p I J *> •«(»» r %.. !^ "^%" POMPEI ANA: TOPOGRAPHY, EDIFICES AND ORNAMENTS POMPEII, THE RESULT OF EXCAVATIONS SINCE 1819. BY SIR WILLIAM GELL, M. A. F. R. S. & F. S. A. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON : JENNINGS AND CHAPLIN. MDCCCXXXir. LONDON: PRINTED BY THOMAS DAVISON, WIIITEFRIAliS. II i LIST OF PLATES. I. III. IV. •-• V, ^ •VI. -tvii. -- VIII. ' IX. '- X. -"XI. XII. .-XIII. - XIV. ..XV, •-XVI. XVII. ^ XVIII. XIX. --XX. ^ XXI. XXII. XXIII. -XXIV. -xxv. XXVI. Vol. I. Page PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR, opposite the Title-page ILLUSTRATED FRONTISPIECE GENERAL PLAN .... 1 SIDE OF A CUBICULUM, IN THE HOUSE OF FUSCUS 3 SIDE OF A CHAMBER, IN THE HOUSE OF FUSCUS WALL OF AN ATRIUM . . . 7 DOOR OF A HOUSE . . .5 PICTURE IN A HOUSE BEHIND THE PANTHEON 9 STAIRS OF THE CRVPTO-PORTICUS OF EUMACHIA 14 Vol. II. Page STATUE OF EUMACHIA PEDESTALS IN THE FORUM ALTAR OF JUPITER MARS AND VENUS GENERAL VIEW^ OF THE PANTHEON WALL OF THE PANTHEON PENELOPE AND ULYSSES jETHRA and THESEUS THALIA CELL OF THE TEMPLE OF AUGUSTUS PLAN OF THE TEMPLE OF FORTUNE TEMPLE OF FORTUNE RESTORATION OF THE TEMPLE OF FORTUNE VIEW FROM THE ROOF OF THE THERM^iE PLAN OF THE THERMAE GENERAL VIEW OF THE THERMAE SECTION OF THE THERMS COURT OF THE THERM.'E 70 79 82 89 108 • Referred to in Vol. I. page 5, as No. VII. t Referred to in Vol. I. page 9, as No. VI. LIST OF PLATES. Plate XXVII. FRIGIDARIUM XXVIII. NATATIO .... y*XXlX. TEPIDARIUM XXX. VAULT OF THE TEPIDARIUM XXXI. CALDARIUM (OR LACONICUM) XXXII. SECTION OF THE CALDARIUM .- t XXXIII. FRIGIDARIUM AND PISCINA, IN THE WOMEN BATHS .... XXXIV. WOMEN'S BATHS XXXV. PLAN OF THE HOUSE OF THE TRAGIC POET XXXVI. HOUSE OF THE TRAGIC POET i XXXVII. POET'S HOUSE RESTORED XXXVIII. WINDOWS OF THE ATRIUM ,--XXXIX. ACHILLES AND BRISEIS XL. FACSIMILE OF HEAD OF ACHILLES ,. XLI. PELEUS AND THETIS XLII. VENUS FISHING XLIII. ARIADNE .... XLIV. POET READING -'XLV. MOSAIC PAVEMENT XLVI. SACRIFICE OF IPHIGENIA XLVII. SIDE OF THE CHAMBER OF LEDA ^XLVIII. LEDA AND TYNDAREUS XLIX. THESEUS AND ARIADNE L. FOUNTAIN OF THE FULLONICA LL> C PICTURES IN THE FULLONICA LII. ^ yt.lU. FOUNTAIN OF SHELLS LIV. COMEDY .... LV. DWARF AND MONKEY LVI. GARDEN AND PORTICO LVII. PAINTING OF A PORT LVIII. PICTURE .... LIX. PICTURE .... §LX. PLAN OF THE STREET OF THE MERCURIES LXI. STREET OF THE MERCURIES Vol. I. Page Vol. II. Page 100 102 107 113 114 167 174 171 95 96 100 ll(j— 118- 127 128 4 \m 132 134 8 * Referred to in Vol. I. page 107, as No. XXIV. t The gladiatorial ticket mentioned in the reference to this plate in Vol. I. page 92, will be found as a vignette at the end of Chapter XIII. X Numbered LII. in error. § The number was accidentally omitted in the plate. LIST OF PLATES. Vol. I. Plate Page -^LXII, ATRIUM OF THE HOUSE OF CERES . . 181 LXIII. PLAN AND ELEVATION OF THE HOUSE OF THE DIOSCURI . .... LXIV. PERISTYLE OF THE HOUSE OF THE DIOSCURI LXV. VIEW OF THE COURT OF THE PISCINA LXVI. JUPITER .... LXVII. PERSEUS AND ANDROMEDA LXVIII. HYGEIA . .... LXIX. ACHILLES IN SCYROS »LXX. WALL OF TABLINUM, IN THE HOUSE OF THE DIOSCURI .... LXXL VICTORY .... LXXIL PENELOPE ... LXXIIL INFANT ACHILLES BATHED IN THE STYX LXXIV. SATURN ..... LXXV. COMIC SCENE LXXVI. COMIC SCENE . . . . LXXVII. PH^DRA AND HIPPOLYTUS LXXVIII. BACCHUS AND FAUN LXXIX. WALL AND DOOR OF CORINTHIAN PERISTYLE LXXX. DRINKING SCENE LXXXL WAGGON AND HORSES, IN THE LUPANARE LXXXII. MARS AND VENUS LXXXIII. DREAM OF RHEA LXXXIV. STAIRS FOR MOUNTING THE WALLS LXXXV. GATE OF ISIS .... t LXXXVI. PAVEMENTS . .... 40 LXXXVII. PAVEMENTS . . . . LXXXVIII. VIEW OF THE SITE OF POMPEII Vol. II. Page 20- 143- 24 26. 23 147 38- 149 150- 42- 34 45 46- 153 23- 154 ■ 11- 158- 159 160 ICl - 203 164_. fnint. - * The drawing for this subject was unfortunately lost on its way to the engraver, t Referred to in Vol. I. page 40, as No. LXXVIII. *»* These discrepancies between the letter-press and the plates escaped correction in consequence of the Editor not having had, in every instance, an opportunity of com- paring the illustration with the text, the drawings having been in the hands of a variety of engravers while the work was at press. LIST OF VIGNETTES. VOL. I. No. 1, 2, 3. 4, 5, 6, 7. 10, 11. 12, 13, 14, 15, 16. 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27* 28, 29, SO, VOL. IL Page i xxiv 1 12 13 26 27 45 46 68 69 82 83 130 131 141 142 178 179 191 192 1 5 6 13 14 50 187 194 THE GETTY CB^TER CONTENTS VOL. I. Preface. Chap. I. General Plan .... Page 1 II. Chalcidicum . . . . 13 III. Forum . . . .27 IV. Pantheon, or College of the Augustales . 46 V. Temple of Fortune ... 69 VI. Thermse . ... 83 VII. Women's Baths . . .131 VIII. House of the Tragic Poet . . 142 IX. Fullonica . . . .179 X. House of the Fountain . . . 192 by PREFACE. The favourable manner in which the former part of this work was received by the Public has been sufficiently demonstrated by the extensive circulation and rapid sale of two editions, which seem to have found their VOL. I. B 11 PREFACE. way, not only to every part of Great Britain, but even to the Continent, where the collec- tion of Pompeiana has been noticed with ap- probation in many of the literary journals. That portion contained an account of almost every thing worthy of notice, which had been laid open by the excavations till the period of its publication; and the present is in- tended, not only to supply the omissions of the former work, but to describe those more recent discoveries which are by no means inferior in interest or singularity. Among; these, the excavation of the dial- cidicum, which took place soon after the publication of the former w^ork, laid open the only example of that species of edifice which has existed in modern times. Not long afterwards, the great area of the Pan- theon was discovered, and the whole circuit of the Forum was perfectly cleared. PREFACE. Ill The excavations being continued, a wide street occurred, beginning at the arch ad- joining the back wall of the Temple of Ju- piter in the Forum, and ending in a second triumphal arch, near which were found the bronze fragments of the equestrian statue it had once supported. On the right was discovered a temple of Fortune, doubly in- teresting because founded by the illustri- ous family of the Tullii, and, about the centre of the left side of the same street, an entrance was opened into an area which proved to belong to the public baths or Thermae of the city. Some of the apartments of this edifice yet remained covered by stone arches, which, having re- sisted the pressure of the cinders and ac- cumulated earth, retained, in all their ori- ginal freshness of colour, those beautiful ornaments and fretted ceilings, of which so few have resisted the lapse of eighteen cen- turies. B 2 IV PREFACE. The discovery of the baths is perhaps of greater consequence than may at first appear, for, notwithstanding the enormous ruins of the Roman Thermae, their compo- nent parts seem to have been little under- stood, and even variously named by the au- thors who have undertaken their elucidation. At Pompeii, on the contrary, the absence of Xystus, Theatre, Palaestra, and an infinite number of other intricate divisions Avhich render the Thermae of the great Capital so complicated and unintelligible, leaves a sa- tisfactory and defined idea of the use and meaning of every other portion of the fabric. Previously to the discovery of the baths, the whole of a narrow alley behind the Chal- cidicum had been cleared and a passage opened to the street running between the Forum and the Thermae. From that alley a still smaller avenue ran between the Chal- cidicum and the building which is known PREFACE. on the spot by the name of the Pantheon ; thus adding to the former map of Pompeii an entire square or island of public edifices and habitations, and forming, in itself, no mean acquisition to the antiquary. This excavation was also remarkable for the dis- covery of an ancient well of considerable depth, and still retaining fifteen feet of water, which, from its situation, might pos- sibly have been there before the destruction of the city. These various objects, with the house, named that of the Tragic Poet, situated op- posite to the northern side of the Thermae, cover a plot of ground advancing nearer to the centre of Pompeii than any which had formerly been cleared, and, in consequence of a greater depth of superincumbent soil, they have, generally, been found in a better state of preservation. They form, altoge- ther, the connexion of two portions of the VI PREFACE. plan of the city, which were scarcely united by the unfinished excavation of the Forum at the period of the former publication. The house of the Tragic Poet has exhibited superior specimens of painting, while the subject of ancient art itself is exciting more of the public attention, and meeting with merited though tardy admiration, through the zeal and industry of M. Ternite, who is engraving at Berlin a superb collection of the pictures of Herculaneum and Pompeii under the auspices of the King of Prussia. With such an accession of new materials, the Author of the present work has thought it advisable to lay them before the public without delay, aware that time will in- calculably diminish the freshness of those objects, which, when stripped of their ex- ternal coats by the rains of winter or the burning suns of summer, lose by far the greater portion of their interest and identity. PREFACE. Vll Another motive for the immediate pub- lication of whatever can be collected, is the great and increasing difficulty of obtaining permission to draw and measure the newly- discovered antiquities, by which a foreigner is reduced to snatch from eternal oblivion only such morsels as a favourable moment may enable him to delineate. An astonish- ing number of interesting objects is an- nually and hourly destroyed by the action of the weather upon substances and surfaces which have been once subjected to the operation of heat and moisture ; and this unavoidable decay is the more to be la- mented, as strangers are seldom allowed to draw till the decomposition both of colour and substance has taken place to a great ex- tent; while, even if they were delineated by a native artist, there are no engravers on the spot of sufficient skill to multiply the copies, nor a public sufficiently educated to encou- rage the sale of them. Vlll PREFACE. An instance of the delay which takes place in the native publications may be ob- served in the description of the Temple of Isis, which, though discovered at so early a period, is only at this moment in the pro- gress of illustration by the care of the Ca- valiere Carelli, whose elaborate account of that interesting relic, with drawings made at the time of the excavation, is only now in preparation ; while the monument it- self has already lost the last vestiges of the beauty and freshness in which it first appeared. It has often been noticed, during the winter months, that the stuccos which had been observed perfect, during a first visit to any newly-discovered edifice, had entirely disappeared on a second examination; so that, no traces being left, many of the pret- tiest fancies of antiquity are irrecoverably lost; while the order continues to prevent PREFACE. IX strangers from drawing till three or four years have expired, and the objects become defaced. At the present moment, in the year 1826, only those parts of Pompeii can be drawn and measured with the consent of those immediately concerned, which have been discovered prior to the year 1823, or which, in other words, after the publication of the former portion of this work, have little or no novelty to recommend them. A fo- reign antiquary can only hope for better times and a more liberal policy with regard to Pompeii ; at present, while a sort of patent exists, by which a very eminent architect and scene-painter possesses the exclusive privi- lege of publishing antiquities, to which it does not appear that he has ever particularly turned his attention, a stranger meets with almost insurmountable difficulties, and no- thing is known to the literary world of the most important discoveries. For a time, the gentlemanly feeling of those who were X PREFACE. employed in the execution of this seeming monopoly of antiquarian research, induced them to overlook some occasional violations of the rioid order for exclusion from the latest discoveries ; but, on a recent change in the department, the acting Superintendent having done the present work the honour to consider it as the principal means of con- veying to the public a faithful account of the latest discoveries of Pompeii, has made the interdiction of it the subject of a par- ticular injunction; a circumstance very cre- ditable to the work, but at the same time rendering its execution more difficult*. * Not believing it possible that any order could emanate from persons in high authority, which proclaimed a jealous or vin- dictive spirit, the writer mentioned the circumstance to the Cavaliere Carelli, secretary of the Royal Academy. The secre- tary, with the members, immediately signed a petition stating that, the Author being a member of the Academy, and one who, on all occasions, opened his portfolios and ]MSS. for the use of those who wanted information on subjects connected with Grecian art, they requested that some return might be made by permis- sion being granted him to visit the excavations at his pleasure, and that, being infirm, he should be allowed to ride at Pompeii. This PREFACE. XI In the course of the year 1825 three new works appeared on Pompeii, of which that of Mr. Goldicutt, of London, seems to possess a considerable degree of splendour. One, un- dertaken by Captain de Goro, in folio, under the patronage of the Emperor of Austria, is written in German, and was received with approbation by his learned countrymen. The other is by Signor Carlo Bonucci, the Nea- politan architect, now, in 1827, director of the new excavations at Herculaneum, and nephew of Signor Bonucci, formerly the ex- petition, passing through the hands of the Marchese RufFo, secre- tary of state, was immediately and most graciously acceded to by his Majesty, and the necessary orders were issued. It seemed, indeed, highly improbable that any thing unge- nerous in principle could have been intended by the government, and the learned Cavaliere Arditi, who is at the head of the an- tiquarian department, had often interested himself in behalf of the Author so far as to have had his authority disputed by the underling. It is right to show where the blame really attaches, and that low and ungenerous minds should be deprived of the power of palming their own littlenesses upon the world as the edicts of their betters. Xll PREFACE. cellent and indefatigable director of the ex- cavations at Pompeii. This volume, which has been twice printed, is intended as a pocket companion and guide to those who visit the spot, and is both convenient as to size, and replete with every information which might be expected from the enthu- siasm, talents, and opportunities of an author whose whole occupation is the study of Pom- peii, wdiere he became director in 1828. It is to him that we are indebted for the com- munication of what appears to be the just interpretation of all those inscriptions at Pompeii which have an accusative termina- tion, and which have hitherto so much puz- zled the antiquary. The letters AED, which had been sup- posed to refer to the house, seem really to signify the sedile whose favour was invoked by the owner of the shop : an easy and satis- PREFACE. XUl factory interpretation, wliich leaves no fur- ther doubt on the subject. As an example that of Paratus may be given : Pansam. Md. Paratus. rog. Paratus invokes Pansa the ^Edile. The editors of the Museo Borbonico have also announced their intention of publishing an account of the recent discoveries at Pom- peii, and will, doubtless, communicate many particulars which their official situation ena- bles them only to collect. To these may be added the magnificent map of M. Bibent, on so large a scale that the details of every house are represented, but not at present, February, 1827, containing the latest ex- cavations. It may not be quite uninteresting to no- tice the progress of the excavations, which, notwithstanding all that has been said on the subject to the contrary, seem to have been XIV PREFACE. as well conducted, and as steadily pursued, as times and circumstances have permitted. Since the return of the legitimate sovereign, more than half of the Forum has been cleared, the Senaculum or Temple of Jupiter, the Chalcidicum, the Temple of Mercury, the Pantheon, the Temple of Venus, that of For- tune, the Thermae, and innumerable private houses have been disinterred; and, though it be true that more labourers might have been employed, it is not less so that the work ought not to proceed, till the objects already explored are roofed and fortified against the weather. At present, consider- able expense attends the excavation, on ac- count of the greater depth of soil which occurs toward the centre of the city. The preservation of the vaults of the Thermae has been a work of no trifling importance ; and both time and skill are necessary in the application of the means best calculated to hand down to posterity whatever can be PREFACE. XV saved of these crumbling relics of antiquity. The merit of Sionor Bonucci the elder has been conspicuous on these occasions, and it is to be hoped that his successor may con- tinue the system. The director is assisted by an intendant, who is on the spot, and by three overseers, who not only watch the workmen, but sometimes show objects of particular interest to travellers. In addi- tion to these, is a number of inferior custodi or guardians, whose chief duties consist in accompanying visitors, or taking care of such ruins as, being considered of more im- portance, are shut up from the vulgar by way of protection from wanton injury, or the inscription of names by which many beautiful relics have suffered. It is usual for travellers to bestow a trifle upon the custodi. Till human nature can be changed, this is the best way of rewarding civility, for the keepers of museums and cabinets who are not permitted to take money, have XVI PREFACE. been always observed to hurry the stranger through their respective departments, in- stead of gratifying his curiosity. It has been the custom to honour the arrival of illustrious personages by exca- vating in their presence some small por- tion of Pompeii; an enviable method of showing respect exclusively possessed by the court of Naples. For these occasions, an order is given that the earth should be left undisturbed to the depth of a foot or more, in several of the rooms of a newly- discovered house, and, on the day appointed, these are cleared out for the amusement of the guests. It is seldom a fruitless search, as the overseers are previously aware that some curiosities exist, though they know not precisely what they may be. iVn example of the reports made by the overseers on some of these occasions may suffice to give a general idea of the objects which are PREFACE. XVll usually brought to light in the excavations of Pompeii. " REPORT. *' On the fourth of November, 1823, was found, at the height of fourteen palms from the pavement, and in the street running from the Temple of Fortune toward the house of Pansa, the head of a Roman Emperor in bronze, not unlike Caligula. It was three- fourths of a palm high. Soon after, a leg of the same was found, one palm three-fourths long. On November 5th, was found a skele- ton, with sixty-five coins of small silver, and two large medals in bronze. On November 8th, was found the body of the Emperor's equestrian statue. The right hand held the reins, and the left was in an attitude of com- mand. On November 9th, the legs of the horse were found, and some portions of the body. The whole was about six palms one- fourth high. On the 10th of November, in VOL. I. c XVlll PREFACE. the third and fourth houses on the right of this street, were found several articles in the presence of the English minister. These were: a vase with a handle; an oil vessel with a handle and cover; six coins of mid- dle size, and some ornaments of a door, all of bronze; ten lamps of terra cotta, one of a circular form, with an eagle in relievo; five cups, two earthen pots, into which money- was slipped through a hole, and preserved till wanted ; and a number of bronze sockets, or umbilici, on which doors had turned. On November 12th, was found, in the presence of General Baron Frimont, a statue four inches high, plated with silver; another silver sta- tue of Fortune with the horn of abundance ; six coins, two of a large, and four of middle size; a patera, the handles of which were covered with silver ; the two hinges or sockets of a door ; a basin ; a lamp, with a handle and cover, for one light; other hinoes of a door ; three buckles for harness ; a glass PREFACE. Xix bottle with a handle ; a fluted tumbler ; eight circular vases of glass ; a little bottle, or lachrymatory, half melted; a Faun's head of marble; a cylindric piece of granite, and other objects." This may suffice as a specimen of the yet incalculable riches of Pompeii. Not a day passes without the discovery of some- thing of greater or less importance; while the previous acquisition of at least twenty great statues of marble, and four of bronze, not to mention a countless multitude of smaller figures and precious objects, pro- mises an ample harvest in future. It is certainly surprising that so few skeletons have yet been found in Pompeii; but, by estimating the number, l60, already dis- covered at about an eighth of the whole, CD ^ according to the proportion which the city already laid open bears to the area enclosed by the walls and supposed suburbs, we shall c 2 XX PREFACE. find that nearly one thousand three hundred of the unfortunate inhabitants were destroyed by the fatal eruption ; a computation by no means insignificant to the population of a city scarcely two miles in circuit, and of which so considerable a portion was occu- pied by public buildings. It may be necessary to say a few words on the subject of the present deviation from the order observed in the former part of this work, which was divided into dissertations treating distinctly of temples, theatres, and private houses. As it is proposed to follow, if possible, the traces of the excavators, it will be evident that every succeeding por- tion of the work must have had the same endless distribution and division; and, in short, that an essay on the Temples of Pom- peii could never have been completed till the entire city was disinterred ; and the same observation applies equally to every other PREFACE. XXI species of building. If, therefore, any clas- sification of the edifices be desirable, the task must unavoidably be left to some future author who may be so fortunate as to have the whole of the materials in his possession. The former work was considered as a whole, and, indeed, from the political convulsions which took place at the moment of collect- ing the materials for it, it seemed probable that some time might elapse before many fresh documents could be produced. At present the case is different ; whatever is published can only be regarded as a re- positor}^ of details which would otherwise have perished long before the entire city of Pompeii could be explored. The excava- tions, though proceeding slowly, have laid open other temples and other dwellings, with public edifices of a distinct character, so that, perhaps, no order could be chosen better calculated to convej?