and provide
with living occupants. Yonder duumviri, up between the Corinthian
columns; in front of them the accused; here the crowd; lovers confiding
their secrets to the wall; thinkers scribbling their maxims on them;
wags getting off their witticisms in the same style; the slaves, in
fine, the poor, announcing to the most remote posterity that they had,
at least, the game of tennis to console them for their abject condition!
Still three small apartments the extremity of which rounded off into
semicircles (probably inferior tribunes where subordinate magistrates,
such as commissioners or justices of the peace, had their seats); then
the school of Verna, cruelly dilapidated; finally a small triumphal arch
on which there stood, perhaps, a _quadriga_, or four-yoked chariot-team;
some pedestals of statues erected to illustrious Pompeians, to Pansa, to
Sallust, to Marcus Lucretius, Decidamius Rufus; some inscriptions in
honor of this one or that one, of the great Romulus, of the aged
Æneas,--when all these have been seen, or glanced at, at least, you will
have made the tour of the Forum.

You now know what the public exchange was in a Roman city; a spacious
court surrounded by the most important monuments (three temples, the
bourse, the tribunals, the prisons, etc.), inclosed on all sides (traces
of the barred gates are still discernible at the entrances), adorned
with statues, triumphal arches, and colonnades; a centre of business and
pleasure; a place for sauntering and keeping appointments; the Corso,
the Boulevard of ancient times, or in other words, the heart of the
city. Without any great effort of the imagination, all this scene
revives again and becomes filled with a living, variegated throng,--the
portico and its two stories of columns along the edge of the
reconstructed monuments; women crowd the upper galleries; loiterers drag
their feet along the pavement; the long robes gather in harmonious
folds; busy merchants hurry to the Chalcidicum; the statues look proudly
down from their re-peopled pedestals; the noble language of the Romans
resounds on all sides in scanned, sonorous measure; and the temple of
Jupiter, seated at the end of the vista, as on a throne, and richly
adorned with Corinthian elegance, glitters in all its splendor in the
broad sunshine.

An air of pomp and grandeur--a breath of Rome--has swept over this
collection of public edifices. Let us descend from these heights and
walk about through the little city.

[Footnote B: For _sitiat_.]




III.

THE STREET.

     THE PLAN OF POMPEII.--THE PRINCELY NAMES OF THE HOUSES.--APPEARANCE
     OF THE STREETS, PAVEMENTS, SIDEWALKS, ETC.--THE SHOPS AND THE
     SIGNS.--THE PERFUMER, THE SURGEON, ETC.--AN ANCIENT
     MANUFACTORY.--BATHING ESTABLISHMENTS.--WINE-SHOPS, DISREPUTABLE
     RESORTS.--HANGING BALCONIES, FOUNTAINS.--PUBLIC PLACARDS: LET US
     NOMINATE BATTUR! COMMIT NO NUISANCE!--RELIGION ON THE STREET.


You have no need of me for this excursion. Cast a glance at the plan,
and you will be able to find your own way. You will there see an oval
inclosure, a wall pierced with several entrances designated by the names
of the roads which ran from them, or rather of the cities at which these
roads terminated--Herculaneum, Nola, Stabiæ, etc. Two-thirds of the egg
are still immaculate; you discover a black spot only on the extreme
right, marking out the Amphitheatre. All this white space shows you the
part of Pompeii that has not yet been designated. It is a hillside
covered with vineyards, gardens, and orchards. It is only on the left
that you will find the lines marking the streets, the houses, the
monuments, and the public squares. The text gives us the fancied names
attributed to the streets, namely: the Street of Abundance, the Street
of Twelve Gods, the Street of Mercury, the Street of Fortune, the Street
of Fortunata, Modest Street, etc. The names given to the houses are
still more arbitrary. Most of them were christened, under the old
system, by the august or illustrious personages before whom they were
dug out for the first time. Thus, we have at Pompeii the house of
Francis II., that of Championnet, that of Joseph II.; those of the Queen
of England, the King of Prussia, the Grand Duke of Tuscany; that of the
Emperor, and those of the Empress and of the Princes of Russia; that of
Goethe, of the Duchess de Berry, of the Duke d'Aumale--I skip them by
scores. The whole Gotha Almanac might there be passed in review. This
determined, ramble through the streets at will, without troubling
yourself about their names, as these change often at the caprice of
antiquaries and their guides.

The narrowness of these streets will surprise you; and if you come
hither to look for a Broadway, you had better have remained at home.
What we call great arteries of traffic were unknown to the Pompeians,
who cut only small paved paths between their houses--for the sake of
health, they said. We entertain different views of this question of
salubrity.

The greatest width of a Pompeian street is seven yards, and there are
some which are comprised, sidewalks and all, within a space of two yards
and a half. These sidewalks are raised, very narrow, and paved very
variously, according to the wealth or the fancy of the proprietors, who
had to keep them in good order. Here are handsome stone flags; further
on merely the soil beaten down; in front of the next house are marble
slabs, and here and there patches of _opus signinum_, a sort of
rudimentary mosaic, to which we shall refer further on. These sidewalks
were intersected with curbstones, often pierced with holes--in front of
shops, for instance--perhaps for tethering the cows and donkeys of the
peasants who every morning brought the citizens milk or baskets of
vegetables to their own doors. Between the sidewalks was hollowed out
the street, paved with coarse blocks of lava which time has not worn
down. When Pansa went to the dwelling of Paratus his sandals trod the
same stones that now receive the impress of our boots. On rainy days
this street must have been the bed of a torrent, as the alleys and
by-ways of Naples are still; hence, one, sometimes three, thicker blocks
were placed so as to enable foot passengers to cross with dry feet.
These small fording blocks must have made it difficult for vehicles to
get by; hence, the ruts that are still found traceable on the pavement
are the marks of wagons drawn slowly by oxen, and not of those light
chariots which romance-writers launch forth so briskly in the ancient
city. Moreover, it has been ascertained that the Pompeians went afoot;
only the quality had themselves drawn about in chariots in the country.
Where could room have been found for stables and carriage-houses in
those dwellings scarcely larger than your hat? It was in the suburbs
only, in the outskirts of the city, that the dimensions of the
residences rendered anything of the kind possible. Let us, then,
obliterate these chariots from our imagination, if we wish to see the
streets of Pompeii as they really were.

After a shower, the rain water descended, little by little, into the
gutters, and from the latter, by holes still visible, into a
subterranean conduit that carried it outside of the city. One of these
conduits is still open in the Street of Stabiæ, not far from the temple
of Isis.

As to the general aspect of these ancient thoroughfares, it would seem
dull enough, were we to represent the scene to our fancy with the houses
closed, the windows gone, the dwellings with merely a naked wall for a
front, and receiving air and light only from the two courts. But it was
not so, as everything goes to prove. In the first place, the shops
looked out on the street and were, indeed almost entirely open, like our
own, offering to the gaze of the passers-by a broad counter, leaving
only a small space free to the left or the right to let the vendors pass
in and out. In these counters, which were usually covered with a marble
slab, were hollowed the cavities wherein the grocers and liquor-dealers
kept their eatables and drinkables. Behind the counters and along the
walls were stone shelves, upon which the stock was put away. Festoons
of edibles hung displayed from pillar to pillar; stuffs, probably,
adorned the fronts, and the customers, who made their purchases from the
sidewalk, must have everywhere formed noisy and very animated groups.
The native of the south gesticulates a great deal, likes to chaffer,
discusses with vehemence, and speaks loudly and quickly with a glib
tongue and a sonorous voice. Just take a look at him in the lower
quarters of Naples, which, in more than one point of view, recall the
narrow streets of Pompeii.

These shops are now dismantled. Nothing of them remains but the empty
counters, and here and there the grooves in which the doors slid to and
fro. These doors themselves were but a number of shutters fitting into
each other. But the paintings or carvings which still exist upon some
side pillars are old signs that inform us what was sold on the adjoining
counter. Thus, a goat in terra cotta indicated a milk-depot; a mill
turned by an ass showed where there was a miller's establishment; two
men, walking one ahead of the other and each carrying one end of a
stick, to the middle of which an amphora is suspended, betray the
neighborhood of a wine-merchant. Upon other pillars are marked other
articles not so readily understood,--here an anchor, there a ship, and
in another place a checker-board. Did they understand the game of
Palamedes at Pompeii? A shop near the Thermæ, or public warm baths, is
adorned on its front with a representation of a gladiatorial combat. The
author of the painting thought something of his work, which he protected
with this inscription: "_Abiat (habeat) Venerem Pompeianam iradam
(iratam) qui hoc læserit!_ (May he who injures this picture have the
wrath of the Pompeian Venus upon him!)"

Other shops have had their story written by the articles that they
contained when they were found. Thus, when there were discovered in a
suite of rooms opening on the Street of Herculaneum, certain levers one
of which ended in the foot of a pig, along with hammers, pincers, iron
rings, a wagon-spring, the felloe of a wheel, one could say without
being too bold that there had been the shop of a wagon-maker or
blacksmith. The forge occupied only one apartment, behind which opened
a bath-room and a store-room. Not far from there a pottery is indicated
by a very curious oven, the vault of which is formed of hollow tubes of
baked clay, inserted one within the other. Elsewhere was discovered the
shop of the barber who washed, brushed, shaved, clipped, combed and
perfumed the Pompeians living near the Forum. The benches of masonry are
still seen where the customers sat. As for the dealers in soap,
unguents, and essences, they must have been numerous; their products
supplied not only the toilet of the ladies, but the religious or funeral
ceremonies, and after having perfumed the living, they embalmed the
dead. Besides the shops in which the excavators have come suddenly upon
a stock of fatty and pasty substances, which, perhaps, were soaps, we
might mention one, on the pillar of which three paintings, now effaced,
represented a sacrificial attendant leading a bull to the altar, four
men bearing an enormous chest around which were suspended several vases;
then a body washed and anointed for embalming. Do you understand this
mournful-looking sign? The unguent dealer, as he was called, thus _made
up_ the body and publicly placarded it.

From the perfumery man to the chemist is but a step. The shop of the
latter tradesman was found--so it is believed, at all events in clearing
out a triple furnace with walled boilers. Two pharmacies or drug-stores,
one in the Street of Herculaneum, the other fronting the Chalcidicum,
have been more exactly designated not only by a sign on which there was
seen a serpent (one of the symbols of Æsculapius) eating a pineapple,
but by tablets, pills, jars, and vials containing dried-up liquids, and
a bronze medicine chest divided into compartments which must have
contained drugs. A groove for the spatula had been ingeniously
constructed in this curious little piece of furniture.

Not far from the apothecary lived the doctor, who was an apothecary
himself and a surgeon besides, and it was in his place that were
discovered the celebrated instruments of surgery which are at the
museum, and which have raised such stormy debates between Dr. Purgon and
Dr. Pancratius. The first, being a doctor, deemed himself competent to
give an account of these instruments, whereat the second, being an
antiquary, became greatly irritated, seeing that the faculty, in his
opinion, has nothing to do with archæology. However that may be, the
articles are at the museum, and everybody can look at them. There is a
forceps, to pull teeth with, as some affirm; to catch and compress
arteries, as others declare; there is a specillum of bronze, a probe
rounded in the form of an S; there are lancets, pincers, spatulas,
hooks, a trident, needles of all kinds, incision knives, cauteries,
cupping-glasses--I don't know what not--fully three hundred different
articles, at all events. This rich collection proves that the ancients
were quite skilful in surgery and had invented many instruments thought
to be modern. This is all that it is worth our while to know. For more
ample information, examine the volume entitled _Memoires de l'Academie
d'Herculaneum_.

Other shops (that of the color merchant, that of the goldsmith, the
sculptor's atelier, etc.) have revealed to us some of the processes of
the ancient artists. We know, for instance, that those of Pompeii
employed mineral substances almost exclusively in the preparation of
their colors; among them chalk, ochre, cinnabar, minium, etc. The
vegetable kingdom furnished them nothing but lamp-black, and the animal
kingdom their purple. The colors mixed with rosin have occasioned the
belief that encaustic was the process used by the ancients in their
mural paintings, an opinion keenly combatted by other hypotheses,
themselves no less open to discussion; into this debate it is not our
part to enter. However the case may be, the color dealer's family was
fearfully decimated by the eruption, for fourteen skeletons were found
in his shop.

As for the sculptor, he was very busy at the time of the catastrophe;
quite a number of statues were found in his place blocked out or
unfinished, and with them were instruments of his profession, such as
scissors, punchers, files, etc. All of these are at the museum in
Naples.

There were artists, then, in Pompeii, but above all, there were
artisans. The fullers so often mentioned by the inscriptions must have
been the most numerous; they formed a respectable corporation. Their
factory has been discovered. It is a peristyle surrounded with rooms,
some of which served for shops and others for dwellings. A painted
inscription on the street side announces that the dyers (_offectores_)
vote for Posthumus Proculus. These _offectores_ were those who retinted
woollen goods. Those who did the first dyeing were called the
_infectores. Infectores qui alienum colorem in lanam conficiunt,
offectores qui proprio colori novum officiunt_. In the workshop there
were four large basins, one above the other; the water descended from
the first to the next one and so on down to the last, there being a
fifth sunken in the ground. Along the four basins ran a platform, at the
end of which were ranged six or seven smaller basins, or vats, in which
the stuffs were piled up and fulled. At the other extremity of the
court, a small marble reservoir served, probably, as a washing vat for
the workmen. But the most curious objects among the ruins were the
paintings, now transferred to the museum at Naples, which adorned one of
the pillars of the court. There a workman could be very distinctly seen
dressing, with a sort of brush or card, a piece of white stuff edged
with red, while another is coming toward him, bearing on his head one
of those large osier cages or frames on which the girls of that region
still spread their clothes to dry. These cages resemble the bell-shaped
steel contrivances which our ladies pass under their skirts. Thus, in
the Neapolitan dialect, both articles are called drying-horses
(_asciutta-panni_). Upon the drying-horse of the Pompeian picture
perches the bird of Minerva, the protectress of the fullers and the
goddess of labor. To the left of the workmen, a young girl is handing
some stuffs to a youthful, richly-dressed lady, probably a customer,
seated near by. Another painting represents workmen dressing and fulling
all sorts of tissues, with their hands and feet in tubs or vats exactly
like the small basins which we saw in the court. A third painting shows
the mistress of the house giving orders to her slaves; and the fourth
represents a fulling press which might be deemed modern, so greatly does
it resemble those still employed in our day. The importance of this
edifice, now so stripped and dilapidated, confirms what writers have
told us of the Pompeian fullers and their once-celebrated branch of
trade.

However, most of the shops the use of which has not been precisely
designated, were places where provisions of different kinds were kept
and sold. The oil merchant in the street leading to the Odeon was
especially noticeable among them all for the beauty of his counter,
which was covered with a slab of _cipollino_ and gray marble, encrusted,
on the outside, with a round slab of porphyry between two rosettes.
Eight earthenware vases still containing olives[C] and coagulated oil
were found in the establishment of this stylish grocer.

The bathing concerns were also very numerous. They were the
coffee-houses of the ancient day. Hot drinks were sold there, boiled and
perfumed wine, and all sorts of mixtures, which must have been
detestable, but for which the ancients seem to have had a special fancy.
"A thousand and a thousand times more respectable than the wine-shops of
our day, these bathing-houses of ages gone by, where men did not
assemble to shamefully squander their means and their existence while
gorging themselves with wine, but where they came together to amuse
themselves in a decent manner, and to drink warm water without
risk."... Le Sage, who wrote the foregoing sentence, was not accurately
informed. The liquors sold at the Pompeian bathing-houses were very
strong, and, in more than one place where the points of the amphorae
rested, they have left yellow marks on the pavement. Vinegar has been
detected in most of these drinks. In the tavern of Fortunata, the marble
of the counter is still stained with the traces of the ancient goblets.

Bakeries were not lacking in Pompeii. The most complete one is in the
Street of Herculaneum, where it fills a whole house, the inner court of
which is occupied with four mills. Nothing could be more crude and
elementary than those mills. Imagine two huge blocks of stone
representing two cones, of which the upper one is overset upon the
other, giving every mill the appearance of an hour-glass. The lower
stone remained motionless, and the other revolved by means of an
apparatus kept in motion by a man or a donkey. The grain was crushed
between the two stones in the old patriarchal style. The poor ass
condemned to do this work must have been a very patient animal; but what
shall we say of the slaves often called in to fill his place? For those
poor wretches it was usually a punishment, as their eyes were put out
and then they were sent to the mill. This was the menace held over their
heads when they misbehaved. For others it was a very simple piece of
service which more than one man of mind performed--Plautus, they say,
and Terence. To some again, it was, at a later period, a method of
paying for their vices; when the millers lacked hands they established
bathing-houses around their mills, and the passers-by who were caught in
the trap had to work the machinery.

Let us hasten to add that the work of the mill which we visited was not
performed by a Christian, as they would say at Naples, but by a mule,
whose bones were found in a neighboring room, most likely a stable, the
racks and troughs of which were elevated about two and a half feet above
the floor. In a closet near by, the watering trough is still visible.
Then again, religion, which everywhere entered into the ancient manners
and customs of Italy, as it does into the new, reveals itself in the
paintings of the _pistrinum_; we there see the sacrifices to Fornax, the
patroness of ovens and the saint of kitchens.

But let us return to our mills. Mills driven by the wind were unknown to
the ancients, and water-mills did not exist in Pompeii, owing to the
lack of running water. Hence these mills put in motion by manual
labor--the old system employed away back in the days of Homer. On the
other hand, the institution of complete baking as a trade, with all its
dependent processes, did not date so far back. The primitive Romans made
their bread in their own houses. Rome was already nearly five hundred
years old when the first bakers established stationary mills, to which
the proprietors sent their grain, as they still do in the Neapolitan
provinces; in return they got loaves of bread; that is to say, their
material ground, kneaded, and baked. The Pompeian establishment that we
visited was one of these complete bakeries.

[Illustration: Discoveries of Loaves of Bread baked 1800 years ago in a
Baker's Oven.]

We could still recognize the troughs that served for the manipulation of
the bread, and the oven, the arch of which is intact, with the cavity
that retained the ashes, the vase for water to besprinkle the crust and
make it shiny, and, finally, the triple-flued pipe that carried off the
smoke--an excellent system revealed by the Pompeian excavations and
successfully imitated since then. The bake-oven opened upon two small
rooms by two apertures. The loaves went in at one of these in dough, and
came out at the other, baked. The whole thing is in such a perfect state
of preservation that one might be tempted to employ these old bricks,
that have not been used for eighteen centuries, for the same purpose.
The very loaves have survived. In the bakery of which I speak several
were found with the stamps upon them, _siligo grani_ (wheat flour), or
_e cicera_ (of bean flour)--a wise precaution against the bad faith of
the dealers. Still more recently, in the latest excavations, Signor
Fiorelli came across an oven so hermetically sealed that there was not a
particle of ashes in it, and there were eighty-one loaves, a little sad,
to be sure, but whole, hard, and black, found in the order in which they
had been placed on the 23d of November, 79. Enchanted with this
windfall, Fiorelli himself climbed into the oven and took out the
precious relics with his own hands. Most of the loaves weigh about a
pound; the heaviest twelve hundred and four grains. They are round,
depressed in the centre, raised on the edges, and divided into eight
lobes. Loaves are still made in Sicily exactly like them. Professor de
Luca weighed and analyzed them minutely, and gave the result in a letter
addressed to the French Academy of Sciences. Let us now imagine all
these salesrooms, all these shops, open and stocked with goods, and then
the display, the purchasers, the passers-by, the bustle and noise
peculiar to the south, and the street will no longer seem so dead. Let
us add that the doors of the houses were closed only in the evening; the
promenaders and loungers could then peep, as they went along, into every
alley, and make merry at the bright adornments of the _atrium_. Nor is
this all. The upper stories, although now crumbled to dust, were in
communication with the street. Windows opened discreetly, which must,
here and there, have been the framework of some brown head and
countenance anxious to see and to be seen. The latest excavations have
revealed the existence of hanging covered balconies, long exterior
corridors, pierced with casements, frequently depicted in the
paintings. There the fair Pompeian could have taken her station in order
to participate in the life outside. The good housewife of those times,
like her counterpart in our day, could there have held out her basket to
the street-merchant who went wandering about with his portable shop; and
more than one handsome girl may at the same post have carried her
fingers to her lips, there to cull (the ancient custom) the kiss that
she flung to the young Pompeian concealed down yonder in the corner of
the wall. Thus re-peopled, the old-time street, narrow as it is, was
gayer than our own thoroughfares; and the brightly-painted houses, the
variegated walls, the monuments, and the fountains, gave vivid animation
to a picture too dazzling for our gaze.

[Illustration: Closed House with a Balcony, recently discovered.]

These fountains, which were very simple, consisted of large square
basins formed of five stone slabs, one for the bottom and four for the
sides, fastened together with iron braces. The water fell into them from
fonts more or less ornamental and usually representing the muzzle of
some animal--lions' heads, masks, an eagle holding a hare in his beak,
with the stream flowing into a receptacle from the hare's mouth. One
of these fountains is surrounded with an iron railing to prevent
passers-by from falling into it. Another is flanked by a capacious
vaulted reservoir (_castellum_) and closed with a door. Those who have
seen Rome know how important the ancients considered the water that they
brought from a distance by means of the enormous aqueducts, the ruins of
which still mark all the old territories of the empire. Water, abundant
and limpid, ran everywhere, and was never deficient in the Roman cities.
Still it has not been discovered how the supply was obtained for
Pompeii, destitute of springs as that city was, and, at the same time,
elevated above the river, and receiving nothing in its cisterns but the
rain-water so scantily shed beneath the relentless serenity of that
southern sky. The numberless conduits found, of lead, masonry, and
earthenware, and above all, the spouting fountains that leaped and
sparkled in the courtyards of the wealthy houses, have led us to suppose
the existence of an aqueduct, no longer visible, that supplied all this
part of Campania with water.

Besides these fountains, placards and posters enlivened the streets; the
walls were covered with them, and, in sundry places, whitewashed patches
of masonry served for the announcements so lavishly made public. These
panels, dedicated entirely to the poster business, were called _albums_.
Anybody and everybody had the right to paint thereon in delicate and
slender red letters all the advertisements which now-a-days we print on
the last, and even on many other pages of our newspapers. Nothing is
more curious than these inscriptions, which disclose to us all the
subjects engaging the attention of the little city; not only its
excitements, but its language, ancient and modern, collegiate and
common--the Oscan, the Greek, the Latin, and the local dialect. Were we
learned, or anxious to appear so, we could, with the works of the really
erudite (Fiorelli, Garrucci, Mommsen, etc.), to help us, have compiled a
chapter of absolutely appalling science in reference to the epigraphic
monuments of Pompeii. We could demonstrate by what gradations the Oscan
language--that of the Pompeian autonomy--yielded little by little to the
Roman language, which was that of the unity of the state; and to what
extent Pompeii, which never was a Greek city, employed the sacred idiom
of the divine Plato. We might even add some observations relative to the
accent and the dialect of the Pompeians, who pronounced Latin as the
Neapolitans pronounce Tuscan and with singularly analogous alterations.
But what you are looking for here, hurried reader, is not erudition, but
living movement. Choose then, in these inscriptions, those that teach us
something relative to the manners and customs of this dead people--dead
and buried, but afterward exhumed.

The most of these announcements are but the proclamations of candidates
for office. Pompeii was evidently swallowed up at the period of the
elections. Sometimes it is an elector, sometimes a group of citizens,
then again a corporation of artisans or tradesmen, who are recommending
for the office of ædile or duumvir the candidate whom they prefer. Thus,
Paratus nominates Pansa, Philippus prefers Caius Aprasius Felix;
Valentinus, with his pupils, chooses Sabinus and Rufus. Sometimes the
elector is in a hurry; he asks to have his candidate elected quickly.
The fruiterers, the public porters, the muleteers, the salt-makers, the
carpenters, the truckmen, also unite to push forward the ædile who has
their confidence. Frequently, in order to give more weight to its vote,
the corporation declares itself unanimous. Thus, all the goldsmiths
preferred a certain Photinus--a fishmonger, thinks Overbeck--for ædile.
Let us not forget _the sleepers_, who declare for Vatia. By the way, who
were these friends of sleep? Perhaps they were citizens who disliked
noise; perhaps, too, some association of nocturnal revellers thus
disguised under an ironical and reassuring title. Sometimes the
candidate is recommended by a eulogistic epithet indicated by seals, a
style of abbreviation much in use among the ancients. The person
recommended is always a good man, a man of probity, an excellent
citizen, a very moral individual. Sometimes positive wonders are
promised on his behalf. Thus, after having designated Julius Polybius
for the ædileship, an elector announces that he will bring in good
bread. Electoral intrigue went still further. _We_ are pretty well on in
that respect, but I think that the ancients were our masters. I read the
following bare-faced avowal on a wall: _Sabinum ædilem, Procule, fac et
ille te faciet_. (Make Sabinus ædile, O Proculus, and he may make thee
such!) Frank and cool that, it strikes me!

