Wreck of the mighty—relics of the dead—Who may remove the veil o’erPæstumspread,Who pierce the clouds that rest upon your name,Or from oblivion’s eddies snatch your fame?—Yet as she stands within your mould’ring walls,Fancy—the days of former pride recalls;And at her bidding—lo! the Tyrrhene shore,Swarms with its countless multitude once more;And bright pavilions rise;—her magic artPeoples thy streets, and throngs thy busy mart.In quick succession her creative powerRestores the splendour of Phœnicia’s hour,Revives the Sybarite’s unbless’d repose,Toss’d on the foldings of the Pæstum rose,Lucania’s thraldom—Rome’s imperial sway,The Vandal’s triumph—and the robber’s prey.But truth beholds thee now, a dreary waste;Where solitude usurps the realms of taste.Where once thy doubly blooming roses smiled,The nettle riots, and the thorn runs wild;Primeval silence broods upon thy plain,And ruin holds her desolate domain:Save where, in massive pride, three temples standColossal fragments of a mighty land.Sepulchral monuments of fame, that towerIn proud derision of barbarian power;That still survive and mock, with front sublime,The spoiler’s vengeance, and the strifes of time.Rogers.
Wreck of the mighty—relics of the dead—Who may remove the veil o’erPæstumspread,Who pierce the clouds that rest upon your name,Or from oblivion’s eddies snatch your fame?—Yet as she stands within your mould’ring walls,Fancy—the days of former pride recalls;And at her bidding—lo! the Tyrrhene shore,Swarms with its countless multitude once more;And bright pavilions rise;—her magic artPeoples thy streets, and throngs thy busy mart.In quick succession her creative powerRestores the splendour of Phœnicia’s hour,Revives the Sybarite’s unbless’d repose,Toss’d on the foldings of the Pæstum rose,Lucania’s thraldom—Rome’s imperial sway,The Vandal’s triumph—and the robber’s prey.But truth beholds thee now, a dreary waste;Where solitude usurps the realms of taste.Where once thy doubly blooming roses smiled,The nettle riots, and the thorn runs wild;Primeval silence broods upon thy plain,And ruin holds her desolate domain:Save where, in massive pride, three temples standColossal fragments of a mighty land.Sepulchral monuments of fame, that towerIn proud derision of barbarian power;That still survive and mock, with front sublime,The spoiler’s vengeance, and the strifes of time.Rogers.
Whenthe president Dupaty first beheld Pæstum, he expressed his admiration in the following manner:—“No;I am not at Pæstum, in a city of the Sybarites! Never did the Sybarites choose for their habitation so horrible a desert; never did they build a city in the midst of weeds, on a parched soil, on a spot where the little water to be met with is stagnant and dirty. Lead me to one of those groves of roses, which still bloom in the poetry of Virgil.102Show me some baths of alabaster; some palaces of marble; show me on all sides voluptuousness, and you will indeed make me believe I am at Pæstum. It is true, nevertheless, that it was the Sybarites who built these three temples, in one of which I write this letter, seated on the ruins of a pediment, which has withstood the ravages of two thousand years. How strange! Sybarites and works that have endured two thousand years! How could Sybarites imagine and erect so prodigious a number of columns of such vile materials, of such uncouth workmanship, of so heavy a mass, and such a sameness of form? It is not the character of Grecian columns to crush the earth; they lightly mounted into the air; these, on the contrary, weigh ponderously on the earth; they fall. The Grecian columns had an elegant and slender shape, around which the eye continually glided; these have a wide and clumsy form, around which it is impossible for the eye to turn: our pencils and our graving-tools, which flatter every monument, have endeavoured in vain to beautify them. I am of the opinion of those, who think that these temples were the earliest essays of the Grecian architecture, and not its master-pieces. The Greeks, when they erected these pillars, were searching for the column. It must be admitted, however, that, notwithstanding their rusticity, these temples do possess beauties; they present at least simplicity, unity, and a whole, which constitute the first ofbeauties: the imagination may supply almost all the others, but it never can supply these. It is impossible to visit these places without emotion. I proceed across desert fields, along a frightful road, far from all human traces, at the foot of rugged mountains, on shores where there is nothing but the sea; and suddenly I behold a temple, then a second, then a third: I make my way through grass and weeds; I mount on the socle of a column, or on the ruins of a pediment: a cloud of ravens take their flight; cows low in the bottom of a sanctuary; the adder, basking between the column and the weeds, hisses and makes his escape; a young shepherd, however, carelessly leaning on an ancient cornice, stands serenading with his reedy pipe the vast silence of this desert.” Such was the language of Dupaty, when he entered these celebrated ruins; nor was his enthusiasm in any way misplaced.
Pæstum was a town of Lucania, called by the Greeks Posidonia and Neptunia, from its being situated in the bay. It was then called Sinus Pæstanus; now the Gulf of Salerno.
Obscurity hangs not only over the origin, but over the general history of this city. The mere outlines have been sketched, perhaps, with accuracy; but the details are, doubtless, obliterated for ever.
