muscle of old Laocoon's body is distended to the utmost in the mighty
struggle! What intensity of pain in the quivering distorted features!
Every nerve which despair can call into action is excited in one giant
effort, and a scream of anguish seems first to have quivered on those
marble lips. The serpents have rolled their strangling coils around
father and sons, but terror has taken away the strength of the latter,
and they make but feeble resistance. After looking with indifference on
the many casts of this group, I was the more moved by the magnificent
original. It deserves all the admiration that has been heaped upon it.
I absolutely trembled on approaching the cabinet of the Apollo. I had
built up in fancy a glorious ideal, drawn from all that bards have
sung or artists have rhapsodized about its divine beauty,--I feared
disappointment,--I dreaded to have my ideal displaced and my faith in
the power of human genius overthrown by a form less perfect. However,
with a feeling of desperate excitement I entered and looked upon it.
Now, what shall I say of it? How make you comprehend its immortal
beauty? To what shall I liken its glorious perfection of form, or the
fire that imbues the cold marble with the soul of a god? Not with
sculpture, for it stands alone and above all other works of art,--nor
with men, for it has a majesty more than human. I gazed on it,
lost in wonder and joy,--joy that I could at last take into my mind
a faultless ideal of godlike, exalted manhood. The figure appears
actually to possess a spirit, and I looked on it not as on a piece of
marble but a being of loftier mould, and half expected to see him step
forward when the arrow reached its mark. I would give worlds to feel
one moment the sculptor's mental triumph when his work was completed;
that one exulting thrill must have repaid him for every ill he might
have suffered on earth! With what divine inspiration has he wrought its
faultless lines! There is a spirit in every limb which mere toil could
not have given. It must have been caught in those lofty moments
"When each conception was a heavenly guest--
A ray of immortality--and stood,
Star-like, around, until they gathered to a god?"
We ran through a series of halls, roofed with golden stars on a deep
blue midnight sky, and filled with porphyry vases, black marble gods,
and mummies. Some of the statues shone with the matchless polish they
had received from a Theban artisan before Athens was founded, and are,
apparently, as fresh and perfect as when looked upon by the vassals of
Sesostris. Notwithstanding their stiff, rough-hewn limbs, there were
some figures of great beauty, and they gave me a much higher idea of
Egyptian sculpture. In an adjoining hall, containing colossal busts of
the gods, is a vase forty-one feet in circumference, of one solid block
of red porphyry.
The "Transfiguration" is truly called the first picture in the world.
The same glow of inspiration which created the Belvedere must have been
required to paint the Saviour's aerial form. The three figures hover
above the earth in a blaze of glory, seemingly independent of all
material laws. The terrified Apostles on the mount, and the wondering
group below, correspond in the grandeur of their expression to the awe
and majesty of the scene. The only blemish in the sublime perfection of
the picture is the introduction of the two small figures on the left
hand, who, by the bye, were Cardinals, inserted there _by command_.
Some travellers say the color is all lost, but I was agreeably
surprised to find it well preserved. It is, undoubtedly, somewhat
imperfect in this respect, as Raphael died before it was entirely
finished; but "take it all in all," you may search the world in vain to
find its equal.
[This ended the day's tour of observation. On a succeeding day
the traveller saw as many objects of interest; among them the
graves of Shelley and Keats. These, however, we must pass by, and
describe his visit to the ruins of the great Roman amphitheatre.]
Amid the excitement of continually changing scenes I have forgotten
to mention our first visit to the Coliseum. The day after our arrival
we set out with two English friends to see it by sunset. Passing by
the glorious fountain of Trevi, we made our way to the Forum, and from
thence took the road to the Coliseum, lined on both sides with remains
of splendid edifices. The grass-grown ruins of the palace of the Cæsars
stretched along on our right; on our left we passed in succession
the granite front of the Temple of Antoninus and Faustina, the three
grand arches of the Temple of Peace, and the ruins of the Temple of
Venus and Rome. We went under the ruined triumphal arch of Titus, with
broken friezes representing the taking of Jerusalem, and the mighty
walls of the Coliseum gradually rose before us. They grew in grandeur
as we approached them, and when at length we stood in the centre, with
the shattered arches and grassy walls rising above and beyond one
another far around us, the red light of sunset giving them a soft and
melancholy beauty, I was fain to confess that another form of grandeur
had entered my mind of which before I knew not.
