A TOUR

THROUGH ITALY AND SWITZERLAND.

LETTER XXXII.

POMPEII-HERCULANEUM-ASCENT TO THE SUMMIT OF MOUNT

VESUVIUS.

I HAVE made two long visits to Pompeii, and am at length enabled to reduce my ideas respecting the place to some degree of order. It lies twelve miles from Naples, and about four beyond the base of Vesuvius. It is well known that this city was formerly one of the most populous and commercial in all Campania, that it was ruined by the shock of an earthquake, A. D. 63, and covered with a shower of cinders in the year 79. Dion affirms that the inhabitants were at the theatre at the time of the eruption, and were most of them buried there. This, however, would appear not to have been the case, as only one skeleton was found there, and scarcely sixty in the whole city. These were, perhaps, wounded or killed in their flight by the stones ejected from the mountain; the rest it is probable were able to escape. Besides, this city was not, like Herculaneum, overwhelmed by a rolling tide of lava, which would have been more sudden and less easily avoided. The cinders, as they are called, by which it was covered, are for the most part very small 2

VOL. II.

pieces of pumice stone, or a substance resembling black sand. About the middle of the last century, a villa without the walls was discovered in making a plantation of vines. From that time to this the excavations have been continued, and yet the greater part of the city remains beneath the soil.

Enough, however, is exposed to give one a complete idea of its appearance. Whole streets are excavated, shops and houses, theatres and temples, porticos and forums, are opened to view and examination; unroofed and ruined, it is true, yet standing in their original connexion, and displaying their ancient forms. The houses are generally of one story, built around a quadrangular court, paved with mosaic, and surrounded with columns. On three sides of this court are arranged bed-rooms, in general very small, and receiving air and light only from the door. Their walls are covered with a hard plaster, painted red, green, or white, and frequently ornamented with beasts, birds, landscapes, and figures of dancers, bacchanals, heroes, goddesses and gods, single or in groups. The fourth side of the quadrangle opposite the door of entrance, is occupied by a single large apartment, raised on a platform elevated a foot or two above the surface of the court, and destined for the reception of company. Its walls are adorned with greater care and richness. All the apartments are paved with mosaic, composed of pieces of marble and colored glass about a quarter of an inch square, arranged in figures resembling those of our ordinary oilcloths. Issuing from the rear of the reception room, you find what may be called a garden, though very narrow in dimensions, surrounded with plastered and painted walls, and in part paved with mosaic. It is ornamented frequently by a fountain, in the form of a niche, covered with mosaic and shell-work, its basin surrounded with small bronze statues. In one instance, the garden was furnished with a triclinium built of stone, somewhat in the horse-shoe form, broad as the ordinary length of a man, shelving to

wards the exterior and enclosing a short pillar used no doubt to support a small table.

Such is a brief outline of the houses of Pompeii. Some are much larger, containing two and even three courts. Many of course are smaller. But one has been found which has a second story. This is the villa of M. Arrius Diomedes, the first house discovered. It stands without the city, perhaps a quarter of a mile from the gate. It is built around two courts, one covered and the other open, enclosing a garden surrounded by a covered portico, supported by pilasters. Below this portico is a winding subterraneous passage, in which, besides jars used to contain wine, were found a number of skeletons, probably of persons whom their panic did not permit to escape. Above, in the garden, was found the skeleton of a man carrying keys in one hand, and money and gold ornaments in the other, and behind him another loaded with bronze and silver vases. Striking memorials these of the awful calamity which overwhelmed this devoted city! Of the second story of this house, according to the guide book, only one side remains. I am inclined to think that it never occupied more than a part of the front. Το this belief I am induced, not only by the present appearance of the building, but by a landscape found on the garden wall of one of the houses in the city, which represents a villa of the form I have supposed. Near this house, on the summit of a rising ground, is supposed to have been a villa of Cicero, which among all that belonged to the magnificent orator, seems, from his letter to Atticus, to have been one of his favorites. On both sides of the Consular Way, which leads from hence to the gate of the city, are found tombs of various forms and sizes, but generally exhibiting a simple and chaste beauty. The two most remarkable are on the right hand of the road. They are built of white marble, in the form of an altar, raised upon a lofty and massive pedestal. The pedestal of one is hollow, and may be entered

from the rear. It contains, arranged in niches, the urns which hold the ashes of the dead. One of them is broken, and exhibits fragments of bones now falling from their last receptacle. Not far from it, within an enclosure, is a triclinium, whither the relations of deceased persons came to partake of a funeral repast.

The entrance into the city is by three arched gateways, the central one corresponding with the middle of the street, and the others with the side-walks. Before entering the gate, you perceive the ruins of the guard-house, in which was found the skeleton of a soldier, lance in hand, according to the story of my cicerone. On entering the city, you perceive extended before you the street, paved with large and irregular, though flat and admirably joined stones, and bordered on both sides with lines of shops and houses. Upon the walls are still to be seen their rude inscriptions, in paint of various colors. The traces worn by the carriage wheels are plainly visible-nay even the stains of their tires remain upon the stones. You feel as if the silence which surrounds you, and the awful solitude, were something unnatural and strange as if some Arabian enchantment had arrested in a moment the activity of life-as if by some new exertion of magic power, it must return as suddenly as it departed. But in vain you await the dissolution of the spell. It is the silence and the solitude of death. Pursuing your way, you find shops where hot liquors were sold, and where the marks made by the goblets are still seen upon the marble counters; oil shops, whose huge earthern jars are still fixed in their surrounding brick; work-mills, whose stones still rest in their original position; houses, whose apartments are still entire with the exception of their roofs. The most remarkable objects in this part of the town are, the house of Sallust, in which is a fine painting of the story of Diana and Actæon; what is called the Pantheon, containing a remarkably expressive representation of Theseus showing the sword of

Ægeus to his mother, which he has just taken from beneath an enormous rock; and another of Ulysses, seated as a beggar and regarded with earnest astonishment by Penelope; and the house called of Castor and Pollux, from paintings of these deities on the walls of the passage near the door of entrance. This last house is among the most recent excavations, and its paintings are the freshest and most beautiful. In its drawing-room are found, on each of the side walls, five paintings, the two principal of figures about two and a half feet long. The subjects are chiefly taken from Homer; and are represented with great spirit of design, though not with much truth of coloring, or regard to perspective. In this last point, however, they are less deficient than I had previously supposed. The drapery of some of the figures, particularly of two small groups of Bacchanalians, is exquisite. In a cross street are to be found the public baths, interesting from their fine preservation, and a house called the house of the tragic poet, from some manuscripts which were found there. This is remarkable for a fine pavement of mosaic, just within the door, representing a huge dog chained up, and bearing, instead of the usual hospitable inscription "Salve," the rude motto "Cave Canem." It contains also a number of paintings on the walls, one of which claims the honor of being the most obscene among the numerous indecent ones still left at Pompeii.

Near the centre of the town, on an eminence, is the

The

forum, about one eighth of a mile in length, and one sixteenth in breadth. It is surrounded by a colonnade, before which are placed pedestals apparently for statues. columns are of tufa and marble, and are fluted. Around the forum are situated a multitude of Temples, of Jupiter, of Venus, of Fortune, of Mercury, &c. a Basilica, a Chalcidicum, and other public buildings, all adorned with columns of marble, and tufa stuccoed. They are, however, in a state singularly ruinous: some of the shafts are manifestly