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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Wonders of Pompeii, by Marc Monnier
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Wonders of Pompeii
+
+Author: Marc Monnier
+
+Release Date: December 12, 2005 [EBook #17290]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WONDERS OF POMPEII ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Taavi Kalju and the
+Online Distributed Proofreaders Europe at
+http://dp.rastko.net. (This file was made using scans of
+public domain works from the University of Michigan Digital
+Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[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 (Å’dipus 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 _Å“cus_, 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 Å“cus was but a large chamber between
+the peristyle and a garden.
+
+To the right of the Å“cus, 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 Å“cus. 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 (_Å“cus_),
+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 Å“cus, 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 Å“cus 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,
+
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+
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+=Optical Wonders.=
+
+THE WONDERS OF OPTICS.--By F. MARION.
+
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+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
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+itself, and the influence of the imagination, are explained. These
+explanations are not at all abstract or scientific. Numerous striking
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+
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+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._
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Wonders of Pompeii, by Marc Monnier
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WONDERS OF POMPEII ***
+
+***** This file should be named 17290-0.txt or 17290-0.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
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diff --git a/17290-0.zip b/17290-0.zip
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Wonders of Pompeii, by Marc Monnier
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Wonders of Pompeii
+
+Author: Marc Monnier
+
+Release Date: December 12, 2005 [EBook #17290]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WONDERS OF POMPEII ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Taavi Kalju and the
+Online Distributed Proofreaders Europe at
+http://dp.rastko.net. (This file was made using scans of
+public domain works from the University of Michigan Digital
+Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[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 (OEdipus 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 Phoenician 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 _oecus_, 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 oecus was but a large chamber between
+the peristyle and a garden.
+
+To the right of the oecus, 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 oecus. 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 (_oecus_),
+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 oecus, 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 oecus 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 manoeuvres 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._
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Wonders of Pompeii, by Marc Monnier
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WONDERS OF POMPEII ***
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Wonders of Pompeii, by Marc Monnier
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Wonders of Pompeii
+
+Author: Marc Monnier
+
+Release Date: December 12, 2005 [EBook #17290]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WONDERS OF POMPEII ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Taavi Kalju and the
+Online Distributed Proofreaders Europe at
+http://dp.rastko.net. (This file was made using scans of
+public domain works from the University of Michigan Digital
+Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"><a id="image01" name="image01">
+<img src="images/01.jpg" width="600" height="379" alt="Recent Excavations made at Pompeii under the Direction of Inspector Fiorelli, in 1860." title="Recent Excavations made at Pompeii under the Direction of Inspector Fiorelli, in 1860." /></a>
+<span class="caption">Recent Excavations made at Pompeii under the Direction of Inspector Fiorelli, in 1860.</span>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h1>THE WONDERS OF POMPEII.</h1>
+
+<h3>BY</h3>
+
+<h2>MARC MONNIER.</h2>
+
+
+<h4>TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL FRENCH.</h4>
+
+
+<h5>
+NEW YORK:<br />
+CHARLES SCRIBNER &amp; CO.,<br />
+654 BROADWAY.<br />
+1871.<br />
+</h5>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3>Illustrated Library of Wonders.</h3>
+
+<h4>PUBLISHED BY</h4>
+
+<h5>Messrs. Charles Scribner &amp; Co.,</h5>
+
+<h5>654 BROADWAY, NEW YORK.</h5>
+
+<div class="ctr">
+<table summary="Ad">
+  <tr>
+    <td>Each one volume 12mo,</td><td>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</td><td>Price per volume $1.50</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<div class="ctr">
+<table summary="List of Books">
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td>Titles of books.</td><td>No. of Illustrations</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td><span class="smcap">Thunder and Lightning</span>,</td><td align="center">89</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td><span class="smcap">Wonders of Optics</span>,</td><td align="center">70</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td><span class="smcap">Wonders of Heat</span>,</td><td align="center">90</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td><span class="smcap">Intelligence of Animals</span>,</td><td align="center">54</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td><span class="smcap">Great Hunts</span>,</td><td align="center">22</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td><span class="smcap">Egypt 3,300 Years Ago</span>,</td><td align="center">40</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td><span class="smcap">Wonders of Pompeii</span>,</td><td align="center">22</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td><span class="smcap">The Sun, by A. Guillemin</span>,</td><td align="center">58</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td><span class="smcap">Sublime in Nature</span>,</td><td align="center">50</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td><span class="smcap">Wonders of Glass-making</span>,</td><td align="center">63</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td><span class="smcap">Wonders of Italian Art</span>,</td><td align="center">28</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td><span class="smcap">Wonders of The Human Body</span>,</td><td align="center">45</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td><span class="smcap">Wonders of Architecture</span>,</td><td align="center">50</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td><span class="smcap">Lighthouses and Lightships</span>,</td><td align="center">60</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td><span class="smcap">Bottom of the Ocean</span>,</td><td align="center">68</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td><span class="smcap">Wonders of Bodily Strength and Skill</span>,</td><td align="center">70</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td><span class="smcap">Wonderful Ballon Ascents</span>,</td><td align="center">80</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td><span class="smcap">Acoustics</span>,</td><td align="center">114</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td><span class="smcap">Wonders of the Heavens</span>,</td><td align="center">48</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>*</td><td><span class="smcap">The Moon, by A. Guillemin</span>,</td><td align="center">60</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>*</td><td><span class="smcap">Wonders of Sculpture</span>,</td><td align="center">61</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td><span class="smcap">Wonders of Engraving</span>,</td><td align="center">32</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>*</td><td><span class="smcap">Wonders of Vegetation</span>,</td><td align="center">45</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>*</td><td><span class="smcap">Wonders of the Invisible World</span>,</td><td align="center">97</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>*</td><td><span class="smcap">Celebrated Escapes</span>,</td><td align="center">26</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>*</td><td><span class="smcap">Water</span>,</td><td align="center">77</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>*</td><td><span class="smcap">Hydraulics</span>,</td><td align="center">40</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>*</td><td><span class="smcap">Electricity</span>,</td><td align="center">71</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>*</td><td><span class="smcap">Subterranean Worlds</span>,</td><td align="center">27</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td align="center">* In Press for early publication</td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+
+<p class="center"><i>The above works sent to any address, post paid, upon receipt of the
+price by the publishers.</i></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="pagev" name="pagev"></a>Pg v</span></p>
+<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.</h2>
+
+<div class="ctr">
+<table summary="List of Illustrations">
+  <tr>
+    <td><a href="#image01"><b>Recent Excavations Made at Pompeii in 1860, under the Direction of the Inspector, Signor Fiorelli</b></a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td><a href="#image02"><b>The Rubbish Trucks Going up Empty</b></a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td><a href="#image03"><b>Clearing out a Narrow Street in Pompeii</b></a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td><a href="#image04"><b>Plan of Vesuvius</b></a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td><a href="#image05"><b>The Forum</b></a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td><a href="#image06"><b>Discovery of Loaves Baked 1800 Years Ago, in the oven of a Baker</b></a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td><a href="#image07"><b>Closed House, with a Balcony, Recently Discovered</b></a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td><a href="#image08"><b>The Nola Gate at Pompeii</b></a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td><a href="#image09"><b>The Herculaneum Gate Restored</b></a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td><a href="#image10"><b>The Tepidarium, at the Therm&aelig;</b></a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td><a href="#image11"><b>The Atrium of the House of Pansa Restored</b></a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td><a href="#image12"><b>Candelabra, Trinkets, and Kitchen Utensils Found at Pompeii</b></a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td><a href="#image13"><b>Kitchen Utensils found at Pompeii</b></a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td><a href="#image14"><b>Earthenware and Bronze Lamps Found at Pompeii</b></a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td><a href="#image15"><b>Collar, Ring, Bracelet, and Ear-rings Found at Pompeii</b></a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td><a href="#image16"><b>Peristyle of the House of Qu&aelig;stor, at Pompeii</b></a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td><a href="#image17"><b>The House of Lucretius</b></a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td><a href="#image18"><b>The Ex&aelig;dra of the House of the Poet</b></a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td><a href="#image19"><b>The Ex&aelig;dra of the House of the Poet&mdash;Second View</b></a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td><a href="#image20"><b>The Smaller Theatre at Pompeii</b></a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td><a href="#image21"><b>The Amphitheatre at Pompeii</b></a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td><a href="#image22"><b>Bodies of Pompeians Cast in the Ashes of the Eruption</b></a></td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="pagevii" name="pagevii"></a>Pg vii</span></p>
+<h2>CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+<div class="ctr">
+<table summary="Contents">
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td>Page</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center"><b>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.</b></td><td><a href="#pagev">v</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center"><b>CONTENTS.</b></td><td><a href="#pagevii">vii</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center"><b>DIALOGUE.</b></td><td><a href="#pagexi">xi</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center"><b>I.</b></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center"><b>THE EXHUMED CITY.</b></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>The Antique Landscape.&mdash;The History of Pompeii Before
+and After its Destruction.&mdash;How it was Buried and
+Exhumed.&mdash;Winkelmann as a Prophet.&mdash;The Excavations
+in the Reign of Charles III., of Murat, and of
+Ferdinand.&mdash;The Excavations as they now are.&mdash;Signor
+Fiorelli.&mdash;Appearance of the Ruins.&mdash;What is and What
+is not found there.</td><td><a href="#page13">13</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center"><b>II.</b></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center"><b>THE FORUM.</b></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>Diomed's Inn.&mdash;The Niche of Minerva.&mdash;The Appearance
+and The Monuments of the Forum.&mdash;The Antique
+Temple.&mdash;The Pagan ex-Voto Offerings.&mdash;The Merchants'
+City Exchange and the Petty Exchange.&mdash;The Pantheon,
+or was it a Temple, a Slaughter-house, or a
+Tavern?&mdash;The Style of Cooking, and the Form of
+Religion.&mdash;The Temple of Venus.&mdash;The Basilica.&mdash;The<span class="pagenum"><a id="pageviii" name="pageviii"></a>Pg viii</span>
+Inscriptions of Passers-by upon the Walls.&mdash;The Forum
+Rebuilt.</td><td><a href="#page37">37</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center"><b>III.</b></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center"><b>THE STREET.</b></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>The Plan of Pompeii.&mdash;The Princely Names of the
+Houses.&mdash;Appearance of the Streets, Pavements, Sidewalks,
+etc.&mdash;The Shops and the Signs.&mdash;The Perfumer, the Surgeon,
+etc.&mdash;An Ancient Manufactory.&mdash;Bathing
+Establishments.&mdash;Wine-shops, Disreputable Resorts.&mdash;Hanging
+Balconies, Fountains.&mdash;Public Placards: Let us
+Nominate Battur! Commit no Nuisance!&mdash;Religion on
+the Street.</td><td><a href="#page67">67</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center"><b>IV.</b></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center"><b>THE SUBURBS.</b></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>The Custom House.&mdash;The Fortifications and the Gates,&mdash;The
+Roman Highways.&mdash;The Cemetery of Pompeii.&mdash;Funerals:
+the Procession, the funeral Pyre, the Day of
+the Dead.&mdash;The Tombs and their Inscriptions.&mdash;Perpetual
+Leases.&mdash;Burial of the Rich, of Animals, and of
+the Poor.&mdash;The Villas of Diomed and Cicero.</td><td><a href="#page93">93</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center"><span class="pagenum"><a id="pageix" name="pageix"></a>Pg ix</span><b>V.</b></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center"><b>THE THERM&AElig;.</b></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>The Hot Baths at Rome.&mdash;The Therm&aelig; of Stabi&aelig;.&mdash;A
+Tilt at Sun Dials.&mdash;A Complete Bath, as the Ancients
+Considered It: the Apartments, the Slaves, the Unguents,
+the Strigill&aelig;.&mdash;A Saying of the Emperor Hadrian.&mdash;The
+Baths for Women.&mdash;The Reading Room.&mdash;The
+Roman Newspaper.&mdash;The Heating-Apparatus.</td><td><a href="#page120">120</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center"><b>VI.</b></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center"><b>THE DWELLINGS.</b></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>Paratus and Pansa.&mdash;The Atrium and the Peristyle.&mdash;The
+Dwelling Refurnished and Repeopled.&mdash;The Slaves, the
+Kitchen, and the Table.&mdash;The Morning Occupations of
+a Pompeian.&mdash;The Toilet of a Pompeian Lady.&mdash;A Citizen
+Supper: the Courses, the Guests.&mdash;The Homes of
+the Poor, and the Palaces of Rome.</td><td><a href="#page135">135</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center"><b>VII.</b></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center"><b>ART IN POMPEII.</b></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>The Homes of the Wealthy.&mdash;The Triangular Forum and
+the Temples.&mdash;Pompeian Architecture: Its Merits and
+its Defects.&mdash;The Artists of the Little City.&mdash;The<span class="pagenum"><a id="pagex" name="pagex"></a>Pg x</span>
+Paintings here.&mdash;Landscapes, Figures, Rope-dancers,
+Dancing-girls, Centaurs, Gods, Heroes, the Iliad Illustrated.&mdash;Mosaics.&mdash;Statues
+and Statuettes.&mdash;Jewelry.&mdash;Carved
+Glass.&mdash;Art and Life.</td><td><a href="#page167">167</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center"><b>VIII.</b></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center"><b>THE THEATRES.</b></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>The Arrangement of the Places of Amusement.&mdash;Entrance
+Tickets.&mdash;The Velarium, the Orchestra, the Stage.&mdash;The
+Odeon.&mdash;The Holconii.&mdash;The Side Scenes, the Masks.&mdash;The
+Atellan Farces.&mdash;The Mimes.&mdash;Jugglers, etc.&mdash;A
+Remark of Cicero on the Melodramas.&mdash;The Barrack
+of the Gladiators.&mdash;Scratched Inscriptions, Instruments
+of Torture.&mdash;The Pompeian Gladiators.&mdash;The Amphitheatre:
+Hunts, Combats, Butcheries, etc.</td><td><a href="#page199">199</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center"><b>IX.</b></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center"><b>THE ERUPTION.</b></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>The Deluge of Ashes.&mdash;The Deluge of Fire.&mdash;The Flight
+  of the Pompeians.&mdash;The Preoccupations of the Pompeian
+  Women.&mdash;The Victims: the Family of Diomed; the
+  Sentinel; the Woman Walled up in a Tomb; the Priest
+  of Isis; the Lovers clinging together, etc.&mdash;The Skeletons.&mdash;The
+  Dead Bodies moulded by Vesuvius.</td><td><a href="#page232">232</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center"><b>AN ITINERARY.</b></td><td><a href="#page245">245</a></td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="pagexi" name="pagexi"></a>Pg xi</span></p>
+<h2>DIALOGUE.</h2>
+
+<h4>(IN A BOOKSTORE AT NAPLES.)</h4>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">A Traveller</span> (<i>entering</i>).&mdash;Have you any work on Pompeii?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Salesman.</span>&mdash;Yes; we have several. Here, for instance, is
+Bulwer's "Last Days of Pompeii."</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Traveller.</span>&mdash;Too thoroughly romantic.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Salesman.</span>&mdash;Well, here are the folios of Mazois.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Traveller.</span>&mdash;Too heavy.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Salesman.</span>&mdash;Here's Dumas's "Corricolo."</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Traveller.</span>&mdash;Too light.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Salesman.</span>&mdash;How would Nicolini's magnificent work suit you?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Traveller.</span>&mdash;Oh! that's too dear.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Salesman.</span>&mdash;Here's Commander Alo&euml;'s "Guide."</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Traveller.</span>&mdash;That's too dry.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="pagexii" name="pagexii"></a>Pg xii</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Salesman.</span>&mdash;Neither dry, nor romantic, nor light, nor heavy!
