“The Musæo Borbonico (as it is now called) contains all the most choice and valued works of art and objects of interest which the excavations at Herculaneum and Pompeii have brought to light. To this we repaired on the day following our visit to Pompeii, to follow up our researches into the details of these most interesting discoveries. Here we saw the golden ornaments found upon the skeletons in the house of Diomede, as before mentioned, and many others also. One pair of bracelets weighed a pound each. As for the workmanship, all that was said of the Etruscan golden ornaments is substantially true of the Pompeian. The ladies of these cities were certainly well provided with costly jewelry, both of pure gold and of the same metal set with precious stones. There was one ribbon of wrought gold. Ring stones and brooches without number are preserved here, and among the cameos in agate, are the largest as well as the smallest and most exquisite of these elaborate works of art ever found. Many of the latter can be appreciated only when examined under a strong magnifier.
“Utensils in earthen ware are abundant, but porcelain seems to have been unknown to the Romans. Blown and molded glass of various forms and colors, and designed for various uses, is also common. Pickle jars and olive jars, still retaining their preserved fruits in good condition, were found, and others contained cosmetics or colors. One elegant vase, of the color oflapis lazuli, has figures in white enamel cut on its sides, reminding us of the celebrated Portland vase. The Romans seldom employed iron for culinary purposes, but almost every vessel of this description was fashioned from bronze. A very extensive collection is found in this museum, reproducing nearly all our modern metallic vessels both of utility and ornament. They are generally elegant in form, and are often ornamented with artistic designs, especially in the attachment of the spouts, handles, feet or other prominent parts. They are generally also in a remarkable state of preservation, being for the most part merely covered by a thin coating of greenish rust, easily removed. Sometimes, however, they are corroded through and through with holes. Among the bronze vessels in the collection is one showing that the Romans were well acquainted with the modern device of a heater to keep liquids hot in a large vessel. It is quite on the model of the coffee urn of our day. They also employed, as is evident, steam and hot water to keep dishes hot; for there is a very pretty affair in bronze, like a shallow pan, to hold water, set on legs, with a fire beneath, and provided with valves for the escape of steam.
“Among the objects most frequently found in Pompeii are fishing-nets and tackle, showing the habits of the people in this particular to be similar to those of the modern towns of the same coast, although now Pompeii is a mile from the sea. The iron rings in the walls for fastening vessels were also found, and prove still more conclusively the accumulations in seventeen hundred years. Two vases were discovered in Pompeii full of water; in one it was tasteless and limpid, and in the other brown and alkaline. Among the things preserved in the buried cities were walnuts, chestnuts, almonds, dates, dried figs, prunes, corn, oil, peas, lentils, pies and hams. Papyri were found in large numbers, but the rolls were blackened, as were the timber and the corn, as vegetables are by inhumation in coal beds. Beside the pickles, and olives, and roe of fish, already mentioned, we saw in a glass globe, in this part of the museum, wheat, and barley also, blackened by age and dampness. The loaves of bread, bearing the baker’s stamp, which were found in the shop already named, are singularly perfect, showing distinctly the lines of quartering in which the loaf was designed to be cut.
“The works of art found in Herculaneum are in general much better than those from Pompeii, and every external sign proves it to have been a townof more refinement and wealth than its neighbor. Numerous statues in bronze and marble have been collected from these cities, and a large hall in the museum is devoted to their exhibition. Many are mythological, but busts and statues of the several emperors are also common. One bronze horse, considerably injured and corroded, has been found, and an admirable bronze Hercules. The candelabra were numerous and elegant. One we observed fitted to take apart for the convenience of traveling; its sliding rod drops into a case or sheath, and the tripod foot folds together as snugly as the wing of a bird. A very beautiful candelabrum, taken from the house of Diomede, has a basis formed of a small flat table of bronze standing upon feet. It is elegantly inlaid with silver in the form of a running vine and of leaves; some portions have been burnished, to give an idea of its original beauty. A perpendicular rod rises three feet in hight, and supports a cross upon which are suspended four lamps. All the parts are preserved; and were this tasteful candelabrum put in order and burnished, it would be a fine form for our modern artists to copy, who, indeed, often profit by ancient models.
“The Roman steelyards had a scale suspended so as to receive the thing to be weighed, and the weight slid, as with us, upon a graduated beam; in one the counterpoise is fashioned into an elegant female head. There is a collection of surgical instruments, some of them very similar to those used at the present day. Iron probes, iron teeth extractors, elevators for the operation of trepanning, a cauterizing iron, lancets, catheters, amputating instruments, spatulas and obstetric forceps. Along with these things are rolls of the apothecary, ready to be divided intopills. The articles of thetoiletare abundant; pins of ivory in large numbers and great variety for the hair; combs, curling-tongs, boxes for perfumes and rouge, which is preserved in a small glass bottle; mirrors of metal, small, but sufficient for a lady’s face, and reflectors, to be used probably in a position to give seasonable notice of the approach of a visitor from the vestibule, similar to the arrangement now common in Holland and Germany. Numerous small objects attracted our attention, among which were the ivory dice, and tickets of bone or ivory for admission to the theater, marked and numbered. Musical instruments were common; among them numerous flutes or flageolets, prepared from bone. Numerous bronze penates, trulydii minores, often less than a finger’s length in hight, some partly finished, are to be seen in the museum at Naples.