But enough of elections; there is no lack of announcements of another
character. Some of these give us the programme of the shows in the
amphitheatre; such-and-such a troop of gladiators will fight on such a
day; there will be hunting matches and awnings, as well as sprinklings
of perfumed waters to refresh the multitude (_venatio, vela,
sparsiones_). Thirty couples of gladiators will ensanguine the arena.

There were, likewise, posters announcing apartments to let.

Some of these inscriptions, either scratched or painted, were witticisms
or exclamations from facetious passers-by. One ran thus: "Oppius the
porter is a robber, a rogue!" Sometimes there were amorous declarations:
"Augea loves Arabienus." Upon a wall in the Street of Mercury, an ivy
leaf, forming a heart, contained the gentle name of Psyche. Elsewhere a
wag, parodying the style of monumental inscriptions, had announced that
under the consulate of L. Monius Asprenas and A. Plotius, there was born
to him the foal of an ass. "A wine jar has been lost and he who brings
it back shall have such a reward from Varius; but he who will bring the
thief shall have twice as much."

Again, still other inscriptions were notifications to the public in
reference to the cleanliness of the streets, and recalling in terms
still more precise the "Commit no Nuisance" put up on the corners of
some of our streets with similar intent. On more than one wall at
Pompeii the figures of serpents, very well painted, sufficed to prevent
any impropriety, for the serpent was a sacred symbol in ancient
Rome--strange mingling of religion in the pettiest details of common
life! Only a very few years ago, the Neapolitans still followed the
example of their ancestors; they protected the outside walls of their
dwellings with symbolical paintings, rudely tracing, not serpents, but
crosses on them.

[Footnote C: These olives which, when found, were still soft and pasty,
had a rancid smell and a greasy but pungent flavor. The kernels were
less elongated and more bulging than those of the Neapolitan olives;
were very hard and still contained some shreds of their pith. In a word,
they were perfectly preserved, and although eighteen centuries old, as
they were, you would have thought they had been plucked but a few months
before.]




IV.

THE SUBURBS.

     THE CUSTOM HOUSE.--THE FORTIFICATIONS AND THE GATES.--THE ROMAN
     HIGHWAYS.--THE CEMETERY OF POMPEII.--FUNERALS: THE PROCESSION, THE
     FUNERAL PYRE, THE DAY OF THE DEAD.--THE TOMBS AND THEIR
     INSCRIPTIONS.--PERPETUAL LEASES.--BURIAL OF THE RICH, OF ANIMALS,
     AND OF THE POOR.--THE VILLAS OF DIOMED AND CICERO.

    "Ce qu'on trouve aux abords d'une grande cite,
      Ce sont des abattoirs, des murs, des cimitieres:
    C'est ainsi qu'en entrant dans la societé
      On trouve ses egouts."


Alfred de Musset would have depicted the suburban quarters of Pompeii
exactly in these lines, had he added to his enumeration the wine-shops
and the custom-house. The latter establishment was not omitted by the
ancients, and could not be forgotten in our diminutive but highly
commercial city. Thus, the place has been discovered where the collector
awaited the passage of the vehicles that came in from the country and
the neighboring villages. Absolutely nothing else remains to be seen in
this spacious mosaic-paved hall. Scales, steelyards, and a quantity of
stone or metal weights were found there, marked with inscriptions
sometimes quite curious; such, for example, as the following: _Eme et
habbebis_, with a _b_ too many, a redundancy very frequent in the Naples
dialect. This is equivalent, in English, to: Buy and you will have. One
of the sets of scales bears an inscription stating that it had been
verified or authorized at the Capitol under such consuls and such
emperors--the hand of Rome!

Besides the custom-house, this approach to the city contained abundance
of stables, coach-houses, taverns, bath-houses, low drinking-shops, and
other disreputable concerns. Even the dwellings in the same quarter have
a suspicious look. You follow a long street and you have before you the
gate of Herculaneum and the walls.

These walls are visible; they still hold firm. Unquestionably, they
could not resist our modern cannon, for if the ancients built better
than we do, we destroy better than they did; this is one thing that must
in justice be conceded to us. Nevertheless, we cannot but admire those
masses of _peperino_, the points of which ascend obliquely and hold
together without mortar. Originally as ancient as the city, these
ramparts were destroyed to some extent by Sylla and repaired in _opus
incertum_, that is to say, in small stones of every shape and of various
dimensions, fitted to one another without order or regularity in the
layers, as though they had been put in just as they came. The old
structure dated probably from the time of Pompeian autonomy--the Oscans
had a hand in them. The surrounding wall, at the foot of which there
were no ditches, would have formed an oval line of nearly two miles had
it not been interrupted, on the side of the mountains and the sea,
between the ports of Stabiæ and of Herculaneum. These ramparts consisted
of two walls--the scarp and counterscarp,--between which ran a terraced
platform; the exterior wall, slightly sloping, was defended by
embrasures between which the archer could place himself in safety, in an
angle of the stonework, so soon as he had shot his arrow. The interior
wall was also crested with battlements. The curvilinear rampart did not
present projecting angles, the salients of which, Vitruvius tells us,
could not resist the repeated blows of the siege machinery of those
days. It was intersected by nine towers, of three vaulted stories each,
at unequal distances, accordingly as the nature of the ground demanded
greater or less means of defence, was pierced with loopholes and was not
very solid. Vitruvius would have had them rounded and of cut stone;
those of Pompeii are of quarried stone, and in small rough ashlars,
stuck together with mortar. The third story of each tower reached to the
platform of the rampart, with which it communicated by two doors.

Notwithstanding all that remains of them, the walls of Pompeii were no
longer of service at the time of the eruption. Demolished by Sylla and
then by Augustus, shattered by the earthquake, and interrupted as I have
said, they left the city open. They must have served for a public
promenade, like the bastions of Geneva.

Eight gates opened around the city (perhaps there was a ninth that has
now disappeared, opening out upon the sea). The most singular of all of
them is the Nola gate, the construction of which appears to be very
ancient. We there come across those fine cut stones that reveal the
handiwork of primitive times. A head considerably broken and defaced,
surmounting the arcade, was accompanied with an Oscan inscription,
which, having been badly read by a savant, led for an instant to the
belief that the Campanians of the sixth century before Jesus Christ
worshipped the Egyptian Isis. The learned interpreter had read: _Isis
propheta_ (I translate it into Latin, supposing you to know as little as
I do of the Oscan tongue). The inscription really ran, _idem probavit_.

[Illustration: The Nola Gate at Pompeii.]

It is worth while passing through the gate to get a look at the angle
formed by the ramparts at this one point. I doubt whether the city was
ever attacked on that side. Before reaching the gate the assailants
would have had to wind along through a narrow gallery, where the
archers, posted on the walls and armed with arrows and stones, would
have crushed them all.

The Herculaneum gate is less ancient, and yet more devastated by time
than the former one. The arcade has fallen in, and it requires some
attention to reinstate it. This gate formed three entrances. The two
side ways were probably intended for pedestrians; the one in the middle
was closed by means of a portcullis sliding in a groove, still visible,
but covered with stucco. As the portcullis, in descending, would have,
thrown down this coating, we must infer that at the time of the eruption
it had not been in use for a long while, Pompeii having ceased to be a
fortified place.

The Herculaneum gate was not masked inside, so that the archers,
standing upon the terraces that covered the side entrances, could fire
upon the enemy even after the portcullis had been carried. We know that
one of the stratagems of the besieged consisted in allowing the enemy to
push in, and then suddenly shutting down upon them the formidable
_cataracta_ suspended by iron chains. They then slaughtered the poor
wretches indiscriminately and covered themselves with glory.

Having passed the gate, we find ourselves on one of those fine paved
roads which, starting at Rome in all directions, have everywhere left
very visible traces, and in many places still serve for traffic. The
Greeks had gracefulness, the Romans grandeur. Nothing shows this more
strikingly than their magnificent highways that pierce mountains, fill
up ravines, level the plains, cross the marshes, bestride rivers, and
even valleys, and stretched thus from the Tiber to the Euphrates. In
order to construct them, they first traced two parallel furrows, from
between which they removed all the loose earth, which they replaced with
selected materials, strongly packed, pressed, and pounded down. Upon
this foundation (the _pavimentum_) was placed a layer of rough stone
(_statumen_), then a filling-in of gravel and lime (the _rudus_), and,
finally, a third bed of chalk, brick, lime, clay, and sand, kneaded and
pounded in together into a solid crust. This was the nucleus. Last of
all, they placed above it those large rough blocks of lava which you
will find everywhere in the environs of Naples. As before remarked,
these roads have served for twenty centuries, and they are good yet.

[Illustration: The Herculaneum Gate, restored.]

The Herculaneum road formed a delightful promenade at the gates of
Pompeii; a street lined with trees and villas, like the Champs Elyseés
at Paris, and descending from the city to the country between two rows
of jaunty monuments prettily-adorned, niches, kiosks, and gay pavilions,
from which the view was admirable. This promenade was the cemetery of
Pompeii. But let not this intimation trouble you, for nothing was less
mournful in ancient times than a cemetery. The ancients were not fond of
death; they even avoided pronouncing its name, and resorted to all sorts
of subterfuges to avoid the doleful word. They spoke of the deceased as
"those who had been," or "those who are gone." Very demonstrative, at
the first moment they would utter loud lamentations. Their sorrow thus
vented its first paroxysms. But the first explosion over, there remained
none of that clinging melancholy or serious impression that continues in
our Christian countries. The natives of the south are epicureans in
their religious belief, as in their habits of life. Their cemeteries
were spacious avenues, and children played jackstones on the tombs.

Would you like to hear a few details in reference to the interments of
the ancients. "The usage was this," says Claude Guichard, a doctor at
law, in his book concerning funereal rites, printed at Lyons, in 1581,
by Jean de Tournes: "When the sick person was in extreme danger, his
relatives came to see him, seated themselves on his bed, and kept him
company until the death-rattle came on and his features began to assume
the dying look. Then the nearest relative among them, all in tears,
approached the patient and embraced him closely, breast against breast
and face against face, so as to receive his soul, and mouth to mouth,
catching his last breath; which done, he pressed together the lips and
eyes of the dead man, arranging them decently, so that the persons
present might not see the eyes of the deceased open, for, according to
their customs, it was not allowable to the living to see the eyes of the
dead.... Then the room was opened on all sides, and they allowed all
persons belonging to the family and neighborhood, to come in, who chose.
Then, three or four of them began to bewail the deceased and call to him
repeatedly, and, perceiving that he did not reply one word, they went
out and told of the death. Then the near relatives went to the bedside
to give the last kiss to the deceased, and handed him over to the
chambermaids of the house, if he was a person of the lower class. If he
was one of the eminent men and heads of families, he committed him to
the care of people authorized to perform this office, to wash, anoint,
and dress him, in accordance with the custom and what was requisite in
view of the quality, greatness, and rank of the personage."

Now there were at Rome several ministers, public servitors, and
officials, who had charge of all that appertained to funerals, such as
the _libitinarii_, the _designatores_, and the like. All of which was
wisely instituted by Numa Pompilius, as much to teach the Romans not to
hold things relating to the dead in horror, or fly from them as
contaminating to the person, as in order to fix in their memory that all
that has had a beginning in birth must in like manner terminate in
death, birth and death both being under the control and power of one and
the same deity; for they deemed that Libitina was the same as Venus, the
goddess of procreation. Then, again, the said officers had under their
orders different classes of serfs whom they called, in their language,
the _pollinctores_, the _sandapilarii_, the _ustores_, the _cadaverum
custodes_, intrusted with the care of anointing the dead, carrying them
to the place of sepulture, burning them, and watching them. "After
_pollinctores_ had carefully washed, anointed, and embalmed the body,
according to the custom regarding it and the expense allowed, they
wrapped it in a white linen cloth, after the manner of the Egyptians,
and in this array placed it upon a bed handsomely prepared as though for
the most distinguished member of the household, and then raised in front
of the latter a small dresser shaped like an altar, upon which they
placed the usual odors and incense, to burn along with tapers and
lighted candles.... Then, if the deceased was a person of note, they
kept the body thus arranged for the space of seven consecutive days,
inside the house, and, during that time, the near relatives, dressed in
certain long robes or very loose and roomy mantles called _ricinia_,
along with the chambermaids and other women taken thither to weep, never
ceased to lament and bewail, renewing their distress every time any
notable personage entered the room; and they thought that all this while
the deceased remained on earth, that is to say, kept for a few days
longer at the house, while they were hastening their preparations for
the pomp and magnificence of his funeral. On the eighth day, so as to
assemble the relatives, associates, and friends of the defunct the more
easily, inform the public and call together all who wished to be
present, the procession, which they called _exequiæ_, was cried aloud
and proclaimed with the sound of the trumpet on all the squares and
chief places of the city by the crier of the dead, in the following
form: 'Such a citizen has departed from this life, and let all who wish
to be present at his obsequies know that it is time; he is now to be
carried from his dwelling.'"

Let us step aside now, for here comes a funeral procession. Who is the
deceased? Probably a consular personage, a duumvir, since lictors lead
the line. Behind them come the flute-players, the mimes and mountebanks,
the trumpeters, the tambourine-players, and the weepers (_præfiicæ_),
paid for uttering cries, tearing their hair, singing notes of
lamentation, extolling the dead man, mimicking despair, "and teaching
the chambermaids how to best express their grief, since the funeral must
not pass without weeping and wailing." All this makes up a melancholy
but burlesque din, which attracts the crowd and swells the procession,
to the great honor of the defunct. Afterward come the magistrates, the
decurions in mourning robes, the bier ornamented with ivory. The
duumvir Lucius Labeo (he is the person whom they are burying) is "laid
out at full length, and dressed in white shrouds and rich coverings of
purple, his head raised slightly and surrounded with a handsome coronet,
if he merit it." Among the slaves who carry the bier walks a man whose
head is covered with white wool, "or with a cap, in sign of liberty."
That is the freedman Menomachus, who has grown rich, and who is
conducting the mourning for his master. Then come unoccupied beds,
"couches fitted up with the same draperies as that on which reposes the
body of the defunct" (it is written that Sylla had six thousand of these
at his funeral), then the long line of wax images of ancestors (thus the
dead of old interred the newly dead), then the relatives, clad in
mourning, the friends, citizens, and townsfolk generally in crowds. The
throng is all the greater when the deceased is the more honored. Lastly,
other trumpeters, and other pantomimists and tumblers, dancing,
grimacing, gambolling, and mimicking the duumvir whom they are helping
to bury, close the procession. This interminable multitude passes out
into the Street of Tombs by the Herculaneum gate.

The _ustrinum_, or room in which they are going to burn the body, is
open. You are acquainted with this Roman custom. According to some, it
was a means of hastening the extrication of the soul from the body and
its liberation from the bonds of matter, or its fusion in the great
totality of things; according to others, it was but a measure in behalf
of public health. However that may be, dead bodies might be either
buried or burned, provided the deposit of the corpse or the ashes were
made outside of the city. A part of the procession enters the
_ustrinum_. Then they are going to burn the duumvir Lucius Labeo.

The funeral pyre is made of firs, vine branches, and other wood that
burns easily. The near relatives and the freedman take the bier and
place it conveniently on the pile, and then the man who closes the eyes
of the dead opens them again, making the defunct look up toward the sky,
and gives him the last kiss. Then they cover the pile with perfumes and
essences, and collect about it all the articles of furniture, garments,
and precious objects that they want to burn. The trumpets sound, and the
freedman, taking a torch and turning away his eyes, sets fire to the
framework. Then commence the sacrifices to the manes, the formalities,
the pantomimic action, the howlings of the mourners, the combats of the
gladiators "in order to satisfy the ceremony closely observed by them
which required that human blood should be shed before the lighted pile;"
this was done so effectually that when there were no gladiators the
women "tore each other's hair, scratched their eyes and their cheeks
with their nails, _heartily_, until the blood came, thinking in this
manner to appease and propitiate the infernal deities, whom they suppose
to be angered against the soul of the defunct, so as to treat it
roughly, were this doleful ceremony omitted and disdained."... The body
burned, the mother, wife, or other near relative of the dead, wrapped
and clad in a black garment, got ready to gather up the relics--that is
to say, the bones which remained and had not been totally consumed by
the fire; and, before doing anything, invoked the deity manes, and the
soul of the dead man, beseeching him to take this devotion in good part,
and not to think ill of this service. Then, after having washed her
hands well, and having extinguished the fire in the brazier with wine
or with milk, she began to pick out the bones among the ashes and to
gather them into her bosom or the folds of her robe. The children also
gathered them, and so did the heirs; and we find that the priests who
were present at the obsequies could help in this. But if it was some
very great lord, the most eminent magistrates of the city, all in silk,
ungirdled and barefooted, and their hands washed, as we have said,
performed this office themselves. Then they put these relics in urns of
earthenware, or glass, or stone, or metal; they besprinkled them with
oil or other liquid extracts; they threw into the urn, sometimes, a
piece of coin, which sundry antiquaries have thought was the obolus of
Charon, forgetting that the body, being burned, no longer had a hand to
hold it out; and, finally, the urn was placed in a niche or on a bench
arranged in the interior of the tomb. On the ninth day, the family came
back to banquet near the defunct, and thrice bade him adieu: _Vale!
Vale! Vale!_ then adding, "May the earth rest lightly on thee!"

Hereupon, the next care was the monument. That of the duumvir Labeo,
which is very ugly, in _opus incertum_, covered with stucco and adorned
with bas-reliefs and portraits of doubtful taste, was built at the
expense of his freedman, Menomachus. The ceremony completed and vanity
satisfied, the dead was forgotten; there was no more thought, excepting
for the _ferales_ and _lemurales_, celebrations now retained by the
Catholics, who still make a trip to the cemetery on the Day of the Dead.
The Street of the Tombs, saddened for a moment, resumed its look of
unconcern and gaiety, and children once more played about among the
sepulchres.

There are monuments of all kinds in this suburban avenue of Pompeii.
Many of them are simple pillars in the form of Hermes-heads. There is
one in quite good preservation that was closed with a marble door; the
interior, pierced with one window, still had in a niche an alabaster
vase containing some bones. Another, upon a plat of ground donated by
the city, was erected by a priestess of Ceres to her husband, H. Alleius
Luceius Sibella, aedile, duumvir, and five years' prefect, and to her
son, a decurion of Pompeii, deceased at the age of seventeen. A decurion
at seventeen!--there was a youth who made his way rapidly. Cicero said
that it was easier to be a Senator at Rome than a decurion at Pompeii.
The tomb is handsome--very elegant, indeed--but it contained neither
urns, nor sarcophagi; it probably was not a place of burial, but a
simple cenotaph, an honorary monument.

The same may be said of the handsomest mausoleum on the street, that of
the augustal Calventius: a marble altar gracefully decorated with
arabesques and reliefs (Œdipus meditating, Theseus reposing, and a young
girl lighting a funeral pile). Upon the tomb are still carved the
insignia of honor belonging to Calventius, the oaken crowns, the
_bisellium_ (a bench with seats for two), the stool, and the three
letters O.C.S. (_ob civum servatum_), indicating that to the illustrious
dead was due the safety of a citizen of Rome. The Street of the Tombs,
it will be seen, was a sort of Pantheon. An inscription discovered there
and often repeated (that which, under Charles III., was the first that
revealed the existence of Pompeii), informs us that, upon the order of
Vespasian, the tribune Suedius Clemens had yielded to the commune of
Pompeii the places occupied by the private individuals, which meant
that the notables only, authorized by the decurions, had the right to
sleep their last slumber in this triumphal avenue, while the others had
to be dispossessed. Still the hand of Rome!

Another monument--the one attributed to Scaurus--was very curious, owing
to the gladiatorial scenes carved on it, and which, according to custom,
represented real combats. Each figure was surmounted with an inscription
indicating the name of the gladiator and the number of his victories. We
know, already, that these sanguinary games formed part of the funeral
ceremonies. The heirs of the deceased made the show for the
gratification of the populace, either around the tombs or in the
amphitheatre, whither we shall go at the close of our stroll, and where
we shall describe the carvings on the pretended monument of Scaurus.

The tomb of Nevoleia Tyché, much too highly decorated, encrusted with
arabesques and reliefs representing the portrait of that lady, a
sacrifice, a ship (a symbol of life, say the sentimental antiquaries),
is covered with a curious inscription, which I translate literally.

"Nevoleia Tyché, freedwoman of Julia, for herself and for Caius Munatius
Faustus, knight and mayor of the suburb, to whom the decurions, with the
consent of the people, had awarded the honor of the _bisellium_. This
monument has been offered during her lifetime by Nevoleia Tyché to her
freedmen and to those of C. Munatius Faustus."

Assuredly, after reading this inscription, we cannot reproach the fair
Pompeians with concealing their affections from the public. Nevoleia
certainly was not the wife of Munatius; nevertheless, she loved him
well, since she made a trysting with him even in the tomb. It was Queen
Caroline Murat who, accompanied by Canova, was the first to penetrate to
the inside of this dovecote (January 14, 1813). There were opened in her
presence several glass urns with leaden cases, on the bottom of which
still floated some ashes in a liquid not yet dried up, a mixture of
water, wine, and oil. Other urns contained only some bones and the small
coin which has been taken for Charon's obolus.

I have many other tombs left to mention. There are three, which are
sarcophagi, still complete, never open, and proving that the ancients
buried their dead even before Christianity prohibited the use of the
funeral pyre. Families had their choice between the two systems, and
burned neither men who had been struck by lightning (they thought the
bodies of such to be incorruptible), nor new-born infants who had not
yet cut their teeth. Thus it was that the remains of Diomed's youngest
children could not be found, while those of the elder ones were
preserved in a glass urn contained in a vase of lead.

A tomb that looks like a sentry-box, and stands as though on duty in
front of the Herculaneum gate, had, during the eruption, been the refuge
of a soldier, whose skeleton was found in it. Another
strangely-decorated monument forms a covered hemicycle turned toward the
south, fronting the sea, as though to offer a shelter for the fatigued
and heated passers-by. Another, of rounded shape, presents inside a
vault bestrewn with small flowers and decorated with bas-reliefs, one of
which represents a female laying a fillet on the bones of her child.
Other monuments are adorned with garlands. One of the least curious
contained the magnificent blue and white glass vase, of which I shall
have to speak further on. That of the priestess Mamia, ornamented with a
superb inscription, forms a large circular bench terminating in a lion's
claw. Visitors are fond of resting there to look out upon the landscape
and the sea. Let us not forget the funereal triclinium, a
simply-decorated dining-hall, where still are seen three beds of
masonry, used at the banquets given in honor of the dead. These feasts,
at which nothing was eaten but shell-fish (poor fare, remarks Juvenal),
were celebrated nine days after the death. Hence came their title,
_novendialia_. They were also called _silicernia_; and the guests
conversed at them about the exploits and benevolent deeds of the man who
had ceased to live. Polybius boasts greatly of these last honors paid to
illustrious citizens. Thence it was, he says, that Roman greatness took
its rise.

In fact, even at Pompeii, in this humble _campo santo_ of the little
city, we see at every step virtue rewarded after death by some
munificent act of the decurions. Sometimes it is a perpetual grant (a
favor difficult to obtain), indicated by the following letters:
H.M.H.N.S. (_hoc monumentum hæredes non sequitur_), insuring to them
the perpetual possession of their sepulchre, which could not be disposed
of by their heirs. Sometimes the space conceded was indicated upon the
tomb. For instance, we read in the sepulchre of the family of
Nistacidius: "A. Nistacidius Helenus, mayor of the suburb Augusto-Felix.
To Nistacidius Januarius and to Mesionia Satulla. Fifteen feet in depth,
fifteen feet in frontage."

This bench of the priestess Mamia and that of Aulus Vetius (a military
tribune and duumvir dispensing justice) were in like manner constructed,
with the consent of the people, upon the lands conceded by the
decurions. In fine--and this is the most singular feature--animals had
their monuments. This, at least, is what the guides will tell you, as
they point out a large tomb in a street of the suburbs. They call it the
_sepolcro dei bestiani_, because the skeletons of bulls were found in
it. The antiquaries rebel against this opinion. Some, upon the strength
of the carved masks, affirm that it was a burial place for actors;
others, observing that the inclosure walls shut in quite a spacious
temple, intimate that it was a cemetery for priests. For my part, I have
nothing to offer against the opinion of the guides. The Egyptians,
whose gods Rome adopted, interred the bull Apis magnificently. Animals
might, therefore, find burial in the noble suburb of Pompeii. As for the
lower classes, they slept their final sleep where they could; perhaps in
the common burial pit (_commune sepulcrum_), an ancient barbarism that
has been kept up until our times; perhaps in those public burial ranges
where one could purchase a simple niche (_olla_) for his urn. These
niches were sometimes humble and touching presents interchanged by poor
people.