In scenery Pæstum yields not only to Baiæ, but to many other towns in the vicinity of Vesuvius; yet, in noble and well-preserved monuments of antiquity, it surpasses any city in Italy; the immortal capital alone excepted.
The origin of the city may be safely referred to remote antiquity; but those are probably in the right, who would fix the period at which the existing temples were erected, as a little posterior to the building of the Parthenon at Athens. But even this calculation leaves them the venerable age of twenty-two centuries;and so firm and strong are they still, that, except in the case of extraordinary convulsions of nature, two thousand two hundred and many more years may pass over their mighty columns and architraves, and they remain, as they now are,—the object of the world’s admiration.
Whatever age we may ascribe to the temples, certain it is that the city cannot be less than two thousand five hundred years old.
It was founded by a colony of the Dorians, who called it Posetan; a Phœnician name for the God of the Sea, to whom it was dedicated. Those settlers were driven out by the Sybarites, who extended the name to Posidonia. The Sybarites were expelled by the Lucanians; and these, in turn, were expelled by the Romans, who took possession of it (A.C. 480). From this time the poets alone are found to speak of it. It was, nevertheless, the first city of Southern Italy, that embraced the Christian doctrine. In 840, the Saracens, having subdued Sicily, surprised the city, and took possession. The question now arises, to whom was Pæsium indebted for its temples? To this it has been answered, that, as the ruins seem to exhibit the oldest specimens of Greek architecture now in existence, the probability is, that they were erected by the Dorians.
“In beholding them,” says Mr. Eustace, “and contemplating their solidity, bordering upon heaviness, we are tempted to consider them as an intermediate link between the Egyptian and Grecian monuments; and the first attempt to pass from the immense masses of the former, to the graceful proportions of the latter.”
“On entering the walls,” says Mr. Forsyth, “I felt the religion of the place. I stood as on sacred ground. I stood amazed at the long obscurity of its mighty ruins. They can be descried with a glassfrom Salerno; the high road of Calabria commands a distant view; the city of Capaccio looks down upon them, and a few wretches have always lived on the spot; yet they remain unnoticed by the best Neapolitan antiquaries.”
Thefirsttemple103that presents itself, to the traveller from Naples, is the smallest. It consists of six pillars at each end, and thirteen on each side. The cella occupied more than one-third of the length, and had a portico of two rows of columns, the shafts and capitals of which, now overgrown with grass and weeds, encumber the pavement, and almost fill the area of the temple:—
———The serpent sleeps, and the she-wolfSuckles her young.
———The serpent sleeps, and the she-wolfSuckles her young.
The columns of this temple are thick in proportion to their elevation, and much closer to each other than they are generally found to be in Greek temples; “and this,” says Mr. Forsyth, “crowds them advantageously on the eye, enlarges our idea of the space, and gives a grand and heroic air to a monument of very moderate dimensions.”
In the open space104between the first and second temples, were two other large buildings, built of the same sort of stone, and nearly of the same size. Their substructions still remain, encumbered with fragments of the columns of the entablatures; and so overgrown with brambles, nettles, and weeds, as scarcely to admit a near inspection.
Thesecond105, or the Temple ofNeptune, is not the largest, but by far the most massy and imposing of the three: it has six columns in front and fourteen in length; the angular column to the west, with its capital, has been struck and partially shivered by lightning. It once threatened to fall and ruin the symmetry of one of the most perfect monuments nowin existence, but it has been secured by iron cramps. An inner peristyle of much smaller columns rises in the cella, in two stories, with only an architrave, which has neither frieze nor cornice between the columns, which thus almost seem standing, the one on the capital of the other—a defect in architecture, which is, however, justified by Vitruvius and the example of the Parthenon. The light pillars of this interior peristyle, of which some have fallen, rise a few feet above the exterior cornice and the massy columns of the temple. Whether you gaze at this wonderful edifice from without or from within, as you stand on the floor of the cella, which is much encumbered with heaps of fallen stones and rubbish, the effect is awfully grand. The utter solitude, and the silence, never broken save by the flight and screams of the crows and birds of prey, which, your approach may scare from the cornices and architraves, where they roost in great numbers, add to the solemn impression, produced by those firm-set and eternal-looking columns.
Thethirdedifice is the largest106. It has nine pillars at the end and eighteen on the sides. Its size is not its only distinction; a row of pillars, extending from the middle pillar at one end to the middle pillar on the other, divides it into equal parts, and it is considered that though it is now called a temple, it was not one originally. Some imagine it to have been a Curia, others a Basilica, and others an Exchange.
These relics stand on the edge of a vast and desolate plain107, that extends from the neighbourhood of Salerno nearly to the confines of Calabria. The approach to them is exceedingly impressive. For miles scarcely a human habitation is seen, or any living creature, save herds of buffaloes. And when youare within the lines of the ancient walls of the town—of the once opulent and magnificent Pæstum—only a miserable little taverna, or house of entertainment, a barn, and a mean modern edifice, belonging to the nominal bishop of the place, and nearly always uninhabited, meet your eye. But there the three ancient edifices rise before you in the most imposing and sublime manner—they can hardly be called ruins, they have still such a character of firmness and entireness. Their columns seem to be rooted in the earth, or to have grown from it!
