THE 
 
 BURIED CITIES OF VESUVIUS 
 
 HERCULANEUM AND POKIPEII 
 
THE GETTY RESEARCH INSTITUTE LIBRARY 
 
 Halsted VanderPoel Campanian Collection 
 
STATUE OF DIANA. 
 FOUND IN POMPEM, NOW IN THE NEAPOLITAN MUSEUM. 
 
THE 
 
 BURIED CITIES OF VESUVIUS: 
 
 HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII. 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN FLETCHER HORNE, M.D., D.Sc. 
 
 I TELL THE STORY AS IT WAS TOLD TO ME. 
 
 Bonbon : 
 
 HAZELL, WATSON, AND VINEY, LD., 
 I, CREED LANE, LUDGATE HILL, E.G. 
 
 MDCCCXCV. 
 
Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury. 
 
 THE GETTY CENTER 
 LIBRARY 
 
Mife, 
 
 THE KINDEST OF MOTHERS, 
 
 MY COMPANION IN MANY JOURNEYS, 
 
 MY BEST AND TRUEST FRIEND, 
 
 ZTbis SSooft is H)eoicateo. 
 
PREFACE, 
 
 T is perhaps necessary to offer an apology for 
 the colloquial and familiar literary style of this 
 small brochure. This is due to the fact that the 
 contents originally formed part of a popular lecture intended 
 for a mixed audience and not for eventual publication. At 
 the request of friends, however, it has been accorded the 
 " honours of print," with the addition of further illustrative 
 matter. 
 
 I have endeavoured to give a few glimpses of Pompeian 
 and Herculanean life, and, as it were, to bridge over the 
 chasm of eighteen centuries. How imperfect and how far 
 from my ideal has been this attempt no one is more conscious 
 than myself; still, I have essayed to depict the lights and 
 shadows which would interest those who participate with 
 me in the love of "what is old." The subject deals with 
 what was doubtless the most civilised period of Ancient 
 Rome, and is deeply interesting as showing the decay and 
 approaching extinction of Pagan idolatry and the dawn of 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 Christian life ; while it will be allowed that history has 
 recorded few greater or more painful calamities than the 
 destruction of these wonderful cities of the 
 
 " Land to Mem'ry and to Freedom dear, 
 Land of the melting lyre and conq'ring spear, 
 Land of the vine-clad hill, the fragrant grove, 
 Of Arts and Arms, of Genius and of Love ! " 
 
 J. FLETCHER HORNE. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 VESUVIUS AND ITS ERUPTIONS . . I 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 RE-DISCOVERY OF POMPEII AND HERCULANEUM . . 19 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 HANDICRAFTS, LITERATURE, AND ART . . . .48 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 SOCIAL LIFE OF THE POMPEIANS ?2 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 MARRIAGE, DIVORCE, DEATH, AND BURIAL . . -99 
 
 EPILOGUE . Ill 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES . . . .115 
 
>>> 
 
 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 VESUVIUS AND ITS ERUPTIONS. 
 
 " About these places rises Vesuvius, well cultivated and inhabited all 
 round, except at its top, which is for the most part level, and entirely 
 barren, ashy to the view, displaying cavernous hollows in cineritious 
 rocks, which look as if they had been eaten in the fire ; so that we may 
 suppose this spot to have been a volcano formerly, with burning craters, 
 now extinguished for want of fuel." STRABO, Obit A.D. 25. 
 
 JOUNT VESUVIUS, the world-famed volcano of 
 Southern Italy, seen as it is from every part 
 of the city of Naples and its neighbourhood, 
 forms the most prominent feature of that portion 
 of the fruitful and romantic Campanian coast. For many 
 centuries it has been an object of the greatest interest, and 
 certainly not the least of the many attractions to the visitor 
 of what may be well considered one of the most notable 
 cities of Europe, which with its bay contributes as grand a 
 panorama as any that there is to be seen in the world. The 
 mountain is a link in the historical chain which binds us to 
 the past ; which takes us back to the " palmy days " of the 
 Roman Empire. Before the days of Titus it seems to have 
 been unknown as a volcano, and its summit is supposed to 
 have been crowned by a temple of Jupiter. 
 
 Strabo, eminent historian though he was, was no prophet. 
 The subsequent history of Vesuvius has shown that at 
 
VESUVIUS: HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII. 
 
 varying periods the mountain has burst forth into great erup- 
 tive activity. Respecting the volcanic system of Southern 
 Europe, it may be observed that there is a central tract 
 where the most violent earthquakes take place, of which 
 Mount Vesuvius may be considered the centre. On each 
 side of this line of greatest disturbance there are parallel 
 tracts of country where the shocks are less violent. As to 
 the cause of these phenomena, the theory which meets with 
 the most favourable acceptance is that the interior of the 
 globe consists of a mass of matter in a state of fusion, 
 causing the evolution of an immense body of elastic vapour, 
 which expands and seeks to escape where the least amount 
 of resistance is presented, and manifests itself in the sudden 
 and terrible explosions that accompany an eruption, or in 
 the upheaval of rocks and the production of earthquakes. 
 
 There are some pictures of world-wide reputation which 
 at first view are disappointing, and it is only by the study of 
 their chief excellences that one can acquire a true perception 
 of their wondrous beauty. This may be said of Her- 
 culaneum and Pompeii. A recent visit left upon the mind 
 of the writer an impression so pleasing as to cause him to 
 think that an endeavour to recall their past history and 
 give some details of their present condition might to some 
 extent be interesting, if not instructive. The subject is an 
 old one, but it cannot be said to have been worn threadbare. 
 
 Mr. Herbert Spencer has a short way of accounting for 
 the facility with which men turn to the past. He says that 
 "reminiscent imagination is the easiest form under which 
 fancy can play. To apply imagination to the future requires 
 keen thought and constructive ability beyond the average of 
 poets and up to the standard of men of science ; whereas 
 reminiscent imagination is within the reach of any of 
 us.'" 
 
 Herculaneum was a city of great antiquity, its origin being 
 
VESUVIUS AND ITS ERUPTIONS. 
 
 ascribed by Greek tradition to Hercules, the celebrated hero 
 of the mythological age of Greece ; but it is not certain that 
 it was actually founded by a Greek colony, though in the 
 time of Sulla, who lived a hundred years before Christ, it 
 was a municipal and fortified town. Situated on elevated 
 ground between two rivers, its position could not but be 
 considered important, its port Retina being one of the best 
 on the coast of Campania. Many villas of great splendour 
 were owned in the neighbourhood by Roman patricians ; 
 Servilia, the mother of 'Brutus, and the favourite mistress of 
 Julius Caesar, resided here on an estate which he had given 
 to her. 
 
 Upon the city of Herculaneum there now stands a town 
 of twenty thousand inhabitants. Resina is the modern repre- 
 sentative of the ancient Retina, which was the port for 
 Herculaneum. 
 
 Pompeii, too, it is generally conceded, was a very ancient 
 city, and was probably founded by a Grecian colony ; 
 for what is considered its oldest building, a Greek temple, 
 from its similarity to the Praestum temples, fixes the date 
 of construction with some certainty at about 650 B.C. This 
 temple, by common consent, is stated to have been dedicated 
 to Hercules, who, according to Solonus, landed at this spot 
 with &pompa bofim, or procession of oxen. This same writer 
 leaves us to infer that the poinpa gave the name of Pompeii 
 to the city ; other authorities consider that it is derived from 
 a Greek word meaning "storehouses." Some prefer the 
 form Pompei as used in Italy, France, and Germany but all 
 pronounce the name Pompayee. 
 
 The situation of Pompeii possessed many local advantages. 
 Upon the verge of the sea, at the mouth of the Sarno, with 
 a fertile plain behind, like many an ancient Italian town, it 
 united the conveniences of commerce with the security of 
 a military station. According to Strabo, Pompeii was first 
 
4 VESUVIUS: HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII. 
 
 occupied by the Oscans, subsequently by the Tyrrhenians 
 and Pelasgians, and afterwards by the Samnites, in whose 
 hands it continued until it came into the possession of the 
 Romans. The delightful position of the city, the genial 
 climate of the locality, and its many attractions, caused it to 
 become a favourite retreat of the wealthier Romans, who 
 purchased estates in the neighbourhood, Cicero, among others, 
 having a villa there. 
 
 Herculaneum and Pompeii, whilst participators in both 
 burial and disinterment, differed largely in their fate, for, 
 while Herculaneum, which is about five miles from Naples 
 and lies at the foot of Vesuvius, received the full force of the 
 mountain's eruptions, being from time to time inundated with 
 streams of molten lava which raised the plane of the city 
 from seventy to a hundred feet, Pompeii, on the other 
 hand, which lies thirteen miles from Naples and five miles 
 from Vesuvius, was buried by a shower of ashes, pumice, 
 and volcanic stones, which formed a covering seldom ex- 
 ceeding twelve or fourteen feet in depth, and is now found 
 to be easily removable. 
 
 The ruins of Stabiae, another of the Greek colonies, and 
 the third of the cities destroyed by the eruption of A.D. 79, 
 are at a distance of eight or nine miles from the crater of the 
 devastating volcano. Upon these ruins the modern town of 
 Castellamare is built, which is the most fashionable watering- 
 place on the eastern shore of the gulf. Excavations were 
 made here in 1745, with not unsatisfactory results. It was 
 at Stabias that the elder Pliny met his death by suffocation, 
 from approaching too near to the burning mountain. 
 
 Mr. Davenport Adams has reduced the position of these 
 cities to a mathematical demonstration. Herculaneum and 
 Pompeii formed with Vesuvius a triangle of which the 
 volcano was the apex, the shorter angle being between 
 Vesuvius and Herculaneum, the longer between Vesuvius 
 
VESUVIUS AND ITS ERUPTIONS. 
 
 and Pompeii, whilst the base line might be protracted down- 
 wards to Stabiae. Thus : 
 
 N. Vesuvius. 
 
 " AW 
 Angela. 
 
 S.-Stabioe. 
 
 The mountain is completely encircled by a road running 
 around its widespread base, and connecting the many villages 
 and towns at its foot in such a fashion as to constitute it one 
 long stretch of human habitations that has few parallels. 
 This road is upwards of twenty miles in length, commencing 
 near Naples and running along the shore of the bay, then 
 continuing around the mountain on the inland side. Some of 
 the places through which it passes are suburban, while some 
 have a sea side, and others, though populous, surroundings 
 of quite a rural aspect and character. They are all alike, 
 however, in having the great mountain towering above them, 
 while they are all within hearing of its rumblings and thunder- 
 ings, and all can see its summit fires and ascending smoke. 
 But they are not all equally liable to injury or devastation 
 from its eruptive energy. 
 
 The strong and massive bulwark of Monte Somma, 
 extending for two miles on the north-eastern side of the 
 eruptive cone of Vesuvius, effectually protects a large area 
 of country from lava streams ; but still, at any time much 
 
6 VESUVIUS: HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII. 
 
 destruction might be caused to growing crops and fruit-trees, 
 and even to villages and towns, as was the case of Pompeii, 
 by heavy falls of ashes even on this side, for from these 
 Somma is no protection. 
 
 The road around Vesuvius is a populous and animated one, 
 but that between Naples and Resina is still more so. This 
 road is about five miles long, passing through manufacturing 
 and shipping districts, and is therefore the densest part of the 
 Neapolitan capital, which, by the way, for its size, is the most 
 thickly populated city in Europe, and contains half a million 
 of people. The Resina road is an exceedingly busy and noisy 
 thoroughfare, abounding with scenes and objects calculated to 
 arrest the attention of the lover of the picturesque, as well 
 as the student of national characteristics. Soldiers, sailors, 
 ecclesiastics, fishermen, lazzaroni, and beggars, attract the eye 
 by their varied costumes, and carrozzelle, with their novel 
 groups of riders, fourteen or fifteen of all ages, on one vehicle 
 (soldiers, sailors, priests, women, children), the nimble, fast- 
 trotting little horses rattling along smartly over the hard, lava- 
 paved road, give great animation to an already lively scene, 
 full of colour and lighted by brilliant sunshine. 
 
 Sounds as well as sights are many, and cheerful too, at this 
 east-end of Naples. The rumble of carriages over the stony 
 street, the crack of whips, the jingle of the harness-bells, and 
 the call of drivers, mingle with the music of a military band 
 or the sound of church-bells, while the song of the street 
 minstrel, and perchance the squeak of punchinello, at times 
 may also be clearly heard. " And all this life and laughter 
 leads to an emblem of death and destruction, at once the 
 most absorbing and the most melancholy perhaps in exist- 
 ence." 
 
 As the traveller proceeds on his way he passes the frowning 
 towers and battlements of the grim old Castle of Charles of 
 Anjou, the Castel Nuovo, and then the two commercial 
 
VESUVIUS AND ITS ERUPTIONS. 
 
 harbours of Naples, the Porto Grand and the Porto Nuovo, 
 with their shipping and sailors. Beyond these the road 
 passes on to Portici, the name of which is a memorial of the 
 buried city of Herculaneum, since it is taken from the early 
 designation Porticum Herculis, or approach to the great 
 Temple of Hercules. It is now a favourite locality for the 
 suburban residences of the Neapolitans. The urban character 
 of the road continues until Resina is reached. 
 
 From this place the ascent of Vesuvius is usually made by 
 a laborious and circuitous route of fourteen miles. The first 
 part of the road winds amid villas and gardens, the traveller 
 being usually accompanied by a troublesome escort of strolling 
 minstrels and beggars, in the picturesque half-gipsy, half- 
 peasant garb of the country ; but the scene is not without its 
 humorous side. Before long, however, the bands dwindle 
 away and the traveller finds himself traversing a bleak and 
 barren wilderness of lava and pumice, the dust from the road 
 as it rises from beneath the horses' hoofs in blinding clouds 
 by no means adding to his comfort or enjoyment. The 
 change is from a garden to a desert, for, as soon as the 
 cultivated zone, which is about two miles broad, is crossed, a 
 vast expanse of unbroken black rock is reached. In place of 
 beautiful gardens, in which the orange, the lemon, the almond, 
 the fig, and the vine flourish in perfection, and in which roses 
 and camellias bloom in profusion, there extends around a 
 black, sterile waste, without a trace of verdure of any kind, and 
 displaying only huge folds, waves, and unshapely masses of 
 rough, dark -coloured lava rock. 
 
 One is struck by the vastness of these lava fields. When 
 the traveller has proceeded some distance, the bed of lava 
 takes the form of long strips of newly-furrowed land, which 
 here and there is like the surface of a dark, muddy stream 
 that has been convulsed by a hurricane, then frozen, as it 
 were, while in a state of agitation. Rough, broken masses 
 
8 VESUVIUS: HERCULANEVM AND POMPEII. 
 
 may also be seen, seemingly rolling over each other, with a 
 large fragment now and then raising its head amid the rest, 
 and still higher up the mountain come scoriae, ashes, and 
 cinder. 
 
 On the way the traveller has passed the well-known 
 Observatory, from which the mountain is regularly watched ; 
 and still higher is the guard-house of the gendarmes, who 
 are placed there to protect travellers. 
 
 The ascent of Vesuvius has been rendered much easier 
 by the funicular railway, which has been constructed on the 
 steepest side of the cone. The constructors have adopted 
 the American double-rope system, with two lines of rails, 
 each provided with a carriage divided into two compartments, 
 and capable of holding ten persons. As one carriage ascends 
 the other descends, and there is thus established a counter- 
 poise, which considerably economises the steam of the 
 stationary traction-engine. The incline is exceedingly steep, 
 and its length from the lower station, where there is a 
 restaurant, an oasis in this barren wilderness, is about nine 
 hundred yards, the journey being accomplished in about ten 
 minutes. The railway is now the property of Messrs. Cook 
 and Son, the well-known tourist agents. 
 
 From the upper station a winding path has been cut for 
 those who wish to clamber to the edge of the crater, a 
 glimpse into which is weird in the extreme ; and the suffo- 
 cating fumes of sulphur forcibly remind one of Dante's 
 Inferno, the scroll over the gate of which bore this inscription : 
 " All hope abandon, ye who enter here." 
 
 " Without having seen the wonderful contrast between 
 the smiling serenity of the fields and the sinister aspect of 
 the volcano, it is impossible to form an adequate idea of its 
 effect. When imagination wanders over these sylvan scenes 
 and the eye looks with delight upon those classic shores, 
 passing from the hill to the vale, and from the vale to the 
 
VESUVIUS AND ITS ERUPTIONS. 
 
 grove, from the grove where interlace the olive and the lemon 
 trees, to the celestial sea, where, like flocks of white birds, 
 curl those beautiful lateen sails used in the Mediterranean, 
 you almost believe you behold the shepherds of Virgil, the 
 mariners of Theocritus, singing the former among their 
 sheepfolds and meadows, the latter among their nets and 
 vessels verses which are repeated by the waves and the 
 breezes." 
 
 The Vesuvius of to-day consists of a double mountain upon 
 an extended base about thirty-five miles in circumference, 
 and is situated about ten miles by road from Naples. It 
 rises from the centre of a plane two thousand three hundred 
 feet above the level of the sea, in a truncated pyramid one 
 thousand five hundred feet high, and about two thousand 
 feet in diameter, and reaches thus a total height of three 
 thousand eight hundred feet. The summit, which, previous 
 to an eruption about the year 1838, was an uneven plane, 
 was by this outburst converted into a hollow cup, now 
 covered with loose blocks of lava, dross, and volcanic sand. 
 There is no doubt that the mountain has been very much 
 higher than it is at present, for the eruption in 1822 reduced 
 its height by about eight hundred feet. 
 
 Monte Somma, which is now only a rocky ridge, situated 
 a short distance from Vesuvius on the north, is supposed to 
 have formed at one time a complete cone much larger in 
 dimensions, and probably of much greater height, but sub- 
 sequently thrown down by volcanic action. Altogether 
 about eighty eruptions of Vesuvius have been noted. From 
 a difference of structure indicating greater pressure, geologists 
 have concluded that in the remote past Somma was a sub- 
 marine and Vesuvius a subaerial volcano. 
 
 One marvels that any one is found with sufficient courage 
 to remain in the neighbourhood. Stamer has in graphic 
 language described why the vicinity of Vesuvius has not 
 
io VESUVIUS: HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII. 
 
 been consigned to the genius of fire and desolation. He 
 says : " A most dangerous neighbour Vesuvius unquestion- 
 ably is. Fifty-eight times (more or less) has he ' erupted ' since 
 that first little derangement of his bowels which overwhelmed 
 Herculaneum, Pompeii, and Stabiae ; on no less than five 
 occasions during the past two centuries have his upheavings 
 brought poor Torre del Greco to grief. To give the fire- 
 belching, lava-ejecting monster as wide a berth as possible 
 would be the endeavour of most people. Not so the Torrese ; 
 they nestle at the feet of their tyrant, and kiss the fiery rod 
 with which he stirs them up. They tremble, but they love. 
 ' Many worse despots than old Vesuvio,' say they. 'If he 
 flies into a passion occasionally, and plays the mischief with 
 everything within his reach, he hasten^ to repair the damage 
 he has done. By a profuse application of chlorides, sulphates, 
 phosphates, carbonates, and acids, from his laboratory, he 
 decomposes with a rapidity truly marvellous the scoriae with 
 which he has overspread the land, making it more fertile 
 than ever ; and, by way of indemnity for the destruction of 
 house-property, so solidifies his molten lava that it becomes 
 the hardest of all stones, and of such value for paving and 
 building purposes, that by its sale we are fully recouped 
 our losses.' 
 
 " Fertile beyond description is the plain at the base of 
 Vesuvius ; its luxuriance must be seen in order to be realised. 
 One crop is cleared away only that it may be succeeded by 
 another ; nay, three crops may be seen maturing at the same 
 time the vine festooned from mulberry-tree to mulberry- 
 tree, and corn beneath ; wine, silk, and cereals all in a row. 
 Rich indeed must be the soil for which the cultivator can 
 afford to pay twelve pounds an acre rent ; for pay it he 
 does, and without much grumbling. At that price he 
 manages to make a subsistence, but by labour so unre- 
 mitting that it is surprising how he can perform it and live. 
 
VESUVIUS AND ITS ERUPTIONS. u 
 
 Dawn sees him at his work, and the livelong day he is 
 digging, hoeing, trenching, irrigating, until want of light, not 
 want of will, forces him to suspend his travail for a few 
 short hours. 
 
 " To the inhabitants of Resina, who are not quite so much 
 in the mountain's line of fire as the Torrese, Vesuvius is not 
 particularly alarming. Often threatened and shaken, the 
 town has suffered no serious scorification since 1698, al- 
 though the scares have been just as great, just as frequent, 
 as in Naples, where the relics of St. Januarius have on 
 several occasions been removed in fear and trembling 
 from their resting-place in the Cathedral, and carried, 
 amidst the prayers, the weepings, and the wailings of an 
 ignorant, superstitious, utterly demoralised mob, to the Porta 
 Capuana. During the last great eruption that of 1871 the 
 terror of the Neapolitans was extreme ; had they only 
 known where to flee, there would have been a general 
 stampede. And it would not have been surprising : when 
 detonation succeeds detonation in rapid succession ; when 
 the ground shakes, the windows rattle, the air is filled with 
 ashes, and a suffocating smell of sulphur pervades the 
 atmosphere, the boldest might well remember the predic- 
 tions that have been made regarding the city how, if the 
 crater should from any cause get choked, and Vesuvius be 
 unable to discharge its contents through the ordinary 
 channel, there must be a terrible convulsion, and Naples 
 and the neighbouring towns be utterly destroyed. 
 
 " The sub-Vesuvians, however, live pretty much after the 
 same fashion as did those other children of the Cities of 
 the Plain before their incineration by fire and brimstone in 
 the days of Lot. Usually they eat, drink, and make merry ; 
 but, when rumblings are heard and the lava streams forth, 
 they fall down on their knees, and tear their hair, and vow 
 candles, and comport themselves like very silly folk indeed. 
 
12 VESUVIUS: HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII. 
 
 As ushers to his Volcanic Majesty, as guides, bearers, and 
 hangers on, the good people of Resina pick up a considerable 
 amount of money in the course of a year." 
 
 " Man builds, and Time destroys ; man labours on, 
 As if that slow consuming power to mock 
 And the dire throes that ever and anon 
 Shake the great frame of Nature and unlock 
 Her solid joints with unexpected shock 
 Deter him not ; his labour he renews, 
 Even though the force that lifts the fluid rock 
 In molten streams a moment may diffuse 
 O'er all that with an eye of pride or love he views." 
 
 Although the eruption which buried Pompeii is the earliest 
 on record, it is believed that Monte Somma must have been 
 active enough in pre-historic time, for Pompeii is built on a 
 bed of lava, which was largely used in the construction of 
 some of the buildings and in paving the streets. But these 
 eruptions were not the only scourge of this romantic spot, 
 celebrated in all ages for its pre-eminent loveliness, for there 
 was an enemy equally subtle, which still unfortunately lurks 
 in these regions. Seneca records how an earthquake, six- 
 teen years before the great eruption of Vesuvius, threw down 
 a great part of Pompeii, and considerably devastated 
 Herculaneum. The whole region suffered to a considerable 
 extent, and even in Naples the number of houses shattered 
 was very great. It is not surprising, therefore, that we 
 should find amongst the ruins numerous indications that the 
 cities were undergoing extensive restorations. 
 
 The old writers disputed the exact date of the destruction 
 of Pompeii and Herculaneum whether it was August 23rd 
 or November 5th, 79 ; but the latter is now proved by various 
 circumstances to be the correct date. For example : during 
 the explorations dried grapes were found, and it is certain 
 that they would not be dried so early in the year as August. 
 Walnuts, too, are not gathered so early in the year as 
 
VESUVIUS AND ITS ERUPTIONS. 
 
 August ; and many have been found during the excavations. 
 But perhaps the most convincing proof is that in many of 
 the gardens the amphora, or wine-jars, were found upside 
 down, having evidently been washed out in order to receive 
 the new wine. 
 
 The morning of November 5th broke " and all was bright 
 and joyous. The shops were filled with their usual wares, 
 and crowded by intending purchasers ; Campanian peasants 
 stood in the streets with baskets of fruits and flowers ; the 
 slaves drew water at the fountains ; the gambler rattled his 
 dice ; the drunkard quaffed his wine ; in the public places 
 gathered the chariots of the wealthy, the priest sacrificed at 
 the altar, the merchant trafficked in the forum, and in the 
 crowded theatre men and women had gathered with wolfish 
 eyes to watch the struggles of the athlete and the gladiator 
 in the bloody arena." 
 
 As the hour of doom approached, there arose suddenly from 
 the mountain-crest a solitary column of thick black smoke, 
 which was said to have assumed " the shape of a giant pine- 
 tree the trunk blackness, the branches fire " ; silently and 
 swiftly it climbed heavenwards in the still air, a finger of 
 warning to the revelling multitude below, and then at an 
 enormous height it spread itself out into one vast cloud, and 
 covered the doomed cities as with the mantle of death. It 
 was the first act of a new and unrehearsed tragedy. 
 