“There is an apartment here, finished in the style of an ancient Roman house. This is in the extreme end of one of the long suites of rooms. The sky-blue panels have each, in the center, a female figure, volant or quiet; the upper part of the side walls, and of the dome, is divided into compartments,which are decorated by colored lines and forms of great beauty, the entire effect of which is charming. The eye delights to dwell upon them, and would never be tired, because the beauty, although exquisite, is simple and tasteful. We saw in the museum, as already mentioned, the helmet and skull of the Roman sentinel found at his post in the city gate at Pompeii, with his short sword by his side; there, too, was the complete armor of a Roman knight with a decorated and crested helmet, with figures embossed upon the breast-plate, and the coverings of the arms and limbs. We must not forget the iron stocks for punishment. A bar of iron or bronze of great weight had metallic projections standing upward, between which the feet were placed, and secured by a cross pin. It does not appear that the head was pinioned, as in modern times; but we could well understand how the feet of the apostles were rendered lame by confinement in the Roman stocks.
“The hall of ancient sculpture, chiefly from Pompeii and Herculaneum, with some figures from Rome, powerfully attracted our attention. These sculptures, usually of full size, and sometimes colossal, are very fine. Excellent, manly forms, and noble, elevated features of men, and of women, worthy of such companions, with great variety of characteristic attitude, and in general, in full costume, served to convey to us, as we may believe, a very perfect idea of the personal appearance of Roman citizens of that age. The family of Balbus found in Herculaneum, is particularly interesting. It is composed of the father, a noble figure, the mother, equally impressive, and sons and daughters worthy of such parentage. Their features are calm and mild. It is a most interesting group, and in perfect preservation. The moral and intellectual expression of the figures in these rooms—through a long series of apartments and a host of figures—is as various as that of living people.
“It is convenient to introduce here a notice of the Farnesian bull; for this inimitable piece of sculpture is in this place, although it was not found interred in Pompeii or Herculaneum, but buried among the ruins of the baths of Caracalla. A large bull, of perfect and beautiful form, is rearing upon his hind legs, as if about to bound away in his course; but this he is prevented from doing, as he is powerfully held by the horns and the nose by two resolute, athletic young men, one on each side, who have him in such durance that his massive neck is wrinkled in large folds, as he turns his head backward in his efforts to escape from their grasp. The cause of the struggle becomes apparent, when we glance at a fine female form recumbent, and see that her abundant tresses are interwoven with the strands of a rope which is noosed around the horns of the bull, and it flashes at once on the mind, that should the maddened animal escape from his keepers, she will be quicklytorn in pieces. Her noble sons have, in a critical moment, sprung forward to her rescue, and are just able to arrest her impending fate. Filial love proves to be stronger than disapprobation of an imputed fault, for which their mother was to have been immolated by this horrible death. In such a crisis we are not careful to balance the moral question: we instinctively applaud the filial piety, and do not ask for the spirit of Brutus. This wonderful group was sculptured out of a single block of marble of nine feet eight inches by thirteen feet, by Appollonius and Tauriscus, two artists in Greece, from which country it was brought, to grace the baths of Caracalla. It is truly wonderful that such a ponderous mass, embracing so many figures, could be brought over seas, from a distant country, to Rome, and again be transported from that city to Naples, without injury, after being buried for fifteen centuries in the baths of Caracalla.