“Accustomed as we were108to the ancient and modern magnificence of Rome,” says Stuart, “in regard to the Parthenon, and, by what we had heard and read, impressed with an advantageous opinion of what we were to see, we found the image our fancy had preconceived greatly inferior to the real object.” Yet Wheler, who upon such a subject cannot be considered as of equal authority with Stuart, says of the monuments of antiquity yet remaining at Athens,—“I dare prefer them before any place in the world,Rome only excepted.” “If,” continues Dr. Clarke, “there be upon earth any buildings, which may be fairly brought into a comparison with the Parthenon, they are the temples of Pæstum in Lucania. But even these can only be so with reference to their superior antiquity, to their severe simplicity, and to the perfection of design visible in their structure. In graceful proportion, in magnificence, in costliness of materials, in splendid decoration, and in every thing that may denote the highest degree of improvement to which the Doric style of architecture ever attained, they are vastly inferior.” This is, at least, that author’s opinion. Lusieri, however, entertained different sentiments. Lusieri had resided at Pæstum; and had dedicatedto those buildings a degree of study which, added to his knowledge of the arts, well qualified him to decide upon a question as to the relative merits of the Athenian and Posidonian specimens of Grecian architecture. His opinion is very remarkable. He considered the temples at Pæstum as examples of a pure style, or, as he termed it, of a more correct and classical taste. “In these buildings,” said he, “the Doric order attained a pre-eminence beyond which it never passed; not a stone has been there placed without some evident and important design; every part of the structure bespeaks its own essential utility109.”
“Can there be any doubt,” says Mr. Williams, “that in the temple of Neptune at Pæstum, the very forms have something within themselves, calculated to fill the mind with the impression which belongs to the sublime; whilst, in the temple of Theseus (at Athens), the simple preservation of its form bespeaks that species of admiration, that peculiar feeling, which beauty is calculated to draw forth? It required not age to constitute the one sublime, or the other beautiful. In truth, their respective characters must have been much more deeply impressed upon them in their most perfect state, than in the mutilated form in which they now stand; surrounded by the adventitious attributes with which antiquity invests every monument of human art.”
Several medals110have been found at Pæstum; but they denote a degeneracy from Grecian skill and elegance, being more clumsily designed and executed than most coins of Magna Græcia.
The private habitations111were unable to resist the dilapidations of so many ages; but the town wall is almost entire, and incloses an area of three miles in circumference. In many places it is of the original height, and built with oblong stones, dug out of the adjacent fields. They are a red tavertino, formed by a sediment of sulphureous water, of which a strong stream washes the foot of the walls. It comes from the mountains, and, spreading itself over a flat, forms pools, where buffaloes are in summer continually wallowing up to their noses.
These walls are built of huge polyhedric stones112, which afford some idea of what has been lately thought the Cyclopean construction. Their materials, however, are a grey stone, without any mixture of the marble, granite, and lava, which are held essential to their construction. They are five, at least113, and, in some places, twelve feet high. They are formed of solid blocks of stone, with towers at intervals; the archway of one gate only, however, stands entire. Considering the materials and the extent of this rampart, which incloses a space of nearly four miles round, with the many towers that rose at intervals, and its elevation of more than forty feet, it must be acknowledged that it was, on the whole, a work not only of great strength, but of great magnificence.
The material, of which they are built, is the same throughout each of the temples and common to all. It is an exceedingly hard, but porous and brittle stone, of a sober brownish-grey colour. It is acurious fact, that not only the ignorant people on the spot, but Neapolitan antiquaries also, wonder whence the ancients brought these masses of curious stone: and yet few things are more certain, than that they found them on the spot.
The stone of these edifices114was probably formed at Pæstum itself, by the brackish water of the Salso acting on vegetable earth, roots, and plants; for you can distinguish their petrified tubes in every column:—and Mr. Macfarlane, who passed a considerable time on the spot, adds, “The brackish water of the river Salso that runs by the wall of the town, and in different branches across the plain, has so strong a petrifying virtue that you can almost follow the operation with the eye. The waters of the neighbouring Sele (a considerable river—the ancient Silarus) have in all ages been remarkable for the same quality. In many places where the soil had been removed, we perceived strata of stone similar to the stones which compose the temples; and I could almost venture to say that the substratum of all the plain, from the Sele to Acropoli, is of the like substance. Curious petrifactions of leaves, pieces of wood, insects, and other vegetable and animal matters, are observed in the materials of columns, walls, &c.”
Taking these wonderful objects into view115, their immemorial antiquity, their astonishing preservation, their grandeur, or rather grandiosity, their bold columnar elevation, at once massive and open, their severe simplicity of design, that simplicity in which art gradually begins, and to which, after a thousand revolutions of ornament, it again returns, taking, says Mr. Forsyth, all into one view, “I do not hesitate to call these the most impressive monuments I ever beheld on earth.”