 " Saw ye how wild, how red, how broad a light 
 Burst on the darkness of that mid-day night 
 As fierce Vesuvius scattered o'er the vale 
 His drifted flames and sheets of burning hail, 
 Shook hell's wan lightnings from his blazing cone, 
 And gilded heaven with meteors not its own ? " ' 
 
 " At that moment," says a graphic writer, the inhabitants 
 " felt the earth shake beneath their feet, the walls of the 
 
 1 Macaulay, Pompeii. 
 
H VESUVIUS: HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII. 
 
 theatre trembled, and beyond in the distance was heard the 
 crash of falling roofs ; an instant more and the mountain 
 cloud seems to roll towards them, dark and rapid like a 
 torrent. At the same time it cast forth from its bosom a 
 shower of ashes mixed with vast fragments of burning stones. 
 Over the crushing vines, over the desolate streets, over the 
 amphitheatre itself far and wide, with many a mighty splash 
 in the agitated sea fell that awful shower. The panic- 
 stricken crowd, as it left the theatre, turned to fly. Some, 
 anticipating a second earthquake, hastened to their homes 
 to load themselves with their more costly goods and escape 
 whilst it was yet time ; others, dreading the showers of ashes, 
 that now fell fast, torrent upon torrent over the streets, rushed 
 under the roofs of the nearest houses, or temples, or sheds 
 shelter of any kind for protection from the terrors of the 
 open air. But darker and larger and mightier spread the 
 cloud above them. It was a sudden and more ghastly Night 
 rushing upon the realm of Noon ! " " Each sex probably acted 
 in conformity to its character, the men trusting to their own 
 strength to escape, the women waiting with patience the issue of 
 a danger from which their own exertions could not save them." 
 
 To such as grasped the dreadful meaning of the signal, 
 avenues of escape were yet open, and both by land and sea 
 the more prudent of the populace made haste to avail them- 
 selves of the opportunity. It may be assumed that the night 
 of November 5th saw the flight of all those who were ever 
 to get away from Pompeii. " The bold, the prompt, and the 
 energetic, saved themselves by immediate flight ; those who 
 lingered from love or avarice, supine indifference or palsying 
 fear, perished." 
 
 As daylight gave out before the gathering clouds of smoke 
 and falling ashes, and whilst the mountain rained forth 
 shower upon shower of volcanic sand, pumice, dust, and red- 
 hot stones, bands of fugitives thronged the streets leading to 
 
VESUVIUS AND ITS ERUPTIONS. 15 
 
 the gates. The road to Naples must have been imprac- 
 ticable, and the exodus must have taken place by the gates 
 which led out towards Stabiae and the sea-shore. 
 
 Neither gate is much adapted to allow of the issue of a 
 panic-stricken crowd, and, if chariots were used by some of 
 the refugees, there must have been considerable loss of life 
 in the press, especially when the steep descent to the Stabian 
 gate was reached. The rain meanwhile fell in torrents, and 
 left its traces in some of the layers of ashes, which the visitor 
 sees are granulated into pellets about the size of peas. These 
 layers alternate with the layers of pumice-stone, thus showing 
 that the character of the eruption was constantly changing. 
 
 Traces of lightning are also perceptible in a variety of 
 cases, of which the most interesting is a small glass vase com- 
 pletely twisted round a hairpin which stood in it ; the article 
 is preserved in the Museum at Naples. 
 
 On the Herculaneum side of the volcano, phenomena of a 
 different character altogether were bringing destruction in their 
 train. Whilst the wind carried all the loose matter away 
 towards the south-east in the direction of Pompeii, a mighty 
 torrent of liquid mud was pouring down the slope of Vesuvius 
 directly west, towards Herculaneum, filling up every hollow 
 that came in its way, and completely cutting off all com- 
 munication with Naples. In succeeding centuries this mud 
 became extremely hard ; though it has now to be cut away 
 with a chisel, it was originally a soft, warm paste which 
 preserved the art treasures embedded in it, doing little or 
 no damage to bronze or marble, and scarcely injuring so 
 delicate a vegetable substance as papyrus. 
 
 The best accounts of the calamity are those two well-known 
 letters written by the younger Pliny, the first of which relates 
 to the death of his uncle, the elder Pliny, the great historian 
 and naturalist, whilst the second letter describes the flight 
 of his mother and himself from Pompeii. 
 
16 VESUVIUS: HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII. 
 
 We gather from these letters that the earthquakes were 
 incessant, and the atmospheric conditions absolutely stifling. 
 Pliny's mother seems to have been a very stout old lady, to 
 whom, apparently, rapid locomotion was difficult ; they were 
 therefore compelled to draw aside out of the road, that they 
 might not be trampled down by the crowd of fugitives. 
 Through an atmosphere blacker than the deepest midnight, 
 and impregnated with suffocating vapours, nothing was to 
 be heard but the shrieks of women, the screams of children, 
 and the clamours of men. " All wanted aid, but there was 
 none to help." They, in their consternation, increased their 
 danger by pressing forwards in crowds, without an object. 
 Their only means of recognising each other, amid the dark- 
 ness and desolation, was by their voices, all bewailing their 
 fate, some imploring death, the deliverance they feared, with 
 outstretched hands to the gods ; and the greater part 
 imagined that the last and eternal night was come to 
 destroy the gods and the world together. 
 
 Adams says : " It is difficult, I think, to exaggerate the 
 horrors of the last day of the doomed city. The rumbling of 
 the earth beneath ; the dense obscurity and murky shadow of 
 the heaven above ; the long, heavy roll of the convulsed sea ; 
 the strident noise of the vapours and gases escaping from 
 the mountain crater ; the shifting electric lights -crimson, 
 emerald, green, lurid yellow, azure, blood-red which at 
 intervals relieved the blackness, only to make it ghastlier 
 than before ; the hot, hissing showers which descended like 
 a rain of fire ; the clash and clang of meeting rocks and 
 river stones ; the burning houses and flaming vineyards ; the 
 hurrying fugitives, with wan faces and straining eyeballs, 
 calling on those they loved to follow them ; the ashes and 
 cinders, and boiling mud, driving through the darkened 
 streets and pouring into the public places ; above all, that 
 fine, impalpable, but choking dust which entered everywhere, 
 
VESUVIUS AND ITS ERUPTIONS. 17 
 
 penetrating even into the lowest cellar, and against which 
 human skill could devise no effectual protection ; all these 
 things must have combined into a whole of such unusual 
 and such awful terror that the imagination cannot adequately 
 realise it. The stoutest heart was appalled ; the best-balanced 
 mind lost its composure. The stern Roman soldier stood 
 rigidly at his post, content to die if discipline required it ; 
 but even his iron nerves quailed at the death and destruction 
 around him. Many lost their reason and wandered through 
 the city, gibbering and shrieking lunatics. And none, we 
 may be sure, who survived the peril, ever forgot the sights 
 and scenes they had witnessed on that day of doom." 
 
 Three days and nights were thus endured in all the anguish 
 of suspense and uncertainty. Many were doubtless stifled 
 by the mephitic vapour ; others, spent with the toil of forcing 
 their way through deep and almost impassable roads, sank 
 down, to rise no more ; whilst those who escaped spread the 
 alarm with all the circumstances of aggravation and horror 
 which their imagination, under the influence of fear, suggested. 
 
 " Terror was over all men ; what to fear 
 They scarcely knew ; yet to the stoutest heart 
 The panic shudd'ring crept ; and in the brain 
 Of wisest man worked dire imaginings 
 And sleepless horrors." 
 
 On the fourth day the darkness, by degrees, began to clear 
 away. The day appeared, the sun shining forth sickly, as in 
 an eclipse ; but all nature, to the weakened eyes, seemed 
 changed. Buried beneath the lava and volcanic debris lie 
 temple and circus, the tribunal, the shrine, the frescoed wall, 
 the bright mosaic floor ; but there is neither life nor motion 
 in either city of the dead, though the sea which once bore 
 their argosies still shimmers in the sunshine, and the mountain 
 which accomplished their destruction still breathes forth 
 smoke and fire. 
 
1 8 VESUVIUS: HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII. 
 
 The scene was changed ; all was over ; and smoke and 
 vapour and showers had ceased, and Vesuvius had returned 
 to its normal slumber. Pompeii and Herculaneum were 
 no more. In their place was a desolated plain, with no 
 monuments visible, no house to be seen nothing but a great 
 surface of white ashes, which hardened and petrified, and 
 finally disintegrated into soil upon which, years after, might 
 be seen the fruitful vine, the waving corn, and wild flowers 
 in all their loveliness and beauty, trying to hide the hideous 
 tragedy which had been enacted. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 RE-DISCOVERY OF POMPEII AND HERCULANEUM. 
 
 "Temple and tower went down and left a site 
 Chaos of ruins ! Who shall trace the void, 
 Over the dim fragments cast a lunar light, 
 
 And say, ' Here was, or is,' where all is doubly night ? 
 
 ***** 
 
 Stumbling o'er recollections, now we clap 
 
 Our hands, and say, ' Eureka ! ' it is clear." BYRON. 
 
 F all the interesting spots in the vicinity of 
 Naples, Pompeii stands indisputably first ; for 
 there only can be seen an ancient city in its 
 entirety. One's first impression of Pompeii 
 would be, perhaps, that it had been sacked and burnt by 
 an invader or swept by a pestilence, or that through some 
 misadventure the inhabitants had left the ruins to the owls 
 and the bats, and gone to set up their household gods and 
 guardian deities in some distant and richer corner of 
 Campania. Most travellers will admit that the sight of this 
 relic of antiquity possesses a secret power that captivates the 
 mind." Should the onlooker let his imagination wander 
 farther still, the whole city cannot but rise before him un- 
 touched and unaltered ; he may range through the same 
 streets, tread the same pavements, enter the same doors, as 
 the Romans who inhabited it eighteen hundred years before. 
 The illusion may be long indulged in, for all around is silence 
 
20 VESUVIUS: HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII. 
 
 not the silence of solitude and repose, but of death and 
 devastation the silence of a great city without an inhabitant. 
 
 " I stood within the city disinterred 
 And heard the autumnal leaves, like light footfalls 
 Of spirits passing through the streets, and heard 
 The mountain's slumbering voice at intervals 
 Thrill through those roofless halls." 
 
 " To gaze upon the ruins is to be taken," says an able 
 writer, " from the present into the distant past. At once the 
 tragedy, in which you almost seem to be taking a part, rises 
 before you, and you are no longer in the nineteenth, but in 
 the first century. No earthly spot Rome perhaps excepted 
 so utterly conveys you into the very spirit and influence of 
 a bygone age. A great mass of ruins, a whole town of ruins ; 
 streets and houses, temples and theatres, amphitheatre and 
 forum, broken pillars and crumbling walls ; wine-jars and 
 olive-jars standing where perchance they stood two thousand 
 years ago ; dining-rooms richly decorated and almost intact 
 where the great banqueted, and streets of tombs where they 
 were buried ; seats in the public thoroughfares where the great 
 and the humble alike might rest ; all this may be found 
 to-day in almost the freshness of its first youth. You see the 
 ashes descending from that mountain in one inexhaustible 
 torrent ; you hear the rush of the thousands of terror-stricken 
 inhabitants making for the gates ; you listen to the cries of 
 despair, as, 'with horror overwhelmed,' the doomed gave 
 up hope and sank into a living tomb, walled up alive, as it 
 were, in an impenetrable bed of ashes. It all passes vividly 
 before the mental vision ; you gaze with the keenest interest 
 upon the ruins, yet plunged in melancholy and feeling that 
 you could spend days and days amongst them. You go back 
 in memory to the romantic descriptions of Bulwer's Last 
 Days. You see the blind girl Nydia hurrying through the 
 darkened street, and more than ever lament her fate." 
 
RE-DISCOVERY OF POMPEII AND HERCULANEUM. 21 
 
 The discovery of Pompeii dates from 1595, when by 
 order of the Count of Sarno an aqueduct was made to 
 convey the waters of the upper Sarno to the town of Torre 
 dell' Annunziata. This conduit enters the city of Pompeii on 
 the eastern side. In the course of the necessary work two 
 inscriptions were found, both referring to Pompeii. It was 
 not, however, until 1748 that real- excavations commenced, 
 and then, after lying nearly seventeen centuries in its silent 
 tomb, Pompeii was disinterred, "all vivid with its undimmed 
 colours and its exquisite designs, with every line unfaded in 
 the rich mosaic of its floors in its gardens the sacrificial 
 tripod ; in its halls the chest of treasure ; in its baths the 
 stigel ; in its saloons the furniture and the lamp ; in the 
 triclinia the fragments of the last feast ; in its cubicula 
 the perfumes and the rouge of faded beauty : and everywhere 
 the bones and skeletons of those who once moved the springs 
 of that minute, yet gorgeous machine of luxury and life." 
 
 " Beauteous in ruin, in decay sublime, 
 A splendid trophy o'er the wreck of Time." 
 
 In the disinterment of the forum, or principal centre of 
 business life, where important gatherings of the residents 
 took place, situated opposite to the Temple of Jupiter, was 
 found a new altar of white marble, exquisitely beautiful, 
 apparently just out of the sculptor's hands. An enclosure 
 was in process of building all round ; the mortar just dashed 
 against the side of the wall was but half spread out. One 
 could see the long sliding stroke of the trowel, about to return 
 and obliterate its own track. But it never did return ; for the 
 hand of the workman was suddenly arrested ; and to-day, 
 after a lapse of eighteen hundred years, the whole looks 
 so fresh and new that one could almost declare that the 
 mason was only just gone to his dinner, and about to come 
 back immediately to smooth the roughness. 
 
22 VESUVIUS: HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII. 
 
 Despite these discoveries, excavations were carried out 
 without proper plan and in the most irregular manner, the 
 object of the excavators being merely to find specimens of 
 value. Interesting water-pipes were melted down for old 
 lead, the marble was pillaged, and the mosaics were broken 
 up, and it was not until 1800, when the Neapolitan provinces 
 became a part of Italy, that a regular plan was formulated 
 and put in force. Since then the excavations have been 
 carried on in the most methodical manner, so that to-day 
 everything that is found is carefully recorded, and all that 
 is valuable is placed in safe keeping. Tramways have been 
 laid to carry off the rubbish, and about a third of the city has 
 been uncovered ; though more than fifty years will probably 
 elapse before the whole of the remaining part of the city is 
 laid bare. 
 
 The site of Herculaneum, which had long been sought 
 for in vain, was not unearthed until 1713, when, in digging 
 a well, three female statues were found. After this discovery, 
 further excavation was prohibited by the Government ; but 
 in 1738 the well was dug deeper, and traces of buildings were 
 found, the theatre being the first uncovered. 
 
 In 1750 a long, narrow, sloping passage, leading down dark 
 steps into the theatre, was opened, and this is still the only 
 way by which visitors descend to examine the structure 
 by artificial light. It is a noble edifice, massively built of 
 stone, containing nineteen tiers of seats, which, with the 
 stage and orchestra, is all that can be determined. It held 
 ten thousand people, and is one of the largest ancient theatres 
 remaining. 
 
 In a square on the south of the theatre a temple was 
 found which was connected with a second temple by a wide 
 street lined with porticoes. On the north of the theatre was 
 a basilica surrounded by a portico of forty-two columns, 
 adorned with beautiful paintings, many of which, together 
 
RE-DISCOVERY OF POMPEII AND HERCULANEUM. 23 
 
 with other works 'of art, were removed from these buildings. 
 The excavations were continued more or less industriously 
 for fifty years, but comparatively little progress has been 
 made, owing to the work being difficult, and, moreover, so 
 dangerous to the town of Resina above that as soon as one 
 part has been excavated and explored, it has been filled 
 up with the debris from another excavation. 
 
 "The miner plods 
 
 With torch and matlock, and, discoursing, shows 
 The hoarded fragments of Heraclea's woes." 
 
 Lately another attempt has been made to continue these 
 excavations, but with what success the writer cannot say. 
 One of the houses discovered at Herculaneum contained a 
 quantity of provisions, none of which had been disturbed for 
 eighteen centuries, for the doors remained fastened just as 
 they were at the moment when the catastrophe buried the 
 town. In all likelihood when the disaster took place the 
 occupants of this mansion were laying in provisions for 
 the winter, as the store-rooms contained dates, chestnuts, 
 walnuts, dried figs, almonds, prunes, corn, oil, pease, lentils, 
 pies, and hams. The internal arrangements of this house, 
 and the manner in which it was ornamented," proclaimed the 
 fact that it belonged to a very rich family, who were admirers 
 of the fine arts, for many pictures, vases, and varied articles 
 in glass, bronze, and terra-cotta, were disinterred. 
 
 Comparatively few skeletons have been found in Hercula- 
 neum, so that probably most of the inhabitants had time 
 to save themselves by flight, though at the door of one of 
 the villas two were found, one of which held a key in one 
 hand, and in the other a bag of money, near them being 
 silver or bronze vessels. It is supposed that one was the 
 master and the other the slave, and that they were suffocated 
 under the mass of ashes while endeavouring to make good 
 their escape. 
 
24 VESUVIUS: HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII. 
 
 This is a remarkable instance, perhaps one of the strongest 
 which has yet occurred, of the peculiar interest which the 
 discoveries at these cities possess, as introducing us to the 
 homes, nay, to the very persons of a long-forgotten age that 
 every circumstance pertaining to the life of the inhabitants 
 can be verified by evidence little less than conclusive. The 
 ways and habits of the present Neapolitans enable us in some 
 degree to re-people these cities with their predecessors, and 
 conceive how they lived ; the same climate, soil, and surround- 
 ings accounting largely for many resemblances. 
 
 The art of Pompeii was a long way behind that of Her- 
 culaneum. It is thought that because Pompeii is now so 
 much more accessible, therefore it was a more important city ; 
 but, in point of fact, all the large bronzes, the principal statues, 
 and all the great " finds " of silver came from Herculaneum, 
 which was a larger, richer, and finer town. Thus it is an 
 unfortunate accident that the wealthier city should be so 
 difficult of excavation. 
 
 We will now take a practical survey of Pompeii. 
 
 In A.D. 63, sixteen years before it was overwhelmed by the 
 great eruption, it had been laid in ruins by an earthquake. 
 The town was rebuilt in the form of an irregular oval, extend- 
 ing from east to west, the walls, in which were eight gates, 
 being about three thousand yards in circumference. Three 
 gates only have been excavated. 
 
 The walls of the city vary in their construction in some 
 parts ; some of these are composed of loose rubble, held 
 together by mortar, in other parts of large, well-hewn blocks 
 of stone, put together in solid masonry, strengthened here 
 and there with square towers. In various parts of the walls 
 are found semicircular seats. The Gate of Herculaneum 
 was the most important, and all were constructed like our 
 old Temple Bar with an open central and two vaulted 
 lateral entrances. 
 
RE-DISCOVERY OF POMP EH AND HERCULANEUM. 25 
 
 The area enclosed amounted to about a hundred and 
 sixty acres, the greatest length being three-quarters of a mile, 
 the greatest breadth half a mile, while the population of the 
 town and suburbs was probably twenty or thirty thousand, of 
 whom it is estimated two thousand lost their lives. 
 
 The excavated portion consists of about a third of the city, 
 and probably contains the most important part of it, including 
 the forum, temples, the two theatres, and the amphitheatre. 
 
 Every Roman city of importance had its forum, which was 
 the focus of business and the resort of pleasure. Originally 
 an open space, a cattle-market, it grew into an open area with 
 a colonnade, and was used as a sort of exchange ; but at this 
 period it was encompassed by a series of public buildings, 
 the architecture of which was magnificent. It held the 
 basilica, or court of justice ; the curulis, or place for the senate 
 or local magistracy ; the tabularium, or building where the 
 public records were kept ; the temples, barracks, prison, public 
 granaries. Various trades were exercised under its porticoes. 
 The money-changers had their shops below, in one of which 
 one thousand one hundred and twenty-eight silver and copper 
 coins were found in the remains of a chest. The management 
 of the public revenue was carried on in the gallery above. 
 
 THE FORUM was five hundred feet in length and a hun- 
 dred feet in width, and had a covered colonnade along three 
 sides. In this open space there were twenty-two bases that 
 were used for statues erected in honour of illustrious men, the 
 bases, when found, bearing the names and inscriptions to 
 whom they were erected. At the time of the city's destruction 
 renovations and alterations were in active progress, as shown 
 by the unfinished portions of new columns and architraves 
 that were left ready for erection. 
 
 THE BASILICA, OR COURT OF JUSTICE, was a large and 
 handsome building. The magistrates' raised tribunal was at 
 
26 VESUVIUS: HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII. 
 
 one end, and the area was divided into a wide nave and two 
 narrow aisles. There is a further interest in the Basilicae, as 
 they were subsequently adapted to Christian worship, when that 
 form of religion spread itself over the Italian Empire, whilst 
 the shape is still retained in our cathedrals and churches. 
 
 THE LARGE THEATRE was situate to the south of the 
 Street of Abundance, and it was estimated to accommodate 
 five thousand persons. The architect, taking advantage of the 
 hill, cut his theatre out of it. The horse-shoe seats were all 
 hewn out of the soft tufa and faced with slabs of white 
 marble. The stage was long and narrow : in front we see the 
 place for the orchestra, and an opening in the ground behind 
 it for the rising and falling of the curtain. This theatre was 
 not roofed over, and on the outer walls are to be seen the 
 stone rings that the poles were placed in, which supported the 
 awning in sunny weather. Behind, also, was a reservoir for 
 water, which was used in hot weather for refreshing the 
 spectators by means of a slight sprinkling. 
 
 We see here the telephone foreshadowed, for, in order that 
 the voice might be heard in every part of the building, little 
 bronze cups were at intervals suspended under the seats, the 
 better to convey the sound. 
 
 Close by is the SMALL THEATRE, in a much more perfect 
 state than the other, many of the seats still remaining entire. 
 The building, which dates from B.C. 75, contained seats for 
 fifteen hundred people, and an inscription records that it was 
 roofed over. The lower tier, the ends of which terminated in a 
 carved figure, or griffin, was always reserved for the magis- 
 trates and the more eminent men of the city, the rest of the 
 seats being free. 
 
 The nature of the pieces represented, and the method of 
 putting them upon the stage of- the Roman theatre, differ 
 largely from modern methods. The play did not admit of 
 
RE-DISCOVERY OF POMPEII AND HERCULANEUM. 27 
 
 more than three interlocutors at once ; it was composed much 
 more of set speeches, and ran less into natural broken 
 dialogue. There was no change of scene during the piece, 
 and a body called the " Chorus " a sort of medium between 
 actors and spectators bearing no analogy to anything in 
 modern drama, was introduced. These took little share in 
 the action of the piece, and did not come upon the stage, but 
 occupied the orchestra, at times taking part in the dialogue, 
 at other times varying it by choral songs and dances. 
 
 Dramatic entertainments were then a part of public 
 expenditure or were given gratuitously by wealthy or ambi- 
 tious persons ; and as they were intended to hold the male 
 population of a city, the theatres were usually of great size, 
 and were not used, as at the present time, in the evening, as 
 a recreation when the labour of the day was over. They 
 opened only at certain times, and then by day, often simply 
 as part of the amusement of a holiday. There is no doubt 
 that a religious vein ran through these early dramatic 
 productions, and this seems to have exercised a powerful 
 influence over the Drama. 
 
 In explaining that influence we shall speak only of tragedy, 
 because comparatively little is known of the early growth of 
 comedy. In tragedy the dramatis personce were invariably 
 taken from the mythic ages, from a class whom time and 
 fable had invested with preternatural grandeur, men either 
 the immediate offspring or the descendants of gods, and 
 accustomed to see and converse with gods upon earth 
 capable alike of greatly daring and greatly enduring, and 
 exalted above the common run of humanity in the qualities 
 of both mind and body. Everything therefore was to be 
 great but calm : the violent passions, the stormy scenes which 
 in the hands of our dramatists produce such powerful effects, 
 would not have found favour with a Roman audience. The 
 dialogue consequently was regular and sustained, the speeches 
 
28 VESUVIUS: HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII. 
 
 were long and rhetorical, and good recitation was of more 
 importance than good acting. The shape and size of the 
 theatres contributed also to produce this effect. In their 
 huge area the expression of the face, the modulation of the 
 voice, together with what we term "by-play," would have 
 been lost to the greater part of the audience. It was the 
 fashion for the actor to appear masked ; the mask was made 
 to contain the whole head, and was covered with hair of the 
 colour suitable to the character intended to be represented. 
 
 " He fights, plays, revels, loves, and whirls, and stands, 
 Speaks with mute eloquence and rhythmic hands ; 
 Silence is voiceful through each varying part, 
 In each fair feature 'tis the crown of Art." 
 
 THE AMPHITHEATRE was distant about half a mile from the 
 streets of the city. Three different series of stone seats are 
 easily distinguished, having twenty-four rows, and seating 
 ten thousand people. Its large dimensions prevented it from 
 being roofed in, and, to protect the audience from the fierce 
 rays of the sun, it was usual to stretch an awning of different 
 colours overhead, which was no light task, considering its 
 size and weight. 
 