And in this street, where death is so gay, so vain, so richly adorned,
where the monuments arose amid the foliage of trees perennially green,
which they had endeavored, but without success, to render serious and
sombre, where the mausolea are pavilions and dining-rooms, in which the
inscriptions recall whole narratives of life and even love affairs,
there stood spacious inns and sumptuous villas--for instance, those of
Arrius Diomed and Cicero. This Arrius Diomed was one of the freedmen of
Julia, and the mayor of the suburb. A rich citizen, but with a bad
heart, he left his wife and children to perish in his cellar, and fled
alone with one slave only, and all the silver that he could carry away.
He perished in front of his garden gate. May the earth press heavily
upon him!

His villa, which consisted of three stories, not placed one above the
other, but descending in terraces from the top of the hill, deserves a
visit or two. You will there see a pretty court surrounded with columns
and small rooms, one of which--of an elliptical shape and opening on a
garden, and lighted by the evening twilight, but shielded from the sun
by windows and by curtains, the glass panes and rings of which have been
found--is the pleasantest nook cleared out among these ruins. You will
also be shown the baths, the saloons, the bedchambers, the garden, a
host of small apartments brilliantly decorated, basins of marble, and
the cellar still intact, with amphoræ, inside of which were still a few
drops of wine not yet dried up, the place where lay the poor suffocated
family--seventeen skeletons surprised there together by death. The fine
ashes that stifled them having hardened with time, retain the print of a
young girl's bosom. It was this strange mould, which is now kept at the
museum, that inspired the _Arria Marcella_ of Theophile Gautier--that
author's masterpiece, perhaps, but at all events a masterpiece.

As for Cicero, get them to show you his villa, if you choose. You will
see absolutely nothing there, and it has been filled up again. Fine
paintings were found there previously, along with superb mosaics and a
rich collection of precious articles; but I shall not copy the
inventory. Was it really the house of Cicero? Who can say? Antiquaries
will have it so, and so be it, then! I do not deny that Cicero had a
country property at Pompeii, for he often mentions it in his letters;
but where it was, exactly, no one can demonstrate. He could have
descried it from Baiæ or Misenum, he somewhere writes, had he possessed
longer vision; but in such case he could also have seen the entire side
of Pompeii that looks toward the sea. Therefore, I put aside these
useless discussions and resume our methodical tour.

I have shown you the ancients in their public life; at the Forum and in
the street, in the temples and in the wine-shops, on the public
promenade and in the cemeteries. I shall now endeavor to come upon them
in their private life, and, for this end, to peep at them first in a
place which was a sort of intermediate point between the street and the
house. I mean the hot baths, or thermæ.




V.

THE THERMÆ.

     THE HOT BATHS AT ROME.--THE THERMÆ OF STABIÆ.--A TILT AT SUN
     DIALS.--A COMPLETE BATH, AS THE ANCIENTS CONSIDERED IT; THE
     APARTMENTS, THE SLAVES, THE UNGUENTS, THE STRIGILLÆ.--A SAYING OF
     THE EMPEROR HADRIAN.--THE BATHS FOR WOMEN.--THE READING ROOM.--THE
     ROMAN NEWSPAPER.--THE HEATING APPARATUS.


The Romans were almost amphibious. They bathed themselves as often as
seven times per diem; and young people of style passed a portion of the
day, and often a part of the night, in the warm baths. Hence the
importance which these establishments assumed in ancient times. There
were eight hundred and fifty-six public baths at Rome, in the reign of
Augustus. Three thousand bathers could assemble in the thermæ of
Caracalla, which had sixteen hundred seats of marble or of porphyry. The
thermæ of Septimius Severus, situated in a park, covered a space of one
hundred thousand square feet, and comprised rooms of all kinds:
gymnasia, academic halls where poets read their verses aloud, arenas for
gladiators, and even theatres. Let us not forget that the Bull and the
Farnese Hercules, now so greatly admired at Naples, and the masterpieces
of the Vatican, the Torso at the Belvidere, and the Laocoon were found
at the baths.

These immense palatial structures were accessible to everybody. The
price of admission was a _quadrans_, and the _quadrans_ was the fourth
part of an _as_; the latter, in Cicero's time, was worth about one cent
and two mills. Even this charge was afterward abolished. At daybreak,
the sound of a bell announced the opening of the baths. The rich went
there particularly between the middle of the day and sunset; the
dissipated went after supper, in defiance of the prescribed rules of
health. I learn from Juvenal, however, that they sometimes died of it.
Nevertheless, Nero remained at table from noon until midnight, after
which he took warm baths in winter and snow baths in summer.

In the earlier times of the republic there was a difference of hours for
the two sexes. The thermæ were monopolized alternately by the men and
the women, who never met there. Modesty was carried so far that the son
would not bathe with his father, nor even with his father-in-law. At a
later period, men and women, children and old folks, bathed pell-mell
together at the public baths, until the Emperor Hadrian, recognizing the
abuse, suppressed it.

Pompeii, or at least that portion of Pompeii which has been exhumed, had
two public bathing establishments. The most important of these, namely,
the Stabian baths, was very spacious, and contained all sorts of
apartments, side rooms, round and square basins, small ovens, galleries,
porticoes, etc., without counting a space for bodily exercises
(_palæstra_) where the young Pompeians went through their gymnastics.
This, it will be seen, was a complete water-cure establishment.

The most curious thing dug up out of these ruins is a Berosian sun-dial
marked with an Oscan inscription announcing that N. Atinius, son of
Marius the quæstor, had caused it to be executed, by order of the
decurions, with the funds resulting from the public fines. Sun-dials
were no rarity at Pompeii. They existed there in every shape and of
every price; among them was one elevated upon an Ionic column of
_cipollino_ marble. These primitive time-pieces were frequently offered
by the Roman magistrates for the adornment of the monuments, a fact that
greatly displeased a certain parasite whom Plautus describes:

"May the gods exterminate the man who first invented the hours!" he
exclaims, "who first placed a sun-dial in this city! the traitor who has
cut the day in pieces for my ill-luck! In my childhood there was no
other time-piece than the stomach; and that is the best of them all, the
most accurate in giving notice, unless, indeed, there be nothing to eat.
But, nowadays, although the side-board be full, nothing is served up
until it shall please the sun. Thus, since the town has become full of
sun-dials, you see nearly everybody crawling about, half starved and
emaciated."

The other thermæ of Pompeii are much smaller, but better adorned, and,
above all, in better preservation. Would you like to take a full bath
there in the antique style? You enter now by a small door in the rear,
and traverse a corridor where five hundred lamps were found--a striking
proof that the Pompeians passed at least a portion of the night at the
baths. This corridor conducts you to the _apodyteres_ or _spoliatorium_,
the place where the bathers undress. At first blush you are rather
startled at the idea of taking off your clothes in an apartment with six
doors, but the ancients, who were better seasoned than we are, were not
afraid of currents of air. While a slave takes your clothing and your
sandals, and another, the _capsarius_, relieves you of your jewels,
which he will deposit in a neighboring office, look at the apartment;
the cornice ornamented with lyres and griffins, above which are ranges
of lamps; the arched ceiling forming a semicircle divided off in white
panels edged with red, and the white mosaic of the pavement bordered
with black. Here are stone benches to sit down upon, and pins fixed in
the walls, where the slave hangs up your white woollen toga and your
tunic. Above there is a skylight formed of a single very thick pane of
glass, and, firmly inclosed within an iron frame, which turns upon two
pivots. The glass is roughened on one side to prevent inquisitive people
from peeping into the hall where we are. On each side of the window some
reliefs, now greatly damaged, represent combats of giants.

Here you are, as nude as an antique statue. Were you a true Roman, you
would now step into an adjoining cabinet which was the anointing place
(_elæthesium_), where the anointing with oil was done, and, after that,
you will go and play tennis in the court, which was reached by a
corridor now walled up. The blue vault was studded with golden stars.
But you are not a true Roman; you have come hither simply to take a hot
or a cold bath. If a cold one, pass on into the small room that opens at
the end of the hall. It is the _frigidarium_.

This _frigidarium_ or _natatio_ is a circular room, which strikes you at
the outset by its excellent state of preservation. In the middle of it
is hollowed out a spacious round basin of white marble, four yards and a
half in diameter by about four feet in depth; it might serve
to-day--nothing is wanting but the water, says Overbeck. An inside
circular series of steps enabled the Pompeians to bathe in a sitting
posture. Four niches, prepared at the places where the angles would be
if the apartment were square, contained benches where the bathers
rested. The walls were painted yellow and adorned with green branches.
The frieze and pediment were red and decorated with white bas-reliefs.
The vault, which was blue and open overhead, was in the shape of a
truncated cone. It was clear, brilliant, and gay, like the antique life
itself.

Do you prefer a warm bath? Retrace your steps and, from the
_apodyteros_, where you left your clothing, pass into the _tepidarium_.
This hall, which is the richest of the bathing establishment, is paved
in white mosaic with black borders, the vault richly ornamented with
_stucature_ and white paintings standing forth from a red and blue
background. These reliefs in stucco represent cupids, chimeras,
dolphins, does pursued by lions, etc. The red walls are adorned with
closets, perhaps intended for the linen of the bathers, over which
jutted a cornice supported by Atlases or Telamons in baked clay covered
with stucco. A pretty border frame formed of arabesques separates the
cornice from the vault. A large window at the extremity flanked by two
figures in stucco lighted up the tepidarium, while subterranean conduits
and a large brazier of bronze retained for it that lukewarm (_tepida_)
temperature which gave it the peculiar name.

[Illustration: The Tepidarium, at the Baths.]

This bronze brazier is still in existence, along with three benches of
the same metal found in the same place; an inscription--_M. Nigidius
Vaccula P.S._ (_pecuniâ sua_)--designates to us the donor who punning on
his own name _Vaccula_, had caused a little cow to be carved upon the
brazier; and on the feet of the benches, the hoofs of that quiet animal.
The bottom of this precious heater formed a huge grating with bars of
bronze, upon which bricks were laid; upon these bricks extended a layer
of pumice-stones, and upon the pumice-stones the lighted coals.

What, then, was the use to which this handsome tepidarium was applied?
Its uses were manifold, as you will learn farther on, but, for the
moment, it is to prepare you, by a gentle warmth, for the temperature of
the stove that you are going to enter through a door which closed of
itself by its own weight, as the shape of the hinges indicates.

This caldarium is a long room at the ends of which rises, on one side,
something like the parapet of a well, and on the other a square basin.
The middle of the room is the stove, properly speaking. The steam did
not circulate in pipes, but exhaled from the wall itself and from the
hollow ceiling in warm emanations. The adornments of the walls consisted
of simple flutings. The square basin (_alveus_ or _baptisterium_) which
served for the warm baths was of marble. It was ascended by three steps
and descended on the inside by an interior bench upon which ten bathers
could sit together. Finally, on the other side of the room, in a
semi-circular niche, rose the well parapet of which I spoke; it was a
_labrum_, constructed with the public funds. An inscription informs us
that it cost seven hundred and fifty sestertii, that is to say,
something over thirty dollars. Yet this _labrum_ is a large marble
vessel seven feet in diameter. Marble has grown dearer since then.

On quitting the stove, or warm bath, the Pompeians wet their heads in
that large wash-basin, where tepid water which must, at that moment,
have seemed cold, leaped from a bronze pipe still visible. Others still
more courageous plunged into the icy water of the frigidarium, and came
out of it, they said, stronger and more supple in their limbs. I prefer
believing them to imitating them.

Have you had enough of it? Would you leave the heating room? You belong
to the slaves who are waiting for you, and will not let you go. You are
streaming with perspiration, and the _tractator_, armed with a
_strigilla_, or flesh brush, is there to rasp your body. You escape to
the tepidarium; but it is there that the most cruel operations await
you. You belong, as I remarked, to the slaves; one of them cuts your
nails, another plucks out your stray hair, and a third still seeks to
press your body and rasp the skin with his brush, a fourth prepares the
most fearful frictions yet to ensue, while others deluge you with oils
and essences, and grease you with perfumed unguents. You asked just now
what was the use of the tepidarium; you now know, for you have been made
acquainted with the Roman baths.

A word in reference to the unguents with which you have just been
rubbed. They were of all kinds; you have seen the shops where they were
sold. They were perfumed with myrrh, spikenard, and cinnamon; there was
the Egyptian unguent for the feet and legs, the Phœnician for the
cheeks and the breast, and the Sisymbrian for the two arms; the essence
of marjoram for the eyebrows and the hair, and that of wild thyme for
the nape of the neck and the knees. These unguents were very dear, but
they kept up youth and health.

"How have you managed to preserve yourself so long and so well?" asked
Augustus of Pollio.

"With wine inside, and oil outside," responded the old man.

As for the utensils of the baths (a collection of them is still
preserved at the Naples museum on an iron ring), they consisted first of
the strigilla, then of the little bottle or vial of oil, and a sort of
stove called the _scaphium_. All these, along with the slippers, the
apron, and the purse, composed the baggage that one took with him to the
baths.

The most curious of these instruments was the strigilla or scraper, bent
like a sickle and hollowed in a sort of channel. With this the slave
_curried_ the bather's body. The poor people of that country who bathed
in the time of the Romans--they have not kept up the custom--and who had
no strigillarii at their service, rubbed themselves against the wall.
One day the Emperor Hadrian seeing one of his veterans thus engaged,
gave him money and slaves to strigillate him. A few days afterward, the
Emperor, going to the baths, saw a throng of paupers who, whenever they
caught sight of him, began to rub vigorously against the wall. He merely
said: "Rub yourselves against each other!"

There were other apartments adjoining those that I have designated, and
very similar to them, only simpler and not so well furnished. These
modest baths served for the slaves, think some, and for the women,
according to others. The latter opinion I think, lacks gallantry. In
front of this edifice, at the principal entrance of the baths, opened a
tennis-court, surrounded with columns and flanked by a crypt and a
saloon. Many inscriptions covered the walls, among others the
announcement of a show with a hunt, awnings, and sprinklings of perfumed
water. It was there that the Pompeians assembled to hear the news
concerning the public shows and the rumors of the day. There they could
read the dispatches from Rome. This is no anachronism, good reader, for
newspapers were known to the ancients--see Leclerc's book--and they
were called the _diurnes_ or _daily doings_ of the Roman people;
diurnals and journals are two words belonging to the same family. Those
ancient newspapers were as good in their way as our own. They told about
actors who were hissed; about funeral ceremonies; of a rain of milk and
blood that fell during the consulate of M. Acilius and C. Porcius; of a
sea-serpent--but no, the sea-serpent is modern. Odd facts like the
following could be read in them. This took place twenty eight years
after Jesus Christ, and must have come to the Pompeians assembled in the
baths: "When Titus Sabinus was condemned, with his slaves, for having
been the friend of Germanicus, the dog of the former could not be got
away from the spot, but accompanied the prisoner to the place of
execution, uttering the most doleful howls in the presence of a crowd of
people. Some one threw him a piece of bread and he carried it to his
master's lips, and when the corpse was tossed into the Tiber, the dog
dashed after it, and strove to keep it on the surface, so that people
came from all directions to admire the animal's devotion."

We are nowhere informed that the Roman journals were subjected to
government stamp and security for good behavior, but they were no more
free than those of France. Here is an anecdote reported by Dion on that
subject:

"It is well known," he says, "that an artist restored a large portico at
Rome which was threatening to fall, first by strengthening its
foundations at all points, so that it could not be displaced. He then
lined the walls with sheep's fleeces and thick mattresses, and, after
having attached ropes to the entire edifice, he succeeded, by dint of
manual force and the use of capstans, in giving it its former position.
But Tiberius, through jealousy, would not allow the name of this artist
to appear in the newspapers."

Now that you have been told a little concerning the ways of the Roman
people, you may quit the Thermæ, but not without easting a glance at the
heating apparatus visible in a small adjacent court. This you approach
by a long corridor, from the _apodytera_. There you find the
_hypocaust_, a spacious round fireplace which transmitted warm air
through lower conduits to the stove, and heated the two boilers built
into the masonry and supplied from a reservoir. From this reservoir the
water fell cold into the first boiler, which sent it lukewarm into the
second, and the latter, being closer to the fire, gave it forth at a
boiling temperature. A conduit carried the hot water of the second
boiler to the square basin of the calidarium and another conveyed the
tepid water of the first boiler to the large receptacle of the labrum.
In the fire-place was found a quantity of rosin which the Pompeians used
in kindling their fires. Such were the Thermæ of a small Roman city.




VI.

THE DWELLINGS.

     PARATUS AND PANSA.--THE ATRIUM AND THE PERISTYLE.--THE DWELLING
     REFURBISHED AND REPEOPLED.--THE SLAVES, THE KITCHEN, AND THE
     TABLE.--THE MORNING OCCUPATIONS OF A POMPEIAN.--THE TOILET OF A
     POMPEIAN LADY.--A CITIZEN SUPPER: THE COURSES, THE GUESTS.--THE
     HOMES OF THE POOR, AND THE PALACES OF ROME.


In order, now, to study the _home_ of antique times, we have but to
cross the street of the baths obliquely. We thus reach the dwelling of
the ædile Pansa. He, at least, is the proprietor designated by general
opinion, which, according to my ideas, is wrong in this particular. An
inscription painted on the door-post has given rise to this error. The
inscription runs thus: _Pansam ædilem Paratus rogat_. This the early
antiquarians translated: _Paratus invokes Pansa the ædile_. The early
antiquaries erred. They should have rendered it: _Paratus demands Pansa
for ædile_. It was not an invocation but an electoral nomination. We
have already deciphered many like inscriptions. Universal suffrage put
itself forward among the ancients as it does with us.

Hence, the dwelling that I am about to enter was not that of Pansa,
whose name is found thus suggested for the ædileship in many other
places, but rather that of Paratus, who, in order to designate the
candidate of his choice, wrote the name on his door-post.

Such is my opinion, but, as one runs the risk of muddling everything by
changing names already accepted, I do not insist upon it. So let us
enter the house of Pansa the ædile.

This dwelling is not the most ornate, but it is the most regular in
Pompeii, and also the least complicated and the most simply complete.
Thus, all the guides point it out as the model house, and perceiving
that they are right in so doing, I will imitate them.

In what did a Pompeian's dwelling differ from a small stylish residence
or villa of modern times? In a thousand and one points which we shall
discover, step by step, but chiefly in this, that it was turned
inwards, or, as it were, doubled upon itself; not that it was, as has
been said, altogether a stranger to the street, and presented to the
latter only a large painted wall, a sort of lofty screen. The upper
stories of the Pompeian houses having nearly all crumbled, we are not in
a position to affirm that they did not have windows opening on the
public streets. I have already shown you _mæniana_ or suspended
balconies from which the pretty girls of the place could ogle the
passers-by. But it is certain that the first floor, consisting of the
finest and best occupied apartments, grouped its rooms around two
interior courts and turned their backs to the street. Hence, these two
courts opening one behind the other, the development of the front was
but a small affair compared with the depth of the house.

These courts were called the _atrium_, and the peristyle. One might say
that the atrium was the public and the peristyle the private part of the
establishment; that the former belonged to the world and the second to
the family. This arrangement nearly corresponded with the division of
the Greek dwelling into _andronitis_ and _gynaikotis_, the side for the
men and the side for the women. Around the atrium were usually
ranged--we must not be too rigorously precise in these distinctions--the
rooms intended for the people of the house, and those who called upon
them. Around the peristyle were the rooms reserved for the private
occupancy of the family.

I commence with the atrium. It was reached from the street by a narrow
alley (the _prothyrum_), opening, by a two-leaved door, upon the
sidewalk. The doors have been burned, but we can picture them to
ourselves according to the paintings, as being of oak, with narrow
panels adorned with gilded nails, provided with a ring to open them by,
and surmounted with a small window lighting up the alley. They opened
inwards, and were secured by means of a bolt, which shot vertically
downward into the threshold instead of reaching across.

I enter right foot foremost, according to the Roman custom (to enter
with the left foot was a bad omen); and I first salute the inscription
on the threshold (_salve_) which bids me welcome. The porter's lodge
(_cella ostiarii_) was usually hollowed out in the entryway, and the
slave in question was sometimes chained, a precaution which held him at
his post, undoubtedly, but which hindered him from, pursuing robbers.
Sometimes, there was only a dog on guard, in his place, or merely the
representation of a dog in mosaic: there is one in excellent
preservation at the Museum in Naples retaining the famous inscription
(_Cave canem_)--"Beware of the dog!"

[Illustration: The Atrium in the House of Pansa, restored.]

The atrium was not altogether a court, but rather a large hall covered
with a roof, in the middle of which opened a large bay window. Thus the
air and the light spread freely throughout the spacious room, and the
rain fell from the sky or dripped down over the four sloping roofs into
a marble basin, called _impluvium_, that conveyed it to the cistern, the
mouth of which is still visible. The roofs usually rested on large
cross-beams fixed in the walls. In such case, the atrium was Tuscan, in
the old fashion. Sometimes, the roofs rested on columns planted at the
four corners of the impluvium: then, the opening enlarged, and the
atrium became a tetrastyle. Some authors mention still other kinds of
_atria_--the Corinthian, which was richly decorated; the _dipluviatum_,
where the roof, instead of sloping inward, sloped outward and threw off
the rain-water into the street; the _testudinatum_, in which the roof
looked like an immense tortoise-shell, etc. But these forms of roofs,
especially the last mentioned, were rare, and the Tuscan atrium was
almost everywhere predominant, as we find it on Pansa's house.

Place yourself at the end of the alley, with your back toward the
street, and you command a view of this little court and its
dependencies. It is needless to say that the roof has disappeared: the
eruption consumed the beams, the tiles have been broken by falling, and
not only the tiles but the antefixes, cut in palm-leaves or in lion's
heads, which spouted the water into the impluvium. Nothing remains but
the basin and the partition walls which marked the subdivisions of the
ground-floor. One first discovers a room of considerable size at the
end, between a smaller room and a corridor, and eight other side
cabinets. Of these eight cabinets, the six that come first, three to the
right and three to the left, were bedrooms, or _cubicula_. What first
strikes the observer is their diminutive size. There was room only for
the bed, which was frequently indicated by an elevation of the masonry,
and on that mattresses or sheepskins were stretched. The bedsteads often
were also of bronze or wood, quite like those of our time. These
cubicula received the air and the light through the door, which the
Pompeians probably left open in summer.

Next to the cubicula came laterally the _alae_, the wings, in which
Pansa (if not Paratus) received his visitors in the morning--friends,
clients, parasites. These rooms must have been rich, paved, as they
were, with lozenges of marble and surrounded with seats or divans. The
large room at the end was the _tablinum_, which separated, or rather
connected, the two courts and ascended by two steps to the peristyle. In
this tablinum, which was a show-room or parlor, were kept the archives
of the family, and the _imagines majorum_, or images of ancestors, which
were wax figures extolled in grand inscriptions, stood there in rows.
You have observed that they were conducted with great pomp in the
funeral processions. The Romans did not despise these exhibitions of
vanity. They clung all the more tenaciously to their ancestry as they
became more and more separated from them by the lapse of ages and the
decay of old manners and customs.

To the left of the tablinum opened the library, where were found some
volumes, unfortunately almost destroyed; and off to the right of the
tablinum ran the fauces, a narrow corridor leading to the peristyle.

Thus, a show-room, two reception rooms, a library, six bedchambers for
slaves or for guests, and all these ranged around a hall lighted from
above, paved in white mosaic with black edging between and adorned with
a marble basin,--such is the atrium of Pansa.

I am now going to pass beyond into the fauces. An apartment opens upon
this corridor and serves as a pendant to the library; it is a bedroom,
as a recess left in the thickness of the wall for the bedstead
indicates. A step more and I reach the peristyle.

The peristyle is a real court or a garden surrounded with columns
forming a portico. In the house of Pansa, the sixteen columns, although
originally Doric, had been repaired in the Corinthian style by means of
a replastering of stucco. In some houses they were connected by
balustrades or walls breast high, on which flowers in either vases or
boxes of marble were placed, and in one Pompeian house there was a frame
set with glass panes. In the midst of the court was hollowed out a
spacious basin (_piscina_), sometimes replaced by a parterre from which
the water leaped gaily. In the peristyle of Pansa's house is still seen,
in an intercolumniation, the mouth of a cistern. We are now in the
richest and most favored part of the establishment.

At the end opens the _œcus_, the most spacious hall, surrounded, in the
houses of the opulent Romans, with columns and galleries, decorated with
precious marbles developing into a basilica. But in the house of Pansa
do not look for such splendors. Its œcus was but a large chamber between
the peristyle and a garden.