“The same eruption which destroyed Pompeii, Stabiæ, Oplontia and Teglanum, entombed Herculaneum also. Its site was, however, unknown, as well as that of the other buried towns; and the fatal event is only occasionally alluded to by the Roman writers. In the year 63, an earthquake had shattered these cities, a precursor of their coming doom. In 1711, a peasant, in digging a well, discovered, at twenty feet depth, pieces of colored marble. In 1713, the digging being continued, they struck down into a temple, and discovered the statues of Cleopatra and Hercules; and subsequent explorations disclosed the theater. Our time being very fully occupied with Pompeii on the day when we were there, we reserved to another opportunity a visit to Herculaneum. We descended quite conveniently down steps of stone, and arrived at the pit of the theater, seventy-nine feet below the level of the main street of Portici, and Torre del Greco. With a guide, we proceeded, by the light of candles and torches, until we came to this subterranean theater, which had been filled with volcanic materials. I do not call it lava, because there is every reason to believe that, like Pompeii, Herculaneum was buried by pumice, cinders, ashes, lapilli and sand. There has been much discussion on this subject; but had the buildings of Herculaneum been inclosed in heated lava, it is obvious that every fresco painting and marble would have been destroyed, and much more, the numerous papyri and other substances of an organic character, which have been found there. Now it happens that the frescoes of Herculaneum, so far as it has been uncovered, are not only of a higher character in respect of art than those in Pompeii, but also in better preservation. The solidity of the materialenveloping Herculaneum is easily understood, when we remember that it has been for over seventeen hundred years under the enormous pressure of seventy or eighty feet of superincumbent rock. Since the catastrophe of August, A. D. 79, numerous flows of molten lava have passed over the site of Herculaneum; and these successive accumulations have amounted to the thickness just named. Add the effects of water, dissolving lime and silica, and infiltrating these materials among the loose pumice, and we see cause enough to account for the solidification of these loose materials. Moreover, no sluggish and semi-viscid lava (such as the Vesuvian lavas a short distance from their outlet always are) could ever have entered all the intricate passages of the theater and other buildings; while a fluid magma of volcanic mud would act in the same situation just as it is now found, like plaster of Paris in a mold.
“When we see with what labor and expense the excavations have been made in Herculaneum, and how difficult it is to dispose of the materials, which must be borne a long way through narrow passages like the galleries of a mine, and raised nearly one hundred feet to the surface, where a populous town forbids the accumulation of rubbish; we are the more easily reconciled to the suspension of the labor, and to the throwing of the fragments into cavities that had been previously excavated, and from which all interesting matters had been removed.
“Discoveries in Herculaneum have been very numerous, but are so similar to those made in Pompeii that it is unnecessary to go much into detail beyond what has been already mentioned. This city being, in fact, contemporary with Pompeii, we should, of course, expect to find great similarity. It would seem, however, to have been a grander city, and probably more populous. It has been computed that the theater would contain ten thousand people, which would imply a large population. Two temples were discovered, one of them one hundred and fifty feet by sixty. This contained a statue of Jupiter. Opposite to this was another building of two hundred and twenty-eight feet by one hundred and thirty-two, supposed to have been constructed for the courts of justice. It had a colonnade supporting a portico; its pavement was of marble, its walls were frescoed, and there were bronze statues standing between the forty-two columns that supported the roof.
“The theater is now the only public place that can be seen in Herculaneum, and the excavations have brought its form very distinctly into view. Its marble seats and the pit have been so far cleared, that we distinctly comprehend the design and plan. The galleries of access from the streets, and some of the rooms that were appendages of the theater, have been opened.It appears to have had two principal gates and seven entrances, called vomitories. Many statues, and mosaics, and frescoes, have been found in Herculaneum, and some of them, especially the statues, are of surpassing beauty. We were desirous to see the famed impression of a mask, and by holding a candle near to it the form could be distinctly seen. The impression is in concave, and is that of a strongly marked face of an adult; the copy is well defined, and corresponds perfectly with a molding made by soft aqueous materials, and not at all to one made by lava.
“The well, by which the light was originally let down upon the theater, of course attracted our attention. It is now enlarged into a pit of fifteen to twenty feet in diameter, and narrowed toward the bottom to the size of a common well; it descends far below the bottom of the theater, and, like other wells, contains water. A flood of light flows down through this orifice; and it is cheering to pass from the dark chambers of the theater, to look up again upon the light of heaven. The subterranean walk, aided by candles, of which each person carries one, is, however, far from being unpleasant. Steps are cut in the solid mass, all obstacles are cleared away, and although we find it cool and damp, it is not gloomy, but in a high degree solemn and impressive. We are walking in an ancient tomb—the tomb of a buried city—a city which was large and populous. It was active with pleasure and business long before our Saviour was on earth, and it was overwhelmed while some of his apostles were still alive. How different was our situation here and at Pompeii. In the latter city we walked the streets in open day and on the common level: here, we were deep down in a stony sepulcher; the mansions of the departed were all around us, but they were wrapped in solid rock. The rumbling of the carriages in the streets of another city, whose busy population was passing nearly one hundred feet above our heads, was loud and incessant. It was an earthquake from above, and we could easily understand how the earthquake from below should so readily propagate its vibrations through many miles, or hundreds of miles, of solid materials. Among the interesting places heretofore excavated, but now filled again, were the basilica, the market, the scholæ, a columbarium, and the so-called villa of Aristides, in which papyrus, bronzes, rare mosaics, and all things that attested to the wealth and taste of the proprietor, were found. In excavations made prior to 1728 they found the most splendid house of the ancients that had ever been seen by modern eyes.