A majesty like that of nature clothes this wonderful edifice. Walls
rise above walls, and arches above arches, from every side of the grand
arena, like a sweep of craggy pinnacled mountains around an oval lake.
The two outer circles have almost entirely disappeared, torn away by
the rapacious nobles of Rome, during the middle ages, to build their
palaces. When entire and filled with its hundred thousand spectators,
it must have exceeded any pageant which the world can now produce. No
wonder it was said,--
"While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand;
When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall;
And when Rome falls, the world!"
--a prediction which time has not verified. The world is now going
forward prouder than ever, and though we thank Rome for the legacy
she has left us, we would not wish the dust of her ruin to cumber our
path....
Next to the Coliseum, the baths of Caracalla are the grandest remains
at Rome. The building is a thousand feet square, and its massive walls
look as if built by a race of giants. These Titan remains are covered
with green shrubbery, and long trailing vines sweep over the cornice
and wave down like tresses from the architrave and arch. In some of
its grand halls the mosaic pavement is yet entire. The excavations are
still carried on. From the number of statues already found, this would
seem to have been one of the most gorgeous edifices of the olden time.
[Illustration: THE FAMOUS BRIDGE OF THE RIALTO, VENICE]
I have been now several days loitering and sketching among the ruins,
and I feel as if I could willingly wander for months beside these
mournful relics, and draw inspiration from the lofty yet melancholy
lore they teach. There is a spirit haunting them real and undoubted.
Every shattered column, every broken arch and mouldering wall, but
calls up more vividly to mind the glory that has passed away. Each
lonely pillar stands as proudly as if it still helped to bear up a
great and glorious temple, and the air seems scarcely to have ceased
vibrating with the clarions that heralded a conqueror's triumph....
In Rome there is no need that the imagination be excited to call up
thrilling emotion or poetic revery; they are forced on the mind by the
sublime spirit of the scene. The roused bard might here pour forth his
thoughts in the wildest climaces, and I could believe he felt it all.
This is like the Italy of my dreams,--that golden realm whose image
has been nearly chased away by the earthly reality. I expected to
find a land of light and beauty, where every step crushed a flower or
displaced a sunbeam; where every air was poetic inspiration, and whose
every scene filled the soul with romantic feelings. Nothing is left of
my picture but the far-off mountains, robed in the sapphire veil of the
Ausonian air, and these ruins, amid whose fallen glory sits triumphant
the spirit of ancient song.
I have seen the flush of morn and eve rest on the Coliseum; I have
seen the noonday sky framed in its broken loop-holes, like plates of
polished sapphire; and last night, as the moon has grown into the
zenith, I went to view it with her. Around the Forum all was silent and
spectral; a sentinel challenged us at the Arch of Titus, under which we
passed, and along the Cæsars' wall, which lay in shadow. Dead stillness
brooded around the Coliseum; the pale, silvery lustre streamed through
its arches and over the grassy walls, giving them a look of shadowy
grandeur which day could not bestow. The scene will remain fresh in my
memory forever.
POMPEII AND ITS DESTROYER.
ALFRED E. LEE.
[The ruins of Pompeii perhaps surpass in general interest any
other of the exhumed remains of man's ancient industry, and the
story of them has been very frequently told. For a good general
description we go to the "European Days and Ways" of Alfred E.
Lee, who also deals with Vesuvius as well as with its victim. He
tells us the whole history of the excavation, of which we can
but say here that up to 1860 not more than one-third of the town
was excavated, and that in 1863 the archæologist Fiorelli was
appointed to supervise the work, which has gone on steadily since.]