 With regard to the seats, it was not a question of money, as 
 with us, but one of rank. A certain order of precedence was 
 observed senators, equites, and plebeians, ^"hs, podium was 
 set apart for the senators. This was a broad, cushioned part 
 next to the arena ; here also sat the prefect, the donor of the 
 games, and the Vestal Virgins. The equites sat in rows 
 behind the senators, and with them the civil and military 
 tribunes ; and farther behind these were the seats of the 
 plebeians, divided by passages into wedge-shaped compart- 
 ments called cunei. Women were stationed in a gallery ; 
 attendants and slaves occupied the highest gallery. The 
 arrangements for egress and ingress of the audience were 
 perfect. The arches of entrance were numbered, and the 
 
RE-DISCOVERY OF POMPEII AND HERCULANEUM. 29 
 
 admission tickets bore corresponding numbers, so that every 
 person occupied his proper seat. 
 
 As superstition and cruelty seem to be inseparable, we 
 find the ignorance of early paganism stained' with the blood 
 of human sacrifices, and there seems to have been inherent 
 in the Roman character an utter disregard of human life. 
 To the Romans we accord the disgrace, if not of inventing, 
 at least of adopting, enlarging, and continuing the gladiatorial 
 and animal combats of the amphitheatre. A superstitious 
 conception that the souls of deceased warriors delighted in 
 human sacrifice, as if they were slain to satisfy their revenge, 
 originated and gave a sort of religious sanction to this cruel 
 custom, which often proved fatal to prisoners of war. But 
 as the inhumanity of such massacres became recognised, 
 combats of captives and slaves were substituted, a practice 
 which led the way to the subsequent introduction of regular 
 gladiators, exhibited, not to appease the dead, but to amuse 
 the living. As time went on, gladiatory employment was 
 reduced to a regular art, admitting great variety of arms 
 and combatants, as well a different modes of engaging. 
 
 " Yet more variety was given by introducing sufficient water 
 to float ships, and by causing the same class that fought the 
 wild beasts to represent two rival nations, and often to fight 
 until one party was actually annihilated." 
 
 The conquered looked to the people, or to the Emperor, 
 if present, for life his antagonist had no power to grant or 
 refuse it ; but if the spectators were dissatisfied and gave 
 the signal of death, the sign being the turning down of the 
 thumbs, he was obliged to become the executioner of their 
 will. As a sign of mercy, the handkerchief was waved. If 
 any of the combatants showed signs of fear, their death was 
 certain ; if they, on the other hand, awaited the fatal stroke 
 with intrepidity, the people generally relented. The bodies 
 of the slain were dragged with a hook through a gate called 
 
30 VESUVIUS: HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII. 
 
 hibitinensis, the Gate of Death, to the spoliarium. The 
 victor was rewarded with a sum of money contributed by the 
 spectators, or bestowed from the treasury, and with a garland 
 of palm ornamented with coloured ribbons. When the 
 exhibition was advertised to be held sine missione, it was 
 understood that no quarter would be given. 
 
 Different games were celebrated in the amphitheatre. The 
 prefect, if present, started the sports by flinging down a 
 scarlet napkin. The blast of a trumpet followed between 
 each event. 
 
 The races may be mentioned first. Sometimes two 
 chariots, drawn by two horses or four (the biga or the 
 quadriga), entered for trial of speed. Each had two horsemen 
 for their management. Seven times they whirled round the 
 course, the applause of the excited spectators constantly 
 sounding in their ears, and the victor would step from his car 
 and mount the spina to receive the prize. 
 
 Another game was the realistic exhibition of battle by 
 equestrians and infantry. Again, gladiatorial combats were 
 often the order of the day. Other games would be athletic 
 ones running, boxing, wrestling, throwing the discus or the 
 spear, and other exercises testing the entire physical system 
 with much thoroughness. And- it was not uncommon in the 
 arena to fight blindfold. 
 
 The retiarius, or netfighter, who was armed with a net and 
 a trident, fought with a mirmillo, who was so called from 
 wearing a helmet with a crest shaped like a fish. The object 
 of the retiarius was to throw his net over his adversary's head, 
 entangle him, and then stab him with his trident. If he failed, 
 the mirmillo pursued him round the arena, striving to slay him 
 before he could prepare his net and make a second cast. 
 The Samnites also were a class of gladiators ; these fought 
 in complete armour. 
 
 One day the amphitheatre would be filled with huge trees, 
 
RE-DISCOVERY OF POMPEII AND HERCULANEUM. 31 
 
 and savage beasts would be brought to be hunted down by 
 criminals, captives, or men specially trained for the desperate 
 work that constituted their profession. " Wild beasts fought 
 with tame beasts and with wild beasts, and beasts with men. 
 Bears, lions, and tigers were worried and hacked by armed 
 bestiarii, and sometimes a bestiarius, in his turn, lay rolling 
 on the sand, crushed by a bear, or torn by the fierce struggles 
 of a panther. Lastly, some unskilled, defenceless criminals 
 were turned loose into the amphitheatre amid a fresh batch 
 of animals, infuriated by hunger and mad with excitement. 
 None of the poor, weaponless wretches sine armis, sine arte, 
 seminudi could stand up for a moment against the bear's 
 hug, or the tiger's leap. They stood in attitudes of despairing 
 stupefaction, watching the horrible rolling gait of the bears, 
 or the crouching of the tigers as they glared on them with 
 yellow eyeballs, lashing their haunches with their tails, and at 
 last, with a hoarse, carnivorous roar, curving their backs for 
 the final spring. 
 
 " Next two horsemen of well-tried prowess and well-matched 
 strength rode out to fight in mortal conflict. The combat 
 between them was long and fierce, for each knew that it might 
 be his last. They charged each other furiously, raining on 
 heads and shoulders a tempest of blows, till, after a tre- 
 mendous bout, one thrust his spear through a joint in his 
 opponent's armour ; and the stream of crimson blood which 
 followed was greeted by the roar of l Hoc liabet!' 'He 
 has it ! ' from ten thousand throats. The rider fell lifeless. 
 He required no finishing stroke, and the mob cried, ' Peractum 
 est ! ' ' There is an end of him ! ' After this, other mounted 
 gladiators joined combat. In a very short time nearly all 
 were wounded, and some had to acknowledge their defeat. 
 Dropping their swords or javelins, they raised their clenched 
 hands, with one finger extended to plead for mercy. The 
 plea was vain. No handkerchief was waved in sign of mercy, 
 
32 VESUVIUS: HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII. 
 
 and, standing over them, the victors callously drove their 
 swords into the throats of their defeated comrades. The poor 
 conquered fighters did not shrink. They looked up at the 
 shouting populace with something of disdain in their faces, 
 as though to prove that they thought nothing of death and 
 did not wish to be pitied. To see that none were shamming 
 death, a figure entered, disguised as Charon, who smote them 
 with his hammer ; but the work of the sword had been done 
 too well he smote only the slain. 
 
 " By this time the whole atmosphere of the place seemed to 
 reek with the suffocating odour of blood, which acted like an 
 intoxicant on the brutalised multitude. The audience became 
 frantic with excitement ; their cruelty could go no further, 
 yet the words ' Hoc habet I ' were re-echoed, not only by the 
 debased populace, but from the lips of royalty, by purple-clad 
 senators and knights, by noble matrons, and even by those 
 consecrated maids, the Vestal Virgins, whose presence 
 elsewhere saved the criminal from his fate, but whose function 
 here it was to consign the suppliant to his doom, by reversing 
 the thumb, upon his appeal for mercy." 
 
 Prudentius draws an amusing distinction between the 
 vestal modesty which, while it covered their faces with blushes, 
 found a secret delight in the hideous conflicts of the arena ; 
 of those downcast looks, that were greedy of wounds and 
 death ; of those sensitive souls who fainted away at the sight 
 of blood and blows, yet always recovered when the knife 
 was about to be plunged into the throat of the sufferer ; of 
 the compassion of those timid virgins, who themselves gave 
 the fatal signal that decided the death of the blood-stained 
 gladiator. 
 
 Smith, in his Games and Festivals, has shown us that 
 not only was art exhausted, and every incentive applied to 
 perfect the skill and animate the courage of the unhappy 
 victims, so that they might die becomingly ; but the utmost 
 
RE-DISCOVERY OF POMPEII AND HERCULANEUM. 33 
 
 ingenuity in varying and rendering more terrible the 
 murderous weapons with which to assail one another. It 
 was not by chance that a Thracian gladiator was opposed 
 by a sentator, or that a retiarius was armed in one way 
 and the mirmillo in another ; they were purposely combined 
 in a manner most likely to protract the fight, and make it 
 more sanguinary. By varying the arms it was proposed to 
 diversify the mode of death. 
 
 Every gladiator who had served three years in the arena 
 was entitled to his dismissal, a privilege sometimes granted 
 to him by the people, upon any extraordinary display of 
 valour. The reward of a victorious gladiator was a palm 
 and a sum of money. For those who obtained absolute 
 freedom, it was necessary to be many times victorious. 
 When they obtained their freedom, they wore a garland or 
 crown of flowers, entwined with woollen ribbons hung down 
 upon the shoulders. When they abandoned the gladiatorial 
 profession, they dedicated their arms to Hercules, their tutelary 
 deity, by hanging them up at the gate of his temple. 
 
 Nothing is so difficult to control as popular customs. We- 
 know for how many centuries the pagan games survived the 
 deities in whose honour they were first instituted. More 
 willing to surrender their antiquated religion than the amuse- 
 ments connected with it, the people could only be won over 
 to Christianity by a compromise which enabled them to 
 incorporate with their new faith many of the festivals and 
 pastimes of paganism. They took other names indeed ; they 
 were baptised anew, and consecrated to saints and martyrs, 
 rather than to demigods and heroes ; but the populace cared 
 little for form and title, provided they got the kernel the 
 holiday or festival. 
 
 ' And oft, conducted by historic truth, 
 We tread the long extent of backward time.' 1 
 
34 VESUVIUS: HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII. 
 
 Verification again comes in a singular manner, as to the 
 method of both these gladiatorial and animal conflicts of 
 the arena. One of the most perfect of the tombs disinterred 
 at Pompeii was one covered with coloured bas-reliefs in 
 stucco, presenting minute details of the amphitheatrical 
 games and combats. At a short distance from the monu- 
 ment was found a marble tablet which had fallen from it, 
 containing an inscription which may be rendered : " To 
 Auricus Scaurus, the son of Aulus, of the tribe of Menenia, 
 Justicial Duumvir, to whom the Decurions have granted the 
 site of this monument, two thousand sesterces for his funeral, 
 and an equestrian statue in the forum." 
 
 As Rankine has said : " We are greater than the ancients, 
 but let us ever remember that we stand upon their shoulders. 
 Will the new Olympic games bring together a greater mass 
 of individual merit than the old ? Are we doomed to find 
 that methods and machinery improve, not men ? We 
 Englishmen shoot farther and truer than our forefathers. 
 Is it only because we use guns insteads of bows ? " 
 
 PUBLIC BATHS. When we consider that many of the 
 Roman citizens bathed seven times a day, the baths may 
 be said to have been to them a necessity. Not, indeed, that 
 they might " wash and be clean," but that they might relieve 
 themselves of the effects of gross feeding, or of exposure to 
 exercise, or fatigue. By others it was considered that the 
 use of the warm bath also checked the ravages of age, and 
 prolonged life. The practice appears to have been carried 
 to an absurd and ridiculous extent : so that it became 
 necessary to pass a special edict that no person should 
 remain in the baths longer than two hours at a time. 
 
 The magnificence of the Thermce CaracallfB, the baths of 
 ancient Rome, was unparalleled for its architectural and 
 decorative perfection and extent, the grounds of the baths 
 
RE-DISCOVERY OF POMPEII AND HERCULANEUM. 35 
 
 covering twenty-four acres. The massive walls of the colossal 
 structure were lined internally with magnificent marble, the 
 floors with mosaics, whilst from their ruins much of the best- 
 known statuary of the Vatican has been recovered. They 
 could accommodate sixteen hundred bathers at once. 
 
 THE PUBLIC BATHS OF POMPEII stood in the vicinity of 
 the forum. They were admirably arranged, spacious, highly 
 decorated, and superior even to any of those in our chief 
 modern cities. There is reason to suppose that the com- 
 pletion and dedication of the baths preceded but a short 
 time the destruction of the city, for an inscription written 
 on a wall of the court of the baths was found, on excavation, 
 quite legible ; and as it was the custom to write these 
 notices in the most public places, and after a very short 
 time cover them with others, as one bill-sticker defaces the 
 labours of his predecessors, the conclusion seems to be a 
 sound one. Further, many inscriptions have been found 
 painted one over the other at the corners of the principal 
 streets. One inscription lets in a side-light upon the sump- 
 tuous spectacle usually provided on the dedication of a public 
 building for the public service. There were combats (venatio] 
 between wild beasts, or between beasts and men a cruel 
 sport, of which the Romans were passionately fond ; athletic 
 games (athleta) ; and the sprinkling of perfumes, which were 
 distributed after being mixed with boiling water and placed 
 in the centre of the building, so that the scents might rise 
 with the steam, and be soon diffused. 
 
 The baths occupy a space of a hundred square feet, and 
 are divided into three separate and distinct compartments. 
 One of these was appropriated to the fireplaces and to the 
 servants of the establishment : the others were occupied by a 
 set of baths, contiguous to each other, consisting of four 
 principal rooms the apodyterium, or dressing-room ; the 
 
36 VESUVIUS: HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII. 
 
 frtgidarium, or cold-water bath ; the tepidarium, or warming- 
 room ; and the calidarium, or hot-water and vapour-room 
 and supplied with heat and water from the same furnace 
 and from the same reservoir. The apartments and passages 
 were paved with white marble in mosaic. It is probable 
 that the smaller baths were used by the women. To judge 
 from what is left of them, the various apartments forming the 
 baths were evidently most elegantly and sumptuously fitted. 
 The bath, it appears, in those days was a daily necessity, 
 rather than a luxury, whilst accommodation was provided 
 for a large number of bathers, rooms for athletic games and 
 playing at ball, and halls for conversation and the public 
 lectures of rhetoricians and philosophers. 
 
 In 1854 other thennce, on a larger scale and even more 
 highly decorated and luxurious, were discovered situated in 
 the Street of Helconius, and have been called the Stabian 
 baths. These were probably patronised by the wealthier 
 inhabitants. During the Empire no villa was complete 
 without its " Turkish " bath. 
 
 In the Stabian baths was a large court, or palcestra. This 
 was destined for athletic sports and exercises, and had a floor 
 of hard beaten earth. Wrestling was the favourite diversion 
 of the Roman youth, but balls, sphceristerium, a game similar 
 to " fives," and swinging the corycos, a sack of sand which was 
 suspended from a pole, were also greatly affected. 
 
 The baths were to the Pompeians what " the Club " is to 
 most of us at the present day, except that the public were 
 admitted almost gratuitously, and that they were available 
 for the lower orders as freely as for the wealthiest patricians. 
 It has been stated that the baths were originally open only 
 from sunrise to sunset ; but, from the numerous lamps found 
 in them, it is reasonable to infer that they were used also 
 at night. 
 
 It is a matter of surprise to find how an institution so 
 
RE-DISCOVERY OF POMPEII AND HERCULANEUM. 37 
 
 necessary to health should so completely have disappeared 
 from modern Italy. Rolfe says that all traces of the public - 
 bath had disappeared from that country about 450 A.D. 
 The institution had spread eastward ; thence it again 
 travelled westward ; so that it may truly be said that Rome 
 was the mother of the modern " Turkish bath." 
 
 They were not all bathers who frequented the baths. 
 Many came to hear the gossip of the town, to chat over the 
 last new play or the coming gladiatorial show to while 
 away their time in criticising the sports of the bathers or 
 the latest dinner-party, or perhaps to pay their court to 
 some professional beauty who was to be found there. 
 
 THE GENERAL PLAN OF POMPEII is very regular, the 
 streets being usually straight, and crossing one another at 
 right angles. But an exception is found in the street leading 
 from the Gate of Herculaneum to the forum, which, though 
 it must have been one of the principal thoroughfares of 
 the city, was crooked and irregular. The principal streets 
 at Pompeii were called by such names as the " Street of 
 Mercury," the " Street of Tombs," the " Street of Sallust," 
 the " Street of Abundance," etc. 
 
 The city was by no means singular in the general narrow- 
 ness of its streets, for this was common to the Italian cities 
 of the era in which it perished. Unlike most of those in 
 modern Italy, all of the streets in Pompeii had raised footpaths, 
 many of which were paved alike, others differently, according 
 to the taste of the owner. Except in the principal thorough- 
 fares, none could have admitted of two carriages being driven 
 abreast, the widest, including the side footpath, measuring 
 only ninety-three feet, the rest averaging about twenty-four 
 feet, the narrower lanes being about fourteen feet wide. 
 All the streets bordered by trottoirs, or pavements, are 
 straight and narrow,' and are paved with large blocks of 
 
38 VESUVIUS: HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII. 
 
 lava. At intervals, especially at the corners, are placed high 
 stepping-stones leading from one side of the pavement to 
 the other, intended for the convenience of foot-passengers 
 in wet weather. These large stones must have prevented 
 any carriage traffic. Litters were principally used, and it 
 is highly probable that wheeled carriages were but little 
 patronised in the town itself. The deep ruts found in the 
 streets were caused no doubt by narrow, heavy carts, drawn 
 by mules. Even at the present day in Italy horses for street 
 traffic are turned to but little account. 
 
 At the corners of the streets of Pompeii were public 
 fountains, which were uniform in character and usually 
 decorated with the head of a god, or other ornament, round 
 the outflow. Water was proved to be extremely plentiful 
 by the discovery of an aqueduct in 1884. Almost every 
 private house evidently had a fountain in the courtyard ; 
 and leaden water-pipes, probably made from Cornish lead, 
 with their bronze taps, may be seen cropping up through 
 the pavement in the side-walks. A fountain is yet to be 
 seen at the corner of a street leading from the forum to 
 the Herculaneum gate, having at the back a carved emblem 
 of an eagle seizing a hare. Its meaning was no doubt well 
 understood by the people of this ancient city. 
 
 THE ARCHITECTURE OF POMPEII must be regarded as 
 presenting in general a transitional character from the pure 
 Greek to that of the Roman Empire. All the three orders 
 of Greek architecture, the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian, are 
 found in the various edifices of the city, but in their 
 proportions and details they are rarely in strict accordance 
 with the rules of Art ; whilst the private houses naturally 
 exhibit still more deviation and irregularity. Rolfe says : 
 " The domestic architecture is interesting mainly from the 
 fact that it is in a transitional style, which combines almost 
 
RE-DISCOVERY OF POMPEII AND HERCULANEUM. 39 
 
 everything that preceded it, and contains the rudiments of 
 every style which followed it. We find houses with a 
 Samnite doorway, a Doric atrium, an Ionic peristyle, an 
 arched cellar, and a mosaic pavement. Indeed, everywhere 
 we find the old jostling the new, the Roman asserting 
 his dominion over the work of the Greek and the 
 Samnite." 
 
 A few general characteristics may be mentioned as regards 
 the houses. They are mostly of one storey, although stair- 
 cases have been found, which prove that some few must have 
 had a second, perhaps a third or fourth storey, these upper 
 portions probably consisting of wood and plaster, and 
 arranged so as to project beyond the line of the lower storey 
 very like the half-timbered houses of England and France in 
 the early part of the sixteenth century which must have been 
 destroyed by the red-hot scoriae of the eruption. Some of 
 the houses had a hanging balcony. 
 
 In Roman times, there were five different kinds of houses, 
 differing mainly in the type of construction and the details 
 of the atrium, or great hall. " The atrium," says Becker, 
 " was the original focus of all domestic life, somewhat like the 
 ' great hall ' of the mediaeval knight, and with it were 
 connected all the most important incidents of the Roman's 
 existence from the cradle to the grave. In the old atrium 
 stood the hearth (focus\ serving alike for the profane 
 purposes of cooking, and also for the reception of the 
 penates. Near the familiar flame they took their common 
 meal ' et in atrio et duobus ferculis antiqui epulabantur! 
 Here sat enthroned the mistress of the house in the midst 
 of her maids ; here were the thalamus nuptialis and the strong 
 box of the father of the family. Several such have been dug 
 up at Pompeii. Here all visits were received. Here the 
 corpses of the deceased members of the family lay in state 
 until their interment. Here, lastly, were suspended the 
 
40 VESUVIUS: HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII. 
 
 waxen masks, or imagines, those dear mementoes of their 
 deceased forefathers." 
 
 The name of the owner or occupier has been constantly 
 found on the doorpost. The atrium, Oilman tells us, was 
 entered by way of a vestibule open to the sky. Double doors 
 admitted the visitor to the entrance-hall, or ostium. There 
 was a threshold, upon which it was unlucky to place the left 
 foot. A knocker afforded the means of announcing one's 
 approach, and a porter, who had a small room at the side, 
 opened the door. Perhaps myrtle or laurel might be seen on 
 a door, indicating that a marriage was in process of celebra- 
 tion ; or a chaplet announcing the happy birth of an heir. 
 Cypress, probably set in pots, in the vestibule indicated a 
 death, as a crape festoon does upon our own door-handles, 
 whilst torches, lamps, wreaths, garlands, branches of trees, 
 showed that from some cause there was joy in the house. 
 
 In all cases the rooms of the houses looked, so to speak, 
 into the inner courts, and only the blank walls and a few 
 small windows, in some cases slits placed high up, were seen 
 in the streets. These windows seem to have been protected by 
 iron bars and gratings, as well as filled with non-transparent 
 glass. The atrium, or first court, of a Pompeian house was 
 always a little higher than the street, and generally the ground 
 rose from the atrium to the peristyle, or inner court. The 
 drainage runs the reverse way from the open channels 
 round the peristyle garden into the atrium impluvium, or its 
 drain, and thence into the street, and through the street into 
 the river. 
 
 On the ground floor the front of the larger houses was 
 generally occupied by shops ; if not, the outer wall was 
 stuccoed, and generally painted in bright colours. Many 
 inscriptions have been found painted on the walls of the 
 houses, usually in red letters. There was an almost total 
 absence of chimneys indeed, it is only lately that the use of 
 
RE-DISCOVERY OF POMPEII AND HERCULANEUM. 41 
 
 grates has become general in Southern Italy. There is no 
 doubt that its ancient inhabitants preferred the use of the 
 brazier to a bright fire. 
 
 Another point to note in connection with the architecture 
 of Pompeii is the extreme darkness which must have pre- 
 vailed ; for the internal court, which afforded the only means 
 of access to the surrounding chambers, furnished them with 
 rather an imperfect light in fact, many of the lower rooms 
 had no windows at all, whilst those on the upper floors, 
 illuminated principally, in the great majority of cases, by the 
 smallest and narrowest of windows, were in a scarcely more 
 satisfactory condition. As at the present day, so even at that 
 early period, the Romans used glass for mosaics ; and in the 
 baths there was brought to light a window two and a half by 
 three and a half feet, in which was glass half an inch thick, 
 ground on one side. In a room of one house was found a 
 bronze frame with four panes of glass fastened by nuts and 
 screws, whilst in one or two separate houses frames were 
 found in situ. Most of the Pompeian houses that belonged 
 to the wealthy middle classes were entered from the street 
 by a narrow passage leading to the hall, and were surrounded 
 by a covered passage, with the impluvium, or reservoir for 
 rain-water, in the centre of the roof. Opening into the hall 
 beyond the main entrance was a large apartment called the 
 tabulinum> in which the owner received his friends and 
 transacted business, the other portion of the house being 
 devoted to the use of the family. 
 
 Mention may here be made of one or two of the principal 
 houses that have been uncovered. 
 
 " The House of the Faun " was probably the largest and 
 most magnificent of the Pompeian mansions, and dated from 
 at least two hundred years before Christ. It took its name 
 from the fact that in the marble impluvium in the first court 
 was found a beautiful bronze statuette of a dancing faun. 
 
42 VESUVIUS: HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII. 
 
 The house formed an entire building block between four 
 streets, and the floors were decorated with some of the finest 
 mosaics found within the city. It has been thought that it 
 was the property of some one who had associations with 
 Egypt, as one mosaic shows the Nile with lotus-flowers, the 
 ibis, hippopotamus, and a crocodile. The court in the rear 
 was surrounded by forty Doric fluted columns, and on the 
 inner side of these was a garden. 
 
 " The House of the Tragic Poet " was smaller, but for art 
 treasures was doubtless the finest in the city. It is cele- 
 brated as the house in which Bulwer Lytton, in The Last 
 Days of Pompeii, has allowed his character Glaucus to dwell. 
 The mosaics and frescoes that have been obtained from 
 it are the finest yet discovered, and contribute passages 
 taken from the Homeric poems. The house takes its name 
 from the mosaic found therein of the tragedian drilling his 
 players. The general tone and good taste that pervade the 
 decoration have made this house the most admired of all the 
 houses of Pompeii. 
 