^ an exact idea of the relative situations of the various objects XXll PREFACE. than that which their topographical position suggests. Should it be thought that this volume contains, at its commencement, an account of objects either in some degree previously known, or less interesting than might have been expected from the varietj^ of new mat- ter afforded by the excavations, it may be observed, that it was necessary to insert them for the purpose of uniting the former with the present publication, which would have been defective while a hiatus was suffered to exist in a region so important as the Forum. In the year 1828, the restrictions with re- gard to drawing seem to have been removed with respect to the Baths, the house of the Tragic Poet, and some other discoveries of three or four years' standing, but they re- main in force with regard to the excavations of more recent date. In the mean time much PREFACE. XXlll has been removed, and much has perished ; so that these ruins no longer retain the aspect which they originally presented. The super- intendence of the excavations has, however, been conferred on a more worthy person, and antiquaries may hope for the abolition of exclusion. Excepting the outlines of a few of the paintings which have been pub- lished in the Museo Borbonico, it may be observed that nearly the whole of the ob- jects detailed in this work might have passed away without representation or record, had not the Author been on the spot, and thus been enabled to avail himself of every fa- vourable moment for acquiring the neces- sary materials for this work, which, should it be found to be less perfect than the former portion, has nevertheless been attended with more than tenfold difficulty in the execution. The views and pictures have been uni- formly made by the Author, as before, with XXIV PREFACE. the prism of Dr. Wollaston, and the draw- ings have been compared with such copies of the originals as have been published in the Museo Borbonico at Naples. [iri P,.F. CaiaEex Sccif ■ a Plan PI. 11- POMPEIANA. CHAPTER 1. GENERAL PLAN. The plan of the recent excavations in the vicinity of the Forum is given for the purpose of adding to the map of the city, published in the year 1821, a portion which is requisite for the better connexion of the two original excavations of the theatres and 2 POMPEIANA. the Gate of Naples. It will be observed, that the forms of the Chalcidicum, the Tem- ple of ]\lercury, and the adjoining edifice were known in the year 1819, when the ge- neral plan given in the second edition of the Pompeiana was published; but that a great deficiency then existed between the Chal- cidicum and the house of Pansa, w^here the excavations had not been extensive. Since that period, the whole of the great street connecting the Forum with the theatres has been cleared, and, as it was necessary to apply to it some name by which it might be recognized, it has received, among the cus- todi, the name of Strada dei Mercanti. It would appear, by certain impediments, or stepping-stones, as well as two steps placed in this street toward the Forum, that car- riages were denied access, on this side, to that place of public resort. The same dif- ficulties exist in the street issuing from the south end of the Forum, and in that on the West; and, though the blocks which oppose the passage have been considered only as stepping-stones to be used in the rainy sea- son, it seems clear, from their magnitude, POMPEIANA. that they also served to prohibit the passage of wheeled carriages. At the lower end of this street, and at the angle nearest the great theatre, is a house, excavated in the presence of the Emperor of Austria, on the portal of which was visible the name of fuscus. It contains, at the entrance, a boar and hounds in mosaic, and within, among other rooms, two beautiful cabinets or boudoirs, opening into the atrium, remarkable for the spe- cimens they ofter of the different styles of painting, one being decorated with compart- ments highly coloured with red and yellow, and the other with beautiful light tracery on a white ground. Both of these are repre- sented in Plates III. and IV. At a spot in this street, on the side opposite to the Chal- cidicum, may be observed three steps in the footpath, at the bottom of which, close to the wall of a house, a marble cone, ending in a sharp point, rises from the pavement to the height of about twelve inches. The house or pier adjoining is built with large and well-united blocks of stone, on one of which are the evident vestiges of a now almost illegible Oscan inscription in two 4 POMP EI AN A. lines, plastered and painted over with a sa- crifice and an altar of Victory. As it seems not improbable that the ancient languages of Italy will hereafter be better understood than at present, it may be useful to give the letters as they appear, or did appear, having been carefully copied at many different periods. Oi n \(>l MN 1814, or l'f:inV>l I^ j \/ 1825. This pier exhibits the marks of having been worn by frequent attrition at the height of about three feet from the pavement, but how used, or for what purpose the cone was in- tended, is yet an enigma. Mr. Wood, the well-known editor of the last volume of the Antiquities of iVthens, having been requested to examine the spot, discovered other in- stances in the neighbourhood, of stones evi- dently worn in the same manner, which he was disposed to attribute to the chaining of slaves, or perhaps criminals, to the wall. The cone might have been the only point \"bv T.Scaixarett from a Sketchlrjr S:r"W^ GeTl JBngra-vcd try J-Hcns^il IP ® m: F ■ IS ic ic Hubert Jeivm-ngs & WilLiaja. Giiplm. 62. O^apside. POMPEIANA. on which the foot could rest, and may have been used to add to the cruelty of the punish- ment. The Cone, part of the Pier, and the Steps. Three houses, on the same side of the street, have received the names of the Pescatrice, the Cinghiale, and the Grazie, from the subjects found represented within their pre- cincts. There is also a handsome and per- fect doorway of stone, a rare occurrence in Pompeii, with many architectural mouldings well suited to the purpose, in the same street, which probably belonged to some building of consequence. This door is represented, with the window above it, in Plate VII. Right of the entrance, is a monkey playing the double pipes painted on the wall as a sort of guardian to the place. The step- ping-stones are here repeated in the pave- ment, and are shown in the View. This street is about twenty-eight feet wide, and 6 POMPEIANA. the foot-pavements, generally, extend to the breadth of six feet on each side, formed in some places of a species of hard plaster, or- namented, at intervals, with pieces of marble. The doors of several shops were found in this street to have left perfect impressions on the hard volcanic deposition, by which it is evident that the planks were united by laying the edge of one over the next in suc- cession, as they appear in a modern boat. A small alley, perhaps a vicus, ran to the houses once known as the excavation of the Regina Carolina, now, from political mo- tives, called the house of Adonis by the Di- rectors, where is the beautiful picture of Per- seus and Andromeda, formerly engraved. In an arched cellar, near this last-named excavation, were found, in the year 1826, the skeletons of two or more persons who had taken refuge during the fatal cata- strophe of Pompeii, carrying with them four gold rings, four silver spoons, a pair of ear- rings, and many coins both of gold and sil- ver. The figures of the Twelve Gods, also published, have given the modern name of Vicolo de' Dodici Dei to this passage. In a N POMPEIANA. 7 neighbouring house, once supposed by the custocli to have been that of an apothecary, was a beautiful painting of Venus support- ins; the wounded Adonis. His dogs lie at his feet, and a Cupid, with " purple pinions,'^ armed with two spears, is bewailing the un- fortunate hunter, in an attitude worthy of Correpo-io himself. Oct In the same house are several tasteful de- corations, and, among others, marine horses occupied in a variety of gambols. A boar- hunt, executed with much spirit, seems to have given to the house the name by which it is at present known, Casa del Cinghiale. The Plate No. V. is taken from the wall of an apartment in this quarter, and is given principally on account of the practicability of its application to modern decoration. It might make a beautiful library, with a mir- ror in the centre, vases arranged on the top, and maps to be drawn down from the frieze : books might occupy the space under the red curtains, and archives, &c. the base. Behind the Chalcidicum runs a narrow street, beginning at a fountain in the Strada de' Mercanti. The high wall of the Crypto 8 POMPEIANA. Porticus formed one side, and shops of a thermopolite, a soap-boiler, and others, such as Sextius, Syrticus and their patrons, named as usual in the accusative, c. suet- TIVM CERTVM ET M. LEPIDVM SABINVM, formed the other. The name of Lollius, of a great and consular famil}^ is found as pro- prietor or protector of a house in the vicinity. This alley, or vicus, contains little of import- ance, but this may be the place best suited to the remarks it may suggest. The east side of the Chalcidicum presents a lofty wall orna- mented, at intervals, with a species of Corin- thian pilasters. On this may be observed the inscription lollivm ^d.; &c. but it is difficult to imagine why the protection of any asdile could be requisite for a public buildino;. In a house on the right are some pretty panels, with fishes, birds, and sphinxes on blue, red, and black grounds. A very small passage runs to the left, between the Chal- cidicum and the Temple called that of Mer- cury, and leads to a house which occupies the space behind that Temple and the edifice usually termed the Curia. This house has POMPEIANA. 9 another great entrance from a passage run- ning to the southern entry of the Pantheon, and having; a communication with the Curia, and, being of more consequence than any in the vicinity, it may perhaps be considered as the residence of the Chief of the College of Augustales, who had the care of the build- ing now called the Pantheon, or, at least, as the habitation of a public officer. At the entrance next the Pantheon is an anchor between two dolphins in mosaic, and on the right, on entering the Atrium, is, or was, the picture Plate VI., which, however the co- lours may be changed to red bj^ time or heat, must be considered as an agreeable composi- tion. The Atrium has two alae, in one of which is an altar, and after passing the Tablinum, where is a picture of Venus dis- arming the God of War, with Cupid carry- ing off his sword and shield, we find a mag- nificent peristyle of seven columns by six, terminated by a wall, in which is an opening to the alley of the Chalcidicum. In the Hy- paethrum are two cisterns or baths, and, at an angle, is a marble pedestal about fifteen VOL. I. D 10 POMPEIANA. inches square and two feet in height, with two iron cramps for fastening the feet of the statue or vase, and this inscription : PHILIPPVS. MELISSA. e7 favstJ lANVARlTS. PIRICATI QVARTIONIS • IVCVNDVS. HOLCONI ANTEROTIS AVCTVS. HELVI NTMPHODOTIj MINISTRI. AVG. IVSSV M. LVCRETI MANLIA. Nt I. AIBIENISTA?. iT. V. ID L. EVMACHI. FVSCI. N. HERENNI. VERI. D. V. V. A. S.P.P. CN. DOMITIO. CAMILLO. ARRTNTO COS. From a comparison of the Fasti Consulares with the list of Bishop Idatius, it seems pro- bable that this inscription may be dated about 32 years after Christ. Between this house and the Temple of Mercury is an arched kiln, said to have been used for making lime. Directly opposite this gate of the Pantheon is the well, about 116 feet POMPEIANA. 11 deep, before mentioned, the water of which is singularly cold and very slightly brackish. Behind this is a space supposed to be for soap-boiling, all of which may, however, have appertained, with the lime, to some process of whitening or cleansing the gar- ments of those who attended the supposed Pantheon, or College of the Augustales. Pursuino' the street unitino- that of the Mercanti with that north of the Pantheon, to which the name of Frutti Secchi, or dried fruits, has now been given, nothing worthy of remark occurs except the house inscribed LOLLivM .^D. on the left. In this is an ob- scene picture, and in what appears to be an Atrium, paved with mosaic in the forms of ducks and fishes, an altar, orw^hat may have served for a kitchen. At the junction of the two streets, on a house at the angle inscribed M. HOLCONIVM and PRISCVM FELICEM.7ED. O.V.F., is a species of triple Phallus in terra cotta of singular invention. Near this, in a house, is the picture of a graceful young Bacchus expressing the juice of the grape into a vase placed on a column. A ram- D 2 12 POMPEIANA. pant Tiger or Lynx is expecting the liquor. On a pier is written TREBIVM. ^D. OVF. CVM. NARI. ROG. To return to the Street of the Merchants, and quitting the description of the general plan, which will be resumed as often as is necessary, the Chalcidicum deserves a par- ticular description. POMPEIANA. 13 CHAPTER II. CHALCIDICUM. Nearly opposite to the twelve Gods is a fountain with steps, which, by two fliohts, lead to the interior of the Chalcidi- cum. The wall of the stairdase is painted in black panels, separated by red pilasters, which have produced a good effect, and 14 POMPEIANA. which are represented in Plate VIII. Over this entrance was a lintel, or architrave, of marble, with the inscription — EVMACHIA- L- F- SACERD- PVBL- NOMINE- SVO. ET M. NVMISTRI. FRONTONIS. FILL CHALCIDICVM. CRYPTAM. PORTICVS, CONCORDIAE. AVGVSTAE. PIETATI. SVA. PEQV- NIA. FECIT. EADE3IQVE. DEDICAVIT. This inscription, or a great part of it, seems to have been repeated on certain large blocks of marble, which have formed part of the architectural decoration of the Forum. It has been thought, in the present instance, to justify the application of the term Chalci- dicum to the edifice in question, particularly as the Crypto-porticus, or perhaps the Crypt and the Portico, remain to verify the sup- position; and it seems, moreover, one of the most difficult problems of antiquity to dis- cover what was the meanino; of the word. Signor Becchi, a Florentine architect in the Neapolitan service, has published a dis- sertation on the subject, and seems to have been of opinion that the area, surrounded by its open and closed porticos, was quite distinct from the Chalcidicum, which he would place in front, so as to form a sort of (k ;$ 1" n ^ s H d H^ * ^ p3. 4 o 1 POMPEIANA. 15 deep porch toward the Forum. By con- sulting the plan, it may be observed that this porch, formed by sixteen pilasters, and paved with white marble, is of more conse- quence than the general line of portico sur- rounding the Forum, being about 126 feet by 39', and the fragments of the repeated inscrip- tion before mentioned lying near, but by no means opposite to the spot, seem, in some degree, to confirm the hypothesis of Signer Becchi, which, in the absence of a better, has met with general support. The remains of a marble pavement, and the evident traces of iron or brass gates which closed the south end of this portico, show that it was appro- priated to some particular purpose. More- over, at the south angle of the supposed colonnade is a new pillar of marble, placed quite close to one of the old stone columns of the Forum. It is so close to the old column that it could not be finished on that side, proving that the old pillar was intended to have been taken away, and that a new colonnade was beginning to be erected. The plan is sufficiently clear to enable the reader to form his own judgment. Nothing, 16 POMPEIANA. however, seems more difficult than to draw any precise conclusion from the hints which the ancients have left us of the use of a Chalcidicum. Vitruvius says that, if pos- sible, the Chalcidica should be placed at the extremities of the Basilica. This would seem to imply a portico. He also says that the Chalcidica should have two ranges of columns, the upper being one-fourth less than the lower. The pillars of the upper portico, in which it seems merchants trans- acted business, stood upon a sort of pluteus instead of a balustrade, so that those who were in the upper gallery were not easily seen by those below. This would make the Chalcidicum a sort of exchange. Ausonius, cited in Wilkins's Vitruvius, makes the Chal- cidica the same as TIlEPniA, or upper rooms, used as magazines. Moreover, there seems to have been a sort of earth or plaster called Chalcidica, used for the preservation of corn ; and, to add to the difficulty of form- ing a just idea on the subject, we find the word sometimes explained as a causidicum, or court of justice, a mint, baths, coenacu- lum, and a portico, invented at Chalcis in POMPEIANA. 17 Eiiboea. It is possible the edifice at Pom- peii may have served as a place of resort for merchants, and might have had a court of justice in the semicircle or tribunal which fronts the oreat entrance from the Forum, where Signor Becchi supposes the statue of the Pieta Concordia to have been erected in a niche. This statue was found near the spot. The head was wanting, and the robe was bordered with a gilded or red stripe, not unlike the Laticlave. It might have been the figure of a Roman empress. There seems no objection to the supposition that the Crypto-porticus might have served for a Coenaculum, having been connected with the open portico by a door on each side and eleven windows, which could be opened or closed according to the season, as their mar- ble lintels sufficiently demonstrate. There exist also certain pedestals of white marble on the spot, which seem to have served as supports to slabs or tables of the same ma- terial. The staircase on the rioht of the grand entrance makes it probable that there was either an upper colonnade or a terrace 18 POMPEIANA. for walking round the Hypiie thrum, and a second seems to have ascended from the porch or Chalcidicum to the roof of the Crypto-porticus. The folding-doors at the great entrance turned upon sockets or um- bilici of brass, and were secured by two bolts which were shot into holes j^et visible in the centre of the marble threshold, twelve feet six inches wide. The court seems to have been paved with white marble, of which material were also the steps and the forty- eight Corinthian columns of the peristyle, which is 157 feet in length and 13 feet 6 inches in breadth ; and here also were found certain cisterns, evidently used for washing, which serve again to confuse any precon- ceived ideas of the uses of the building, par- ticularly when combined with the dedica- tion of the statue of Eumachia by the Ful- lones, who must have been either the washers or dyers of Pompeii. The Hypae thrum, or court, was about 120 feet long, by less than half that breadth. The columns were ranged on each side to the number of eighteen. The two ends had POMPEIANA. 19 only eight each. There was evidently a pro- jection from the portico in front of the tri- bune. The whole edifice, with the porch in the Forum, would be included in a qua- drande of about 126 feet 8 inches in breadth, and double that length ; scarcely any thing being rectangular at Pompeii, a defect ge- nerally prevailing throughout Italy at the present day. The porticos are about fifteen feet seven inches wide, but almost all the columns had been excavated and removed by the ancients. Every part seems to have been well finished, and covered with thin plates of marble where such a decoration was requisite ; but the earth appears to have been displaced and the edifice ransacked for the purpose of carrying off these mar- bles in ancient times. It must have been repairing at the time of the eruption, as a piece of marble was found on the spot with a line drawn in charcoal to guide the chisel of the stone-cutter. The walls of the crypt are painted in large panels, alternately red and yellow, having in the centre of each some little figure or landscape. One, which ^0 POMPEIANA. is now, or once existed, in the northern di- vision, has been selected as the head-piece or vignette to the present chapter, as pre- senting a pretty and picturesque group of buildings, and serving to give an idea of the beautiful effects which must have been fre- quently produced by the various combina- tions of shrines, columns, and ornamental pediments in the cities of Greece and Italy. Below these panels are smaller divisions, in which, on a black ground, are painted flowers, not unlike the lily in form, but ge- nerally of a red colour. It is not impossible that some sorts of flowers, and particularly bulbous roots, may have been lost in Italy, as we rarely find that invention has been substituted for reality in a department of nature which affords such vast and pleasing variety. Some are of opinion that the red flowers in question resemble the Guernsey lily. They might be said to be more like the Iris in form. There is no Crypt on the side near the Forum, and that on the oppo- site end is somewhat narrower than those of the flanks. In the centre of this innermost POMPEIANA. 21 Crypt, which is there fifteen feet eight inches wide, exactly behind the semicircular tri- bunal, and close to the staircase before men- tioned as ascending from the Via dei Mer- canti, is a recess painted in green and red panels, in the centre of which is the statue of Eumachia, the public priestess, and the foundress of the Chalcidicum, the Crypt, and the Portico, not ungracefully executed in white marble. She is represented about five feet four inches in height, and stands on a pedestal about three feet from the pavement, on which is inscribed — EVMACHIAE • L • F SACERD • PUBL FVLLONES. Plate IX. gives a representation of the re- cess and the statue as they were first dis- covered in the year 1820. The figure has been carefully preserved by a modern roof, and still remains in a case on the spot. The door which is seen painted on the wall in this plate seems to have been intended to correspond with the door of the staircase 22 POMPEIANA. opening to the Via del Mercanti. It is worthy of remark, because no real doors remain. It is six feet wide, and ten and a half high, and is separated into three folds, with eight lines of division painted between each. A ring; in the centre served to close it. Doors seem to have been called Bi- valves, when only formed of two folds, but became Valvatse, Volubiles, and Versatiles when the number of folds increased greatly, which must have been the case when the wide openings of the Tablinum were to be closed. The learned Cavaliere Carelli, in the account of the Temple of Isis, pur- poses giving an account of these varieties. Little more can be added to this very im- perfect account of an edifice of a description so equivocal. It is much to be doubted whether the seventeen pilasters, each about three feet square, have any relation to the portico commonly called the Chalcidicum; and, were it not for the fine marble pave- ment, their defective construction would rather lead us to suppose them the only remains of a range of low arches on piers POMPEIANA. 23 which might have surrounded the Forum of Pompeii previously to the first earthquake, and which had been generally replaced by handsome Doric colonnades before the final destruction of the city. The absence of the eighteenth pier, and the substitution of a column, one side of which is left rough, at the junction of the street with the Forum, and which was absolutely necessary to the supposed Chalcidicum, render it highly pro- bable that the piers rather belonged to an old building on the point of being removed, than to a newly-constructed edifice. On the ex- ternal w all of the Crypt, in the Via dei Mercanti, is a notice of a show of gladiators, such as seems to have been usually aflSxed to the walls of public buildings on these occa- sions. A. SVETTII. CERII iEDILIS. FAMILIA. GLADIATORIA. PVGNABIT POMPEIS. PR. K. JVNIAS. VENATIO. ET. VELA ERVNT. Which may bear this interpretation : " The troop of gladiators of Aulus Suettius Cerius, 24 POMPEIANA. the sedile, will fight in Pompeii on the last day of May. There will be a venatio, or chase of wild beasts, and shades to keep off the heat of the sun will be extended over the spectators." It seems that those who had been aediles frequently gave such games for the amusement of the populace. On the external wall of the Crypt is also the inscription — SABINVM. ET. RVFVM. JE. D. R. P VALENTIWS CVM. DISCENTES SVOS. ROG. It may seem extraordinary that these sediles, so worthy of the republic, should protect a person like this Valentinus, who wrote di- scentes, instead of disceiitibus, at his own door. Perhaps the following inscription on the same wall, or in the neighbourhood, may be interesting, as tending to prove the opulence of the city : C. CVSPIVM. PANSAM. JED. AVRIFICES. A^NIVERSI ROG. POMPEIANA. 25 " All the goldsmiths invoke Caius Cuspius Pansa, the aedile/' On the wall of the Crypt of Eumachia are written at length the words siGLA. FAC. FACiT., which have been useful in determining the disputed meaning of the three initials. The temple adjoining the Chalcidicum on the north, with the basso relievo representing a sacrifice in the centre of the area, in which some have imagined the features of Cicero were distinguishable, has, since the publication of the former Pompeiana, been supposed to have been rather dedicated to Quirinus than Mercury, who seems to have had very little claim to it. The following inscription is copied from the work of the learned and indefatigable Cavaliere Arditi, the truly respectable pa- triarch of Neapolitan antiquaries, who has restored it. He says it was found on a pe- destal near the entrance of this temple, and adduces it, very rationally, in support of the more recent appellation: — "Romulus Martis filius urbem Romam condidit et res:- navit annos '■plus minus quadraginta, isque VOL. I. E 26 POMPEIANA. Acrone duce hostium et rege Caeninensium interfecto spolia opima Joxi Feretrio con- secravit, receptusque in deorum numerum Quirini nomine appellatus est a Romanis/' POMPEIANA. 27 CHAPTER III. On entering the Forum from the great gate of the Chalcidicum, which opened in- wards and was fastened by two bolts into the pavement, it will be observed that much has been effected since the publication of the plan in the year 1818. On the right of the Temple of Jupiter or E 2 28 POMPEIANA. Senaculum, or, as it has since been called, the ^^rarium, the whole space has been cleared, and a colonnade, consisting of an upper and lower range of elegant pillars of the Corinthian order, the bases of seventeen of which yet remain in their places, has been discovered. These columns are placed on plinths three inches in height and two feet five inches square, upon which are circular bases eight inches high. The shafts, which are in part corded, are about one foot eleven inches in diameter. The diameter of the upper range did not exceed one foot three inches. The intercolumniation was about five feet six, and, within the portico, was a pedestal opposite to every pillar. The restoration in the former Volume of Pom- peiana is defective with regard to the two ranges here, and, probably, in other parts of the Forum. From this portico was the great entrance into the building commonly called the Pantheon, w^hich will be hereafter described, and from the upper portico it is very probable that a connexion existed with the gallery of the same building, seemingly accessible by no other means. The exit POMPEIANA. 29 from the Forum on this side was under a species of Triumphal Arch, exceeding its fellow in dimensions, probably in order that its greater distance from the Forum might have rendered them apparently equal when viewed from the centre. The arch offered a passage twelve feet eight inches in breadth, and the piers were nearly of the same magnitude. Within these has been a receptacle for water and, pos- sibly, some sort of fountain for rendering it useful. At the opposite extremity of the Forum, two habitations have been excavated near the house discovered by General Cham- pionet during the year 1826, but, except the pavements, they appear to have been anciently stripped of every species of de- coration, and therefore have little to recom- mend them to notice. M. Bibent observes that the four columns of the house of Cham- pionet are placed upon the pavement, and that, consequently, they may be considered as having been subsequently erected, and offer no argument in favour of columns in the Cavsedium. The opposite side of the same street lead- 30 POMPEIANA. ing to the excavation of the Regina Carolina has also been examined, but without bring- ing to light anything of importance. On examining in certain lights portions of the painted wall under the colonnade of the Ba- silica, many inscriptions may be perceived faintly scratched with a sharp point by the idlers of Pompeii. Some of them have been published, but without an acknowledgement to the Author, from whose portfolio they were furnished. They are stated to be painted on an outer wall to the east, but it will save trouble to mention that they are to be found on the inner or south side of the north wall. They are not remarkable for correctness either of style or sentiment, but among the least exceptionable are the following. Nemo nisi Bulius nisi qui amavit mulierem. H. Caesari. tertio Germanico. Caesare iter. Amianthus. Epaphra. tertius ludant cum Idysto Jucundus Nolanus petat. NC. Restiticus. Non est ex albo Judex patre Aegyptio. EPwS. and AAE^JANAPOS POMPEIANA. 