+What, then, would you have, sir?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Traveller.</span>&mdash;A small, portable work; accurate, conscientious,
+and within everybody's reach.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Salesman.</span>&mdash;Ah, sir, we have nothing of that kind; besides, it
+is impossible to get up such a work.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Author</span> (<i>aside</i>).&mdash;Who knows?</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page13" name="page13"></a>Pg 13</span></p>
+<h2>THE</h2>
+
+<h2>WONDERS OF POMPEII.</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>I.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE EXHUMED CITY.</h3>
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">The Antique Landscape&mdash;The History of Pompeii Before and After
+its Destruction.&mdash;How it was Buried and Exhumed.&mdash;Winkelmann as a
+Prophet.&mdash;The Excavations in the Reign of Charles III., of Murat,
+and of Ferdinand.&mdash;The Excavations as they now are.&mdash;Signor
+Fiorelli.&mdash;Appearance of the Ruins.&mdash;What is and What is not Found
+There.</span></h4>
+
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page14" name="page14"></a>Pg 14</span> too at the time when Pompeii was
+destroyed: the island of Prochyta, the cities of Bai&aelig;, of Bauli, of
+Neapolis, and of Surrentum bore the names that they retain. Portici was
+called Herculaneum; Torre dell'Annunziata was called Oplontes;
+Castellamare, Stabi&aelig;; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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;<span class="pagenum"><a id="page15" name="page15"></a>Pg 15</span> something like what Geneva was thirty years
+ago. Like Geneva, too, it was marvellously situated&mdash;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&mdash;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
+<i>to send, to transport</i>, 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.</p>
+
+<p>All that can be positively stated is that the city was the entrep&ocirc;t 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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page16" name="page16"></a>Pg 16</span> 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
+Stabi&aelig;, 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 con<span class="pagenum"><a id="page17" name="page17"></a>Pg 17</span>querors
+was not very heavy&mdash;the <i>municipii</i>, retaining their Senate, their
+magistrates, their <i>comiti&aelig;</i> or councils, and paying a tribute of men
+only in case of war&mdash;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 Cann&aelig;, when they threw themselves
+into the arms of Hannibal, and then against Sylla, one hundred and
+twenty-four years later&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page18" name="page18"></a>Pg 18</span> choked him by descending too far
+into his throat. But the Neapolitan youngsters perform the feat with
+figs, which render it infinitely less dangerous.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;the Oscan&mdash;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 <i>Augustales</i>, answering to knights; and then came her <i>plebs</i> or
+common people. She chose her own pontiffs, convoked the comiti&aelig;,
+promulged municipal laws, regulated military levies, collected taxes; in
+fine selected her own immediate rulers&mdash;her consuls (the duumvirs
+dispensing justice), her ediles, her qu&aelig;stors, etc. Hence, it is not a
+provincial city that we are to<span class="pagenum"><a id="page19" name="page19"></a>Pg 19</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page20" name="page20"></a>Pg 20</span> 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
+<i>municeps</i> a Roman colony must have been in the time of Vespasian.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;we adopt the consecrated names&mdash;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.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page21" name="page21"></a>Pg 21</span> This re-awakening of the volcano destroyed three cities, without
+counting the villages, and depopulated the country in the twinkling of
+an eye.</p>
+
+<p>After the catastrophe, however, the inhabitants returned, and made the
+first excavations in order to recover their valuables; and robbers,
+too&mdash;we shall surprise them in the very act&mdash;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&mdash;remark this latter circumstance&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page22" name="page22"></a>Pg 22</span>
+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 <i>Civita</i>, which dim
+tradition had handed down, the soil and debris that had accumulated
+above Pompeii.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page23" name="page23"></a>Pg 23</span>
+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 Stabi&aelig;.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The Emperor Joseph II. visited the excavations on<span class="pagenum"><a id="page24" name="page24"></a>Pg 24</span> 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: every<span class="pagenum"><a id="page25" name="page25"></a>Pg 25</span>thing 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page26" name="page26"></a>Pg 26</span> 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, <i>moralised</i>, 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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page27" name="page27"></a>Pg 27</span> have been cleared, which is scrupulously exact. In
+fine&mdash;and this is the main point&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>"I have frequently been present," wrote a half-Pompeian, a year or two
+ago, in the <i>Revue des Deux Mondes</i>&mdash;"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&mdash;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
+gradu<span class="pagenum"><a id="page28" name="page28"></a>Pg 28</span>ally 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&mdash;<i>isole, insul&aelig;</i> in the modern as well as in the ancient
+language of Italy&mdash;indicate blocks<span class="pagenum"><a id="page29" name="page29"></a>Pg 29</span> 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 name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a></p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page30" name="page30"></a>Pg 30</span>
+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 <i>lapillo</i>, 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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page31" name="page31"></a>Pg 31</span> 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 &aelig;dile, or of the duumvir Holconius."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"><a id="image02" name="image02">
+<img src="images/02.jpg" width="600" height="358" alt="The Rubbish Trucks Going up Empty." title="The Rubbish Trucks Going up Empty." /></a>
+<span class="caption">The Rubbish Trucks Going up Empty.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page32" name="page32"></a>Pg 32</span> 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&mdash;paintings defaced,
+pavements disjointed and full of gaps and cracks&mdash;and then marks of
+spoliation, for all the precious objects found were carried off to the
+museum<span class="pagenum"><a id="page33" name="page33"></a>Pg 33</span> 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.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 370px;"><a id="image03" name="image03">
+<img src="images/03.jpg" width="370" height="600" alt="Clearing out a Narrow Street in Pompeii." title="Clearing out a Narrow Street in Pompeii." /></a>
+<span class="caption">Clearing out a Narrow Street in Pompeii.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>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 Carr&eacute;e (as at Nismes) transformed to a gallery
+of paintings and forming one of the adornments of a<span class="pagenum"><a id="page34" name="page34"></a>Pg 34</span> 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&mdash;it has preserved it.</p>
+
+<p>The structures that have been exhumed crumble away in the air in a few
+months&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page35" name="page35"></a>Pg 35</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page36" name="page36"></a>Pg 36</span> 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.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page37" name="page37"></a>Pg 37</span></p>
+<h2>II.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE FORUM.</h3>
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">Diomed's Inn.&mdash;The Niche of Minerva.&mdash;The Appearance and The
+Monuments of the Forum.&mdash;The Antique Temple.&mdash;The Pagan ex-Voto
+Offerings.&mdash;The Merchants' City Exchange and the Petty
+Exchange.&mdash;The Pantheon, or was it a Temple, a Slaughter-house, or
+a Tavern?&mdash;The Style of Cooking and the Form of Religion.&mdash;The
+Temple of Venus.&mdash;- The Basilica.&mdash;The Inscriptions of Passers-by
+upon the Walls.&mdash;The Forum Rebuilt.</span></h4>
+
+
+<p>As you alight at the station, in the first place breakfast at the
+<i>popina</i> 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 <i>jentaculum</i> in the Roman style&mdash;<i>aliquid scitamentorum</i>,
+<i>glandionidum suillam taridum</i>, <i>pernonidem</i>, <i>sinciput aut omenta
+porcina</i>, <i>aut aliquid ad eum modum</i>&mdash;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 turn<span class="pagenum"><a id="page38" name="page38"></a>Pg 38</span>stile, 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 <i>watch</i>, 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 <i>obolus</i>. You make your <i>entr&eacute;e</i>, in a word, into the antique
+life, and you are as free as a Pompeian.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page39" name="page39"></a>Pg 39</span> 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.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"><a id="image04" name="image04"></a><a href="images/04large.jpg">
+<img src="images/04.jpg" width="600" height="410" alt="Plan of Vesuvius." title="Plan of Vesuvius." /></a>
+<span class="caption">Plan of Vesuvius.</span>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>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&mdash;Doric below and Ionic above&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+new<span class="pagenum"><a id="page40" name="page40"></a>Pg 40</span>comer 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 (<i>cella</i>) 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.</p>
+
+<p>The Romans built their temples in this wise: The augur&mdash;that is to say,
+the priest who read the future in the flight of birds&mdash;traced in the sky
+with his short staff a spacious square, which he then marked on the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page41" name="page41"></a>Pg 41</span>
+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&mdash;the augural
+cross, indicating the four cardinal points; the transverse lines fixed
+the limits of the <i>cella</i>; 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 <i>pontifex maximus</i>, 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.</p>
+
+<p>Like most of the Roman temples, this edifice is elevated on a foundation
+(the <i>podium</i>), 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 <i>podium</i> there remain some vestiges of the twelve
+columns that<span class="pagenum"><a id="page42" name="page42"></a>Pg 42</span> formed the front portico or <i>pronaos</i>. Twelve columns, did
+I say?&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>To the right and the left of the steps were pedestals that formerly
+sustained statues probably colossal. Behind the <i>pronaos</i> could be
+recognized the place where the <i>cella</i> 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&mdash;and it has
+been done on paper&mdash;two colonnades&mdash;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&mdash;why not those of the temple?<span class="pagenum"><a id="page43" name="page43"></a>Pg 43</span> In those times the
+Church was rich; the Saviour had not ordained poverty as its portion.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 372px;"><a id="image05" name="image05">
+<img src="images/05.jpg" width="372" height="600" alt="THE FORUM." title="THE FORUM." /></a>
+<span class="caption">THE FORUM.</span>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>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 <i>Venus Physica</i> (the
+beautiful in nature, say &aelig;sthetic 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.</p>
+
+<p>On the two sides of the temple of Jupiter&mdash;such<span class="pagenum"><a id="page44" name="page44"></a>Pg 44</span> is the
+generally-accepted name&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>What is a Chalcidicum? Long and grave have<span class="pagenum"><a id="page45" name="page45"></a>Pg 45</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;that is to say, before the entry that
+fronts the Forum&mdash;stood forth a sort of porch, a large exterior
+vestibule: that was probably the Chalcidicum.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page46" name="page46"></a>Pg 46</span> it, covered a cistern. At the extremity of the portico, in a
+hemicycle, stood a headless statue&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page47" name="page47"></a>Pg 47</span> 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?</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;why to Mercury?&mdash;or to Quirinus&mdash;why <i>not</i> to Mercury?&mdash;at this
+day forms a small museum of<span class="pagenum"><a id="page48" name="page48"></a>Pg 48</span> 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 <i>victimarius</i>, 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 <i>lituus</i>, or curved staff of the augur; the <i>acerra</i>, or perfuming
+censer; the <i>mantile</i>, or consecrated cloth that&mdash;let us simply say, the
+napkin,&mdash;and, finally, the vases peculiar to these ceremonies, the
+<i>patere</i>, the <i>simpulum</i>, and the <i>prefericulum</i>.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>Senaculum</i>, 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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page49" name="page49"></a>Pg 49</span> 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 (<i>opus reticulatum</i>), some niches without statues&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<i>tabern&aelig; argentari&aelig;</i>, 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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page50" name="page50"></a>Pg 50</span> niche without a statue. The
+capitals of these columns bear C&aelig;sarean 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 (<i>triclinia</i>) which we shall find in the eating
+saloons of the private houses; for the slope of these benches would have
+forced the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page51" name="page51"></a>Pg 51</span> 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 (<i>macellum</i>.) 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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page52" name="page52"></a>Pg 52</span> who is turning the wheel. Flowers on all
+sides&mdash;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, amphor&aelig;,
+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&mdash;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
+(<i>hospitium</i>) 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 <i>triclinium</i> a dormitory. However that may be, the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page53" name="page53"></a>Pg 53</span>
+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 <i>casatelli</i>; they eat <i>zeppole</i> 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&mdash;sensual and vivid, impassioned and
+prone to excess, essentially and eternally Pagan, above all adoring
+woman, Venus or Mary, and the <i>bambino</i>, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page54" name="page54"></a>Pg 54</span> toward the Forum. Different
+observers have fancied that they discovered in it a <i>poecile</i>, a museum,
+a divan, a club, a granary for corn; and all these opinions are equally
+good.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page55" name="page55"></a>Pg 55</span></p>
+
+<p>The temple of Venus is entered from the neighboring street which we have
+already traversed. The ruin is a fine one&mdash;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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>The columns of the peribolus or inclosure bear the traces of some
+bungling repairs made between the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page56" name="page56"></a>Pg 56</span> 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&mdash;- 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.</p>
+
+<p>We now have only to visit the temple itself, the house of the goddess.