 The houses of Pansa and Sallust will well repay a visit. 
 The former was one of the larger and finer houses, had a 
 large garden, and also, what was clearly unusual in Pompeii, 
 a stable and coach-house which opened out into a side-street. 
 The house of Sallust was smaller, but was second to none 
 in elegance and decoration. It contained many important 
 paintings, perhaps the most important being that of Diana 
 and Actaeon, representing the moment when Actaeon peeped 
 at the bathing goddess. He is observed in the background, 
 with the antlers already sprouting from his forehead. 
 
 Most of the Pompeian dwellings were evidently generally 
 so built as to enclose an open court surrounded by columns, 
 and known as the peristylium (peri, about ; stulos, a pillar), of 
 which the middle was laid out as a garden. The pavement 
 was adorned with rich mosaics, and the walls with elaborate 
 
RE-DISCOVERY OF POMPEII AND HERCULANEUM. 43 
 
 paintings. Beyond the principal apartments, in which the 
 magnificence of the house was concentrated, were situated 
 the sleeping and eating-rooms, kitchens, cellars, etc., the 
 upper rooms being used principally by the slaves. Lord 
 Lytton tells us that even in the gayest mansions the bed- 
 chambers were so diminutive that few who have not seen 
 them can form any idea of the pretty pigeon-holes in which 
 the citizens of Pompeii evidently thought it desirable to pass 
 the night. 
 
 Until the writer went to the Neapolitan Museum, he had 
 always thought that the introduction of the iron bedstead 
 was one of the great events of his boyhood ; but he found 
 there an iron bedstead, like a small narrow sofa, light enough 
 to be transported with ease, so that the occupant himself 
 could, if he so willed, take up his bed and remove it from 
 room to room without any great exertion. 
 
 It is believed that there is no trace of a wooden floor in 
 Pompeii, and in this respect again the ancient custom of 
 Southern Italy resembles the modern one. We slept for 
 a night in a modern and beautiful villa at Sorrento, and, 
 although it is only a few years old, and has been built 
 apparently regardless of expense, all the bedrooms had tiled 
 floors. As the Italians do not use carpets, very few prelimi- 
 naries were indulged in before we got into bed. 
 
 For the ordinary floors a kind of composition was used, 
 resembling the cement floors seen in England. In others 
 the plaster basis was mixed with broken tile, which increased 
 its solidity and gave it somewhat the appearance of granite. 
 Sometimes floors, whilst soft, were inlaid with pieces of white 
 marble, set in Grecian frets, and forming intricate patterns ; 
 sometimes the ground was white and the pattern composed of 
 lozenge-shape pieces of tile. Grounds of other colours also 
 occur, of which yellow is the most common. Sometimes 
 pieces of marble of all shapes and colours were embedded 
 
44 VESUVIUS: HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII. 
 
 in a composition ground ; and in these floors the chief aim 
 was to collect the greatest possible variety of marble. These 
 marble floors are uncommon, mosaics being most frequent in 
 the best class of houses. 
 
 The roofs of the Roman houses were chiefly flat, and these 
 we learn " had a firm pavement of stucco, stone, and metal. 
 The sloping ones were covered with straw and shingle ; 
 later, with tiles, slates, and metal." The doorways were 
 rectangular in form. As has already been mentioned, 
 attached to the best houses was usually a garden, the most 
 striking features of which were lines of the plane-tree, walks 
 formed by closely-clipped hedges of box, yew, cypress, and 
 other evergreens, with beds of acanthus and numerous vines. 
 These were interspersed with statues, pyramids, fountains, and 
 summer-houses. In the training of trees the Romans were 
 very fanciful, tying, twisting, or cutting trees and shrubs into 
 the figures of animals, ships, letters, etc. Among the trees 
 and plants represented on the walls of the houses are the oak, 
 the chestnut, the cypress, the laurel, the myrtle, the olive, the 
 ivy, the vine, the palm, the black mulberry, and the cherry- 
 tree and rhododendron. On the authority of Strabo, the 
 whole of this part of the Italian coast was noted for its 
 excellent wine, which character it still maintains. 
 
 Every flower and tree in antiquity had its legend, and was 
 dedicated to some deity. With the Romans, as with ourselves, 
 the rose was the queen of the garden ; and in Campania the 
 flower was largely cultivated. It was one of the few double 
 flowers known to the ancients. To the Romans it had come 
 from the Greeks, from Media, and can be traced through 
 Phrygia, Thrace, and Macedonia. " The rose had, according 
 to one legend, sprung from the blood of the dying Adonis ; 
 according to another, the white rose had been coloured red by 
 the blood of the goddess Aphrodite herself when she ran 
 through the thorns to succour her favourite. The symbol of 
 
RE-DISCOVERY OF POMPEII AND HERCULANEUM. 45 
 
 all that is most beautiful, most enjoyable, and most perishable, 
 it was dedicated to Aphrodite ; and it was also the flower of 
 Dionysius in his double character of the god of blooming 
 nature and the god of the under-world, the mystic form of 
 whose worship had come with the Greek colonies from 
 the Peloponnesus into Southern Italy. 
 
 The flowers of the Pompeians do not appear to have been 
 numerous ; the best known, beside the rose, were the narcissus, 
 the Florentine and German iris, the yellow water-iris, the 
 gladiolus, crocus, daffodil, and other lilies, the hollyhock, corn- 
 cackle, ox-eye aloe, poppy, and the corn-flag. In every 
 garden was a space set apart for vegetables ; there, no doubt, 
 grew the renowned Pompeian cabbage mentioned by Pliny. 
 Flowers and plants were often kept in the central space of the 
 peristyle. 
 
 On the outside walls of some of the houses are found niches 
 or shrines to the Lares Compitales, or gods of the highways ; 
 and at the crossing of the streets Stabia and Nola, on the foot 
 pavement is seen a small piazza with its fountain and Lares 
 altar. Shrines to the Virgin have replaced these in modern 
 Italy. These little gods, according to Roman mythology, were 
 the sons of Lara, who was consigned by Juno to the infernal 
 regions for having made too free use of her tongue. Mercury, 
 who was appointed her conductor, fell in love with her on the 
 way ; her twin-sons, from the circumstances of their birth 
 and their father's duties, became the guardians of the roads. 
 Augustus re-established their worship after it had fallen into 
 disuse ; and on festivals, and always in May, their statues were 
 adorned with wreaths of flowers. 
 
 Noble families had a place of domestic worship (adytum}, 
 usually in the most retired part of the house, where, in 
 addition to their Lares, they kept their records and memorials. 
 In small houses these statues were often placed behind the 
 door, as having the power to keep out all things hurtful, 
 
46 VESUVIUS HERCULANEUM : AND POMPEII. 
 
 especially evil genii. Respected as they were, they sometimes 
 met with rough treatment if any accident chanced to happen 
 to any of the family. They were often represented in 
 grotesque forms ; one, for instance, was a little old man sitting 
 upon the ground, with his knees up to his chin, a huge head, 
 an ass's ears, a long beard, and a roguish face. Sometimes 
 they took the form of dogs, the emblems of fidelity and watch- 
 fulness, sometimes the shape of serpents. 
 
 The old custom of partitioning off as a shop that part of 
 the ground floor facing the street is still practised by the 
 Italians, and many a prince, by the letting off of the parti- 
 tioned part, or by reserving a compartment for the sale of his 
 own produce, has added handsomely to his income. This 
 system was, it would seem, much in vogue in ancient Pompeii. 
 
 The Pompeian shops were small, opened on to the street, 
 and were closed by wide sliding shutters, or by doors moving 
 either in grooves cut in the stone or, as in some instances, upon 
 an iron rail. In front they had a small counter of masonry, 
 with little steps at the end next the wall for a display of goods, 
 and sometimes a small oven at the opposite end, where the 
 articles sold were food and drink. Many of these counters 
 covered with marble, and here and there crowded with earthen 
 vessels for the sale of wine, oil, etc., are still preserved. 
 
 The poorer class of shopkeepers in Naples still live in 
 similar tiny shops. We saw the interior of many, where, 
 with the door wide open, the head of the house was working 
 at his trade as a shoemaker, joiner, or charcoal-seller, whilst 
 the wife and family had their abode at the other side of a 
 thin suspended curtain. 
 
 Taverns were almost universally placed at the street 
 corners, many of them bearing the sign of an ivy-bush. For, 
 as the ivy was the plant sacred to Bacchus, the ivy-bush 
 became the favourite sign of the Roman wine-shops. Hence 
 the trite proverb of the Latins, " Good wine needs no bush." 
 
RE-DISCOVERY OF POMPEII AND HERCULANEUM. 47 
 
 In Naples at the present day there is scarcely a tavern which 
 has not the orthodox bush against the doorway. 
 
 Some of the taverns in Pompeii had signs in terra-cotta of 
 a goat, others a painted sign of an elephant ; whilst the sign 
 " checkers " has also been found, checkers, or draughts, being 
 a favourite game with the Romans, as is abundantly proved 
 by the frescoes found in the wine-shops. " One of the oldest 
 games of the world is that called by the Romans ' little 
 marauders ' (latrunculi], because it was played like draughts 
 or checkers, there being two sets of ' men,' white and red, 
 representing opposed soldiers, and the aim of each player 
 being to gain advantage over the other, as soldiers do in 
 combat. This game is as old as Homer, and is represented 
 in Egyptian tombs, which are of much greater antiquity than 
 any Grecian monument. 
 
 " Such, then, are the ruins of Pompeii an accumulation 
 of romance, of melancholy, of intense interest ; a countless 
 number of broken pillars, fit emblems of the lives that were 
 cut short ; fragments of temples, where their heathenish rites 
 were celebrated ; remains of theatres given up to plays, sports, 
 and unholy pastimes ; houses without number, mute testi- 
 mony to the domestic histories and daily lives that were 
 played out ; streets of sepulchres and streets of life and 
 abundance that became tombs for ever." 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 HANDICRAFTS, LITERATURE, AND ART. 
 
 " While manufacture is the work of hands only, art is the work of the 
 whole spirit of man ; and, as that spirit is, so is the deed of it." RUSKIN. 
 
 |OT the least amongst the most interesting dis- 
 coveries of Pompeii are those that relate to the 
 manner of conducting handicrafts, or, as the 
 ancients expressed them, the servile arts. These 
 mechanical arts were practised by slaves, whilst the liberal 
 arts were thought becoming to freemen. 
 
 " The fame of an actor has been justly said to be of all 
 fames the most perishable, because he leaves no memorial of 
 his power, except in the fading memories of the generation 
 which has beheld him. An analogous proposition might be 
 made with respect to the mechanical arts, because the know- 
 ledge of them cannot be transmitted by mere description ; 
 the scientific part may be preserved in books, but the skill 
 in manipulation, acquired by a long series of improvements, 
 is lost." 
 
 The Pompeians evidently had municipal elections, and, 
 from the election placards found written by the trade guilds 
 upon the walls, we note some of the tradesmen who flourished 
 in the city. They were dyers, bakers, pastrycooks, gold- 
 smiths, fruiterers, carpenters, carters, saltworkers, fishermen, 
 peasants, market-folk, muleteers, coachmen, barbers, perfumers 
 
 48 
 
HANDICRAFTS, LITERATURE, AND ART. 49 
 
 booksellers, clothiers, innkeepers, and others. Yet, of the trades 
 mentioned, we find to-day only traces of a few, and, of these, 
 in many cases the tools of their trade rather than the result 
 of their work. Indirectly we know there were many trades 
 not included in the above list. Blacksmiths must have been 
 common, as a great deal of ancient wrought-iron work exists ; 
 also plumbers, from the leaden pipes that have been found ; 
 bootmakers, from the frequent occurrence of boots and shoes 
 in the frescoes ; saddlers, from the many specimens of harness 
 found, showing even the thread which secured the metal 
 buckles and bits to the harness. In the Pompeian Museum 
 is suspended the model of a large cart-wheel, which, singularly 
 enough, is the exact size and shape of the wheels used for 
 heavy carts in Italy at the present day. 
 
 From the numerous articles of glass found in Pompeii, 
 it is thought that there was a glass manufactory in the 
 neighbourhood. It is manifest that the Romans possessed 
 much taste as regards this art ; and they were evidently 
 acquainted with blowing, the working of the lathe, and glass- 
 cutting. They made great use of glass for domestic utensils ; 
 and many funeral urns have been found composed of such 
 material. A large number of bottles are in the Neapolitan 
 Museum which were brought from " The House of the Sur- 
 geon" at Pompeii. 
 
 Several bakers' shops have been found, all in a fair state of 
 preservation ; mill, oven, and kneading-troughs, the vessels for 
 holding water, and even flour leavened, have all been brought 
 to light. The stone flour-mills were built in the shape of 
 a dice-box outside ; internally they resembled an hour-glass, 
 the narrow, constricted wall being hooped with iron, into 
 which wooden bars were inserted, by means of which the 
 upper stone was turned on a pivot of iron by the labour 
 of men or asses. Of course the labour fell upon the slaves, 
 and, as the work was hard, those who were guilty of any 
 
 4 
 
50 VESUVIUS: HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII. 
 
 offence were sent to the mill as a punishment. Asses were 
 used, however, by those who could afford it. The use of 
 water-mills was not unknown to the Romans. Vitruvius 
 describes their construction in terms not inapplicable to the 
 mechanism of a common mill of the present day. 
 
 The ovens at any rate, those that the writer saw 
 reminded him of the old-fashioned brick ovens often seen in 
 Yorkshire farm-houses, generally rectangular in shape, dome- 
 roofed, and closed with an iron door. In one of the Pompeian 
 ovens, eighty-one loaves of bread were found, of which several 
 specimens, flat, and about eight inches in diameter, are 
 preserved in the Museum at Naples. 
 
 From the earliest antiquity we find the flour or meal 
 of grain used as food. ' The grain having been bruised 
 between stones, and the meal mixed with milk or water, 
 a dry, tough, and indigestible paste resulted, which was made 
 into balls. Probably later it was accidentally found that by 
 bringing the paste into a state of fermentation its tenacity 
 was destroyed, and the mass rendered agreeable to the taste, 
 and digestible. There were no bakers in Rome antecedent 
 to the war against Perseus, King of Macedonia. From 
 Pliny we learn that before this every house made its 
 own bread ; this was the task of the women, except in great 
 houses, where there were men cooks. 
 
 Bakers were in great repute in Pompeii, and large sums 
 were paid for slaves who excelled in that art, which included 
 confectionery. Cooks, too, were evidently at a premium. 
 " To the Pompeian," says Stamer, " chiefest of all pleasures 
 were those of the table. However close-handed in other 
 matters, money was no object to him where eating and 
 drinking were concerned. Though he had a wife beautiful 
 as Venus and chaste as Lucrece, she held but second place 
 in his affections : the first belonged of right to his cook. 
 Were it a question of loving wife or cook, he would not 
 
HANDICRAFTS, LITERATURE, AND ART. 51 
 
 hesitate an instant. ' Since a victim thou must have, O 
 Death, take my Livia, but spare my Davus ! ' would be the 
 answer given to the importunate scythe-bearer knocking at 
 the gate. ' More than one eligible maiden is there ready 
 to console me for the loss of Livia ; a cook such as Davus 
 is nowhere to be found.' " 
 
 Another curious discovery made in Pompeii was that of the 
 abode of a sculptor, containing his tools as well as blocks of 
 marble and half-finished statues. Amongst the tools were 
 mallets, compasses, chisels, levers, saws, etc. 
 
 "Where the smooth chisel all its force has shown, 
 And softened into flesh the rugged stone." 
 
 We have to go to the museums at Naples and Pompeii 
 to see the results of the workmanship of other trades. Many 
 gold and silver ornaments have been found, some of them of 
 great value and beauty. A long gold chain, with gold wheels 
 at intervals, found in " The House of the Faun," was probably 
 an official ornament, as the mayor's chain of to-day ; whilst 
 the massive gold armlets of serpentine design, weighing two 
 pounds, found in the same house, no doubt decorated the 
 lovely arms of some Pompeian beauty. 
 
 In the Pompeian Museum there are casts of a wardrobe, 
 also some doors with latches, bolts, and locks. In the 
 Neapolitan Museum there is an original wooden box roughly 
 dovetailed, and also a very complete set of carpenter's tools. 
 The fishermen used bronze fish-hooks, of which many have 
 been found, and also a kind of drag for pulling up their 
 night-lines. 
 
 We naturally find no traces of the tailors of the city, but 
 we find in the inscriptions a distinction drawn between the 
 sagarii tailors, and the vestiarii, the latter being in all 
 probability sellers of " ready-made " clothing. The loose 
 garments worn by the Romans would seem to have en- 
 
52 VESUVIUS: HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII. 
 
 couraged the " ready-made," as against the " bespoke," trade ; 
 for, excepting the undergarment, which was a sort of blouse, 
 and often woven, the clothes of a Roman, being loose, were 
 not of a stylish fit ; whilst Greeks and Romans forswore 
 trousers, both despising the nations who thus adorned 
 themselves. 
 
 History does not tell us if the ladies wore " tailor-made " 
 costumes. They were certainly not inconvenienced by a 
 superfluity of clothing. A scarf crossed over the chest, a vest, 
 tunic, and stola, with a pair of boots or sandals, constituted 
 their entire apparel. Little though it was, they made the 
 most of it. By raising or tightening the robe, the Pompeian 
 beauties contrived to give the beholder a fair idea of their 
 figures, when they happened to have a good one. When they 
 had not, they let their robe hang in majestic folds around 
 them, and turned down their virtuous noses at the shame- 
 less damsels that were younger and better looking, who 
 could afford to be more liberal in the display of their 
 charms. 
 
 Both men and women wore two principal garments the 
 tunic next the body, and ihtpallium ) which was thrown over 
 it when going abroad. But they both had a distinctive article 
 of dress, the men wearing the toga, or flowing outer garment, 
 and the women the stola, which fell over the tunic to the 
 ankles and was bound about the waist by a girdle. Sometimes 
 the stola. was clasped over the shoulder and fastened by a 
 brooch, and in some instances it had sleeves which reached 
 to the elbow. Both sexes also wore in travelling a thick, long 
 cloak without sleeves, called the pcenulo, and the men also 
 wore over the toga a dark cloak, the lacerna. 
 
 The garments were manufactured of silk, linen, wool, and 
 cotton. Woollen cloth was the most in use, as the toga was 
 always made from it ; it could be obtained in various thick- 
 nesses. Silk was expensive. It is said the value of a pound 
 
HANDICRAFTS, LITERATURE, AND ART. 53 
 
 of raw silk was equal to that of a pound of gold. It was 
 woven so thin that the well-known coa called down the cen- 
 sure of the moralists of that day. They had also a silk union, 
 in which the " warp " was linen thread and the " weft " silk. 
 The articles of dress made with silk were worn principally 
 by the ladies. Linen garments were worn by the priests, and 
 by attendant slaves ; the linen was imported from Egypt. 
 Some doubt seems to exist as to whether cotton goods were 
 worn, but the Romans certainly manufactured stuffs composed 
 of wool and linen mixed (linostenid). As to the colours ot 
 these stuffs, the customary colour was white, but it is probable 
 that slaves wore dark-coloured clothing ; the higher classes 
 wore dark clothing only when in mourning, or when under the 
 displeasure of the Emperor. That ladies wore coloured robes 
 is seen from the paintings from Herculaneum and Pompeii, 
 where the colours are more often sky-blue or violet, rather 
 than white. The tunica and palla were azure, covered with 
 golden stars, and they probably exhibit the taste of the 
 period. It is probable that matrons usually wore white gar- 
 ments, and on certain occasions coloured ones. According 
 to Becker, these robes were made, not only of one distinct 
 colour, in many varieties, as violet, mallow, crocus, and 
 hyacinth, but they had a process which, by means of some 
 corrosive preparation laid on previously, prevented the 
 impressed parts from assuming the same colour as the rest 
 of the piece. No doubt the vestis impluviata was a figured 
 robe, whilst the vestis undulata was equivalent to " watered " 
 with us. Although this process could not, of course, have 
 been regular printing, these garments were called versicoloria ; 
 they were also variegated by weaving and embroidery. 
 Stripes and borders woven in or sewn on the garments were 
 called paragauda. As regards the manufacture of the 
 garments, they were woven in pieces and became perfect 
 garments in the hands of female slaves, who also performed 
 
54 VESUVIUS: HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII. 
 
 the spinning and weaving under the eye of the mistress, or 
 of the lanipendia, in a special room set apart for the purpose. 
 The Romans knew nothing of the washing of their clothes 
 in their own houses, and the ladies were far better off than 
 the king's daughter, Nausicaa. The whole dress, when dirty, 
 was handed over to the fullo, whose business consisted, 
 besides getting up clothes fresh from the loom, in attending 
 to the scouring of those which had been worn. 
 
 On their feet the men wore slippers, boots, and shoes, of 
 various patterns. The soccus was a slipper, not tied, worn in 
 the house ; and the solea was a very light sandal, which was 
 also worn only in the house. The sandalium proper was 
 a rich and luxurious sandal, worn by ladies only. The baxea 
 was a coarse sandal made of twigs ; the calceus was a shoe 
 that covered the foot, though the toes were often exposed ; 
 and the cothurnus a laced boot worn by horsemen, which 
 also left the toes exposed. 
 
 Much doubt seems to exist with regard to the covering of 
 the head at this period. Pompeian ladies evidently walked 
 out with their heads uncovered. No mention is made of 
 hatters amongst the tradesmen of the town ; so that, with the 
 exception of the soldiers, who had helmets, it is probable that 
 the Roman had no regular covering for the head. Possibly 
 the hat was worn as an article of full dress. The one named 
 the apex was conical, and is supposed to have been made 
 of felt, and differed somewhat in shape. The Farnese statue 
 of a hunter in the Neapolitan Museum is, according to Rolfe, 
 the only Roman statue with a hat. The article is not unlike 
 the felt hats worn at the present day. 
 
 The cap was a symbol of liberty, and was worn by slaves 
 on their manumission. This word " manumission " indicates 
 to us one of the three ways in which the liberty of a slave was 
 effected. The master, on a festival day, in the presence of 
 the assembled citizens, emancipated the slave before the altar, 
 
HANDICRAFTS, LITERATURE, AND ART. 55 
 
 by declaring before the praetor that the man was free ; he 
 struck him lightly with the hand, and thus literally manumitted 
 him that is to say, discharged him with his hand. 
 
 Gloves were not unknown to the Romans, and were pro- 
 bably made of sheepskin. Athenaeus tells us of a glutton 
 who used to dine out in gloves, thus being enabled to dispose 
 of the hotter foods quicker than the guests who were less 
 prepared for handling them. Varro says that to pluck olives 
 without them was to spoil the olive. Further, it is believed 
 that gloves were distributed at funerals, as a challenge from 
 the doctor, defying all who should dare say that he had 
 committed murder contrary to the rules of art 
 
 No trace, so far as the writer knows, has been found of a 
 washerwoman ; but there are abundant proofs of the existence 
 of washermen, or fullers. Of course, in those days of yore 
 the people had not soap like ours, which dates only from 1823 ; 
 but they had fuller's soap. A quantity of this was found, to 
 the depth of several inches, on the floor of a closet in one of 
 the wash-houses. A single wash-house still exists in the 
 Street of Segutius, and a picture in the Naples Museum 
 represents the process of washing in full swing. The washer- 
 men trod upon the clothes with their feet in large metal pans, 
 placing their hands upon the brick partitions between the 
 pans. The large cisterns for rinsing the clothes were built 
 of brick, and then cemented, being filled from a leaden pipe 
 which passed up one of the pillars ; and the clothes, when 
 sufficiently dry, were placed in a screw-press. The picture 
 in the Neapolitan Museum, which represents the latter, shows 
 that it was similar in construction to those now in use, except 
 that there is an unusual distance between the threads of the 
 screw. The ancients, therefore, were acquainted with the 
 practical application of this mechanical power. 
 
 There seems to be no trace of the flat-iron in Pompeii, but 
 this fact need not surprise us when we recollect that in 
 
56 VESUVIUS: HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII. 
 
 England, even so late as the reign of Queen Elizabeth, 
 it was still the custom to smooth out the recently-washed 
 linen with flat, polished stones. The safety-pin, which is 
 considered to be quite a modern invention, was in common 
 use in Pompeii ; and a very fine specimen of wire-rope, which 
 is looked upon as a new discovery, may be seen in the 
 Neapolitan Museum. 
 
 Of kitchen utensils there was a large collection, consisting 
 of gridirons, frying-pans, spits frames for boiling eggs, 
 cheese-graters, colanders, etc. Drinking-cups have been found 
 in endless variety and of many materials bronze, silver 
 earthenware, and glass. The people also had spoons and 
 knives, jugs for milk, vases for wine, and many kinds of 
 dinner-ware in glazed pottery. Martial speaks of sulphur 
 matches, which in modern days were re-discovered, and 
 replaced our tinder-boxes of fifty years ago. 
 