31 VIBIVS SECVNDVS is painted in large letters. Again, scratched with a point are in another place, C. Pumidius Dipilus lieic fuit Ad noiias octobreis. M. Lepid. Q. Catul. Cos. On the north wall also are, Lucrio et Salus hie fuerunt Damas audi Phebus Arescus. A. Proism nefario Sumsit sibi casta Muthunium. Suavis vinaria sitit rogo vos et valde sitit. There is also a libel on the reputation of a female named Lucilia : Lucilia a corpore lucrum fecit. Many others are to be read with difficulty, and without much improvement in morals or orthography. The view, Plate X., of the lower part of the shafts of the columns which formed the peristyle of the Forum is calculated to give an idea of the present state of the ruins, and 32 POMPEIANA. of the ornamented pedestals, which, when they supported their statues, must have added so materially to the beauty and interest of the spot. These pedestals are decorated with a Doric frieze, and one yet retains its dedi- catory inscription. C. CVSPIO. C. F. PANSAE ll. VIR. I. D. QVART. QVINQ EX. D. D PEC PVB They are all of white marble. In front of them, other pedestals, of more ancient date and rude construction, may be observed, which were evidently intended to be re- placed by the more elegant models which were erecting at the moment of the last fatal catastrophe. Bonucci conjectures that these pedestals sustained the statues of the Scauri, Gelliani, Holconii, and other worthies of Pompeii. That species of bench or table which is seen in the recess behind the first column on the rio;ht in Plate X. is remarkable for containing two measures used as the stand- ards, probably, for grain in the market of POMPEIANA. 33 Pompeii. The stone is a thick horizontal slab, pierced perpendicularly by two inverted cones truncated at the smaller end. Baskets or sacks were placed beneath, and a flat piece of wood was held so as to prevent the grain from running out at the bottom, till, the measure being full, the contents, on the removal of the wood, fell into the recipient. The smaller may be about half the size of the larger. Bonucci mentions a stone, in the Royal Museum at Naples, which con- tains measures of liquids as well as of solids, and with the names of the magi- strates to authenticate them. Such public measures were probably common to all the cities of antiquity. Travellers may observe one of these stones in a wall near the north gate of Fondi, and another, with three dif- ferent measures, on the ground near that of Naples. It may be necessary to observe that the great building on the west of the Forum called the House of the Dwarfs, and the Temple of Bacchus in the first work on Pompeii, seem now to have acquired, uni- 34 POMPEIANA. versally, the name of Venus and the College of Venerei. Bonucci says an inscription was found on the spot which would decide the question, but he has not given it in the original Latin. The general meaning is, that " Marcus Holconius Rufus, Duumvir Judge for the first time, and C. Egnatius Postumus, Duumvir Judge for the second time, have bought, according to a decree of the Decurions, the right to close the windows, for the sum of three thousand sesterces, and they have also raised the private wall of the Incorporated College of Venerei as his^h as the roof/' These win- dows, it is probable, looked toward the Forum. On quitting the Forum, by the opening near a low door, which is that of a prison, may be observed the figure of a goat upon the pier of a house where milk was sold ; and, near it, the picture of fighting gla- diators, which has been roughly represented in the preceding work, is seen upon the wall of a house which, from its sign, and a sword which was found at its excavation, is now POMPEIANA. 35 commonly called the school of fencing. Un- der the goat is written M. CASELLIVM iED. DIF. FAC. FIDELIS. . . . The inscription under this is so ill written that it is not without difficulty decipher- able. It is like the celebrated inscription in the Baths of Titus, except that Venus alone, of all the divinities of Pompeii, threatens revenoje to the transgressor. The Roman inscription runs thus: Duodecim Deos et Dianam et Jovem Optimum Blaximum habeant iratos Quisquisj &c. This of Pompeii is *' Abiat Venere Pom- peiiana iratam qui hoc laeserit." It is un- necessary to remark on the Latinity of this inscription, in which the principal word is written rather bompiliana than as it ought to be. The protecting iedile is named Marcellvm. The practice of rendering sacred any spot, either by painting or in- scription, appears to have been common ; and Persius says, that two serpents painted 36 POMPEIANA. upon a wall were supposed to sanctify the spot, and prevent the wilful accumulation of filth there, much as the cross or a penny print of the Madonna is vainly used in modern Naples for the same purpose. In this curious painting the two personages seem to be Tetraites and Prudens. PRVDES. I. XIIX. TETRAITES. L. X. This has most ingeniously been translated in the Museo Borbonico, and signifies " Pru- dens invincible in the eighteenth combat. Tetraites, who fell in the tenth/' This sense is obtained by calling the letter I " in- victus" and the L "• lapsus." They are com- batants, according to this author, called Mirmillones, as may be seen by the fish on their helmets. A herald separates the com- batants, and gives a wand to the victor. Near this on a pier is — MARCELLVM. ET. CELSINVM. AED. ... NO VICI CAVLO + AC This street runs to the right, in the di- rection of the north entry of the Pantheon. To the west it is slightly curved, and, at a Pi M a H ' — H ^ D roMPi:iANA. 37 little distance from the Forum, may be seen an altar, probably consecrated to Jupiter, placed against the wall of a house upon the raised footpath. It is represented in Plate XL, and is not without interest. It has been engraved by Mazois, to whose work a copy of the original drawing was presented by the author, but not acknow- ledged in the text. The eagle alone, in the painted tympanum, seems to indicate Jupiter as the presiding deity. The remains of a basso relievo in stucco are too much mutilated to be traced with precision. On quitting the Forum, by the triumphal arch on the east side of the temple of Jupiter, the street, now called that of For- tune from the temple of the goddess, pre- sents itself, terminated at the extremities by triumphal arches, which, though now sufficiently lofty, were probably still' more elevated, as, before the excavation, their present summits were on a level with the soil of the vineyard. It is possible the statues on that of the Forum were removed after the destruction of the city, and pro- bable that those of the other arch were 38 POMPEIANA. thrown down by the earthquake, as the frag- ments were found below. The street of Fortune is one of the most spacious in Pompeii, being 26 palms wide and nearly 200 feet long. It is flanked by footpaths on each side ; and, besides its ter- minations in triumphal arches, the portico of the temple of Fortune must have added great dignity to its appearance. The first pier on the right is decorated by a relievo, in terra cotta, of two men carrying wine, which was probably sold at the house. At this angle was an inscription with the name of Samellius, in which the letters ID in the second line have been taken for the word Judex. M. SAMELLIVM MILIVM. MAIVM. D. V. ID AVRELIVS. CIVEM. BONVM. FAC PAQVVIVM. D. V. I. DO Close to the pavement on this pier was a remarkably spirited griflin, on a black ground, which has now disappeared. The street running to the right from this end of the Forum has been called, on the spot, the Strada dei Frutti Secchi, from an inscrip- POMPEIANA. 39 tion showing that dried fruits were sold in it. On the right we find a range of shops, in front of which ran a portico, or vestibule, with piers and columns. On one of these piers is the inscription — A. VETTIVM AED SACCARJ. ROG showing that even those who carried sacks were considered as a bodj^ or corporation, and stood in need of a patron. Nearly opposite the entrance to the Thermae, which occupies the centre of this street on the left hand, is a house on the right of more con- sequence than the rest. It has received the name of the house of Bacchus, from a large painting of the god yet existing on a wall opposite to the entry. Canals for the introduction of water are found in the Atrium, which has been sur- rounded by a small trough, or parterre of natural flowers, the side of which next the eye is painted blue, to represent water on which boats are floating. The wall behind this is painted with pillars, between which run balustrades of various forms, and upon 40 POMPEIANA. these perch cranes and other birds, not badly painted, with a background of reeds or plants, and the sky visible behind. The effect must have been pretty when the whole was perfect. In the same house is the pic- ture of a male and female sitting at the base of a pillar, attended by three Cupids. In the back ground is a tree, with mountains in the distance. Nothing can exceed the grace of these figures in the original, and, on that account, an outline of the picture has been, among others, selected for this work. Vide Plate XII. In the same house is a pavement of coloured marbles, in the nature of the opus Alexandrinum, which is pretty, and is there- fore given at the end of this work, in Plate LXXVIII. At present (1827) the habitations on the right hand, or east side of the street of For- tune, have been little excavated, so that it is difficult to say what they may hereafter produce. A small statue of Fortune, with a diadem and crescent on her head, and a lotus, like Isis, was found in this street. She was re- ?Ia.La IXXT/: ^ ^ f3^^_E^_^3E^3^ E3 fl n n f, H ' — ' * .r.:-i ty Feuiier S(irs*.C POINIPEIANA. 41 presented at Smyrna with the Polar Star on her front. An oval ball, and a pair of golden ear-rings were also discovered, together with a silver ladle or spoon. Many of the pilasters had inscriptions which have been since defaced. On the second of these Lucius Popidius the iEdile was recorded as the protector of the house. On the third Caius CuspiusPansa. On the seventh SABINVM. PANSAM. AED SVLIODVS. ROG. On the ninth is CASELLIVM AED Q. NUMISIVM MAIViM. AED. OR PRISCVM. On the fifteenth we find Pansa again, who was certainly among the most powerful of the patrons of Pompeii, and had a numerous list of clients. This street seems to have been more than usually productive in bronzes. Among other things a pretty Mercury upon a rock, three inches high, the statue of a female nine VOL. I. F 42 POMP EI AN A. inches high, another Mercury four inches high, and many bronze lamps and stands were excavated. Several vases, basins with handles, one of which was formed by the wings of swans, paterae, bells, an inkstand, a strigil, elastic springs, a needle, hinges or cardines, a lock, buckles for harness, an oval caldron, a mould for pastry, and a saucepan, contribute to our knowledge of the common utensils of the Ancients. Here have also been discovered no fewer than two hundred and fifty little bottles of common glass, forty-one bottles nine inches high, four decanters and many fluted tum- blers, six tumblers eight inches high and only two inches and two-fifths in diameter, with thirty cups of green glass, and four plates six inches in diameter. Besides these were found several bottles formed of four bulbs united, twenty-six tazze, and ten other cups. In marble was discovered a small laughing Faun, a disc of porph3^ry, and a weight, used in spinning by hand, of alabaster with its ivory axis remaining. The list fi- nishes with a leaden weight, forty-nine com- mon pottery lamps with masks and animals. POMPEIANA. 43 forty-five lamps with two lights, three tills, or boxes, with a slit, to keep money, and, in these, thirteen coins of Titus, Vespasian, and Domitian. Seven glazed plates were also dug up, which are a great curiosity, and were found packed in straw, but which the Au- thor did not see. Seventeen jars of terra cotta, unvarnished, and seven dishes in the same state, with a large pestle and mortar, complete the numerous list given in one of the reports. An account of scales, said to have been found about the time of the same excava- tion, appeared in print at Naples. They were of a species, according to the work, called '/^f^i^uyia, ffrarri^och trutinie Campanae, (r UiKopsiuc itpai 15.1830. POMPEIANA. 53 placed under a pediment supported by two Corinthian columns of marble not ten inches in diameter, the capitals of which have the Roman eagles in the foliage, probably in honour of the imperial portrait. It is pos- sible that a small space open to the sky ex- isted between these doors and the roof of the portico surrounding the Forum. These doors do not exactly correspond with the centre of the interior portico, though the reason for this defect is not apparent. Near this entrance ninety-three brass coins were found at the excavation. On the left of the entrance the wall, with its paintings, has been remarkably well preserved, and, when it was fresh, nothing could exceed the beauty of the colouring, or the elegant effect produced by the contrast of its many vivid tints with the large black panels on which the principal pictures are painted. Though a roof has been placed over it, no idea can be now^ formed of the splendour of its appear- ance at the moment of excavation. It is in vain that one of that sort of ar- chitectural openings between the black pa- nels is attempted to be given in Plate XIV., 54 POMPEIANA. the view of the entire wall only could pre- sent any adequate idea of the beauty of the decorations, and, in the size of this work, it was impossible to crowd so many minute objects, with any degree of distinctness. It is to be understood that the panels on each side are of considerable extent, and that, in their centres, the beautiful paintings of Ulysses and Penelope, Plate XV., iEthra and Theseus, Plate XVI., and the Muse, Plate XVII., are placed. These panels are, at intervals, separated by various architec- tural compositions, through the openings of which are seen other buildings. Along the whole runs a sort of podium or base, gene- rally of a yellow colour and highly orna- mented, in which are compartments with figures, one of which, a female, has been selected for the base in Plate XIV., with a lyre, as more elegant than that which hap- pens to be placed there in the original, which is also much defaced. The drawing from which this figure was reduced for the work was made by M. Zahn, Architectural Painter to the Elector of Hesse Cassel, an indefati- gable and exact artist, who will contribute THE SEU S, LoixBcmSBcixxt Jennings & Vfilha'sn. Chavt ; ' POMPEIANA. 55 much to the embellishment of his native country on his return, and who kindly per- mitted the Author to copy and publish his picture. The picture of Theseus regaining the sword of his father iEgeeus, by the advice of his mother iEthra, who showed him the rock under which the weapon lay concealed, has been selected for Plate XVI., and that of Ulysses as a mendicant questioned by Penelope is given in Plate XV. That of a Muse, probably Thalia from the mask in her lap, also from the panels of this portico, has been chosen for Plate XVII. All subjects mentioned by poets or hi- storians have a value as conveying to our senses the conception which the ancients themselves had formed of circumstances, with which they were more intimately con- nected than ourselves. The work of Millin, aided by the treasures of Pompeii and Her- culaneum, may probably, in time, enable us to produce editions of the classics illustrated by ancient art. It may be necessary to add, that none of these pictures have that strong effect of lioht and shadow which is the cha- )6 POMPEIAXA. racteristic of modern painting, and must have been the invention of a nation which lived more in the house than the Greeks and Romans. Though the pictures are shaded, it is onl}^ to a depth that might exist in the open air. In Plate XV. Ulysses has a j'ellow robe or chlamys, under which he wears a white tunic. Penelope has a white veil and a violet-coloured robe, and, in her left hand, the implements of spinning. The Penelope and Thalia have been pub- lished by Signor Nicolini, and ^Ethra by Signor Bonucci at Naples. That this edifice was intended for a great number of people may be proved by the very considerable depth of the porticos, being twenty-four feet on the western side, which must have been covered by timber, and sloped inwards to the court, where a broad channel received the water from the roof. It is possible that the southern, western, and northern sides only had porticos, and that the eastern was left open toward the temple to admit lig^ht. The site of the twelve co- lumns on the north and south, and those on the west, only eight in number, is very POMPEIANA. 57 visible on the step which supported them. The step on the east may possibly have been replaced bj^ the excavators if found imper- fect, which is asserted. On the south is a line of eleven cham- bers, of small dimensions, the twelfth divi- sion serving for an entrance, by several steps, from a narrow alley. Their size is about ten feet by eight. Some are inclined to imagine that these were the lodo-ings of the Augustales, who had the care of the place, but they do not appear to admit of privacy, and these chambers have every ap- pearance of having served for separate re- pasts of small parties. They are all painted in red panels. Several marbles were found marked with large Roman numerals, but, being only one foot asunder, they are too near to each other to have served as num- bers to the little apartments: XI. X. VIII. These fragments evidently formed part of a small frieze and architrave. Above this range of cells, on the south side, has been a second story, as is evident from the beams which supported the upper tioor, and the painted walls of the higher VOL. I. G 58 PO:\[PEIANA. rooms. It is not easy to discover how these apartments were approached, unless by an external staircase, no stairs being seen at present in the interior of the building, but it seems evident that a long and narrow gal- lery, supported on the piers which divided the cells, must have been the only method of communication. This gallery was under the portico, and must have resembled that in a similar situation in the corridor of the theatre commonly called the Soldiers' quar- ters. These upper rooms were probably called coenacula which, according to Fes- tus, were accessible by stairs. " Coenacula dicuntur ad quae scabs ascenditur." Apu- leius mentions an upper coenaculum, by which he implies the common existence of the lower. In these rooms were low cir- cular tables of fir or maple with three legs. On some occasions tables of great price were used, made of citron wood, or covered with plates of silver, and having legs of ivory. Mention is also made of mensae monopodiae, or tables with one foot ; and it is curious that the Greeks used no tablecloth like their de- scendants at present, while the great Ro- rOMPEIANA. 59 mans indulged in draperies of wool or silk embroidered or striped with gold and pur- ple. This, however, was not in fashion pre- viously to the emperors. G uests brought their own napkins to dinner at private houses; but as their slaves made it a common practice to steal what they could wrap up in them on retiring, the host at length supplied napkins to his friends. Guests came in white or gay dresses, the room was sprinkled with per- fumes, they mounted by steps to a lofty tri- clinium, sometimes inlaid with ivory, bronze, and shells, or mother-of-pearl, and reposed on soft mattresses covered with costly dra- pery. Their hands and feet were newly washed, and the latter sometimes fitted with slippers. Dinner was preceded by oysters, eggs, asparagus, lettuce, onions, figs, and mulsum of wine mixed with honey to give an appetite. Such an extravagant banquet as must follow is the only one likely to be left on record. In the coenacula of Pompeii there was not space sufficient for those who were not content to sit at the table with their backs to the wall. Ladies, indeed, always sat at table till the time of the Csesars ; and G 2 GO POMPEIANA. the recumbent posture, derived through the Greeks from Asia, could only have been adopted a little previously to that period. The open court is paved with a species of hard cement in which pebbles have been set, and, in the centre of it, is placed a tho- los or dodecagonal building having no walls, but consisting, originally, merely in a roof supported by twelve piers. It was paved with white marble, and, from the situation and substance of the piers, it seems pro- bable the roof consisted of lio;ht timbers meeting in an apex in the centre, and with projecting eaves. The roof of the tholos at Puteoli was supported by marble columns. The court being a parallelogram, and the tholos of such a form that its angles might be inscribed in a circle, its distance from the lateral porticos was only four feet. In the centre may have been some sort of a support to the roof, but no traces of it re- main. The excavators related that a hand holding a globe was found in this spot — cer- tainly it w as discovered in some part of the building. Some have imagined a statue in the centre. POMPEIANA. 61 At the north-eastern angle of the court is observed a singular projection from the wall of the building, which has been ima- gined a place for musicians or for distri- buting wines and liquors, and a sort of bar for the receipt of money. Its use is not easily understood. Beyond this, and form- ing the angle of the building, is an apart- ment or enclosure about thirty-five feet in length, and nearly of the same breadth, de- corated with many now defaced paintings and panels, and, among other subjects, that of sea-horses touched with great spirit. Here is also a sacellum which has had its statue and its altar ; and it does not seem impossible that the means of cooking for men, or of offering burnt sacrifices to the Gods, were afforded by elevated hearths 3^et found in this quarter. A Latin author says " Culina^ prope templa erant in quibus dapes funerum parabantur." There zvere kitchens near temples in which funereal t^epasts were prepared. If that were the case, the place was either open, or only partially covered by a roof, so that the smoke might escape. The walls are decorated with sea-horses and 62 rOMPElANA. griffins, dogs hunting stags, and a lioness hunting two bulls. The central picture is defaced. Many Cupids appear on these walls, with and without wings, and a boy is seen feedino; an ea2;le. The centre of the eastern side was occu- pied by the temple, while the other angle, in a space nearly corresponding with that last mentioned, presents objects the uses of which it is equally difficult to ascertain. A sort of table here runs round three sides of the apartment, about three feet wade, at the distance of about three feet from the northern, as much from the eastern, and nine from the southern wall, leaving an unoccupied space in the centre of about thirty feet. The table is divided in the middle of the eastern side by a narrow passage, and in- , clines from the walls toward the centre, while a channel runs under it calculated to receive whatever fell from its sloping surface. This channel runs through an aperture under the table on the south side by which the water or blood was carried off. Had this table or bench of the height of an ordinary table sloped to the other side, it might cer- POMPEIANA. 63 tainly have been supposed, though too nar- row, a sort of triclinium, or the elevation on which cushions or beds were laid for a banquet ; but, from the proximity of the wall, it is only on the south side that tables could be placed, and the head must neces- sarily have been higher than the feet. The other benches, or triclinia, would have been useless according to this theory, which must consequently be abandoned. It is there- fore probable that the table has been used for cutting up the victims for the Gods, or for carvino- different viands for the feast, or possibly for both purposes, and the slope might have been calculated for the better exposition of whatever was sold or offered. The whole being coloured with red paint gives an air of probability to this conjec- ture. It is impossible, however, to observe the whole without being strongly reminded of the tables of refreshments at a modern enter- tainment, which are often placed round three sides of the room, and afford, as these may have done at Pompeii, every species of warm and iced beverage, as well as a variety 64 POM PET AN A. of viands and sweetmeats. It is perhaps not generally known that snow was used for cooling water by the ancients, much in the same manner as among ourselves, and was sold in Rome as it is at present, as we learn from Pliny, Varro, and Suetonius. In the time of Seneca snow from the mountains was not only sold in ice-shops, but hawked about the streets of Rome. We have an account of snow preserved for summer use fifty years before the age of Alexander ; but the Greeks, as Athenaeus says, often cooled their water by evaporation, keeping boys all night employed in moistening jars for that purpose. The only remaining picture in this quar- ter is that of Acca Laurentia with Romulus and Remus. The introduction of that per- sonage in this place was probably only in compliment to the emperor as the repre- sentative of the Julian family. This space, if covered in part, must have had roofs hanging from and supported by the walls on three sides, for the whole could not easily have been protected from the weather. We now come to the temple which oc- rOMPEIANA. 