+The steps that scaled the basement story were thirteen&mdash;an odd
+number&mdash;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 <i>peripterous</i>, that is to say, entirely<span class="pagenum"><a id="page57" name="page57"></a>Pg 57</span> surrounded with open
+columns with Corinthian capitals. The portico opened broadly, and a
+mosaic of marbles, pleasingly adjusted, formed the pavement of the
+<i>cella</i>, of which the painted walls represented simple panels, separated
+here and there by plain pilasters. Our Lady of Pompeii dwelt there.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>Basilica</i> or
+<i>Basilaca</i>, scratched here and there by loungers with the points of
+their knives, on the wall. <i>Basilica</i>&mdash;derived from a Greek word which
+signifies <i>king</i>&mdash;might be translated with sufficient exactness by
+<i>royal court</i>. 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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page58" name="page58"></a>Pg 58</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page59" name="page59"></a>Pg 59</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the walls of the Basilica were covered with <i>graphites</i>, 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-<span class="pagenum"><a id="page60" name="page60"></a>Pg 60</span>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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Quid pote durum <i>Saxso</i> aut quid mollius unda?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dura tamen molli <i>Saxsa</i> cavantur aqua."<br /></span>
+<span class="i38">(<i>Ovid</i>.)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Notice the <i>s</i> in the <i>saxo</i> and the <i>quid pote</i> instead of <i>quid
+magis</i>; it is a Greekism.</p>
+
+<p>Elsewhere were written these two lines:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Quisquis amator erit Scythi&aelig; licet ambulet oris:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nemo adeo ut feriat barbarus esse volet."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Propertius had put this distich in an elegy in which he narrated a
+nocturnal promenade between Rome and Tibur. Observe the word <i>Scythi&aelig;</i>
+instead of <i>Scythicis</i>, and especially, <i>feriat</i>, which is the true
+reading,&mdash;the printed texts say <i>noceat</i>. Thus an excellent correction
+has been preserved for us by Vesuvius.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page61" name="page61"></a>Pg 61</span></p>
+
+<p>Here are other lines, the origin of which is unknown:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Scribenti mi dictat Amor, monstrat que Cupido<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ah peream, sine te si Deus esse velim!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Minimum malum fit contemnendo maximum,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Quod, crede mi, non contemnendo, erit minus."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Let us copy also this singular truth thrown into rhyme by some gourmand
+who had counted without his host:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Quoi perna cocta est, si conviv&aelig; adponitur,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Non gustat pernam, lingit ollam aut caccabum."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>This <i>quoi</i> is for <i>cui</i>; the caccabus was the kettle in which the fowl
+was cooked.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page62" name="page62"></a>Pg 62</span></p>
+
+<p>Here follows some wholesome advice for the health of lovers:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Quisquis amat calidis noil debet fontibus uti:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nam nemo flammis ustus amare potest."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>A lover had written this:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Nemo est bellus nisi qui amavit."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>A friend:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Vale, Messala, fac me ames."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>A superlative wag, but incorrect withal:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Cosmus nequitiae est magnussimae."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>A learned man, or a philosopher:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Non est exsilium ex patria sapientibus."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>A complaining suitor:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Sara non belle facis.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Solum me relinquis,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Debilis...."<br /></span>
+</div></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page63" name="page63"></a>Pg 63</span></p>
+
+<p>A wrangler and disputant threatening the other party with a law-suit:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Somius <i>Corneilio</i> (Cornelio) jus <i>pendre</i> (perendie?)"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>A sceptic who cherishes no illusions as to the mode of administering
+justice:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Quod pretium legi?"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>A censor, perhaps a Christian, who knew the words addressed by the Jews
+to the blind man who was cured:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Pyrrhus Getae conlegae salutem.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Moleste fero quod audivi te mortuom (sic).<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Itaque vale."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>A jovial wine bibber:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Suavis vinari sitit, rogo vas valde sitit."<a name="FNanchor_B_2" id="FNanchor_B_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_B_2" class="fnanchor">[B]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>A wit:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Zetema mulier ferebat filium simulem sui nec meus erat, nec mi
+simulat; sed vellem esset meus, et ego volebam ut meus esset."</p></div>
+
+<p>Tennis-players scribble:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Amianthus, Epaphra, Tertius ludant cum Hedysio, Incundus Nolanus
+petat, numeret Citus et Stacus Amianthus."</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page64" name="page64"></a>Pg 64</span></p>
+
+<p>Wordsworth remarks that these two names, Tertius and Epaphras, are found
+in the epistles of St. Paul. Epaphras (in Latin, Epaphra; the suppressed
+letter <i>s</i> 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 (<i>Epaphra glaber est</i>), and of knowing
+nothing about tennis. (<i>Epaphra pilicrepus non es</i>). 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 (prob<span class="pagenum"><a id="page65" name="page65"></a>Pg 65</span>ably 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 <i>quadriga</i>, 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
+&AElig;neas,&mdash;when all these have been seen, or glanced at, at least, you will
+have made the tour of the Forum.</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;the
+portico and its<span class="pagenum"><a id="page66" name="page66"></a>Pg 66</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>An air of pomp and grandeur&mdash;a breath of Rome&mdash;has swept over this
+collection of public edifices. Let us descend from these heights and
+walk about through the little city.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page67" name="page67"></a>Pg 67</span></p>
+<h2>III.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE STREET.</h3>
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">The Plan of Pompeii.&mdash;The Princely Names of the
+Houses.&mdash;Appearance of the Streets, Pavements, Sidewalks, etc.&mdash;The
+Shops and the Signs.&mdash;The Perfumer, the Surgeon, etc.&mdash;An ancient
+Manufactory.&mdash;Bathing Establishments.&mdash;Wine-shops, Disreputable
+Resorts.&mdash;Hanging Balconies, Fountains.&mdash;Public Placards: Let us
+Nominate Battur! Commit no Nuisance!&mdash;Religion on the Street.</span></h4>
+
+
+<p>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&mdash;Herculaneum, Nola, Stabi&aelig;, 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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page68" name="page68"></a>Pg 68</span> 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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>The narrowness of these streets will surprise you; and if you come
+hither to look for a Broadway, you<span class="pagenum"><a id="page69" name="page69"></a>Pg 69</span> 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&mdash;for the sake of
+health, they said. We entertain different views of this question of
+salubrity.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>opus signinum</i>, a sort of
+rudimentary mosaic, to which we shall refer further on. These sidewalks
+were intersected with curbstones, often pierced with holes&mdash;in front of
+shops, for instance&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page70" name="page70"></a>Pg 70</span> 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.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page71" name="page71"></a>Pg 71</span></p>
+
+<p>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 Stabi&aelig;, not far from the temple
+of Isis.</p>
+
+<p>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. Fes<span class="pagenum"><a id="page72" name="page72"></a>Pg 72</span>toons
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page73" name="page73"></a>Pg 73</span> an amphora is suspended, betray the
+neighborhood of a wine-merchant. Upon other pillars are marked other
+articles not so readily understood,&mdash;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 Therm&aelig;, 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: "<i>Abiat (habeat) Venerem Pompeianam iradam
+(iratam) qui hoc l&aelig;serit!</i> (May he who injures this picture have the
+wrath of the Pompeian Venus upon him!)"</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page74" name="page74"></a>Pg 74</span> 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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page75" name="page75"></a>Pg 75</span> dealer, as he was called, thus <i>made
+up</i> the body and publicly placarded it.</p>
+
+<p>From the perfumery man to the chemist is but a step. The shop of the
+latter tradesman was found&mdash;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 &AElig;sculapius) 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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page76" name="page76"></a>Pg 76</span> 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 arch&aelig;ology. 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&mdash;I don't know what not&mdash;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 <i>Memoires de l'Academie
+d'Herculaneum</i>.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page77" name="page77"></a>Pg 77</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 peri<span class="pagenum"><a id="page78" name="page78"></a>Pg 78</span>style surrounded with rooms,
+some of which served for shops and others for dwellings. A painted
+inscription on the street side announces that the dyers (<i>offectores</i>)
+vote for Posthumus Proculus. These <i>offectores</i> were those who retinted
+woollen goods. Those who did the first dyeing were called the
+<i>infectores. Infectores qui alienum colorem in lanam conficiunt,
+offectores qui proprio colori novum officiunt</i>. 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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page79" name="page79"></a>Pg 79</span> 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
+(<i>asciutta-panni</i>). 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.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page80" name="page80"></a>Pg 80</span></p>
+
+<p>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 <i>cipollino</i> and gray marble, encrusted,
+on the outside, with a round slab of porphyry between two rosettes.
+Eight earthenware vases still containing olives<a name="FNanchor_C_3" id="FNanchor_C_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_C_3" class="fnanchor">[C]</a> and coagulated oil
+were found in the establishment of this stylish grocer.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page81" name="page81"></a>Pg 81</span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page82" name="page82"></a>Pg 82</span> 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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page83" name="page83"></a>Pg 83</span>
+and customs of Italy, as it does into the new, reveals itself in the
+paintings of the <i>pistrinum</i>; we there see the sacrifices to Fornax, the
+patroness of ovens and the saint of kitchens.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"><a id="image06" name="image06">
+<img src="images/06.jpg" width="600" height="378" alt="Discoveries of Loaves of Bread baked 1800 years ago in a Baker&#39;s Oven." title="oaves of Bread baked 1800 years ago in a Baker&#39;s Oven.Discoveries of Loaves of Bread baked 1800 years ago in a Baker&#39;s Oven." /></a>
+<span class="caption">Discoveries of Loaves of Bread baked 1800 years ago in a Baker&#39;s Oven.</span>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page84" name="page84"></a>Pg 84</span> 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&mdash;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, <i>siligo grani</i> (wheat flour), or
+<i>e cicera</i> (of bean flour)&mdash;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.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page85" name="page85"></a>Pg 85</span> 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 <i>atrium</i>. 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 case<span class="pagenum"><a id="page86" name="page86"></a>Pg 86</span>ments, 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.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"><a id="image07" name="image07">
+<img src="images/07.jpg" width="600" height="370" alt="Closed House with a Balcony, recently discovered." title="Closed House with a Balcony, recently discovered." /></a>
+<span class="caption">Closed House with a Balcony, recently discovered.</span>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>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&mdash;lions' heads, masks, an eagle holding a hare in his beak,
+with<span class="pagenum"><a id="page87" name="page87"></a>Pg 87</span> 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 (<i>castellum</i>) 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.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page88" name="page88"></a>Pg 88</span></p>
+
+<p>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 <i>albums</i>.
+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&mdash;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&mdash;that of the Pompeian autonomy&mdash;yielded little by little to the
+Roman language, which was that of the unity of the state; and to what
+extent Pompeii,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page89" name="page89"></a>Pg 89</span> 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&mdash;dead
+and buried, but afterward exhumed.</p>
+
+<p>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 &aelig;dile 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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page90" name="page90"></a>Pg 90</span> salt-makers, the
+carpenters, the truckmen, also unite to push forward the &aelig;dile 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&mdash;a fishmonger, thinks Overbeck&mdash;for &aelig;dile.
+Let us not forget <i>the sleepers</i>, 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 &aelig;dileship, an elector announces that he will bring in good
+bread. Electoral intrigue went still further. <i>We</i> 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: <i>Sabinum &aelig;dilem, Procule, fac et
+ille te<span class="pagenum"><a id="page91" name="page91"></a>Pg 91</span> faciet</i>. (Make Sabinus &aelig;dile, O Proculus, and he may make thee
+such!) Frank and cool that, it strikes me!</p>
+
+<p>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 (<i>venatio, vela,
+sparsiones</i>). Thirty couples of gladiators will ensanguine the arena.</p>
+
+<p>There were, likewise, posters announcing apartments to let.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page92" name="page92"></a>Pg 92</span> 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."</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page93" name="page93"></a>Pg 93</span></p>
+<h2>IV.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE SUBURBS.</h3>
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">The Custom House.&mdash;The Fortifications and the Gates.&mdash;The Roman
+Highways.&mdash;The Cemetery of Pompeii.&mdash;Funerals: the Procession, the
+Funeral Pyre, the Day of the Dead.&mdash;The Tombs and their
+Inscriptions.&mdash;Perpetual Leases.&mdash;Burial of the Rich, of Animals,
+and of the Poor.&mdash;The Villas of Diomed and Cicero.</span></h4>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Ce qu'on trouve aux abords d'une grande cite,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Ce sont des abattoirs, des murs, des cimitieres:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">C'est ainsi qu'en entrant dans la societ&eacute;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">On trouve ses egouts."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page94" name="page94"></a>Pg 94</span> quantity of
+stone or metal weights were found there, marked with inscriptions
+sometimes quite curious; such, for example, as the following: <i>Eme et
+habbebis</i>, with a <i>b</i> 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&mdash;the hand of Rome!</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>peperino</i>, the points of which ascend obliquely and hold
+to<span class="pagenum"><a id="page95" name="page95"></a>Pg 95</span>gether without mortar. Originally as ancient as the city, these
+ramparts were destroyed to some extent by Sylla and repaired in <i>opus
+incertum</i>, 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&mdash;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 Stabi&aelig; and of Herculaneum. These ramparts consisted
+of two walls&mdash;the scarp and counterscarp,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page96" name="page96"></a>Pg 96</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page97" name="page97"></a>Pg 97</span> 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: <i>Isis
+propheta</i> (I translate it into Latin, supposing you to know as little as
+I do of the Oscan tongue). The inscription really ran, <i>idem probavit</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"><a id="image08" name="image08">
+<img src="images/08.jpg" width="600" height="361" alt="The Nola Gate at Pompeii." title="The Nola Gate at Pompeii." /></a>
+<span class="caption">The Nola Gate at Pompeii.</span>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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;<span class="pagenum"><a id="page98" name="page98"></a>Pg 98</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<i>cataracta</i> suspended by iron chains. They then slaughtered the poor
+wretches indiscriminately and covered themselves with glory.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page99" name="page99"></a>Pg 99</span> 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 <i>pavimentum</i>) was placed a layer of rough stone
+(<i>statumen</i>), then a filling-in of gravel and lime (the <i>rudus</i>), 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.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"><a id="image09" name="image09">
+<img src="images/09.jpg" width="600" height="355" alt="The Herculaneum Gate, restored." title="The Herculaneum Gate, restored." /></a>
+<span class="caption">The Herculaneum Gate, restored.</span>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>The Herculaneum road formed a delightful promenade at the gates of
+Pompeii; a street lined with trees and villas, like the Champs Elyse&eacute;s
+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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page100" name="page100"></a>Pg 100</span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page101" name="page101"></a>Pg 101</span> 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 cus<span class="pagenum"><a id="page102" name="page102"></a>Pg 102</span>tom and what was requisite in
+view of the quality, greatness, and rank of the personage."</p>
+
+<p>Now there were at Rome several ministers, public servitors, and
+officials, who had charge of all that appertained to funerals, such as
+the <i>libitinarii</i>, the <i>designatores</i>, 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 <i>pollinctores</i>, the <i>sandapilarii</i>, the <i>ustores</i>, the <i>cadaverum
+custodes</i>, intrusted with the care of anointing the dead, carrying them
+to the place of sepulture, burning them, and watching them. "After
+<i>pollinctores</i> had carefully washed, anointed, and embalmed the body,
+according to the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page103" name="page103"></a>Pg 103</span> 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 <i>ricinia</i>,
+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,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page104" name="page104"></a>Pg 104</span> inform the public and call together all who wished to be
+present, the procession, which they called <i>exequi&aelig;</i>, 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.'"</p>
+
+<p>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 (<i>pr&aelig;fiic&aelig;</i>),
+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 mourn<span class="pagenum"><a id="page105" name="page105"></a>Pg 105</span>ing 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.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page106" name="page106"></a>Pg 106</span></p>
+
+<p>The <i>ustrinum</i>, 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
+<i>ustrinum</i>. Then they are going to burn the duumvir Lucius Labeo.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page107" name="page107"></a>Pg 107</span>
+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, <i>heartily</i>, 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&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page108" name="page108"></a>Pg 108</span> 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: <i>Vale!