 To the writer, naturally, the most interesting of all the 
 " finds " were the bronze surgical instruments, about forty in 
 number, which were found in what is called " The House of 
 the Surgeon," and are shown in the Neapolitan Museum. 
 They are truly wonderful productions, many of the instru- 
 ments being identical with those used by surgeons at the 
 present day. There is one instrument, a speculum, of which 
 the mechanism is most ingenious, the construction so uniform 
 and well-proportioned, and the various dimensions so con- 
 stantly true to the centimetric measurement, that to the 
 writer's mind it is very superior to many similar instruments 
 of modern manufacture. 
 
 Until the latter days of the Republic, the Romans had no 
 doctors ; the master of the house appears to have taken charge 
 of the health of the household. As for the general public, 
 their illnesses received the attention only of the vis medicatrix 
 Natures, helped or hindered, as the case might be, by spells 
 and prayers. In the middle of the first century we come 
 
HANDICRAFTS, LITERATURE, AND ART. 57 
 
 across the general physician (medici clinici\ who did not 
 practise surgery, and the specialists, who were surgeons, and 
 who limited themselves to one kind of operation. There 
 were also oculists, aurists, and dentists; whilst there was a 
 further speciality of surgical art that of removing tattoo 
 marks, which were the badge of slavery. There were also 
 lady-doctors of various kinds. 
 
 Medical education seems to have consisted almost entirely 
 of a kind of apprenticeship ; the student attached himself to 
 some leading practitioner, and picked up such crumbs of 
 instruction as fell from him in going his rounds. Of hospitals 
 in the modern sense there were none. As to what manner of 
 men these old Roman doctors were, it may be said that they 
 knew little of anatomy and physiology, and nothing, of course, 
 of microbes and bacilli ; nevertheless, there can be no doubt 
 that they were useful members of society. The highest offices 
 of the state were in those days not beyond the reach of the 
 ambitious " medico," who was often able to bask in the 
 sunshine of the imperial favour. 
 
 In the Neapolitan Museum may be seen musical instru- 
 ments, toys, dice, theatrical tickets, toilet requisites, combs, 
 sculptors' tools, fishing-tackle, weights, scales, and steelyards 
 of many kinds, and writing materials, including a bronze 
 penholder, with a nib like a modern one, and bearing a strong 
 resemblance to the well-known J pen of to-day. Ink-pots, 
 too have been found, showing that the Pompeians used black 
 and red inks, the latter being prepared from cinnabar and 
 called miltus. 
 
 The books of Roman times were made of the papyrus 
 rolled out flat. This formed a strip about three inches wide, 
 which was cut into lengths of about six inches, and pasted 
 together into a roll usually about six feet in length. The 
 writing was in columns, and the whole book, when finished, 
 \vas wound round a stick with a boss at either end. For 
 
58 VESUVIUS: HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII. 
 
 memoranda and messages the people had wax tablets, the 
 use of which dates back to very ancient times, for Homer and 
 other old writers have mentioned them. They were small 
 slabs of deal, fitted into a frame, and fastened by a hinge, the 
 inner surface being covered with wax, upon which the letter 
 was written with a pointed instrument called a stylus. The 
 two slabs would be closed and could be sealed, if necessary 
 and the missive, if an ordinary note, despatched by a slave 
 to its destination. The receiver, having read the contents, 
 would draw the broad end of the stylus across the message, 
 to efface it, and write the answer upon the same tablet. The 
 stylus was usually made of iron or other metal. It was with 
 his stylus that Caesar stabbed Casca when attacked in the 
 Senate by his murderers. 
 
 Nothing seems to have been found revealing the existence 
 of the pawnbroker, and as the Pompeians were remarkable for 
 their street signs, one can only imagine that pawnbrokers did 
 not exist ; but his kinsman, the money-lender, according to 
 Professor De Patra, who has with much success deciphered 
 the Pompeian tablets, proves that one existed, named 
 Jucundus, whose money-lending transactions were by monthly 
 bills, for which convenience he charged two per cent. With 
 this business the proprietor combined that of an auctioneer ; 
 and here also the man showed great astuteness, for not only 
 was he careful to subtract his commission before handing over 
 the result of the sale, but he also carefully abstained from 
 making any mention in the accounts of what percentage he 
 charged. The mode of auction was similar to that now 
 prevalent in this country, and was called sub hastd, from its 
 being originally a sale of the spoils taken in war, which was 
 held under a spear, erected as an indication of the auction. 
 
 THE SUBJECT OF ANCIENT PAINTING is so wide and diverse 
 that it would be difficult to hazard an opinion as to when men 
 
HANDICRAFTS, LITERATURE, AND ART. 59 
 
 first exercised a faculty almost as natural as the expression 
 of thoughts or ideas by the use of words. Yet credit must 
 be given to the Egyptians that they had brought the art 
 of representation to considerable perfection. From them it 
 seems to have spread to the Greeks, and then to the Romans. 
 The Etrurian tombs and vases testify that at a very remote 
 period the art of painting was cultivated among the Italian 
 nations with zeal, and not without success. 
 
 Our knowledge of ancient painting is indeed derived to 
 a much greater extent from Pompeii than from all other 
 sources whatever. " A people's art, like the language they 
 speak, may be made to reveal more of their character than 
 they perhaps intended or wished." The past condition of a 
 people can be judged from their arts. " Great nations," says 
 Ruskin, "write their autobiographies in three manuscripts 
 the book of their deeds, the book of their words, and the book 
 of their art ; not one of these books can be understood unless 
 we read the two others ; but of the three, the only quite 
 trusty one is the last" 
 
 Remains there are of the style of decoration we now call 
 Arabesque or Moresque, which is applied to a particular 
 species of ornamental frieze or border in which we find 
 monsters, griffins, dragons, strange birds, and chimaeras 
 passing by wild gradation from one class of beings to another 
 by affixing the head, wings, and talons of birds to the bodies 
 of lions, horses, or other quadrupeds, and making the upper 
 parts of children and men and beasts spring out from amidst 
 luxuriant foliage, etc. This strange and incongruous admix- 
 ture of parts is, however, capable of being formed into 
 beautiful arrangements, and many exquisite examples have 
 been found in Stabias, Herculaneum, and Pompeii. " There 
 has also been found," says Sir W. Cell, " an unique method of 
 painting, which, though calculated to decorate the wall, is 
 by no means intelligible on a nearer approach. Take, for 
 
60 VESUVIUS: HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII. 
 
 example, a picture in which, from a certain distance, a town, 
 a tent, and something like a marriage ceremony might be 
 perceived, but which on closer inspection vanished into an 
 assemblage of apparently unmeaning blots. 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 fill a compartment where 
 greater detail was judged unnecessary." The mural paintings 
 of Pompeii will be considered by many the most interesting 
 of all its relics. These were painted on the walls whilst the 
 plaster, which had been carefully prepared with a face like 
 marble, was quite new, and they thus became part of the wall 
 itself, and possessed an extraordinary durability. 
 
 Among the paintings of the people may be seen decorative 
 designs conceived with exquisite taste, where the human 
 figure, animals, still life, flowers, and fruit are reproduced in 
 freehand with astonishing fidelity. Everything, in short, is 
 represented everything except landscape. The background 
 of all these subjects is simply a plain tint or an indication of 
 an urban scene an architectural motif t a stairway or colon- 
 nade in fantastic perspective. 
 
 In their paintings, too, we see their faith, their heroes, their 
 drinking-vessels, their ornaments and dresses ; we see their 
 deeds, their birds, their animals, their fish-baskets and dishes 
 of fruit, their coins of gold and silver ; finally, we see in these 
 decorations the things they loved to look at what pleased 
 their eyes, and, through their eyes, touched their hearts. We 
 see the evidence of their taste, in some degree the measure 
 of their art, and not less accurately is there set before us the 
 measure of their character and morals. 
 
 Their landscapes according to Rolfe, of a style very like the 
 modern Chinese, lakes and bridges, colonnades and pagodas, 
 with boats, trees, and statues scattered here and there were 
 used, as a rule, for secondary decoration. They are, for the most 
 
HANDICRAFTS, LITERATURE, AND ART. 61 
 
 part, of inferior merit, the drawing being sadly rudimentary, 
 clothed in the most gorgeous of colours, and with a per- 
 spective which is simply atrocious. 
 
 Totally different, however, is it with their ornamentations, 
 for it was in this style that they excelled. Mr. Poynter, R. A., 
 says that their work, although very highly finished, is done 
 with extreme simplicity. There is no loading of colour, but 
 perfect expression of touch, and everything appears to have 
 been done at once, without the slightest effort. Their art 
 was a vivid and vigorous expression of their impressions of 
 nature ; without any straining after effect, it conveys the idea 
 of a fresh and healthy life ; the creatures all live, the gestures 
 are all spontaneous and beautifully natural. 
 
 The Pompeian paintings may be divided into four types : 
 
 (1) The single figures, which are merely ideals painted in 
 the centre of the panels. These are often flying figures, with 
 exquisite drapery and charming attitudes. 
 
 (2) Mythological pictures, which were the sacred subjects 
 of those days, and dealt largely with the feats of the gods on 
 earth, as handed down through the ancient Greek traditions. 
 
 (3) Heroic pictures, principally derived from the Homeric 
 poems. 
 
 (4) The strictly Roman pictures, which portrayed scenes of 
 everyday life in Roman times. 
 
 The most important examples of all the above have been 
 transferred to the museum at Naples. There we see their 
 forum, with its colonnades and equestrian statues, and the 
 market-people in front selling cloth, and toolSi and other 
 articles. Another fresco depicts a similar scene in a street, 
 vegetables being among the things sold. Other street-scenes 
 show us a cart being driven, horses led, others with their riders 
 upon them, a blind beggar led by a dog and asking alms of 
 a lady. Another scene is a school, and its master is perform- 
 ing the time-honoured operation of flogging a boy " hoisted '' 
 
62 VESUVIUS: HERCULANEUM AND POMP EH. 
 
 on to the back of another, and having his legs held by a 
 third. A baker's shop is painted in another, with the baker, 
 a customer, and a pile of round loaves with their lined tops, 
 exactly like those Vesuvius has charred and preserved to us. 
 
 Few colours, besides indigo and purple, were employed 
 by the Romans, and these were obtained for the most part 
 from the vegetable kingdom ; but their purity was so great 
 that they have kept well to our own times, after having 
 undergone for centuries the action of the air and the sun. 
 The fact is particularly well seen on Egyptian tombs ; the 
 stone has been disintegrated by weathering, while the colours 
 have been preserved. The colour that we meet most frequently 
 is a mixture of a reddish-brown oxide of iron (red hematite) 
 and clay, known under the name of Pompeian red. This 
 colour, which has resisted for four thousand years the sun of 
 Egypt and the action of the air, is equally proof against acids. 
 The Egyptians reduced it, by rubbing between stones under 
 water, to a degree of fineness that we cannot obtain nowadays 
 by chemical precipitation. An equally precious yellow pig- 
 ment, also much used, was formed of a natural oxide of iron, 
 mixed with much clay, chalk, and water, and browned by 
 the action of heat ; the mixture of the two colours gives 
 orange. For this yellow colour, gold-bronze or gold-leaf 
 was also employed. For blue, they used a glass coloured 
 with copper minerals ; this pigment was not less permanent 
 than the preceding, even acids having very little effect upon 
 it. Gypsum, or plaster-of-Paris, furnished white, and also 
 formed the basis of pale colours when organic pigments were 
 added to it, probably madder for red. The colours were 
 always thinned and rendered adhesive by means of gums. 
 
 THE STATUARY OF POMPEII is inferior in point of artistic 
 merit to that of Herculaneum. The National Museum at 
 Naples contains many beautiful pieces of statuary, copies of 
 
HANDICRAFTS, LITERATURE, AND ART. 63 
 
 which may be seen in Rome. They may be said to be those 
 of masterpieces which in the old Roman times were indis- 
 pensable adjuncts to a display of wealth and refinement. 
 
 The bronzes make up a noble collection replete with 
 interest, consisting, as it does, of at least eighteen thousand 
 specimens, varying in size from six feet to two inches in 
 height, and comprising all manner of subjects colossal 
 equestrian statues, weapons of warriors, and gladiators, and 
 even tiny grotesquely-fashioned hand-lamps. One of the 
 finest bronzes in existence is considered to be the statuette 
 of the " Dancing Faun," which is a figure of the old Roman 
 god of the woods, in form principally human, with the head 
 and tail of a goat and the ears pointed. There are many 
 antique statues of fauns, both in bronze and marble, in the 
 different museums of Italy, a young faun being often repre- 
 sented as a flute-player. But none of them, it is admitted, 
 is equal in point of excellence to the exquisite specimen 
 in the Neapolitan Museum. 
 
 THE BRONZES in this museum are rivalled only by the 
 splendid array of hundreds of wall-paintings, unique in their 
 character, which indicate with sufficient clearness that here are 
 collected the results of excavations presenting, as in a mirror, 
 a complete and charming picture of ancient Roman life. 
 
 A few words, in passing, must be said of the MOSAICS. 
 
 The early history of mosaic-work is lost in antiquity. 
 Many floors ornamented with mosaics have been found in 
 Pompeii and Herculaneum. In modern Italy the art of 
 working in mosaic is still carried on with success. Some 
 of the best pictures of Italian masters are often copied in 
 mosaics, thus rendering permanent their original freshness 
 and beauty. The Popes have always been great patrons of 
 the art, and there is a school in the Vatican for its encourage- 
 ment. So perfectly are the paintings copied, and so neat are 
 
64 VESUVIUS: HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII. 
 
 the joinings of the many pieces of which they are composed, 
 that it needs close examination to distinguish them from the 
 original. A very remarkable circumstance connected with 
 this art is the profusion of such precious works which is 
 to be met with in the houses of a second-rate city like 
 Pompeii. Numerous pavements have been found in it of which 
 it may be truly said that they are pictures in mosaics, and 
 surpass in beauty any specimens which have been found 
 elsewhere. 
 
 It is impossible to describe the consummate skill with 
 which, in works of the kind, so many figures are arranged 
 and grouped, also the correctness of the drawing, the dis- 
 tribution of light and shade, the graceful and elegant 
 drapery, the effect of the colours, and the scrupulous atten- 
 tion to the minutest accessories. Of all those which the 
 writer saw, there are two, he thinks, which merit special 
 attention. 
 
 One is the wonderful figure of a chained dog, life-size, 
 found in " The House of the Tragic Poet," with the inscription, 
 " Cave canem ! " " Beware of the dog ! " Another is a most 
 magnificent table, which, if we may judge from the symbolic 
 and mystic character of the design, had reference, possibly, 
 to some secret craft or guild of the old Roman era, and may, 
 perhaps, have formed the top of the pedestal in the ancient 
 masonic lodge at Pompeii. The writer refers to the very in- 
 teresting mosaic that was found on the triclinium table in what 
 is called "The House of the Tanner." The mosaic represents at 
 the top a square and plumb-line ; in the middle, a skull ; below, 
 a butterfly on a wheel ; at the sides of this are a shepherd's 
 crook and an upturned lance, both clothed. From Butler we 
 get this explanation : " The square and the plumb-line point 
 to the equo pede of death and its inexorable justice ; the wheel 
 corresponds to fortune or fate ; the butterfly on the wheel 
 symbolises the soul, and perhaps, taken in connection with 
 
HANDICRAFTS, LITERATURE, AND ART. 65 
 
 the skull above it, signifies that it survives the body's corrup- 
 tion ; lastly, the cloths hung on the crook and lance, the 
 symbols of civil and military life, are indicative of the earthly 
 goods that death takes from us." This interpretation is quite 
 in harmony with much of the philosophy of Horace, The 
 uncertainty of life and the certainty of death are a frequent 
 thought with him. 
 
 " Omnem crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum : 
 Grata superveniet, quae non sperabitur, hora." 1 
 
 It is possible that it was with these thoughts of Horace the 
 Pompeian tanner looked upon his mosaic. Even so it is 
 extremely interesting, and strikes a more philosophic, a higher 
 note than is usually met with in the decorations of Pompeii. 
 
 In the museum at Pompeii, side by side with these "finds" 
 of rich mosaics and bronzes, there is on view an immense 
 collection of articles in terra-cotta. This was a favourite 
 material of Roman times, and was adapted for every domestic 
 purpose. The Romans had dinner-services of it ; they used 
 it for lamps, stoves, jars, urns, and children's toys ; whilst 
 the walls of the temples were adorned with it. Hence the 
 unusually large quantity of articles in this ware to be found 
 in the museum. 
 
 A word may here be said of some of the other contents of 
 the Pompeian Museum. In a series of glass cases are casts 
 of eight human corpses and one of a dog. After the poor 
 creatures had been suffocated, the fine dust and ashes of the 
 eruption accumulated about them, and, having become damp, 
 they hardened in course of time. When the soft parts of the 
 bodies had decayed and shrunk, it left a cavity exactly the 
 shape of the bodies. By filling up these cavities with plaster, 
 a correct cast of the inside was obtained, and thus are 
 preserved the figures and attitudes of the deceased after 
 
 1 " Believe that every day is the last that has risen to you : the hour not 
 expected will add itself gratefully." 
 
 S 
 
66 VESUVIUS: HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII. 
 
 their death-struggles. They tell their story with a horrible 
 dramatic truthfulness which no sculptor could ever portray. 
 The positions generally show that the victims were all on 
 the point of flight when arrested by the showers of red-hot 
 scoriae and by the suffocating fumes. The casts appear to be 
 principally those of women, some belonging to the poorer 
 classes, it has been concluded, judging by the texture of their 
 coarse garments. 
 
 One woman seems to have been about twenty-five years 
 of age. On one of her fingers were two silver rings, and her 
 garments were of fine texture. Her linen head-dress falling 
 over her shoulders can still be distinguished. She had fallen 
 on her side, overcome by the heat and suffocating gases. 
 One arm is raised in despair ; the hands are clenched con- 
 vulsively, and her garments are gathered up on one side, 
 leaving exposed a limb of very beautiful shape. So perfect 
 a mould of it had been formed by the soft and yielding mud 
 that the cast would almost seem to have been taken from 
 an exquisite work of Greek art. She had evidently fled with 
 her little treasure, which lay scattered around her two silver 
 cups, a few jewels, and some half-dozen silver coins. Nor 
 had she, like a good housewife, forgotten her keys, having 
 probably locked up her house before seeking to escape. 
 They were found by her side. 
 
 One cast of almost colossal size is that of a man. He lies 
 on his back, with his arms extended by his side and his feet 
 stretched out, as if, finding escape impossible, he had laid 
 himself down to meet death. His dress consists of a short 
 coat or jerkin and tight-fitting breeches of some coarse stuff 
 perhaps leather ; heavy sandals, with soles studded with 
 nails, are laced tightly around his ankles. On one finger 
 is seen his iron ring ; his features are strongly worked ; the 
 mouth is open, as in death ; some of the teeth still remain, 
 and even part of the moustache adheres to the plaster. 
 
HANDICRAFTS, LITERATURE, AND ART. 67 
 
 Of two skeletons lately discovered, the larger one, that of a 
 woman, was entirely embedded in stones, and so, unfortunately, 
 the plaster left no impression. One arm, however, left its 
 indentation upon the ashes ; it was clasping the legs of a boy 
 of about ten years of age. It is thought, from the emaciation 
 of his body, that he was probably ill. Doubtless the woman 
 was his mother ; and we can hardly suppose she would have 
 carried him if he had not been unable to walk. Two brace- 
 lets of gold encircled the arm which held the boy, and on the 
 fingers were two gold rings, one set with an emerald and the 
 other with an amethyst ; and both had figures engraved upon 
 them. 
 
 No articles of domestic use in Pompeii were evidently more 
 common than lamps. They have been found in clay and 
 in metal, in every variety of form and of all sizes. From the 
 most common to the most costly, they all show both elegance 
 and taste, and win our attention both by the beauty of the 
 workmanship and by the capriciousness of the designs. 
 
 Of the more elegant articles of furniture, the candelabrum 
 was an especial favourite, and many varieties, principally 
 in bronze, have been unearthed. The more elaborate are 
 remarkable for the profusion of delicate ornamentation ; 
 many of them are beautifully damasked or inlaid with other 
 metals. This art of inlaying was of two kinds. In one the 
 inlaid work projected above the surface, and was called 
 cmblemata, and was probably done by plating with a thin 
 leaf of metal figures already raised upon the surface of the 
 article, or by letting the solid figures into the substance of 
 the vessel, and finishing them with delicate tools after they 
 were attached. In the second kind the inlaid work was even 
 with the surface, and was called crusta. This is the same 
 as the damask work so fashionable in the armour of the 
 fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, which is often seen beauti- 
 fully inlaid with gold. 
 
68 VESUVIUS: HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII. 
 
 There is little doubt that to some extent music was 
 cultivated in Pompeii. The instruments mentioned in the 
 Homeric poems are the lyre, the flute, and the pipes of Pan. 
 From the beautiful frescoes of Pan and the Nymphs in the 
 Neapolitan Museum, it is evident that instruments were 
 played in symphony. The musical instruments that have 
 been found at Pompeii are tibice, or flageolets, cymbals, 
 trumpets, and part of a set of bagpipes. We find the forms 
 of many stringed instruments on the frescoes and the bronzes, 
 but no specimen has yet been discovered, owing no doubt to 
 their construction being of wood and the material therefore 
 quickly meeting with destruction. 
 
 Pictures have been found representing a priestess playing 
 upon a lyre, or small harp, which she rests upon the left 
 thigh, the foot being raised upon a step, and strikes with 
 both hands, using with the right the plectrum, an article such 
 as is used at the present day in playing the mandolin ; also 
 representing a female striking two lyres at once, one held 
 upon her knee, the other placed beside her on the couch 
 upon which she is sitting. 
 
 No sketch of Pompeii would be complete without some 
 reference to the graffiti, or wall-scribblings. Despite his 
 withering touch, Time the destroyer has here allowed one 
 of the most fragile and evanescent of things to remain as 
 a silent memorial of this long-buried city. 
 
 These wall-scribblings were scratched by some pointed 
 instrument, or done with red chalk or charcoal. Though 
 nearly two thousand years old, the thoughtless schoolboy's 
 scrawls, the love-sick gallant's doggerel, the caricature of 
 some friend, foe, or popular favourite, are still as clear as 
 though executed by an idler of yesterday. Many of these 
 inscriptions are not of much importance ; nevertheless, they 
 are very suggestive of the humours, vulgarities, and vices 
 of early Roman life. Some are memoranda of domestic 
 
HANDICRAFTS, LITERATURE, AND ART. 69 
 
 or personal transactions. One tells us, for instance, how 
 many tunics were sent on a certain day to " the wash " ; 
 another, when a donkey was born ; while a third informs 
 the reader that " on the 2$th of July " two hundred pounds of 
 hog's lard and two hundred bunches of garlic were either 
 bought or sold. 
 
 Some of the inscriptions are simply names ; but to several 
 of these there is an epithet attached, which is either com- 
 plimentary or the reverse as, " Oppi embolari fur furuncle " 
 " Oppius, ballet-dancer, thief, and pilferer ! " One speaks 
 of " sheep-faced Lygnus, strutting about like a peacock, and 
 giving himself airs on the strength of his good looks " ; 
 another runs, " Epaphra pilicrepus non es " " O Epaphras, 
 thou art no tennis-player ! " A large number of the graffiti 
 are of an amorous character. 
 
 The tender passion and the protean changes to which it has 
 ever been liable here stand revealed as vividly as though the 
 idlers who were the subjects of it were still in " this breathing 
 world." One inscription is very touching in its simplicity 
 and suggestiveness. Within the conventional outline of a 
 heart is the word " PsycJie " " My life " ; while another reads 
 <l Suavis amor " " Love is sweet " ; in a third a disappointed 
 lover thus expresses himself, " Vale mea, Sava ; fac me 
 antes " " Farewell, my Sava ; try to love me." On the other 
 hand, we have the devout and affectionate confession, 
 " Methe, the slave of Cominia, loves Crestus with all her 
 heart " ; and the wish is expressed in another scrawl that 
 Pompeian Venus may be propitious to the two persons 
 named, and that they may always live happily together. 
 
 But the most striking and perhaps the most tragic of all 
 the graffiti in this city of the dead is unquestionably the 
 following : " Tenemus, tenemus ; res certa ! Romula hie cum 
 sderato moratur ! " " We have it, we have it ; the thing is 
 certain ! Romula is living here with the miscreant ! " 
 
70 VESUVIUS: HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII. 
 
 The tavern graffiti are numerous and are also curious. 
 A sufferer from thirst thus earnestly appeals : " Suavis 
 vinaria, sitit ; valde rogo^sitit" "Dear landlady, he is thirsty; 
 I earnestly entreat you, he is thirsty." Another may be 
 rendered thus : " A wine-jar is lost from the inn. If any one 
 brings it back, there shall be given to him sixty-five sesterces ; 
 if any one brings the thief who took it, double that sum will 
 be given." 
 