To the right of the œcus, at the end of the court, is half hidden a
smaller and less obtrusive apartment, probably an _exedra_. On the right
wing of the peristyle, on the last range, recedes the triclinium. The
word signifies triple bed; three beds in fine, ranged in horse-shoe
order, occupied this apartment, which served as a dining-room. It is
well known that the ancients took their meals in a reclining attitude
and resting on their elbows. This Carthaginian custom, imported by the
Punic wars, had become established everywhere, even at Pompeii. The
ancients said "make the beds," instead of "lay the table."

To the right of the peristyle on the first range, glides a corridor
receding toward a private door that opens on a small side street. This
was the _posticum_, by which the master of the house evaded the
importunate visitors who filled the atrium. This method of escaping
bores was called _postico fallere clientem_. It was a device that must
have been familiar to rich persons who were beset every morning by a
throng of petitioners and hangers-on.

The left side of the peristyle was occupied by three bedchambers, and by
the kitchen, which was hidden at the end, to the left of the œcus. This
kitchen, like most of the others, has its fireplaces and ovens still
standing. They contained ashes and even coal when they were discovered,
not to mention the cooking utensils in terra cotta and in bronze. Upon
the walls were painted two enormous serpents, sacred reptiles which
protected the altar of Fornax, the culinary divinity. Other paintings (a
hare, a pig, a wild boar's head, fish, etc.) ornamented this room
adjoining which was, in the olden time among the Pompeians, as to-day
among the Neapolitans, the most ignoble retreat in the dwelling. A
cabinet close by served for a pantry, and there were found in it a large
table and jars of oil ranged along on a bench.

Thus a large portico with columns, surrounding a court adorned with a
marble basin (_piscina_); around the portico on the right, three
bedchambers or _cubicula_; on the right, a rear door (_posticum_) and an
eating room (_triclinium_); at the end, the grand saloon (_œcus_),
between an exedra and kitchen--such was the peristyle of Pansa.

This relatively spacious habitation had still a third depth (allow me
the expression) behind the peristyle. This was the _xysta_ or garden,
divided off into beds, and the divisions of which, when it was found,
could still be seen, marked in the ashes. Some antiquaries make it out
that the xysta of Pansa was merely a kitchen garden. Between the xysta
and the peristyle was the _pergula_, a two-storied covered gallery, a
shelter against the sun and the rain. The occupants in their flight left
behind them a handsome bronze candlestick.

Such was the ground-floor of a rich Pompeian dwelling. As for the upper
stories, we can say nothing about them. Fire and time have completely
destroyed them. They were probably very light structures; the lower
walls could not have supported others. Most of the partitions must have
been of wood. We know from books that the women, slaves, and lodgers
perched in these pigeon-houses, which, destitute, as they were, of the
space reserved for the wide courts and the large lower halls, must have
been sufficiently narrow and unpleasant. Other more opulent houses had
some rooms that were lacking in the house of Pansa: these were, first,
bathrooms, then a _spherister_ for tennis, a _pinacothek_ or gallery of
paintings, a _sacellum_ or family chapel, and what more I know not. The
diminutiveness of these small rooms admitted of their being infinitely
multiplied.

I have not said all. The house of Pansa formed an island (_insula_) all
surrounded with streets, upon three of which opened shops that I have
yet to visit. At first, on the left angle, a bakery, less complete than
the public ovens to which I conducted you in the second chapter
preceding this one. There were found ornaments singularly irreconcilable
with each other; inscriptions, thoroughly Pagan in their character,
which recalled Epicurus, and a Latin cross in relief, very sharply
marked upon a wall. This Christian symbol allows fancy to spread her
wings, and Bulwer, the romance-writer, has largely profited by it.

A shop in the front, the second to the left of the entrance door,
communicated with the house. The proprietor, then, was a merchant, or,
at least, he sold the products of his vineyards and orchards on his own
premises, as many gentlemen vine-growers of Florence still do. A slave
called the _dispensator_ was the manager of this business.

Some of these shops opening on a side-street, composed small rooms
altogether independent of the house, and probably occupied by
_inquilini_,[D] or lodgers, a class of people despised among the
ancients, who highly esteemed the homestead idea. A Roman who did not
live under his own roof would cut as poor a figure as a Parisian who did
not occupy his own furnished rooms, or a Neapolitan compelled to go
afoot. Hence, the petty townsmen clubbed together to build or buy a
house, which they owned in common, preferring the inconveniences of a
divided proprietorship to those of a mere temporary occupancy. But they
have greatly changed their notions in that country, for now they move
every year.

[Illustration: Candelabra, Jewelry, and Kitchen Utensils found at
Pompeii.]

I have done no more here than merely to sketch the plan of the house.
Would you refurnish it? Then, rifle the Naples museum, which has
despoiled it. You will find enough of bedsteads, in the collection of
bronzes there, for the cubicula; enough of carved benches, tables,
stands, and precious vases for the œcus, the exedra, and the wings, and
enough of lamps to hang up; enough of candelabra to place in the
saloons. Stretch carpets over the costly mosaic pavements and even over
the simple _opus signinum_ (a mixture of lime and crushed brick) which
covered the floor of the unpretending chambers with a solid
incrustation. Above all, replace the ceilings and the roofs, and then
the doors and draperies; in fine, revive upon all these walls--the
humblest as well as the most splendid--the bright and vivid pictures now
effaced. What light, and what a gay impression! How all these clear,
bold colors gleam out in the sunshine, which descends in floods from an
open sky into the peristyle and the atrium! But that is not all: you
must conjure up the dead. Arise, then, and obey our call, O young
Pompeians of the first century! I summon Pansa, Paratus, their wives,
their children, their slaves; the ostiarius, who kept the door; the
_atriensis_, who controlled the atrium; the _scoparius_, armed with his
birch-broom; the _cubicularii_, who were the bedroom servants; the
_pedagogue_, my colleague, who was a slave like the rest, although he
was absolute master of the library, where he alone, perhaps, understood
the secrets of the papyri it contained. I hasten to the kitchen: I want
to see it as it was in the ancient day,--the _carnarium_, provided with
pegs and nails for the fresh provisions, is suspended to the ceiling;
the cooking ranges are garnished with chased stew-pans and coppers, and
large bronze pails, with luxurious handles, are ranged along on the
floor; the walls are covered with shining utensils, long-handled spoons
bent in the shape of a swan's neck and head, skillets and frying-pans,
the spit and its iron stand, gridirons, pastry-moulds (patty-pans?)
fish-moulds (_formella_), and what is no less curious, the _apalare_ and
the _trua_, flat spoons pierced with holes either to fry eggs or to beat
up liquids, and, in fine, the funnels, the sieves, the strainers, the
_colum vinarium_, which they covered with snow and then poured their
wine over it, so that the latter dropped freshened and cooled into the
cups below,--all rare and precious relics preserved by Vesuvius, and
showing in what odd corners elegance nestled, as Moliere would have
said, among the Romans of the olden times.

[Illustration: KITCHEN UTENSILS FOUND AT POMPEII]

None but men entered this kitchen: they were the cook, or _coquus_, and
his subaltern, the slave of the slave, _focarius_. The meal is ready,
and now come other slaves assigned to the table,--the _tricliniarches_,
or foreman of all the rest; the _lectisterniator_, who makes the beds;
the _praegustator_, who tastes the viands beforehand to reassure his
master; the _structor_, who arranges the dishes on the plateaux or
trays; the _scissor_, who carves the meats; and the young _pocillatro_,
or _pincerna_, who pours out the wine into the cups, sometimes dancing
as he does so (as represented by Moliere) with the airs and graces of a
woman or a spoiled child.

There is festivity to-day: Paratus sups with Pansa, or rather Pansa with
Paratus, for I persist in thinking that we are in the house of the
elector and not of the future ædile. If the master of the house be a
real Roman, like Cicero, he rose early this morning and began the day
with receiving visits. He is rich, and therefore has many friends, and
has them of three kinds,--the _salutatores_, the _ductores_, and the
_assectatores_. The first-named call upon him at his own house; the
second accompany him to public meetings; and the third never leave him
at all in public. He has, besides, a number of clients, whom he protects
and whom he calls "my father" if they be old, and "my brother" if they
be young. There are others who come humbly to offer him a little basket
(_sportula_), which they carry away full of money or provisions. This
morning Paratus has sent off his visitors expeditiously; then, as he is
no doubt a pious man, he has gone through his devotions before the
domestic altar, where his household gods are ranged. We know that he
offered peculiar worship to Bacchus, for he had a little bronze statue
of that god, with silver eyes; it was, I think, at the entrance of his
garden, in a kettle, wrapped up with other precious articles, Paratus
tried to save this treasure on the day of the eruption, but he had to
abandon it in order to save himself. But to continue my narration of the
day as this Pompeian spent it. His devotions over, he took a turn to the
Forum, the Exchange, the Basilica, where he supported the candidature of
Pansa. From there, unquestionably, he did not omit going to the Thermæ,
a measure of health; and, now, at length, he has just returned to his
home. During his absence, his slaves have cleansed the marbles, washed
the stucco, covered the pavements with sawdust, and, if it be in winter,
have lit fuel oil large bronze braziers in the open air and borne them
into the saloons, for there are no chimneys anywhere. The expected guest
at length arrives--salutations to Pansa, the future ædile! Meanwhile
Sabina, the wife of Paratus, has not remained inactive. She has passed
the whole morning at her toilet, for the toilet of a Sabina, Pompeian or
Roman, is an affair of state,--see Boettger's book. As she awoke she
snapped her fingers to summon her slaves, and the poor girls have
hastened to accomplish this prodigious piece of work. First, the applier
of cosmetics has effaced the wrinkles from the brows of her mistress,
and, then, with her saliva, has prepared her rouge; then, with a needle,
she has painted her mistress' eyelashes and eyebrows, forming two
well-arched and tufted lines of jetty hue, which unite at the root of
the nose. This operation completed, she has washed Sabina's teeth with
rosin from Scio, or more simply, with pulverized pumice-stone, and,
finally, has overspread her entire countenance with the white powder of
lead which was much used by the Romans at that early day.

Then came the _ornatrix_, or hairdresser. The fair Romans dyed their
hair blonde, and when the dyeing process was not sufficient, they wore
wigs. This example was followed by the artists, who put wigs on their
statues; in France they would put on crinoline. Ancient head-dresses
were formidable monuments held up with pins of seven or eight inches in
length. One of these pins, found at Herculaneum, is surmounted with a
Corinthian capital upon which a carved Venus is twisting her hair with
both hands while she looks into a mirror that Cupid holds up before her.
The mirrors of those ancient days--let us exhaust the subject!--were of
polished metal; the richest were composed of a plate of silver applied
upon a plate of gold and sustained by a carved handle of wood or ivory;
and Seneca exclaimed, in his testy indignation, "The dowry that the
Senate once bestowed upon the daughter of Scipio would no longer suffice
to pay for the mirror of a freedwoman!"

At length, Sabina's hair is dressed: Heaven grant that she may be
pleased with it, and may not, in a fit of rage, plunge one of her long
pins into the naked shoulder of the ornatrix! Now comes the slave who
cuts her nails, for never would a Roman lady, or a Roman gentleman
either, who had any self-respect, have deigned to perform this operation
with their own hands. It was to the barber or _tonsor_ that this
office was assigned, along with the whole masculine toilet, generally
speaking; that worthy shaved you, clipped you, plucked you, even washed
you and rubbed your skin; perfumed you with unguents, and curried you
with the strigilla if the slaves at the bath had not already done so.
Horace makes great sport of an eccentric who used to pare his own nails.

[Illustration: Lamps of Earthenware and Bronze found at Pompeii.]

Sabina then abandons her hands to a slave who, armed with a set of small
pincers and a penknife (the ancients were unacquainted with scissors),
acquitted themselves skilfully of that delicate task--a most grave
affair and a tedious operation, as the Roman ladies wore no gloves.
Gesticulation was for them a science learnedly termed _chironomy_. Like
a skilful instrument, pantomime harmoniously accompanied the voice.
Hence, all those striking expressions that we find in authors,--"the
subtle devices of the fingers," as Cicero has it; the "loquacious hand"
of Petronius. Recall to your memory the beautiful hands of Diana and
Minerva, and these two lines of Ovid, which naturally come in here:

    "Exiguo signet gestu quodcunque loquetur,
    Cui digiti pingues, cui scaber unguis erit."[E]

The nail-paring over, there remains the dressing of the person, to be
accomplished by other slaves. The seamstresses (_carcinatrices_)
belonged to the least-important class; for that matter, there was little
or no sewing to do on the garments of the ancients. Lucretia had been
dead for many years, and the matrons of the empire did not waste their
time in spinning wool. When Livia wanted to make the garments of
Augustus with her own hands, this fancy of the Empress was considered to
be in very bad taste. A long retinue of slaves (cutters, linen-dressers,
folders, etc.), shared in the work of the feminine toilet, which, after
all, was the simplest that had been worn, since the nudity of the
earliest days. Over the scarf which they called _trophium_, and which
sufficed to hold up their bosoms, the Roman ladies passed a long-sleeved
_subucula_, made of fine wool, and over that they wore nothing but the
tunic when in the house. The _libertinæ_, or simple citizens' wives and
daughters, wore this robe short and coming scarcely to the knee, so as
to leave in sight the rich bracelets that they wore around their legs.
But the matrons lengthened the ordinary tunic by means of a plaited
furbelow or flounce (_instita_), edged, sometimes, with golden or purple
thread. In such case, it took the name of _stola_, and descended to
their feet. They knotted it at the waist, by means of a girdle
artistically hidden under a fold of the tucked-up garment. Below the
tunic, the women when on the street wore, lastly, their _toga_, which
was a roomy mantle enveloping the bosom and flung back over the left
shoulder; and thus attired, they moved along proudly, draped in white
woollens.

At length, the wife of Paratus is completely attired; she has drawn on
the white bootees worn by matrons; unless, indeed, she happens to prefer
the sandals worn by the libertinæ,--the freedwomen were so
called,--which left those large, handsome Roman feet, which we should
like to see a little smaller, uncovered. The selection of her jewelry is
now all that remains to be done. Sabina owned some curious specimens
that were found in the ruins of her house. The Latins had a discourteous
word to designate this collection of precious knick-knackery; they
called it the "woman's world," as though it were indeed all that there
was in the world for women. One room in the Museum at Naples is full of
these exhumed trinkets, consisting of serpents bent into rings and
bracelets, circlets of gold set with carved stones, earrings
representing sets of scales, clusters of pearls, threads of gold
skilfully twisted into necklaces; chaplets to which hung amulets, of
more or less decent design, intended as charms to ward off ill-luck;
pins with carved heads; rich clasps that held up the tunic sleeves or
the gathered folds of the mantle, cameoed with a superb relief and of
exquisite workmanship worthy of Greece; in fine, all that luxury and
art, sustaining each other, could invent that was most wonderful. The
Pompeian ladies, in their character of provincials, must have carried
this love of baubles that cost them so dearly, to extremes: thus, they
wore them in their hair, in their ears, on their necks, on their
shoulders, their arms, their wrists, their legs, even on their ankles
and their feet, but especially on their hands, every finger of which,
excepting the middle one, was covered with rings up to the third
joint, where their lovers slipped on those that they desired to
exchange with them.

[Illustration: Necklace, Ring, Bracelets, and Ear-rings found at
Pompeii.]

Her toilet completed, Sabina descended from her room in the upper story.
The ordinary guests, the friend of the house, the clients and _the
shadows_ (such was the name applied to the supernumeraries, the humble
doubles whom the invited guests brought with them), awaited her in the
peristyle. Nine guests in all--the number of the Muses. It was forbidden
to exceed that total at the suppers of the triclinium. There were never
more than nine, nor less than three, the number of the Graces. When a
great lord invited six thousand Romans to his table, the couches were
laid in the atrium. But there is not an atrium in Pompeii that could
contain the hundredth part of that number.

The ninth hour of the day, i.e., the third or fourth in the afternoon,
has sounded, and it is now that the supper begins in all respectable
houses. Some light collations, in the morning and at noon, have only
sharpened the appetites of the guests. All are now assembled; they wash
their hands and their feet, leave their sandals at the door, and are
shown into the triclinium.

The three bronze bedsteads are covered with cushions and drapery; the
one at the end (_the medius_) in one corner represents the place of
honor reserved for the important guest, the consular personage. On the
couch to the right recline the host, the hostess, and the friend of the
house. The other guests take the remaining places. Then, in come the
slaves bearing trays, which they put, one by one, upon the small bronze
table with the marble top which is stationed between the three couches
like a tripod. Ah! what glowing descriptions I should have to make were
I at the house of Trimalcion or Lucullus! I should depict to you the
winged hares, the pullets and fish carved in pieces, with pork meat; the
wild boar served up whole upon an enormous platter and stuffed with
living thrushes, which fly out in every direction when the boar's
stomach is cut open; the side dishes of birds' tongues; of enormous
_murenæ_ or eels; barbel caught in the Western Ocean and stifled in salt
pickle; surprises of all kinds for the guests, such as sets of dishes
descending from the ceiling, fantastic apparitions, dancing girls,
mountebanks, gladiators, trained female athletes,--all the orgies, in
fine, of those strange old times. But let us not forget where we really
are. Paratus is not an emperor, and has to confine himself to a simple
citizen repast, quiet and unassuming throughout. The bill of fare of one
of these suppers has been preserved, and here we give it:

_First Course._--Sea urchins. Raw oysters at discretion. _Pelorides_ or
palourdes (a sort of shell-fish now found on the coasts of Poitou in
France). Thorny shelled oysters; larks; a hen pullet with asparagus;
stewed oysters and mussels; white and black sea-tulips.

_Second Course._--_Spondulae_, a variety of oyster; sweet water mussels;
sea nettles; becaficoes; cutlets of kid and boar's meat; chicken pie;
becaficoes again, but differently prepared, with an asparagus sauce;
_murex_ and purple fish. The latter were but different kinds of
shell-fish.

_Third Course._--The teats of a sow _au naturel_; they were cut as soon
as the animal had littered; wild boar's head (this was the main dish);
sow's teats in a ragout; the breasts and necks of roast ducks;
fricasseed wild duck; roast hare, a great delicacy; roasted Phrygian
chickens; starch cream; cakes from Vicenza.

All this was washed down with the light Pompeian wine, which was not
bad, and could be kept for ten years, if boiled. The wine of Vesuvius,
once highly esteemed, has lost its reputation, owing to the concoctions
now sold to travellers under the label of _Lachrymæ Christi_. The
vintages of the volcano must have been more honestly prepared at the
period when they were sung by Martial. Every day there is found in the
cellars of Pompeii some short-necked, full-bodied, and elongated
_amphora_, terminating in a point so as to stick upright in the ground,
and nearly all are marked with an inscription stating the age and origin
of the liquor they contained. The names of the consuls usually
designated the year of the vintage. The further back the consul, the
more respectable the wine. A Roman, in the days of the Empire, having
been asked under what consul his wine dated, boldly replied, "Under
none!" thereby proclaiming that his cellar had been stocked under the
earliest kings of Rome.

These inscriptions on the amphoræ make us acquainted with an old
Vesuvian wine called _picatum_, or, in other words, with a taste of
pitch; _fundanum_, or Fondi wine, much esteemed, and many others. In
fine, let us not forget the famous growth of Falernus, sung by the
poets, which did not disappear until the time of Theodoric.

But besides the amphoræ, how much other testimony there still remains of
the olden libations,--those rich _crateræ_, or broad, shallow goblets of
bronze damascened with silver; those delicately chiselled cups; those
glasses and bottles which Vesuvius has preserved for us; that jug, the
handle of which is formed of a satyr bending backward to rub his
shoulders against the edge of the vase; those vessels of all shapes on
which eagles perch or swans and serpents writhe; those cups of baked
clay adorned with so many arabesques and inviting descriptions.
"Friend," says one of them "drink of my contents."

    "Friend of my soul, this goblet sip!"

rhymes the modern bard.

What a mass of curious and costly things! What is the use of rummaging
in books! With the museums of Naples before us, we can reconstruct all
the triclinia of Pompeii at a glance.

There, then, are the guests, gay, serene, reclining or leaning on their
elbows on the three couches. The table is before them, but only to be
looked at, for slaves are continually moving to and fro, from one to the
other, serving every guest with a portion of each dish on a slice of
bread. Pansa daintily carries the delicate morsel offered him to his
mouth with his fingers, and flings the bread under the table, where a
slave, in crouching attitude, gathers up all the debris of the repast.
No forks are used, for the ancients were unacquainted with them. At the
most, they knew the use of the spoon or cochlea, which they employed in
eating eggs. After each dish they dipped their fingers in a basin
presented to them, and then wiped them upon a napkin that they carried
with them as we take our handkerchiefs with us. The wealthiest people
had some that were very costly and which they threw into the fire when
they had been soiled; the fire cleansed without burning them. Refined
people wiped their fingers on the hair of the cupbearers,--another
Oriental usage. Recollect Jesus and Mary Magdalene.

At length, the repast being concluded, the guests took off their
wreaths, which they stripped of their leaves into a goblet that was
passed around the circle for every one to taste, and this ceremony
concluded the libations.

I have endeavored to describe the supper of a rich Pompeian and exhibit
his dwelling as it would appear reconstructed and re-occupied. Reduce
its dimensions and simplify it as much as possible by suppressing the
peristyle, the columns, the paintings, the tablinum, the exedra, and all
the rooms devoted to pleasure or vanity, and you will have the house of
a poor man. On the contrary, if you develop it, by enriching it beyond
measure, you may build in your fancy one of those superb Roman palaces,
the extravagant luxuriousness of which augmented, from day to day, under
the emperors. Lucius Crassus, who was the first to introduce columns of
foreign marble, in his dwelling, erected only six of them but twelve
feet high. At a later period, Marcus Scaurus surrounded his atrium with
a colonnade of black marble rising thirty-eight feet above the soil.
Mamurra did not stop at so fair a limit. That distinguished Roman knight
covered his whole house with marble. The residence of Lepidus was the
handsomest in Rome seventy-eight years before Christ. Thirty-five years
later, it was but the hundredth. In spite of some attempts at reaction
by Augustus, this passion for splendor reached a frantic pitch. A
freedman in the reign of Claudius decorated his triclinium with
thirty-two columns of onyx. I say nothing of the slaves that were
counted by thousands in the old palaces, and by hundreds in the
triclinium and kitchen alone.

"O ye beneficent gods! how many men employed to serve a single stomach!"
exclaimed Seneca, who passed in his day for a master of rhetoric. In our
time, he would be deemed a socialist.

[Footnote D: So strong was this feeling, that the very name
_inquilinus_, or lodger, was an insult. Cicero not having been born at
Rome, Catiline called him offensively _civis inquilinus_--a lodger
citizen. (_Sallust_.)]

[Footnote E: Let not fingers that are too thick, and ill-pared nails,
make gestures too conspicuous.]

[Illustration: Peristyle of the House of the Quaestor at Pompeii.]




VII.

ART IN POMPEII.

     THE HOMES OF THE WEALTHY.--THE TRIANGULAR FORUM AND THE
     TEMPLES.--POMPEIAN ARCHITECTURE: ITS MERITS AND ITS DEFECTS.--THE
     ARTISTS OF THE LITTLE CITY.--THE PAINTINGS HERE.--LANDSCAPES,
     FIGURES, ROPE-DANCERS, DANCING-GIRLS, CENTAURS, GODS, HEROES, THE
     ILIAD ILLUSTRATED.--MOSAICS.--STATUES AND
     STATUETTES.--JEWELRY.--CARVED GLASS.--ART AND LIFE.


The house of Pansa was large, but not much ornamented. There are others
which are shown in preference to the visitor. Let us mention them
concisely in the catalogue and inventory style:

The house of the Faun.--Fine mosaics; a masterpiece in bronze; the
Dancing Faun, of which we shall speak farther on. Besides the atrium and
the peristyle, a third court, the xysta, surrounded with forty-four
columns, duplicated on the upper story. Numberless precious things were
found there, in the presence of the son of Goethe. The owner was a
wine-merchant.(?)

The house of the Quæstor, or of Castor and Pollux.--Large safes of very
thick and very hard wood, lined with copper and ornamented with
arabesques, perhaps the public money-chests, hence this was probably the
residence of the quæstor who had charge of the public funds; a
Corinthian atrium; fine paintings--the _Bacchante_ the _Medea_, the
_Children of Niobe_, etc. Rich development of the courtyards.

The house of the Poet.--Homeric paintings; celebrated mosaics; the dog
at the doorsill, with the inscription _Cave Canem_; the _Choragus
causing the recitation of a piece_. All these are at the museum.