65 cupies the central division on the eastern side of the edifice. Plate XVIII. repre- sents this part of the building. It is ap- proached by a flight of steps, constructed in what may be termed the pronaos, and which may be best understood by reference to the plan. It is not impossible that this pronaos may have been entered under a wide arch, rising from the antae, which return suf- ficiently in front to admit of two Corinthian pilasters and a painted panel between them on each side, and were by these rendered capable of supporting the weight. On the south wall of this pronaos is painted a sedent figure which some have taken for the emperor. It seems, however, a female with a sort of Bacchic thyrsus in one hand, and a dish of fruits in the other, neither of which attributes appears appli- cable either to the emperor or the Genius of Rome. Another figure may be Mars, or a hero with a shield. It is to be supposed that the statue of Augustus once stood on the pedestal at the extremity opposite the entrance, as one hand 66 POMPEIANA. of a figure grasping a globe was found near the spot. A statue, supposed of Livia, and one of Drusus, stood, at the time of the excavation, in the niches on the right and left ; two other niches were not yet filled. The whole cell is about twenty feet in length. The walls were probably painted, but no traces of the colour remain. As a temple, the building had little merit either in regard to magnitude, archi- tecture, or materials ; but the whole edifice, now vulgarly called the Pantheon, was of considerable importance in a city like Pom- peii, being at least 150 feet in length and above 90 in width ; and, whether dedicated to feasting in honour of the emperor, or to the daily resort of the citizens, it affords abundant proofs that, under one pretence or another, it was appropriated to the pleasures of the banquet. Opportunities and occasions were not wanting to render such a building neces- sary. Marcellus Donatus, who writes on the subject, gives three principal causes for a POMPEIANA. 67 public coenatio. An epulum or visceratio at a great funeral, a public sacrifice, or a feast in honour or commemoration of any for- tunate event. It is commonly imagined that the fes- tivals of the ancients were exclusively at- tended by males. The Romans, however, certainly admitted females in festive meet- ings, but did not permit them the enjoyment of wine. Aulus Gellius, lib. x. c. 23., says the Roman women were sometimes obliged to kiss their relations, that the latter might detect them if they had transgressed this law. The Greeks, however, did not admit females at feasts, except among near rela- tions ; but, on the other hand, they were not prohibited from a moderate use of the gifts of Bacchus. Bonucci says that near the great en- trance of this building was found the frag- ment of an inscription with these charac- ters : — AMINI . AUGUSTALI . SODALI AUGUSTALI. Q 68 POMPEIANA. Had the whole of the inscription remained, it is probable the nature of the edifice, com- monly called on the spot the Pantheon, would have been determined be3^ond dis- pute. POM PF, I ANA. 69 CHAPTER V. TEMPLE OF FORTUNE. The Temple of Fortune may be con- sidered as one of the best examples of the Roman style now remaining, and is doubly in- teresting as being the erection of the Tullian family, immortalized in the person of Cicero. 70 POMPEIANA. It is observable that this edifice neither stands exactly at right angles with the street of Fortune, nor exactly in the line of the street running between the baths and the house of Pansa. The portico is turned a little toward the Forum, and the front of the temple was so contrived that a part of it might also be seen from the other street. It is highly probable that these circum- stances were the result of design rather than of chance. The Greeks seem to have pre- ferred the view of a maornificent buildins: from a corner, and there is scarcely a right- angled plan to be found in either ancient or modern Italy. The Temple of Fortune is placed upon a podium or stylobate, the height of which protects it from the contamination of the street, and which was necessary where no peribolus existed. This consists of two mem- bers, the upper of which may be called a pluteus or stylobate. The whole may be about eight feet high, and is built with good blocks of Travertino stone. By the plan, Plate XIX., and the view of the remains, Plate XX., it may be seen that the ascent POMPEIANA. 71 was by two entrances of three steps each, separated by a platform projecting between them, on which stands a pedestal commonly supposed to have supported a statue, but which was, in all probability, the altar on which blazed the incense and sacrifices of the votaries of the fickle goddess of Antium and Preneste. Whether this was the custom in all cases has been doubted ; but neither victims, nor a great quantity of incense, could have been offered in any temple not hypaethral, without producing suffocation. The great circular altar may yet be traced at the east front of the Parthenon, which was hypffithral; and at Pompeii the temples of Venus, Isis, and iEsculapius offer abund- ant proof of the situation of the altars in front of the temples. The iron rails, which prevented the en- trance of the profane, are yet visible in front of this platform, and were passed by two gates five palms four inches wide, placed on the lower platform after an ascent of four steps. These steps are twice as wide as the iron gates, and nine perpendicular bars formed the rails to the right and left of 72 POMPEIANA. each entry. There were fifteen bars in the railing in front of the altar, and all seem wrenched and distorted, and broken by the fall of the entablature of the temple. The sanctity of the place rendered unnecessary any other protection, for even the cell had no door. From the platform, which ran along the whole width of the temple, a flight of eight steps ascended to the columns of the portico, which were of white marble, and of the Corinthian order. The whole was covered, both on the exterior and interior, with thin slabs of the same material. The capitals of the columns are one foot eleven inches in height ; those of the pilasters of what may be termed the antae are two feet. There were probably four against the front of the cell, for three yet remain. There is yet a rich block cornice and mouldings with well-cut roses of white marble lying on the ground. The measures of the Temple of Fortune are given in a work published at Naples thus : The podium ninety-two palms long by thirty-six broad. The palm here used is that of ten English inches. The stylobate POMPEIANA. 73 is eighty-three pidms long by thirty-five palms nine inches. The height of the stylo- bate is six palms six inches. The pronaos is thirty-one palms wide by twenty-nine long, according to the published account ; but there seems to be reason for supposing that the columns in front did not stand quite close to the upper step. Four columns were placed in front, and three in the flanks, reckoning the angles twice. The central intercolumniation was two palms wider than the other, and this is sup- posed to have been determined by the Nea- politan Author, from the position of the door and four pilasters against the angles, or an- tae, and front wall of the cell, the capitals of some of which yet exist. The flanks of the cell were decorated externally with five pilasters. These mea- suring from centre to centre eight feet six English, seem the safest guide for deter- mining the position and number of the co- lumns in the flanks of the portico. The cell is twenty- six palms nine inches wide, by thirty-four palms ten inches long, according to Si^nor Becchi. On the out- VOL. I. H 74 POMPEIANA. side, the cell measures about thirty-three feet eight inches English in length ; and, though those who have written on the subject have imagined three columns, including those of the angles in the flanks of the portico, and De Goro six, it is difficult to imagine how any number exceeding two could have cor- responded with the five pilasters. The great niche at the east end, in which were the shrine and statue of the Goddess, is seventeen palms wide, and the iEdicola it- self is ten palms wide. The shrine had an architectural canopy, of which the architrave is nine palms five inches long, and one palm two inches high, supported by two Corinthian pillars one palm three inches in diameter, of which the capi- tals, one palm three inches high, remain, though the whole had evidently been exca- vated by the ancients themselves in search of treasure. On the marble architrave is the inscription. M. TVLLIVS. M. F. D. V. I. D. TER. QVINQ. AVGVR. TR. MIL A, POP. AEDEM, FORTVNAE. AVGVST. SOLO. ET. PEQ. SVA By this we learn that the Goddess was named Fortuna Augusta, and that Marcus Tullius, POMPEIANA. 75 elected by the people three times, erected the temple on his own ground, and at his own expense. A small court, immediately under the south wall of the portico, was also the pro- perty of the same person, as is proved by the inscription on a volcanic stone erected close to the podium of the temple. M. TVLLII. M. F AREA. PRIVATA. In this court seem to have been the lodg- ings for the priests, and their kitchen. A head of Bacchus, which supported a round table, was found here, with two cups, a mor- tar, and other utensils of bronze. Some have thought fit to dispute the identity of this family of the Tullii with that of the great orator, and to give, as a reason, the absence of the word Cicero in these in- scriptions which Plutarch thought derived from the cultivation of pulse in ancient times, as was the case with the agricultural names of the families of Lentulus and Fabius. Others, however, thought that the orator was so named from a mole upon his nose in H 2 76 POMPEIANA the form of a vetch, in which case the name of Cicero was not borne by his ancestors but personal. The Temple of Fortune owes so much of its interest to the supposition that the family of Cicero was concerned in its erection, that it may be pleasing to see, by the genealogy, how improbable must be a contrary opinion. INIarcus TulHus=F IMarcus Tullius=f:Helvia . L M. Tullius Cicero- the Orator, born A.V.C. 647. be- fore X'. 107. =Terentia. Quintus= I A sou — I Lucius=^ I Lucius I Marcus It would appear, from this, highly probable that the Temple of Fortune must have been erected either by the great orator himself or his son, particularly as it is not known that his ancestors had property at Pompeii, and we have four generations with the name of Marcus, two of which are mentioned in these inscriptions. In the Temple of Fortune was found a statue which many thought that of Cicero himself. It was of the size of life, or about POMPEIANA. 77 six feet high. The hair, face, and eyes had been painted, and the toga was of a purple tint. A female statue was also found, but the face had been evidently cut off perpen- dicularly, that another face might be sub- stituted, possibly to save expense on some funeral ceremony. Her tunic had a border either of gold or of a red colour. On a basis of white marble, cylindrically hollowed, one foot two inches high, by about one foot five, and found at this temple, is inscribed AGATHEMERVS. VETTI SVAVIS. CAESIAE. PRIME POTHVS. NVMITORI ANTEROS. LACVTVLANT MINIST. PRIM. FORTVN. AVG. IVSS: M. STAI. RVFI. CN. MELISSAEI. D. V. I. D P. SILIO. L. VOLVSIO. SATVRN. COS. The Fasti Consulares give the name of c. siLivs to one of the Consuls in the year 13 of the Christian aera, and that is probably the date of the inscription. In the Area Privata, on the south side of theTempleof Fortune,are the vestiges of what seem to have been the offices of the priests. At the end near the altar is a hole which 78 POMPEIANA. may have served to facilitate the mystery of responses or oracles. Eusebius, in the fourth book of his Preparatio, cites a case in which mention is made, before the Roman magi- strates, of machines by which phantasmagoria and oracular prestiges were played off, and the shrine in the Temple of Fortune is so disposed as to admit of such impostures. On another base belonging to the Tem- ple of Fortune was found a second inscrip- tion. TAVRO. STATILIO TI. PLATILIO. AELIAN. COS. L. STATIVS. FAVSTVS. PRO SIGNO. QUOD. E. LEGE. FORTVNAE AVGVSTAE. MINISTORVM. PONERE DEBEBAT. REFERENTE. Q. POMPEIO. AMETHYSIO QVAESTORE. BASIS. DVAS. MARMORIAS. DECREVE- RVNT PRO. SIGNO PONIRET Several persons of the name of jElianus were Consuls, but they are generally of a period later than the destruction of Pompeii. Statilius Taurus is also a name not unfre- quent in the list of Consuls, but it is not easy to say which, if any one of them, is here named. The mistakes ministorum for ministrorum, POMPEIANA. 79 marmorias and poniret, are probably the faults of the sculptor : if not, the marble must be of a later time, which seems difficult. It is not a little strange that when a statue ought to have been placed, a couple of bases could serve in its stead if sculpture existed as an art at the time. In Plate XXI. is given a restoration of the Temple of Fortune, made upon a tracing from the original drawing as obtained by the camera lucida. The end proposed, in all re- storations, is to assist the unpractised spec- tator in understanding the application of the confused masses of architectural fragments which he often sees, without comprehending. For this purpose the disjointed members are reunited according to the known rules of architecture, and no greater mistake can easily occur than that of a diameter, more or less, in the height of the columns, which the experience of every new discovery teaches us not to have been so invariable as some have imagined. In the peristyle of a house excavated at Herculaneum in the year 1828 the Author observed columns of an order intended for Corinthian, the shafts of which are only four 80 POMPEIANA. diameters and three-fourths in height, not greatly different from those of the shortest examples of Doric. They were so far apart that beams of timber only were used as ar- chitraves, the whole of which remained per- fect, though converted into charcoal by the tufa produced by the eruption. The columns of the ancients seem to have been adapted to the building, and not the building to the columns. In fact, the outline of a Doric temple varied little from one of the Corinthian order ; but the latter aiming at lightness, slighter columns were used. The number was consequently in- creased and the entablature diminished, but the outline of the whole was the same. The gigantic temples of antiquity could never have been constructed had the architects adhered to the notion that the distance of two diameters and a half, called the eustyle, for the intercolumniation was essential, for architraves could not have been procured. On the other hand, some of the smaller tem- ples could not have been sufficiently acces- sible without resorting to the areostyle, re- quiring frequently architraves of timber, and, very often, that the architraves and frieze POMPEIANA. 81 should be of one block, when of marble, in order to resist the disposition to break which must arise from such long intervals between the points of suspension. The arch supported a bronze equestrian statue, supposed to be that of Caligula or Tiberius, which has been already noticed in the preface. This was discovered in the months of November and December, 1823, and beginning of 1824. The statue from the head to the horse was three feet high. The tail and hoof only of the horse were then found. The work was not of the first order. On a marble near it was found an inscrip- tion which would seem rather to prove that Augustus was the Emperor represented. STO. CAESARI PARENTI. PATRIAE. BoJiucci, however, says this was found in the temple. The capital and part of the shaft of a Doric pillar lying below the arch may have belonged to the ornaments of the arch itself; and the remains of water-pipes yet visible in the piers of the arch, with the vestiges of unfinished work in front, render the existence of fountains probable. The situation and present state of this 82 POMPEIANA. edifice will be thoroughly comprehended by a reference to Plate XXII., which represents the place as it appears from the roof of the natatorium or piscina of the baths, the cone or dome of which forms a principal object in the foreground, and which, from its construc- tion, would evidently have resisted the at- tacks of time, had it not projected above the soil of the vineyard. POMPEIANA. 83 CHAPTER VI. THERMiE EXCAVATED IN 1824. AxHENiEUs says, that, on a stone or marble at the entrance of a bath, was an in- scription which has been thus translated : " Balnea Vina Venus corrumpunt corpora sana Corpora sana dabunt Balnea Vina Venus." The design and destination of no edifice in the whole circuit of Pompeii is more 84 POMPEIANA. clearly and certainly established than in the case of the thermae or baths, occupying an irregular quadrilateral space lying to the north of the Forum. It is, nevertheless, not so easy to assign to every apartment its ap- propriate and classical name ; for, though many treatises have been written on the sub- ject of the baths of the ancients, the models referred to have been usually the stupendous piles of Imperial Rome, where innumerable chambers and porticos, adapted to various uses not necessarily connected with ablu- tion, have extended the thermee to a degree which, admitting of no comparison, destroys any analogy with a building dedicated to a single purpose. The Berlin edition of Vitruvius by Roder, and the English translation by Wilkins, have both exhibited the plan of certain Roman remains at Baden Weiler in Germany, as those nearest corresponding with the in- formation we have received from Vitruvius on the subject of the thermae of the an- cients, yet even these do not seem to agree precisely with the baths of Pompeii. At the Roman baths of Baden, according to POMPEIANA. 8.5 AVilkins, the exedra is at the entrance, from which a vestibule, having an elaeotheca on one side, and a heated stufa on the other, leads to a frigidarium, to which succeed a tepidarium and a caldarium. A repetition of this plan for the women's baths forms the whole of the edifice, and all seems perfectly intelligible. This is one of the few remains of thermee in which names can be assigned to the apart- ments with any degree of certainty. A learned man, Andreas Baccius, has collected an immense mass of all that the ancients have said on the subject; and, as they ap- pear to have described, according to circum- stances and situations, such buildings as each of them frequented, without reference to any common example, so a more inex- tricable confusion has perhaps never been produced than the whole of his most eru- dite dissertation. His facts have materially assisted the present account of the baths of Pompeii, and may be depended upon, though his quotations are not always correct as to the chapter and verse whence they were professedly taken. 86 POMPEIANA. Among others Celsus and Galen are cited, who, as physicians, directed their pa- tients in the order to be followed in the use of the baths ; but nothing as to the plan can be gained from these doctors, as the}^ differ as much as the other authors ; Celsus re- commending to his patients first the tepi- darium, then the caldarium, and lastly the frigidarium ; while Galen prescribes first the hot air of the laconicum, then the lou- tron or warm water bath, and then the fri- gidarium. The thermae of Pompeii may, perhaps, be best explained by comparison with the baths of the Turks and other oriental na- tions who, succeeding by conquest to the luxuries of the enervated Greeks and Ro- mans of the Eastern Empire, seem, as was most natural, to have retained the institution of the baths nearly in their original state. A bather in Turkey first enters a large apartment of a low temperature, furnished with couches in recesses, where he undresses and leaves his clothes, attended by a person who immediately furnishes him with another covering formed of long towels or Ts^/^^y^a, POMPEIANA. 87 answering to the subligar, and a rolled towel on the head, corresponding with the arculus of the Romans. This room seems, by its use, to correspond with the apodyterium of the ancients, which appears to have been the same as the frioidarium of smaller esta- blishments. On other occasions the tepidarium and apodyterium are mentioned as the same room, and those who bathed are said to have left their clothes in this doubly-named apart- ment, which answers to the first chamber of an oriental hamam, with the additional cor- respondence of being equally the station of persons who kept the garments of the bathers, and who were responsible, on pain of death, both by the ancient and modern law, for any theft committed. From the outer room of the Turkish bath the stranger is conducted through two or more rooms, each increasing in warmth, to a hall, generally vaulted, and heated to a degree which would be disagreeable to a per- son in ordinary habiliments, but to which he soon becomes reconciled, and which shortly produces a most profuse perspiration. 88 POMPEIANA. This can be no other than the laconicum of the ancients, which was, like it, vaulted and filled with warm air from stoves and hot water, and was called also caldarium, vapo- rarium, and sudatorium. This was anciently, as at present, a chamber under the pavement of which the heat of a furnace was introduced, whence it derived its appellation of h3^pocaustum. These are the principal divisions of a Turkish hamam, deriv^ed and continued from the Greeks and the Romans. The story of the taking of Alexandria by the Saracens, and the destruction of the library by the application of the volumes to the heating of the baths, is at least a proof that these in- stitutions did not fall into disuse during the general change of manners which then took place. To reason from analogy, and, at the same time, to avail ourselves of the numerous though perplexed accounts left us by the ancients, seems the most probable method of getting at the real uses of the Pompeian thermae. The grand entrance seems to have been i ^ POMPEIANA. 89 that in the street of Fortune, so called, at present, from the temple of that Goddess. This is seen in the general view of the thermae, Plate XXIV., being the only en- trance remaining perfect, near the centre of the street leading to the Forum. All or many of the rooms opening into the street, on each side this entrance, seem to have been vaulted, thus contributing to the support of the arches thrown over the larger chambers in the interior. This entry or passage, marked 21 on the plan, vide Plate XXIIL, opened into a court, 20, about sixty feet long, bounded on two sides by a Doric portico, and on the third by a crypt. Over the crypt was a second story, where the doubtful indications of a chimney may be observed. At the opposite angle of the court was another exit, also marked 21, leading into an alley which runs from the Forum to the house of Pansa. At this exit was the latrina, 22, the uses of which are unequivocally visible. The spot marked 19, which is observable in Plate XXVI., and is singular on account VOL. I. I 90 rOMPElANTA. of a sort of pi'onaos with seats, is vaulted, and has been lighted at night by a lamp so placed that its rays fell into the chamber 15 on one side, and enlightened 19 on the other. The same contrivance existed in the re- cess 14, where a lamp gave light also to the portico. Both these lamps were protected by cir- cular convex glasses, the fragments of which were found in the inner chambers at their excavation. As the baths of Pompeii were not of consequence sufficient to be furnished with every sort of apartment like those of the capital, we are to look for the vestibulum and the exedra, or a place which might serve instead of them, near the entrance of the therm?e. " In vestibulo deberet esse porticus ad deambulationes his qui essent ingressuri." That portico is undoubtedly the one in the court ; and the exedra, so called from the g^^a;, or seats, where those who did not choose to walk in the portico might repose, is represented by the bench which runs along POMPEIANA. 91 the wall. Vitruvius mentions that, while some were bathing, others were generally waiting to succeed them. In this court or vestibule was found a sword vvith a leather sheath, and the box for the quadrans, or money, which was paid by each visiter. The quadrans was the fourth part of the assis and the fourteenth part of a denarius ; a sum so moderate that the heat- ins: of the baths could not have been de- frayed without a crowd of bathers. The Poet remarks upon the trifling sum with which a man made himself as happy as a king : " Dum tu quadrante lavatum Rex ibis." Horace, Sat. III. Juvenal says that youths under the age of fourteen paid nothing. — Sat. II. The smallness of the sum, however, was a great encouragement to bathers, who, ac- cording to Pliny, sometimes bathed seven times in one day. It is exceedingly probable that the sword was that of the keeper of the thermae, or balneator, whose station, with his box of I 2 92 POMPEIANA. money, must have been the ala of the por- tico, 19. This room was not painted, and the roof seems to have been blackened by the smoke of the lamps. Those who had paid here might have entered with some sort of ticket. Tickets for the theatre have been found at Pom- peii, and have been engraved. One for the show of gladiators is in the possession of Mr. Dodwell at Rome. It is of bronze, and of the size represented at the foot of Plate XXXIII. In this Doric portico persons waited for admission to the thermae, which were not of sufficient size to admit conveniently more than twenty or thirty at once. Here, there- fore, notices of shows, games, exhibitions, or sales, might conveniently be exposed to the public. According!}^ on the south wall was painted, in large letters, MAIO DEDICATreNE ""L^^^.fa''"^ RIVM . MVNERIS . CN . ALLEI . NIGER or NICIO SPARSIONES . VELA . ERVNT. VENATIO ATHLETiE POMPIUANA. 