 Another type of graffiti are the caricatures. Many of 
 these are cleverly drawn ; and, as might be expected, the 
 comic element predominates. One represents an ass engaged 
 in turning a mill, accompanied by the words, " Labora, 
 aselle, quomodo ego laboravi, et proderit tibi" that is, " Labour, 
 O ass, as I have laboured, and it will profit thee." Those 
 referring to gladiatorial combats are rather numerous, and 
 drawn with much spirit. In one case a figure is represented 
 as about to cast a net over his adversary ; while another 
 caricature appears to be a fight between a mirmillo a 
 kind of gladiator and a Samnite. A third is evidently 
 a Samnite with a large helmet and shield ; at his side 
 the number of his victories (xxxii) may be seen enclosed 
 between a palm-branch and a chaplet. A few full-length 
 figures wearing the toga probably represent the dandies of 
 the period. Others are profiles of heads. One with the 
 name " Peregrinus " attached has a decidedly abnormal de- 
 velopment of the nose ; while in another that organ is almost 
 absent, and the title " Nasso Fcedius " is affixed. There 
 is doubtless a pun intended here. Whilst the Christian 
 names found scribbled on the walls, as " Doris," " Heracle," 
 "Januaria," "Vitalis," " Florentia," "Amaryllis," "Maria," 
 " Cerusa," and " Damalis," may be taken as types of the 
 female appellations of this period. 
 
 "The progress of civilisation is closely allied to the 
 development of the fine arts. Through them a people 
 
HANDICRAFTS, LITERATURE, AND ART. 71 
 
 endeavours to express its idea of perfection, exhibiting thus, 
 besides its standing in the civilised world, to a certain degree, 
 its religious position. For the beautiful and the good are 
 inseparably connected. Perhaps nothing could manifest this 
 more clearly than the fact that the strength and purity of 
 aesthetic form decrease simultaneously with morality. In 
 ancient Greece the reign of art had reached its maximum 
 glory before corruption found a way among the multitude, 
 while most of her citizens were yet trained and hardy soldiers 
 with scarcely a touch of sensual debauchery. After gladiatorial 
 combats and other such public scandals had rotted the 
 morals of her people, Rome never produced another orator 
 like Cicero, never again brought forth writers like those of 
 the Golden Age ; but her arts sank lower and lower, till, had 
 not Christianity with its renovating spirit at last swept over 
 the broad Empire, that proud mistress bid fair to end almost 
 as barbarous as she besan." 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 SOCIAL LIFE OF THE POMPEIANS. 
 
 "Come away! No more of mirth 
 Is here, or merry-making sound ; 
 The house was builded of the earth, 
 And shall fall again to ground." TENNYSON. 
 
 F the various phases of Roman history, the social 
 life of the people is probably the most interest- 
 ing ; and practically the social life of the 
 Pompeians in the middle of the first century was 
 identical with that of the citizens of. Rome at the same period. 
 Nothing in the customs of a nation and whatever relates to 
 its common life furnishes such enduring traces of what has 
 gone before as its laws and its language. Roman law has 
 formed the basis of half the existing codes of the nations of 
 Europe, and has materially modified the rest. But it exhibits 
 to us a blot of the gravest character it was never independent 
 of the existing political power of the state, and, as a conse- 
 quence, the stern goddess no longer presided over the law- 
 courts with blinded eyes and equally-poised scales ; for, apart 
 from the atrocities unblushingly perpetrated by the Emperors, 
 the cruelty and venality of the judges were notorious, and 
 bribery of the worst form was universally practised. Con- 
 
 72 
 
SOCIAL LIFE OF THE POMPEIANS. 73 
 
 joined to these were the evils of Roman society irreligion, 
 immorality, and superstition developed in its grossest form. 
 Augustus, we learn, was terribly alarmed at thunder, and 
 attributed a revolt in the provinces to the portentous 
 circumstance of his having put on his left shoe before his 
 right. Pliny was most credulous and superstitious ; his pages 
 are full of grotesque descriptions and wonderful stories of 
 divining-rods, individuals who had changed their sex, the 
 cure of serpent-bites by the saliva of a fasting man, and other 
 cures by incantations and magic words. If this was the effect 
 of superstition on superior minds, it is easy to conjecture what 
 was the intellectual condition of the vulgar. In them we find 
 utter debasement and licentiousness, resulting in fatalism 
 and suicide. We see a cruel thirst for blood fostered and fed 
 by the sanguinary spectacles of the circus and arena, for 
 which the Roman populace craved with an ever-unsatisfied 
 appetite ; whilst the canker of predial and domestic slavery 
 gradually consumed the middle classes, who were the very 
 pith and marrow of the state. This corruption in its many 
 phases grew into a disintegrating power, and society at last 
 was broken up into separate atoms ; patriotism became 
 impossible, and we find in its place a miserable individualism 
 and an entire absorption of both men and women in mere 
 personal and selfish interests. 
 
 Let us glance at the religion of the period. The religion of 
 early Rome was paganism in perhaps its most favourable 
 form ; it had for its basis the domestic relations, and these it 
 transferred to the relations between man and the object of his 
 worship. Thus the old Romans were governed by a religion 
 of strictest veracity, fidelity, and honour ; and this was the 
 foundation upon which the greatness of the old republican 
 time was reared, the whole life of the constitution depending 
 on it. With the fall of this faith and the introduction of the 
 gods of Oriental and Greek mythology fell also the probity and 
 
74 VESUVIUS: HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII. 
 
 valour by which the Empire had been won, and eventually 
 the Empire itself. 
 
 " The age of the Caesars was emphatically an age of 
 superstition, a time of dreams, divinations, omens, talismans, 
 prodigies, astrology, necromancy, and witchcraft. The streets 
 teemed with the votaries, ministers, and ensigns of foreign 
 gods dark-skinned daughters of Isis, with drum and timbrel 
 and wanton mien ; devotees of the Persian Mithras, imported 
 by the Pompeians from Cilicia; priests of Berecynthian Cybele, 
 with their wild dances and discordant cries ; worshippers of 
 'the great goddess Diana,' the many-breasted Ephesian 
 Artemis, type of material nature, so different from the chaste 
 huntress of Greece, or the rustic Italian spouse of Dyanus ; 
 here and there some barbarian captive or hostage, fresh from 
 the gloomy rites of Teuton forests or Scandinavian isles ; 
 Syrians, Jews, Chaldean astrologers, and Thessalian sorcerers." 
 
 The dawn of the Christian era Rome could neither hide 
 nor exclude indeed, we are told that she offered to the 
 Christians' God a place in her Pantheon, within the precincts 
 of which was to be found the lowest depth of infidelity with 
 a lower depth of sensualism and crime. Public morality was 
 apparently at its extreme ebb. St. Paul, in his Epistle to the 
 Romans, strongly denounced the prevailing evils ; whilst the 
 poet Juvenal was equally severe when he wrote, " Succeeding 
 generations can only imitate our vices ; they cannot add to 
 them." Augustus, a grand historical figure, though himself a 
 pagan, and whose proudest title was Pont if ex Maximus, made 
 serious efforts to arrest the evil tendencies towards atheism 
 and immorality which had been gathering strength since the 
 time of the civil war. With considerable shrewdness he gave 
 encouragement to the deification of his uncle, for Julius 
 Caesar had openly proclaimed himself a descendant from 
 Venus, to whom he dedicated a temple under the title of 
 Xi the Ancestress. This assumption of a divine origin 
 
SOCIAL LIFE OF THE POMPEIANS. 75 
 
 bore fruit after his decease, for he received the unprecedented 
 distinction of burial within the walls, and a shrine was erected 
 over his remains which was afterwards converted into a 
 temple, whilst his soul was said to have been received into 
 the heavens, and had been rendered visible to mortals in 
 the comet which appeared at the period of his death. On the 
 death of Augustus, the senate was not indisposed to gratify 
 the general sentiment by pretending formally to enrol him 
 among the denizens of Olympus, whilst Numericus Atticus, 
 one of the senators, willing to convert the adulation of the 
 times to his own benefit, received a large sum of money for 
 swearing that he saw him ascending into heaven ; so that no 
 doubt remained among the people concerning his divinity. 
 But two men would not bow the knee to the worship of 
 Caesar. One was the Jew ; the other was the Christian. 
 
 A thoroughly cosmopolitan city, all forms of worship were 
 tolerated in Pompeii; but true religious worship was utcrly 
 degraded. The temples were maintained with great splendour, 
 and the ritual was carried out with extreme minuteness. The 
 greatest deity was Olympian Jove, whom the Romans had 
 inherited from the Greeks. Yet even Jove was believed in 
 only by the lower orders. Horace has it that they believed 
 Jove reigned because he thundered ; Ovid records his opinion 
 that the gods were made by the .poets, Seneca that " the gods 
 are an ignoble crowd " ; and Martial preferred " the favour of 
 Caesar to that of Jupiter." What wonder, then, that Gibbon 
 should be enabled to say, " The philosopher believed every 
 religion false, the people believed all religions to be equally 
 true " ? By this he no doubt meant that in the common 
 mind the religious instinct is indestructible, and wells out 
 alike under every possible phase of social being, filling the 
 individual with a vague terror, and also a vague hope to 
 propitiate the anger dreaded. The operation of this instinct 
 in a corrupt age results in superstition, and so it came to pass 
 
76 VESUVIUS: HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII. 
 
 that an age intellectually debased and sensualised was one 
 which readily grasped at the counterfeits and cheats with 
 which false religions were ever ready to beguile the fears 
 of men. 
 
 Machiavelli, whose testimony on such a point may be sup- 
 posed to be impartial, and whose perspicacity is undoubted, 
 held that one great secret of Rome's success in better times 
 was its religious spirit in acting under and with a sense of 
 the support of its deities. In the imperial days before the 
 destruction of Pompeii, the ruling class were less obedient 
 and had less faith. But they felt that to show a decorous 
 respect to religion and to identify with it the established 
 government strengthened it and gave it a deeper and stronger 
 basis. 
 
 From this disbelief in the gods of their own mythology, 
 and because ignorance must be fed by superstition, foreign 
 gods were, in the Roman system, constantly taking the place 
 of the national ; moreover, " as if the worship of the gods of 
 Rome was not vile enough, as if the adoration of Bacchus, 
 Venus, and Fortune did not already overstep the bounds 
 of debauchery, these foreign religious rites vied with one 
 another in infamy and wickedness, till the very heathens 
 themselves suppressed them one by one, perceiving that they 
 were sapping the very life-blood and energy of the people. 
 And thus it was that the maintenance of a creed supported 
 only by pandering to the vices of its devotees led more and 
 more to the depravity of the nation, ruined the self-respect 
 of the people, and hurried on the decline of the Empire." 
 
 Of the many temples of Pompeii the finest was the 
 Temple of Isis. Isis was a celebrated Egyptian deity. Her 
 festivals, having become very licentious, were forbidden by 
 the Roman Senate 58 B.C. ; but they were restored by the 
 Emperor Commodus. Mr. Marriott says this worship of 
 Isis in Pompeii indicates the natural proclivity of a cultured 
 
SOCIAL LIFE OF THE POMPEIANS. 77 
 
 age, in its luxurious decline, to assume for fashion's sake the 
 customs, philosophies, and ornamentations of a former epoch. 
 But, beyond this instance of the Roman Empire, already 
 creeping past its zenith, patronising the rites of an ancient 
 Egyptian deity, there seems also to be indicated the existence 
 of Egyptians themselves, or at least of their descendants, in 
 Pompeii, instilling their ancient creeds into the minds of the 
 frivolous world of that day, who took up this worship as the 
 latest and most artistic " cult " ; and that this is probable is 
 seen by the way in which many of the houses are decorated 
 with ornamentation in the fresco-work essentially Egyptian, 
 with birds like the ibis, and with peculiar shapes in the 
 borders not characteristic of any other country. 
 
 In such high repute was the worship of Isis that the 
 wealthy devotees sent even to the Nile for its waters, so that 
 they might sprinkle it over the altars of the goddess. A 
 statuette of Isis was found in the portico of her temple. 
 Within the side-doorways were secret stairs, leading to the 
 hollow pedestals for statues, where the priest hid and 
 delivered the oracles as if they proceeded from the statue of 
 the goddess herself. 
 
 The priests of Isis arrogated to themselves a knowledge of 
 magic and of the future, and were revered as oracles. Various 
 chambers at the back and sides of the temple, once occupied 
 by the priests, when discovered, contained several skeletons ; 
 whilst the burnt bones of victims were found upon the altar. 
 
 Of the rest of the temples of Pompeii enumeration of their 
 names must suffice. The Temple of ^sculapius, which is 
 the smallest, derived its name from two terra-cotta statues 
 which are believed to be the largest of their kind that have 
 been found, and are supposed to be ^Esculapius and his 
 daughter Hygeia. The Temple of Apollo, one of the largest 
 and handsomest, was dedicated to Venus, who was the pro- 
 tecting goddess of Pompeii. The Temple of Fortune is a 
 
78 VESUVIUS: HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII. 
 
 beautiful little Corinthian edifice. The ladies of Roman 
 times were especially devoted to the worship of Fortune, who 
 was supposed to be able to hide the personal defects of her 
 votaries from the eyes of husbands and lovers. The Temple 
 of Hercules is the least perfect of these ruins of Pompeii, 
 but is the most ancient and the most massive, and was for 
 centuries the most magnificent building in the city. The 
 Temple of Jove is flanked by two triumphal arches which 
 span the main entrance of the forum. This edifice had 
 evidently suffered severely in the earthquake of 63, and at 
 the time of the destruction of the city steps were being taken 
 to restore it. 
 
 The writer has shown at greater length than he intended 
 something of what paganism was in the days of the Empire. 
 May he further digress and, by way of r envoi, use the words of 
 Farrar ? "Paganism again and again wrestled with Christianity 
 and put forth all its force. It strove to rival the new faith by 
 ritual spendour and orgiastic rites, and the extreme sensu- 
 ality of superstition. It strove to put forth Pythagoras, or 
 Socrates, or Apollonius of Tyana as parallels to Christ, and 
 Stoicism and Neo-Platonism as substitutes for the truths of 
 the Gospel. It kindled its expiring lamps with sparks from 
 the incorruptible fountain of wisdom, and turned its back on 
 the Sun of Righteousness, from which they were derived. 
 Waging deadly war against all who called themselves Chris- 
 tians, it tried to burn them at its stakes, to crucify them 
 on its countless gibbets, to devour them by its herds of 
 wild beasts, or at least to daunt them by its horrible tortures. 
 On every field Christians met and conquered them with 
 the two sacred and invincible weapons of martyrdom and 
 innocence. These obscure sectaries barbarians, Orientals, 
 Jews, slaves, artisans fought against the indignant world, 
 and won ; they ennobled and purified the world. Wrestling 
 with the pagan curse of corruption, they made pure the homes, 
 
SOCIAL LIFE OF THE POMPEIANS. 79 
 
 and the conversation, and the amusements, and the literature, 
 and the inmost hearts of all who faithfully accepted the 
 truths they preached. Wrestling with the curse of cruelty, 
 they suppressed infanticide, they sanctified compassion, they 
 put down the cruel and ghastly scenes of human slaughter in 
 the amphitheatre, they made the wretched and the sick and the 
 outcast their special care, they encircled the brow of sorrow 
 with the aureole of sanctity. Wrestling with the curses of 
 slavery and selfish exclusiveness, they taught the inalienable 
 rights of humanity, they confronted tyranny, they inspired 
 nations with the spirit of liberty, they flung over the 
 oppressed a shield of adamant, they taught that all men were 
 the children of God. Intellectually, socially, politically, in 
 national life and in individual life, in art and in literature, 
 Christianity has inspired all that the world has seen of what is 
 best and noblest, and still offers to the soul of every man the 
 purest hope, the divinest comfort, the loftiest aspirations." 
 
 The theatre, and especially the comic stage, was as degraded 
 and vicious as it could be. The baths were the centre of the 
 vice of the upper classes, and avowed places of assignation. 
 The degradation of woman was as great as it has ever been 
 in the history of the world ; and, " where woman is degraded, 
 man will surely be dissipated and worthless." 
 
 The upper classes were extremely wealthy, spending their 
 money in lavish profusion to gratify their worst instincts. 
 We can hardly credit the sums expended by them on a single 
 banquet, where the most delicate and costly dishes were 
 served up, often with unpleasant results to the stomachs of 
 the host and his guests. 
 
 According to our ideas, the rooms of the Pompeians would 
 appear bare of furniture. They had no writing-tables or 
 chiffoniers, no mirrors to place on their walls ; lecti, tables, 
 chairs, and candelabra comprised the furniture, with perhaps 
 a water-clock. 
 
8o VESUVIUS: HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII. 
 
 THE LECTUS was neither a bed nor a sofa, but a simple 
 frame, with a low edge at the head, made of wood, brass, or 
 iron. The wooden lecti were inlaid with ivory, tortoise-shell, 
 and gold or silver, and provided with ivory, silver, or gilded 
 feet. The frame was strung with girths, on which lay the 
 mattress or bed, torus, stuffed with locks of wool, cushions, 
 culcita, or pillows, pulvini ; but the more magnificent beds 
 and cushions were stuffed with the feathers and down of 
 white geese, and the eider-down and swan's-down were also 
 used. Over the beds they had coverlets vestes stragulce, or 
 pallia which were used by the wealthy ; they were usually 
 of a purple colour with interwoven and embroidered figures. 
 
 CHAIRS were not so much used by the Romans as with us, 
 and were of various kinds. The sella, which had arms or no 
 arms, was not unlike our own, except that the back inclined 
 at a greater angle. The cathedra was the " lady's chair " ; but 
 then, as now with chairs of a like description, men sat in 
 them. The solium was a chair of state with back and arms, 
 and was usually occupied by the head of the family. 
 
 THE TABLES. The table was the premier article of furni- 
 ture, over which no expense was spared. A kind of citron- 
 wood was the most fashionable material plates four feet in 
 diameter and six inches thick, resting on an ivory column. 
 Tables of this description were termed monopodia. The 
 smaller tables used at meals often had the top of marble and 
 were generally square ; they were called abaci, were frequently 
 made of beech-wood or maple, and rested on three or four 
 legs. 
 
 One of the imperfections of the domestic economy of the 
 Pompeians was their manner of lighting their rooms. In 
 spite of their ingenuity and the elegance displayed in their 
 lamps, they do not seem to have provided any arrangement 
 to consume the smoke. In the houses of the wealthy oil- 
 lamps seem to have been extensively used ; the lamp of the 
 
SOCIAL LIFE OF THE POMPEIANS. 81 
 
 poor was called lucerna. It is probable that wax and tallow 
 candles were not a success ; and, instead of our wick, the 
 people used the pith of a kind of rush. Wax candles, however, 
 were largely used in the elegant candelabra. Tow ma'de 
 from hemp and flax was also used as the wick for lamps ; 
 and a small pointed needle and a pair of small pincers 
 attached to a chain were used for raising and snuffing the 
 wicks. Many such have been found at Pompeii. The lamps 
 were either placed on a candelabrum or were suspended by 
 chains from the roof. The candelabra that have been found 
 vary much in height, some having been intended to stand 
 upon the ground ; these, in comparison with the tables and 
 sofas, were of a considerable height. 
 
 The dining-room, called the triclinium (Greek, kline, a bed), 
 from its three couches, was therefore a very important apart- 
 ment. In it were three lounges surrounding a table, and on 
 each couch three guests might be accommodated. The 
 couches were elevated above the table, and each man lay 
 almost flat on his breast, resting upon his left elbow, and 
 having his right hand free for use, eating with the fingers 
 from dishes placed by the slaves in the middle of the table. 
 As the guests were thus arranged in threes, it was natural 
 that the rule should be made that a party at dinner should 
 not be less in number than that of the Graces, nor more than 
 that of the Muses. 
 
 r Y\\Qjentaculum was the first meal ; it was eaten early in the 
 morning, and taken probably at the hour at which a person 
 rose, and was generally composed of bread seasoned with 
 salt and eaten with dried grapes, olives, or cheese. This was 
 followed by the prandium, which was the mid-day meal, and 
 which was usually one consisting of warm and cold dishes 
 with fish and eggs added. The principal meal of the day 
 was the last ccena and was usually taken at the ninth hour, 
 or later ; and, as business was then over, and the rest of the 
 
 6 
 
82 VESUVIUS: HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII. 
 
 day might be devoted to recreation, we may conclude that 
 the ccena was of fairly long duration. 
 
 A remarkable painting discovered at Pompeii gives a 
 curious idea of a complete feast. It represents a table set 
 with every requisite for a banquet. In the centre is a large 
 dish in which four peacocks are placed, one at each corner, 
 forming a magnificent dome with their tails. All round are 
 lobsters, one holding in its claws a blue egg, a second an 
 oyster, a third a stuffed rat, a fourth a small basket of grass- 
 hoppers. Four dishes of fish decorate the bottom of the 
 table, above which are several partridges, hares, and squirrels, 
 each holding its head between its paws. The whole is sur- 
 rounded by something resembling a German sausage. Then 
 comes a row of yolks of eggs, then a row of peaches, small 
 lemons, and cherries, and lastly a row of vegetables of 
 different kinds. 
 
 The c&na consisted of three courses. The first was 
 composed of dishes intended more to excite than to satisfy 
 hunger oysters and other shell-fish, with piquant sauce, and 
 light vegetables, fresh eggs, olives, salads, and other light 
 delicacies ; the second of made dishes, fish and roast meats ; 
 the third of pastry, confectionery, dishes made only to be 
 looked at (epidipnides}, fresh and dried fruits. 
 
 Fish was considered one of the greatest delicacies. Amongst 
 those in use we recognise mullet, turbot, flounder, haddock, 
 sturgeon ; whilst amongst shell-fish we note oysters and 
 purple mussels ; snails, too, were in great repute. Various 
 sauces, such as garum y halex muria, were made from fish. 
 
 The oyster was much esteemed, especially those that came 
 from Lake Lucrinus. The Emperor Augustus thought so 
 highly of the lake that produced them that he provided it 
 with a constant supply of sea water by cutting an artificial 
 channel for a considerable distance. The Romans under- 
 stood and practised the process of obtaining a freezing 
 
SOCIAL LIFE OF THE POMPEIANS. 83 
 
 temperature, and thus foreshadowed the modern use of ice 
 to preserve perishable articles ; the oysters were transported 
 by packing each one in closely-compressed snow. / 
 
 Of meat, that of the wild boar was generally the chief 
 dish ; tame swine and sucking-pigs were esteemed delicacies. 
 Sausages (some were smoked) were favourite articles and 
 used by all classes of society, and were prepared with the 
 blood of the animal mixed with the brain and liver and eaten 
 warm. Hare (the shoulder-blade was the epicure's tid-bit), 
 rabbit, roe, and goat were also in vogue. Of poultry there 
 were peacocks, fowls, pheasants, partridges (which they fattened 
 in the dark), geese, ducks, pigeons, fieldfares, blackbirds, 
 snipe, flamingoes. Whilst the vegetables used were lettuce 
 (five sorts are mentioned), cabbage (to retain its colour in 
 boiling, saltpetre was mixed with the water), turnips, mush- 
 rooms, truffles. Chickpeas was the food of the poorer classes. 
 
 The Romans, like ourselves, were acquainted with several 
 drinks prepared from grain, from fruit as the quince and 
 from honey and water this forming a sort of mead ; yet 
 wine was then, as now, the staple drink of the Pompeians. 
 From Pliny and the bas-reliefs of vessels that have been 
 recovered much information has been gained of the various 
 processes of the vintage. After the collected grapes had 
 been trodden out, the juice was stored in dolta, earthenware 
 vessels of considerable dimensions, which remained unclosed 
 so long as fermentation was going on, and then were placed 
 in a cool chamber. Much wine was drunk direct from the 
 dolium ; but this was the common wine, that would not bear 
 keeping, the better kind, when perfectly settled, being put 
 into ampliorce, smaller earthen vessels, long and thin, with a 
 narrow neck, and often ending in a point below, so that they 
 would stick into the ground or in a stand. Hundreds of 
 these amphorce have been found in Pompeii. The amphora 
 was next placed in an upper storey to mature. When the 
 
84 VESUVIUS: HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII. 
 
 wine was wanted for use, it had to be cleared of the lees by 
 passing it through a colum, or metal strainer with a handle, 
 and fined by the use of egg. Horace said that, if the 
 wine was strained through a linen bag, it became much 
 impaired. 
 
 The colour of most of the wines was probably dark ; but 
 there were also wines of a lighter tint. Just as we distinguish 
 between white and red, so did the Romans between album 
 and atram, the former denoting the bright yellow, and the 
 latter the darkest red ; the different growths are detailed 
 by Pliny. He awards the place of honour to Ccecubum, which 
 grew in Campania. The Falernian was second in rank, a 
 capital wine that came from Vesuvius ; and the third place 
 was contended for by the Albanum, Surrentum, and Massicum, 
 as well as by the Calenum and Fundanum. 
 
 To render it more drinkable, good old wine was sometimes 
 intermixed ; and "tell it not in Gath" even in those days, 
 according to Horace, not only had the art of improving 
 cheaper wines by mixing them with the dregs of those of 
 finer quality been discovered, but much adulteration was 
 practised by mixing different wines and also by adding 
 deleterious substances, as aromatics, bitters, essential oils, etc. 
 