+Vale! Vale!</i> then adding, "May the earth rest lightly on thee!"</p>
+
+<p>Hereupon, the next care was the monument. That of the duumvir Labeo,
+which is very ugly, in<span class="pagenum"><a id="page109" name="page109"></a>Pg 109</span> <i>opus incertum</i>, 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 <i>ferales</i> and <i>lemurales</i>, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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!&mdash;there was a youth who made his<span class="pagenum"><a id="page110" name="page110"></a>Pg 110</span> way rapidly. Cicero said
+that it was easier to be a Senator at Rome than a decurion at Pompeii.
+The tomb is handsome&mdash;very elegant, indeed&mdash;but it contained neither
+urns, nor sarcophagi; it probably was not a place of burial, but a
+simple cenotaph, an honorary monument.</p>
+
+<p>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 (&#338;dipus 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
+<i>bisellium</i> (a bench with seats for two), the stool, and the three
+letters O.C.S. (<i>ob civum servatum</i>), 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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page111" name="page111"></a>Pg 111</span> 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!</p>
+
+<p>Another monument&mdash;the one attributed to Scaurus&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>The tomb of Nevoleia Tych&eacute;, 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.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page112" name="page112"></a>Pg 112</span></p>
+
+<p>"Nevoleia Tych&eacute;, 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 <i>bisellium</i>. This
+monument has been offered during her lifetime by Nevoleia Tych&eacute; to her
+freedmen and to those of C. Munatius Faustus."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>I have many other tombs left to mention. There are three, which are
+sarcophagi, still complete, never<span class="pagenum"><a id="page113" name="page113"></a>Pg 113</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page114" name="page114"></a>Pg 114</span> 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,
+<i>novendialia</i>. They were also called <i>silicernia</i>; 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.</p>
+
+<p>In fact, even at Pompeii, in this humble <i>campo santo</i> 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. (<i>hoc monumentum h&aelig;redes non<span class="pagenum"><a id="page115" name="page115"></a>Pg 115</span> sequitur</i>), 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."</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;and this is the most singular feature&mdash;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
+<i>sepolcro dei bestiani</i>, 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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page116" name="page116"></a>Pg 116</span> 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 (<i>commune sepulcrum</i>), an ancient barbarism that
+has been kept up until our times; perhaps in those public burial ranges
+where one could purchase a simple niche (<i>olla</i>) for his urn. These
+niches were sometimes humble and touching presents interchanged by poor
+people.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page117" name="page117"></a>Pg 117</span>
+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!</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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&mdash;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 amphor&aelig;, inside of which were still a few
+drops of wine not yet dried up, the place where lay the poor suffocated
+family&mdash;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 <i>Arria Marcella</i> of Theophile Gau<span class="pagenum"><a id="page118" name="page118"></a>Pg 118</span>tier&mdash;that
+author's masterpiece, perhaps, but at all events a masterpiece.</p>
+
+<p>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 Bai&aelig; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page119" name="page119"></a>Pg 119</span>
+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 therm&aelig;.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page120" name="page120"></a>Pg 120</span></p>
+<h2>V.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE THERM&AElig;.</h3>
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">The Hot Baths at Rome.&mdash;The Therm&aelig; of Stabi&aelig;.&mdash;A Tilt at Sun
+Dials.&mdash;A Complete Bath, as the Ancients Considered It; the
+Apartments, the Slaves, the Unguents, the Strigill&aelig;.&mdash;A Saying of
+the Emperor Hadrian.&mdash;The Baths for Women.&mdash;The Reading Room.&mdash;The
+Roman Newspaper.&mdash;The Heating Apparatus.</span></h4>
+
+
+<p>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 therm&aelig; of
+Caracalla, which had sixteen hundred seats of marble or of porphyry. The
+therm&aelig; of Septimius Severus, situated in a park, covered a space of one
+hundred thousand square feet, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="page121" name="page121"></a>Pg 121</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>These immense palatial structures were accessible to everybody. The
+price of admission was a <i>quadrans</i>, and the <i>quadrans</i> was the fourth
+part of an <i>as</i>; 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.</p>
+
+<p>In the earlier times of the republic there was a difference of hours for
+the two sexes. The therm&aelig;<span class="pagenum"><a id="page122" name="page122"></a>Pg 122</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+(<i>pal&aelig;stra</i>) where the young Pompeians went through their gymnastics.
+This, it will be seen, was a complete water-cure establishment.</p>
+
+<p>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 qu&aelig;stor, 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.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page123" name="page123"></a>Pg 123</span> They existed there in every shape and of
+every price; among them was one elevated upon an Ionic column of
+<i>cipollino</i> 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:</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>The other therm&aelig; 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&mdash;a striking
+proof that the Pompeians<span class="pagenum"><a id="page124" name="page124"></a>Pg 124</span> passed at least a portion of the night at the
+baths. This corridor conducts you to the <i>apodyteres</i> or <i>spoliatorium</i>,
+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 <i>capsarius</i>, 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.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page125" name="page125"></a>Pg 125</span></p>
+
+<p>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
+(<i>el&aelig;thesium</i>), 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 <i>frigidarium</i>.</p>
+
+<p>This <i>frigidarium</i> or <i>natatio</i> 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&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page126" name="page126"></a>Pg 126</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>Do you prefer a warm bath? Retrace your steps and, from the
+<i>apodyteros</i>, where you left your clothing, pass into the <i>tepidarium</i>.
+This hall, which is the richest of the bathing establishment, is paved
+in white mosaic with black borders, the vault richly ornamented with
+<i>stucature</i> 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 (<i>tepida</i>)
+temperature which gave it the peculiar name.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page127" name="page127"></a>Pg 127</span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"><a id="image10" name="image10">
+<img src="images/10.jpg" width="600" height="382" alt="The Tepidarium, at the Baths." title="The Tepidarium, at the Baths." /></a>
+<span class="caption">The Tepidarium, at the Baths.</span>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>This bronze brazier is still in existence, along with three benches of
+the same metal found in the same place; an inscription&mdash;<i>M. Nigidius
+Vaccula P.S.</i> (<i>pecuni&acirc; sua</i>)&mdash;designates to us the donor who punning on
+his own name <i>Vaccula</i>, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page128" name="page128"></a>Pg 128</span> 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 (<i>alveus</i> or <i>baptisterium</i>) 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
+<i>labrum</i>, 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 <i>labrum</i> is a large marble
+vessel seven feet in diameter. Marble has grown dearer since then.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page129" name="page129"></a>Pg 129</span></p>
+
+<p>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 <i>tractator</i>, armed with a
+<i>strigilla</i>, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 Ph&#339;nician for the
+cheeks<span class="pagenum"><a id="page130" name="page130"></a>Pg 130</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>"How have you managed to preserve yourself so long and so well?" asked
+Augustus of Pollio.</p>
+
+<p>"With wine inside, and oil outside," responded the old man.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>scaphium</i>. All these, along with the slippers, the
+apron, and the purse, composed the baggage that one took with him to the
+baths.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<i>curried</i> the bather's body. The poor people of that country who bathed
+in the time of the Romans&mdash;they have not kept up the custom&mdash;and who had
+no strigillarii at their service, rubbed themselves against the wall.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page131" name="page131"></a>Pg 131</span>
+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!"</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;see Leclerc's book&mdash;<span class="pagenum"><a id="page132" name="page132"></a>Pg 132</span>and they
+were called the <i>diurnes</i> or <i>daily doings</i> 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&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>We are nowhere informed that the Roman journals<span class="pagenum"><a id="page133" name="page133"></a>Pg 133</span> 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:</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>Now that you have been told a little concerning the ways of the Roman
+people, you may quit the Therm&aelig;, 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 <i>apodytera</i>. There you find the
+<i>hypocaust</i>, a spacious round fireplace which transmitted warm air
+through lower conduits to the stove, and heated the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page134" name="page134"></a>Pg 134</span> 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 Therm&aelig; of a small Roman city.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page135" name="page135"></a>Pg 135</span></p>
+<h2>VI.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE DWELLINGS.</h3>
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">Paratus and Pansa.&mdash;The Atrium and the Peristyle.&mdash;The Dwelling
+Refurbished and Repeopled.&mdash;The Slaves, the Kitchen, and the
+Table.&mdash;The Morning Occupations of a Pompeian.&mdash;The Toilet of a
+Pompeian Lady.&mdash;A Citizen Supper: the Courses, the Guests.&mdash;The
+Homes of the Poor, and the Palaces of Rome.</span></h4>
+
+
+<p>In order, now, to study the <i>home</i> of antique times, we have but to
+cross the street of the baths obliquely. We thus reach the dwelling of
+the &aelig;dile 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: <i>Pansam &aelig;dilem Paratus rogat</i>. This the early
+antiquarians translated: <i>Paratus invokes Pansa the &aelig;dile</i>. The early
+antiquaries erred. They should have rendered it: <i>Paratus demands Pansa
+for &aelig;dile</i>. It was not an invocation but an electoral nomination. We
+have already<span class="pagenum"><a id="page136" name="page136"></a>Pg 136</span> deciphered many like inscriptions. Universal suffrage put
+itself forward among the ancients as it does with us.</p>
+
+<p>Hence, the dwelling that I am about to enter was not that of Pansa,
+whose name is found thus suggested for the &aelig;dileship 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 &aelig;dile.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page137" name="page137"></a>Pg 137</span> 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 <i>m&aelig;niana</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>These courts were called the <i>atrium</i>, 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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page138" name="page138"></a>Pg 138</span> dwelling into <i>andronitis</i> and <i>gynaikotis</i>, the side for the
+men and the side for the women. Around the atrium were usually
+ranged&mdash;we must not be too rigorously precise in these distinctions&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>I commence with the atrium. It was reached from the street by a narrow
+alley (the <i>prothyrum</i>), 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 (<i>salve</i>) which bids me welcome. The porter's lodge<span class="pagenum"><a id="page139" name="page139"></a>Pg 139</span>
+(<i>cella ostiarii</i>) 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
+(<i>Cave canem</i>)&mdash;"Beware of the dog!"</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"><a id="image11" name="image11">
+<img src="images/11.jpg" width="600" height="367" alt="The Atrium in the House of Pansa, restored." title="The Atrium in the House of Pansa, restored." /></a>
+<span class="caption">The Atrium in the House of Pansa, restored.</span>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>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 <i>impluvium</i>, 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
+<i>atria</i>&mdash;the Co<span class="pagenum"><a id="page140" name="page140"></a>Pg 140</span>rinthian, which was richly decorated; the <i>dipluviatum</i>,
+where the roof, instead of sloping inward, sloped outward and threw off
+the rain-water into the street; the <i>testudinatum</i>, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>cubicula</i>. What first
+strikes the observer is their<span class="pagenum"><a id="page141" name="page141"></a>Pg 141</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>Next to the cubicula came laterally the <i>alae</i>, the wings, in which
+Pansa (if not Paratus) received his visitors in the morning&mdash;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 <i>tablinum</i>, 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 <i>imagines majorum</i>, 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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page142" name="page142"></a>Pg 142</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;such is the atrium of Pansa.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page143" name="page143"></a>Pg 143</span> 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 (<i>piscina</i>), 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.</p>
+
+<p>At the end opens the <i>&#339;cus</i>, 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 &#339;cus was but a large chamber between
+the peristyle and a garden.</p>
+
+<p>To the right of the &#339;cus, at the end of the court, is half hidden a
+smaller and less obtrusive apartment, probably an <i>exedra</i>. On the right
+wing of the peristyle, on the last range, recedes the triclinium. The
+word signifies triple bed; three beds<span class="pagenum"><a id="page144" name="page144"></a>Pg 144</span> 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."</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>posticum</i>, by which the master of the house evaded the
+importunate visitors who filled the atrium. This method of escaping
+bores was called <i>postico fallere clientem</i>. 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 &#339;cus. This
+kitchen, like most of the others, has its fireplaces and ovens still
+standing. They contained ashes and<span class="pagenum"><a id="page145" name="page145"></a>Pg 145</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>Thus a large portico with columns, surrounding a court adorned with a
+marble basin (<i>piscina</i>); around the portico on the right, three
+bedchambers or <i>cubicula</i>; on the right, a rear door (<i>posticum</i>) and an
+eating room (<i>triclinium</i>); at the end, the grand saloon (<i>&#339;cus</i>),
+between an exedra and kitchen&mdash;such was the peristyle of Pansa.</p>
+
+<p>This relatively spacious habitation had still a third depth (allow me
+the expression) behind the peristyle. This was the <i>xysta</i> or garden,