93 The word poly in the centre of the letter O signified, in Latin as in Greek, " many/' The sparsiones were certain sprinklings of water perfumed with saffron, or other odours, with which the people were regaled in the theatre ; and, as these produced what was called a nimbus, a cloud or a shower, the perfumed waters were probably dispersed in drops by means of pipes or spouts over the audience. Another inscription mentions the same practice : MER VENATIO ATHLET . . . . . . E . SPASSIONES . VELA . ERVNT The use of the word spassioiies for s^xirsiones, appeared common to these two inscriptions when they were fresh, and it is not impos- sible that such a provincialism might have been common in the country. From the court, those who intended to bathe passed, by a small corridor, into the chamber 17, which must be supposed to have corresponded with the first room of the Turkish bath, where a stranger is un- dressed. 94? POMPEIANA. Ill this corridor was found a great num- ber of lamps, perhaps more than five hun- dred, but above one thousand were dis- covered in the whole circuit of the baths, of which it is said the workmen were ordered to make a general destruction after the best had been selected. These lamps were generally of common terra cotta, and some of them had the im- pression of the figures of the Graces, and others of Harpocrates, of moderate execu- tion. Atheneeus, B. XV., says that the lamps in baths were of brass, and distinguished by names expressive of the number of burners, such as monomixi, dimixi, trimixi, and po- hmixi ; but the authors who have written on the subject seem to speak always of build- ings and customs on a scale of maonificence too extravagant to guide us in the explana- tion of the Pompeian thermae. Some attention had been paid to the de- coration of this passage, the ceiling being covered with stars. In the room 17, those who frequented the thermae for the purpose of bathing met, whether they entered by the portico, or from I'OMPEIANA. 9-5 either of the doors from the street on the north : and here was certainly the frigida- rium, in which many persons took oft" their garments, but more especially those who in- tended to make use only of the natatio, or cold bath. To them, at least, this chamber served as the spoliatorium, apodyterium, or apolyte- rium, so called from the A^o^yr;?^/a of the Greeks, signifying the place where the clothes were left, and, accordingly, we may observe, on entering, certain holes in the wall, in which have either been inserted rafters or pegs for supporting shelves, or for hanging garments. Pliny mentions that people first entered into the apodyterinm, or tepidarium, with a temperate air, and consigned their gar- ments to caprarii, which were probably pegs so called from their likeness to horns. The chamber itself, which is spacious, is vaulted, and the arch springs from a project- ing cornice covered with a richly coloured painting of griffins and lyres. The ceiling appears to have consisted in panels of white within red borders, and the 96 POMPEIANA. pavement of the common sort of white mo- saic. The walls were painted yellow. Stone benches occupy the greater part of the walls, with a step running below them, slightly raised from the floor. A little apartment at the north end may have been either a latrina, or, if it had sufficient light, a ton- strina for shaving, or it might possibly have served for keeping the unguents, strigils, towels, and other articles necessary for the accommodation of visiters. It is probable that a window once ex- isted at the north, like that now remaining at the south end ; but in no case could this, or any other room in the Pompeian thermae, answer to the description of the wide win- dows of the frigidarium of the author, who says, " Frigidarium locus ventis proflatus fenestris amplis.'' The yet remaining window admitted light from the south, and is placed close under the vault of the roof, and rather intrenchino; upon it. It opens upon the cemented or plaster roof of the chamber 18, and was not only formed of glass, but of good plate glass. POMPEIANA. 97 slightly ground on one side so as to prevent the curiosity of any person upon the roof. This glass was divided by cruciform bars of copper, and secured by what might be termed turning buttons of the same metal. Of this glass all the frao;ments remained at the excavation, a circumstance which appeared not a little curious to those who imagined that its use was either unknown, or very rare, among the ancients, and did not know that a window of the same kind had been found in the baths of the villa of Diomedes. Glass seems to have, at first, been brought from Egypt, and to have in fact received its name of vaXo^ from the Coptic. Crystal, tc^v- (TTaXXog, or the permanent ice of the ancients, originally designated the natural stone itself. It is said to have been little known in Rome before 536, U.C., but this would give ample time for its use at Pompeii long before its destruction. There are few subjects on which the learned seem to have been so generally mis- taken as that of the art of glass-making 98 PO^lPEIANA. among the ancients, who seem to have been far more skilful than was at first imagined. Not to mention the description of a burning glass in the Nubes of Aristophanes, v. TO^., the collection whicliMr. Dodwell first formed and brought into notice at Rome by repolish- ing the fragments, is sufficient to prove that specimens of every known marble, and of many not now existing in cabinets, as well as every sort of precious stone, were com- monly and most successfully imitated by the ancients, who used these imitations in cups and vases of every size and shape. In the time of Martial, about a century after Christ, glass cups were common, ex- cept the calices allasontes, w^hich displayed changeable or prismatic colours, and, as Vossius says, were procured in Egypt, and were so rare that Adrian sendino- some to Servianus ordered that they should only be used on great occasions. The mjTrhine vases, however, which were in such request, seem at last to have been suc- cessfully traced to China. Propertius calls them Parthian, and it seems certain that the POMPEIANA. 99 porcelain of the east was called Mirrha di Smjrna to as late a date as 1555. The vast collection of bottles, glasses, and other utensils discovered at Pompeii is sufficient to show that the ancients were well acquainted with the art of glass-blowing in all its branches; but it is not the less true that they sometimes used, much as we do, horn for lanterns, which Plautus terms Vul- can in a prison of horn ; and that windows, and Cicero says lanterns, were sometimes made of linen instead of glass, as we see oiled paper in modern times. The common expressions for these objects in Latin appear to be " Fenestrae volubiles, vel lineis velis, vel specularia vitratis clausae.'' In process of time glass became so much the fashion that whole chambers were lined with it. The remains of such a room were discovered in the year 1826, near Ficulnea in the Roman territory ; and these are hinted at in a passage of the Roman naturalist. " Non dubie vitreas facturas cameras, si prius id inventum fuisset." In the time of Seneca the chambers in thermae had walls covered with glass and Thasian marble, the 100 POMPEIANA. water issued from silver tubes, and the de- corations were mirrors. In the semicircular compartment con- taining the window was a large basso relievo in stucco, of which the subject appeared to be the destruction of the Titans by Jupiter, or, perhaps, bj^ Saturn, whose colossal head appeared in the centre. Bacchus was one of the great assistants of Jupiter in that com- bat; and the cup of Bacchus, or one of the same shape, appears on the right, as if thrown at the Titan. The subject is at present scarcely intelligible, having suffered much in the reparation of the roof. Vide Plate XXVII. From the frigidarium a short passage opened into the street on the north, and a little recess is observable in it, where, pos- sibly, another person sat to receive the mo- ney of the bathers. The third passage com- municated with the hypocaust or stoves, and these again with the street. A door, uniform with that leading from the court, opened into apartment 18, in which was the natatio or natatorium, pis- cina, or cold bath. Some may be inclined .*!ttAii!.iiiu:i,!,jxLKA,i;;t^ ^ POMPEIANA. 101 to apply the term baptisterion to this vase into which the bathers plunged. The word piscina is applied to the bath by the younger Pliny. It appears that Aovr^ov was the Greek appelhition. That this was called baptiste- rium in the time of Pliny appears from this passage, considering its connexion with the frigidarium. " Inde apodyterium balinei laxum et hilare excipit cella frigidaria in qua baptisterium amplum atque opacum." — Plinius de Villa apud Thuscos. This is perfectly preserved, and nothing but the water is wanting, which anciently gushed from a copper pipe opposite the en- trance, about four feet from the floor, and fell into the cistern, being supplied by pipes yet to be traced from the great reservoir near the praefurnium. This apartment is a circle enclosed by a square, in the angles of which are four alcoves, called by the an- cients scholse, a word derived from the He- brew, and signifying repose. Some have given the name of schola to the platform round the bath on which visiters waited, but there seems little doubt that the schola was 102 POMPEIANA. generally a hemicycle connected with that platform. The diameter of the circle is eighteen feet six inches. Round the whole runs a walk or ambulatory two feet four inches and a half wide. The piscina or vase itself is twelve feet ten inches in diameter, and has a seat eleven inches wide surroundino- it at the depth of ten inches below the lip, and two feet four from the bottom, allowing a depth of water equal to about three feet. There was a channel to get rid of the super- fluous water, and a low step at the bottom to assist in getting out of the water. The alcoves, or scholae, are five feet two inches wide, by two feet half an inch deep. Their arches, which rise to the height of one foot eight inches, spring from a point five feet six inches above the floor. Vide Plate XXVIII. The whole of the piscina, or natatio, with its seat or step, the pavement of the scholee and ambulatory, is of white marble, and in perfect preservation. The roof is a dome, or rather a cone, of POMPEIANA. 103 which a small part of the summit is destroyed, having, in fact, risen above the accumulated soil of so many centuries. It appears to have been painted blue, and had an opening or window near the top, toward the south-west, possibly not glazed, as, being a cold bath, the increase of temperature was not required. The walls have been painted yellow, with certain branches, here and there, of green. The walls of the alcoves were blue and the concas or coves red, and the arches have a pretty relieved border in stucco. About eight feet from the floor, a cor- nice runs round the whole, nearly eighteen inches high, coloured red, and adorned with stucco figures representing, in all appear- ance, the course on foot, on horseback, and in chariots. The spina, or, perhaps, the goal, is also visible ; and, though much ruined, the cha- riot-race and the running horses with their riders, have an air of life and verity which seems to evince that they were at least copied from sculptures of the most brilliant period of the arts. It is, possibly, the Olympic hippodrome 104 POMPEIANA. which is represented. An attempt to give an idea of the figures may be observed in the internal frieze of the shrine in the frontis- piece of this work. The men on foot seem to raise their arms as if they were athleta^ or boxers, and it is curious that they either are far inferior to the rest in spirit and design, or appear so from their more mutilated condition. The cistern, or bath, in this apartment was decidedly that termed piscina by Cicero, when, in writing to Quintus his brother, he observes, " Latiorem piscinam voluissem ubi j aetata brachia non offenderentur/' This passage is scarcely applicable to any vessel except one in which the whole body might be placed. The Piscina, called also natatio or na- tatorium, seems the only member of the bath which has not survived the revolution of manners in the east, at least in cities, for the cistern or vase yet exists in the neigh- bourhood of many thermal waters, immer- sion being the only way of benefiting by them. The natatorium of the baths of Diocle- POMPEIANA. IOJ tian was 200 feet long, by half that width, the Aqua INIartia supplying copious streams of water, which spouted forth in grottos ar- tificially contrived. With the magnificence of the capital the piscina of Pompeii cannot pretend to vie; but nothing can be more elegant, or more aptly calculated for the purpose of bathing than the chamber in question, of which a view is given in Plate XXVIII. It is to be supposed that many preferred this species of bath to undergoing the per- spiration of the thermal chamber ; and, as the frigidarium alone could have produced no effect, so it must be understood that the natatio was intended, when it is asserted that, at one period, the cold bath was in the greatest request. " Adeoque prrevaluit sem- per frigidarum usus ut vix quidam aliis bal- neis uterentur." It would seem possible that the vase, or natatorium, either hot or cold, might some- times have had the name of solium, for the word implies it. A solium is defined to be, among its other senses, " alveus in VOL. I. K 106 POMPEIANA. quern descenderent lavaturi." This had a connexion with the tepidarium, or apody- terium, or spoliatorium, whether hot or cold. A doorway, the jambs of which are some- what inclined, and prove that the folding- doors, which turned upon umbilici, or pivots, were calculated to shut by their own weight, conducted the visiter to the chamber 15, which was called either tepidarium, AAEI- IITHPION, apodyterium, elasothesium, or unctuarium ; for, in thermae of small dimen- sions, one chamber must have served for many of those purposes to which, in the im- perial city, separate apartments were allotted. It is therefore probable that, though the frigidarium served as an apodyterium to the cold bathers, those who took the warm bath undressed in the second chamber, 15, which was warmed, not only by a portable fire-place, or foculare, called by the Italians bracciere, but by means of a suspended pave- ment heated by the distant fires of the stove of the caldarium or laconicum. The tem- perature did not, probably, much exceed that necessary to impart an agreeable warmth, and ^ i fM % POMPETANA. 107 supply the want of the more cumbrous arti- cles of dress. In the tepidarium are three seats of bronze, about six feet long and one broad. Their general form may be observed in the view, Plate XXIV., where the foculare is seen in its original position. This beautiful chamber was excavated in the autumn of 1824, at which period the whole vault, or very nearly the whole, was full of the com- mon lapillee. The seats are inscribed with the name of the donor, Marcus Nigidius Vaccula, whose heraldic cognizance, if that expression were admissible, was a pun upon his name, the legs of the seats being those of a cow, whose head forms their upper orna- ment, and whose entire figure is the decora- tion of the foculare. The inscription runs thus : — M. NIGIDIVS. VACCVLA. P. S The hearth, 16, is about seven feet long, and two feet six broad. It is, generall}^, of bronze, and is ornamented by thirteen bat- tlemented summits and a lotus at the angles. K 2 108 POMPEIANA. Within these is an iron lining, calcuhited to resist the heat of the embers; and the bottom is formed by bars of brass, on which are laid bricks supporting the pumice stones for the reception of the charcoal. By the view it will be seen that this apartment was decorated in a manner suit- able to its importance. The pavement of white mosaic, with two small borders of black, the ceiling elegantly painted, the walls co- loured with crimson, and the cornice sup- ported by statues, all conspired to render this a beautiful and splendid place of re- laxation for the inhabitants of Pompeii. " Signis ornatum et jucundis picturis." — The section, Plate XXV., united with the plan, will assist in forming an idea of the connexion of this room with the first and with the third chambers ; and the suspended floor and hypocaust will be easily under- stood. Some have traced the invention of suspensurae, pensile, or suspended floors, to the Sybarites, and some have imagined they only existed in private baths. Vitruvius di- rects that the props to support these pave- % ' ^i J- ,' Vf A^^ i POMP EI AN A. 109 ments should be two feet high, on which tiles two feet lonsj should be laid for the placing of the ornamental mosaic. In the view, Plate XXIX., which is co- pied, by permission, from a large drawing made with the camera lucida by my friend M. Zahn, architectural painter to the Elec- tor of Hesse Cassel, will be observed the cu- rious line of figures which are supported by a heavy projecting cornice, and themselves sustain an entablature from whence springs the vault or roof. This cornice beoins at four feet three inches above the pavement, and is one foot two inches and a half high, the abacus, which is five inches and a half, included. Above this, the figures, with the enta- blature, rise to the height of three feet five inches more, and, above these, is the flowery Corinthian tracery. These figures are about two feet in height, stand upon little square plinths or dies of three inches high, and hold their arms in a posture fitted for assisting the head to bear the superimposed weight, much as the giants in the temple of the Olympic 110 POMPEIANA. Jupiter at Girgenti were ingeniously shown by Mr. Cockerel! to have done. They are of terra cotta, and stand with their backs placed against square pilasters projecting one foot from the wall, and with an interval of one foot three inches and a half between each. Figures, used as supports to the mutules and corona, are mentioned by Vitruvius (Chap. X.) as architectural ornaments. He adds that the Romans called these tela- mones, and the Greeks atlantes. They have been called fawns on the spot, on account of the hairy accoutrements of some of them ; but that was a dress common to all the di- vinities of remote antiquity. The word Te- lamo seems to have, at length, been used for any sort of prop, and to have been derived from the Greek word raXoLUy sustineo, without any necessary reference to the strength of the hero. Hercules was also, in some manner, con- nected with the baths of the ancients ; and Dion Chrysostomus mentions a portion of a therma dedicated to him, possibly, however, as connected with the Palaestra ; but the use POMPEIANA. Ill of these figures in the baths of Pompeii, by- whatever name they may have been called, was evidently to ornament the separations between a number of niches, or recesses, in which the garments of those who went into the sudatorium, or inner apartment, to per- spire, were laid up till their return. Pliny observes that the tepidarium was " Locum laxum et hilarem amoenum a me- ridie illustratum/' He adds that the gar- ments of bathers were left there. Six of the intervals are closed on the side nearest to the frigidarium, the reason for which is not apparent, though there was still a sufficient number vacant to have con- tained the garments of the visiters. The heat in this chamber was a dry warmth produced by the hypocaust and the foculare, and, consequently, an agreeable place for perfuming, anointing, and all the other operations after the sudatory. The ancients had an astonishing number of oils, soaps, and perfumes ; and their wash- balls seem to have had the general name of smeomata, a word derived from the Greek. Among the oils are named the mendesium, 112 POMPEIANA. megalium, metopium, amaracinum, cypri- num, susinum, nardinum, spicatum, and jasmine ; and Heliogabalus never bathed without oil of saffron or crocum, which was thought most precious. We hear also of nitre and aphronitrum in the baths. To these were added all kinds of odoriferous powders, called diapasmata. The cyprian was not only a perfume, but was supposed to put a stop to further perspiration, and its name has been retained to the present da}^ Persons of lower condition sometimes used, instead of soap, meal of lupins, called lomentum, which, with common meal, is yet used in the north of England ; while the rich carried their own most precious un- guents to the thermae in phials of alabaster, gold, and glass, which were of such common use, both in ordinar}^ life and at funerals, that they have very frequently been found in modern times, when they acquired the name of lachrymatories, from a mistaken notion concerning their original destination. Pliny mentions that, in the apodyterium or tepidarium, was the elaeothesia, or place for anointing, called also in Latin uncto- Plate ODPC s.TjvStt'WG*!!. Kr^ca»«i*"B3nte4V^«°*°' Sears ftC VAl.'LT OF THE TF. PIDARIUM. i«TtJfnningsft'VfiQiam Chapbii.62.0ieap«He.SritemT3M 13830 POMPEIANA. 113 rium, where persons called, from their office, unctores were employed. It is to be sup- posed that, in the great thermae of the capi- tal, this uXstTT'/i^iov, or unctuarium, was a separate chamber. A verse of Lucilins, quoted by Green in his work " De Rusticatione Romanorum,'' describes the operations which took place in this apartment : " Scabor, suppellor, desquamor, pumicor, ornor^ Expilor, pingor " The third apartment, 12, for the use of those who frequented the hot baths, is en- tered by a door opening from the tepida- rium, which closed by its own weight, and, it is probable, was generally shut, to pre- vent the admission of cold or less heated air. Vitruvius says that the laconicum and sudatories ought to join the tepidarium ; and that, when these were separate rooms, they were entered by two doors from the apodyterium. This chamber, though perhaps not de- corated with all the art displayed in the tepidarium, possibly because the constant 114 POMP£IANi\. ascent of steam would have destroyed the colours of the ceiling or vault, was, never- theless, delicately ornamented with mould- ings of stucco, which have an elegant and beautiful effect. The view of this chamber is given in Plate XXXI. It is taken from the warm bath, 13, and the alcove, with the labrum, 14, form the principal objects. Not only is the pavement suspended in the manner recommended by Vitruvius, but the walls are so constructed that a column of heated air encloses the apartment on all sides. This is not effected by flues, but by one universal flue formed by a lining of bricks or tiles, strongly connected with the outer wall by cramps of iron, yet distant about four inches from it, so as to leave a space by which the hot air might ascend from the furnace, and increase, almost equally, the temperature of the whole room. Some parts of this casing having fallen, the whole of this admirable contrivance is now apparent ; and the pavement having, in some places, been forced in, by the fall of riTj^tS-^y^seicrSKSTt^ C POMPEIANA. 115 some part of the vault, the method of sus- pending it was, at the period of the excava- tion, sufficiently visible. In the view, Plate XXXI., it will be ob- served that scarcely any thing was placed in symmetry with the centre ; the circular win- dow in the alcove, with its ornamental dol- phins in stucco, being to the left, and the two side-windows in the vault being neither equal in size nor situation. This may be accounted for, by supposing that these holes were pierced in the vault, in places where fewer obstacles to the trans- mission of light existed on the exterior of the roof above. The walls are painted yellow, with pilasters and cornice in red, and the alcove is prettily decorated with coloured panels or compartments, in relievo, gene- rally painted alternately in blue and red, and adorned with figures ill preserved, as may be seen in the view. Vitruvius directs that, on account of the penetrating vapour, the roof of the cal- darium should, if possible, be stone. He recommends also certain precautions where that cannot be effected. 1 l6 POMPEIAN A. The most striking object in the apart- ment is the hibrum, 14, placed in the centre of the alcove which forms one extremit}^ of the caldarium, as the hot- water bath. This consists in a vase or tazza of white marble, not less than eight feet in diameter, and, in- ternally, not more than eight inches in depth. In the centre is a projection, or umbo, rising from the bottom, in the middle of which a brass tube has thrown up the water, which, judging from the customary process in an oriental bath, was probably cold, or as nearly so as was judged expedient for pouring upon the head of the bather before he quitted this heated atmosphere. This is supposed in the East a necessary practice ; but it must be understood that the water is by no means cold except by comparison. It is not a little remarkable, that this circular basin of marble is placed on a mass of volcanic stone of oval form, ^vhich, be- sides being too bulky for the tazza, injures its appearance by hiding a portion. It is not impossible that certain cracks in the marble may have suggested the adoption of PO^IPRIANA. 11? this precaution to prevent the increase of the evil. The hibrum was presented to the thermae of Pompeii by a private individual, whose name, together with the value, is inscribed in letters of bronze yet remaining on the lip of the basin. CN. MELISSAEO. CN. F.A PRO. M. STAIO. M. F. RVFO. II. VIR. ITER. ID. LABRViM. EX. D. D EX. P. I. F. C. CONSTAT. HSP. CC.L. The position of this labrum seems, in some respects, to accord with the instruc- tions given by Vitruvius for the construction of such a vase: — " Scholas autem labrorum ita fieri oportet spaciosas ut cum priores occupaverint loca circumspectantes reliqui recte stare possunt." — Vit. 1. v. c. x. He says also — " Labrum sub lumine faciendum videtur ne stantes circum suis umbris obscu- rent lucem." Even this, as applied to our labrum, is not very intelligible. Andreas Baccius, who has written and collected much of what the ancients have left us on the subject of baths, says that some labra existed made of glass ; and he 118 POMPEIANA. very sensibly concludes, that all the great tazza of Rome, like that at present on the Quirinal, were originally the labra of the public or private baths of the city. Fico- roni mentions labri in Rome of basalt, gra- nite, porphyry, and alabaster, and observes that many of these had a lion's head in the centre. Mention is also made of the la- brum in a private bath by Cicero, in a letter to his wife Terentia : — " Labrum si non est in balneo fac ut sit.'' The opening for the lamp, which has been formerly noticed as giving light, on one side, to the Doric portico, and on the other to the caldarium, is visible above the labrum, and had, anciently, a convex glass to prevent the entrance of cold air from without. The view, Plate XXXI., which was taken with the camera lucida, will give an idea of the proportions of the semicircular and cham- ber, which is thirty-seven feet long, by seven- teen feet four inches in breadth. Having been taken from the hot bath at the north end, the first objects in the foreground are the step and the brink by which the bathers entered it. The surbase, or plinth, is ten POMPEIANA. 