“A great work on Herculaneum was published by royal authority, in the thirty-eight years intervening between 1754 and 1792, in nine folio volumes, including the pictures, lamps, bronzes and candelabra; seven hundred and thirty-eight pictures were named in the catalogue, and the other articleswere proportionally numerous. The work was presented, by royal munificence, to the principal public libraries of Europe.
“Both Herculaneum and Pompeii were mentioned with commendation by Cicero. Both appear to have been favorite residences of the opulent Romans; both towns were in the first class of provincial cities, and Herculaneum especially was adorned by many villas. They had all the public establishments that were usual in Rome. Indeed, the entire circuit, from Cape Misenum around through the towns and villages of the bay of Baiæ, and onward through Naples to Herculaneum, and Pompeii, and Stabiæ, appears to have been within the range of Roman sumptuousness, and a cherished resort for rural retirement from the eternal city.
“Thepapyriof Pompeii are generally illegible, being penetrated by the pulverulent material, which, aided by water, had usurped the place of the vegetable matter, or assimilated it to coal; a portion of it was found to be soluble in naphtha. Those buried in Herculaneum were not penetrated by the enveloping matter; and the inscriptions, although black like tinder, could still be read, as writing can often be seen upon burnt paper. The papyri MSS. were generally written in Greek; a few are in Latin. There is much variety of chirography, and there are many erasures. Tickets were attached to the bundles, stating the title of the work. In a single villa in Herculaneum were found sixteen hundred and ninety-six rolls of papyrus, of the eighteen hundred thus far known. In 1819, four hundred and seven of the sixteen hundred and ninety-six had been unrolled, of which only eighty-eight were legible; twenty-four had been sent as presents to foreign princes; of the remaining twelve hundred and sixty-five, only from eighty to one hundred and twenty were in a state to promise any success, according to the chemical method at that time recommended by Sir Humphrey Davy. The titles of four hundred of those least injured, which have been read, although new are unimportant, music, rhetoric and cookery being the chief subjects. There are two volumes of Epicurus on Nature, and there are other works by that school. The rolls, in their coiled condition, were scarcely a span long, and two or three inches thick; they were made of pieces of Egyptian papyrus, glued together; some of the rolls were, when extended, forty or fifty feet long. The method found most successful for unrolling the papyri is to suspend them by silk cords in a glass case; and by attaching the delicate lining membrane of some species of bird to the back, with the aid of silken cords and regulated weights suspended by pulleys, gravity slowly unfolds the brittle tissue at a rate of almost inappreciable tardiness. We were permitted to see this curious process.
“A little further from Vesuvius than Pompeii, but in the same direction,was Stabiæ, which was covered at the same time with the other cities. The town of Castel del Mare is built over a portion of it. A part of Stabiæ was excavated, but has been covered again, so that at present there is nothing of it to be seen. Some manuscripts on papyrus were found there, as at Herculaneum, but very few skeletons have been discovered; it is probable that most of the inhabitants had time to make their escape. I have elsewhere alluded to the death of the elder Pliny, which happened here. As commander of the Roman fleet, he was stationed on the opposite side of the bay, at Cape Misenum; but the splendid outburst of Vesuvius, then novel, induced him, prompted by his humanity and by his zeal in natural science, to cross over with a few attendants; he approached too near, and was constrained to remain over night. Being corpulent and of an asthmatic habit, he was suffocated by the deadly gases exhaled in the volcanic tempest, which proved too much for his peculiar condition, and he died on the spot. The affecting and beautiful narrative written by his nephew, the younger Pliny, addressed to the historian Tacitus, is familiar to the readers of Roman literature, and can never be perused without a deep and painful interest.”
We would merely add, in closing this long but deeply interesting narrative of the buried cities, that it is supposed that about one-third of the entire city of Pompeii is now uncovered, including four principal streets, and all the important buildings of the ancient city. A long street, leading to the Stabian gate, is now being excavated; and in this street, one of the most remarkable discoveries has been made of any which have yet occurred;viz.,that of the complete roofing of a house. As already stated, Pompeii, having been destroyed by falling ashes, and then covered with earth, had suffered the loss of the roofs of its houses. Indeed, some supposed they had been carried away by a whirlwind which they imagined must have preceded or attended the volcanic eruption. The little care used in clearing away the incumbent matter, had left us in the dark as to the construction of the ancient roofings. But quite recently, this discovery has been made of a complete roof of a house, formed of tiles, each about twelve inches square, with coping tiles running between them; and over the backbone, so to speak, of the construction, a cement was applied to make the roofing water-tight. So perfect is this roof, that it might have been constructed yesterday; and it would suit a modern English or American cottage as well as a Roman dwelling. The whole is now inclosed in a railing, and for the present will not probably be removed.