The ancient Pompeiians who gazed upon and admired the beauteous groves
and pastures which covered the symmetrical cone up to the very rim of
its smokeless, silent crater must have had but a faint idea of the real
nature of their terrible neighbor. But in the year 63 they received
a most impressive and--had it been heeded--timely warning of what
they were to expect. A fearful earthquake shook down their temples,
colonnades, and dwellings, giving awful premonition of the reawakening
of the stupendous forces of nature, which had been slumbering for
centuries. The city was a wreck, but it was immediately rebuilt, and
was greatly improved by conforming its architecture more nearly than
before to the style of imperial Rome. A reaction from the depressing
effects of disaster was at high tide, and Pompeii was doubtless more
splendid and more gay than ever, when, on the 24th of August, 79, it
was overtaken by the supreme catastrophe, the details of which, in
the absence of authentic narrative, have been supplied by the romance
of Bulwer. First came a dense shower of ashes, which covered the town
to the depth of three feet, impelling most of its inhabitants to fly
from its precincts. This was followed by a delusive lull, during which
many of the fugitives returned to seek their valuables, and perhaps
to care for the sick and infirm who could not be readily removed. But
directly the shower of ashes was succeeded by a heavy rain of red-hot
cinders and pumice, called rapilii, from which there was no escape.
This covered the town with another stratum, seven to eight feet thick,
burning the wooden upper stories from the houses, and extinguishing the
last vestige of animal life. On top of this the remorseless Cyclops
shook down more showers of ashes and then fiery rapilii, until the
superincumbent mass attained an average thickness of twenty feet,
and the beautiful city of the Sarno was literally smothered,--buried
alive, with scarcely a single trace of it above ground. For nearly
seventeen centuries Pompeii, except as a name and memory, disappeared
from history. In ancient times its ruins were ransacked, partly by
the survivors of its wreck, in recovering their valuables and the
dead bodies of their friends, and partly in the search for decorative
materials with which to embellish temples and other buildings. In this
way the city was stripped of nearly everything easily accessible which
was worth carrying away. Subsequent Vesuvian eruptions covered it still
more deeply, vegetation grew over it, and a village bearing its name
rose upon the ground which covered its ancient site. During the Middle
Ages the place was entirely unknown. In 1592 a subterranean aqueduct,
which is in use to this day, was carried under it without leading to
its discovery. In 1748 some statues and bronze utensils, discovered
by a peasant, attracted the attention of the reigning king of Naples
and Sicily, Charles III., who caused excavations to be made. At that
time the theatre, amphitheatre, and other portions of the buried town
were brought to light, discoveries which caused great surprise and
enthusiasm throughout the civilized world....
The excavated portion of the city, together with its museum and
library, are under the care of a corps of government guards, who, for
a European wonder, are forbidden to accept gratuities. Quite agreeably
to me, my visit fell on a holiday, when the guides were off duty,
so that I was permitted to wander at will among the silent streets,
unembarrassed by long and apocryphal verbal explanations. A previous
visit had familiarized me with the principal streets, buildings, and
localities, so that I had no difficulty in finding my way. Besides a
considerable region which had been excavated since my first visit,
eighteen months before, there were some important buildings which I had
not then been able to inspect. Among these was the Villa Diomed, so
conspicuous in Bulwer's romance. This villa--more properly speaking,
the house of M. Arrius Diomedes--was one of the largest and most
splendid of the Pompeiian residences, and, in addition to the usual
conveniences and luxuries of an elegant mansion of that day, enclosed
an interior court, or garden, one hundred and seven feet square,
open to the sky, surrounded by a colonnade, and embellished by a
central fountain. Beneath this court, on three sides, are long vaulted
chambers, reached by stair-ways, and lighted by narrow apertures in the
upper pavement. These cellars, now entirely cleared of rubbish, are
believed to have been used in the summer season as family promenades.