119 inches high, and the wall is seven feet high up to the lowest cornice, which is, like the pilasters, painted red. From the pavement of the caldarium, which was of white tesserae, with two small borders of black, bathers ascended by two steps so as to sit down conveniently upon the third or marble wall, one foot four inches broad, which formed the brink of the vase or vat of hot water. Thence one step di- viding the whole depth of the cistern, not exceeding two feet and half an inch, per- mitted them to immerse themselves b}^ de- grees in the heated fluid. The whole length of the cistern is fifteen feet, and the breadth four. About ten persons might have sat upon the marble pavement, without incon- venience, at the same moment, immersed in the hot water. It is evident, from the shal- lowness of this cistern, that persons must have sat on the pavement in order to have been sufficiently immersed; and,accordinglj% the side next the north wall is constructed with marble, sloping like the back of a chair in an angle well adapted to the support of the body in that position. ]'2() POMPKIANA. Hot water entered this bath, 13, at one of the angles, immediately from the caldron 9, which boiled on the other side of the wall. There appears to have been a moveable stone in the pavement, near this cistern, possibly for permitting the entrance of a column of hot air on certain occasions. This chamber, from the water which must have fallen upon the pavement, and the di- stillation caused by the vapour from so great a quantity of heated liquid, must have always been wet, and must have had an outlet, called fusorium, to which the Hoor inclined. Per- haps the opening near the hot bath served, in part, for this purpose. The floor was found much damaged and broken in by the fall of a part of the arch on its first discovery. The seats in this chamber were probably of wood, as the whole must have been con- stantly in a state of humid heat, which would have corroded furniture of bronze like those of Vaccula in the tepidarium. In that portion of the vaulted roof yet remaining are no fewer than four openings for the admission of light, and the trans- mission of hot air and vapour. POMPEIANA. 121 These must have been glazed, or closed Avith linen windows, called vela, for it was probably previous to that common use of glass which evidentl}^ prevailed at Pompeii, that the brazen shields, or circular shutters, mentioned by Vitruvius as hanging by chains, for the purpose of opening and shutting the windows of the laconicum or sudatory, were necessar}^ It appears, from that author, that these shields were lowered to open, or raised to close, the circular openings in the roof of the laconicum. Over the kibrum is seen one of these circular windows. An author named Robortellius, in the collection of Greevius and Gronovius, saj^s that the openings in the roof of the baths of Pisa are yet visible, and are, some of them, six feet in diameter. In the Moorish baths at Granada, in the palace of the Alhambra, a number of small orifices exist ; and, in Turkish baths, these holes are generally nu- merous and covered with convex glasses. It is evident that, when the vaults were entire, none of these apartments could have been supplied with a cheerful light ; and VOL. I. L 122 POMPEIANA. that, when the brazen shields were in use, the darkness must have increased with the increase of temperature. In some instances, these shields seem to have condensed the vapours, and caused them to fall in showers; and this, which must have followed of course, is mentioned to have happened in the hemisphere of the laconicum. It may be supposed that, in an establish- ment so small as this at Pompeii, this inner room, or caldarium, might unite in itself more than one of the numerous appellations in use in the Roman capital. The caldarium seems to be the hot bath, the absolute vessel of hot water, the Xovr^ov or lavacrum ; but this was always close to the laconicum. " Ex laconico aditus in caldarium.'' The words, however, calda- rium, vaporarium, sudatorium, and laconi- cum, seem to have been often indiscrimi- nately used, to say nothing of hypocau- stum, which, at Pompeii, applies equally to the tepidarium, and signifies, in fact, any chamber heated by subterraneous flues. They POMPEIANA. 123 were, as it was said, first invented by the Sy- barites, and, in private houses, were called Wilkins says that the laconicum is a cir- cular stove ; and it certainly appears that it was often circular and full of warm vapours from stoves and hot water. A certain Ori- basius observes that the laconicum was very hot, yet exceedingly humid, which proves that he alluded to a bath where the laconi- cum and caldarium were united like this at Pompeii. Under the pavement of the laconicum was the furnus vTroy.ocva-rov. The laconicum, even in baths of great dimensions, seems to have been often small, as many persons preferred producing the perspiration by exercise. For this purpose such thermae were provided with all the adjuncts of paleestra, xysta, ephebium, co- rycaeum, conisterium, spha^risterium, peri- stylia, theatre, and other endless divisions, which augmented the imperial therma: of Rome to the size of moderate towns, but which have no existence at Pompeii. The presence of so many of these apartments has L 2 124 POMPEIANA. been the cause of the difficulties which have arisen in comprehending the accounts of the ancients. It was the custom, to perspire first, and, after the operation of the strigil, to resort to the warm-water bath. The strig^il is well known to have been a sort of concave and sickle-shaped scraper, made of bone, iron, copper, or silver, for cleansing the skin from the copious perspiration caused bj^ the laconicum. It was by no means a very agreeable operation, and Suetonius says Au- gustus was a sufferer by its having been too roughly used. Its place is now supplied, in a Turkish bath, by a sort of bag or glove of camels' hair, which, without pain, peels oft' the perspiration in large flakes, and leaves the skin in a most wonderfully luxurious state of softness and polish. Persons of quality car- ried with them their own apparatus, w^ience Persius, in Sat. V., says " I puer et strigiles Crispiui ad balnea defer." After the warm water, a cooler stream was probably poured on the head from the la- POMPEIANA. 125 brum, and this was the preparation for en- countering the lower temperature of the te- pidarium, whence, after the use of unguents, it was thought safe to enter the frigidarium, and thence to pass into the open air. The thermse must have been of great ad- vantage to the practice of medicine. Alex- ander the Great is said to have slept in the bath during a fever ; and certainly, where perspiration was the object, such a plan could scarcely fail. They practised cup- ping, and bleeding with leeches also, in the laconicum. The physicians of antiquity have written much on the subject of thermae and their effects, without always rendering the subject very intelligible. Galen, Book X., says a bather should first go into the warm air, thence into the warm water or Xovr^ov, thence into the cold. After this he should enter the tepidarium or apodyterium, where the scraping off of the perspiration should be performed, and where Celsus says persons were anointed. This is not very comprehensible; but Cel- 126 POMPEIANA. sus, Book I. c. IV., seems to have given real information, and that which is applica- ble to the Pompeian thermae, when he tells us that people perspired a little in the tepi- darium, thence entered the caldarium or laconicum, and retired in order through the hot, the tepid, and the cold apartments. Galen says that he who neglects the cold chamber, or cold water, is in danger from open pores on passing into the open air. This may serve to show that the tepidarium was not the last chamber recommended by him ; and it is not improbable that some, who were ordered by the physician to pass " from the laconicum to the caldarium, and thence to the apodyterium, from whence they are to use the solium frigidum,'' might, in the baths of Pompeii, have plunged into the na- tatorium, 18, as a termination of the pro- cess. Solium is defined to be either a ves- sel to wash in, or a hollow into which those who washed descended. In places not affording the convenience for immersion in the solium frigidum, as- persions of cold water, like a shower-bath. POMPEIANA. 127 are recommended ; and this is, in fact, re- sorted to in the Turkish baths, where the natatorium does not commonly exist. It is observable that those who bathe, or rather perspire, in the Turkish hamam, very rarely, if ever, take cold on returning to the open air. A disease depending on impeded perspiration could indeed scarcely exist where every thing like perspiration had been previously so carefully removed. From the frigidarium, 17, a very narrow passage ran to the furnace 9, upon which were placed caldrons to the number of three, one above another, and possibly, as may be gathered from an inspection of the ruins, placed in three columns of three caldrons each, so that the water in the uppermost or ninth vase, nearest the cisterns 10 and 11, would be very nearly cold. One author has observed that, in some instances, in the pave- ment of the frigidarium was a hole through which the furnarius, or fire-lighter, went to. the propnigeum, or furnace. Praefurnium, propnigeum, ostium furni, fornax, all seem terms applicable to this 128 POMPEIANA. part of the therraa, which was under the care of persons called also fornacatores and furnacatores. Vitruvius says, on the left of the hj^pocaust or fornax inferior were the male baths, and on the right those of the women, a position according with those of Pompeii. A Pompeian inscription, relating to those who had the care of the fires, is given by Mazzocchi or Rossini — SECVNDVM. AED FVRNACATOR ROG In the section of the baths, Plate XXV., may be observed, on the right, the three vases placed one above the other over the fire. They were named, like the chambers, ac- cording to their situations, the lowest being the caldarium, the next the tepidarium, and the last the frigidarium, though, probably, no water was absolutely cold in the whole building:. The form and proportions of these vases or caldrons are given in the section, Plate XXV., from the impression they have POMPRIANA. 129 very visibly left in the cement which fixed them. The caldron immediately above the flames was of course boiling; and, on the water being withdrawn for use, it was con- trived that an equal portion should replace it from the tepidarium, into which at the same time the frigidarium was discharged. It does not seem improbable, from the appearance of the place, that there were three columns of these caldrons at Pompeii dependent on a single fire ; and if so, the upper caldron of the column nearest the cistern, 10, contained water nearly cold, and hence that was probably derived which rose in the centre of the labriim, and must have had a hio;her level. From one of these, or the cisterns ad- joining, the circular bath, or natatorium, was also supplied, through tubes yet to be traced in the wall. We read of some of these vases, or cis- terns, which were made of lead, and called miliaria; but these were, of course, far from the furnace, and were so named because of 130 POMPEIANA. the thousand measures of water contained, or of the pounds of lead employed. In the section, only the chambers of the men, or one set of baths, are given, as the plate would either have been considerably longer, or the objects would have been too much diminished. POMPEIANA 131 ATRIUM CHAPTER VII. WOMEN S BATHS. '/jiL^^m The abuses of promiscuous bathing had become so flagrant, that Spartianus says Ha- drian ordered the separation of the sexes, which had, however, been done ineffectually before. Eunuchs were appointed to attend in the women's baths, as Lampridius observes ; 132 POMPEIANA. and a Roman law makes the offence of forcibly entering the women's baths by a man capital. " Vir qui thermas mulieri- bus discretas violenter intrare pra3sump- sisset capite puniretur/' This is, of course, still retained in double force in the East. At Athens the Turkish Disdar of the Acropolis was, in the present century, forced to fly, from the bare sus- picion of having been in the baths at an hour dedicated to the women. Vitruvius, Book v., shows that the baths of the two sexes were not, even in his time, the same, though, for the convenience of the stoves, they were contiguous. " Uti calidaria muliebria viriliaque con- juncta, et in iisdem regionibus sint collocata, sic enim efficiebatur uti vasaria ex hypo- causto communis sit eorum.'' The baths of Baden, cited by AVilkins in his Vitruvius, were double; those of the fe- males being an exact repetition of the men's apartments. Without relying too much on the information of Vitruvius, who says that the baths of the women were on the right of the furnace, it seems highly probable that F ® M F. rrici-— ■?etm£rSears*Cf FRIGIDARIUM & PICIISIA. IN THE WOMJITST'S BATH: - ftVRIHain. ChanKlt 62 Cn? POMPKIANA. 133 the females of Pompeii, without waiting for an hour set apart, had baths consecrated to their exclusive use ; and, if so, the chambers marked in the plan 3, 4, and 5, seem those best adapted to their purposes. Bonucci, in his instructive work, has ima- gined these to have constituted the male therma3 ; but only from a sentiment of mo- dern gallantry which would assign to the ladies the handsomer apartment ; whereas it would appear, that a smaller and less airy suite of chambers would have been equally convenient for the women, who did not, like the men, spend half their lives at the bath, but only frequented it for the purposes of health or cleanliness. It might also be supposed that ladies of rank had, as at Rome and at the villa of Diomedes, in the suburb of Pompeii, their own baths, so that females of consequence were not seen at the public thermal ; but, be that as it may, we find in the little room, 1, a place where either towels or clothes were dried or suspended. In the room 3, or fri- gidarium, we find a cold bath or natato- rium, 2. 134 POM PET AN A. In the next chamber, 4, is the tepida- rium ; and that marked 5 is the laconicum, with its caldarium or hot water, 7', and, below it, is a stove, 6, or hypocaust, for heating the whole. Near the entrance is painted in red letters M. C. V. VB. JED. OVF. COLEPIVS ROG SICARIO All the rooms yet retain, in perfection, their vaulted roofs. The first chamber is twenty-five feet long, Plate XXVII., by twelve feet nine inches. The view seems, at first sight, defective in perspective on the left ; but the room is, in one part, one foot six wider than the other. The piscina, or bath, is six feet eight wide in front, by seven feet four in breadth. The floor is in white mosaic, with a little border of black. The walls have been ornamented with yellow pilasters, on a blue or black ground. The light is, by no means, strong, but another window may have existed over the piscina to the north. The tepid arium is about twenty feet long and nearly square. The roof is vaulted. The floor is suspended, by way of compensa- POMPETANA. 135 tion for the absence of the focukire of bronze ; but the heat must have been moderated by the distance. The walls are panelled in yellow, with red pilasters, and the light enters through a small window far from the ground. The laconicum has a fire-place, 6, on a lower level, which, as the floor is ruined, may possibly have been lighted from within, and have been approached by two or three steps. The Hoor was either wholh^ or in part suspended. There was not, in this chamber, a sufficiency of light to have rendered it ser- viceable as a place of exercise, as some have supposed. The whole is vaulted, and, perhaps, there may have been a cistern or reservoir above the arch. A vase, or solium, or labrum, at the north end of this chamber is much ruined, but may have served for hot or cold water, or any of the purposes to which such vessels were applicable. The court or yard, 8, may have been the place where wood was piled for burning ; and two rude pillars, yet standing, may have supported a roof of tiles for keeping it dry. A flight of stairs ran hence to the roof of 136 po:mpeiana. the baths, which retained, when discovered, their original covering of plaster or stucco. On the right of the entrance into these women's baths, is a stone wall of good ma- sonry and singular thickness. In the alley, or vicus, on the outside of this is the mark of a sort of gutter to direct the falling water either from the roof or the cistern. It is supposed that there w^as an arched or other connexion between the thermae and the buildings on the other side of this vicus, opposite the house of Pansa. We have now given an account of the different parts of the thermae, and endea- voured to applj^ to the remains the discord- ant and unintelliiiible accounts of the an- cients, all the fragments of which have been collected in the works re-edited by Graevius and Gronovius. The subject has unavoidably led to a pro- tracted dissertation, for which the apology must be the interesting, and hitherto unsuc- cessfully attempted, adjustment of facts to localities. The public was informed, by a bell placed POINIPEIANA. 137 above the thermae, when the water was heated, and the baths open. When a certain hour was passed, the fires were extinguished. The hour for bathing, according to Pliny, was eight in winter, and nine in summer ; but this must have frequently varied. Julius Capitolinus relates that, before the time of Alexander Severus, the thermae were not opened before daylight, and were closed be- fore night ; and Hadrian made a law, that those who bathed on account of any infirmity should have the use of the public therma? only till the eighth hour. The baths were closed, as are modern theatres, on occasions of public mourning, according to Livy; and a very serious in- convenience it must have been to a people who thought themselves entitled to eat a second dinner after perspiration, and seem to have passed the greater part of their lives at the thermae. As f^ishions changed, some physicians, according to Pliny, attacked the practice of bathing. Thessalus, in the time of Nero and Charmis, wrote against it ; but Telephus, the grammarian, says Galen, bathed twice VOL. I. M 138 POMPEIANA. a month in winter, three times a month in spring, and four times a month in summer, and lived, in consequence, to the age of one hundred without disease. Baths, by which are understood prepared baths, are mentioned in the East by the sa- cred writers, and by Homer. Vegetius saj^s, however, that the senate formed the Campus Martins near theTiber, that, after exercising, the Roman youth might bathe: and, in 440 U. C. we are told by Festus Pompeius, and not before, a piscina publica was constructed " ad Clivum Capitolinum juxta Tiberim.'' But this only provided for the first and most simple part of the process. The names of the parts of the thermae were all Greek, and de- rived, with the invention, from that people. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle talk of baths as common ; and Hippocrates, about the time of the Peloponnesian war, recommends their use. About the time of Augustus, baths were innumerable in Rome; and we see, by the splendid work of Mr. Lysons, that even the Roman villas of England possessed them. In process of time, some of the baths in the capital were found unnecessarj^ Aurelius POMP EI AN A. 139 shut np several. Ueliogabalus, among other caprices, bathed only once in some of the baths and then destroyed them. They seem to have been used, more or less, in Europe till the wars of the Vandals, Coths, Huns, and Longobardi, after which the ruined thermae were frequently converted into churches. It is probable that the thermae often be- came the favourite resort of the vicious and the profligate, and, as such, liable to the animadversions and reprehensions of the fathers of the church, whence the name of bagnio has become synonymous with brothel in our own language. J. B. Casalius, who has written a treatise " De Thermis et Bal- neis veterum,'' says, that, as Christianity prevailed, the taste for ablution diminished. It is curious that a superstition should have prevailed according to which those who had been baptized were supposed no longer to stand in need of washing. Casalius cites authors who affirm that a whole nation, on the confmes of Armenia, was, by nature, stink- ing; and a patriarch of Constantinople re- fused baptism to some who sought it, not 31 2 140 POMPEIANA. from conscientious motives, but merely as an easy way of sweetening their persons. Fortunatus is cited, who talks of Jews chris- tened by St. Avitus in the year 579, who, from exhaling an unsavoury odour, became, by the operation of the ceremony, perfectly ambrosial. It is probable, however, that the thermae were destroyed or neglected during the trou- bles of the middle ages ; but it is somewhat remarkable, that when the Spaniards at- tempted, by force, the conversion of the Moors of Granada, ]\Iarmol, p. 133, vol. i. declares, that, in the furtherance of this ob- ject, not only were they forbidden the use of their own language and dress by the em- peror Don Carlos, but baths, either in pub- lic or in private, were especially prohibited to persons of every condition, and those which existed, even in private houses, were ordered to be destroyed. The head and tail pieces of this chapter represent the plans of two baths excavated in the last century at Stabiae. There can be little doubt that, on coming to the pave- ment of the natatorium encircling the pis- POMPEIANA. 141 cina, the workmen thought they had found the bottom, though the vase was yet filled with earth. These pkms were in the pos- session of Signor Carlo Bonucci in the year 1827. These are supposed to have appertained to some of the villas which occupied the site of the deserted city of Stabile. A section of the laconicum of one of these thermae has been preserved by La Vega, who was em- ployed in the excavations, so exactly similar to that which is given in this work as the la- conicum at Pompeii, that the publication of it misht have forestalled all the information now acquired by the recent discoveries. 142 POMPEIANA. CHAP'J'ER VIII. HOUSE OF THE TRAGIC POET, DISCOVERED AT THE CLOSE OF THE YEAR 1824. Of all the habitations of private indi- viduals yet discovered at Pompeii, the house, to which the name of the Tragic Poet has I>ravm 'hj^ic^ G^ ^E^ravadBj-WSehiaaJImger IP©MF]SSJI Robert ZcTOao-ii tWiHiam Cha.pJm.62, Chc^side. JancX»*ia31. POMPKIANA. 143 been given, has excited the most lively interest in the public mind; and this, not so much from its magnitude, which would scarcely place it among the houses of the richer citizens, but on account of the paint- ings and mosaic with which it was decorated. A reference to the plan, Plate XXXV., will explain the distribution of the apart- ments and their dimensions. If the two rooms, situated on each side of the vestibule or entrance, were shops, the doors connect- ing them with the same vestibule, contrary to the general custom, would seem to indi- cate that the proprietor was concerned in some sort of trade. This species of cham- ber was called apotheca by the Greeks, and taberna by the Romans; but, if the wide openings toward the street be not certain indications of a shop, it does not seem im- possible that the rooms might have been occupied by the servants of the family. On the pier left of the door was written in red characters — M. HOLCONIVM. .ED C. GAVIN I VM This inscription, unfortunately, gives no 144 POMPKIANA. information with regard to the proprietor of the house. The three following are scratched with a nail on the outer w all ; and the first, which is reversed in the original, seems to offer a puzzle to the passenger: IVSTVS IVCVNDOI-I-I-IRMISKOS. The following letters are on the pier at the angle of a house forming, with this of the poet, the entrance of the vicus of the fullonicae. 7iinii>l-niA/| SAMEWm A learned Neapolitan has translated the Etruscan part of this inscription. He says it signifies, " You shall hear a poem of Xu- merius.'' To one unskilled in the language, it appears to be the name of an owner of the house, and might be M. P. Cepius. The doors turned upon pivots in two um- bilici of bronze fixed into a marble threshold, the outer part of which rose about an inch above the rest. This, with two door-posts POMPEIANA. 145 of wood, also fixed in holes in the marble, served to maintain the door in its position when shut. On entering, the first object is a black dog spotted with white, represented on the pavement in mosaic, collared and chained, and in the attitude of barkins;. The collar is of red leather. Below the animal is in- scribed, in very legible characters, cave CAN EM, a sentence, probably, not uncom- monly placed at the entrance of Roman houses, as we learn from a passage of Petro- nius Arbiter: — " Canis ingens catena vinc- tus, non longe ab ostiarii cella in pariete erat pictus, superque quadrata littera scrip- tum CAVE, CAVE CANEM.'' Below the inscription may be observed a hole in the pavement for the reception of the rain water which might chance to enter from without, much in the same manner as we find a similar orifice under the doors and windows in modern Italy, where it is thought easier to lead the water out again into the street than to prevent it from entering at all. The dog seems to have been placed as a sort of guardian of the porta antica, or front 146 POMPEIANA, door. The passage entry, or vestibule, is about six feet wide, and nearly thirty in length; and a curtain, or door, may have been placed at the entry of the atrium. Sta- tues could not have existed in this vestibule, as they are said by Saint Augustine, De Civ. Dei, B. IV. Cap. viii., to have done in Roman houses. He says that three gods guarded the doors : " Forculum foribus, Car- deam cardini, Limentinum limini.'' These protectors of doors, hinges, and thresholds might have been painted on the wall; but, as yet, no traces of them have been observed in the habitations of Pompeii. The atrium is about twenty-eight feet in length by twenty, with its impluvium near the centre, under which was a cistern whence the water might be drawn through a fluted hollow cylinder of marble. The floor is prettily paved with white tesserae, spotted, at intervals, with black ; and, round the impluvium, is a well-executed in- terlaced pattern, also in black. The following inscription on a slab of marble is said to have been found in this atrium on the 5th of March, in the year POMPEIANA. 