+divided off<span class="pagenum"><a id="page146" name="page146"></a>Pg 146</span> 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 <i>pergula</i>, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>spherister</i> for tennis, a <i>pinacothek</i> or gallery of
+paintings, a <i>sacellum</i> or family chapel, and what more<span class="pagenum"><a id="page147" name="page147"></a>Pg 147</span> I know not. The
+diminutiveness of these small rooms admitted of their being infinitely
+multiplied.</p>
+
+<p>I have not said all. The house of Pansa formed an island (<i>insula</i>) 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>dispensator</i> was the manager of this business.</p>
+
+<p>Some of these shops opening on a side-street, com<span class="pagenum"><a id="page148" name="page148"></a>Pg 148</span>posed small rooms
+altogether independent of the house, and probably occupied by
+<i>inquilini</i>,<a name="FNanchor_D_4" id="FNanchor_D_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_D_4" class="fnanchor">[D]</a> 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.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 370px;"><a id="image12" name="image12">
+<img src="images/12.jpg" width="370" height="600" alt="Candelabra, Jewelry, and Kitchen Utensils found at Pompeii." title="Candelabra, Jewelry, and Kitchen Utensils found at Pompeii." /></a>
+<span class="caption">Candelabra, Jewelry, and Kitchen Utensils found at Pompeii.</span>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>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 &#339;cus, the exedra, and the wings, and
+enough of lamps to hang<span class="pagenum"><a id="page149" name="page149"></a>Pg 149</span> up; enough of candelabra to place in the
+saloons. Stretch carpets over the costly mosaic pavements and even over
+the simple <i>opus signinum</i> (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&mdash;the
+humblest as well as the most splendid&mdash;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
+<i>atriensis</i>, who controlled the atrium; the <i>scoparius</i>, armed with his
+birch-broom; the <i>cubicularii</i>, who were the bedroom servants; the
+<i>pedagogue</i>, 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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page150" name="page150"></a>Pg 150</span> the papyri it contained. I hasten to the kitchen: I want
+to see it as it was in the ancient day,&mdash;the <i>carnarium</i>, 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 (<i>formella</i>), and what is no less curious, the <i>apalare</i> and
+the <i>trua</i>, flat spoons pierced with holes either to fry eggs or to beat
+up liquids, and, in fine, the funnels, the sieves, the strainers, the
+<i>colum vinarium</i>, which they covered with snow and then poured their
+wine over it, so that the latter dropped freshened and cooled into the
+cups below,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"><a id="image13" name="image13">
+<img src="images/13.jpg" width="600" height="392" alt="KITCHEN UTENSILS FOUND AT POMPEII" title="KITCHEN UTENSILS FOUND AT POMPEII" /></a>
+<span class="caption">KITCHEN UTENSILS FOUND AT POMPEII</span>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>None but men entered this kitchen: they were the cook, or <i>coquus</i>, and
+his subaltern, the slave of the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page151" name="page151"></a>Pg 151</span> slave, <i>focarius</i>. The meal is ready,
+and now come other slaves assigned to the table,&mdash;the <i>tricliniarches</i>,
+or foreman of all the rest; the <i>lectisterniator</i>, who makes the beds;
+the <i>praegustator</i>, who tastes the viands beforehand to reassure his
+master; the <i>structor</i>, who arranges the dishes on the plateaux or
+trays; the <i>scissor</i>, who carves the meats; and the young <i>pocillatro</i>,
+or <i>pincerna</i>, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 &aelig;dile. 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,&mdash;the <i>salutatores</i>, the <i>ductores</i>, and the
+<i>assectatores</i>. 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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page152" name="page152"></a>Pg 152</span> old, and "my brother" if they
+be young. There are others who come humbly to offer him a little basket
+(<i>sportula</i>), 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 Therm&aelig;,
+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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page153" name="page153"></a>Pg 153</span> borne them
+into the saloons, for there are no chimneys anywhere. The expected guest
+at length arrives&mdash;salutations to Pansa, the future &aelig;dile! 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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>Then came the <i>ornatrix</i>, or hairdresser. The fair Romans dyed their
+hair blonde, and when the dyeing process was not sufficient, they wore
+wigs. This<span class="pagenum"><a id="page154" name="page154"></a>Pg 154</span> 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&mdash;let us exhaust the subject!&mdash;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!"</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page155" name="page155"></a>Pg 155</span> hands. It was to the barber or <i>tonsor</i> 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.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"><a id="image14" name="image14">
+<img src="images/14.jpg" width="600" height="399" alt="Lamps of Earthenware and Bronze found at Pompeii." title="Lamps of Earthenware and Bronze found at Pompeii." /></a>
+<span class="caption">Lamps of Earthenware and Bronze found at Pompeii.</span>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>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&mdash;a most grave
+affair and a tedious operation, as the Roman ladies wore no gloves.
+Gesticulation was for them a science learnedly termed <i>chironomy</i>. Like
+a skilful instrument, pantomime harmoniously accompanied the voice.
+Hence, all those striking expressions that we find in authors,&mdash;"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:</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page156" name="page156"></a>Pg 156</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Exiguo signet gestu quodcunque loquetur,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cui digiti pingues, cui scaber unguis erit."<a name="FNanchor_E_5" id="FNanchor_E_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_E_5" class="fnanchor">[E]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The nail-paring over, there remains the dressing of the person, to be
+accomplished by other slaves. The seamstresses (<i>carcinatrices</i>)
+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 <i>trophium</i>, and which
+sufficed to hold up their bosoms, the Roman ladies passed a long-sleeved
+<i>subucula</i>, made of fine wool, and over that they wore nothing but the
+tunic when in the house. The <i>libertin&aelig;</i>, or simple citizens' wives and<span class="pagenum"><a id="page157" name="page157"></a>Pg 157</span>
+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 (<i>instita</i>), edged, sometimes, with golden or purple
+thread. In such case, it took the name of <i>stola</i>, 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 <i>toga</i>, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 libertin&aelig;,&mdash;the freedwomen were so
+called,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page158" name="page158"></a>Pg 158</span> 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,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page159" name="page159"></a>Pg 159</span> where their lovers slipped on those that they desired to
+exchange with them.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 515px;"><a id="image15" name="image15">
+<img src="images/15.jpg" width="515" height="600" alt="Necklace, Ring, Bracelets, and Ear-rings found at Pompeii." title="Necklace, Ring, Bracelets, and Ear-rings found at Pompeii." /></a>
+<span class="caption">Necklace, Ring, Bracelets, and Ear-rings found at Pompeii.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Her toilet completed, Sabina descended from her room in the upper story.
+The ordinary guests, the friend of the house, the clients and <i>the
+shadows</i> (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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page160" name="page160"></a>Pg 160</span> hands and their feet, leave their sandals at the door, and are
+shown into the triclinium.</p>
+
+<p>The three bronze bedsteads are covered with cushions and drapery; the
+one at the end (<i>the medius</i>) 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
+<i>muren&aelig;</i> or eels; barbel caught in the Western Ocean and stifled in salt
+pickle; surprises<span class="pagenum"><a id="page161" name="page161"></a>Pg 161</span> of all kinds for the guests, such as sets of dishes
+descending from the ceiling, fantastic apparitions, dancing girls,
+mountebanks, gladiators, trained female athletes,&mdash;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:</p>
+
+<p><i>First Course.</i>&mdash;Sea urchins. Raw oysters at discretion. <i>Pelorides</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p><i>Second Course.</i>&mdash;<i>Spondulae</i>, 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;
+<i>murex</i> and purple fish. The latter were but different kinds of
+shell-fish.</p>
+
+<p><i>Third Course.</i>&mdash;The teats of a sow <i>au naturel</i>; they were cut as soon
+as the animal had littered; wild boar's head (this was the main dish);
+sow's<span class="pagenum"><a id="page162" name="page162"></a>Pg 162</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>Lachrym&aelig; Christi</i>. 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
+<i>amphora</i>, 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!"<span class="pagenum"><a id="page163" name="page163"></a>Pg 163</span> thereby proclaiming that his cellar had been stocked under the
+earliest kings of Rome.</p>
+
+<p>These inscriptions on the amphor&aelig; make us acquainted with an old
+Vesuvian wine called <i>picatum</i>, or, in other words, with a taste of
+pitch; <i>fundanum</i>, 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.</p>
+
+<p>But besides the amphor&aelig;, how much other testimony there still remains of
+the olden libations,&mdash;those rich <i>crater&aelig;</i>, 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."</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Friend of my soul, this goblet sip!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>rhymes the modern bard.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page164" name="page164"></a>Pg 164</span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page165" name="page165"></a>Pg 165</span> cleansed without burning them. Refined
+people wiped their fingers on the hair of the cupbearers,&mdash;another
+Oriental usage. Recollect Jesus and Mary Magdalene.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page166" name="page166"></a>Pg 166</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"><a id="image16" name="image16">
+<img src="images/16.jpg" width="600" height="358" alt="Peristyle of the House of the Quaestor at Pompeii." title="Peristyle of the House of the Quaestor at Pompeii." /></a>
+<span class="caption">Peristyle of the House of the Quaestor at Pompeii.</span>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page167" name="page167"></a>Pg 167</span></p>
+<h2>VII.</h2>
+
+<h3>ART IN POMPEII.</h3>
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">The Homes of the Wealthy.&mdash;The Triangular Forum and the
+Temples.&mdash;Pompeian Architecture: Its Merits and its Defects.&mdash;The
+Artists of the Little City.&mdash;The Paintings Here.&mdash;Landscapes,
+Figures, Rope-dancers, Dancing-girls, Centaurs, Gods, Heroes, the
+Iliad Illustrated.&mdash;Mosaics.&mdash;Statues and
+Statuettes.&mdash;Jewelry.&mdash;Carved Glass.&mdash;Art and Life.</span></h4>
+
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>The house of the Faun.&mdash;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.(?)</p>
+
+<p>The house of the Qu&aelig;stor, or of Castor and Pollux.&mdash;<span class="pagenum"><a id="page168" name="page168"></a>Pg 168</span>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 qu&aelig;stor who had charge of the public funds; a
+Corinthian atrium; fine paintings&mdash;the <i>Bacchante</i> the <i>Medea</i>, the
+<i>Children of Niobe</i>, etc. Rich development of the courtyards.</p>
+
+<p>The house of the Poet.&mdash;Homeric paintings; celebrated mosaics; the dog
+at the doorsill, with the inscription <i>Cave Canem</i>; the <i>Choragus
+causing the recitation of a piece</i>. All these are at the museum.</p>
+
+<p>The house of Sallust.&mdash;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 <i>venereum</i> 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.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page169" name="page169"></a>Pg 169</span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"><a id="image17" name="image17">
+<img src="images/17.jpg" width="600" height="378" alt="The House of Lucretius." title="The House of Lucretius." /></a>
+<span class="caption">The House of Lucretius.</span>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>The house of Marcus Lucretius.&mdash;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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page170" name="page170"></a>Pg 170</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The only way to get an idea of Pompeian art<span class="pagenum"><a id="page171" name="page171"></a>Pg 171</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 Stabi&aelig; 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 monu<span class="pagenum"><a id="page172" name="page172"></a>Pg 172</span>ments, which would ever be out of
+place beneath another sky.</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page173" name="page173"></a>Pg 173</span> pure
+marble&mdash;the white on the blue&mdash;be seen defined against the sky.</p>
+
+<p>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<a name="FNanchor_F_6" id="FNanchor_F_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_F_6" class="fnanchor">[F]</a> 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,&mdash;at least so say the romance-writers. Un<span class="pagenum"><a id="page174" name="page174"></a>Pg 174</span>fortunately for
+this idea, the doorway of the recess stood forth and still stands forth
+to the gaze, rendering the alleged trickery impossible.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<i>peperino</i> (Sarno stone), which time renders very hard, sometimes with
+travertine and even marble in the ornaments; then<span class="pagenum"><a id="page175" name="page175"></a>Pg 175</span> 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 success<span class="pagenum"><a id="page176" name="page176"></a>Pg 176</span>fully, but always at variance with the
+simplicity of high art. Add to these objections other faults, glaring at
+first glance,&mdash;for instance, the adornment of the temple of Mercury,
+where the panels terminate alternately in pediments and in arcades; the
+fa&ccedil;ade 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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page177" name="page177"></a>Pg 177</span> 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&mdash;art combined with every-day life.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>dry</i>, in encaustic or by other processes, matters
+little&mdash;that belongs to technical authorities to decide.<a name="FNanchor_G_7" id="FNanchor_G_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_G_7" class="fnanchor">[G]</a></p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page178" name="page178"></a>Pg 178</span></p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page179" name="page179"></a>Pg 179</span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>Those paintings will be eternally studied: they give us precious data,
+not only on art, but concerning everything that relates to
+antiquity,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page180" name="page180"></a>Pg 180</span> 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,&mdash;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!</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page181" name="page181"></a>Pg 181</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;the wagon laden with an enormous goat-skin full of wine,
+which slaves are busily putting into amphor&aelig;; 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,&mdash;how many different subjects! But I have said
+nothing yet. The Pompeians especially excelled in fancy pictures.