"In them," says Bulwer, "twenty skeletons (two of them babes,
embracing) were discovered in one spot by the door, covered by a fine
ashen dust that had evidently been slowly wafted through the apertures
until it had filled the whole space. There were jewels and coins, and
candelabra for unavailing light, and wine, hardened in the amphoræ, for
a prolongation of agonized life. The sand, consolidated by damps, had
taken the forms of the skeletons as in a cast, and the traveller may
yet see the impression of a female neck and bosom, of young and round
proportions, the trace of the fated Julia! It seems to the inquirer
as if the air had been gradually changed into a sulphurous vapor;
the inmates of the vaults had rushed to the door and found it closed
and blocked up by the scoriæ without, and in their attempts to force
it had been suffocated with the atmosphere. In the garden was found
a skeleton with a key by its bony hand, and near it a bag of coins.
This is believed to have been the master of the house, the unfortunate
Diomed, who had probably sought to escape by the garden, and been
destroyed either by the vapors or some fragment of stone. Beside some
silver vases lay another skeleton, probably a slave." The impression of
a girl's breast in the ashes, which Bulwer's fancy represents as the
sole remaining trace of one of his heroines, is still preserved in the
museum at Naples, and is as shapely and perfect as if the flesh of the
fair young victim had been moulded but yesterday instead of eighteen
hundred years ago. The bodies found in the Diomedan corridors had their
heads wrapped up, and were half covered by the fine infiltrated ashes,
in which was preserved even the imprint of the chemises worn by the
women and children. The bodies had decayed, like those embedded in
other parts of the town, but their forms had been moulded in the ashes
with wonderful precision and distinctness.
In many cases such cavities, after the skeletons contained in them had
been carefully removed, were filled with liquid plaster, which produced
an accurate and durable image of the imprinted form. The museum at
Pompeii contains a collection of such images, which impress upon the
beholder, more vividly, perhaps, than any other objects, the horror
and consternation of those awful days when the rain of volcanic ashes
turned noon to night and overwhelmed the doomed city. One of these
figures is that of a girl with a ring on her finger; another, that of a
woman enceinte; a third, a man whose features are singularly distinct
and natural. A group of three includes father, mother, and daughter,
found lying near one another. The figure of a female shows even the
folds of her drapery and the arrangement of her hair. The attitudes are
generally those which follow a short and fierce death-struggle. Some of
the victims seem to have fallen upon their faces and died suddenly in
their flight. Others, who were perhaps asphyxiated by vapors, have the
calm attitude of sleep, as though death had been but a pleasant dream.
Near the Great Theatre an open court with a peristyle of seventy-four
columns is surrounded by a series of detached cells. This is supposed
to have been a barrack for confinement of the gladiators who were
chosen for the contests of the arena. Sixty-three skeletons found here
are believed to have been those of soldiers who remained on duty during
the eruption. In one of the chambers, used as a prison, the skeletons
of two presumable criminals were found, together with the stocks and
irons with which they were bound for punishment. The story that the
people were assembled, in great numbers, to witness some spectacular
entertainment at the time the volcano began to belch upon them its
rain of ashes is probably a myth. The theatre had been badly wrecked
by the earthquake of 63, and its restoration was yet far from complete
when the eruption broke forth. The streets of Pompeii are generally
narrow, not over twenty-four--some of them not over fourteen--feet in
width, and are paved with blocks of lava, with high stepping-stones at
intervals, for the convenience of foot-passengers in rainy weather.
At the street corners public fountains are placed, from which the
water poured through the decorative head of a god, a mask, or some
similar ornament. Trade signs are rare, but political announcements are
frequently seen, conspicuously printed in red letters. Phallic emblems,
boldly cut in stone and built into the walls, surprise and shock us by
their frequency, notwithstanding their innocently meant purpose as a
means of protection against witchcraft. The architecture of the temples
and other public buildings is a clumsy mixture of the Greek and Roman
style, the columns being invariably laid up in brick or travertine, and
covered with stucco. The dwellings, built of the same materials, or of
travertine, have very little exterior adornment. Yet at the time of
its catastrophe Pompeii must have been a highly decorated town. Marble
was but little used architecturally, but the stucco which took its
place was admirably adapted to decorative painting, and this means of
ornamentation was lavishly employed.