147 1825. There seems to have been nothing to afford room for a conjecture as to how it came there. It might, perhaps, have been thrown into an excavation which the ancients themselves seem to have made in this spot, or have fallen from an upper wall. L. CAECILIVS . FELIX Q. LOLLIVS . FELIX Q. ARRIVS . HIERONI sic pro niinist. MINIT . AVGVST EX DD JVSSV M. POMPONI . MARCELL VALERI FLACCI D . V . J . D A. PERENNl iMERVLINI L. OBELLI LVCRETIANI D.V.V . A . S . P.P. C. CAESARE L. PAVLLO COSS Perhaps, as the inscription does not seem to allude clearly to the owner of the house, its chief merit may consist in having been engraved in the first year after the birth of our Saviour, about 753 years after the build- ino; of Rome, when Caius Julius Caesar and Lucius iEmilius Paullus were consuls. On the left, on quitting the vestibule, yet remain the legs and part of the body 148 POMPEIANA. of a beautiful Venus painted in tempra, or distemper, upon the wall. The colouring is quite that of Titian, and the attitude not unlike that of the Venus dei Medici. One hand is held up over the head, and supports a light, undulating blue drapery. On the ground is a dove and the mj rtle branch, the emblems of the goddess. More of this ex- quisite paintmg might, possibly, have been preserved by greater care in excavating, though the plaster, in many parts, adhered but slightly to the wall. Still proceeding to the left, the first small chamber is painted of a yellow colour with black pilasters ; and, from this, a narrow stair- case ascended to the upper story of the house. That an upper floor was usual at Pompeii may be proved by the frequent staircases, and the remains of the painted walls of the upper rooms, above the holes for placing the beams over the lower apartments ; while the slight construction of these walls renders very improbable the existence of any still superior chambers, though Juvenal remarks. Sat. III., that the houses very commonly fell with a tremendous crash. During the POMPEIANA. 149 excavation, the fragments of the mosaic pave- ment of the upper floor, with a head of Bac- chus, were discovered in this house; and, what is curious, considering the evident in- dications of a previous examination of the phice, probably not long after the fatal erup- tion, several articles of value were found, which appeared to have fallen from above. This circumstance gave rise to the idea that the house must have belonged to a jeweller, or rich goldsmith, and nothing yet observed tends materially to invalidate the opinion ; for, except the mosaic, there is no- thing peculiarly devoted either to poetry or tragedy in the mansion. All the other houses of Pompeii were decorated with paint- ings of mythological or heroic subjects, be- cause, in fact, the poets and painters seldom sung or painted any other. The position of the house must have been easily ascertained by the survivors after the catastrophe, from its proximity to the thermae, the arches of which, as well as the dome of the piscina, resisted the weight of the vol- canic matter ; and the riches of the pro- prietor were naturally the incentives to the 1.50 POMPEIANA. research which followed, and of which the vestiges were so apparent. The unfortunate proprietors were, pro- babl}^ among the victims of the eruption, for skulls, or the fragments of them, were found on the spot; and a variety of trinkets were considered as the indications of the toilet, or dressing-box, of the lady of the house. Amono; these were remarked two neck- laces of gold; a twisted gold cord; four bracelets, one weighing, seven ounces, and formed into serpents; a child's necklace; two small bracelets; four ear-rings, and an engraved stone mounted in a large ring. Two coins, also of gold, were found. Forty-two silver coins, a bracciere for fire, and a variety of utensils of bronze and earthenware, formed part of the riches of this house, after the ancient excavators had already searched the place. In one of the adjoining houses of refresh- ment, the skeleton of an unhappy proprietor was also discovered. He had, in vain, sought shelter under a staircase of stone, where he was probably suffocated. His treasure was found near, and consisted of rings of gold. POMPEIANA. 151 with car-rings of the same metal, together with about 140 coins of brass and silver. It has usually been agreed, that, in Ro- man houses, the lower or ground floor was appropriated to the master of the house, and to the more magnificent apartments, while the upper was occupied by the servants. In a Greek house, as we learn from the cele- brated oration of Lysias, they were change- able; and, possibly, they were so in the ha- bitations of Pompeii, which are, Avith dif- ficulty, reducible exactly to the rules given by Vitruvius for the houses of either people. Euphiletes, the client of Lysias the cele- brated orator, had a house consisting of two floors; the lower usually occupied by the males of the family, and the upper serving as a gynecseum, or apartment for the women and children. On some occasion, for the convenience of nursing, the uses of the apart- ments were changed ; and Sostratus, a friend of Euphiletes, is mentioned particularly as having gone up stairs even to supper, the nurse and child being always below. The wife slept, at night, with the husband above. One night, the nurse, having concealed in a 152 POMPEIAXA. lower room the lover of the wife, pinched the child till its cries were heard by the pa- rents. Euphiletes, surprised at the inhu- manity of his wife, who at first seemed un- willing to attend to the child, ordered her to get up and go to its assistance ; but, ob- serving that, as she went out, she cautiously turned the key and locked him into his room, and having, on former occasions, heard the street-door open while she was absent, he suspected there might be some mystery in the business, though he had been always told that the noise was occasioned by his wife going to a neighbour's for a light, as the lamp below had gone out, and the child wanted help. Having found means to open his door, Euphiletes went out, unper- ceived, in search of Sostratus, his friend, leaving the street-door ajar, that he might re-enter at pleasure to detect the culprits, who were, accordingly, surprised by the breaking open of their chamber. This description of facts seems such as might have taken place in a house like this at Pompeii ; and, from the absence of all privacy during the da}^ it seems scarcely POMPEIANA. 153 credible that the apartment of the females could have been on the ground floor in the house of the Tragic Poet, or, perhaps, any other in the city. When the porta antica, or great door, was opened, every one from the street could see nearly all that passed, except in the triclinium of Leda, which was, in its turn, completely exposed from the other street on opening the porta postica ; so that the females of the family could have had no retreat except, like Penelope, they inhabited the upper rooms of the house. It is very probable that the custom of closino- the doors was also at least as unfre- quent in ancient as in modern Italy. The houses, however, were so contrived, that the sun could generally shine through the com- pluvium into the atrium, or cavaedium, an advantage not possessed by the houses of the present day, where the court is usually darkened and rendered damp by the height of the surrounding buildings. This species of construction must have rendered the houses of the ancients more habitable durinir the winter whenever the sun was visible ; but, VOL. I. N 154 POMPEIANA. notwithstanding all that maj^ be said or ima- gined of the mildness of the climate, the want of fire and of chimnej^s must have re- duced the ancient, as it does the modern inhabitants of Italy, to enduring, under ad- ditional clothino^. that state of discomfort and cold damp which is always produced whenever the sky is overcast, between the months of October and April. The climate of Pompeii is, however, par- ticularly genial during the winter; and, if the sun be visible, the situation is such as to mi- tigate the severity of the season, Avhile the heat of summer is agreeably tempered by the sea-breeze, which is almost periodical. From the angle of the atrium, near that sort of cubiculum or chamber which con- tains the staircase, nearly the whole of the house is visible, and that spot has accord- ingly been chosen for the view given in Plate XXXVI. The impluvium, with its border of mosaic, is seen in the foreo^round. On the rig-ht side is the entrance into a small cubiculum. On the right of that door is the invaluable pic- Q.'by SisW.GeXi. pjLrijaved "by K.Mo; F © M F B E I. ACHILLES A2ID BE-ISEIc ?!fcldt7 rr^rrScra *C' POMPEIANA. loo ture of Achilles restorino; Briseis to the he- raids, who were to re-conduct her to her father. This is, perhaps, the most beautiful spe- cimen of ancient painting which has been preserved to our times ; and it has been the means of awakening the attention of artists and of the public to the hitherto depreciated merit of the masters of antiquity. — Vide Plate XXXIX. The size of this painting is four feet wide by four feet two inches high. The scene seems to take place in the tent of Achilles, who sits in the centre. Patro- clus, with his back toward the spectator, and with a skin of deeper red, leads in, from the right, the lovely Briseis arrayed in a long and floating veil of apple-green. Her face is beautiful; and, not to dwell on the arch- ness of her eye, it is evident that the vo- luptuous pouting of her ruby lip was ima- gined by the painter as one of her most be- witching attributes. Achilles presents the fair one to the heralds on the left; and his attitude, his manly beauty, and the magni- ficent expression of his countenance are in- imitable. N 2 156 POMPEIANA. The tent seems to be divided by a dra- perj^ about breast-high, and of a sort of dark bluish-green, like the tent itself. Behind this stand several warriors, the golden shield of one of whom, whether intentionally or not on the part of the painter, forms a species of glory round the head of the principal hero. It is, probably, the copy of one of the most celebrated pictures of antiquity. When first discovered, the colours were fresh, and the flesh, particularly, had the transparency of Titian. It suftered much and unavoidably during the excavation, and something from the means taken to preserve it, when a committee of persons qualified to judge had decided that the wall on which it was painted was not in a state to admit of its removal with safety. At length, after an exposure of more than two years, it was thought better to attempt to transport it to the Studii at Naples, than to suffer it en- tirely to disappear from the wall. It was, accordingly, removed, with success, in the summer of the year 1826, and it is hoped that some remains ofit may exist for posterit}^ The painter has chosen the moment when %. FAC S I M F 1:. ■RdbCTt JeitnmgB A- V -, TJwaiLDfCrnibe'liaSO POMP EI AN A. 157 the heralds, Talthybius and Eurybates, are put in possession of Briseis, to escort her to the tent of Agamemnon, as described in the first book of the Iliad, and thus translated by Pope : " Patroclus now the unwilling beauty brought. She in soft sorrows and in pensive thought Pass'd silent as the heralds held her hand. And oft look'd back, slow moving o'er the strand." The head of Achilles is so full of fire and animation that an attempt has been made to introduce a fac-simile of it in Plate XL. Though a fac-simile, as far as being traced with transparent paper from the original can render it so, it gives but a very imperfect idea of the divinity which seems to animate the hero of the painting. On the left of the door of the cubiculum is another picture, but, unhappily, so much defaced that even the subject, at first, seemed doubtful ; but the picture of Briseis quickly suggested the restoration of Chryseis to her father, also described in the first book of the Iliad in these lines : *' Meanwhile Atrides launch'd with numerous oars A well-rigg'd ship for Chrysa's sacred shores : 158 POMPEIANA. High on the deck was fair Chryseis placed, And sage Ulysses with the conduct graced : Safe in her sides the hecatomb they stow'd, Then swiftly sailing cut the liquid road." What remains of it may be observed in Plate XXX VL, on the right, where, under a blue sky, is seen a female in long robes, whose hands are kissed by children, while an elderly person looks on from the right, and, on the left, under a red portal, an armed man, with helmet and plume, is seen behind the principal figure. The chief personage seems to be stepping on board a galley, and, without doubt, the picture represented Chry- seis returning to her own country from the Grecian camp, while Ulysses and the he- ralds are assisting at the embarkation; though some have supposed it to have represented Andromache, with her infant son, going into slavery after the destruction of Troy. The decay of the painting renders abortive any speculation on the subject of the execution, or even of the conception of the picture. To the left of this picture is the ala, a species of recess, possibly once furnished with seats ; but of which, either here, or in any other house, no vestige upon the colour- POiM I'l-IANA. 159 ino of the wall lias been observed, though furniture could scarcely have been placed against a wall without leaving some trace on the painting. To the left of this is the faux, or passage to the inner court, scarcely more than three feet in width, and always so near and so visible from the tablinum, that nothing could pass without being seen by the family. We next observe the tablinum itself, so called from being closed with planks or shut- ters, and, beyond it, the inner court, with its Doric columns, between which is seen a wall painted as a blue sky; while, below it, the tops of trees are visible over the parapet, re- presenting altogether a scene in the country or a pseudo-garden. In the aedicula, on the left, was probably placed the statue of a Faun or a Bacchus, which was found near the spot, carrying- fruits and flowers. Between the columns ran some species of balustrade, as the holes for fixing it inform us, rendering the area, or hypi^-'thrum, a sort of sanctuary, probably planted with choice flowers. To assist in forming an idea of the pleas- l60 POMPEIANA. ing effect produced by the houses of Pom- peii, Plate XXXVII. has been introduced. It is traced upon the view No. 36, which was executed mechanically, and, therefore, cannot fail in correctness. The roof only has been added, and that of the most simple kind, formed by a rectangular intersection of beams. The ornaments are those which remain on the spot, or are taken from others in similar situations. The introduction of draperies, furniture, and the doors or shut- ters, called volubiles, might have rendered the drawing more picturesque ; but even curtains have been very sparingly adopted, in order to exclude as much as possible the introduction of imaginary ornament. It may not be amiss to add, when every thing is dis- puted, that the iron rods, on which curtains, or draperies, were suspended from column to column, have lately, in the year 18^8, been discovered perfect in a new excavation at Herculaneum. The atrium boasted other pictures, of which only fragments exist; but one, nearly perfect, on the right of the entrance, remains to be described. — Vide Plate XLI. Some POMPEIANA. 161 have supposed that this represented the return of lIelentoMenekius,and have amused them- selves by discovering, in the countenances, expressions excited by that event. Some have considered this painting as represent- ing the moment when Thetis complains to Jupiter of the injustice done to Achilles ; and this seems the most rational idea, and one with which her countenance, and every other circumstance correspond : but others, again, have imagined that they discovered in the picture the marriage of Peleus and Thetis, and perceived, in the expression of the Ne- reid, the reluctance with which she is re- ported to have consented to a mortal alli- ance. The heads and the drapery are fine, but the picture, altogether, is far inferior in beauty to that of Achilles. Fate had fixed that the son of Thetis should excel his father, in consequence of which the nymph was no longer sought in marriage by the Gods, and was compelled to marry Peleus, as the first of mortals. The ring on her finger is re- markable, because rings were invented from a circumstance connected with Thetis. The tradition relates that Jupiter, wishing to re- l6"2 POMPEIANA. lease Prometheus, who was bound to a rock for a certain number of years, was prevented by his oath. Prometheus, however, having shown how the difficulty with regard to the son of Thetis might be overcome, by her mar- riage with a mortal, had merited restoration to divine favour. This could only be done consistently with the oath, by making a ring in which was set a piece of the rock of Cau- casus, always to be worn by Prometheus, who thus remained, in a manner, perpetually chained to the rock. Opposite to the painting of Achilles is a sea-piece, which, though now almost unin- telligible, might, at first, be recognised as the flight of Daedalus, or rather the fall of Icarus. A winged sea-god, on a dolphin, seems to be assisting, with his trident, the unfortunate adventurer; and the execution of the piece, though less laboured than some of the other paintings, possesses a breadth which, proba- bly, rendered it a beautiful picture when the colours were fresh and brilliant. An idea of it is given in the base of the Frontispiece. A small chamber, also on the left of the atrium, POMP EI AN A. 16'3 is remarkable on account of its singular frieze, upon which, on a white ground, is represented in colours the combat of the Greeks and Amazons. The figures are sketched with an incomparable freedom of hand, which gives them every appearance of originality; though the subject was so often repeated by the ancients, that, without enu- merating the paintings on vases, and the fre- quent recurrence of the Amazons at Rome, the author has observed the same scene re- presented, without much deviation, on various marbles both in Greece and Ionia. The frieze of the Athenian Temple of Minerva Nike is well known in England ; that of Diana Leucophryne, at Magnesia on the Maeander, consisted of the same personages: the internal frieze of the Temple of Apollo at Bassae was, in part, composed of them; and a large fragment near Amyclae proves that they constituted one of the principal ornaments of a temple in that neighbour- hood. The heroines of Pompeii differ, however, from those hitherto observed in Greece ; 164 POM PEIANA. being mounted in chariots, and armed with bows, as well as with their peculiar battle- axes and shields. The}^ are clothed in dra- peries of blue, green, and purple, and are represented in strong, or perhaps rather ex- travagant action; often pursuing the Greeks, but sometimes falling beneath their blows, while the victory seems, as 3^et, doubtful. In the frieze of the frontispiece of this work many of these figures are seen, which may suffice for a general idea of the combat. An Amazon, whose horse is falling, and who, though wounded herself, yet retains her seat, is a masterpiece of attitude, however negli- gently the picture may be touched. In the same chamber is a picture, gene- rally supposed to have been obscene ; but it is either so much effaced, or was so carelessly executed, that it may, possibly, have been in- tended to represent a person supporting a dead or faintins; female. It is singular that, in many cases, though a picture be not ill preserved, and may be seen from the most convenient distance, a style of painting has been adopted, which, though POMPEIANA. 16. calculated to decorate the wall, is by no means intelligible on a nearer approach. In a chamber, near the entrance of the chalcidicum, by the statue of Eumachia, is a picture in which, from a certain distance, a town, a tent, and something like a mar- riage ceremony, might be perceived ; but which vanished into an assemblage of ap- parently unmeaning blots, so as to entirel}^ elude the skill of an artist who was endea- vouring to copy it at the distance of three or four feet. Another picture of the same kind is, or was, visible in the chamber, of the Perseus and Andromeda. An entire farm-yard, with animals, a fountain, and a beggar, seemed to invite the antiquary to a closer inspection, which only produced confusion and disap- pointment, and proved that the picture could not be copied except by a painter possess- ing the skill and touch of the original artist. It is probable that those who were in the habit of painting these unreal pictures had the art of producing them with great ease and expedition ; and that they served to l66 POMPEIANA. fill a compartment where greater detail was judged unnecessary*. In the chamber of the Amazons is also a painting of Europa and the Bull. These cubiculi are all about hvelve feet in height, and have been covered with six small beams, on which were suspended the floors of the upper chambers. The doors appear, generall\% to have had two valves, as may be seen by the sockets in the thresholds * This art of representing the effect of a picture upon a wall, instead of imitating nature itself, is applied, with considerable success, in the decoration of certain modern Italian habitations. The author has seen in the Palazzo Sannizzi, at Rieti, a room of magnificent dimensions, on entering which a visiter imagines himself in an apartment hung with green damask, and decorated with a profusion of splendid pictures. There are iMadonnas and Holy Families, landscapes, animals, and battle-pieces, which recal, at the moment, the names and works of the most distinguished artists. A further examination, on a nearer approach, shows that no one of the objects has any decided form or outline, or in- telligible sign. Not only does the whole collection consist in the representation of pictures, but their seemingly gold frames are merely wooden mouldings roughly painted with ochre, most scantily touched, here and there, in the prominent parts, with gilding to represent the effect of catching lights. Behind each sham picture was nothing but the white wall, and the apparently rich silk hangings consist in a few narro«' stripes of the stuff be- tween the frames — yet the whole has a good effect. ''!inj|,L!(liri;Ji-j^ rs^'/ \rk^ %:^~ F(D)MLF3SE1. POETS READING. ,ide.Aml]S,:iffiO. POIMPKIANA. 167 for two umbilici on which they turned, and two holes, in the centre, for bolts. From the atrium a narrow corridor, or faux, communicated with the peristyle, or inner court, between which and the atrium was also situated the chamber called the tablinum, which should occupy, according to Vitruvius, two-thirds of the width of the atrium. In this the wall on the left presents a variety of singular and fanciful architec- tural ornaments, such as pillars with human heads for capitals, sustaining capricious en- tablatures, not destitute of picturesque effect, an idea of which may be formed by ob- serving the frontispiece. On the right is a large picture, generally little esteemed, by connoisseurs, for its exe- cution, but producing a good whole, and re- presented in Plate XLIV. of this work. It is more particularly described in the account of the engravings. The wall is adorned, also, witli a variety of other ornaments, some of which have been adopted in the frontispiece. Swans, goats, lions, and singularly capricious architecture and variety of colour consti- tute here, as throughout Pompeii, the fan- l68 POMPEIANA. ciful and lively decorations. The opposite wall is differently, yet not less fantastically covered with still more imaginary, but not inelegant, porticos and erections. A door, entering into a cubiculum, in which, among other objects, we find a cock painted with the caduceus of Mercury, supplies the place of a picture. This tablinum might be ima- gined a dark chamber, and that it received only a reflected light from the atrium and peristyle ; and, in the restoration, its proper effect has not, perhaps, been given ; but Vitruvius explains the circumstance, clearly showing that the tablinum was to be higher than the atrium, in order that the light might enter through the windows above. The inner peristyle, enclosing a sort of court, probably planted with flowers, and sometimes called a viridarium, consists of Doric columns, standing upon a sort of podium, painted, like the lower part of the pillars, red. The capitals have a fanciful moulding in the echinus, also coloured with the same. In the garden a tortoise had been kept, and the shell of the animal was found on the spot. 3i&^lllll|l|llllllllilllS!., ^^m •■iiilllllJt „= Bra-wn.'bj' Sir 'V. G*T1 I A D N E. aigrireas-PrinteaTyrsnno- Seara*C? Loaaoii "Robert JeiatingB ft VEUiaxa Chaplin 62 Cheapsitk Juiyl 1430. POMPKI ANA 169 At the same time several frogs were dis- covered in terra cotta, evidently hollowed so as to serve for spouts to the roof of the por- tico. The opposite wall was painted with trees and sky. The tablinum had evidently been closed on this side with doors or shut- ters, which were of the kind called volubiles, or with many folds, as they are now fre- quently made in England, but, on the side next the Atrium, if other means of shutting up the apartment existed, than the use of a curtain, the shutters could only have been supported by wood-Avork attached to the wall, as the threshold retains no sign of the hinges or fastenings. On the left of the peristyle are two cubiculi, one of which has been called the library, from a circular painting with books and the implements for writing, and of which more will be said at the close of this work. The other contains the picture of Ariadne, given in Plate XLIII. On the same side is also a postern, or back entrance to the house, from a vicus, or alley, into which the win- dows of the cubiculi opened. Near the column, at the angle on the VOL. I. o 170 POiMPElANA. right, is a C3'linder of lead, into which, it appears, the rain from the roofs was con- ducted. , Against the wall stood a little shrine, in or near which was found a small statue, which was thought to represent either a young Bacchus, or a faun. On the right of the faux, at the entrance, vrere a kitchen and the latrina, which usually are near to- gether. The remainder of that side was occupied by the Chamber of Leda. The apartment which has acquired the name of the Chamber of Leda, from a paint- ing on one of its walls, is the largest, which can be called a room, in the house of the Tragic Poet, being little short of twenty feet square, and of considerable height. It has been painted in the most glaring shades of red and yellow, and, in the centre of each compartment, there has been a picture of considerable merit. One, almost defaced, contains a beautiful Cupid, most gracefully leaning on the knees of Venus, to whom Adonis seems to be ad- dressino' himself. Another exhibits Ariadne sleeping on the margin of the sea, with that sort of glory en- Drawzi^y SirW-GeQ. Priflted'by^ rennar Sears k C°. F © M F M I I. LEDA. A-ND T^nMDATtEUS. Robezt Joorngs ^IKIliam Cb^IzD. 62 Chef^siclA Sep 1.1530. POMPEIANA. 