+Everybody has<span class="pagenum"><a id="page182" name="page182"></a>Pg 182</span> 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,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page183" name="page183"></a>Pg 183</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Let us continue: We are sweeping into the full tide of mythology. All
+the ancient divinities will pass before us,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page184" name="page184"></a>Pg 184</span> 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 Nem&aelig;an lion, his
+weaknesses,&mdash;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&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page185" name="page185"></a>Pg 185</span> in the poem. A little further on we see
+Jupiter and Juno meeting on Mount Ida.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 380px;"><a id="image18" name="image18">
+<img src="images/18.jpg" width="380" height="600" alt="Exedra of the House of Siricus." title="Exedra of the House of Siricus." /></a>
+<span class="caption">Exedra of the House of Siricus.</span>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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;<span class="pagenum"><a id="page186" name="page186"></a>Pg 186</span> 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, <i>genre</i>
+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 crum<span class="pagenum"><a id="page187" name="page187"></a>Pg 187</span>ble 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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page188" name="page188"></a>Pg 188</span> 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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page189" name="page189"></a>Pg 189</span>
+those figures, what suppleness and what truth to nature!<a name="FNanchor_H_8" id="FNanchor_H_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_H_8" class="fnanchor">[H]</a></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 385px;"><a id="image19" name="image19">
+<img src="images/19.jpg" width="385" height="600" alt="Exedra of the House of Siricus (See p. 195)." title="Exedra of the House of Siricus (See p. 195)." /></a>
+<span class="caption">Exedra of the House of Siricus (See p. <a href="#page195">195</a>).</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>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 <i>reality</i>&mdash;the very reverse of
+realism&mdash;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
+<i>is</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page190" name="page190"></a>Pg 190</span> 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 <i>opus signinum</i>. 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.</p>
+
+<p>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, <i>Salve!</i> Another, at
+the end of the prothyrum, artistically represented masks. Others again,
+in the wings of the atrium, made up a little menagerie,&mdash;a brace of
+ducks, dead birds, shell-work, fish, doves taking pearls from a casket,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page191" name="page191"></a>Pg 191</span>
+and a cat devouring a quail&mdash;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 <i>the ill-swept house</i>. 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 &#339;cus a superb lion
+foreshortened&mdash;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 ex&aelig;dra,
+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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page192" name="page192"></a>Pg 192</span>
+general, he turns his back to the flying rabble and seems to invite
+death. The whole scene&mdash;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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page193" name="page193"></a>Pg 193</span> 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&mdash;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.<a name="FNanchor_I_9" id="FNanchor_I_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_I_9" class="fnanchor">[I]</a></p>
+
+<p>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, par<span class="pagenum"><a id="page194" name="page194"></a>Pg 194</span>ticularly 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 &aelig;sthetic 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&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page195" name="page195"></a>Pg 195</span>
+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&mdash;Glory&mdash;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?</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page196" name="page196"></a>Pg 196</span></p>
+
+<p>If, from painting and sculpture, we descend to inferior branches,&mdash;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 <i>scyphus</i>, 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,&mdash;there were such in those days,&mdash;the handle of which is
+secured by two birds' heads; the simple pair of scales&mdash;they carved
+scales then!&mdash;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;&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page197" name="page197"></a>Pg 197</span> 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&mdash;the urn itself in blue glass and the reliefs in white&mdash;for the
+ancients knew how to carve glass,&mdash;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&mdash;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,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page198" name="page198"></a>Pg 198</span> it penetrated it,
+and was penetrated by it,&mdash;it <i>lived</i>! This is what these modest ruins
+teach.<a name="FNanchor_J_10" id="FNanchor_J_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_J_10" class="fnanchor">[J]</a></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page199" name="page199"></a>Pg 199</span></p>
+<h2>VIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE THEATRES.</h3>
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">The Arrangement of the Places of Amusement.&mdash;Entrance
+Tickets.&mdash;The Velarium, the Orchestra, the Stage.&mdash;The Odeon.&mdash;The
+Holconii.&mdash;The Side Scenes, the Masks.&mdash;The Atellan Farces.&mdash;The
+Mimes.&mdash;Jugglers, etc.&mdash;A Remark of Cicero on the Melodramas.&mdash;The
+Barrack of the Gladiators.&mdash;Scratched Inscriptions, Instruments of
+Torture.&mdash;The Pompeian Gladiators.&mdash;The Amphitheatre: Hunts,
+Combats, Butcheries, etc.</span></h4>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page200" name="page200"></a>Pg 200</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>At first glance, you discover three main divisions; these are the
+different ranks of tiers, the <i>cave&aelig;</i>. There are three cave&aelig;&mdash;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 <i>bisellia</i>, 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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page201" name="page201"></a>Pg 201</span> a marble rail that has now
+disappeared, separated this lowermost cavea from the rest. The duumviri,
+the decurions, the augustales, the &aelig;diles, 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 (<i>cunei</i>) 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 <i>tessera</i> or domino) of bone, earthenware, or bronze&mdash;a
+sort of counter cut in almond or <i>en pigeon</i> shape, sometimes too in the
+form of a ring&mdash;indicated exactly the cavea, the corner, the tier, and
+the seat for the person holding it. Tessar&aelig; 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 &AElig;schylus, 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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page202" name="page202"></a>Pg 202</span> 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,&mdash;the <i>Casina</i>; but I can assure
+you that the relic is a forgery, if, indeed, such a one ever existed.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>as</i> 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 <i>designator</i>, or the <i>locarius</i>,
+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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page203" name="page203"></a>Pg 203</span> by the nails
+that secured the marble feet of the statue are still visible.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<i>velarium</i>. 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&mdash;an homage of C&aelig;sar. 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.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page204" name="page204"></a>Pg 204</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>postscenium</i> or side scenes. There was,
+also, a <i>hyposcenium</i> or subterranean part of the theatre, for the
+scene-shifters and machinists. The curtain or <i>siparium</i> (a Roman
+invention) did not<span class="pagenum"><a id="page205" name="page205"></a>Pg 205</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>built</i> up. This
+decoration, styled the <i>scena stabilis</i>, 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 (<i>scena
+ductilis</i>), which was slid in front of the back-piece in case of<span class="pagenum"><a id="page206" name="page206"></a>Pg 206</span> a
+change of scene, as, for instance, when playing the <i>Ajax</i> 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.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"><a id="image20" name="image20">
+<img src="images/20.jpg" width="600" height="358" alt="The Smaller Theatre at Pompeii." title="The Smaller Theatre at Pompeii." /></a>
+<span class="caption">The Smaller Theatre at Pompeii.</span>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page207" name="page207"></a>Pg 207</span> 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 (<i>cavea</i>) 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 <i>tribunalia</i>, 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&mdash;of Eumachia, whose statue we have already seen, or of Mamia
+whose tomb we have<span class="pagenum"><a id="page208" name="page208"></a>Pg 208</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"M. Olconius M.F. Vervs, Pro Ludis."</p></div>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page209" name="page209"></a>Pg 209</span> walls of the houses. We have seen already that the fruiterers
+wanted him for &aelig;dile. 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!</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 jew<span class="pagenum"><a id="page210" name="page210"></a>Pg 210</span>eller), shows us a scenic
+representation: in it we observe the <i>choragus</i>, 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 <i>hegemonus</i>), 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 Mac<span class="pagenum"><a id="page211" name="page211"></a>Pg 211</span>cus 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 <i>patois</i>. 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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page212" name="page212"></a>Pg 212</span> 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,&mdash;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 &aelig;diles
+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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page213" name="page213"></a>Pg 213</span>
+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 C&aelig;sars&mdash;I
+am speaking of the Romans&mdash;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.)</p>
+
+<p>If the mimes do not suffice, call into the Odeon the rope-dancers, the
+acrobats, the jugglers, the ventriloquists,&mdash;for all these lower orders
+of public performers<span class="pagenum"><a id="page214" name="page214"></a>Pg 214</span> existed among the ancients and swarmed in the
+Pompeian pictures,&mdash;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?</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;in fine, Punchinello's comedy. We prefer
+Moliere; but how many things there are in Moliere which come in a direct
+line from Maccus!</p>
+
+<p>It is time to leave the theatre. I have said that the Odeon opened into
+the gladiators' barracks. These barracks form a spacious court&mdash;a sort
+of cloister&mdash;surrounded by seventy-four pillars, unfortunately spoiled
+by the Pompeians of the restoration period.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page215" name="page215"></a>Pg 215</span> 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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page216" name="page216"></a>Pg 216</span> because an album
+programme announced thirty pair of them to fight in the amphitheatre.</p>
+
+<p>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, <i>curate pecunias, fur es Torque, Rustico feliciter!</i> etc.
+Others proved clearly that the place was inhabited by gladiators:
+<i>inludus Velius</i> (that is to say <i>not in the game, out of the ring</i>)
+<i>bis victor libertus&mdash;leonibus, victor Veneri parmam feret</i>. 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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page217" name="page217"></a>Pg 217</span> 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 (<i>decollandi artifex</i>) was the subject of
+remark and compliment. Ah, those were the grand ages!</p>
+
+<p>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).<span class="pagenum"><a id="page218" name="page218"></a>Pg 218</span> 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 (<i>venationes</i>), in which wild beasts fought with each other
+or against <i>bestiarii</i>, 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!</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page219" name="page219"></a>Pg 219</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page220" name="page220"></a>Pg 220</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>spoliatorium</i>, 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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page221" name="page221"></a>Pg 221</span> 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.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"><a id="image21" name="image21">
+<img src="images/21.jpg" width="600" height="364" alt="The Amphitheatre of Pompeii." title="The Amphitheatre of Pompeii." /></a>
+<span class="caption">The Amphitheatre of Pompeii.</span>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>Paintings and inscriptions covered the walls or podium of the arena.
+These inscriptions acquaint us with the names of the duumvirs,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page222" name="page222"></a>Pg 222</span> they contributed, in like manner, to the construction of the
+Odeon.</p>
+
+<p>Would you now like to go over the general sweep of the tiers&mdash;the
+<i>visorium</i>? 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 man&#339;uvres 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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page223" name="page223"></a>Pg 223</span> enabled the
+populace to ascend to the highest story assigned to it.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 Mer<span class="pagenum"><a id="page224" name="page224"></a>Pg 224</span>cury. 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."<a name="FNanchor_K_11" id="FNanchor_K_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_K_11" class="fnanchor">[K]</a></p>
+
+<p>The hand of Rome, ever the hand of Rome!</p>
+
+<p>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!</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page225" name="page225"></a>Pg 225</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>bestiarius</i>, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>venatio</i> much more
+dramatic in its character. The<span class="pagenum"><a id="page226" name="page226"></a>Pg 226</span> 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."</p>
+
+<p>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;<span class="pagenum"><a id="page227" name="page227"></a>Pg 227</span> 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 <i>curion</i>,
+or herald, to proclaim aloud: "This man tried to cheat, and now he is
+caught in his turn.""</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page228" name="page228"></a>Pg 228</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 (<i>parma</i>), but they are lightly armed. Only one of their
+arms&mdash;that which sustains the spear&mdash;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.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page229" name="page229"></a>Pg 229</span></p>
+
+<p>Would you prefer a still more singular kind of duel&mdash;one between a
+<i>secutor</i> and a <i>retiarius?</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>Death&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page230" name="page230"></a>Pg 230</span> 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&mdash;the heavily armed Samnite, the Gaul, the Thracian, the secutor; the
+<i>dimachoerus</i>, with his two swords; the swordsman who wears a helmet
+surmounted with a fish&mdash;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?"&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page231" name="page231"></a>Pg 231</span> slave harpooned them with a
+hook, and dragged them through the mire of sand and blood to the narrow
+corridor, the <i>porta libitinensis</i>,&mdash;the portal of death,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page232" name="page232"></a>Pg 232</span></p>
+<h2>IX.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE ERUPTION.</h3>
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">The Deluge of Ashes.&mdash;The Deluge of Fire.&mdash;The Flight of the
+Pompeians.&mdash;The Preoccupations of the Pompeian Women.&mdash;The Victims:
+the Family of Diomed; the Sentinel; the Woman Walled up in a Tomb;
+the Priest of Isis; the Lovers clinging together, etc.&mdash;The
+Skeletons.&mdash;The Dead Bodies moulded by Vesuvius.</span></h4>
+
+
+<p>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 scori&aelig; 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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page233" name="page233"></a>Pg 233</span> 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&mdash;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!"</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;one might call it a burning
+snow&mdash;descending slowly, inexorably, fatally, without cessation or
+intermission, with pitiless persistence. This solid flame blocks up the
+streets, piles itself in<span class="pagenum"><a id="page234" name="page234"></a>Pg 234</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 jew<span class="pagenum"><a id="page235" name="page235"></a>Pg 235</span>elry;
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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!</p>
+
+<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page236" name="page236"></a>Pg 236</span> 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!&mdash;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,&mdash;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
+Therm&aelig;; both were young, and they were<span class="pagenum"><a id="page237" name="page237"></a>Pg 237</span> 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<span class="pagenum"><a id="page238" name="page238"></a>Pg 238</span>
+eclipse. The whole scene around us was transformed; the ashes, like a
+heavy snow, covered everything."</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;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,&mdash;perhaps more,&mdash;have already
+been found, each one illustrating<span class="pagenum"><a id="page239" name="page239"></a>Pg 239</span> some poignant episode of the
+immense catastrophe in which they were smitten down!</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"><a id="image22" name="image22">
+<img src="images/22.jpg" width="600" height="356" alt="Bodies of Pompeians cast in the Ashes." title="Bodies of Pompeians cast in the Ashes." /></a>
+<span class="caption">Bodies of Pompeians cast in the Ashes.</span>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;the clothing and the flesh, I might almost say the
+life. The bones peep through here and there, in certain<span class="pagenum"><a id="page240" name="page240"></a>Pg 240</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page241" name="page241"></a>Pg 241</span></p>
+
+<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page242" name="page242"></a>Pg 242</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;<i>impavidum ferient ruin&aelig;</i>.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page243" name="page243"></a>Pg 243</span></p>
+
+<p>I stop here, for Pompeii itself can offer nothing that approaches this
+palpitating drama. It is violent death, with all its supreme
+tortures,&mdash;death that suffers and struggles,&mdash;taken in the very act,
+after the lapse of eighteen centuries.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page245" name="page245"></a>Pg 245</span></p>
+<h2>ITINERARY.</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page247" name="page247"></a>Pg 247</span></p>
+<h2>AN ITINERARY.</h2>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <a href="#page37">Chap.