The lower halves of the columns are generally painted red, with
harmonizing colors on the capitals. Interior walls are also laid
with bright, gay coloring, usually red or yellow. But the most
attractive and striking of the mural decorations are the paintings,
the wonderful variety and delicacy of which are only surpassed by
the more astonishing wonder of their preservation. The subjects of
these pictures are generally drawn from poetry or mythology, as, for
instance, Theseus abandoning Ariadne, Ulysses relating his adventures
to Penelope, Cupid holding a mirror up to Venus, Apollo and the Muses,
Polyphemus receiving Galatea's letter from Cupid, Leda and the Swan,
Diana surprised in her bath by Actæon, Achilles and Patroclus, and
representations of Venus, Cupid, Bacchus, Silenus, Mercury, and the
fauns in endless variety. A favorite subject was the beautiful youth
Narcissus, son of the river-god Cephisus and the nymph Liriope.
According to the Greek fable, this youth, seeing his image in a
fountain, became enamoured of it, and, in punishment for his hardness
of heart towards Echo and other nymphs, pined away and was changed to a
flower. In consequence of its origin, this flower loves the borders of
streams, and, bending on its fragile stem, seems to seek its own image
in the waters, but soon fades and dies.
The larger and finer dwellings of Pompeii have generally been named
from their supposed possessors, or from the works of art found in
them. The House of the Tragic Poet, so called from the representation
of a poet reading found in its tablinium, was one of the most elegant
in Pompeii. From the pavement of its vestibule was taken a celebrated
mosaic, now in the museum at Naples, representing a chained dog
barking, with the legend "_cave canem_"--"beware of the dog." The
periphery of the columns of the peristyle is fluted, except the lower
third of the shaft, which is smooth and painted red. The walls of
the interior are decorated with paintings, among which are Venus and
Cupid fishing, Diana with Orion, and a representation of Leda and
Tyndarus, which is very beautiful and remarkably well preserved. This
house, which figures in Bulwer's "Last Days of Pompeii" as the home
of Glaucus, was probably the dwelling of a goldsmith. One of the most
palatial residences yet brought to light is the House of Pansa,--one
hundred and twenty-four by three hundred and nineteen feet,--which
finely illustrates, in its complete and well-preserved appointments,
the plan of an aristocratic Pompeiian mansion of the imperial epoch.
Entering from the street by a vestibule, in the floor of which the
greeting, "_Salve_," was wrought in beautiful mosaic, we reach a large
interior court (atrium), which, owing to the absence of glass or
exterior openings, was necessary for the admission of light and air
to the surrounding chambers. A reservoir for rain-water (impluvium)
occupies the centre of the atrium. Passing from the atrium through a
large apartment called the tablinium, we enter, towards the rear, the
strictly domestic part of the house, which occupies more than half the
space within its walls, and is also provided with an interior court.
The family apartments open into this court, and derive from it their
light and ventilation. It encloses a garden surrounded by a peristyle,
and hence takes the name of peristylium. The front part of the house,
surrounding the atrium, was that in which the proprietor transacted his
business and held intercourse with the external world; the rear part,
surrounding the peristylium, was devoted to domestic use exclusively.
The roof, sloping inward, and open over the interior courts, discharged
the rain which fell upon it into the impluvium. The images of the
household gods usually occupied a place in the vestibule. The House of
Sallust, so named from an epigraph on its outside wall, appears from
later discoveries to have been the property of A. Cossius Libanus.
This house was finished in gay colors and embellished with mural
paintings, one of which--a representation of Actæon surprising Diana
at her bath--is singularly well preserved. Other subjects treated are
the rape of Europa (badly defaced), and Helle in the sea extending her
arm to Phryxus. Opposite to the Actæon is a dainty chamber, arbitrarily
named the venereum, surrounded by polygonal columns painted red.
The impluvium was adorned with a bronze group--now in the museum at
Palermo--representing Hercules contending with a stag. Out of the mouth
of the stag, in this group, the waters of the fountain gushed. Some of
the bedrooms of this house were floored with African marble.