The house of Sallust.--A fine bronze group; Hercules pursuing a deer
(taken to the Museum at Palermo); a pretty stucco relievo in one of the
bedchambers; Three couches of masonry in the triclinium; a decent and
modest _venereum_ that ladies may visit. There is seen an Acteon
surprising Diana in the bath, the stag's antlers growing on his forehead
and the hounds tearing him. The two scenes connect in the same picture,
as in the paintings of the middle ages. Was this a warning to rash
people? This venereum contained a bedchamber, a triclinium and a
lararium, or small marble niche in which the household god was
enshrined.

[Illustration: The House of Lucretius.]

The house of Marcus Lucretius.--Very curious. A peristyle forming a sort
of platform, occupied with baubles, which they have had the good taste
to leave there; a miniature fountain, little tiers of seats, a small
conduit, a small fish-tank, grotesque little figures in bronze,
statuettes and images of all sorts,--Bacchus and Bacchantes, Fauns and
Satyrs, one of which, with its arm raised above its head, is charming.
Another in the form of a Hermes holds a kid in its arms; the she-goat
trying to get a glimpse of her little one, is raising her fore-feet as
though to clamber up on the spoiler. These odds and ends make up a
pretty collection of toys, a shelf, as it were, on an ancient what-not
of knick-knacks.

Then, there are the Adonis and the Hermaphrodite in the house of Adonis;
the sacrarium or domestic chapel in the house of the Mosaic Columns; the
wild beasts adorning the house of the Hunt; above all, the fresh
excavations, where the paintings retain their undiminished brilliance.
But if all these houses are to be visited, they are not to be described.
Antiquaries dart upon this prey with frenzy, measuring the tiniest
stone, discussing the smallest painting, and leaving not a single
frieze or panel without some comment, so that, after having read their
remarks, one fancies that everything is precious in this exhumed
curiosity-shop. These folks deceive themselves and they deceive us;
their feelings as virtuosos thoroughly exhaust themselves upon a theme
which is very attractive, very curious, 'tis true, but which calls for
less completely scientific hands to set it to music, the more so that in
Pompeii there is nothing grand, or massive, or difficult to comprehend.
Everything stands right forth to the gaze and explains itself as clearly
and sharply as the light of day.

Moreover, these houses have been despoiled. I might tell you of a pretty
picture or a rich mosaic in such-and-such a room. You would go thither
to look for it and not find it. The museum at Naples has it, and if it
be not there it is nowhere. Time, the atmosphere, and the sunlight have
destroyed it. Therefore, those who make out an inventory of these houses
for you are preparing you bitter disappointments.

The only way to get an idea of Pompeian art is not to examine all these
monuments separately, but to group them in one's mind, and then to pay
the museum an attentive visit. Thus we can put together a little ideal
city, an artistic Pompeii, which we are going to make the attempt to
explore.

Pompeii had two and even three forums. The third was a market; the
first, with which you are already acquainted, was a public square; the
other, which we are about to visit, is a sort of Acropolis, inclosed
like that of Athens, and placed upon the highest spot of ground in the
city. From a bench, still in its proper position at the extremity of
this forum, you may distinguish the valley of the Sarno, the shady
mountains that close its perspective, the cultivated checker-work of the
country side, green tufts of the woodlands, and then the gently curving
coast-line where Stabiæ wound in and out, with the picturesque heights
of Sorrento, the deep blue of the sea, the transparent azure of the
heavens, the infinite limpidity of the distant horizon, the brilliant
clearness and the antique color. Those who have not beheld this scenery,
can only half comprehend its monuments, which would ever be out of
place beneath another sky.

It was in this bright sunlight that the Pompeian Acropolis, the
triangular Forum, stood. Eight Ionic columns adorned its entrance and
sustained a portico of the purest elegance, from which ran two long
slender colonnades widening apart from each other and forming an acute
angle. They are still surmounted with their architrave, which they
lightly supported. The terrace, looking out upon the country and the
sea, formed the third side of the triangle, in the middle of which rose
some altars,--the ustrinum, in which the dead were burned, a small round
temple covering a sacred well, and, finally, a Greek temple rising above
all the rest from the height of its foundation and marking its columns
unobstructedly against the sky. This platform, resting upon solid
supports and covered with monuments in a fine style of art, was the best
written page and the most substantially correct one in Pompeii.
Unfortunately, here, as everywhere else, stucco had been plastered over
the stone-work. The columns were painted. Nowhere could a front of pure
marble--the white on the blue--be seen defined against the sky.

The remaining temples furnish us few data on architecture. You know
those of the Forum. The temple of Fortune, now greatly dilapidated, must
have resembled that of Jupiter. Erected by Marcus Tullius, a reputed
relative of Cicero, it yields us nothing but very mediocre statues and
inscriptions full of errors, proving that the priesthood of the place,
by no means Ciceronian in their acquirements, did not thoroughly know
even their own language. The temple of Esculapius, besides its altar,
has retained a very odd capital, Corinthian if you will, but on which
cabbage leaves, instead of the acanthus, are seen enveloping a head of
Neptune. The temple of Isis, still standing, is more curious than
handsome. It shows[F] that the Egyptian goddess was venerated at
Pompeii, but it tells us nothing about antique art. It is entered at the
side, by a sort of corridor leading into the sacred inclosure. The
temple is on the right; the columns inclose it; a vaulted niche is
hollowed out beneath the altar, where it served as a hiding-place for
the priests,--at least so say the romance-writers. Unfortunately for
this idea, the doorway of the recess stood forth and still stands forth
to the gaze, rendering the alleged trickery impossible.

Behind the cella, another niche contained a statue of Bacchus, who was,
perhaps, the same god as Osiris. An expurgation room, intended for
ablutions and purifications, descending to a subterranean reservoir,
occupied an angle of the courtyard. In front of this apartment stands an
altar, on which were found some remnants of sacrifices. Isis, then, was
the only divinity invoked at the moment of the eruption. Her painted
statue held a cross with a handle to it, in one hand, and a cithera in
the other, and her hair fell in long and carefully curled ringlets.

This is all that the temples give us. Artistically speaking, it is but
little. Neither are the other monuments much richer in their information
concerning ancient architecture. They let us know that the material
chiefly employed consisted of lava, of tufa, of brick, excellently
prepared, having more surface and less thickness than ours; of
_peperino_ (Sarno stone), which time renders very hard, sometimes with
travertine and even marble in the ornaments; then there was Roman
mortar, celebrated for its solidity, less perfect at Pompeii, however,
than at Rome; and finally, the stucco surface, covering the entire city
with its smooth and polished crust, like a variegated mantle. But these
edifices tell us nothing in particular; there is neither a style
peculiar to Pompeii discernible in them, nor do we find artists of the
place bearing any noted name, or possessing any singularity of taste and
method. On the other hand, there is an easy eclecticism that adopts all
forms with equal facility and betrays the decadence or the sterility of
the time. I recall the fact that the city was in process of
reconstruction when it was destroyed. Its unskilful repairs disclose a
certain predilection for that cheap kind of elegance which among us, has
taken the place of art. Stucco tricks off and disfigures everything.
Reality is sacrificed to appearance, and genuine elegance to that kind
of showy avarice which assumes a false look of profusion. In many
places, the flutings are economically preserved by means of moulds that
fill them in the lower part of the columns. Painting takes the place of
sculpture at every point where it can supply it. The capitals affect odd
shapes, sometimes successfully, but always at variance with the
simplicity of high art. Add to these objections other faults, glaring at
first glance,--for instance, the adornment of the temple of Mercury,
where the panels terminate alternately in pediments and in arcades; the
façade of the purgatorium in the temple of Isis, where the arcade itself
cutting the cornice, becomes involved hideously with the pediment. I
shall say nothing either, of the fountains, or of the columns, alas!
formed of shell-work and mosaic.

Faults like these shock the eye of purists; but let us constantly bear
in mind that we are in a small city, the finest residence in which
belonged to a wine-merchant. We could not with fairness expect to find
there the Parthenon, or even the Pantheon of Rome. The Pompeian
architects worked for simple burghers whose moderate wish was to own
pretty houses, not too large nor too dear, but of rich external
appearance and a gayety of look that gratified the eye. These good
tradesmen were served to their hearts' content by skilful persons who
turned everything to good account, cutting rooms by scores within a
space that would not be sufficient for one large saloon in our palaces,
profiting by all the accidents of the soil to raise their structures by
stories into amphitheatres, devising one ingenious subterfuge after
another to mask the defects of alignment, and, in a word, with feeble
resources and narrow means, realizing what the ancients always
dreamed--art combined with every-day life.

For proof of this I point to their paintings covering those handsome
stucco walls, which were so carefully prepared, so frequently overlaid
with the finest mortar, so ingeniously dashed with shining powder, and,
then, so often smoothed, repolished and repacked with wooden rollers
that they, at last, looked like and passed for marble. Whether painted
in fresco or _dry_, in encaustic or by other processes, matters
little--that belongs to technical authorities to decide.[G]

However that may be, these mural decorations were nevertheless a feast
for the eyes, and are so still. They divided the walls into five or six
panels, developing themselves between a socle and a frieze; the socle
being deeper, the frieze clearer in tint, the interspace of a more vivid
red and yellow, for instance, while the frieze was white and the socle
black. In plain houses these single panels were divided by simple lines;
then gradually, as the house selected became more opulent, these lines
were replaced by ornamental frames, garlands, pilasters, and, ere long,
fantastic pavilions, in which the fancy of the decorative artist
disported at will. However, the socles became covered with foliage, the
friezes with arabesques, and the panels with paintings, the latter
quite simple at first, such as a flower, a fruit, a landscape; pretty
soon a figure, then a group, then at last great historical or religious
subjects that sometimes covered a whole piece of wall and to which the
socle and the frieze served as a sort of showy and majestic framework.
Thus, the fancy of the decorator could rise even to the height of epic
art.

Those paintings will be eternally studied: they give us precious data,
not only on art, but concerning everything that relates to
antiquity,--its manners and customs, its ceremonies, its costumes, the
homes of those days, the elements and nature as they then appeared.
Pompeii is not a gallery of pictures; it is rather an illustrated
journal of the first century. One there sees odd landscapes; a little
island on the edge of the water; a bank of the Nile where an ass,
stooping to drink, bends toward the open jaws of a crocodile which he
does not see, while his master frantically but vainly endeavors to pull
him back by the tail. These pieces nearly always consist of rocks on the
edge of the water, sometimes interspersed with trees, sometimes covered
with ranges of temples, sometimes stretching away in rugged solitudes,
where some shepherd wanders astray with his flock, or from time to
time, enlivened with a historical scene (Andromeda and Perseus). Then
come little pictures of inanimate nature,--baskets of fruit, vases of
flowers, household utensils, bunches of vegetables, the collection of
office-furniture painted in the house of Lucretius (the inkstand, the
stylus, the paper-knife, the tablets, and a letter folded in the shape
of a napkin with the address, "To Marcus Aurelius, flamen of Mars, and
decurion of Pompeii"). Sometimes these paintings have a smack of humor;
there are two that go together on the same wall. One of them shows a
cock and a hen strolling about full of life, while upon the other the
cock is in durance vile, with his legs tied and looking most doleful
indeed: his hour has come!

I say nothing of the bouquets in which lilies, the iris, and roses
predominate, nor of the festoons, the garlands, nay, the whole thickets
that adorn, the walls of Sallust's garden. Let me here merely point out
the pictures of animals, the hunting scenes, and the combats of wild
beasts, treated with such astonishing vigor and raciness. There is one,
especially, still quite fresh and still in its place, in one of the
houses recently discovered. It represents a wild boar rushing headlong
upon a bear, in the presence of a lion, who looks on at him with the
most superb indifference. It is divined, as the Neapolitans say; that
is, the painter has intuitively conceived the feelings of the two
animals; the one blind with reckless fury, the other supremely confident
in his own agility and superior strength.

And now I come to the human form. Here we have endless variety; and all
kinds, from the caricature to the epic effort, are attempted and
exhausted,--the wagon laden with an enormous goat-skin full of wine,
which slaves are busily putting into amphoræ; a child making an ape
dance; a painter copying a Hermes of Bacchus; a pensive damsel probably
about to dispatch a secret message by the buxom servant-maid waiting
there for it; a vendor of Cupids opening his cage full of little winged
gods, who, as they escape, tease a sad and pensive woman standing near,
in a thousand ways,--how many different subjects! But I have said
nothing yet. The Pompeians especially excelled in fancy pictures.
Everybody has seen those swarms of little genii that, fluttering down
upon the walls of their houses, wove crowns or garlands, angled with the
rod and line, chased birds, sawed planks, planed tables, raced in
chariots, or danced on the tight-rope, holding up thyrses for balancing
poles; one bent over, another kneeling, a third making a jet of wine
spirt forth from a horn into a vase, a fourth playing on the lyre, and a
fifth on the double flute, without leaving the tight-rope that bends
beneath their nimble feet. But more beautiful than these divine
rope-dancers were the female dancers, who floated about, perfect
prodigies of self-possession and buoyancy, rising of themselves from the
ground and sustained without an effort in the voluptuous air that
cradled them. You may see these all at the museum in Naples,--the nymph
who clashes the cymbals, and one who drums the tambourine; another who
holds aloft a branch of cedar and a golden sceptre; one who is handing a
plate of figs; and her, too who has a basket on her head and a thyrsis
in her hand. Another in dancing uncovers her neck and her shoulders, and
a third, with her head thrown back, and her eyes uplifted to heaven,
inflates her veil as though to fly away. Here is one dropping bunches
of flowers in a fold of her robe, and there another who holds a golden
plate in this hand, while with that she covers her brows with an
undulating pallium, like a bird putting its head under its wing.

There are some almost nude, and some that drape themselves in tissues
quite transparent and woven of the air. Some again wrap themselves in
thick mantles which cover them completely, but which are about to fall;
two of them holding each other by the hand are going to float upward
together. As many dancing nymphs as there are, so many are the different
dances, attitudes, movements, undulations, characteristics, and
dissimilar ways of removing and putting on veils; infinite variations,
in fine, upon two notes that vibrate with voluptuous luxuriance, and in
a thousand ways.

Let us continue: We are sweeping into the full tide of mythology. All
the ancient divinities will pass before us,--now isolated (like the
fine, nay, truly imposing Ceres in the house of Castor and Pollux), now
grouped in well-known scenes, some of which often recur on the Pompeian
walls. Thus, the education of Bacchus, his relations with Silenus; the
romantic story of Ariadne; the loves of Jupiter, Apollo, and Daphne;
Mars and Venus; Adonis dying; Zephyr and Flora; but, above all, the
heroes of renown, Theseus and Andromeda, Meleager, Jason, heads of
Hercules; his twelve labors, his combat with the Nemæan lion, his
weaknesses,--such are the episodes most in favor with the decorative
artists of the little city. Sometimes they take their subjects from the
poems of Virgil, but oftener from those of Homer. I might cite a whole
house, viz., that of the Poet, also styled the Homeric House, the
interior court of which was a complete Iliad illustrated. There you
could see the parting of Agamemnon and Chryseis, and also that of
Briseis and Achilles, who, seated on a throne, with a look of angry
resignation, is requesting the young girl to return to Agamemnon--a fine
picture, of deserved celebrity. There, too, was beheld the lovely Venus
which Gell has not hesitated to compare, as to form, with the Medicean
statue, or for color, to Titian's painting. It will be remembered that
she plays a conspicuous part in the poem. A little further on we see
Jupiter and Juno meeting on Mount Ida.

[Illustration: Exedra of the House of Siricus.]

"At length" says Nicolini, in his sumptuous work on Pompeii, "in the
natural sequence of these episodes, appears Thetis reclining on the
Triton, and holding forth to her afflicted son the arms that Vulcan had
forged for him in her presence."

It was in the peristyle of this house that the copy of the famous
picture by Timanthius of the sacrifice of Iphigenia was found. "Having
represented her standing near the altar on which she is to perish, the
artist depicts profound grief on the faces of those who are present,
especially of Menelaus; then, having exhausted all the symbols of
sorrow, he veils the father's countenance, finding it impossible to give
a befitting expression." This was, according to Pliny, the work of
Timanthus, and such is exactly the reproduction of it as it was found in
the house of the poet at Pompeii.

This Iphigenia and the Medea in the house of Castor and Pollux,
recalling the masterpiece of Timomachos the Byzantine are the only two
Pompeian pictures which reproduce well-known paintings; but let us not,
for that reason, conclude that the others are original. The painters of
the little city were neither creators nor copyists, but very free
imitators, varying familiar subjects to suit themselves. Hence, that
variety which surprises us in their reproductions of the same subject.
Indeed, I have seen, at least ten Ariadnes surprised by Bacchus, and
there are no two alike. Hence, also, that ease and freedom of touch
indicating that the decorative artists executing them felt quite at
their ease. Assuredly, their efforts, which are of quite unequal merit,
are not models of correctness by any means; faults of drawing and
proportion, traits of awkwardness and heedlessness, swarm in them; but
let anybody pick out a sub-prefecture of 30,000 inhabitants, in France,
and say to the painters of the district: "Here, my good friends, just go
to work and tear off those sheets of colored paper that you find pasted
upon the walls of rooms and saloons in every direction, and paint there
in place of them socles and friezes, devotional images, _genre_
pictures, and historical pieces summing up the ideas, creeds, manners
and tastes, of our time in such sort that were the Pyrenees, the
Cevennes, or the Jura Alps, to crumble upon you to-morrow, future
generations, on digging up your houses and your masterpieces, might
there study the life of our period although it will be antiquity for
them."... What would the painters of the place be apt to do or say? I
think I may reply, with all respect to them, that they would at least be
greatly embarrassed.

But, on their part, the Pompeians were not a whit put out when they came
to repaint their whole city afresh. Would you like to get an accurate
idea of their real merit and their indisputable value? If so, ask some
one to conduct you through the houses that have been lately exhumed, and
look at the paintings still left in their places as they appear with all
the brilliance that Vesuvius has preserved in them, and which the
sunlight will soon impair. In the saloon of the house of Proculus notice
two pieces that correspond, namely, Narcissus and the Triumph of
Bacchus--powerless languor and victorious activity. The intended meaning
is clearly apparent, and is simply and vividly rendered. The ancients
never required commentators to make them understood. You comprehend
their idea and their subject at first glance. The most ignorant of men
and the least versed in Pagan lore, take their meaning with half a look
and give their works a title. In them we find no beating about the bush,
no circumlocution, no hidden meanings, no confusion; the painter
expresses what he means, does it quickly and does it well, without
exaggerating his terms or overloading the scene. His principal
personages stand out boldly, yet the accessories do not cry aloud, "Look
at me!" The picture of Narcissus represents Narcissus first and
foremost; then it brings in a solitude and a streamlet. The coloring has
a brilliance and harmoniousness of tint that surprises us, but there are
no useless effects in it. In nearly all these frescoes (excepting the
wedding of Zephyrus and Flora) the light spreads over it, white and
equable (no one says cold and monotonous), for its office is not merely
to illuminate the picture, but to throw sufficient glow and warmth upon
the wall. The low and narrow rooms having, instead of windows, only a
door opening on the court, had need of this painted daylight which
skilful pencils wrought for them. And what movement there was in all
those figures, what suppleness and what truth to nature![H]

[Illustration: Exedra of the House of Siricus (See p. 195).]

Nothing is distorted, nothing attitudinizes. Ariadne is really asleep,
and Hercules, in wine, really sinks to the ground; the dancing girl
floats in the air as though in her native element; the centaur gallops
without an effort; it is simple _reality_--the very reverse of
realism--nature such as she actually is when she is pleasant to behold,
in the full effusion of her grace, advancing like a queen because she
_is_ a queen, and because she could not move in any other fashion. In a
word, these second-rate painters, poor daubers of walls as they were,
had, in the absence of scientific skill and correctness, the flash of
latent genius in obscurity, the instinct of art, spontaneousness,
freedom of touch, and vivid life.

Such were the walls of Pompeii. Let us now glance at the pavements. They
will astonish us much more. At the outset the pavements were quite
plain. There was a cement formed of a kind of mortar; this was then
thoroughly dusted with pulverized brick, and the whole converted into a
composition, which, when it had hardened, was like red granite. Many
rooms and courts at Pompeii are paved with this composition which was
called _opus signinum_. Then, in this crust, they at first ranged small
cubes of marble, of glass, of calcareous stone, of colored enamel,
forming squares or stripes, then others complicating the lines or
varying the colors, and others again tracing regular designs, meandering
lines, and arabesques, until the divided pebbles at length completely
covered the reddish basis, and thus they finally became mosaics, those
carpetings of stone which soon rose to the importance and value of great
works of art.

The house of the Faun at Pompeii, which is the most richly paved of all,
was a museum of mosaics. There was one before the door, upon the
sidewalk, inscribed with the ancient salutation, _Salve!_ Another, at
the end of the prothyrum, artistically represented masks. Others again,
in the wings of the atrium, made up a little menagerie,--a brace of
ducks, dead birds, shell-work, fish, doves taking pearls from a casket,
and a cat devouring a quail--a perfect masterpiece of living movement
and precision. Pliny mentions a house, the flooring of which represented
the fragments of a meal: it was called _the ill-swept house_. But let us
not quit the house of the Faun, where the mosaic-workers had, besides
what we have told, wrought on the pavement of the œcus a superb lion
foreshortened--much worn away, indeed, but marvellous for vigor and
boldness. In the triclinium another mosaic represented Acratus, the
Bacchic genius, astride of a panther; lastly the piece in the exædra,
the finest that exists, is counted among the most precious specimens of
ancient art. It is the famous battle of Arbelles or of Issus. A squadron
of Greeks, already victorious, is rushing upon the Persians; Alexander
is galloping at the head of his cavalry. He has lost his helmet in the
heat of the charge, his horses' manes stand erect, and his long spear
has pierced the leader of the enemy. The Persians, overthrown and
routed, are turning to flee; those who immediately surround Darius, the
vanquished king, think of nothing but their own safety; but Darius is
totally forgetful of himself. His hand extended toward his dying
general, he turns his back to the flying rabble and seems to invite
death. The whole scene--the headlong rush of the one army, the utter
confusion of the other, the chariot of the King wheeling to the front,
the rage, the terror, the pity expressed, and all this profoundly felt
and clearly rendered--strikes the beholder at first glance and engraves
itself upon his memory, leaving there the imperishable impression that
masterpieces in art can alone produce. And yet this wonderful work was
but the flooring of a saloon! The ancients put their feet where we put
our hands, says an Englishman who utters but the simple truth. The
finest tables in the palaces at Naples were cut from the pavements in
the houses at Pompeii.

It was in the same dwelling that the celebrated bronze statuette of the
Dancing Faun was found. It has its head and arms uplifted, its shoulders
thrown back, its breast projecting, every muscle in motion, the whole
body dancing. An accompanying piece, however, was lacking to this little
deity so full of spring and vigor, and that piece has been exhumed by
recent excavations, in quite an humble tenement. It represents a
delicate youth, full of nonchalance and grace, a Narcissus hearkening
to the musical echo in the distance. His head leans over, his ear is
stretched to listen, his finger is turned in the direction whence he
hears the sound--his whole body listens. Placed near each other in the
museum, these two bronzes would make Pagans of us were religion but an
affair of art.[I]

Then the mere wine-merchants of a little ancient city adorned their
fountains with treasures like these! Others have been found, less
precious, perhaps, but charming, nevertheless; the fisherman in sitting
posture at the small mosaic fountain; the group representing Hercules
holding a stag bent over his knee; a diminutive Apollo leaning, lyre in
hand, against a pillar; an aged Silenus carrying a goat-skin of wine; a
pretty Venus arranging her moistened tresses; a hunting Diana, etc.;
without counting the Hermes and the double busts, one among the rest
comprising the two heads of a male and female Faun full of intemperance
and coarse gayety. 'Tis true that everything is not perfect in these
sculptures, particularly in the marbles. The statues of Livia, of
Drusus, and of Eumachia, are but moderately good; those discovered in
the temples, such as Isis, Bacchus, Venus, etc., have not come down from
the Parthenon. The decline of taste makes itself apparent in the latest
ornamentation of the tombs and edifices, and the decorative work of the
houses, the marble embellishments; and, above all, those executed in
stucco become overladen and tawdry, heavy and labored, toward the last.
Nevertheless, they reveal, if not a great æsthetic feeling, at least
that yearning for elegance which entered so profoundly into the manners
of the ancients. With us, in fine, art is never anything but a
superfluity--something unfamiliar and foreign that comes in to us from
the outside when we are wealthy. Our paintings and our sculptures do not
make part and parcel of our houses. If we have a Venus of Milo on our
mantel-clock, it is not because we worship beauty, nor that, to our
view, there is the slightest connection between the mother of the Graces
and the hour of the day. Venus finds herself very much out of her
element there; she is in exile, evidently. On the other hand, at Pompeii
she is at home, as Saint Genevieve once was at Paris, as Saint Januarius
still is at Naples. She was the venerated patroness whose protection
they invoked, whose anger they feared. "May the wrath of the angry
Pompeian Venus fall upon him!" was their form of imprecation. All these
well-known stories of gods and demigods who throned it on the walls,
were the fairy tales, the holy legends, the thousand-times-repeated
narratives that delighted the Pompeians. They had no need of explanatory
programmes when they entered their domestic museums. To find something
resembling this state of things, we should have to go into our country
districts where there still reigns a divinity of other days--Glory--and
admiringly observe with what religious devotion coarse lithographs of
the "Old Flag," and of the "Little Corporal," are there retained and
cherished. There, and there only, our modern art has infused itself into
the life and manners of the people. Is it equal to ancient art?