+<span class="smcap">ii</span></a>.</p>
+
+<p>The monuments of the Forum are as follows. I have <i>italicized</i> the most
+curious:</p>
+
+<table summary="List of Monuments">
+  <tr>
+    <td><i>The Basilica</i>.</td><td align="center">See <a href="#page37">Chap. <span class="smcap">ii</span></a>.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td><i>The Temple of Venus</i>.</td><td align="center">"</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>The Curia, or Council Hall.</td><td align="center">"</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td><i>The Edifice, or Eumachia</i>.</td><td align="center">"</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>The Temple of Mercury.</td><td align="center">"</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td><i>The Temple of Jupiter</i>.</td><td align="center">"</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>The Senate Chamber.</td><td align="center">"</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>The Pantheon.</td><td align="center">"</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>From the Forum, you will go toward the north, passing by the Arch of
+Triumph; visit the <i>Temple of Fortune</i> (see <a href="#page135">Chap. <span class="smcap">vi</span></a>.), and stop at the
+Therm&aelig; (see <a href="#page120">Chap. <span class="smcap">v</span></a>.).</p>
+
+<p>On leaving the Therm&aelig;, pass through the entire north-west of the city,
+that is to say, the space comprised between the streets of Fortune and
+of the Therm&aelig; and the walls. In this space are comprised the following
+edifices:</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page248" name="page248"></a>Pg 248</span></p>
+
+<p>
+<i>The House of Pansa</i>. See <a href="#page135">Chap. <span class="smcap">vi</span></a>.<br />
+<br />
+<i>The House of the Tragic Poet</i>. <a href="#page167">Chap. <span class="smcap">vii</span></a>.<br />
+<br />
+<i>The Fullonica</i>. <a href="#page67">Chap. <span class="smcap">iii</span></a>.<br />
+<br />
+<i>The Mosaic Fountains</i>. <a href="#page167">Chap. <span class="smcap">vii</span></a>.<br />
+<br />
+<i>The House of Adonis</i>. <a href="#page167">Chap. <span class="smcap">vii</span></a>.<br />
+<br />
+The House of Apollo.<br />
+<br />
+The House of Meleager.<br />
+<br />
+The House of the Centaur.<br />
+<br />
+<i>The House of Castor and Pollux</i>. <a href="#page167">Chap. <span class="smcap">vii</span></a>.<br />
+<br />
+The House of the Anchor.<br />
+<br />
+The House of Polybius.<br />
+<br />
+The House of the Academy of Music.<br />
+<br />
+<i>The Bakery</i>. See <a href="#page67">Chap. <span class="smcap">iii</span></a>.<br />
+<br />
+<i>The House of Sallust</i>. <a href="#page167">Chap. <span class="smcap">vii</span></a>.<br />
+<br />
+The Public Oven.<br />
+<br />
+A Fountain. <a href="#page67">Chap. <span class="smcap">iii</span></a>.<br />
+<br />
+The House of the Dancing Girls.<br />
+<br />
+The Perfumery Shop. <a href="#page67">Chap <span class="smcap">iii</span></a>.<br />
+<br />
+The House of Three Stories.<br />
+<br />
+The Custom House. <a href="#page93">Chap. <span class="smcap">iv</span></a>.<br />
+<br />
+The House of the Surgeon. <a href="#page67">Chap. <span class="smcap">iii</span></a>.<br />
+<br />
+The House of the Vestal Virgins.<br />
+<br />
+The Shop of Albinus.<br />
+<br />
+The Thermopolium. <a href="#page67">Chap. <span class="smcap">iii</span></a>.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Thus you arrive at the <i>Walls</i> and at the Gate of Herculaneum, beyond
+which the <i>Street of the Tombs</i> opens and the suburbs develop. All this
+is described in <a href="#page93">Chap. <span class="smcap">iv</span></a>.</p>
+
+<p>Here are the monuments in the Street of the Tombs:</p>
+
+<table summary="List of Monuments">
+  <tr>
+    <td>The Sentry Box.</td><td align="center">See <a href="#page93">Chap. <span class="smcap">iv</span></a>.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td><i>The Tomb of Mamia</i>.</td><td align="center">"</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>The Tomb of Ferentius.</td><td align="center">"</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>The Sculptor's Atelier.</td><td align="center">"</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>The Tomb with the Wreaths.</td><td align="center">"</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>The Public Bank.</td><td align="center">"</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>The House of the Mosaic Columns.</td><td align="center">"</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>The Villa of Cicero.</td><td align="center">"</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>The Tomb of Scaurus.</td><td align="center">"<span class="pagenum"><a id="page249" name="page249"></a>Pg 249</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>The Round Tomb.</td><td align="center">"</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>The Tomb with the Marble Door.</td><td align="center">"</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>The Tomb of Libella.</td><td align="center">"</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td><i>The Tomb of Calventius</i>.</td><td align="center">"</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td><i>The Tomb of Nevoleia Tych&eacute;</i>.</td><td align="center">"</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td><i>The Funereal Triclinium</i>.</td><td align="center">"</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>The Tomb of Labeo.</td><td align="center">"</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>The Tombs of the Arria Family.</td><td align="center">"</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td><td></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td><i>The Villa of Diomed</i>.</td><td align="center">"</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>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&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>The House of the Faun</i>. <a href="#page167">Chap. <span class="smcap">vii</span></a>.<br />
+<br />
+The House with the Black Wall.<br />
+<br />
+The House with the Figured Capitals.<br />
+<br />
+The House of the Grand Duke.<br />
+<br />
+The House of Ariadne.<br />
+<br />
+<i>The House of the Hunt</i>. <a href="#page167">Chap. <span class="smcap">vii</span></a>.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>You thus reach the place where the Street of Stabi&aelig; 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 <i>Nola Gate</i>, which is worth seeing. See <a href="#page93">Chap. <span class="smcap">iv</span></a>.</p>
+
+<p>The Street of Stabi&aelig; marks the limit reached by the excavations. To the
+left, in going down, you will find the handsome <i>House of Lucretius</i>.
+See <a href="#page167">Chap. <span class="smcap">vii</span></a>.</p>
+
+<p>On the right begins a whole quarter recently discovered and not yet
+marked out on the diagram. Get them to show you&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>The House of Siricus</i>.  <a href="#page167">Chap. <span class="smcap">vii</span></a>.<br />
+<br />
+<i>The Hanging Balconies</i>. <a href="#page67">Chap. <span class="smcap">iii</span></a>.<br />
+<br />
+The New Bakery. <a href="#page67">Chap. <span class="smcap">iii</span></a>.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Turning to the left, below the Street of Stabi&aelig; you will cross the open
+fields, above the part of the city not yet cleared, as far as the
+<i>Amphitheatre</i>. See <a href="#page199">Chap. <span class="smcap">viii</span></a>.</p>
+
+<p>Then, retracing your steps and intersecting the Street of Stabi&aelig;, you
+enter a succession of streets, comparatively wide, which will lead you
+back to the Forum. You will there find, on your right,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page250" name="page250"></a>Pg 250</span> the <i>Hot Baths
+of Stabi&aelig;</i>. See <a href="#page120">Chap. <span class="smcap">v</span></a>. On your left is the <i>House of Cornelius Rufus</i>
+and that of <i>Proculus</i>, recently discovered. See <a href="#page167">Chap. <span class="smcap">vii</span></a>.</p>
+
+<p>There now remains for you to cross the <i>Street of Abundance</i> at the
+southern extremity of the city. It is the quarter of the triangular
+Forum, and of the Theatres&mdash;the most interesting of all.</p>
+
+<p>The principal monuments to be seen are&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>The Temple of Isis</i>. See <a href="#page167">Chap. <span class="smcap">vii</span></a>.<br />
+<br />
+The Curia Isiaca.<br />
+<br />
+<i>The Temple of Hercules</i>. <a href="#page167">Chap. <span class="smcap">vii</span></a>.<br />
+<br />
+<i>The Grand Theatre</i>. <a href="#page199">Chap. <span class="smcap">viii</span></a>.<br />
+<br />
+<i>The Smaller Theatre</i>.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"<br />
+<br />
+<i>The Barracks of the Gladiators</i>. <a href="#page199">Chap. <span class="smcap">viii</span></a>.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>Charles Scribner &amp; Co.</h2>
+
+
+<h5>654 Broadway, New York,</h5>
+
+<h4>HAVE JUST COMMENCED THE PUBLICATION OF</h4>
+
+<h3>The Illustrated Library of Wonders.</h3>
+
+
+<p>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</p>
+
+
+<p class="center"><b>OVER ONE MILLION COPIES</b></p>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The following volumes of the series have been published:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<p><b>Optical Wonders.</b></p>
+
+<p>THE WONDERS OF OPTICS.&mdash;By <span class="smcap">F. Marion</span>.</p>
+
+<p>Illustrated with over seventy engravings on wood, many of them
+full-page, and a colored frontispiece. One volume, 12mo. Price $1 50</p>
+
+<p><i>For specimen illustration see page 31.</i></p>
+
+<p>In the <i>Wonders of Optics</i>, 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, &amp;c., &amp;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.</p>
+
+<p>CRITICAL NOTICES.</p>
+
+<p>"The work has the merit of conveying much useful scientific information
+in a popular manner."&mdash;<i>Phila. North. American</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Thoroughly admirable, and as an introduction to this science for the
+general reader, leaves hardly anything to be desired."&mdash;<i>N.Y. Evening
+Post</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Treats in a charming, but scientific and exhaustive manner, the
+wonderful subject of optics."&mdash;<i>Cleveland Leader</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"All the marvels of light and of optical illusions are made
+clear."&mdash;<i>N.Y. Observer</i>.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p><b>Thunder and Lightning.</b></p>
+
+<p>THUNDER AND LIGHTNING. By <span class="smcap">W. De Fonvielle</span>.</p>
+
+<p>Illustrated with 39 Engravings on wood, nearly all full-page. One
+volume. 12mo $1 50</p>
+
+<p><i>For specimen illustrations see page 14.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Thunder and Lightning</i>, 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&mdash;forked, globular, and sheet lightning&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>CRITICAL NOTICES.</p>
+
+<p>"In the nook 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."&mdash;<i>N.Y. Herald</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Any boy or girl who wants to read strange stories and see curious
+pictures of the doings of electricity had better get these books."&mdash;<i>Our
+Young Folks</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"A volume which cannot fail to attract attention and awaken interest in
+persons who have not been accustomed to give the subject any
+thought."&mdash;<i>Daily Register</i> (<i>New Haven</i>).</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p><b>Heat.</b></p>
+
+<p>THE WONDERS OF HEAT. By <span class="smcap">Achille Cazin</span>.</p>
+
+<p>With 90 illustrations, many of them full-page, and a colored
+frontispiece. One volume, 12mo $1 50</p>
+
+<p><i>For specimen illustration see page 15.</i></p>
+
+<p>In the <i>Wonders of Heat</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>CRITICAL NOTICES.</p>
+
+<p>"From the first page to the very last page the interest is
+all-absorbing."&mdash;<i>Albany Evening Times</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"The book deserves, as it will doubtless attain, a wide
+circulation."&mdash;<i>Pittsburgh Chronicle</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"This book is instructive and clear."&mdash;<i>Independent</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"It describes and explains the wonders of heat in a manner to be clearly
+understood by non-scientific readers."&mdash;<i>Phila. Inquirer</i>.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p><b>Animal Intelligence.</b></p>
+
+<p>THE INTELLIGENCE OF ANIMALS, <span class="smcap">with Illustrative Anecdotes</span>.&mdash;From the
+French of <span class="smcap">Ernest Menault</span>. With 54 illustrations. One volume, 12mo $1 50</p>
+
+<p><i>For specimen illustration see page 16.</i></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>CRITICAL NOTICES.</p>
+
+<p>"May be recommended as very entertaining."&mdash;<i>London Athen&aelig;um</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"The stories are of real value to those who take any interest in the
+curious habits of animals."&mdash;<i>Rochester Democrat</i>.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p><b>Egypt.</b></p>
+
+<p>EGYPT 3,300 YEARS AGO; <span class="smcap">or, Rameses the Great</span>. By <span class="smcap">F. De Lanoye</span>. With 40
+illustrations. One volume, 12mo $1 50</p>
+
+<p><i>For specimen illustration see page 17.</i></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>CRITICAL NOTICES.</p>
+
+<p>"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."&mdash;<i>JAMES
+C. MOFFAT, Professor in Princeton Theological Seminary</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"The volume is full of wonders."&mdash;<i>Hartford Courant</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Evidently prepared with great care."&mdash;<i>Chicago Evening Journal</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Not merely the curious in antiquarian matters will find this volume
+attractive, but the general reader will be pleased, entertained, and
+informed by it."&mdash;<i>Portland Argus</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"The work possessed the freshness and charm of romance, and cannot fail
+to repay all who glance over its pages."&mdash;<i>Philadelphia City Item</i>.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p><b>Great Hunts.</b></p>
+
+<p>ADVENTURES ON THE GREAT HUNTING GROUNDS OF THE WORLD. By <span class="smcap">Victor Meunier</span>.
+Illustrated with 22 woodcuts. One volume 12mo $1 50</p>
+
+<p><i>For specimen illustration see page 18.</i></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>CRITICAL NOTICES.</p>
+
+<p>"This is a very attractive volume in this excellent series."&mdash;<i>Cleveland
+Herald</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Cannot fail to prove entertaining to the juvenile reader."&mdash;<i>Albion</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"The adventures are gathered from the histories of famous travellers and
+explorers, and have the merit of truth as well as interest."&mdash;<i>N.Y.
+Observer</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Just the book for boys during the coming Winter evenings."&mdash;<i>Boston
+Daily Journal</i>.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p><b>Pompeii.</b></p>
+
+<p>WONDERS OF POMPEII. By <span class="smcap">Marc Monnier</span>. With 22 illustrations. One volume
+12mo $1 50</p>
+
+<p><i>For specimen illustration see page 19.</i></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>CRITICAL NOTICES.</p>
+
+<p>"It is undoubtedly one of the best works on Pompeii that have been
+published, and has this advantage over all others&mdash;in that it records
+the results of excavations to the latest date."&mdash;<i>N.Y. Herald</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"A very pleasant and instructive book."&mdash;<i>Balt. Meth. Prot</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"It gives a very clear and accurate account of the buried
+city."&mdash;<i>Portland Transcript</i>.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p><b>Sublime in Nature.</b></p>
+
+<p>THE SUBLIME IN NATURE, FROM DESCRIPTIONS OF CELEBRATED TRAVELLERS AND
+WRITERS. By <span class="smcap">Ferdinand Lanoye</span>. Illustrated with 48 woodcuts. One volume
+12mo $1 50</p>
+
+<p><i>For specimen illustration see page 20.</i></p>
+
+<p>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 DOR&Eacute;, reproduce scenes in this country, as well as in foreign
+lands.</p>
+
+<p>CRITICAL NOTICES.</p>
+
+<p>"As a hand-book of reference to the natural wonders of the world this
+work has no superior."&mdash;<i>Philadelphia Inquirer</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"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."&mdash;<i>N.Y.