Within116those walls, that once encircled a populous and splendid city, now rise one cottage, two farm-houses, a villa, and a church. The remaining space is covered with thick, matted grass, overgrown with brambles, spreading over the ruins, or buried under yellow, undulating corn; a few rose-bushes flourish neglected here and there, and still blossom twice a year;—in May and December. They are remarkable for their fragrance. Amid these objects and scenes, rural and ordinary, rise the three temples, like the mausoleums of the ruined city, dark, silent, and majestic117.
“Majestic fanes of deities unknown!Ages have roll’d since here ye stood—alone;—Since your walls echoed to the sacred choir,Or blazed your altars sacrificial fire.And now—the wandering classic pilgrim seesThe wild bird nestling in the sculptured frieze;Each fluted shaft by desert weeds embraced,Triglyphs, obscured entablatures defaced;Sees ill-timed verdure clothe each awful pile,While Nature lends her melancholy smile;And misplaced garniture of flowers that shedTheir sweets, as if in mockery of the dead.”—Rogers.
“Majestic fanes of deities unknown!Ages have roll’d since here ye stood—alone;—Since your walls echoed to the sacred choir,Or blazed your altars sacrificial fire.And now—the wandering classic pilgrim seesThe wild bird nestling in the sculptured frieze;Each fluted shaft by desert weeds embraced,Triglyphs, obscured entablatures defaced;Sees ill-timed verdure clothe each awful pile,While Nature lends her melancholy smile;And misplaced garniture of flowers that shedTheir sweets, as if in mockery of the dead.”—Rogers.
PompeiiPOMPEII
POMPEII
Thiscity is said to have been built by Hercules; and so called, because the hero there exhibited a long procession (Pompa) of the captives, he had taken in Spain, and the head of Geryon, which he had obtained by conquest.
The Oscans, Cumæans, Etruscans, and Samnites, seem to have been successive possessors of the district in which the city stood.
Although evidently of Grecian origin, nothing certain is known of its early history. With many othercities, it underwent various reverses during the Punic and Social wars of the Romans. It was besieged by Sylla; and, about the age of Augustus, became a colony; when its history merges in the more important annals of the Roman Empire.
Pompeii shared the fate of Herculaneum118.
In the month of February, A. D. 63, the Pompeians were surprised by an earthquake and eruption, which caused considerable damage. As soon, however, as the inhabitants had recovered their consternation, they began to clear away the ruins, and to repair the damage sustained by the edifices.
After an interval of sixteen years, during which period several shocks were experienced, on the night of the 29th of August, A. D. 79, a volume of smoke and ashes issued from the mouth of the crater of Vesuvius with a tremendous explosion. After rising to a certain height, it extended itself like a lofty pine; and, assuming a variety of colours, fell and covered the surrounding country with desolation and dismay.
The inhabitants, terrified by repeated shocks, and breathing an atmosphere no longer fit to support life, sought refuge in flight; but were suffocated by the ashes, oppressed by flames of fire, or overwhelmed by the falling edifices. In this awful time, Pliny the Elder lost his life.
Pompeii, notwithstanding this, once more rose from its ashes; but was again overwhelmed in A. D. 471119.
It would be difficult to decide upon the relative magnitude of Pompeii and Herculaneum: yet, from the lead it takes in ancient authors, the former must, in all probability, have been the most populous. Its walls were once washed by the waves: but the sea has since retired to some distance. The chief approach from Rome to Pompeii was through Naplesand Herculaneum, along a branch of the Appian way120.
As you walk round the city walls121, and see how the volcanic matter is piled upon it in one heap, it looks as though the hand of man had purposely buried it, by carrying and throwing over it the volcanic matter. This matter does not spread in any direction beyond the town, over the fine plain which gently declines towards the bay of Naples. The volcanic eruption was so confined in its course or its fall, asto bury Pompeii, and only Pompeii:—for the showers of ashes and pumice-stone, which descended in the immediate neighbourhood, certainly made but a slight difference in the elevation of the plain. When a town has been buried by lava, like Herculaneum, the process is easily traced. You can follow the black, hardened lava from the cone of the mountain to the sea, whose waters it invaded for “many a rood;” and those who have seen the lava in its liquid state, when it flows on like a river of molten iron, can conceive at once how it would bury every thing it found in its way. There is often a confusion of ideas, among those who have not had the advantage of visiting these interesting places, as to the matter which covers Pompeii and Herculaneum. They fancy they were both buried by lava. Herculaneum was so, and the work of excavating there was like digging in a quarry of very hard stone. The descent into the places, cleared, is like the descent into a quarry or mine, and you are always under ground, lighted by torches. But Pompeii122was covered by loose mud, pumice-stone, and ashes; over which, in the course of centuries, there collected vegetable soil. Beneath this shallow soil, the whole is very crumbly and easy to dig,—in few spots more difficult than one of our common gravel-pits. The matter excavated is carried off in carts, and thrown outside the town; and at times when the labour is carried on with activity, as cart after cart withdraws with the earth that covered them, you see houses entire, except their roofs, which have nearly all fallen in, make their appearance; and, by degrees, a whole street opens to the sunshine or the shower, just like the streets of any inhabited neighbouring town. It is curious to observe, as the volcanic matter is removed, that the houses are built principally of lava, the more ancient product of the same Vesuvius,whose latter result buried and concealed Pompeii for so many ages.