 Next to wine, mulsum, prepared from grapes and honey, 
 was a favourite drink at the prandium. The only warm 
 drink used was the calda, which consisted of warm water 
 and wine, with the addition of an aromatic spice as cinnamon. 
 This drink possibly occupied the place of our tea and coffee. 
 A very elegant bronze vessel, in the form of a tea-urn, is in 
 the Neapolitan Museum ; it contains a cylinder for holding 
 the coals and for warming the liquid around it, and a tap is 
 fixed for the removal of the contents. The use of this vessel 
 is undoubted. 
 
 It is said that these pagans were in the habit of introducing 
 a skeleton to sit at table at their feasts, as a memorial of 
 
SOCIAL LIFE OF THE POMPEIANS. 85 
 
 mortality, endeavouring to find in the idea of death a stimulus 
 to joviality, while point was given to the exhortation, " Vivamus 
 dum licet esse bene " " Let us enjoy life while we may." 
 
 Even these early Romans had a custom closely analogous 
 to our " saying grace." Before the guests sat down, a number 
 of boys in white robes of byssus placed upon the table figures 
 of the Lares, or gods who presided over the house, and then, 
 carrying round a jar of wine, exclaimed, " May the gods be 
 favourable ! " The drinking of healths was also a Roman 
 custom at these feasts. Thus in Plautus we read of a man 
 drinking to his mistress with these words, "Bene vos, bene 
 nos ; bene te, bene me ; bene nostrum etiam, Stephanium ! " 
 " Here's to you, here's to ourselves ; here's to thee, here's 
 
 to me ; here's to our dear " Persius has a similar verse : 
 
 " Bene mi/it, bene vobis^ bene arnica nostrce ! " " Here's to 
 myself, here's to you, and here's to our friends ! " 
 
 The drinking-cups were many and various. The glass 
 vessels, in the form of chalices, were shaped like the tumbler 
 of the present day ; sometimes they were of earthenware, 
 others had handles. Of the rest there were many varieties, 
 all of fantastic shape as shoes, legs, boats, heads of beasts, 
 from the lower end of which the wine escaped through an 
 orifice and was caught in the mouth. There were also cups 
 and jugs, inscribed with brief mottoes (as " Reple" " Sitio? 
 " Bibe" etc.,) and some had the name of the owner. As Becker 
 says, all the vessels that have been discovered betray much 
 fine taste and sense of the beautiful. They will always be a 
 standing testimony that the whole life of the ancient Pompeians 
 was thoroughly imbued with grace and art. 
 
 The person in charge of the triclinium was the tridiniarc/ies, 
 and was a person who had many duties to perform. He 
 arranged the food, and took care that the dishes were served 
 in a pleasing manner; whilst the structor y or carver, carved 
 the food, and constructed artificial figures of fruit and flesh 
 
86 VESUVIUS: HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII. 
 
 for the dessert. Each guest brought his own slave to stand 
 behind him. The recitations often followed by the applaud- 
 ing cry of" ^o^&V." raised by way of compliment to the reciter 
 the display of the dancers, and the performances of the 
 jugglers, must have somewhat marred the conversation of the 
 guests. The Romans had a taste for the deformed and 
 the idiotic (the moriones] ; the more deformed and the more 
 stupid the more valuable, as affording much opportunity for 
 mirth. On a par with these were the dwarfs (nani\ who 
 were especial favourites of the ladies ; their principal use was 
 for dancing and playing the castanets. 
 
 Mention has been made of a water-clock. " Notwith- 
 standing the magnificence of the domestic arrangements of 
 the ancients, and the refined care bestowed on everything 
 that could make life agreeable, they were still," remarks a 
 competent critic, " without many ordinary conveniences. 
 For instance, a clock to regulate the business of the day, 
 according to a fixed measure of time, to us an indispensable 
 piece of furniture (which the man of moderate means can 
 command with facility, and even the poorest does not like 
 to be without), was for nearly five hundred years a thing 
 quite unknown to the Romans, and even in later times was 
 only in a very imperfect state. Originally they did not 
 divide the day into hours at all, but guessed at the time 
 from the position of the sun ; but afterwards, on becoming 
 acquainted with the use of sun-dials, they reckoned twenty- 
 four hours from midnight to midnight, and divided the 
 regular duration of the day, between the rising and the 
 setting of the sun, into twelve equal hours, and allotted the 
 remainder of the time to the night. Here, however, no 
 division was attempted, and the position of the stars and 
 the increasing or decreasing darkness were the only means 
 of distinguishing single portions of time. The use of the 
 water-clock afterwards became more general ; but even then 
 
SOCIAL LIFE OF THE POMPEIANS. 87 
 
 the former custom, derived from the camp, by which the 
 night was divided into four watches, remained much in use." 
 
 Sun-dials have been discovered at Pompeii, showing that 
 they were in use ; but on dull days there was still uncertainty 
 about the time of day. When the clepsydra became known, 
 it in a measure amended the deficiency. The clepsydra were 
 similar to our sand-glasses, since the water contained in a 
 vessel was allowed gradually to escape. According to Martial, 
 that the people might know the hour without giving them- 
 selves any trouble, slaves were kept on purpose to watch 
 the solarium and clepsydra, and report the expiration of each 
 hour. 
 
 In its hankering after social distinction, in its efforts to 
 outshine, in its endeavours to keep up appearances, in its 
 jealousies, bickerings, hatreds, uncharitableness, and littleness, 
 between Pompeian society of eighteen hundred years ago 
 and civilised society of to-day there is little or no difference. 
 The Pompeians were probably both pugnacious and quarrel- 
 some. History has handed down to us how at the amphi- 
 theatre they fell upon the men of Nuceria, their neighbours 
 and rivals, who had come in to witness the games. Justly 
 indignant at such a flagrant breach of hospitality, the 
 Nucerians appealed to the Emperor Nero, who banished 
 Lixinius Regulus, the giver of the show of gladiators and the 
 most active instigator of the tumult, and ordered the closure 
 of the amphitheatre and all other places of public amusement 
 for ten years to say the least, a severe punishment to the 
 light-hearted and gay Pompeians. 
 
 With all their luxurious extravagance, the wealthy classes 
 of Pompeii were extremely wretched. Their magnificence 
 could not give them happiness any more than their uncon- 
 trolled vice gave them permanent gratification. Their lives 
 were passed in the whirling excitement of spurious pleasure. 
 Gambling was universal, and ruin, then as now, followed in 
 
88 VESUVIUS: HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII. 
 
 its train. Drunkenness was prevalent, and incurred no 
 censure whatever in fact, the richer, or patrician, sections 
 of the people seem to have been restrained by no moral 
 code at all ; while the poorer classes were as squalid and 
 miserable in their life as the rich were luxurious and ex- 
 travagant. The poorer parts of the town have not yet been 
 disinterred, for as yet only one-third of the city is uncovered ; 
 but they will no doubt be found in the neighbourhood of the 
 amphitheatre. 
 
 Although subject to Rome, Pompeii was a municipium ; 
 her citizens were permitted to select their own magistrates, 
 to make their own laws, and levy their own taxes. Home- 
 rulers they were in the freest acceptation of the term. The 
 government of the town seems to have been vested chiefly 
 in the cedile, or mayor. Under him worked the duumviri, 
 who were elected annually, and whose office may broadly 
 be said to correspond with that of the aldermanic chair of the 
 present day. They were justices of the peace, and, with the 
 czdile, presided over the decuriones, who formed, so to speak, 
 the town council, which differed from that of our own times 
 in the fact that the members were self-elected, the occupants 
 of the higher offices, which are now selected by our councils, 
 being at Pompeii elected by the people. 
 
 The (zdile acted as chief magistrate, commissioner of 
 police, and inspector of markets, weights and measures. He 
 also regulated the supply of provisions to the public, and 
 was responsible for the conduct of the public games, with 
 regard to regularity and order. He had further to see that 
 the temples and public buildings were kept in repair, and 
 that private houses the condition of which was dangerous 
 to the public safety were altered, also to exercise surveillance 
 over the public health and morality. His power was very 
 considerable, and he was able to enforce his orders by 
 prosecution and fine. Thus, the cedile could at once punish 
 
w o 
 
 Pi - 
 
 p I 
 
 ftj 
 
 W 5 
 
SOCIAL LIFE OF THE POMPEIANS. 89 
 
 any individual who, in times of scarcity, was hoarding his 
 corn in hopes of a rise in price, and without further ado 
 could cause the hoard to be issued to the public. An 
 allowance was made for his expenses from the treasury, but 
 he was expected, just as our mayors are, to spend his own 
 money freely. The one main object which the cedile always 
 kept in view was to be more magnificent than his predecessor, 
 and to give yet more splendid entertainments to the populace, 
 in hopes that he might secure their votes when he became a 
 candidate for the higher offices of state. 
 
 The decuriones voted posthumous honours to the departed 
 citizens, assigned them a sepulchre in the place of honour, 
 and, after their decease, ordered a statue to be erected to 
 their memory in the forum. 
 
 Inscriptions have been found, according to Rolfe, as 
 follows, and they tend to show the existence of trade societies 
 in Pompeii : 
 
 " MARCELLINUM ^EDILEM LIGNARI 
 
 Ex PLOSTARI ROGANT." 
 ("The carpenters and carters wish Marcellinus to be ^dile.") 
 
 " VERUM JET>. O. F. VNGVENTARI. FACITE. ROG." 
 
 (" Please make Verus sedile. The Perfumers ask you to make 
 
 him so.") 
 
 Similar inscriptions in favour of different candidates are 
 recorded by the saltworkers, the porters, the goldsmiths, 
 and the fruiterers. These advertisements generally ended 
 with the letters "O.V.F." (pro vos faciatis], which is equivalent 
 to " Please vote for him." 
 
 Advertisements of this sort appear to have been used as 
 vehicles for street wit, just as electioneering squibs are per- 
 petrated amongst ourselves. Thus we find mentioned, as if 
 among the companies, the pilicrepi (ball-players), the iinbibi 
 
go VESUVIUS: HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII. 
 
 (late topers), the dormientes universtfall the worshipful company 
 of sleepers), and, as a climax, " Pompeiani universi ! " " All 
 the Pompeians to a man, vote for So-and-so ! " 
 
 " The Romans well understood the art of encouraging 
 public liberality by publicly recording it. All over Pompeii 
 inscriptions are met with recording acts of public beneficence 
 the erection of a theatre or temple or exchange, or their 
 restoration ; the paving of a street, the building of an altar, 
 or the adorning of a wall, or any other public service. Some- 
 times the rewards were greater, and the inscription announced 
 the presentation of a burial plot to the benefactor, or his 
 addition to the number of the decurions or senate. In all 
 its proceedings Pompeii is the offspring, the miniature, the 
 copy in small of the great mother city Rome." 
 
 The public life of the Pompeians has now been touched 
 upon. Let us next take a peep at what went on within doors. 
 
 The unity of a Roman family was remarkable, the closest 
 of bonds existing between its various branches, and the chief, 
 or paterfamilias. The number of the relatives was usually 
 large ; and in the noble families the degrees of affinity were 
 marked by the imagines, which formed a widely-ramified 
 genealogical tree. The ancient veneration entertained for 
 the ties of kindred was shown in many ways. There were 
 the yearly festival of the Charistia, with its convivial meeting ; 
 the duty of mourning deceased cognati, and affines ; and the 
 jus osculi, which allowed the wife to be kissed by her own 
 and her husband's relatives. The explanation that is given 
 of this ancient custom is that it arose from the old prohibition 
 against women drinking wine, and that the nearest relatives 
 sought to convince themselves by this means whether the 
 lady had taken any or not. 
 
 From the earliest times the beautiful institution of hospitium 
 prevailed in Italy as well as in Greece, whereby friends were 
 not merely bound to exercise the usage of hospitality, but 
 
SOCIAL LIFE OF THE POMPEIANS. 91 
 
 also to afford help and protection to each other in all 
 circumstances. 
 
 The master of a Roman house was an autocrat. Over his 
 slaves he had power of life and death. The law did not look 
 upon the slave as even a personage of subordinate and degraded 
 social position ; it did not recognise his claim to be considered 
 as a moral agent, to be a man at all. He could be flogged, 
 chained, or crucified, on the slightest provocation. If a wealthy 
 proprietor died under circumstances which created suspicion 
 that he had been murdered by his own slave or by an unknown 
 assassin, the whole of his slaves would be tortured. A remark- 
 able example of the vigorous enforcement of this law took 
 place during the reign of Nero, when four hundred slaves were 
 executed in consequence of the murder of their master. The 
 cruelty and injustice of the sentence were too glaring even for 
 the Roman populace. Some opposition was offered to the 
 officers of justice : the lictors were assaulted in the execution of 
 their duty. The senate took alarm, and a debate was held 
 upon this Silavian law. Even there a lingering sentiment of 
 humanity recognised the severity of this cruel decree. It 
 was instantly over-ruled by the reasoning of a learned jurist, 
 Cassius Longimus, who quoted precedent and insinuated the 
 peril which would result from measures of mercy. " There 
 must be injustice done," said he, " in every great example ; 
 but the injustice inflicted upon a few is amply compensated 
 by the benefit to the many." Shepherd tells us that there 
 was a regular gradation in the social standing of the slave, 
 from the beautiful Greek youth, the spoilt minion of his 
 master, to the servant of servants, who discharged the most 
 menial duties of the household or the farm. The secretary or 
 amanuensis was a slave ; the children's tutor and attendants 
 were slaves. Physicians, actors, musical performers, the 
 buffoon, and the improvisator, were of the same order. It is 
 only fair to say, however, that the master occasionally bestowed 
 
92 VESUVIUS: HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII. 
 
 freedom upon a slave. And there were other ways in which 
 release could be obtained. 
 
 " Freedom has a thousand charms to show 
 That slaves, howe'er contented, never know." 
 
 As soon as a child was born, it was laid at the feet of the 
 father, who, if the babe was free from any deformity, and if 
 he was prepared to acknowledge it as his legitimate offspring, 
 raised it from the ground and declared it worthy of the 
 house. Infanticide was not prohibited by law, and was 
 probably not uncommon. 
 
 From the remote ages the power of a Roman father over 
 his children, including those by adoption as well as by blood, 
 was unlimited. A father might, without violating any law, 
 scourge or imprison his son, or sell him for a slave, or put him 
 to death, even after that son had risen to the highest honours 
 of the state. This jurisdiction was not merely nominal, but 
 in early times was not infrequently exercised to its full extent, 
 and was confirmed by the laws of the Twelve Tables/ 
 
 Boys on the ninth and girls on the eight day after birth 
 underwent a religious ceremony termed lustralis ; and on this 
 day, which was called dies lustricus, the former received their 
 praenomen. The choice was limited, as the list contained only 
 seventeen. Thus named, he was enrolled in some family or 
 state register. 
 
 Elementary schools existed for both boys and girls, the 
 instruction consisting of reading, writing, and arithmetic, 
 Greek being taught to lads of the higher classes. Greek was 
 the one language besides his own that a Roman considered 
 worth knowing. In many of the wealthier Roman families 
 Greek slave girls would be found, who would act as the nursery 
 governess ; and later a male slave who knew something of the 
 Greek literature was often set apart as the boys' attendant. 
 Children were taught their alphabet by encouraging them to 
 
SOCIAL LIFE OF THE POMPEIANS. 93 
 
 play with pieces of ivory on which different letters were marked ; 
 they were taught to write by using waxen tablets on which 
 a copy had been previously traced ; a knowledge of arithmetic 
 was communicated through the medium of a calculating board 
 and counters ; while the memory was strengthened and practice 
 given in writing and orthography by the master's repeating 
 aloud a passage which had to be taken down and committed to 
 memory. Juvenal tells us that both Horace and Virgil were 
 read, whilst the walls of Pompeii show that the practice of 
 Eton is in its minutiae truly classical. 
 
 On the completion of the fourteenth year the Roman youth 
 became " of age." He then assumed the toga virilis. To 
 take the toga was to exchange the gown of the youth, with 
 its stripes of purple, for the plain white gown of the citizen, 
 and he went through a religious ceremony with certain rites 
 and sacrifices, which was usually held in the forum. The 
 youth then obtained, if he had property, full power, and the 
 tutelage or guardianship ceased ; he could dispose of his 
 property by will, and contract marriage. In the case of a 
 female, this power was obtained at the age of twelve years. 
 
 The routine of home-life, as we understand it, seems to 
 have run in those times somewhat as follows. The master of 
 the house usually spent the morning in transacting business 
 with his clients. These were the men who farmed his estates 
 and managed the slave-labour by which the land was tilled. 
 The usual course appears to have been to divide the produce 
 between the landlord and tenant, the master's share being 
 often sold by retail in a shop adjoining his house, and usually 
 opening into it. When tired with business, the gentle 
 Pompeian strolled into what has been called with a great deal 
 of truth " the people's drawing-room " the street. Here he 
 met his friends on an easy footing without formality, and from 
 this evanescent intercourse gained an insight of the concerns 
 of commercial and public life, or he contrasted the irre- 
 
94 VESUVIUS: HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII. 
 
 pressible buoyancy of spirit of some with the faltering irre- 
 solution or despondency of others of the various pedestrians, in 
 the endless ebb and flow of the tide of urban life. Again, he 
 listened to the busy hum of conversation, " the still, sad music 
 of humanity " ; then, recalled from his reverie, he passed on. 
 He lounged for a few moments in the forum, and finally whiled 
 away an hour or two in the baths, or by an attendance on 
 the performance at the theatre filled up the day ; whilst the 
 evening was passed in revelry and merriment, enlivened by 
 the music and dancing of professional performers. 
 
 The more polished Roman of social inclination, in addition 
 to the symposia, had his club, in which vacancies were filled by 
 ballot, and each member of which bore a proportionate part 
 of the expense. Cicero (De Senectute) records the pleasure 
 he took in frequenting the social parties of his time, termed 
 conf rater nitates, where, according to the good old custom, 
 a president was appointed. And he adds that the principal 
 satisfaction he received from such entertainments arose much 
 less from the pleasures of the table than from the opportunity 
 thereby offered him of enjoying excellent company and 
 conversation. 
 
 If we compare the condition of the Roman wife with that 
 of Greece, we find the latter was little esteemed, confined to 
 the gyn&conitis, treated as a child, shut out from social life 
 and the amusements of men. According to Becker, we 
 find the position of the Roman ladies exactly the reverse. 
 Although the wife was subordinate to her husband, yet she 
 was always treated with attention and regard. The Roman 
 housewife always appeared as the mistress of the whole 
 household economy, instructress of the children, and guardian 
 of the honour of the house, equally esteemed with the pater- 
 familias both in and out of the house. The ladies, it is true, 
 held aloof from public life, as custom kept them back, yet 
 they might appear and give evidence in a court of law. 
 
SOCIAL LIFE OF THE POMPEIANS. 95 
 
 Walking abroad was limited only by scruple and usage, not 
 by law. They took their places with the men at festal 
 banquets. In ancient drawings we see the women at table 
 beside the men. 
 
 As to the daily life of the Roman ladies, one can hardly 
 suppose that they carried depravity to the same extremes as 
 did their husbands ; yet, if we read the accounts of Roman life 
 at Baiae, by far the most renowned bathing-place in Italy, the 
 resort of those who, leaving behind them the cares and 
 formalities of life, resigned themselves wholly to enjoyment, 
 in whatever shape it was offered, one cannot but think that 
 they did not stop far short. Dress and jewellery absorbed a 
 large portion of their incomes. Beautiful specimens of the 
 goldsmith's art, in the form of gold bracelets, necklaces, and 
 earrings, have been found. 
 
 The necklaces, monilia, and neck-chains, ratellce, were truly 
 magnificent. A necklace was found at Pompeii consisting of 
 one band of fine interlaced gold, from which were suspended 
 seventy-one pendants like small ear-drops. At the end of 
 the chain there is a kind of clasp, on both parts of which 
 there is a frog ; and at the terminal points where it was 
 clasped there were rubies in settings. Also arm-bands have 
 been found in the form of serpents, in which rubies were 
 used to represent the eyes. 
 
 Roman ladies wore no covering upon the head. The hair 
 was worn in a variety of styles, usually very high, in storeys of 
 curls in the form of a helmet. As the edifice grew, false hair, 
 gold ornaments, precious stones and flowers, were introduced ; 
 long hairpins were used to fix and support the structure. 
 Married women were distinguished from the unmarried by 
 the manner in \\hich the hair was parted in front. Blond 
 hair was the most fashionable, and was largely imported from 
 Germany. Female slaves were specially taught the coiffeur's 
 art ; they used combs, oils, dyes, and pomades, just as numbers 
 
96 VESUVIUS: HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII. 
 
 of their sex do now. Perfumes were largely used by the 
 Roman ladies. Almost every object they used was highly 
 scented. The odour of perfumes was an offering to the gods 
 and freely used in the baths and for anointing the person 
 after athletic exercises. The shops of the perfumers were 
 the favourite resort for fashionable loungers. " But it must 
 have been provoking to the fair one not to have been able to 
 see the general effect of her form and ornaments reflected in 
 a large pier-glass. The mirrors were only small plates of 
 polished metal, capable of showing more than an ugly woman 
 might like to see, but less than a beautiful one desired." 
 
 There has been found quite recently in the ruins a casket 
 of marble about two inches square. It was closely sealed, 
 and contained a pomade powerfully scented with attar of 
 roses. This speaks highly of the lasting properties and 
 antiquity of this delightful perfume, that it should retain its 
 fragrance after an interment of eighteen centuries. 
 
 Lord Lytton tells us that the ladies of Southern Italy, in 
 his day; had, singularly enough, a perfect horror of perfumes, 
 accounting them remarkably unwholesome. What is very 
 strange is that the nostrils so susceptible to a perfume are 
 not at all affected by its opposite, for Naples, to the writer's 
 mind, can " hold the candle " to most Continental cities for 
 its objectionable smells. 
 
 That the ladies had innocent amusements is abundantly 
 proved by paintings in the museum at Naples, where we find 
 ladies portrayed who are playing the lyre or sketching a 
 statue. They also attended the theatres and the sports of 
 the arena, where they were witnesses of the shocking scenes 
 of brutality which did so much to degrade the Roman nation. 
 
 That they spent a great part of their time in the temples 
 is also certain in fact, the main reason why the worship of 
 Isis was abolished was because the Roman ladies spent hours 
 in pretended celebrations of religious rites, during which time 
 
SOCIAL LIFE OF THE POMPEIANS. 97 
 
 they were completely uncontrolled. Juvenal directed his 
 satire against them, and says that both laws and custom 
 were disregarded, and all sense of morality, and even common 
 decency, was lost throughout Roman society, and gives his 
 reason thus : 
 
 " Pride, laziness, and all luxurious arts 
 Pour like a deluge in from foreign parts, 
 Since gold obscene and silver found the way 
 Strange fashions and strange bullion to convey, 
 And our plain, simple manners to betray." 
 
 The recreation of the men, old and young, out of doors, 
 consisted principally of the game of ball, of which there were 
 three descriptions. The kinds of ball used were the pila, 
 a small hand-ball ; follis, the great ballon, like our football ; 
 and the paganica, which was a medium-size ball, and stuffed 
 with feathers. 
 
 The indoor games were pursued not only for recreation, 
 but also with the hope of gain ; and severe legal enactments 
 did not prevent the ruin of the happiness and fortune of 
 many by gambling privately with dice. The people also had 
 other innocent table games, such as chess of the present 
 day ; another game was like our backgammon. Another, 
 mentioned by Horace, consisted in one person's guessing 
 whether the piece of money, or whatever it was, that his 
 opponent held in his hand, was odd or even. 
 
 We can well imagine that with the love of comfort and 
 indolence of the Pompeians provision was made for means 
 of locomotion without exertion on their own part. It is 
 known that Cicero was riding in a covered lectica, or litter, 
 when he was overtaken by his murderers. The lecticce were 
 made of costly wood, embellished with designs in gold, silver, 
 or ivory, and fitted internally with soft cushions and 
 sumptuous coverlets, the whole fabric being carried on poles 
 on the shoulders of slaves. 
 
98 VESUVIUS: HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII. 
 
 Driving in the city was prohibited, except by triumphators, 
 higher magistrates, and priests, on solemn occasions. (Pro- 
 bably this explains why there were so few stables and coach- 
 houses in Pompeii.) But, for driving outside the city walls 
 and for long journeys, the use of carriages was more frequent. 
 They were of various forms, though some of the names 
 recorded give little knowledge as to their respective pecu- 
 liarities. The carriages depicted on monuments were generally 
 of a type employed not so much in private life as in public 
 functions, festive processions, games, or war. Some had two 
 and some four wheels. 
 