+Sunday Times</i>.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p><b>The Sun.</b></p>
+
+<p>THE SUN. By <span class="smcap">Amedee Guillemin</span>. From the French by <span class="smcap">T.L. Phipson</span>, Ph.D.
+With 58 illustrations. One volume 12mo $1 50</p>
+
+<p><i>For specimen illustration see page 21.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">M. Guillemin's</span> well-known work upon <i>The Heavens</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>CRITICAL NOTICES.</p>
+
+<p>"The matter of the volume is highly interesting, as well as
+scientifically complete; the style is clear and simple, and the
+illustrations excellent."&mdash;<i>N.Y. Daily Tribune</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"For the first time, the fullest and latest information about the Sun
+has been comprised in a single volume."&mdash;<i>Philadelphia Press</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"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."&mdash;<i>Albany Evening Journal</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"The latest discoveries of science are set forth in a popular and
+attractive style."&mdash;<i>Portland Transcript</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Conveys, in a graphic form, the present amount of knowledge in regard
+to the luminous centre of out solar system."&mdash;<i>Boston
+Congregationalist</i>.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p><b>Glass-Making.</b></p>
+
+<p>WONDERS OF GLASS-MAKING; <span class="smcap">Its Description and History from the Earliest
+Times to the Present</span>. By <span class="smcap">A. Sauzay</span>. With 63 illustrations on wood. One
+volume 12mo $1 50</p>
+
+<p><i>For specimen illustration see page 22.</i></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>CRITICAL NOTICES.</p>
+
+<p>"All the information which the general reader needs on the subject will
+be found here in a very intelligible and attractive form."&mdash;<i>N.Y.
+Evening Post</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"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."&mdash;<i>Boston Post</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"A very useful and interesting book."&mdash;<i>N.Y. Citizen</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"An extremely pleasant and useful little book."&mdash;<i>N.Y. Sunday Times</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"The book will well repay perusal."&mdash;<i>N.Y. Globe</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"A most interesting volume."&mdash;<i>Portland Argus</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Graphically told."&mdash;<i>N.Y. Albion</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Young people and old will derive equal benefit and pleasure from its
+perusal."&mdash;<i>N.Y. Ch. Intelligencer</i>.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p><b>Italian Art.</b></p>
+
+<p>WONDERS OF ITALIAN ART. By <span class="smcap">Louis Viardot</span>. With 28 illustrations. One
+volume 12mo $1 50</p>
+
+<p><i>For specimen illustration see page 23.</i></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p><b>The Human Body.</b></p>
+
+<p>WONDERS OF THE HUMAN BODY. From the French of <span class="smcap">A. Le Pileur</span>, Doctor of
+Medicine. Illustrated by 45 Engravings by <span class="smcap">Leveill&eacute;</span>. One volume 12mo. $1
+50</p>
+
+<p><i>For specimen illustration see page 24.</i></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p><b>Architecture.</b></p>
+
+<p>WONDERS OF ARCHITECTURE. Translated from the French of <span class="smcap">M. Lef&eacute;vre</span>; to
+which is added a chapter on English Architecture by <span class="smcap">R. Donald</span>. With 50
+illustrations. One volume 12mo $1 50</p>
+
+<p><i>For specimen illustration see page 25.</i></p>
+
+<p>The object of the <i>Wonders of Architecture</i> 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.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p><b>Ocean Depths.</b></p>
+
+<p>BOTTOM OF THE SEA. By <span class="smcap">L. Sonrel</span>. Translated and edited by <span class="smcap">Elihu Rich</span>,
+translator of "Cazin's Heat," &amp;c., with 68 woodcuts. (<i>Printed on Tinted
+Paper</i>) One vol 12mo $1 50</p>
+
+<p><i>For specimen illustration see page 26.</i></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>CRITICAL NOTICE.</p>
+
+<p>This book is well illustrated throughout, and is admirably adapted to
+those who require light scientific reading.&mdash;<i>Nature</i>.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p><b>Lighthouses and Lightships.</b></p>
+
+<p>LIGHTHOUSES AND LIGHTSHIPS. By <span class="smcap">W.H.D. Adams</span>. With sixty illustrations.
+One volume 12mo. <i>Printed on tinted paper</i> $1 50</p>
+
+<p>The aim of this volume is to furnish in a popular and intelligible form
+a description of the Lighthouse <i>as it is</i> and <i>as it was</i>, 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.</p>
+
+<p>CRITICAL NOTICES.</p>
+
+<p>"The book is full of interest."&mdash;<i>N.Y. Commercial Advertiser</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"The whole subject is treated in a manner at once interesting and
+instructive."&mdash;<i>Rochester Democrat</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"The illustrations are full, and excellently engraved."&mdash;<i>Phil. Morning
+Post</i>.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p><b>Acoustics.</b></p>
+
+<p>THE WONDERS OF ACOUSTICS; or, <span class="smcap">The Phenomena of Sound</span>. By <span class="smcap">R. Radau</span>. With
+110 illustrations. One volume 12mo. <i>Printed on tinted paper</i> $1 50</p>
+
+<p><i>For specimen illustration see page 27.</i></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p><b>Bodily Strength and Skill.</b></p>
+
+<p>WONDERS OF BODILY STRENGTH AND SKILL. Translated and enlarged from the
+French of <span class="smcap">Guillaume Depping</span>, by <span class="smcap">Charles Russell</span>. Illustrated with
+seventy engravings on wood, many of them full page. One vol. 12mo.
+<i>Printed on tinted paper</i> $1 50</p>
+
+<p><i>For specimen illustration see page 28.</i></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p><b>Balloons.</b></p>
+
+<p>WONDERFUL BALLOON ASCENTS. From the French of <span class="smcap">F. Marion</span>. With thirty
+illustrations on wood, many of them full page One volume 12mo. <i>Printed
+on tinted paper</i> $1 50</p>
+
+<p><i>For specimen illustration see page 29.</i></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 moat thrilling manner. The illustrations are exceedingly
+taken in character.</p>
+
+<p>CRITICAL NOTICE.</p>
+
+<p>"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,"&mdash;<i>London
+Bookseller</i>.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p><b>Wonderful Escapes.</b></p>
+
+<p>WONDERFUL ESCAPES. Revised from the French of <span class="smcap">F. Bernard</span>, and original
+chapters added by <span class="smcap">Richard Whiteing</span>. With twenty-six full-page plates.
+One volume 12mo. <i>Printed on tinted paper</i> $1 50</p>
+
+<p><i>For specimen illustration see page 30.</i></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p><b>The Heavens.</b></p>
+
+<p>WONDERS OF THE HEAVENS. By <span class="smcap">Camille Flammarion</span>. From the French by Mrs.
+<span class="smcap">Norman Lockyer</span>. With forty-eight illustrations. One volume, 12mo $1 50</p>
+
+<p><i>For specimen illustration see page 32.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">M. Flammarion</span> 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.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>ALSO IN PRESS:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="smcap">Wonders of Engraving</span>,<br />
+<span class="smcap">Wonders of Vegetation</span>,<br />
+<span class="smcap">Wonders of Sculpture</span>,<br />
+<span class="smcap">The Invisible World</span>,<br />
+<span class="smcap">Electricity</span>,<br />
+<span class="smcap">Hydraulics</span>.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p><i>Due announcement of the appearance of the above new issues of this
+series will be given hereafter as they approach completion.</i></p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> The money accruing from this sale is applied to the
+Pompeian library mentioned elsewhere.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_B_2" id="Footnote_B_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_B_2"><span class="label">[B]</span></a> For <i>sitiat</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_C_3" id="Footnote_C_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_C_3"><span class="label">[C]</span></a> 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_D_4" id="Footnote_D_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_D_4"><span class="label">[D]</span></a> So strong was this feeling, that the very name
+<i>inquilinus</i>, or lodger, was an insult. Cicero not having been born at
+Rome, Catiline called him offensively <i>civis inquilinus</i>&mdash;a lodger
+citizen. (<i>Sallust</i>.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_E_5" id="Footnote_E_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_E_5"><span class="label">[E]</span></a> Let not fingers that are too thick, and ill-pared nails,
+make gestures too conspicuous.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_F_6" id="Footnote_F_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_F_6"><span class="label">[F]</span></a> See note on page 198. (The Footnote <a href="#Footnote_J_10">J</a> of this
+book.&mdash;Transcriber.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_G_7" id="Footnote_G_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_G_7"><span class="label">[G]</span></a> 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 <i>dry</i> 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&mdash;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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_H_8" id="Footnote_H_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_H_8"><span class="label">[H]</span></a> "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; <i>our</i> statues are not nude, but
+undressed."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_I_9" id="Footnote_I_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_I_9"><span class="label">[I]</span></a> Recently, Signor Fiorelli has found another bronze
+statuette of a bent and crooked Silenus worth both the others.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_J_10" id="Footnote_J_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_J_10"><span class="label">[J]</span></a> 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 cither&aelig;, etc.,&mdash;were worth the
+trouble of examination and study.
+</p><p>
+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
+<i>ornamentarii</i> and <i>pr&aelig;textati</i>&mdash;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 <i>Memorie del l'Academia Ercolanese, anno</i>
+1833)&mdash;The minutes of the Herculaneum Academy, for the year 1833.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_K_11" id="Footnote_K_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_K_11"><span class="label">[K]</span></a> M. Campfleury has reproduced this design in his very
+curious book on <i>Antique Caricature</i>.</p></div>
+
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Wonders of Pompeii, by Marc Monnier
+
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+</body>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Wonders of Pompeii, by Marc Monnier
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Wonders of Pompeii
+
+Author: Marc Monnier
+
+Release Date: December 12, 2005 [EBook #17290]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WONDERS OF POMPEII ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Taavi Kalju and the
+Online Distributed Proofreaders Europe at
+http://dp.rastko.net. (This file was made using scans of
+public domain works from the University of Michigan Digital
+Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[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 Thermae                            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 Quaestor, at Pompeii            167
+
+The House of Lucretius                                   169
+
+The Exaedra of the House of the Poet                      185
+
+The Exaedra 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 THERMAE.
+
+The Hot Baths at Rome.--The Thermae of Stabiae.--A
+   Tilt at Sun Dials.--A Complete Bath, as the Ancients
+   Considered It: the Apartments, the Slaves, the Unguents,
+   the Strigillae.--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 Aloe'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 Baiae, of Bauli, of
+Neapolis, and of Surrentum bore the names that they retain. Portici was
+called Herculaneum; Torre dell'Annunziata was called Oplontes;
+Castellamare, Stabiae; 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 entrepot 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
+Stabiae, 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 _comitiae_ 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 Cannae, 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 comitiae,
+promulged municipal laws, regulated military levies, collected taxes; in
+fine selected her own immediate rulers--her consuls (the duumvirs
+dispensing justice), her ediles, her quaestors, 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 Stabiae.
+
+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, insulae_ 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 aedile, 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 Carree (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 _entree_, 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 aesthetic 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
+_tabernae argentariae_, 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 Caesarean 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, amphorae,
+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 Scythiae 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 _Scythiae_
+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 convivae 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
+AEneas,--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, Stabiae, 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 Stabiae, 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 Thermae, 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 laeserit!_ (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 AEsculapius) 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 archaeology. 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 aedile 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 aedile 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 aedile.
+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 aedileship, 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 aedilem, Procule, fac et
+ille te faciet_. (Make Sabinus aedile, 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 societe
+      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 Stabiae 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 Elysees
+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 _exequiae_, 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 (_praefiicae_),
+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 (OEdipus 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 Tyche, 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 Tyche, 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 Tyche 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 haeredes 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 amphorae, 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 Baiae 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 thermae.
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+THE THERMAE.
+
+     THE HOT BATHS AT ROME.--THE THERMAE OF STABIAE.--A TILT AT SUN
+     DIALS.--A COMPLETE BATH, AS THE ANCIENTS CONSIDERED IT; THE
+     APARTMENTS, THE SLAVES, THE UNGUENTS, THE STRIGILLAE.--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 thermae of
+Caracalla, which had sixteen hundred seats of marble or of porphyry. The
+thermae 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 thermae 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
+(_palaestra_) 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 quaestor, 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 thermae 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
+(_elaethesium_), 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._ (_pecunia 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 Phoenician 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 Thermae, 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 Thermae 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 aedile 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 aedilem Paratus rogat_. This the early
+antiquarians translated: _Paratus invokes Pansa the aedile_. The early
+antiquaries erred. They should have rendered it: _Paratus demands Pansa
+for aedile_. 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 aedileship 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 aedile.
+
+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 _maeniana_ 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 _oecus_, 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 oecus was but a large chamber between
+the peristyle and a garden.
+
+To the right of the oecus, 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 oecus. 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 (_oecus_),
+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 oecus, 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 aedile. 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 Thermae,
+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 aedile! 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 _libertinae_, 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 libertinae,--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
+_murenae_ 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 _Lachrymae 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 amphorae 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 amphorae, how much other testimony there still remains of
+the olden libations,--those rich _craterae_, 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 Quaestor, 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 quaestor 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 Stabiae 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
+facade 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 amphorae; 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 Nemaean 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 oecus 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 exaedra,
+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 aesthetic 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 citherae, 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 _praetextati_--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 _caveae_. There are three caveae--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 aediles, 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. Tessarae 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 AEschylus, 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 Caesar. 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 aedile. 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 aediles
+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 Caesars--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 manoeuvres 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 scoriae 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
+Thermae; 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 ruinae_.
+
+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
+Thermae (see Chap. V.).
+
+On leaving the Thermae, pass through the entire north-west of the city,
+that is to say, the space comprised between the streets of Fortune and
+of the Thermae 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 Tyche_.          "
+
+_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 Stabiae 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 Stabiae 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 Stabiae 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 Stabiae, 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 Stabiae_. 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 Athenaeum_.
+
+"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 DORE, 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 LEVEILLE. 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. LEFEVRE; 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._
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Wonders of Pompeii, by Marc Monnier
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WONDERS OF POMPEII ***
+
+***** This file should be named 17290.txt or 17290.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
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