It is certainly surprising123, that this most interesting city should have remained undiscovered till so late a period, and that antiquaries and learned men should have so long and materially erred about its situation. In many places, masses of ruins, portions of the buried theatres, temples, and houses, were not two feet below the surface of the soil. The country people were continually digging up pieces of worked marble, and other antique objects. In several spots they had even laid open the outer walls of the town; and yet men did not find out what it was that the peculiar isolated mound of cinders and ashes, earth and pumice-stone, covered. There is another circumstance which increases the wonder of Pompeii being so long concealed. A subterranean canal, cut from the river Sarno, traverses the city, and is seen darkly and silently gliding under the temple of Isis. This is said to have been cut towards the middle of the fifteenth century, to supply the contiguous town of Torre dell’ Annunziata with fresh water; it probably ran anciently in the same channel; but cutting it, or clearing it, workmen must have crossed under Pompeii from one side to the other.
In a work, so limited in extent as this, it is utterly impossible to give any thing like a representation of the various objects to be seen in the exceedingly curious ruins of this city. We can, therefore, only give a general outline, and refer the reader to the very beautiful illustrations, published by Sir William Gell, in 1817 and 1819; and more especially to those published by the same accomplished antiquary in 1832. Never was there any thing equal, or in any way assimilating to them, in the world before! The former work contains all that was excavated up to those years; the latter the topography, edifices, andornaments of Pompeii, the result of excavation since 1819.
“Pompeii,” writes Mr. Taylor to M. Ch. Nodier, “has passed near twenty centuries in the bowels of the earth; nations have trodden above its site, while its monuments still remained standing, and all their ornaments untouched. A cotemporary of Augustus, could he return hither, might say, ‘I greet thee, O my country! my dwelling is the only spot upon the earth which has preserved its form; an immunity extending even to the smallest objects of my affection. Here is my couch; there are my favourite authors. My paintings, also, are still fresh, as when the ingenious artist spread them over my walls. Come, let us traverse the town; let us visit the theatre; I recognise the spot where I joined, for the first time, in the plaudits given to the fine scenes of Terence and Euripides. Rome is but one vast museum;—Pompeii isa living antiquity.’”
The houses of Pompeii are upon a small scale; generally of one, sometimes of two stories. The principal apartments are always behind, inclosing a court, with a portico round it, and a marble cistern in the middle. The pavements are all mosaic, and the walls are stained with agreeable colours; the decorations are basso-relievos in stucco, and paintings in medallion. Marble seems to have been common.
On both sides of the street124the houses stand quite in contact with each other, as in modern times. They are nearly of the same height and dimensions, being similarly paved and painted. The houses, as we have before stated, are on a small scale. The principal apartments are always behind, surrounding a court, with a small piazza about it, and having a cistern of marble in its centre.
An edifice, supposed to be Sallust’s house, has an unusually showy appearance. The rooms are paintedwith the figures of gods and goddesses, and the floors decorated with marbles and mosaic pavements.
The gates of the city, now visible, are five in number. These are known by the names of Herculaneum or Naples, Vesuvius, Nola, Sarno, and Stabiæ125. The city was surrounded with walls, the greater portion of which have also been traced. Its greatest length is little more than half a mile, and its circuit nearly two miles. It occupied an area of about one hundred and sixty-one acres. The general figure of the city is something like that of an egg. There have been excavated about eighty houses, an immense number of small shops, the public baths, two theatres, two basilicæ, eight temples, the prison, the amphitheatre, with other public buildings of less note; and also fountains and tombs. The streets are paved with large irregular pieces of lava, neatly dovetailed into each other. This pavement is rutted with the chariot wheels, sometimes to the depth of one inch and a half. In general, the streets are so narrow, that they may be crossed at one stride; where they are of greater breadth, a stepping-stone was placed in the middle for the convenience of foot passengers. On each side of the street there is a footpath, the sides of which are provided with curbs, varying from one foot to eighteen inches high, to prevent the encroachments of the chariots.
It is well known126, that amongst the Romans bathing formed part of every day’s occupation. In the year 1824, the baths of Pompeii were excavated. They are admirably arranged, spacious, highly decorated, and superior to any thing of the kind in modern cities. They are, fortunately, in good preservation, and throw considerable light on what the ancients have written upon the subject. Various circumstances prove, that the completion of the baths only a short while preceded the destruction of the city.
They occupy a considerable space, and are divided into three separate apartments. One of these was set apart for the fire-places and the accommodation of the servants, and the other two were each occupied by a set of baths, one of which was appropriated to the men, and the other to the women. The apartments and passages are paved with white marble in mosaic, or alternate white and black squares. The chambers are ornamented with various devices, and highly finished. Above one thousand lamps were discovered during the excavation.