If, from painting and sculpture, we descend to inferior branches,--if,
as we tried to do in the house of Pansa, we despoil the museum so as to
restore their inmates to the homes of Pompeii, and put back in its place
the fine candelabra with the carved panther bearing away the infant
Bacchus at full speed; the precious _scyphus_, in which two centaurs
take a bevy of little Cupids on their cruppers; that other vase on which
Pallas is standing erect in a car, leaning on her spear; the silver
saucepan,--there were such in those days,--the handle of which is
secured by two birds' heads; the simple pair of scales--they carved
scales then!--where one sees the half bust of a warrior wearing a
splendid helmet; in fine, the humblest articles, utensils of lowest use,
nay, even simple earthenware covered with graceful ornaments, sometimes
exquisitely worked;--were we to go to the museum at Naples and ask what
the ancients used instead of the hideous boxes in which we shut up our
dead, and there behold this beautiful urn which looks as though it were
incrusted with ivory, and which has upon it in bas-relief carved masks
enveloped in complicated vine-tendrils twisted, laden with clusters of
grapes, intermingled with other foliage, tangled all up in rollicking
arabesques, forming rosettes, in the midst of which birds are seen
perching, and leaving but two spaces open where children dear to Bacchus
are plucking grapes or treading them under foot, trilling stringed
lyres, blowing on double flutes or tumbling about and snapping their
fingers--the urn itself in blue glass and the reliefs in white--for the
ancients knew how to carve glass,--ah! undoubtedly, in surveying all
these marvels, we should be forced to concede that the citizen in old
times was at least, as much of an artist as he is to-day. This was
because in those times no barrier was erected between the citizen and
the artist. There were no two opposing camps--on one side the
Philistines, and on the other the people of God. There was no line of
distinction between the needful and the superfluous, between the
positive and the ideal. Art was daily bread, and not holiday pound-cake;
it made its way everywhere; it illuminated, it gladdened, it perfumed
everything. It did not stand either outside of or above ordinary life;
it was the soul and the delight of life; in a word, it penetrated it,
and was penetrated by it,--it _lived_! This is what these modest ruins
teach.[J]

[Footnote F: See note on page 198. (The Footnote J of this
book.--Transcriber.)]

[Footnote G: The learned Minervini has remarked certain differences in
the washes put on the Pompeian walls. He has indicated finer ones with
which, according to him, the ancients painted in fresco their more
studied compositions, landscapes, and figures, while ordinary
decorations were painted _dry_ by inferior painters. I recall the fact,
as I pass on, that several paintings, particularly the most important,
were detached, but secured to the wall with iron clamps. It has ever
been noticed that the back of these pictures did not adhere to the
walls--an excellent precaution against dampness. This custom of sawing
off and shifting mural paintings was very ancient. It is known that the
wealthy Romans adorned their houses with works of art borrowed or stolen
from Greece, and all will remember the famous contract of Mummius, who,
in arranging with some merchants to convey to Rome the masterpieces of
Zeuxis and Apelles, stipulated that if they should be lost or damaged on
the way, the merchants should replace them at their own expense.]

[Footnote H: "And how the ancients, even the most unskilful, understood
the right treatment of nude subjects!" said an eminent critic to me, one
day, as he was with me admiring these pictures; "and," he added, "we
know nothing more about it now; _our_ statues are not nude, but
undressed."]

[Footnote I: Recently, Signor Fiorelli has found another bronze
statuette of a bent and crooked Silenus worth both the others.]

[Footnote J: A badly interpreted inscription on the gate of Nola had
led, for a moment, to the belief that the importation of this singular
worship dated back to the early days of the little city; but we now know
that it was introduced by Sylla into the Roman world. Isis was Nature,
the patroness of the Pompeians, who venerated her equally in their
physical Venus. This form of religion, mysterious, symbolical, full of
secrets hidden from the people, as it was; these goddesses with heads of
dogs, wolves, oxen, hawks; the god Onion, the god Garlic, the god Leek;
all that Apuleius tells about it, besides the data furnished by the
Pompeian excavations, the recovered bottle-brushes, the basins, the
knives, the tripods, the cymbals, the citheræ, etc.,--were worth the
trouble of examination and study.

Upon the door of the temple, a strange inscription announced that
Numerius Popidius, the son of Numerius, had, at his own expense, rebuilt
the temple of Isis, thrown down by an earthquake, and that, in reward
for his liberality, the decurions had admitted him gratuitously to their
college at the age of six years. The antiquaries, or some of them, at
least, finding this age improbable, have read it sixty instead of six,
forgetting that there then existed two kinds of decurions, the
_ornamentarii_ and _prætextati_--the honorary and the active officials.
The former might be associated with the Pompeian Senate in recompense
for services rendered by their fathers. An inscription found at Misenum
confirms this fact. (See the _Memorie del l'Academia Ercolanese, anno_
1833)--The minutes of the Herculaneum Academy, for the year 1833.]




VIII.

THE THEATRES.

     THE ARRANGEMENT OF THE PLACES OF AMUSEMENT.--ENTRANCE TICKETS.--THE
     VELARIUM, THE ORCHESTRA, THE STAGE.--THE ODEON.--THE HOLCONII.--THE
     SIDE SCENES, THE MASKS.--THE ATELLAN FARCES.--THE MIMES.--JUGGLERS,
     ETC.--A REMARK OF CICERO ON THE MELODRAMAS.--THE BARRACK OF THE
     GLADIATORS.--SCRATCHED INSCRIPTIONS, INSTRUMENTS OF TORTURE.--THE
     POMPEIAN GLADIATORS.--THE AMPHITHEATRE: HUNTS, COMBATS, BUTCHERIES,
     ETC.


We are now going to rest ourselves at the theatre. Pompeii had two such
places of amusement, one tragic and the other comic, or, rather, one
large and one smaller, for that is the only positive difference existing
between them; all else on that point is pure hypothesis. Let us, then,
say the large and small theatre, and we shall be sure to make no
mistakes.

The grand saloon or body of the large theatre formed a semicircle, built
against an embankment so that the tiers of seats ascended from the pit
to the topmost gallery, without resting, on massive substructures. In
this respect it was of Greek construction. The four upper tiers resting
upon an arched corridor, in the Roman style, alone reached the height on
which stood the triangular Forum and the Greek temple. Thus, you can
step directly from the level of the street to the highest galleries,
from which your gaze, ranging above the stage, can sweep the country and
the sea, and at the same moment plunge far below you into that sort of
regularly-shaped ravine in which once sat five thousand Pompeians eager
for the show.

At first glance, you discover three main divisions; these are the
different ranks of tiers, the _caveæ_. There are three caveæ--the
lowermost, the middle, and the upper ones. The lowermost was considered
the most select. It comprised only the four first rows of benches, or
seats, which were broader and not so high as the others. These were the
places reserved for magistrates and other eminent persons. Thither they
had their seats carried and also the _bisellia_, or benches for two
persons, on which they alone had the right to sit. A low wall, rising
behind the fourth range and surmounted with a marble rail that has now
disappeared, separated this lowermost cavea from the rest. The duumviri,
the decurions, the augustales, the ædiles, Holconius, Cornelius Rufus,
and Pansa, if he was elected, sat there majestically apart from common
mortals. The middle division was for quiet, every-day, private citizens,
like ourselves. Separated into wedge-like corners (_cunei_) by six
flights of steps cutting it in as many places, it comprised a limited
number of seats marked by slight lines, still visible. A ticket of
admission (a _tessera_ or domino) of bone, earthenware, or bronze--a
sort of counter cut in almond or _en pigeon_ shape, sometimes too in the
form of a ring--indicated exactly the cavea, the corner, the tier, and
the seat for the person holding it. Tessaræ of this kind have been found
on which were Greek and Roman characters (a proof that the Greek would
not have been understood without translation). Upon one of them is
inscribed the name of Æschylus, in the genitive; and hence it has been
inferred that his "Prometheus" or his "Persians" must have been played
on the Pompeian stage, unless, indeed, this genitive designated one of
the wedge-divisions marked out by the name or the statue of the tragic
poet. Others have mentioned one of these counters that announced the
representation of a piece by Plautus,--the _Casina_; but I can assure
you that the relic is a forgery, if, indeed, such a one ever existed.

You should, then, before entering, provide yourself with a real tessera,
which you may purchase for very little money. Plautus asked that folks
should pay an _as_ apiece. "Let those," he said, "who have not got it
retire to their homes." The price of the seats was proclaimed aloud by a
crier, who also received the money, unless the show was gratuitously
offered to the populace by some magistrate who wished to retain public
favor, or some candidate anxious to procure it. You handed in your
ticket to a sort of usher, called the _designator_, or the _locarius_,
who pointed out your seat to you, and, if required, conducted you
thither. You could then take your place in the middle tier, at the top
of which was the statue of Marcus Holconius Rufus, duumvir, military
tribune, and patron of the colony. This statue had been set up there by
order of the decurions. The holes hollowed in the pedestal by the nails
that secured the marble feet of the statue are still visible.

Finally, at the summit of the half-moon was the uppermost cavea,
assigned to the common herd and the women. So, after all, we are
somewhat ahead of the Romans in gallantry. Railings separated this tier
from the one we sit in, so as to prevent "the low rabble" from invading
the seats occupied by us respectable men of substance. Upon the wall of
the people's gallery is still seen the ring that held the pole of the
_velarium_. This velarium was an awning that was stretched above the
heads of the spectators to protect them from the sun. In earlier times
the Romans had scouted at this innovation, which they called a piece of
Campanian effeminacy. But little by little, increasing luxury reduced
the Puritans of Rome to silence, and they willingly accepted a velarium
of silk--an homage of Cæsar. Nero, who carried everything to excess,
went further: he caused a velarium of purple to be embroidered with
gold. Caligula frequently amused himself by suddenly withdrawing this
movable shelter and leaving the naked heads of the spectators exposed to
the beating rays of the sun. But it seems that at Pompeii the wind
frequently prevented the hoisting of the canvas, and so the poet Martial
tells us that he will keep on his hat.

Such was the arrangement of the main body of the house. Let us now
descend to the orchestra, which, in the Greek theatres, was set apart
for the dancing of the choirs, but in the Roman theatres, was reserved
for the great dignitaries, and at Rome itself for the prince, the
vestals, and the senators. I have somewhere read that, in the great
city, the foreign ambassadors were excluded from these places of honor
because among them could be found the sons of freedmen.

Would you like to go up on the stage? Raised about five feet above the
orchestra, it was broader than ours, but not so deep. The personages of
the antique repertory did not swell to such numbers as in our fairy
spectacles. Far from it. The stage extended between a proscenium or
front, stretching out upon the orchestra by means of a wooden platform,
which has disappeared, and the _postscenium_ or side scenes. There was,
also, a _hyposcenium_ or subterranean part of the theatre, for the
scene-shifters and machinists. The curtain or _siparium_ (a Roman
invention) did not rise to the ceiling as with us, but, on the
contrary, descended so as to disclose the stage, and rolled together
underground, by means of ingenious processes which Mazois has explained
to us. Thus, the curtain fell at the beginning and rose at the end of
the piece.

You are aware that in ancient drama the question of scenery was greatly
simplified by the rule of the unity of place. The stage arrangement, for
instance, represented the palace of a prince. Therefore, there was no
canvas painted at the back of the stage; it was _built_ up. This
decoration, styled the _scena stabilis_, rose as high as the loftiest
tier in the theatre, and was of stone and marble in the Pompeian
edifice. It represented a magnificent wall pierced for three doors; in
the centre was the royal door, where princes entered; on the right, the
entrance of the household and females; at the left, the entrance for
guests and strangers. These were matters to be fixed in the mind of the
spectator. Between these doors were rounded and square niches for
statues. In the side-scenes, was the moveable decoration (_scena
ductilis_), which was slid in front of the back-piece in case of a
change of scene, as, for instance, when playing the _Ajax_ of Sophocles,
where the place of action is transferred from the Greek camp to the
shores of the Hellespont. Then, there were other side-scenes not of much
account, owing to lack of room, and on each wing a turning piece with
three broad flats representing three different subjects. There were
square niches in the walls of the proscenium either for statues or for
policemen to keep an eye on the spectators. Such, stated in a few lines
and in libretto style, was the stage in ancient times.

[Illustration: The Smaller Theatre at Pompeii.]

I confess that I have a preference for the smaller theatre which has
been called the Odeon. Is that because, possibly, tragedies were never
played there? Is it because this establishment seems more complete and
in better preservation, thanks to the intelligent replacements of La
Vega, the architect? It was covered, as two inscriptions found there
explicitly declare, with a wooden roof, probably, the walls not being
strong enough to sustain an arch. It was reached through a passage all
bordered with inscriptions, traced on the walls by the populace waiting
to secure admission as they passed slowly in, one after the other. A
lengthy file of gladiators had carved their names also upon the walls,
along with an enumeration of their victories; barbarian slaves, and some
freedmen, likewise, had left their marks. These probably constituted the
audience that occupied the uppermost seats approached by the higher
vomitories. On the other hand, there were no lateral vomitories. The
spectators entered the orchestra directly by large doors, and thence
ascended to the four tiers of the lower (_cavea_) which curved like
hooks at their extremities, and were separated from the middle cavea by
a parapet of marble terminating in vigorously-carved lion's paws. Among
these carvings we may particularly note a crouching Atlas, of short,
thick-set form, sustaining on his shoulders and his arms, which are
doubled behind him, a marble slab which was once the stand of a vase or
candlestick. This athletic effort is violently rendered by the artist.
Above the orchestra ran the _tribunalia_, reminding us of our modern
stage-boxes. These were the places reserved at Rome for the vestal
virgins; at Pompeii, they were very probably those of the public
priestesses--of Eumachia, whose statue we have already seen, or of Mamia
whose tomb we have inspected. The seats of the three cavea were of
blocks of lava; and there can still be seen in them the hollows in which
the occupants placed their feet so as not to soil the spectators below
them. Let us remember that the Roman mantles were of white wool, and
that the sandals of the ancients got muddied just as our shoes do. The
citizens who occupied the central cavea brought their cushions with them
or folded their spotless togas on the seats before they took their
places. It was necessary, then, to protect them from the mud and the
dust in which the spectators occupying the upper tiers had been walking.

The number of ranges of seats was seventeen, divided into wedges by six
flights of steps, and in stalls by lines yet visible upon the stone. The
upper tiers were approached by vomitories and by a subterranean
corridor. The orchestra formed an arc the chord of which was indicated
by a marble strip with this inscription:

     "M. Olconius M.F. Vervs, Pro Ludis."

This Olconius or Holconius was the Marquis of Carabas of Pompeii. His
name may be read everywhere in the streets, on the monuments, and on
the walls of the houses. We have seen already that the fruiterers
wanted him for ædile. We have pointed out the position of his statue in
the theatre. We know by inscriptions that he was not the only
illustrious member of his family. There were also a Marcus Holconius
Celer, a Marcus Holconius Rufus, etc. Were this petty municipal
aristocracy worth the trouble of hunting up, we could easily find it on
the electoral programmes by collecting the names usually affixed
thereon. But Holconius is the one most conspicuous of them all; so, hats
off to Holconius!

I return to the theatre. Two large side windows illuminated the stage,
which, being covered, had need of light. The back scene was not carved,
but painted and pierced for five doors instead of three; those at the
ends, which were masked by movable side scenes served, perhaps, as
entrances to the lobbies of the priestesses.

Would you like to go behind the scenes? Passing by the barracks of the
gladiators, we enter an apartment adorned with columns, which was, very
likely, the common hall and dressing-room of the actors. A celebrated
mosaic in the house of the poet (or jeweller), shows us a scenic
representation: in it we observe the _choragus_, surrounded by masks and
other accessories (the choragus was the manager and director); he is
making two actors, got up as satyrs, rehearse their parts; behind them,
another comedian, assisted by a costumer of some kind, is trying to put
on a yellow garment which is too small for him. Thus we can re-people
the antechamber of the stage. We see already those comic masks that were
the principal resource in the wardrobe of the ancient players. Some of
them were typical; for instance, that of the young virgin, with her hair
parted on her forehead and carefully combed; that of the slave-driver
(or _hegemonus_), recognized by his raised eyelids, his wrinkled brows
and his twists of hair done up in a wig; that of the wizard, with
immense eyes starting from their sockets, seamed skin covered with
pimples, with enormous ears, and short hair frizzed in snaky ringlets;
that of the bearded, furious, staring, and sinister old man; and above
all, those of the Atellan low comedians, who, born in Campania, dwell
there still, and must assuredly have amused the little city through
which we are passing. Atella, the country of Maccus was only some seven
or eight leagues distant from Pompeii, and numerous interests and
business connections united the inhabitants of the two places. I have
frequently stated that the Oscan language, in which the Atellan farces
were written, had once been the only tongue, and had continued to be the
popular dialect of the Pompeians. The Latin gradually intermingled with
these pieces, and the confusion of the two idioms was an exhaustless
source of witticisms, puns, and bulls of all kinds, that must have
afforded Homeric laughter to the plebeians of Pompeii. The longshoremen
of Naples, in our day, seek exactly similar effects in the admixture of
pure Italian and the local _patois_. The titles of some of the Atellian
farces are still extant: "Pappus, the Doctor Shown Out," "Maccus
Married," "Maccus as Safe Keeper," etc. These are nearly the same
subjects that are still treated every day on the boards at Naples; the
same rough daubs, half improvised on the spur of the moment; the same
frankly coarse and indecent gayety. The Odeon where we are now, was the
Pompeian San Carlino. Bucco, the stupid and mocking buffoon; the dotard
Pappus, who reminds us of the Venetian Pantaloon; Mandacus, who is the
Neapolitan Guappo; the Oscan Casnar, a first edition of Cassandra; and
finally, Maccus, the king of the company, the Punchinello who still
survives and flourishes,--such were the ancient mimes, and such, too,
are their modern successors. All these must have appeared in their turn
on the small stage of the Odeon; and the slaves, the freedmen crowded
together in the upper tiers, the citizens ranged in the middle cavea or
family-circle, the duumvirs, the decurions, the augustals, the ædiles
seated majestically on the bisellia of the orchestra, even the
priestesses of the proscenium and the melancholy Eumachia, whose statue
confesses, I know not what anguish of the heart,--all these must have
roared with laughter at the rude and extravagant sallies of their low
comedians, who, notwithstanding the parts they played, were more highly
appreciated than the rest and had the exclusive privilege of wearing the
title of Roman citizens.

Now, if these trivialities revolt your fastidious taste, you can picture
to yourself the representation of some comedy of Plautus in the Odeon of
Pompeii; that is, admitting, to begin with, that you can find a comedy
by that author which in no wise shocks our susceptibilities. You can
also fill the stage with mimes and pantomimists, for the favor accorded
to that class of actors under the emperors is well known. The Cæsars--I
am speaking of the Romans--somewhat feared spoken comedy, attributing
political proclivities to it, as they did; and, hence, they encouraged
to their utmost that mute comedy which, at the same time, in the
Imperial Babel, had the advantage of being understood by all the
conquered nations. In the provinces, this supreme art of gesticulation,
"these talking fingers, these loquacious hands, this voluble silence,
this unspoken explanation," as was once choicely said, were serviceable
in advancing the great work of Roman unity. "The substitution of ballet
pantomimes for comedy and tragedy resulted in causing the old
masterpieces to be neglected, thereby enfeebling the practice of the
national idioms and seconding the propagation, if not of the language,
at least of the customs and ideas of the Romans." (Charles Magnin.)

If the mimes do not suffice, call into the Odeon the rope-dancers, the
acrobats, the jugglers, the ventriloquists,--for all these lower orders
of public performers existed among the ancients and swarmed in the
Pompeian pictures,--or the flute-players enlivening the waits with their
melody and accompanying the voice of the actors at moments of dramatic
climax. "How can he feel afraid," asked Cicero, in this connection,
"since he recites such fine verses while he accompanies himself on the
flute?" What would the great orator have said had he been present at our
melodramas?

We may then imagine what kind of play we please on the little Pompeian
stage. For my part, I prefer the Atellan farces. They were the
buffooneries of the locality, the coarse pleasantry of native growth,
the hilarity of the vineyard and the grain-field, exuberant fancy,
grotesque in solemn earnest; in a word, ideal sport and frolic without
the least regard to reality--in fine, Punchinello's comedy. We prefer
Moliere; but how many things there are in Moliere which come in a direct
line from Maccus!

It is time to leave the theatre. I have said that the Odeon opened into
the gladiators' barracks. These barracks form a spacious court--a sort
of cloister--surrounded by seventy-four pillars, unfortunately spoiled
by the Pompeians of the restoration period. They topped them with new
capitals of stucco notoriously ill adapted to them. This gallery was
surrounded with curious dwellings, among which was a prison where three
skeletons were found, with their legs fastened in irons of ingeniously
cruel device. The instrument in question may be seen at the museum. It
looks like a prostrate ladder, in which the limbs of the prisoners were
secured tightly between short and narrow rungs--four bars of iron. These
poor wretches had to remain in a sitting or reclining posture, and
perished thus, without the power to rise or turn over, on the day when
Vesuvius swallowed up the city.

It was for a long time thought that these barracks were the quarters of
the soldiery, because arms were found there; but the latter were too
highly ornamented to belong to practical fighting troops, and were the
very indications that suggested to Father Garrucci the firmly
established idea, that the dwellings surrounding the gallery must have
been occupied by gladiators. These habitations consist of some sixty
cells: now there were sixty gladiators in Pompeii because an album
programme announced thirty pair of them to fight in the amphitheatre.

The pillars of the gallery were covered with inscriptions scratched on
their surface. Many of these graphites formed simple Greek names
Pompaios, Arpokrates, Celsa, etc., or Latin names, or fragments of
sentences, _curate pecunias, fur es Torque, Rustico feliciter!_ etc.
Others proved clearly that the place was inhabited by gladiators:
_inludus Velius_ (that is to say _not in the game, out of the ring_)
_bis victor libertus--leonibus, victor Veneri parmam feret_. Other
inscriptions designate families or troops of gladiators, of which there
are a couple familiar to us already, that of N. Festus Ampliatus and
that of N. Popidius Rufus; and a third, with which we are not
acquainted, namely, that of Pomponius Faustinus.

What has not been written concerning the gladiators? The origin of their
bloody sports; the immolations, voluntary at first, and soon afterward
compulsory, that did honor to the ashes of the dead warriors; then the
combats around the funeral pyres; then, ere long, the introduction of
these funeral spectacles as part of the public festivals, especially in
the triumphal parades of victorious generals; then into private
pageants, and then into the banquets of tyrants who caused the heads of
the proscribed to be brought to them at table. The skill of such and
such an artist in decapitation (_decollandi artifex_) was the subject of
remark and compliment. Ah, those were the grand ages!

As the reader also knows, the gladiators were at first prisoners of war,
barbarians; then, prisoners not coming in sufficient number, condemned
culprits and slaves were employed, ere long, in hosts so strong as, to
revolt in Campania at the summons of Spartacus. Consular armies were
vanquished and the Roman prisoners, transformed to gladiators, in their
turn were compelled to butcher each other around the funeral pyres of
their chiefs. However, these combats had gradually ceased to be
penalties and punishments, and soon were nothing but barbarous
spectacles, violent pantomimic performances, like those which England
and Spain have not yet been able to suppress. The troops of mercenary
fighters slaughtered each other in the arenas to amuse the Romans (not
to render them warlike). Citizens took part in these tournaments, and
among them even nobles, emperors, and women; and, at last, the Samnites,
Gauls, and Thracians, who descended into the arena, were only Romans in
disguise. These shows became more and more varied; they were diversified
with hunts (_venationes_), in which wild beasts fought with each other
or against _bestiarii_, or Christians; the amphitheatres, transformed to
lakes, offered to the gaze of the delighted spectator real naval
battles, and ten thousand gladiators were let loose against each other
by the imperial caprice of Trajan. These entertainments lasted one
hundred and twenty-three days. Imagine the carnage!