 The apparatus by which the animals, either horses or 
 mules were connected with the carriage was quite different 
 from ours as, in preference to traces, the jugum, or yoke, 
 was used, fastened archwise across the neck, and attached in 
 front to the end of a centre-pole. It was only when three 
 or four animals were employed together that the outside 
 ones, called funales, drew with traces. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 MARRIAGE, DIVORCE, DEATH, AND BURIAL. 
 '' Whichever you do, you will regret it." SOCRATES. 
 
 has existed in all ages, though with 
 various degrees of strictness ; and these, there is 
 no doubt, have greatly influenced the status of 
 women. In Rome, by an edict of Augustus, 
 engagements were limited to two years, during which period 
 either party might sue the other for breach of promise, if 
 either desired to break off the engagement. Girls might be 
 engaged when they were ten years old, and married when 
 they were twelve, though at this early age the consent of 
 their guardian was indispensable. There were also " tables 
 of affinity " which regulated the marriage of those who were 
 blood relations. This included the union of all direct 
 ascendants and descendants, whether by blood, adoption, or 
 marriage. The determination of the prohibited degrees was 
 a matter rather of public opinion and feeling than of positive 
 enactment. Polygamy was entirely prohibited. 
 
 When a man had resolved to demand a woman in marriage, 
 he communicated his wish to her father or guardian, whose 
 consent was indispensable. The ceremony of betrothal was 
 termed sponsalia, and was usually celebrated during a festival, 
 and on this occasion the sponsus frequently presented a ring 
 
 99 
 
ioo VESUVIUS: HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII. 
 
 to his sfionsa, who offered him some gift in return. The ring 
 was of iron and given as a pledge of fidelity, and worn on 
 the left hand, on the finger next the smallest. The ring was 
 often set with adamants, the hardness and durability of both 
 materials being intended to signify the lasting nature or the 
 perpetuity of the contract. Other rings were of gold, copper, 
 or brass ; they often had upon them inscriptions or devices, 
 such as the figure of a key to signify the wife's domestic 
 authority. " May you live long ! " and " I bring good fortune 
 to the wearer "were inscriptions, among others, in common 
 use. Sometimes a stone was inserted in the ring, upon which 
 was engraved an intaglio representing a hand pulling the lobe 
 of an ear, with the word " Remember " above it. Gold rings 
 have been found in the form of a serpent; with the head 
 pointing along the finger, and its body coiled around in 
 several folds. It was believed that this animal had the power 
 of killing others with a look, and, as master of the life of 
 others, it was reputed immortal and sacred to the gods. 
 
 The hollow rings of the Romans were used to contain 
 poison, and Pliny relates the story that, after Crasseus had 
 stolen the gold treasure from under the stone of the Capitoline, 
 Jupiter, the custodian, to escape torture, broke his ring in 
 his mouth and expired immediately from the effect of the 
 poison secreted in it. 
 
 In Pliny's day it was fashionable to wear but one ring, and 
 that on the little finger ; whereas in Horace's time to sport 
 three rings at once on the left hand was the highest adorn- 
 ment of the finished exquisite. 
 
 The use of the ring as an emblem of marriage was not 
 an introduction of the Christian Church, but is supposed to 
 owe its origin to the Egyptians, whose gold, before coinage 
 came into vogue, circulated in the form of rings ; and the 
 Egyptian at his marriage placed one of these pieces of gold 
 on his bride's finger as a token that he intrusted her with 
 
MARRIAGE, DIVORCE, DEATH, AND BURIAL. 101 
 
 his property. We may presume, therefore, that the early 
 Christians saw no harm in following this custom ; and in our 
 marriage ceremony the man in similar fashion places a gold 
 ring on the bride's finger when he says, " With all my worldly 
 goods I thee endow." 
 
 The essence of a Roman marriage was consent, the con- 
 sent both of those who came together and of those in whose 
 power they were ; but after marriage the dissent of either 
 party, if formally expressed, could dissolve the union. There 
 seems to have been three forms of marriage : The civil: 
 form, which was usually merely a mutual consent before 
 witnesses. In the second form of marriage, by purchase 
 (coemptio^) the wife became so closely assimilated to property 
 that the full rights of possession could not be acquired until 
 the usual period of prescription had passed ; and a title by 
 prescription could be acquired only by a year's continued 
 possession. Accordingly it became quite usual for the wife 
 to return for three days every year to her father's house, the 
 result of which was that she never came under the manus of 
 her husband. She then remained a member of her father's 
 family, and the husband acquired no legal power over her. 
 In a coemptio marriage an imaginary sale took place on the 
 part of the parents or guardians, in the presence of five 
 Roman citizens. The third form, used only by the higher 
 classes, was by confarreatio. This was a religious ceremony, 
 and took place in the temple. 
 
 The bridal dress was a long white tunic bound with purple 
 and worn with an embroidered girdle. The bride's hair was 
 dressed in tresses, and parted symbolically with the head of a 
 spear. Over this was worn a crown or chaplet of flowers, and 
 over this was thrown the flainmeuiti, or pink veil, which fell 
 over the shoulders. Her feet were clad in yellow sandals. 
 
 The pair walked round the altar hand in hand, and then, 
 standing before it, the woman held out her right hand to 
 
102 VESUVIUS: HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII. 
 
 the man, and in her left hand were held three wheat-ears. 
 They then partook jointly of a cake made of far (farretis 
 pants), whence the term confarreatio [this cake may be said 
 to be the forerunner of the bride-cake used at the present 
 day], in the presence of the high priest and ten witnesses ; 
 a sheep was sacrificed, and its skin was spread over two 
 chairs, on which the bride and bridegroom sat, with their 
 heads covered. A solemn form of prayer was then pro- 
 nounced, after which another sacrifice was offered, and the 
 ceremony was complete. 
 
 The bride was conducted to the house of her husband, 
 pretended force being used to drag her from the arms of her 
 mother. This, no doubt, was a symbol that remained long 
 after such a necessity had ceased, and is explained by the 
 hypothesis that the capture of wives was once a stern reality. 
 She was accompanied by a torchlight procession. Before 
 her was carried a cake ; the bride herself bore a distaff and 
 a spindle with wool, to indicate the duties she was about 
 to undertake. 
 
 Arriving at the house, which was adorned with garlands 
 and flowers, the bride was carried across the threshold, in 
 order that she might not knock against it with her foot, 
 such a circumstance being considered of evil omen. Her 
 husband here received her with fire and water, which she 
 was compelled to touch, and which was probably a symbolic 
 purification. On reaching her husband, the bride saluted 
 him with these words, " Ubi tu caius ego caia " " Where you 
 are master I will be mistress." When she entered the house, 
 the keys of it were delivered into her hands, and the wedding 
 feast was then held. 
 
 Except in the case of a widow, a Roman marriage never 
 took place on the eve of a festival. February was unfavour- 
 able to marriage, because the Parentalta, or festival in honour 
 of the dead, was celebrated upon certain days in it. Many 
 
MARRIAGE, DIVORCE, DEATH, AND BURIAL. 103 
 
 reasons were given why marriages should not be celebrated 
 in May. The Romans thought it was under the influence 
 of spirits adverse to happy households. These pagan super- 
 stitions, it is believed, are still retained in Italy ; and we have 
 an ancient proverb cited by Ray, " Who marries between 
 the sickle and the scythe will never thrive." 
 
 The position of the Roman woman was one of complete 
 subjection, and the idea of marriage appears to have been 
 founded on the rights, not of the woman, but of the man, 
 being an illustration of 
 
 11 The good old plan, 
 That he should take who has the power, 
 And he should keep who can." 
 
 The Romans were allowed only one wife at a time. In 
 the earlier and better days of the Republic divorce was 
 almost unknown ; before its close it was of daily occurrence. 
 The divorce, however, of such persons as had been married 
 by confarreatio was not an easy matter, and could be 
 accomplished only by important religious ceremonies ; but 
 in other cases the process was easy, the usual form being 
 to take the keys of the house away from the wife and to turn 
 her out of doors. Infidelity, drunkenness, and sorcery were 
 the usual causes of divorce. Some of the reasons given 
 appear in our day somewhat singular. One Roman repudiated 
 his wife because she had once been to the public games 
 without his knowledge ; another defended himself for taking 
 the same step by saying, "My shoes are new and well made, 
 but no one knows where they pinch me." 
 
 But that the ladies readily entered the matrimonial state 
 again is evident from the case related by St. Jerome, that 
 there existed in Rome a wife who was married to her twenty- 
 third husband, she herself being his twenty-first wife. Cato 
 considered it a commendable proceeding to transfer his wife 
 
104 VESUVIUS: HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII, 
 
 Marcia to his friend Hortensius. When the latter died, leav- 
 ing the lady a very handsome jointure, Cato was delighted to 
 take her back. It seems probable that where a divorce was 
 desired, a domestic trial was held before the friends of both 
 parties, who usually dealt with the question of the wife's 
 dowry. 
 
 So much for the marriage customs of those times. Turning 
 now to the more sombre, but not less important subject, the 
 rites of interment, we find there were then, as there are now, 
 two forms of disposal of the dead cremation and burial. 
 Burial and cremation have shared public favour in well- 
 defined cycles ; a period of cremation has succeeded a period 
 of burial, and vice versa, throughout history. 
 
 The departure of a Roman from this world was not without 
 its ceremonial. At the last solemn moment the nearest 
 relative tried to catch in his mouth the dying one's last 
 expiring breath ; and, as soon as life had become extinct, 
 he called out the name of the deceased, and exclaimed, 
 " Vale ! " " Farewell ! " A small coin, called the obolus, was 
 placed in the mouth of the dead to pay Charon the ferryman, 
 who took the souls of the departed over the Acheron and 
 Styx, the rivers of the lower world. Funerals were celebrated 
 at night, and by the Roman law it was enacted that no 
 one should be burned or buried within the city. Dyer says 
 this was because the rites of religion were celebrated by day, 
 and it was pollution for the priests, or for anything connected 
 with worship of the deities of the upper world, to touch 
 anything connected with death. The corpse, placed on a 
 litter or bier, was accompanied by rope torches coated with 
 wax or tallow. These torches continued to be used long 
 after the necessity for using them had ceased. 
 
 This practice, now far more than two thousand years old, 
 is still retained in the Roman Church, large candles being 
 substituted for rope torches. St. Chrysostom assures us that 
 
MARRIAGE, DIVORCE, DEATH, AND BURIAL. 105 
 
 it is not a modern revival, and gives a beautiful reason for 
 its being retained. " Tell me," he says, " what mean those 
 brilliant lamps ? Do we not go forth with the dead on their 
 way rejoicing, as with men who have fought their fight ? " 
 
 If the person had been of importance, he was awarded 
 a public funeral. Musicians playing doleful strains headed 
 the procession, followed by persons wearing masks, represent- 
 ing the ancestors of the deceased. After them came hired 
 mourners, who united lamentations with songs in his praise, 
 and players, one of whom set forth the actions and imitated 
 the words of the deceased. Behind the body walked the 
 relatives, dressed in mourning, the sons with their heads veiled, 
 the daughters wearing their hair dishevelled and beating 
 their chests. As the procession passed through the forum 
 it stopped, the bearers set down the lectus before the 
 rostra, the cavalcade formed a semicircle round it, and 
 an oration was delivered celebrating the praises of the dead ; 
 the orator, when the exhausted virtues of the recently deceased 
 no longer afforded him subject for eulogy, turned to his wax- 
 work ancestry, and recalled the celebrated deeds and exploits 
 they had performed, and which led to the honours by which 
 they had been distinguished. He showed that, animated by 
 the example of his predecessors, each in succession proved 
 himself not unworthy of his ancestors. This laudatis funebris 
 was probably given, as many funeral sermons of the present 
 day, on the principle de mortuis nil nisi bonum. The speaker 
 would pass over the dark side of his friend's character, whilst 
 he described the brighter ones in too glowing colours. After 
 the oration, usually given by a near relative, the procession 
 passed on through the city to without the walls, where the 
 body was burned or buried in the public burial-ground, called 
 puticulce (pits), from the trenches kept ready dug to receive the 
 bodies. When the body was to be burnt, it was placed on a 
 pile of wood of great size ; pitch was added to quicken the 
 
io6 VESUVIUS: HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII. 
 
 flames, and the blaze was fed by Egyptian gums and oils. 
 The pile was usually lighted by the nearest relative, and, 
 when the body was reduced to ashes, these were quenched 
 with wine and collected by the same relative, and, if the grief 
 was real, bedewed with tears and placed in the necessary urn. 
 The ceremony being now completed, the last farewell was bid 
 to the deceased in the well-known formulae : Ave anima 
 Candida, etc. Finally those assembled were purified by the 
 sprinkling of consecrated water, and, the I licet having been 
 pronounced, the assembled multitude departed on its way 
 back to the city. 
 
 In the early ages of Rome the rites of burial and burning 
 seem to have been alike in use. Afterwards the former 
 seems to have prevailed until the time of Christ, when the 
 body was almost universally consumed by fire. On the 
 establishment of Christianity, the old fashion was brought 
 up again, burning being violently opposed by the Fathers of 
 the Church, probably on account of its intimate connection 
 with pagan associations and superstitions. Nearly all of the 
 tombs hitherto found at Pompeii are of crematory periods, 
 for, in the first century, the Christians, following the Jewish 
 custom, re-introduced burial, and that they adhered to this 
 method of sepulture is abundantly evident from the catacombs 
 of Rome and Naples. 
 
 Seven days elapsed between the death and the funeral of the 
 great if they were to have a public funeral, when the whole of 
 the people were summoned to it by the town crier, the 
 ceremony being often closed by theatrical and gladiatorial 
 exhibitions and a sumptuous banquet. In the case of a poor 
 person the funeral would be at night, and in a very modest style. 
 The rich often erected handsome vaults and tombs. Outside 
 several of the gates of Pompeii are the tombs, public and private, 
 of its former inhabitants. " Some of these," says Marriott, 
 " date back to Samnite times ; others, beyond the Hercu- 
 
MARRIAGE, DIVORCE, DEATH, AND BURIAL. 107 
 
 laneum Gate, are perhaps even Oscan ; but the principal 
 mausoleums are Roman. In these latter are found cinerary 
 urns, containing the ashes of the dead. A beautiful and sad 
 spot is this long cemetery beyond the gate on the road 
 leading to Herculaneum. As the street leaves the city it 
 widens and continues down the hill, between rows of tombs. 
 On one side are the ruins of an inn and several houses ; farther 
 on, however, are tombs. For many who have seen this spot 
 it possesses a strange fascination, and we easily realise 
 Lytton's pathetic and beautiful description of the funeral of 
 Apaecides, the young priest of Isis." 
 
 If the tomb was fitted to contain many ash-urns, it was 
 known as a columbarium, or dove-cote. Farrar has pointed 
 out that the columbaria which enshrined the urns and ashes 
 of the pagans were family burial-places ; but as the great 
 and deep idea of the community of the faithful came through 
 the Christian religion, so these cemeteries were devoted 
 indiscriminately to the final resting-place of all alike. They 
 were a visible witness to the sacredness which Christianity 
 attached to the mortal body, and also to the all-embracing' 
 unity of brotherhood in the great family of God. In their 
 absolute simplicity, and the oblivion to which they consign 
 the differences of human rank, they show how completely 
 the Christians had learnt the spirit of their Lord's words, 
 " My kingdom is not of this world." The place of burial, even 
 of a slave, was sacred, and desecration was liable to serious 
 punishment ; and the avenging goddess Nemesis was supposed 
 to pursue even beyond the grave. If the body or bones 
 were moved, death would be the penalty. The Romans 
 believed, in common with the Greeks, that if the body remained 
 unentombed, the soul wandered for a hundred years on the 
 hither side of Styx, alone and desponding, unable to obtain 
 admission to its final resting-place whether among the happy 
 or the miserable. If, therefore, any person perished at sea, 
 
io8 VESUVIUS: HERCULANEUM AND POMP EH. 
 
 \ 
 
 or otherwise in such circumstances that his body could 
 not be found, a cenotaph, or empty tomb, was erected by 
 his surviving friends, which served as well for his passport 
 over the Stygian ferry as if his body had been burnt or 
 committed to the earth with due ceremonies. Hence it 
 became a religious duty, not rashly to be neglected, to scatter 
 earth over any unburied body which men chanced to see ; 
 for even so slight a sepulture as this was held sufficient to 
 appease the scruples of the infernal gods. Burial, consequently, 
 was a matter of considerable importance. 
 
 The Romans loved to keep alive the memory of their dead, 
 showing therein a constancy of affection which does them 
 honour ; and not only immediately after the funeral, but also 
 at stated periods from time to time, they celebrated feasts in 
 remembrance of the departed, and offered sacrifices and 
 libations to them. For the latter, milk, wine, and especially 
 blood, the smell of which was thought particularly agreeable 
 to the manes, were used. Perfumes and flowers were also 
 thrown upon the tomb, or it was crowned with garlands. 
 Roses and lilies were in special request for this service ; 
 parsley and myrtle were also used. Legacies were sometimes 
 left to defray the expense of an annual feast, certain dishes 
 being considered appropriate as beans, parsley, eggs, lentils, 
 with meat, followed by a cake called libum. On these occa- 
 sions the guests appeared in white dress ; an appearance in 
 black would have been looked upon as an insult to the 
 memory of the donor of the feast. 
 
 " The end crowns all, 
 And that old common arbitrator, Time, 
 Will one day end it." 1 
 
 And yet, in these matters, how the habits of the Neapolitans 
 have changed ! A recent writer considers one of the worst 
 
 1 Troilus and Cressida, iv. 5. 
 
MARRIAGE, DIVORCE, DEATH, AND BURIAL. 109 
 
 traits of the character of the modern Neapolitans is their 
 disrespect for the dead. He says the way in which they 
 treat the bodies of the departed is a gross libel on the 
 heathen. Interment takes place within twenty-four hours. 
 The spirit fled, to rid themselves of its earthly tenement with 
 as much despatch as possible is the chief solicitude of the 
 family. In an incredibly short time the corpse is laid out, 
 the room arranged, the candles are lighted, and everything 
 is made ready for the inspection of the public, whose right 
 of entry is by ancient usage and barbarous custom firmly 
 established. Palace or hovel, Death in possession, there is 
 free admission. The livelong day people keep dropping in 
 and dropping out ; the house of mourning presents the 
 appearance of a place of public amusement or the death- 
 chamber of a raree-show. The lower-middle, middle, and 
 upper-middle classes all except the wealthy, who have family 
 vaults at the Campo Santo, and the very poor, who cannot 
 pay the requisite fees belong to a congregazione, or burial-club. 
 A very small monthly payment ensures medical attendance 
 during sickness and decent sepulture after death decent in 
 the eyes of the Neapolitans ; for, from an English point of 
 view, indecorous in the highest degree, ineffably offensive and 
 revolting, is a Neapolitan funeral, "particularly when of the 
 " first class." The bier, with its gold-embroidered crimson 
 velvet pall and case containing the coffin to match atop, the 
 ghoulish penitents in their white-hooded surplices, the flaring 
 tapers, the gay liveries, the prancing horses, and the poor 
 Brethren of St. Januarius, with their bandiere, hobbling along 
 in rear of the procession, form an ensemble hideous beyond 
 description. The respect shown to the dead is limited to 
 following the bier as far as the parish church ; to the priests 
 and beccamorti is left the task of conveying the body to the 
 cemetery and committing it to the earth. The second stage 
 of its journey graveward is made in a gilt coach profusely 
 
no VESUVIUS: HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII. 
 
 emblazoned with the Pluto escutcheon skull grimmant and 
 thigh-bones saltier two priests and two acolytes its sole 
 escort. With much snuff-taking on the part of the priests, and 
 much candle-snuffing on that of the acolytes, the busy streets 
 and the umbrageous Strada del Campo are traversed, and the 
 coach pulls up at the cemetery gates. There the body is 
 handed over to the beccamorti, who tumble it into the un- 
 numbered grave prepared for its reception, where it remains 
 for eighteen months, when it is disinterred and consigned 
 to the resident monks for final purification, prior to the de- 
 position of the bones in the vault belonging to the confra- 
 ternity of which the defunct during his lifetime was a 
 member. 
 
EPILOGUE. 
 "PROVE ALL THINGS; HOLD FAST THAT WHICH is GOOD." 
 
 JIGHTEEN centuries have passed since Pompeii 
 was overwhelmed. The invention of transparent 
 glass has revolutionised the building of houses ; 
 the compass has developed navigation ; the 
 printing-press has dispersed literature ; gunpowder, breech- 
 loaders, and rifle-cannon have increased men's strength in 
 war ; mechanical inventions innumerable have added to and 
 multiplied his comforts. The movement of the planets, the 
 cause of the eclipses, the attraction of matter, and other laws 
 of the universe, are known to us. And every science has 
 revealed to us secrets that were hidden from the Pom- 
 peian. But all this science, all this knowledge, mechanical 
 invention, and material progress, has not been an unmixed 
 advantage. The habits of men now are pretty much the 
 same as the habits of the Pompeians were ; our knowledge 
 and our enlightenment have effected no change in the spirit 
 of man ; our inventions and our comforts have not made us 
 less ambitious, less greedy of gain and less fond of pleasure." 
 Of Pompeii it may be said that nothing in its history is 
 equal in interest to its last scene. The fate of the gay 
 Campanian city has been curious. Some cities have secured 
 enduring fame by their commercial opulence, like Tyre ; by 
 
H2 VESUVIUS: HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII. 
 
 their art-wonders, like Athens ; by their world-wide power, 
 like Rome ; or their gigantic ruins, like Thebes. Of others, 
 scarcely less famous for their wealth and empire, the site is 
 almost forgotten ; their very names have almost passed away 
 from the memory of men. But this third-rate provincial town 
 owes its celebrity to its very destruction. Had it not been over- 
 whelmed by the ashes of Vesuvius, the student and antiquary 
 would never have been drawn to it as to a shrine worthy of a 
 pilgrim's homage. The terrible mountain, whilst it destroyed, 
 has also saved Pompeii, and in so doing has saved for us an 
 ever-vivid illustration of ancient Roman life. 
 
 It is not so much the intrinsic value of the relics and ruins 
 of Herculaneum and Pompeii that attracts the student of 
 history as the fact that in them we find a clue to the civilisa- 
 tion of the period of which we may take the latter city 
 as a miniature. For, as Bulwer Lytton has shown us, within 
 the narrow compass of its walls was contained, as it were, a 
 specimen of every gift which luxury offered to power. In its 
 minute but glittering shops, its tiny palaces, its baths, its 
 forum, its theatre, its circus ; in the energy, yet corruption ; 
 in the refinement, yet the vice of the people ; we behold a 
 model of the whole Roman Empire at that day. It was a toy, 
 a plaything, a showbox in which the gods seemed pleased to 
 keep the representation of the greatest monarchy of earth, 
 and which they afterwards hid for a time, to give, to the 
 wonder of posterity, the moral of the maxim that " under 
 the sun there is nothing new." 
 
 Signs are many that " the love of what is old is not 
 characteristic of any one section of the community or of one 
 cast of opinion only ; it is broader even than patriotism, and 
 belongs to humanity. All unite in desiring to preserve 
 whatever traces of the past are left to us. Nay, we go far 
 afield and search the world for signs of other times than 
 our own. Men carry their lives in their hands while they 
 
EPILOGUE. 113 
 
 penetrate into fanatical Arabia and steal the Queen of Sheba's 
 inscriptions ; they burrow into the sandheaps of the desert 
 that once were towers dedicated to science and literature ; 
 they mock the security of the Pyramids and disturb Pharaoh 
 in the sealed seclusion of his six-thousand-year-old grave so 
 great is their passion for what is old and what may afford a 
 glimpse of the past." 
 
 The love of the antique is so ingrained in our nature that it 
 flourishes vigorously. The touch of tenderness for whatever 
 has weathered the gales of time seems to be inherent in us. 
 To the writer a care for the past appears truly educative and 
 ennobling. It carries men away from themselves and in- 
 troduces them to a wider thought. With the conception of 
 antiquity comes a sense of solemnity, mystery, tenderness, and 
 of large relationship. We realise better the greatness of the 
 scheme of things and our own insignificance in the midst of it. 
 
 It is true that, compared with the good old times that lie 
 behind us, we are richer, and are, on the whole, happier, 
 with better forms of happiness. In the general diffusion of the 
 good things of this life we have risen to a cheering contrast 
 with the toiling multitudes of earlier ages ; our specific gains 
 are great, and in the best of all directions, for they affect the 
 lives of the majority. But in the realm of abstract knowledge 
 it is strange how short a distance the bounds have been 
 advanced. More and more men are coming to see that the 
 present is by no means so far ahead of antiquity as they have 
 been led to suppose. We realise that in the kaleidoscope of 
 life the coloured pieces merely fall into new shapes, the 
 groundwork being the same ; the relics of the past are but as 
 guides and prophets for the future. 
 
 THE END. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES. 
 
 THE Author is indebted to many of the following Publications for 
 much help in preparation of this Work, and would here express 
 his acknowledgments. For photographs for illustrations he is 
 indebted to Messrs. G. Sommer and Son, Naples. 
 
 1. Mount Vesuvius. J. Logan Lobley. 1889. 
 
 2. Rome. Arthur Gilman, M.A. 1886. 
 
 3. Encyclopedia Britannica. 1880. 
 
 4. Pompeii : Popular and Practical. Eustace Neville Rolfe, B.A. 
 
 1893. 
 
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