There have been two theatres excavated, a large and a small one; both of which display the remains of considerable magnificence. They are constructed after the usual plan of a Roman theatre. The theatre is formed upon the side of a hill, the corridor being the highest part, so that the audience, on entering, descended at once to their seats. There is space to contain about five thousand persons. This theatre appears to have been entirely covered with marble, although only a few fragments remain.
The smaller theatre nearly resembles the larger one in plan and disposition of parts; but there is this remarkable difference;—it appears from an inscription to have been permanently roofed. It has been computed that it accommodated one thousand five hundred persons.
The amphitheatre of Pompeii does not differ in any particular from other Roman buildings of the same kind. Its form is oval; its length is four hundred and thirty feet; and its greatest breadth three hundred and thirty-five feet. There were paintings in fresco—one, representing a tigress fighting with a wild boar; another, a stag chased by a lioness; another, a battle between a bull and a bear. There were other representations besides these; but the whole disappeared upon exposure to the atmosphere127.
Adjoining to the theatre128, a building has been excavated, called, from the style of its architecture, the Greek temple; otherwise, the temple of Hercules. The date of its erection some have supposed to be as far back as eight hundred years before the Christian era. It is in a very dilapidated state. Before the steps in front there is an inclosure, supposed to have been a pen to contain victims for the sacrifice; and by its side there are two altars.
The temple of Isis129is one of the most perfect examples, now existing, of the parts and disposition of an ancient temple. The skeleton of a priest was found in one of the rooms. Near his remains lay an axe, from which it would appear, that he had delayed his departure till the door was closed up, and so attempted to break through the walls with his axe. He had already forced his way through two; but before he could pass the third, was suffocated by the vapour. Within the sacred precincts, doubtless, lay a number of skeletons; probably those of the priests, who, reposing a vain confidence in their deity, would not desert her temple, until escape was hopeless. Several paintings of the priests of Isis, and the ceremonies of their worship, were found, together with a statue of the deity herself.
One of the buildings, surrounding the forum, has received the appellation of the Pantheon, from there having been found in the centre of its area an altar encircled with twelve pedestals; on which, it has been supposed, stood the statues of the mythological deities. The area is one hundred and twenty feet in length, by ninety in breadth. Numerous cells, attached to this building, have been found; these, in all probability, were for the accommodation of priests. Near to this place were discovered statues of Nero and Messalina, and ninety-three brass coins.
Adjoining to the Pantheon130is a building, supposed to have been a place for the meeting of the senate or town-council. In the centre is an altar, and on each side of this, in two large recesses, stand two pedestals, which most likely supported effigies of the gods to whom the place was sacred. Near this is a small temple, elevated on a basement. On the altar there is an unfinished bas-relief, representing a sacrifice. In the cells attached to the building were found a number of vessels in which wine was kept.
Adjoining to this is a large building, which, from various inscriptions, appears to have been erected at the expense of a lady named Eumachia, for the benefit of the public. Amongst other relics found, was a statue of this lady, five feet four inches high.
The forum of Pompeii131is situated at the northeast corner of the city, and is entered by a flight of steps, leading downwards through an arch in a brick wall, still partly covered with stucco. Upon entering, the spectator finds himself in a large area, surrounded by columns, the ruins of temples, triumphal arches, and other public erections. There are, also, a number of pedestals for the support of statues.
There is a subterranean wine-vault132near the city gates, which has been examined with great attention. It is very extensive, and contains the earthen vessels and bottles wherein the wine had been kept. They were arranged in the same precise order as previous to the awful eruption which desolated the city. The interior of this place much resembles cloisters, the roof being arched with strong stones. It was in these vaults where the unhappy inhabitants sought refuge from the sudden and overwhelming shower of fire and ashes.
After such an amazing lapse of time133, liquids have been found approaching to a fluid state—an instanceof which cannot be sufficiently admired, in a phial of oil, conceived to be that of olives. It is white, greasy to the touch, and emits the smell of rancid oil. An earthen vase was found, in the cellars, containing wine, which now resembles a lump of porous dark violet-coloured glass. Eggs, also, have been found, whole and empty.
On the north side134of the Pantheon, there runs a street, named the Street of Dried Fruits, from the quantity of fruits of various kinds, preserved in glass vases, which have been found. Scales, money, moulds for pastry and bread, were discovered in the shops, and a bronze statue of Fame, small and well executed; having bright bracelets of gold upon the arms. In the entrance which conducts from this street to the Pantheon a box was found, containing a gold ring with an engraved stone in it; also, forty-one silver, and one thousand and thirty-six brass, coins.
On the walls are representations of Cupid making bread. The mill stands in the centre of the picture, with an ass on each side; from which it has been inferred, that these animals were employed in grinding corn. Besides these, there are in this building a great number of very beautiful paintings.