Part of the gladiators of Pompeii were Greeks, and part were real
barbarians. The traces that they have left in the little city show that
they got along quite merrily there. 'Tis true that they could not live,
as they did at Rome, in close intimacy with emperors and empresses, but
they were, none the less, the spoiled pets of the residents of Pompeii.
Lodged in a sumptuous barrack, they must have been objects of envy to
many of the population. The walls are full of inscriptions concerning
them; the bathing establishments, the inns, and the disreputable haunts,
transmit their names to posterity. The citizens, their wives, and even
their children admired them. In the house of Proculus, at no great
height above the ground, is a picture of a gladiator which must have
been daubed there by the young lad of the house. The gladiator whose
likeness was thus given dwelt in the house. His helmet was found there.
So, then, he was the guest of the family, and Heaven knows how they
feasted him, petted him, and listened to him.

In order to see the gladiators under arms, we must pass over the part of
the city that has not yet been uncovered, and through vineyards and
orchards, until, in a corner of Pompeii, as though down in the bottom of
a ravine, we find the amphitheatre. It is a circus, surrounded by tiers
of seats and abutting on the city ramparts. The exterior wall is not
high, because the amphitheatre had to be hollowed out in the soil. One
might fancy it to be a huge vessel deeply embedded in the sand. In this
external wall there remain two large arcades and four flights of steps
ascending to the top of the structure. The arena was so called because
of the layer of sand which covered it and imbibed the blood.

It is reached by two large vaulted and paved corridors with a quite
steep inclination. One of these is strengthened with seven arches that
support the weight of the tiers. Both of them intersect a transverse,
circular corridor, beyond which they widen. It was through this that the
armed gladiators, on horseback and on foot, poured forth into the arena,
to the sound of trumpets and martial music, and made the circuit of the
amphitheatre before entering the lists. They then retraced their steps
and came in again, in couples, according to the order of combat.

To the right of the principal entrance a doorway opens into two square
rooms with gratings, where the wild beasts were probably kept. Another
very narrow corridor ran from the street to the arena, near which it
ascended, by a small staircase, to a little round apartment apparently
the _spoliatorium_, where they stripped the dead gladiators. The arena
formed an oval of sixty-eight yards by thirty-six. It was surrounded by
a wall of two yards in height, above which may still be seen the
holes where gratings and thick iron bars were inserted as a precaution
against the bounds of the panthers. In the large amphitheatres a ditch
was dug around this rampart and filled with water to intimidate the
elephants, as the ancients believed them to have a horror of that
element.

[Illustration: The Amphitheatre of Pompeii.]

Paintings and inscriptions covered the walls or podium of the arena.
These inscriptions acquaint us with the names of the duumvirs,--N.
Istadicius, A. Audius, O. Caesetius Saxtus Capito, M. Gantrius
Marcellus, who, instead of the plays and the illumination, which they
would have had to pay for, on assuming office, had caused three cunei to
be constructed on the order of the decurions. Another inscription gives
us to understand that two other duumvirs, Caius Quinctius Valgus and
Marcus Portius, holding five-year terms, had instituted the first games
at their expense for the honor of the colony, and had granted the ground
on which the amphitheatre stood, in perpetuity. These two magistrates
must have been very generous men, and very fond of public shows. We know
that they contributed, in like manner, to the construction of the
Odeon.

Would you now like to go over the general sweep of the tiers--the
_visorium_? Three grand divisions as in the theatre; the lowermost
separated, by entries and private flights of steps, into eighteen boxes;
the middle and upper one divided into cunei, the first by twenty
stairways, the second by forty. Around the latter was an inclosing wall,
intersected by vomitories and forming a platform where a number of
spectators, arriving too late for seats, could still find standing-room,
and where the manœuvres were executed that were requisite to hoist the
velarium, or awning. All these made up an aggregate of twenty-four
ranges of seats, upon which were packed perhaps twenty thousand
spectators. So much for the audience. Nothing could be more simple or
more ingenious than the system of extrication by which the movement, to
and fro, of this enormous throng was made possible, and easy. The
circular and vaulted corridor which, under the tiers, ran around the
arena and conducted, by a great number of distinct stairways, to the
tiers of the lower and middle cavea, while upper stairways enabled the
populace to ascend to the highest story assigned to it.

One is surprised so see so large an amphitheatre in so small a city.
But, let us not forget that Pompeii attracted the inhabitants of the
neighboring towns to her festivals; history even tells us an anecdote on
this subject that is not without its moral.

The Senator Liveneius Regulus, who had been driven from Rome and found
an asylum in Pompeii, offered a gladiator show to the hospitable little
city. A number of people from Nocera had gone to the pageant, and a
quarrel arose, probably owing to municipal rivalries, that eternal curse
of Italy; from words they came to blows and volleys of stones, and even
to slashing with swords. There were dead and wounded on both sides. The
Nocera visitors, being less numerous, were beaten, and made complaint to
Rome. The affair was submitted to the Emperor, who sent it to the
Senate, who referred it to the Consuls, who referred it back again to
the Senate. Then came the sentence, and public shows were prohibited in
Pompeii for the space of ten years. A caricature which recalls this
punishment has been found in the Street of Mercury. It represented an
armed gladiator descending, with a palm in his hand, into the
amphitheatre: on the left, a second personage is drawing a third toward
him on a seat; the third one had his arms bound, and was, no doubt, a
prisoner. This inscription accompanies the entire piece: "Campanians,
your victory has been as fatal to you as it was to the people of
Nocera."[K]

The hand of Rome, ever the hand of Rome!

For that matter, the ordinances relating to the amphitheatre applied to
the whole empire. One of the Pompeian inscriptions announces that the
duumvir C. Cuspius Pansa had been appointed to superintend the public
shows and see to the observance of the Petronian law. This law
prohibited Senators from fighting in the arena, and even from sending
slaves thither who had not been condemned for crime. Such things, then,
required to be prohibited!

I have described the arena and the seats; let me now pass on to the show
itself. Would yon like to have a hunt or a gladiatorial combat? Here I
invent nothing. I have data, found at Pompeii (the paintings in the
amphitheatre and the bas-reliefs on the tomb of Scaurus), that reproduce
scenes which I have but to transfer to prose. Let us, then, suppose the
twenty thousand spectators to be in their places on thirty-four ranges
of seats, one above the other, around the arena; then, let us take our
seats among them and look on.

First we have a hunt. A panther, secured by a long rope to the neck of a
bull let loose, is set on against a young _bestiarius_, who holds two
javelins in his hands. A man, armed with a long lance, irritates the
bull so that it may move and second the rush of the panther fastened to
it. The lad who has the javelins, and is a novice in his business, is
but making his first attempt; should the bull not move, he runs no risk,
yet I should not like to be in his place.

Then follows a more serious combat between a bear and a man, who
irritates him by holding out a cloth at him, as the matadors do in
bull-fights. Another group shows us a tiger and a lion escaping in
different directions. An unarmed and naked man is in pursuit of the
tiger, who cannot be a very cross one. But here is a _venatio_ much more
dramatic in its character. The nude bestiarius has just pierced a wolf
through and through, and the animal is in flight with the spear sticking
in his body, but the man staggers and a wild boar is rushing at him. At
the same time, a stag thrown down by a lasso that is still seen dangling
to his antlers, awaits his death-blow; hounds are dashing at him, and
"their fierce baying echoes from vale to vale."

But that is not all. Look at yon group of victors: a real matador has
plunged his spear into the breast of a bull with so violent a stroke
that the point of the weapon comes out at the animal's back; and another
has just brought down and impaled a bear; a dog is leaping at the throat
of a fugitive wild boar and biting him; and, in this ferocious
menagerie, peopled with lions and panthers, two rabbits are scampering
about, undoubtedly to the great amusement of the throng. The Romans were
fond of these contrasts, which furnished Galienus an opportunity to be
jocosely generous. "A lapidary," says M. Magnin, "had sold the emperor's
wife some jewels, which were recognized to be false; the emperor had the
dishonest dealer arrested and condemned to the lions; but when the
fatal moment came, he turned no more formidable creature loose upon him
than a capon. Everybody was astonished, and while all were vainly
striving to guess the meaning of such an enigma, he caused the _curion_,
or herald, to proclaim aloud: "This man tried to cheat, and now he is
caught in his turn.""

I have described the hunts at Pompeii; they were small affairs compared
with those of Rome. The reader may know that Titus, who finished the
Coliseum, caused five thousand animals to be killed there in a single
day in the presence of eighty thousand spectators. Let us confess,
however, that with this exhibition, of tigers, panthers, lions, and wild
boars, the provincial hunts were still quite dramatic.

I now come to the gladiatorial combats. To commence with the
preliminaries of the fight, a ring-master, with his long staff in his
hand, traces the circle, within which the antagonists must keep. One of
the latter, half-armed, blows his trumpet and two boys behind him hold
his helmet and his shield. The other has nothing, as yet, but his shield
in his hand; two slaves are bringing him his helmet and his sword. The
trumpet has sounded, and the ring-master and slaves have disappeared.
The gladiators are at it. One of them has met with a mishap. The point
of his sword is bent and he has just thrown away his shield. The blood
is flowing from his arm, which he extends toward the spectators, at the
same time raising his thumb. That was the sign the vanquished made when
they asked for quarter. But the people do not grant it this time, for
they have turned the twenty thousand thumbs of their right hands
downwards. The man must die, and the victor is advancing upon him to
slaughter him.

Would you like to see an equestrian combat? Two horsemen are charging on
each other. They wear helmets with visors, and carry spears and the
round shield (_parma_), but they are lightly armed. Only one of their
arms--that which sustains the spear--is covered with bands or armlets of
metal. Their names and the number of their victories already won are
known. The first is Bebrix, a barbarian, who has been triumphant fifteen
times; the second is Nobilior, a Roman, who has vanquished eleven times.
The combat is still undecided. Nobilior is just delivering a spear
thrust, which is vigorously parried by Bebrix.

Would you prefer a still more singular kind of duel--one between a
_secutor_ and a _retiarius?_ The retiarius wears neither helmet nor
cuirass, but carries a three-pronged javelin, called a trident, in his
left hand, and in his right a net, which he endeavors to throw over the
head of his adversary. If he misses his aim he is lost; the secutor then
pursues him, sword in hand, and kills him. But in the duel at which we
are present, the secutor is vanquished, and has fallen on one knee; the
retiarius, Nepimus, triumphant already on five preceding occasions, has
seized him by the belt, and has planted one foot upon his leg, but the
trident not being sufficient to finish him, a second secutor, Hippolytus
by name, who has survived five previous victories, has come up.
Hippolytus rests one hand upon the helmet of the vanquished secutor who
vainly clasps his knees, and with the other, cuts his throat.

Death--always death! In the paintings; in the bas-reliefs that I
describe; in the scenes that they reproduce; in the arena where these
combats must have taken place, I can see only unhappy wretches
undergoing assassination. One of them, holding his shield behind him,
is thinking only how he may manage to fall with grace; another,
kneeling, presses his wound with one hand, and stretches the other out
toward the spectators; some of them have a suppliant look, others are
stoical, but all will have to roll at last upon the sand of the arena,
condemned by the inexorable caprice of a people greedy for blood. "The
modest virgin," says Juvenal, "turning down her thumb, orders that the
breast of yonder man, grovelling in the dust, shall be torn open." And
all--the heavily armed Samnite, the Gaul, the Thracian, the secutor; the
_dimachoerus_, with his two swords; the swordsman who wears a helmet
surmounted with a fish--the one whom the retiarius pursues with his net,
meanwhile singing this refrain, "It is not you that I am after, but your
fish, and why do you flee from me?"--all, all must succumb, at last,
sooner or later, were it to be after the hundredth victory, in this same
arena, where once an attendant employed in the theatre used to come, in
the costume of Mercury, to touch them with a red-hot iron to make sure
that they were dead. If they moved, they were at once dispatched; if
they remained icy-cold and motionless, a slave harpooned them with a
hook, and dragged them through the mire of sand and blood to the narrow
corridor, the _porta libitinensis_,--the portal of death,--whence they
were flung into the spoliarium, so that their arms and clothing, at
least, might be saved. Such were the games of the amphitheatre.

[Footnote K: M. Campfleury has reproduced this design in his very
curious book on _Antique Caricature_.]




IX.

THE ERUPTION.

     THE DELUGE OF ASHES.--THE DELUGE OF FIRE.--THE FLIGHT OF THE
     POMPEIANS.--THE PREOCCUPATIONS OF THE POMPEIAN WOMEN.--THE VICTIMS:
     THE FAMILY OF DIOMED; THE SENTINEL; THE WOMAN WALLED UP IN A TOMB;
     THE PRIEST OF ISIS; THE LOVERS CLINGING TOGETHER, ETC.--THE
     SKELETONS.--THE DEAD BODIES MOULDED BY VESUVIUS.


It was during one of these festivals, on the 23d of November, 79, that
the terrible eruption which overwhelmed the city burst forth. The
testimony of the ancients, the ruins of Pompeii, the layers upon layers
of ashes and scoriæ that covered it, the skeletons surprised in
attitudes of agony or death, all concur to tell us of the catastrophe.
The imagination can add nothing to it: the picture is there before our
eyes; we are present at the scene; we behold it. Seated in the
amphitheatre, we take to flight at the first convulsions, at the first
lurid flashes which announce the conflagration and the crumbling of the
mountain. The ground is shaken repeatedly; and something like a
whirlwind of dust, that grows thicker and thicker, has gone rushing and
spinning across the heavens. For some days past there has been talk of
gigantic forms, which, sometimes on the mountain and sometimes in the
plain, swept through the air; they are up again now, and rear themselves
to their whole height in the eddies of smoke, from amid which is heard a
strange sound, a fearful moaning followed by claps of thunder that crash
down, peal on peal. Night, too, has come on--a night of horror; enormous
flames kindle the darkness like the blaze of a furnace. People scream,
out in the streets, "Vesuvius is on fire!"

On the instant, the Pompeians, terrified, bewildered, rush from the
amphitheatre, happy in finding so many places of exit through which they
can pour forth without crushing each other, and the open gates of the
city only a short distance beyond. However, after the first explosion,
after the deluge of ashes, comes the deluge of fire, or light stones,
all ablaze, driven by the wind--one might call it a burning
snow--descending slowly, inexorably, fatally, without cessation or
intermission, with pitiless persistence. This solid flame blocks up the
streets, piles itself in heaps on the roofs and breaks through into the
houses with the crashing tiles and the blazing rafters. The fire thus
tumbles in from story to story, upon the pavement of the courts, where,
accumulating like earth thrown in to fill a trench, it receives fresh
fuel from the red and fiery flakes that slowly, fatally, keep showering
down, falling, falling, without respite.

The inhabitants flee in every direction; the strong, the youthful, those
who care only for their lives, escape. The amphitheatre is emptied in
the twinkling of an eye and none remain in it but the dead gladiators.
But woe to those who have sought shelter in the shops, under the arcades
of the theatre, or in underground retreats. The ashes surround and
stifle them! Woe, above all, to those whom avarice or cupidity hold
back; to the wife of Proculus, to the favorite of Sallust, to the
daughters of the house of the Poet who have tarried to gather up their
jewels! They will fall suffocated among these trinkets, which, scattered
around them, will reveal their vanity and the last trivial cares that
then beset them, to after ages. A woman in the atrium attached to the
house of the Faun ran wildly as chance directed, laden with jewelry;
unable any longer to get breath, she had sought refuge in the tablinum,
and there strove in vain to hold up, with her outstretched arms, the
ceiling crumbling in upon her. She was crushed to death, and her head
was missing when they found her.

In the Street of the Tombs, a dense crowd must have jostled each other,
some rushing in from, the country to seek safety in the city, and others
flying from the burning houses in quest of deliverance under the open
sky. One of them fell forward with his feet turned toward the
Herculaneum gate; another on his back, with his arms uplifted. He bore
in his hands one hundred and twenty-seven silver coins and sixty-nine
pieces of gold. A third victim was also on his back; and, singular fact,
they all died looking toward Vesuvius!

A female holding a child in her arms had taken shelter in a tomb which
the volcano shut tight upon her; a soldier, faithful to duty, had
remained erect at his post before the Herculaneum gate, one hand upon
his mouth and the other on his spear. In this brave attitude he
perished. The family of Diomed had assembled in his cellar, where
seventeen victims, women, children, and the young girl whose throat was
found moulded in the ashes, were buried alive, clinging closely to each
other, destroyed there by suffocation, or, perhaps, by hunger. Arrius
Diomed had tried to escape alone, abandoning his house and taking with
him only one slave, who carried his money-wallet. He fell, struck down
by the stifling gases, in front of his own garden. How many other poor
wretches there were whose last agonies have been disclosed to us!--the
priest of Isis, who, enveloped in flames and unable to escape into the
blazing street, cut through two walls with his axe and yielded his last
breath at the foot of the third, where he had fallen with fatigue or
struck down by the deluge of ashes, but still clutching his weapon. And
the poor dumb brutes, tied so that they could not break away,--the mule
in the bakery, the horses in the tavern of Albinus, the goat of Siricus,
which had crouched into the kitchen oven, where it was recently found,
with its bell still attached to its neck! And the prisoners in the
blackhole of the gladiators' barracks, riveted to an iron rack that
jammed their legs! And the two lovers surprised in a shop near the
Thermæ; both were young, and they were tightly clasped in each other's
arms.... How awful a night and how fearful a morrow! Day has come, but
the darkness remains; not that of a moonless night, but that of a closed
room without lamp or candle. At Misenum, where Pliny the younger, who
has described the catastrophe, was stationed, nothing was heard but the
voices of children, of men, and of women, calling to each other, seeking
each other, recognizing each other by their cries alone, invoking death,
bursting out in wails and screams of anguish, and believing that it was
the eternal night in which gods and men alike were rushing headlong to
annihilation. Then there fell a shower of ashes so dense that, at the
distance of seven leagues from the volcano, one had to shake one's
clothing continually, so as not to be suffocated. These ashes went, it
is said, as far as Africa, or, at all events, to Rome, where they filled
the atmosphere and hid the light of day, so that even the Romans said:
"The world is overturned; the sun is falling on the earth to bury itself
in night, or the earth is rushing up to the sun to be consumed in his
eternal fires." "At length," writes Pliny, "the light returned
gradually, and the star that sheds it reappeared, but pallid as in an
eclipse. The whole scene around us was transformed; the ashes, like a
heavy snow, covered everything."

This vast shroud was not lifted until in the last century, and the
excavations have narrated the catastrophe with an eloquence which even
Pliny himself, notwithstanding the resources of his style and the
authority of his testimony, could not attain. The terrible exterminator
was caught, as it were, in the very act, amid the ruins he had made.
These roofless houses, with the height of one story only remaining and
leaving their walls open to the sun; these colonnades that no longer
supported anything; these temples yawning wide on all sides, without
pediment or portico; this silent loneliness; this look of desolation,
distress, and nakedness, which looked like ruins on the morrow of some
great fire,--all were enough to wring one's heart. But there was still
more: there were the skeletons found at every step in this voyage of
discovery in the midst of the dead, betraying the anguish and the terror
of that last dreadful hour. Six hundred,--perhaps more,--have already
been found, each one illustrating some poignant episode of the
immense catastrophe in which they were smitten down!

[Illustration: Bodies of Pompeians cast in the Ashes.]

Recently, in a small street, under heaps of rubbish, the men working on
the excavations perceived an empty space, at the bottom of which were
some bones. They at once called Signor Fiorelli, who had a bright idea.
He caused some plaster to be mixed, and poured it immediately into the
hollow, and the same operation was renewed at other points where he
thought he saw other similar bones. Afterward, the crust of pumice-stone
and hardened ashes which had enveloped, as it were, in a scabbard, this
something that they were trying to discover, was carefully lifted off.
When these materials had been removed, there appeared four dead bodies.

Any one can see them now, in the museum at Naples; nothing could be more
striking than the spectacle. They are not statues, but corpses, moulded
by Vesuvius; the skeletons are still there, in those casings of plaster
which reproduce what time would have destroyed, and what the damp ashes
have preserved,--the clothing and the flesh, I might almost say the
life. The bones peep through here and there, in certain places which
the plaster did not reach. Nowhere else is there anything like this to
be seen. The Egyptian mummies are naked, blackened, hideous; they no
longer have anything in common with us; they are laid out for their
eternal sleep in the consecrated attitude. But the exhumed Pompeians are
human beings whom one sees in the agonies of death.

One of these bodies is that of a woman near whom were picked up
ninety-one pieces of coin, two silver urns, and some keys and jewels.
She was endeavoring to escape, taking with her these precious articles,
when she fell down in the narrow street. You still see her lying on her
left side; her head-dress can very readily be made out, as also can the
texture of her clothing and two silver rings which she still has on her
finger; one of her hands is broken, and you see the cellular structure
of the bone; her left arm is lifted and distorted; her delicate hand is
so tightly clenched that you would say the nails penetrate the flesh;
her whole body appears swollen and contracted; the legs only, which are
very slender, remain extended. One feels that she struggled a long time
in horrible agony; her whole attitude is that of anguish, not of death.

Behind her had fallen a woman and a young girl; the elder of the two,
the mother, perhaps, was of humble birth, to judge by the size of her
ears; on her finger she had only an iron ring; her left leg lifted and
contorted, shows that she, too, suffered; not so much, however, as the
noble lady: the poor have less to lose in dying. Near her, as though
upon the same bed, lies the young girl; one at the head, and the other
at the foot, and their legs are crossed. This young girl, almost a
child, produces a strange impression; one sees exactly the tissue, the
stitches of her clothing, the sleeves that covered her arms almost to
the wrists, some rents here and there that show the naked flesh, and the
embroidery of the little shoes in which she walked; but above all, you
witness her last hour, as though you had been there, beneath the wrath
of Vesuvius; she had thrown her dress over her head, like the daughter
of Diomed, because she was afraid; she had fallen in running, with her
face to the ground, and not being able to rise again, had rested her
young, frail head upon one of her arms. One of her hands was half open,
as though she had been holding something, the veil, perhaps, that
covered her. You see the bones of her fingers penetrating the plaster.
Her cranium is shining and smooth, her legs are raised backward and
placed one upon the other; she did not suffer very long, poor child! but
it is her corpse that causes one the sorest pang to see, for she was not
more than fifteen years of age.

The fourth body is that of a man, a sort of colossus. He lay upon his
back so as to die bravely; his arms and his limbs are straight and
rigid. His clothing is very clearly defined, the greaves visible and
fitting closely; his sandals laced at the feet, and one of them pierced
by the toe, the nails in the soles distinct; the stomach naked and
swollen like those of the other bodies, perhaps by the effect of the
water, which has kneaded the ashes. He wears an iron ring on the bone of
one finger; his mouth is open, and some of his teeth are missing; his
nose and his cheeks stand out promimently; his eyes and his hair have
disappeared, but the moustache still clings. There is something martial
and resolute about this fine corpse. After the women who did not want to
die, we see this man, fearless in the midst of the ruins that are
crushing him--_impavidum ferient ruinæ_.

I stop here, for Pompeii itself can offer nothing that approaches this
palpitating drama. It is violent death, with all its supreme
tortures,--death that suffers and struggles,--taken in the very act,
after the lapse of eighteen centuries.




ITINERARY.




AN ITINERARY.


In order to render my work less lengthy and less confused, as well as
easier to read, I have grouped together the curiosities of Pompeii,
according to their importance and their purport, in different chapters.
I shall now mark out an itinerary, wherein they will be classed in the
order in which they present themselves to the traveller, and I shall
place after each street and each edifice the indication of the chapter
in which I have described or named it in my work.

In approaching Pompeii by the usual entrance, which is the nearest to
the railroad, it would be well to go directly to the Forum. See Chap.
II.

The monuments of the Forum are as follows. I have _italicized_ the most
curious:

_The Basilica_.                See Chap. II.

_The Temple of Venus_.              "

The Curia, or Council Hall.         "

_The Edifice, or Eumachia_.         "

The Temple of Mercury.              "

_The Temple of Jupiter_.            "

The Senate Chamber.                 "

The Pantheon.                       "

From the Forum, you will go toward the north, passing by the Arch of
Triumph; visit the _Temple of Fortune_ (see Chap. VI.), and stop at the
Thermæ (see Chap. V.).

On leaving the Thermæ, pass through the entire north-west of the city,
that is to say, the space comprised between the streets of Fortune and
of the Thermæ and the walls. In this space are comprised the following
edifices:

_The House of Pansa_. See Chap. VI.

_The House of the Tragic Poet_. Chap. VII.

_The Fullonica_. Chap. III.

_The Mosaic Fountains_. Chap. VII.

_The House of Adonis_. Chap. VII.

The House of Apollo.

The House of Meleager.

The House of the Centaur.

_The House of Castor and Pollux_. Chap. VII.

The House of the Anchor.

The House of Polybius.

The House of the Academy of Music.

_The Bakery_. See Chap. III.

_The House of Sallust_. Chap. VII.

The Public Oven.

A Fountain. Chap. III.

The House of the Dancing Girls.

The Perfumery Shop. Chap III.

The House of Three Stories.

The Custom House. Chap. IV.

The House of the Surgeon. Chap. III.

The House of the Vestal Virgins.

The Shop of Albinus.

The Thermopolium. Chap. III.

Thus you arrive at the _Walls_ and at the Gate of Herculaneum, beyond
which the _Street of the Tombs_ opens and the suburbs develop. All this
is described in Chap. IV.

Here are the monuments in the Street of the Tombs:

The Sentry Box.                  See Chap. IV.

_The Tomb of Mamia_.                   "

The Tomb of Ferentius.                 "

The Sculptor's Atelier.                "

The Tomb with the Wreaths.             "

The Public Bank.                       "

The House of the Mosaic Columns.       "

The Villa of Cicero.                   "

The Tomb of Scaurus.                   "

The Round Tomb.                        "

The Tomb with the Marble Door.         "

The Tomb of Libella.                   "

_The Tomb of Calventius_.              "

_The Tomb of Nevoleia Tyché_.          "

_The Funereal Triclinium_.             "

The Tomb of Labeo.                     "

The Tombs of the Arria Family.         "

_The Villa of Diomed_.                 "

Having visited these tombs, re-enter the city by the Herculaneum Gate,
and, returning over part of the way already taken, find the Street of
Fortune again, and there see--

_The House of the Faun_. Chap. VII.

The House with the Black Wall.

The House with the Figured Capitals.

The House of the Grand Duke.

The House of Ariadne.

_The House of the Hunt_. Chap. VII.

You thus reach the place where the Street of Stabiæ turns to the right,
descending toward the southern part of the city. Before taking this
street, you will do well to follow the one in which you already are to
where it ends at the _Nola Gate_, which is worth seeing. See Chap. IV.

The Street of Stabiæ marks the limit reached by the excavations. To the
left, in going down, you will find the handsome _House of Lucretius_.
See Chap. VII.

On the right begins a whole quarter recently discovered and not yet
marked out on the diagram. Get them to show you--

_The House of Siricus_.  Chap. VII.

_The Hanging Balconies_. Chap. III.

The New Bakery. Chap. III.

Turning to the left, below the Street of Stabiæ you will cross the open
fields, above the part of the city not yet cleared, as far as the
_Amphitheatre_. See Chap. VIII.

Then, retracing your steps and intersecting the Street of Stabiæ, you
enter a succession of streets, comparatively wide, which will lead you
back to the Forum. You will there find, on your right, the _Hot Baths
of Stabiæ_. See chap. V. On your left is the _House of Cornelius Rufus_
and that of _Proculus_, recently discovered. See Chap. VII.

There now remains for you to cross the _Street of Abundance_ at the
southern extremity of the city. It is the quarter of the triangular
Forum, and of the Theatres--the most interesting of all.

The principal monuments to be seen are--

_The Temple of Isis_. See Chap. VII.

The Curia Isiaca.

_The Temple of Hercules_. Chap. VII.

_The Grand Theatre_. Chap. VIII.

_The Smaller Theatre_.   "

_The Barracks of the Gladiators_. Chap. VIII.

At the farther end of these barracks opens a small gate by which you may
leave the city, after having made the tour of it in three hours, on this
first excursion. On your second visit you will be able to go about
without a guide.




=Charles Scribner & Co.=


654 Broadway, New York,

HAVE JUST COMMENCED THE PUBLICATION OF

=The Illustrated Library of Wonders.=


This Library is based upon a similar series of works now in course of
issue in France, the popularity of which may be inferred from the fact
that


OVER ONE MILLION COPIES


have been sold. The volumes to be comprised in the series are all
written in a popular style, and, where scientific subjects are treated
of, with careful accuracy, and with the purpose of embodying the latest
discoveries and inventions, and the results of the most recent
developments in every department of investigation. Familiar explanations
are given of the most striking phenomena in nature, and of the various
operations and processes in science and the arts. Occasionally notable
passages in history and remarkable adventures are described. The
different volumes are profusely illustrated with engravings, designed by
the most skilful artists, and executed in the most careful manner, and
every possible care will be taken to render them complete and reliable
expositions of the subjects upon which they respectively treat. For THE
FAMILY LIBRARY, for use as PRIZES in SCHOOLS, as an inexhaustible fund
of ANECDOTE and ILLUSTRATION for TEACHERS, and as works of instruction
and amusement for readers of all ages, the volumes comprising THE
ILLUSTRATED LIBRARY OF WONDERS will be found unexcelled.

The following volumes of the series have been published:--


=Optical Wonders.=

THE WONDERS OF OPTICS.--By F. MARION.

Illustrated with over seventy engravings on wood, many of them
full-page, and a colored frontispiece. One volume, 12mo. Price $1 50

_For specimen illustration see page 31._

In the _Wonders of Optics_, the phenomena of Vision, including the
structure of the eye, optical illusions, the illusions caused by light
itself, and the influence of the imagination, are explained. These
explanations are not at all abstract or scientific. Numerous striking
facts and events, many of which were once attributed to supernatural
causes, are narrated, and from them the laws in accordance with which
they were developed are derived. The closing section of the book is
devoted to Natural Magic, and the properties of Mirrors, the
Stereoscope, the Spectroscope, &c., &c., are fully described, together
with the methods by which "Chinese Shadows," Spectres, and numerous
other illusions are produced. The book is one which furnishes an almost
illimitable fund of amusement and instruction, and it is illustrated
with no less than 73 finely executed engravings, many of them full-page.

CRITICAL NOTICES.

"The work has the merit of conveying much useful scientific information
in a popular manner."--_Phila. North. American_.

"Thoroughly admirable, and as an introduction to this science for the
general reader, leaves hardly anything to be desired."--_N.Y. Evening
Post_.

"Treats in a charming, but scientific and exhaustive manner, the
wonderful subject of optics."--_Cleveland Leader_.

"All the marvels of light and of optical illusions are made
clear."--_N.Y. Observer_.


=Thunder and Lightning.=

THUNDER AND LIGHTNING. By W. DE FONVIELLE.

Illustrated with 39 Engravings on wood, nearly all full-page. One
volume. 12mo $1 50

_For specimen illustrations see page 14._

_Thunder and Lightning_, as its title indicates, deals with the most
startling phenomena of nature. The writings of the author, M. De
Fonvielle, have attracted very general attention in France, as well on
account of the happy manner in which he calls his readers' attention to
certain facts heretofore treated in scientific works only, as because of
the statement of others often observed and spoken of, over which he
appears to throw quite a new light. The different kinds of
lightning--forked, globular, and sheet lightning--are described;
numerous instances of the effects produced by this wonderful agency are
very graphically narrated; and thirty-nine engravings, nearly all
full-page, illustrate the text most effectively. The volume is certain
to excite popular interest, and to call the attention of persons
unaccustomed to observe to some of the wonderful phenomena which
surround us in this world.

CRITICAL NOTICES.

"In the book before us the dryness of detail is avoided. The author has
given us all the scientific information necessary, and yet so happily
united interest with instruction that no person who has the smallest
particle of curiosity to investigate the subject treated of can fail to
be interested in it."--_N.Y. Herald_.

"Any boy or girl who wants to read strange stories and see curious
pictures of the doings of electricity had better get these books."--_Our
Young Folks_.

"A volume which cannot fail to attract attention and awaken interest in
persons who have not been accustomed to give the subject any
thought."--_Daily Register_ (_New Haven_).


=Heat.=

THE WONDERS OF HEAT. By ACHILLE CAZIN.

With 90 illustrations, many of them full-page, and a colored
frontispiece. One volume, 12mo $1 50

_For specimen illustration see page 15._

In the _Wonders of Heat_ the principal phenomena are presented as viewed
from the standpoint afforded by recent discoveries. Burning-glasses, and
the remarkable effects produced by them, are described; the relations
between heat and electricity, between heat and cold, and the comparative
effects of each, are discussed; and incidentally, interesting accounts
are given of the mode of formation of glaciers, of Montgolfier's
balloon, of Davy's safety-lamp, of the methods of glass-blowing, and of
numerous other facts in nature and processes in art dependent upon the
influence of heat. Like the other volumes of the Library of Wonders,
this is illustrated wherever the text gives an opportunity for
explanation by this method.

CRITICAL NOTICES.

"From the first page to the very last page the interest is
all-absorbing."--_Albany Evening Times_.

"The book deserves, as it will doubtless attain, a wide
circulation."--_Pittsburgh Chronicle_.

"This book is instructive and clear."--_Independent_.

"It describes and explains the wonders of heat in a manner to be clearly
understood by non-scientific readers."--_Phila. Inquirer_.


=Animal Intelligence.=

THE INTELLIGENCE OF ANIMALS, WITH ILLUSTRATIVE ANECDOTES.--From the
French of ERNEST MENAULT. With 54 illustrations. One volume, 12mo $1 50

_For specimen illustration see page 16._

In this very interesting volume there are grouped together a great
number of facts and anecdotes collected from original sources, and from
the writings of the most eminent naturalists of all countries, designed
to illustrate the manifestations of intelligence in the animal creation.
Very many novel and curious facts regarding the habits of Reptiles,
Birds, and Beasts are narrated in the most charming style, and in a way
which is sure to excite the desire of every reader for wider knowledge
of one of the most fascinating subjects in the whole range of natural
history. The grace and skill displayed in the illustrations, which are
very numerous, make the volume singularly attractive.

CRITICAL NOTICES.

"May be recommended as very entertaining."--_London Athenæum_.

"The stories are of real value to those who take any interest in the
curious habits of animals."--_Rochester Democrat_.


=Egypt.=

EGYPT 3,300 YEARS AGO; OR, RAMESES THE GREAT. By F. DE LANOYE. With 40
illustrations. One volume, 12mo $1 50

_For specimen illustration see page 17._

This volume is devoted to the wonders of Ancient Egypt during the time
of the Pharaohs and under Sesostris, the period of its greatest splendor
and magnificence. Her monuments, her palaces, her pyramids, and her
works of art are not only accurately described in the text, but
reproduced in a series of very attractive illustrations as they have
been restored by French explorers, aided by students of Egyptology.
While the volume has the attraction of being devoted to a subject which
possesses all the charms of novelty to the great number of readers, it
has the substantial merit of discussing, with intelligence and careful
accuracy, one of the greatest epochs in the world's history.

CRITICAL NOTICES.

"I think this a good book for the purpose for which it is designed. It
is brief on each head, lively and graphic, without any theatrical
artifices: is not the work of a novice, but of a real scholar in
Egyptology, and, as far as can be ascertained now, is history."--_JAMES
C. MOFFAT, Professor in Princeton Theological Seminary_.

"The volume is full of wonders."--_Hartford Courant_.

"Evidently prepared with great care."--_Chicago Evening Journal_.

"Not merely the curious in antiquarian matters will find this volume
attractive, but the general reader will be pleased, entertained, and
informed by it."--_Portland Argus_.

"The work possessed the freshness and charm of romance, and cannot fail
to repay all who glance over its pages."--_Philadelphia City Item_.


=Great Hunts.=

ADVENTURES ON THE GREAT HUNTING GROUNDS OF THE WORLD. By VICTOR MEUNIER.
Illustrated with 22 woodcuts. One volume 12mo $1 50

_For specimen illustration see page 18._

Besides numerous thrilling adventures judiciously selected, this work
contains much valuable and exceedingly interesting information regarding
the different animals, adventures with which are narrated, together with
accurate descriptions of the different countries, making the volume not
only interesting, but instructive in a remarkable degree.

CRITICAL NOTICES.

"This is a very attractive volume in this excellent series."--_Cleveland
Herald_.

"Cannot fail to prove entertaining to the juvenile reader."--_Albion_.

"The adventures are gathered from the histories of famous travellers and
explorers, and have the merit of truth as well as interest."--_N.Y.
Observer_.

"Just the book for boys during the coming Winter evenings."--_Boston
Daily Journal_.


=Pompeii.=

WONDERS OF POMPEII. By MARC MONNIER. With 22 illustrations. One volume
12mo $1 50

_For specimen illustration see page 19._

There are here summed up, in a very lively and graphic style, the
results of the discoveries made at Pompeii since the commencement of the
extensive excavations there. The illustrations represent the houses, the
domestic utensils, the statues, and the various works of art, as
investigation gives every reason to believe that they existed at the
time of the eruption.

CRITICAL NOTICES.

"It is undoubtedly one of the best works on Pompeii that have been
published, and has this advantage over all others--in that it records
the results of excavations to the latest date."--_N.Y. Herald_.

"A very pleasant and instructive book."--_Balt. Meth. Prot_.

"It gives a very clear and accurate account of the buried
city."--_Portland Transcript_.


=Sublime in Nature.=

THE SUBLIME IN NATURE, FROM DESCRIPTIONS OF CELEBRATED TRAVELLERS AND
WRITERS. By FERDINAND LANOYE. Illustrated with 48 woodcuts. One volume
12mo $1 50

_For specimen illustration see page 20._

The Air and Atmospheric Phenomena, the Ocean, Mountains, Volcanic
Phenomena, Rivers, Falls and Cataracts, Grottoes and Caverns, and the
Phenomena of Vegetation, are described in this volume, and in the most
charming manner possible, because the descriptions given have been
selected from the writings of the most distinguished authors and
travellers. The illustrations, several of which are from the pencil of
GUSTAVE DORÉ, reproduce scenes in this country, as well as in foreign
lands.

CRITICAL NOTICES.

"As a hand-book of reference to the natural wonders of the world this
work has no superior."--_Philadelphia Inquirer_.

"The illustrations are particularly graphic, and in some cases furnish
much better ideas of the phenomena they indicate than anything short of
an actual experience, or a panoramic view of them would do."--_N.Y.
Sunday Times_.


=The Sun.=

THE SUN. By AMEDEE GUILLEMIN. From the French by T.L. PHIPSON, Ph.D.
With 58 illustrations. One volume 12mo $1 50

_For specimen illustration see page 21._

M. GUILLEMIN'S well-known work upon _The Heavens_ has secured him a wide
reputation as one of the first of living astronomical writers and
observers. In this compact treatise he discourses familiarly but most
accurately and entertainingly of the Sun as the source of light, of
heat, and of chemical action; of its influence upon living beings; of
its place in the Planetary World; of its place in the Sidereal World; of
its physical and chemical constitution; of the maintenance of Solar
Radiation, and, in conclusion, the question whether the Sun is
inhabited, is examined. The work embraces the results of the most recent
investigations, and is valuable for its fulness and accuracy as well as
for the very popular way in which the subject is presented.

CRITICAL NOTICES.

"The matter of the volume is highly interesting, as well as
scientifically complete; the style is clear and simple, and the
illustrations excellent."--_N.Y. Daily Tribune_.

"For the first time, the fullest and latest information about the Sun
has been comprised in a single volume."--_Philadelphia Press_.

"The work is intensely interesting. It is written in a style which must
commend itself to the general reader, and imparts a vast fund of
information in language free from astronomical or other scientific
technicalities."--_Albany Evening Journal_.

"The latest discoveries of science are set forth in a popular and
attractive style."--_Portland Transcript_.

"Conveys, in a graphic form, the present amount of knowledge in regard
to the luminous centre of out solar system."--_Boston
Congregationalist_.


=Glass-Making.=

WONDERS OF GLASS-MAKING; ITS DESCRIPTION AND HISTORY FROM THE EARLIEST
TIMES TO THE PRESENT. By A. SAUZAY. With 63 illustrations on wood. One
volume 12mo $1 50

_For specimen illustration see page 22._

The title of this work very accurately indicates its character. It is
written in an exceedingly lively and graphic style, and the useful and
ornamental applications of glass are fully described. The illustrations
represent, among other things, the mirror of Marie de Medici and various
articles manufactured from glass which have, from their unique
character, or the associations connected with them, acquired historical
interest.

CRITICAL NOTICES.

"All the information which the general reader needs on the subject will
be found here in a very intelligible and attractive form."--_N.Y.
Evening Post_.

"Tells about every branch of this curious manufacture, tracing its
progress from the remotest ages, and omitting not one point upon which
information can be desired."--_Boston Post_.

"A very useful and interesting book."--_N.Y. Citizen_.

"An extremely pleasant and useful little book."--_N.Y. Sunday Times_.

"The book will well repay perusal."--_N.Y. Globe_.

"A most interesting volume."--_Portland Argus_.

"Graphically told."--_N.Y. Albion_.

"Young people and old will derive equal benefit and pleasure from its
perusal."--_N.Y. Ch. Intelligencer_.


=Italian Art.=

WONDERS OF ITALIAN ART. By LOUIS VIARDOT. With 28 illustrations. One
volume 12mo $1 50

_For specimen illustration see page 23._

As a compact, readable, and instructive manual upon a subject the
exposition of which has heretofore been confined to ambitious and
expensive treatises, this volume has no equal. In style it is clear and
attractive; its critical estimates are based upon thorough and extensive
knowledge and sound judgment, and the illustrations reproduce, as
accurately as wood engravings can do, the leading works of the famous
Italian masters, while anecdotes of these great artists and curious
facts regarding their works give popular interest to the volume.


=The Human Body.=

WONDERS OF THE HUMAN BODY. From the French of A. LE PILEUR, Doctor of
Medicine. Illustrated by 45 Engravings by LEVEILLÉ. One volume 12mo. $1
50

_For specimen illustration see page 24._

While sufficiently minute in anatomical and physiological details to
satisfy those who desire to go deeper into such studies than many may
deem necessary, this work is nevertheless written so that it may form
part of the domestic library. Mothers and daughters may read it without
being repelled or shocked; and the young will find their interest
sustained by incidental digressions to more attractive matters. Such are
the pages referring to phrenology and to music, which accompany the
anatomical description of the skull and of the organs of voice; and the
chapter on artistic expression which closes the book. Numerous simple
but attractive engravings elucidate the work.


=Architecture.=

WONDERS OF ARCHITECTURE. Translated from the French of M. LEFÉVRE; to
which is added a chapter on English Architecture by R. DONALD. With 50
illustrations. One volume 12mo $1 50

_For specimen illustration see page 25._

The object of the _Wonders of Architecture_ is to supply, in as
accessible and popular a form as the nature of the subject admits, a
connected and comprehensive sketch of the chief architectural
achievements of ancient and modern times. Commencing with the rudest
dawnings of architectural science as exemplified in the Celtic
monuments, a carefully compiled and authentic record is given of the
most remarkable temples, palaces, columns, towers, cathedrals, bridges,
viaducts, churches, and buildings of every description which the genius
of man has constructed; and as these are all described in chronological
order, according to the eras to which they belong, they form a connected
narrative of the development of architecture, in which the history and
progress of the art can be authentically traced. Care has been taken to
popularize the theme as much as possible, to make the descriptions plain
and vivid, to render the text free from mere technicalities, and to
convey a correct and truthful impression of the various objects that are
enumerated.


=Ocean Depths.=

BOTTOM OF THE SEA. By L. SONREL. Translated and edited by ELIHU RICH,
translator of "Cazin's Heat," &c., with 68 woodcuts. (_Printed on Tinted
Paper_) One vol 12mo $1 50

_For specimen illustration see page 26._

Written in a popular and attractive style, this volume affords much
useful information about the sea, its depth, color, and temperature; its
action in deep water and on the shores; the exuberance of life in the
depths of the ocean, and the numberless phenomena, anecdotes,
adventures, and perils connected therewith. The illustrations are very
numerous, and specially graphic and attractive.

CRITICAL NOTICE.

This book is well illustrated throughout, and is admirably adapted to
those who require light scientific reading.--_Nature_.


=Lighthouses and Lightships.=

LIGHTHOUSES AND LIGHTSHIPS. By W.H.D. ADAMS. With sixty illustrations.
One volume 12mo. _Printed on tinted paper_ $1 50

The aim of this volume is to furnish in a popular and intelligible form
a description of the Lighthouse _as it is_ and _as it was_, of the rude
Roman pharos, or old sea-tower, with its flickering fire of wood or
coal, and the modern Lighthouse, shapely and yet substantial, with its
powerful illuminating apparatus of lamps and lenses, shining ten, or
twelve, or twenty miles across the waters. The author gives a
descriptive and historical account of their mode of construction and
organization, based on the best authorities, and revised by competent
critics. Sketches are furnished of the most remarkable Lighthouses in
the Old World, and a graphic narration is presented of the mode of life
of their keepers.

CRITICAL NOTICES.

"The book is full of interest."--_N.Y. Commercial Advertiser_.

"The whole subject is treated in a manner at once interesting and
instructive."--_Rochester Democrat_.

"The illustrations are full, and excellently engraved."--_Phil. Morning
Post_.


=Acoustics.=

THE WONDERS OF ACOUSTICS; or, THE PHENOMENA OF SOUND. By R. RADAU. With
110 illustrations. One volume 12mo. _Printed on tinted paper_ $1 50

_For specimen illustration see page 27._

No overweight of technicalities encumber the author's ample and
exceedingly instructive disquisition; but by presenting the results of
curious investigation, by anecdote, by all manner of striking
illustration, and by the aid of numerous pictures, he throws a popular
interest about one of the most suggestive and beautiful of the sciences.
The book opens with an attractive chapter on "Sound in Nature," in which
the language of animals, nocturnal life in the forests, and kindred
subjects are discussed. Among the topics treated of later in the work
are such as "Effects of Sound, on Living Beings," "Velocity of Sound,"
"The Notes," "The Voice, Music, and Science." This volume forms a
valuable addition to the series.


=Bodily Strength and Skill.=

WONDERS OF BODILY STRENGTH AND SKILL. Translated and enlarged from the
French of GUILLAUME DEPPING, by CHARLES RUSSELL. Illustrated with
seventy engravings on wood, many of them full page. One vol. 12mo.
_Printed on tinted paper_ $1 50

_For specimen illustration see page 28._

This is decidedly one of the most interesting volumes of the Library of
Wonders. In it the author has collected, from every available source,
anecdotes descriptive of the most remarkable exhibitions of Physical
Strength and Skill, whether in the form of individual feats, or of
national games, from the earliest ages down to the present time. The
author has simply endeavored to make a collection of "Wonders of Bodily
Strength and Skill," from the Literature of all countries, and if any of
them may be assigned to the region of the improbable, he most
respectfully refers doubting inquirers to the original sources. The
grace and skill displayed in the illustrations, which are numerous and
striking, make the volume singularly attractive.


=Balloons.=

WONDERFUL BALLOON ASCENTS. From the French of F. MARION. With thirty
illustrations on wood, many of them full page One volume 12mo. _Printed
on tinted paper_ $1 50

_For specimen illustration see page 29._

This volume gives an interesting history of balloons and balloon
voyages, written in an exceedingly readable and graphic style, which
will commend itself to the reader.

The history of the balloon is fully narrated, from its first stages up
to the present time, and the most memorable balloon voyages are herein
described in a most thrilling manner. The illustrations are exceedingly
taken in character.

CRITICAL NOTICE.

"Written in a popular style and with illustrations that give
completeness to the text,... beautifully illustrated, and will be a
fascinating reading book, especially for the young,"--_London
Bookseller_.


=Wonderful Escapes.=

WONDERFUL ESCAPES. Revised from the French of F. BERNARD, and original
chapters added by RICHARD WHITEING. With twenty-six full-page plates.
One volume 12mo. _Printed on tinted paper_ $1 50

_For specimen illustration see page 30._

This volume of the "Library of Wonders" is an exceedingly interesting
addition to the series, narrating as it does in the most thrilling
manner the wonderful escapes of noted prisoners, political as well as
criminal. The escapes of over forty well known personages are described
in this book, and their history may be relied upon as entirely accurate,
obtained from official sources. Among the characters treated of we may
mention Marius, Benvenuto Cellini, Grotius, Cardinal de Retz, Baron
Trenck, and Marie de Medicis. A number of full-page plates picturing the
prisoners in the most fearful moments of their escapes accompany the
volume.


=The Heavens.=

WONDERS OF THE HEAVENS. By CAMILLE FLAMMARION. From the French by Mrs.
NORMAN LOCKYER. With forty-eight illustrations. One volume, 12mo $1 50

_For specimen illustration see page 32._

M. FLAMMARION is excelled by none in that peculiar tact, which is so
rare, of bringing within popular comprehension the great facts of
Astronomical Science. Familiar illustrations and a glowing and eloquent
style, make this volume one of the most valuable, as it is one of the
most comprehensive manuals extant upon the absorbingly interesting
subject of which it treats.


ALSO IN PRESS:

WONDERS OF ENGRAVING,
WONDERS OF VEGETATION,
WONDERS OF SCULPTURE,
THE INVISIBLE WORLD,
ELECTRICITY,
HYDRAULICS.

_Due announcement of the appearance of the above new issues of this
series will be given hereafter as they approach completion._





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