171 circling her head which can scarcely be in- tended to represent a blue hat in many of the paintings at Pompeii. The faithless Theseus, under the guidance of Minerva, who is visi- ble in the clouds, is, in the mean time, em- barking, attended by his companions. Both these paintings are much defaced, so that it is difficult to judge of their execution, but the composition of this last has not much merit. The picture of Leda, Plate XLVIIL, pre- senting her infant progeny to Tyndareus, is one of the most beautiful productions of an- cient art, and is not only estimable for the elegance of its design and composition, but, as far as can be judged, it excels the gene- rality of other specimens in chastity and har- mony of colour. It has not made the im- pression which its merit ought to have pro- duced on the minds of those who are officially interested in the discoveries at Pompeii, but, on the expression of that opinion on the subject, it was pleasing to learn that Thor- waldsen had regarded this picture with that admiration which grace and nature must ever inspire in a real artist. o 2 172 POMPEIANA. Mj^thologists have attributed to this prin- cess not only her daughters Timandra, Cly- taemnestra, and Philonoe, by her husband Tyndareus, King of Lacedsemon, but Cas- tor, Pollux, and Helen, the offspring of Ju- piter, produced from two eggs, one of the Dioscuri and the wife of Menelaus having been born in the same shell. This story has been differently related, and Helen has, by some, been supposed to be the child of Jupiter and Nemesis confided to the care of Leda ; but the Greek word for an egg, and that for an upper apartment, are so similar, that the circumstance seems to re- quire little further explanation. M. Selvaggi observes that the Scholiast on Tzetzes says that Jupiter caused Nemesis to lay three eggs, which, being placed in a larnax in the care of Leda, produced Castor, Pollux, and Helen. The children, in allusion to the fable, are here represented in their nest, which the mother holds gracefully in one hand, while she caresses them with the other. A curious change often takes place in the colours of these pictures, after they have been some time exposed to the air. PO.MPEIANA. 173 M. Zahn, an artist of" merit, who copied this painting of Leda only a few days after its discovery, states that the drapery of that princess was green lined with blue, and that the robe of Tyndareus was black lined with green. Behind Leda was an attendant in a green garment ; the habit of the person with the bow was yellow, and that of the last figure on the right hand green. It is difficult to reconcile this account with its appearance about a month afterwards, when the robe of Leda was red, and that of Tyndareus purple, and both have remained so from that period to the present hour. The landscape is much faded in the back ground. The red usually changes to black, and the wall, with the picture of Leda, had, in the course of a year's exposure, assumed a darker hue in consequence. The wall itself is given in Plate XXX VIL, and, if possible, as much of its gaudy and glaring colouring will be preserved as will suffice to aftbrd a just idea of the decorations of the apartment. The taste may seem ex- travagant in a small drawing, but is less so when seen on a larger scale. 174- POMPEIANA. The openings represented in the wall, through which the transparent atmosphere and capricious architectural decorations are discovered, have a pleasing and striking effect. In these we are presented with the roof, or ceiling, and the opening of the impluvium; and, in the original,theyareof asize sufficient to leave no doubt as to the appearance from the atrium of this important feature, which was decorated, like the eaves of external roofs, with its ornamental antefixes. The lower part of the wall was decorated with garlands, sea-horses, and other orna- ments, on black panels. The floor of the room is mosaic. This chamber of Leda is prettily paved in mosaic, and is nineteen feet long by eighteen feet six inches wide. In its pre- sent state it is sufficiently lofty, and there can be little doubt that it had, like the other tablinum, a row of small windows which ad- mitted light above the roof of the peristyle. It is impossible to conclude the account of the house of the Tragic Poet without speaking of the beautiful mosaic picture, Plate XLV., on the floor of the tablinum. POISJI'KIANA. 175 It is the best and largest mosaic, de- serving the name of a picture, which has yet been discovered, and represents, on a black ground, an Ionic colonnade decorated with shields, festoons, and fillets, in front of which an elderly person seated seems to superin- tend the distribution of masks and dresses to the performers of the theatre. Two youths, on the left, seem already provided with a scanty savage dress of goat-skins ; a person, near the centre, plays the double flute, while his habit is adjusted by an attendant behind; and another is pulling over the head of a comedian a sort of shirt adapted to his character. It is said that many of the Nea- politan academicians believed that the story of Apollo and Marsyas was represented in this mosaic, and that the vanquished mu- sician is suspended by the feet to the pillars. If that be the opinion of a numerous and respectable society, it is right to mention it, though it does not seem warranted by the picture. This mosaic is defective at the angle on the right, but is, nevertheless, in- valuable. It has, probably, contributed not a little 176 POMPEIANA. in giving to the house the name it bears, and, when it is taken in connexion with the other pictures of the poet reading, and the heroic and tragic subjects which are found in all parts of the habitation, few will, per- haps, be disposed to cavil at so classical a supposition. Plate XXV., in the copy of the great work on Herculaneum by Piroli, represents the rehearsal of a play in a man- ner not very different from this mosaic ; and, in another painting, the pedagogue is seen whipping one of his scholars in a school with a similar portico, and, like it, adorned with garlands. Bonucci, who had every opportunity of obtaining information, gives a long list of objects found in the house of the poet. Some of them are too interesting to be omitted. Of gold, were found two necklaces and two bracelets, formed of two lines of semi- globes, which have since been imitated by the goldsmiths and jewellers of Naples. Two armlets, formed like serpents, in many convolutions, and a smaller one for a child. POMPEIANA. 177 Four ear-rings, each of two pearls, hang- ino; as if from a balance. A ring of onyx with the head of a youth. Two coins, one of Nero and one of Titus. These objects seemed to have fallen from the dressing-case of a female who lived in the upper story. They were not more than five feet below the soil. Thirty-nine silver coins, both consular and imperial; a mass of brass coins; twenty- seven coins separate; saucepans and kitchen utensils of all sorts; a vase for oil; a bucket; a lamp for two lights, with the head and feet of a bull which hung from the ceiling of a chamber; a little tripod; a candelabrum; screws belongins; to the furniture. Of iron, four hatchets; a hammer ; a tri- pod; a broken key; two hooks; two heels for boots, with holes for the nails ; locks, latches, and hinges. Of glass, four decanters and three glo- bular bottles. Of terra cotta, fifty-six lamps and many other articles ; among them a cup, with fine enamel or varnish. Six plates are said to 178 POMPEIANA. have been found in another place, with fine blue varnish. A head of Hermes of giallo antico; a quantity of corn ; many ropes carbonized ; a piece of soap, and three weights of lead. In a house not far distant were found, in the month of November, 1826, vases with olives still swimming in oil. They retained their colour, and the oil burnt well- Also a vase of caviare, or the eggs of tunny fish. Ashes had fallen into all, and formed a sort of crust, which had preserved the contents. POMPEIANA 179 CHAPTER IX. FULLONICA. The Fullonica is situated just behind the back wall of the house of the Poet, and has a door, like it, opening into the vicus, as well as a great entrance from the street, which passes under the arch of Tiberius Ca- licrula or Augustus, near the Temple of For- 180 POMPEIANA. tune. That street is now called the Street of Mercur}^ or of the Mercuries, from the number of paintings of that divinity which it exhibits. Before we enter that street, however, it will be necessary to notice the prolongation of the Street of the Thermae, which passes along the north flank of the Temple of Fortune, and in which, at the present moment, February, 1829, the exca- vations are continuing. It is very probable that this street may be that branch of the Via Domitia which ran to Salernum, and leads to the gate commonly called that of Nola ; and the frequent and deep traces of wheels at the point now excavating prove the street to have been a much-frequented passage through the city. Between the house of the Poet and the triumphal arch, several rooms bear the ap- pearance of having served as places for refreshment for those who used the baths. Beyond the arch, the first pier or termina- tion of a massive stone wall of great blocks was ornamented with a most interestino; painting of a galley with its equipage, now defaced, and, beyond this, is the entrance to a house now called by the names of POMPEIANA. 181 Ceres and Biicchus, and of the Bacchanti, from paintings of these divinities in the Atrium. The painting of the galley had> for some time, acquired the name of Casa del Navio^lio for the house. In the entrance, pretty groups of vases are painted, one of which is given in Plate XII. On the right is a sort of recess, not observed in other houses, where a slave or porter might have been stationed. The Atrium of this house of Ceres is suf- ficiently preserved to show that, at least in this house, this division of the dwelling arose to the height of two ordinary stories before it was covered in by the roof. The tricli- nium or tablinum, at the further extremity, which is not large, must have been singularly lofty in its proportions, if, indeed, it was lighted at all by windows which were above the tiles. It is so different in its effect from other houses of Pompeii, that a view of it has been selected for Plate LXII., by which a cor- rect idea of its present state may be obtained. In a little room, on the right of the atrium, were found, leaning against the wall, several 182 POMPEIANA. iron fellies of large wheels, so exactly similar to those of modern construction, that the paintings lately discovered were scarcely necessary to convince us that, in the first century of our aera, wheels were no longer of the antiquated form represented on vases and marbles with four spokes, but, as nearly as possible, resembled those now used in Europe. The House of Ceres was evidently the dwelling of a person of consequence, and is connected, by means of the passage, or faux, on the right of the triclinium (Vide Plan, Plate LX.), with what may have ori- ginally been another habitation, which might have been a new acquisition, as it was evi- dently undergoing a repair, and receiving fresh embellishments at the moment when every thing was interrupted by the final ca- tastrophe. This second division of the house consists only of the remains of a portico, with a large central room and two small chambers, occupying one side of a square court, in the centre of which is a fixed triclinium, or raised bench of masonry, suited to the reception of three sofas or beds, with a table in the centre. STREET OF THE THERMAE Drawn. "by SirW^Gell. Eo^Pwred try'WSchriicininetr. FOMFHSSc PART OF THE STREET OF THE MERCURIES AND THE ADJACENT HOUSES. I-ondDiLFaUishjea V Robert JenoingS *"wn]isanQu5iliii. 6:i.Chesq)sid£.20?'.^jrillS30. POMPEIANA. 183 The walls of this court or garden, or what- ever it might have been, seem not to have been yet covered with plaster. The entrance is from the Street of Mercury. On the piers of the houses near that of Ceres and Bacchus, are found several in- scriptions, opposite the northern flank of the Temple of Fortune. C. LOLLIVM FVSCVM ET. POPIDIVM. SECVNDVM V. B. O. V. F. M. CERRINIVM. VAEIVM. R. D. AED. OR. This is in red characters. The proprietor seems to invoke the favour o. v. f. of C. Lollius Fuscus and Popidius Secundus, good men v. b., and of M. Cerrinius Veins the ^dile, worthy of the Republic, or r. d. Another has PANSAM. AED. OR AT POPIDIVM C. CALVENTIVM. II. VIR SITTIViM. MAGNVM. OR M. G. M. JED. This street is much worn by carriages beyond the House of Ceres and the Temple of Fortune, and, from its direction, probably follows almost a direct line to the gate com- 184 POMPEIANA. monly called that of Nola, but which, per- haps, points more directly to Sarno, where the fine sources of the river must always have collected a population. The arch which forms the entrance into the street, now called Via dei Mercurj, or the Street of the Mercuries, from the many repetitions of the figures of Mercury or his attributes, may be supposed, from the frag- ments of a column and a capital lying near it, to have been ornamented with Doric co- lumns, and fountains which threw up water in jets, as may be imagined from the pipes yet distinguishable in the masonry. The whole was, of course, covered with marble, because every thing of the kind at Pompeii was decorated with that material. Near the arch was painted a fragment, supposed to imply Virum Amplissimum, &c. [n red is In black V. A. H. A. AED. O. V. F. HYPSAEVM QVINQ. D. R. P. C. IVLIVM. POLIBIVM. D. I. D. O. V. F. M. LVCRETIVM. PRO. . . . POMPEIANA. 185 A person of the name of M. Plautius Hypsaeus, who was consul in the year 125 before our aera, was, possibly, the subject of this inscription. It is always an agreeable circumstance to meet with a memorial of any person known in history. The same name is repeated in another place — L. Veranivm Hypsaevm. In this street was an inscription of the Pomarii or Fruit-sellers ; and it seems that there must have been a fraternity of almost every trade or profession. Bonucci has col- lected several of these, and of such as com- plimented the ifidile or protector of their shops. POSTUiMIUiM PROBUM. JED. PHOTINUS. ROG. FER TUNNUM. This incorrect inscription is a compli- ment from Photinus, a seller of tunny, to Postumius. " Marcellinum ^S^dilem Lignarii et Plo- starii roo-ant ut faveat/' — The Woodmen and Carmen invoke the favour of Marcellinus the ^dile. VOL. I. p 186 POMPEIANA. *' M. Cerrinium JEd. Saliniensesrog/' — The Saltworkers invoke the ^dile Marcus Cerrinius. " A. Vettium ^d. Saccarii rogj/' — The Porters of Sacks invoke Aulus Vettius the TEdile. " C. Cuspium Pansam JEd. Aurifices uni- versi rog/' — The Corporation of Goldsmiths invoke the ^Edile C. Pansa. " C. Jul. Polybium II. V. Muliones."— The Muleteers salute the Duumvir Caius Julius Polybius. " Pilicrepi facite." — Applaud ye who play at ball. " Fornacator Secundo iEd.'' — The At- tendant on the Furnace invokes Secundus the j$l.dile. " Paquio Duumv. I. D. Venerei.'' — The Venerei salute the Judge Paquius the Du- umvir. After an advertisement for a venatio are the words " O Procurator felicitas.'' These inscriptions are copied from Bonucci, who collected them on the walls of divers edifices. There are also inscriptions of the " Isiaci Universi." POMPEIANA. 187 In this street was the following Oscan in- scription : — in which the word emens seems clear, but the remainder is nearly effaced. It is further curious to observe, that on the great and antique stones which form the wall of the house of Bacchus and Ceres to- ward this street, are to be traced M . C . V . R . DORP D . R . P . SVA PIVM IVS cut into the blocks. The writer was D. R., worthy of the republic, but perhaps he had erected the wall at his own expense — Pe- cunia Sua. Among others, is on the left CASELLIVM. MARCELLVM AED. OPTIMOS. COLLEGAS. Near the arch, L. MARCELLVM .'ED ALBVCn^M OVF P 2 188 POM PET AN A. The o. V. i\, orat ut faveat, is in a species of cipher. The street is among the widest yet opened in the city; and as two great roads passed through Pompeii, that called the Popidiana to Nola, and that branch of the Via Domitia which ran through Nuceria, it is not im- probable that, by pursuing the excavation, the street of the Mercuries will be found to be the Via Popidiana itself. This, however, is on the supposition that the gate of Isis, now commonly called that of Nola, did not lead to that city, which does not in fact lie in that direction. About six or seven shops occur between the arch of Caligula and the great entrance of the fuUonica. Vide the Plan, Plate LX. The court of the fullonica is forty-five feet long and twenty-two feet six inches wide. On each side were five piers instead of columns, which may have been united by architraves or timbers, for none remain. It seems, however, from several columns which must have fallen from above, that two ranges existed. On the north side, between the piers, is the beautiful marble mouth of a POMI'EIANA. 189 well, prettily ornamented with triglyphs. In the portico is lying a large circular vase, or jar, which has been broken across the centre horizontally, and is so singularly and care- fully sewed together with wire of metal, that such vases must have borne a high price at Pompeii, though of the most common red clay. There seems to have been a porters lodge, or something equivalent, at the entry. Vide Plan. The west end of the court is entirely occupied by four large square vessels cor- responding in use to what we call coppers, but built of solid masonry and lined with stucco. They are above seven feet deep, and it required a little flight of steps to enable the fuller to look into them. The water seems to have passed from one into the other in succession ; and the portico, on the north side, retains the vestiges of six • or seven smaller basins, in which lighter articles have been washed, or which con- tained the different mixtures necessary for preparing the cloth for receiving a new 190 POMPEIANA. colour. The ancients seem to have dyed and cleansed their garments with great care, and to have used sulphur, and a variety of other ingredients, with fuller's earth and lime, for that purpose. A jar of lime was found in the fullonica of Pompeii. At the east end of the court was a foun- tain, exhibited in Plate L., one of the pret- tiest things of the kind yet discovered, and showing that the ancients had the art of constructing fountains in jets as we now pos- sess it. On the pier, seen in that view on the left, but the other side, are some curious scenes relative to the fuller's art, and given in Plates LI. and LII. The whole pier has, it seems, been removed to the Museum at Naples. There are, under the southern portico, several small rooms, seemingly appropriated to the fullers themselves, and the use of the trade. Among these, an oven, with a phallus over the mouth, is found in perfect pre- servation. The walls of the portico and the POMPEIANA. 191 apartments in general are painted in a way little different from those of the best houses of Pompeii ; and the trade of the owner was probably of so lucrative a nature, that he was inferior to few of the citizens in wealth. 192 POMPEIAN A --^^ /.-^ CHAPTER X. HOUSE OF THE FOUNTAIN. Adjoining the north wall of the ful- lonica is a house, not particular from its POMPEIANA. 193 dimensions, but adorned with a fountain of so remarkable a structure, that the habita- tion was distinguished, for some time, by no other name. There is, however, the name of Holconius Priscus near the door, who was, probably, the protector of the pro- prietor. An angle, in size nearly equal to one quarter of the whole quadrangle occupied by this house, has been cut off so as to form a small habitation, consisting only of two little rooms, an entrance, and a peristyle of three columns on each side, and uniting, by means of a narrow door, with the ful- lonica. The columns are placed round a com- pluvium, at one extremity of which seem to have been more than the usual inventions for water-works ; and certain dwarf walls are observed, the uses of which are by no means apparent. Vide Plan, Plate LX. The house of the fountain is approached from the street of the Mercuries by a hand- some and lofty door; and the atrium is not less than fifty feet in length, by forty broad. This atrium has its ala on each side, re- 194 PGMPEIANA. gularly disposed, with its tablinum in the centre; and, bej^ond it, a portico with a small court, the wall of which is painted to represent a garden. In the tablinum is a pretty painting of goats. The whole ground tloor of the house consists of eleven rooms, without reckoning the alae, the atrium, or the portico, and it seems to have been the property of a person of consideration. The ornaments, on the whole, do not differ much in style from those already men- tioned. The inner portico has only three columns, and those of a degraded Corinthian ; nor are they at equal distances from what may be termed their antae. The fountain also, though nearly in the middle of the garden, which is not rectangular, is neither placed opposite an intercolumniation, nor opposite the centre of the tablinum, so that it must have lost much of its effect. Of the wall of the garden, more will be said in the description of the view of it in Plate LIII. The colours and the plaster have long since fallen. POMPEIANA. 195 There was a private entrance through the faux, and a back passage from the vicus of the Tragic Poet. Near the faux was also the staircase for ascending to the upper floor. In this house is the representation of a comic scene, given in Plate LIV. The fountain itself was, however, the great source of the modern celebrity of this habitation, presenting, in fact, several cir- cumstances calculated to strike an observer. First its form, as will be seen by reference to Plate LIIL, is precisely that which every citizen would erect as a fountain at the bot- tom of his garden, near the metropolis, in our own times, and such as may be seen, at the present day, in the courts of most of the palaces in Rome and throughout Italy, and proving that, the worse the taste, the better chance it has of being handed down for imi- tation from generation to generation. Secondly, the materials are of a singular description, the whole being covered or in- crusted with a sort of mosaic, consisting of vitrified tesserse of different colours, but in 196 POMPEIANA. which blue predominates. These are some- times arranged in not inelegant patterns, and the grand divisions, as well as the borders, are entirely formed by, and orna- mented with, real sea-shells, neither calcined by the heat of the eruption, nor changed by the lapse of so many centuries. It is so difficult to describe the exact na- ture of the shells, in a manner perfectly in- tellio^ible to those who have not studied them as a science, that they may be here repre- sented by a wooden cut. It has been said that a boiler, or cal- dron, in this house, was so contrived that hot water could, if necessary, be conveyed to the cistern, or piscina, which advances in front of the fountain. We are exceedingly apt to accuse the ancients of ignorance in POMPEIANA. 197 natural philosoph3% an imputation which the excavations of Pompeii ahiiost every day contradict. Pliny states that water in leaden pipes will rise to the height of the source whence it is derived ; and, in the Sylvae of Statius, it is clearly shown that the Aqua Marcia passed the Anio in leaden pipes. But Vitruvius, B. VIII. c. 7, gives in- structions for the conveyance of water in tubes ; and Pliny, B. XXXI. c. 6, mentions the custom as common in his time. The two fountains of Pompeii confirm the written testimony. Neither does it seem that the use of shells, in the decorations of a fountain, is first noticed in the excavations of Pompeii, for Cicero, in his Formian Villa, appears to have employed them. A certain Philander, who wrote notes on Vitruvius, has this re- markable passage : — " Quod veteres admis- cuerint incrustationibus, potissimum fon- tium fornicibus quod nostra aitas imitatur. Quod genus videtur in Villa Ciceronis ad Formias interspersis purpuris, peloridibus, caeterisque conchis." 198 POMPEIANA. The peloris was a species of shell-fish, about which the ancients themselves seem in doubt, as ostrea and echinus are both given as synonymous interpretations. END or VOL. I. I LONDON: PRINTED RY THOMAS DAVISON, WHITEFHIAUS. i