Three bakers’ shops135at least have been found, all in a tolerable state of preservation. The mills, the oven, the kneading-troughs, the vessels for containing water, flour, and leaven, have all been discovered, and seem to leave nothing wanting to our knowledge. In some vessels the very flour remained, still capable of being identified, though reduced almost to a cinder. One of these shops was attached to the house of Sallust; the other to that of Pansa. The third seems to have belonged to a sort of capitalist: for instead of renting a mere dependency in anotherman’s house, he lived in a tolerably good house of his own, of which the bakery forms a part.
Beneath the oven is an ash-pit. To the right is a large room, which is conjectured to be a stable. The jaw of an ass, and some other fragments of a skeleton, were found in it. There is a reservoir for water at the farther end, which passes through the wall, and is common both to this room and the next, so that it could be filled without going into the stable.
In another place136there is an oil-mill; in a third, supposed to have been a prison, stocks were found; and in a fourth were pieces of armour, whence it has been called the Guard-room. In this quarter of the city a bronze helmet was found, enriched with bas-reliefs, relating to the principal events of the capture of Troy. Another helmet found represents the Triumph of Rome; greaves of bronze, highly ornamented, also were found.
Contiguous to the little theatre, the house of a sculptor has been cleared. There were found statues; some half finished; others just begun: with blocks of marble, and all the tools required by the sculptor.
The walls, in the interior of the buildings, are generally adorned with fresco paintings, the colours of which are in a state of perfect preservation, and have all the freshness of recent finishing. The shells, also, which decorate some of the public fountains, have sustained no injury from the lapse of ages, or the volcanic products in which they were buried.
During the progress of excavation,137at Pompeii, a painting was found in the Casa Carolina, which scarcely held together to be copied, and fell to pieces upon the first rain. It was of grotesque character, andrepresented a pigmy painter, whose only covering was a tunic. He is at work upon the portrait of another pigmy, clothed in a manner to indicate a person of distinction. The artist is sitting opposite to his sitter, at an awful distance from the picture, which is placed under an easel, similar in construction to ours. By the side of the artist stands his palette, which is a little table with four feet, and by it is a pot to wash his pencils in. He therefore was working with gum, or some sort of water-colours: but he did not confine himself to this branch of the arts; for to the right we see his colour-grinder, who prepares, in a vessel placed over some hot coals, colours mixed with wax and oil. Two amateurs enter the studio, and appear to be conversing with respect to the picture. On the noise occasioned by their entrance, a scholar, seated in the distance, turns round to look at them. It is difficult to explain the presence of the bird in the painting-room. The picture is not complete: a second bird, and, at the opposite side, a child playing with a dog, had perished before Mazois (an artist who has preserved some of the most valuable remains at Pompeii) copied it. This picture is very curious, since it shows how few things, in the mechanical practice of painting, have changed during two thousand years.
There is another picture138preserved at Pompeii, representing a female, employed in making a copy of a bearded Bacchus. She is dressed in a light green tunic, without sleeves, over which she wears a dark red mantle. Beside her is a box, such, as we are told by Varro, as painters used, divided into compartments, into which she dips her brush.
Among the recent discoveries at Pompeii139, may also be enumerated a bronze vase, encrusted with silver, the size and form of which have been muchadmired, and a bronze statue of Apollo, of admirable workmanship. The deity is represented as sacrificing, with his avenging arm, the family of Niobe; and the beauty of its form, and the life of the figure, are so fine, that it is said to be the finest statue in the Bourbon Museum. “As to the furniture,” says Mr. Mathews, “they illustrate Solomon’s apophthegm, that there is nothing new under the sun; for there is much, that, with a little scouring, would scarcely appear old-fashioned at the present day.”
“It was a source of great amusement,” says Mr. Blunt, “to observe the doors of café-keepers, barbers, tailors, tradesmen, in short, of every description, surmounted by very tolerable pictures, indicating their respective occupations. Thus, at a surgeon and apothecary’s, for instance, I have seen a series of paintings displaying a variety of cases, to which the doctor is applying his healing hand. In one he is extracting a tooth; in another applying an emetic; in a third bandaging an arm or a leg.” In 1819, several surgical instruments were discovered in the ruins of a house near the gate adjoining to the burial-ground140.
In a street, which conducts to the Forum, called the Street of Fortune, an immense number of utensils have been found. Amongst other articles, were vases, basins with handles, bells, elastic springs, hinges, buckles for harness, a lock, an inkstand, gold ear-rings, a silver spoon, an oval caldron, a saucepan, a mould for pastry, and a weight of alabaster used in spinning, with its ivory axis remaining; a number of lamps, three boxes, in one of which were found several coins of Titus, Vespasian, Domitian, &c. Among the most curious things found, were seven glazed plates, packed in straw; a pair of scales and steelyard were also discovered.
Fishing-nets141, some of them quite entire, have beenfound in great numbers in Herculaneum as well as in Pompeii. Linen, also, with the texture well defined. In the shop of a baker a loaf was found, still retaining its form, with the baker’s name stamped upon it, and which, to satisfy the curiosity of modern professors of the art, we shall give: it was “Eleris J. Crani Riser.” On the counter of an apothecary’s shop was a box of pills; and by the side of it, a small cylindrical roll, evidently ready for cutting up.
Along the south-side of another building runs a broad street, which, from various articles of jewellery being found there, is called the Street of the Silversmiths. On the walls of the shops several inscriptions appear, one of which has been thus translated: “The Scribe Issus beseeches Marcus Cerrinius Vatia, the Ædile, to patronise him; he is deserving.”
Near to the small theatre, a large angular inclosure has been excavated, which has been called the Provision Market by some, by others the Soldiers’ Quarters. It contains a number of small chambers, supposed to have been occupied by butchers, and vendors of meats, liquors, &c. In one of these was discovered utensils for the manufacture of soap.
If we again fancy for a moment the furniture142, implements, and utensils, which would be brought to light in our own houses and shops, supposing them to be overwhelmed, and thus laid open some centuries hence, we might conjecture that many of the same description must have belonged to those of a nation so civilised as the Romans; but still it is pleasing to ascertain, from a testimony that cannot deceive us, the evidence of the relics themselves, that they had scales very little different from our own; silver spoons, knives (but no forks), gridirons, spits, frying-pans, scissars, needles, instruments of surgery, syringes, saws, and many more, all made of fine brass;that they had hammers, and picks, and compasses, and iron crows, all of which were met with in a statuary’s shop; and that they had stamps which they used, as well for other purposes, as for impressing the name of its owner on bread before it was sent to the oven. Thus on a loaf, still preserved, is legible:Siligo C. Glanii:—This is Caius Glanius’ loaf.
Many of their seals were preserved in this manner; consisting of an oblong piece of metal, stamped with letters of the motto; instruments very similar to those used in England for marking linen. Thus possessed of types and of ink, how little were the Romans removed from the discovery of the art and advantages of printing!
At the end of one of the streets143, was discovered a skeleton of a Pompeian, who, apparently for the sake of sixty coins, a small plate, and a saucepan of silver, had remained in the house till the street was already half filled with volcanic matter. From the situation in which he was found, he had apparently been arrested in the act of escaping from the window. Two others were also found in the same street.
Only sixty skeletons144have been discovered in all; it is, therefore, clear, that the greater part of the inhabitants had found time to escape. There were found in the vault of a house in the suburbs, the skeletons of seventeen individuals, who appear to have sought refuge there from the showers of ashes which poured from the sky. There was also preserved, in the same place145, a sketch of a woman, supposed to have been the mistress of the house, with an infant locked in her arms. Her form was imprinted upon the work, which formed her sepulchre; but only the bones remained. To these a chain of gold was suspended; and rings, with jewels, were upon her fingers. The remains of a soldier, also, were found in a niche,where, in all probability, he was performing the office of sentinel. His hand still grasped a lance, and the usual military accoutrements were also found there.
In one of the baths146, as we have before stated, was found the skeleton of a female, whose arms and neck were covered with jewels. In addition to gold bracelets, was a necklace; the workmanship of which is marvellous. Our most skilful jewellers could make nothing more elegant, or of a better taste. It has all the beautiful finish of the Moorish jewels of Granada, and of the same designs which are to be found in the dresses of the Moorish women, and of the Jewesses of Tetuan, on the coast of Africa.
It is generally supposed, that the destruction of this city was sudden and unexpected; and it is even recorded, that the people were surprised and overwhelmed at once by the volcanic storm, while in the theatre. (Dionys. of Hal.) But to this opinion many objections may be raised, amongst which this; that the number of skeletons in Pompeii does not amount to sixty; and ten times this number would be inconsiderable, when compared with the extent and population of the city.
The most perfect and most curious object, however, that has yet been discovered, is a villa at a little distance from the town. It consists of three courts; in the third and largest is a pond, and in the centre a small temple. There are numerous apartments of every description, paved in mosaic, coloured and adorned with various paintings on the walls; all in a very beautiful style. This villa is supposed to have belonged to Cicero.
“The ruins of Pompeii,” says Mr. Eustace, “possess a secret power, that captivates and melts the soul! In other times, and in other places, one singleedifice, a temple, a theatre, a tomb, that had escaped the wreck of ages, would have enchanted us; nay, an arch, the remnant of a wall, even one solitary column, was beheld with veneration; but to discover a single ancient house, the abode of a Roman in his privacy, the scene of his domestic hours, was an object of fond, but hopeless longing. Here, not a temple, nor a theatre, nor a house, but a whole city rises before us, untouched, unaltered—the very same as it was eighteen hundred years ago, when inhabited by Romans. We range through the same streets; tread the very same pavement; behold the same walls; enter the same doors; and repose in the same apartments. We are surrounded by the same objects; and out of the same windows we contemplate the same scenery. In the midst of all this, not a voice is heard—not even the sound of a foot—to disturb the loneliness of the place, or to interrupt his reflections. All around is silence; not the silence of solitude and repose, but of death and devastation:—the silence of a great city without one single inhabitant: