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[Illustration: Recent Excavations made at Pompeii under the Direction of
Inspector Fiorelli, in 1860.]
THE WONDERS OF POMPEII.
BY
MARC MONNIER.
TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL FRENCH.
NEW YORK:
CHARLES SCRIBNER & CO.,
654 BROADWAY.
1871.
=Illustrated Library of Wonders.=
PUBLISHED BY
Messrs. Charles Scribner & Co.,
654 BROADWAY, NEW YORK.
Each one volume 12mo, Price per volume $1.50
* * * * *
Titles of books. No. of Illustrations
THUNDER AND LIGHTNING, 89
WONDERS OF OPTICS, 70
WONDERS OF HEAT, 90
INTELLIGENCE OF ANIMALS, 54
GREAT HUNTS, 22
EGYPT 3,300 YEARS AGO, 40
WONDERS OF POMPEII, 22
THE SUN, BY A. GUILLEMIN, 58
SUBLIME IN NATURE, 50
WONDERS OF GLASS-MAKING, 63
WONDERS OF ITALIAN ART, 28
WONDERS OF THE HUMAN BODY, 45
WONDERS OF ARCHITECTURE, 50
LIGHTHOUSES AND LIGHTSHIPS, 60
BOTTOM OF THE OCEAN, 68
WONDERS OF BODILY STRENGTH AND SKILL, 70
WONDERFUL BALLON ASCENTS, 80
ACOUSTICS, 114
WONDERS OF THE HEAVENS, 48
* THE MOON, BY A. GUILLEMIN, 60
* WONDERS OF SCULPTURE, 61
WONDERS OF ENGRAVING, 32
* WONDERS OF VEGETATION, 45
* WONDERS OF THE INVISIBLE WORLD, 97
* CELEBRATED ESCAPES, 26
* WATER, 77
* HYDRAULICS, 40
* ELECTRICITY, 71
* SUBTERRANEAN WORLDS, 27
* In Press for early publication
_The above works sent to any address, post paid, upon receipt of the
price by the publishers._
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
Facing page
Recent Excavations Made at Pompeii in 1860, under
the Direction of the Inspector, Signor Fiorelli 25
The Rubbish Trucks Going up Empty 30
Clearing out a Narrow Street in Pompeii 33
Plan of Vesuvius 39
The Forum 42
Discovery of Loaves Baked 1800 Years Ago, in the
oven of a Baker 84
Closed House, with a Balcony, Recently Discovered 87
The Nola Gate at Pompeii 96
The Herculaneum Gate Restored 99
The Tepidarium, at the Thermæ 126
The Atrium of the House of Pansa Restored 138
Candelabra, Trinkets, and Kitchen Utensils Found at
Pompeii 148
Kitchen Utensils found at Pompeii 150
Earthenware and Bronze Lamps Found at Pompeii 154
Collar, Ring, Bracelet, and Ear-rings Found at Pompeii 158
Peristyle of the House of Quæstor, at Pompeii 167
The House of Lucretius 169
The Exædra of the House of the Poet 185
The Exædra of the House of the Poet--Second View 189
The Smaller Theatre at Pompeii 206
The Amphitheatre at Pompeii 220
Bodies of Pompeians Cast in the Ashes of the Eruption 239
CONTENTS.
I.
THE EXHUMED CITY.
Page
The Antique Landscape.--The History of Pompeii Before
and After its Destruction.--How it was Buried and
Exhumed.--Winkelmann as a Prophet.--The Excavations
in the Reign of Charles III., of Murat, and of
Ferdinand.--The Excavations as they now are.--Signor
Fiorelli.--Appearance of the Ruins.--What is and What
is not found there. 13
II.
THE FORUM.
Diomed's Inn.--The Niche of Minerva.--The Appearance
and The Monuments of the Forum.--The Antique
Temple.--The Pagan ex-Voto Offerings.--The Merchants'
City Exchange and the Petty Exchange.--The Pantheon,
or was it a Temple, a Slaughter-house, or a
Tavern?--The Style of Cooking, and the Form of
Religion.--The Temple of Venus.--The Basilica.--The
Inscriptions of Passers-by upon the Walls.--The Forum
Rebuilt. 37
III.
THE STREET.
The Plan of Pompeii.--The Princely Names of the
Houses.--Appearance of the Streets, Pavements, Sidewalks,
etc.--The Shops and the Signs.--The Perfumer, the Surgeon,
etc.--An Ancient Manufactory.--Bathing
Establishments.--Wine-shops, Disreputable Resorts.--Hanging
Balconies, Fountains.--Public Placards: Let us
Nominate Battur! Commit no Nuisance!--Religion on
the Street. 67
IV.
THE SUBURBS.
The Custom House.--The Fortifications and the Gates,--The
Roman Highways.--The Cemetery of Pompeii.--Funerals:
the Procession, the funeral Pyre, the Day of
the Dead.--The Tombs and their Inscriptions.--Perpetual
Leases.--Burial of the Rich, of Animals, and of
the Poor.--The Villas of Diomed and Cicero. 93
V.
THE THERMÆ.
The Hot Baths at Rome.--The Thermæ of Stabiæ.--A
Tilt at Sun Dials.--A Complete Bath, as the Ancients
Considered It: the Apartments, the Slaves, the Unguents,
the Strigillæ.--A Saying of the Emperor Hadrian.--The
Baths for Women.--The Reading Room.--The
Roman Newspaper.--The Heating-Apparatus. 120
VI.
THE DWELLINGS.
Paratus and Pansa.--The Atrium and the Peristyle.--The
Dwelling Refurnished and Repeopled.--The Slaves, the
Kitchen, and the Table.--The Morning Occupations of
a Pompeian.--The Toilet of a Pompeian Lady.--A Citizen
Supper: the Courses, the Guests.--The Homes of
the Poor, and the Palaces of Rome. 135
VII.
ART IN POMPEII.
The Homes of the Wealthy.--The Triangular Forum and
the Temples.--Pompeian Architecture: Its Merits and
its Defects.--The Artists of the Little City.--The
Paintings here.--Landscapes, Figures, Rope-dancers,
Dancing-girls, Centaurs, Gods, Heroes, the Iliad
Illustrated.--Mosaics.--Statues and
Statuettes.--Jewelry.--Carved Glass.--Art and Life. 167
VIII.
THE THEATRES.
The Arrangement of the Places of Amusement.--Entrance
Tickets.--The Velarium, the Orchestra, the Stage.--The
Odeon.--The Holconii.--The Side Scenes, the Masks.--The
Atellan Farces.--The Mimes.--Jugglers, etc.--A
Remark of Cicero on the Melodramas.--The Barrack
of the Gladiators.--Scratched Inscriptions, Instruments
of Torture.--The Pompeian Gladiators.--The Amphitheatre:
Hunts, Combats, Butcheries, etc. 199
IX.
THE ERUPTION.
The Deluge of Ashes.--The Deluge of Fire.--The Flight
of the Pompeians.--The Preoccupations of the Pompeian
Women.--The Victims: the Family of Diomed; the
Sentinel; the Woman Walled up in a Tomb; the Priest
of Isis; the Lovers clinging together, etc.--The
Skeletons.--The Dead Bodies moulded by Vesuvius. 232
DIALOGUE.
(IN A BOOKSTORE AT NAPLES.)
A TRAVELLER (_entering_).--Have you any work on Pompeii?
THE SALESMAN.--Yes; we have several. Here, for instance, is
Bulwer's "Last Days of Pompeii."
TRAVELLER.--Too thoroughly romantic.
SALESMAN.--Well, here are the folios of Mazois.
TRAVELLER.--Too heavy.
SALESMAN.--Here's Dumas's "Corricolo."
TRAVELLER.--Too light.
SALESMAN.--How would Nicolini's magnificent work suit you?
TRAVELLER.--Oh! that's too dear.
SALESMAN.--Here's Commander Aloë's "Guide."
TRAVELLER.--That's too dry.
SALESMAN.--Neither dry, nor romantic, nor light, nor heavy!
What, then, would you have, sir?
TRAVELLER.--A small, portable work; accurate, conscientious,
and within everybody's reach.
SALESMAN.--Ah, sir, we have nothing of that kind; besides, it
is impossible to get up such a work.
THE AUTHOR (_aside_).--Who knows?
THE
WONDERS OF POMPEII.
I.
THE EXHUMED CITY.
THE ANTIQUE LANDSCAPE--THE HISTORY OF POMPEII BEFORE AND AFTER
ITS DESTRUCTION.--HOW IT WAS BURIED AND EXHUMED.--WINKELMANN AS A
PROPHET.--THE EXCAVATIONS IN THE REIGN OF CHARLES III., OF MURAT,
AND OF FERDINAND.--THE EXCAVATIONS AS THEY NOW ARE.--SIGNOR
FIORELLI.--APPEARANCE OF THE RUINS.--WHAT IS AND WHAT IS NOT FOUND
THERE.
A railroad runs from Naples to Pompeii. Are you alone? The trip occupies
one hour, and you have just time enough to read what follows, pausing
once in a while to glance at Vesuvius and the sea; the clear, bright
waters hemmed in by the gentle curve of the promontories; a bluish coast
that approaches and becomes green; a green coast that withdraws into the
distance and becomes blue; Castellamare looming up, and Naples receding.
All these lines and colors existed too at the time when Pompeii was
destroyed: the island of Prochyta, the cities of Baiæ, of Bauli, of
Neapolis, and of Surrentum bore the names that they retain. Portici was
called Herculaneum; Torre dell'Annunziata was called Oplontes;
Castellamare, Stabiæ; Misenum and Minerva designated the two extremities
of the gulf. However, Vesuvius was not what it has become; fertile and
wooded almost to the summit, covered with orchards and vines, it must
have resembled the picturesque heights of Monte San Angelo, toward which
we are rolling. The summit alone, honeycombed with caverns and covered
with black stones, betrayed to the learned a volcano "long extinct." It
was to blaze out again, however, in a terrible eruption; and, since
then, it has constantly flamed and smoked, menacing the ruins it has
made and the new cities that brave it, calmly reposing at its feet.
What do you expect to find at Pompeii? At a distance, its antiquity
seems enormous, and the word "ruins" awakens colossal conceptions in the
excited fancy of the traveller. But, be not self-deceived; that is the
first rule in knocking about over the world. Pompeii was a small city of
only thirty thousand souls; something like what Geneva was thirty years
ago. Like Geneva, too, it was marvellously situated--in the depth of a
picturesque valley between mountains shutting in the horizon on one
side, at a few steps from the sea and from a streamlet, once a river,
which plunges into it--and by its charming site attracted personages of
distinction, although it was peopled chiefly with merchants and others
in easy circumstances; shrewd, prudent folk, and probably honest and
clever enough, as well. The etymologists, after having exhausted, in
their lexicons, all the words that chime in sound with Pompeii, have, at
length, agreed in deriving the name from a Greek verb which signifies
_to send, to transport_, and hence they conclude that many of the
Pompeians were engaged in exportation, or perhaps, were emigrants sent
from a distance to form a colony. Yet these opinions are but
conjectures, and it is useless to dwell on them.
All that can be positively stated is that the city was the entrepôt of
the trade of Nola, Nocera, and Atella. Its port was large enough to
receive a naval armament, for it sheltered the fleet of P. Cornelius.
This port, mentioned by certain authors, has led many to believe that
the sea washed the walls of Pompeii, and some guides have even thought
they could discover the rings that once held the cables of the galleys.
Unfortunately for this idea, at the place which the imagination of some
of our contemporaries covered with salt water, there were one day
discovered the vestiges of old structures, and it is now conceded that
Pompeii, like many other seaside places, had its harbor at a distance.
Our little city made no great noise in history. Tacitus and Seneca speak
of it as celebrated, but the Italians of all periods have been fond of
superlatives. You will find some very old buildings in it, proclaiming
an ancient origin, and Oscan inscriptions recalling the antique language
of the country. When the Samnites invaded the whole of Campania, as
though to deliver it over more easily to Rome, they probably occupied
Pompeii, which figured in the second Samnite war, B.C. 310, and which,
revolting along with the entire valley of the Sarno from Nocera to
Stabiæ, repulsed an incursion of the Romans and drove them back to their
vessels. The third Samnite war was, as is well known, a bloody vengeance
for this, and Pompeii became Roman. Although the yoke of the conquerors
was not very heavy--the _municipii_, retaining their Senate, their
magistrates, their _comitiæ_ or councils, and paying a tribute of men
only in case of war--the Samnite populations, clinging frantically to
the idea of a separate and independent existence, rose twice again in
revolt; once just after the battle of Cannæ, when they threw themselves
into the arms of Hannibal, and then against Sylla, one hundred and
twenty-four years later--facts that prove the tenacity of their
resistance. On both occasions Pompeii was retaken, and the second time
partly dismantled and occupied by a detachment of soldiers, who did not
long remain there. And thus we have the whole history of this little
city. The Romans were fond of living there, and Cicero had a residence
in the place, to which he frequently refers in his letters. Augustus
sent thither a colony which founded the suburb of Augustus Felix,
administered by a mayor. The Emperor Claudius also had a villa at
Pompeii, and there lost one of his children, who perished by a singular
mishap. The imperial lad was amusing himself, as the Neapolitan boys do
to this day, by throwing pears up into the air and catching them in his
mouth as they fell. One of the fruits choked him by descending too far
into his throat. But the Neapolitan youngsters perform the feat with
figs, which render it infinitely less dangerous.
We are, then, going to visit a small city subordinate to Rome, much less
than Marseilles is to Paris, and a little more so than Geneva is to
Berne. Pompeii had almost nothing to do with the Senate or the Emperor.
The old tongue--the Oscan--had ceased to be official, and the
authorities issued their orders in Latin. The residents of the place
were Roman citizens, Rome being recognized as the capital and
fatherland. The local legislation was made secondary to Roman
legislation. But, excepting these reservations, Pompeii formed a little
world, apart, independent, and complete in itself. She had a miniature
Senate, composed of decurions; an aristocracy in epitome, represented by
the _Augustales_, answering to knights; and then came her _plebs_ or
common people. She chose her own pontiffs, convoked the comitiæ,
promulged municipal laws, regulated military levies, collected taxes; in
fine selected her own immediate rulers--her consuls (the duumvirs
dispensing justice), her ediles, her quæstors, etc. Hence, it is not a
provincial city that we are to survey, but a petty State which had
preserved its autonomy within the unity of the Empire, and was, as has
been cleverly said, a miniature of Rome.
Another circumstance imparts a peculiar interest to Pompeii. That city,
which seemed to have no good luck, had been violently shaken by
earthquake in the year B.C. 63. Several temples had toppled down along
with the colonnade of the Forum, the great Basilica, and the theatres,
without counting the tombs and houses. Nearly every family fled from the
place, taking with them their furniture and their statuary; and the
Senate hesitated a long time before they allowed the city to be rebuilt
and the deserted district to be re-peopled. The Pompeians at last
returned; but the decurions wished to make the restoration of the place
a complete rejuvenation. The columns of the Forum speedily reappeared,
but with capitals in the fashion of the day; the Corinthian-Roman order,
adopted almost everywhere, changed the style of the monuments; the old
shafts covered with stucco were patched up for the new topwork they were
to receive, and the Oscan inscriptions disappeared. From all this there
sprang great blunders in an artistic point of view, but a uniformity
and consistency that please those who are fond of monuments and cities
of one continuous derivation. Taste loses, but harmony gains thereby,
and you pass in review a collective totality of edifices that bear their
age upon their fronts, and give a very exact and vivid idea of what a
_municeps_ a Roman colony must have been in the time of Vespasian.
They went to work, then, to rebuild the city, and the undertaking was
pushed on quite vigorously, thanks to the contributions of the
Pompeians, especially of the functionaries. The temples of Jupiter and
of Venus--we adopt the consecrated names--and those of Isis and of
Fortune, were already up; the theatres were rising again; the handsome
columns of the Forum were ranging themselves under their porticoes; the
residences were gay with brilliant paintings; work and pleasure had both
resumed their activity; life hurried to and fro through the streets, and
crowds thronged the amphitheatre, when, all at once, burst forth the
terrible eruption of 79. I will describe it further on; but here simply
recall the fact that it buried Pompeii under a deluge of stones and
ashes. This re-awakening of the volcano destroyed three cities, without
counting the villages, and depopulated the country in the twinkling of
an eye.
After the catastrophe, however, the inhabitants returned, and made the
first excavations in order to recover their valuables; and robbers,
too--we shall surprise them in the very act--crept into the subterranean
city. It is a fact that the Emperor Titus for a moment entertained the
idea of clearing and restoring it, and with that view sent two Senators
to the spot, intrusted with the mission of making the first study of the
ground; but it would appear that the magnitude of the work appalled
those dignitaries, and that the restoration in question never got beyond
the condition of a mere project. Rome soon had more serious cares to
occupy her than the fate of a petty city that ere long disappeared
beneath vineyards, orchards, and gardens, and under a thick growth of
woodland--remark this latter circumstance--until, at length, centuries
accumulated, and with them the forgetfulness that buries all things.
Pompeii was then, so to speak, lost, and the few learned men who knew it
by name could not point out its site. When, at the close of the
sixteenth century, the architect Fontana was constructing a subterranean
canal to convey the waters of the Sarno to Torre dell' Annunziata, the
conduit passed through Pompeii, from one end to the other, piercing the
walls, following the old streets, and coming upon sub structures and
inscriptions; but no one bethought him that they had discovered the
place of the buried city. However, the amphitheatre, which, roofed in by
a layer of the soil, formed a regular excavation, indicated an ancient
edifice, and the neighboring peasantry, with better information than the
learned, designated by the half-Latin name of _Civita_, which dim
tradition had handed down, the soil and debris that had accumulated
above Pompeii.
It was only in 1748, under the reign of Charles III, when the discovery
of Herculaneum had attracted the attention of the world to the
antiquities thus buried, that, some vine-dressers having struck upon
some old walls with their picks and spades, and in so doing unearthed
statues, a colonel of engineers named Don Rocco Alcubierra asked
permission of the king to make excavations in the vicinity. The king
consented and placed a dozen of galley-slaves at the colonel's
disposition. Thus it was that by a lucky chance a military engineer
discovered the city that we are about to visit. Still, eight years more
had to roll away before any one suspected that it was Pompeii which they
were thus exhuming. Learned folks thought they were dealing with Stabiæ.
Shall I relate the history of these underground researches, "badly
conducted, frequently abandoned, and resumed in obedience to the same
capriciousness that had led to their suspension," as they were? Such are
the words of the opinion Barthelemy expressed when writing, in 1755, to
the Count de Caylus. Winkelmann, who was present at these excavations a
few years later, sharply criticised the tardiness of the galley-slaves
to whom the work had been confided. "At this rate," he wrote, "our
descendants of the fourth generation will still have digging to do among
these ruins." The illustrious German hardly suspected that he was making
so accurate a prediction as it has turned out to be. The descendants of
the fourth generation are our contemporaries, and the third part of
Pompeii is not yet unearthed.
The Emperor Joseph II. visited the excavations on the 6th of April,
1796, and complained bitterly to King Ferdinand IV. of the slight degree
of zeal and the small amount of money employed. The king promised to do
better, but did not keep his word. He had neither intelligence nor
activity in prosecuting this immense task, excepting while the French
occupation lasted. At that time, however, the government carried out the
idea of Francesco La Vega, a man of sense and capacity, and purchased
all the ground that covered Pompeii. Queen Caroline, the sister of
Bonaparte and wife of Murat, took a fancy to these excavations and
pushed them vigorously, often going all the way from Naples through six
leagues of dust to visit them. In 1813 there were exactly four hundred
and seventy-six laborers employed at Pompeii. The Bourbons returned and
commenced by re-selling the ground that had been purchased under Murat;
then, little by little, the work continued, at first with some activity,
then fell off and slackened more and more until, from being neglected,
they were altogether abandoned, and were resumed only once in a while in
the presence of crowned heads. On these occasions they were got up like
New Year's surprise games: everything that happened to be at hand was
scattered about on layers of ashes and of pumice-stone and carefully
covered over. Then, upon the arrival of such-and-such a majesty, or this
or that highness, the magic wand of the superintendent or inspector of
the works, caused all these treasures to spring out of the ground. I
could name, one after the other, the august personages who were deceived
in this manner, beginning with the Kings of the Two Sicilies and of
Jerusalem.
But that is not all. Not only was nothing more discovered at Pompeii,
but even the monuments that had been found were not preserved. King
Ferdinand soon discovered that the 25,000 francs applied to the
excavations were badly employed; he reduced the sum to 10,000, and that
amount was worn down on the way by passing through so many hands.
Pompeii fell back, gradually presenting nothing but ruins upon ruins.
Happily, the Italian Government established by the revolution of 1860,
came into power to set all these acts of negligence and roguery to
rights. Signor Fiorelli, who is all intelligence and activity, not to
mention his erudition, which numerous writings prove, was appointed
inspector of the excavations. Under his administration, the works which
had been vigorously resumed were pushed on by as many as seven hundred
laborers at a time, and they dug out in the lapse of three years more
treasures than had been brought to light in the thirty that preceded
them. Everything has been reformed, nay, _moralised_, as it were, in the
dead city; the visitor pays two francs at the gate and no longer has to
contend with the horde of guides, doorkeepers, rapscallions, and beggars
who formerly plundered him. A small museum, recently established,
furnishes the active inquirer the opportunity of examining upon the spot
the curiosities that have already been discovered; a library containing
the fine works of Mazois, of Raoul Rochette, of Gell, of Zahn, of
Overbeck, of Breton, etc., on Pompeii, enables the student to consult
them in Pompeii itself; workshops lately opened are continually busy in
restoring cracked walls, marbles, and bronzes, and one may there
surprise the artist Bramante, the most ingenious hand at repairing
antiquities in the world, as likewise my friend, Padiglione, who, with
admirable patience and minute fidelity, is cutting a small model in cork
of the ruins that have been cleared, which is scrupulously exact. In
fine--and this is the main point--the excavations are no longer carried
on occasionally only, and in the presence of a few privileged persons,
but before the first comer and every day, unless funds have run short.
"I have frequently been present," wrote a half-Pompeian, a year or two
ago, in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_--"I have frequently been present for
hours together, seated on a sand-bank which itself, perhaps, concealed
wonders, and witnessed this rude yet interesting toil, from which I
could not withdraw my gaze. I therefore have it in my power to write
understandingly. I do not relate what I read, but what I saw. Three
systems, to my knowledge, have been employed in these excavations. The
first, inaugurated under Charles III., was the simplest. It consisted in
hollowing out the soil, in extricating the precious objects found, and
then in re-filling the orifice--an excellent method of forming a museum
by destroying Pompeii. This method was abandoned so soon as it was
discovered that a whole city was involved. The second system, which was
gradually brought to perfection in the last century, was earnestly
pursued under Murat. The work was started in many places at once, and
the laborers, advancing one after the other, penetrating and cutting the
hill, followed the line of the streets, which they cleared little by
little before them. In following the streets on the ground-level, the
declivity of ashes and pumice-stone which obstructed them was attacked
below, and thence resulted many regrettable accidents. The whole upper
part of the houses, commencing with the roofs, fell in among the
rubbish, along with a thousand fragile articles, which were broken and
lost without there being any means of determining the point from which
they had been hurled down. In order to obviate this inconvenience,
Signor Fiorelli has started a third system. He does not follow the
streets by the ground-level, but he marks them out over the hillocks,
and thus traces among the trees and cultivated grounds wide squares
indicating the subterranean, islets. No one is ignorant of the fact that
these islets--_isole, insulæ_ in the modern as well as in the ancient
language of Italy--indicate blocks of buildings. The islet traced,
Signor Fiorelli repurchases the land which had been sold by King
Ferdinand I. and gives up the trees found upon it.[A]
"The ground, then, being bought and the vegetation removed, work begins.
The earth at the summit of the hill is taken off and carried away on a
railroad, which descends from the middle of Pompeii by a slope that
saves all expense of machinery and fuel, to a considerable distance
beyond the amphitheatre and the city. In this way, the most serious
question of all, to wit, that of clearing away the dirt, is solved.
Formerly, the ruins were covered in with it, and subsequently it was
heaped up in a huge hillock, but now it helps to construct the very
railroad that carries it away, and will, one day, tip it into the sea.
"Nothing can present a livelier scene than the excavation of these
ruins. Men diligently dig away at the earth, and bevies of young girls
run to and fro without cessation, with baskets in their hands. These
are sprightly peasant damsels collected from the adjacent villages most
of them accustomed to working in factories that have closed or curtailed
operations owing to the invasion of English tissues and the rise of
cotton. No one would have dreamed that free trade and the war in America
would have supplied female hands to work at the ruins of Pompeii. But
all things are linked together now in this great world of ours, vast as
it is. These girls then run backward and forward, filling their baskets
with soil, ashes, and _lapillo_, hoisting them on their heads, by the
help of the men, with a single quick, sharp motion, and thereupon
setting off again, in groups that incessantly replace each other, toward
the railway, passing and repassing their returning companions. Very
picturesque in their ragged gowns of brilliant colors, they walk swiftly
with lengthy strides, their long skirts defining the movements of their
naked limbs and fluttering in the wind behind them, while their arms,
with gestures like those of classic urn-bearers, sustain the heavy load
that rests upon their heads without making them even stoop. All this is
not out of keeping with the monuments that gradually appear above the
surface as the rubbish is removed. Did not the sight of foreign
visitors here and there disturb the harmony of the scene, one might
readily ask himself, in the midst of this Virgilian landscape, amid
these festooning vines, in full view of the smoking Vesuvius, and
beneath that antique sky, whether all those young girls who come and go
are not the slaves of Pansa, the ædile, or of the duumvir Holconius."
[Illustration: The Rubbish Trucks Going up Empty.]
We have just glanced over the history of Pompeii before and after its
destruction. Let us now enter the city. But a word of caution before we
start. Do not expect to find houses or monuments still erect and roofed
in like the Pantheon at Rome and the square building at Nismes, or you
will be sadly disappointed. Rather picture to yourself a small city of
low buildings and narrow streets that had been completely burned down in
a single night. You have come to look at it on the day after the
conflagration. The upper stories have disappeared, and the ceilings have
fallen in. Everything that was of wood, planks, and beams, is in ashes;
all is uncovered, and no roofs are to be seen. In these structures,
which in other days were either private dwellings or public edifices,
you now can everywhere walk under the open sky. Were a shower to come
on, you would not know where to seek shelter. It is as though you were
in a city in progress of building, with only the first stories as yet
completed, but without the flooring for the second. Here is a house:
nothing remains of it but the lower walls, with nothing resting on them.
At a distance you would suppose it to be a collection of screens set up
for parlor theatricals. Here is a public square: you will now see in it
only bottom platforms, supports that hold up nothing, shafts of columns
without galleries, pedestals without statues, mute blocks of stone,
space and emptiness. I will lead you into more than one temple. You will
see there only an eminence of masonry, side and end walls, but no front,
no portico. Where is art? Where is the presiding deity of the place? The
ruins of your stable would not be more naked a thousand years hence.
Stones on all sides, tufa, bricks, lava, here and there some slabs of
marble and travertine, then traces of destruction--paintings defaced,
pavements disjointed and full of gaps and cracks--and then marks of
spoliation, for all the precious objects found were carried off to the
museum at Naples, and I can show you now nothing but the places where
once stood the Faun, the statue of Narcissus, the mosaic of Arbelles and
the famous blue vase. Such is the Pompeii that awaits the traveller who
comes thither expecting to find another Paris, or, at least, ruins
arranged in the Parisian style, like the tower of St. Jacques, for
instance.
[Illustration: Clearing out a Narrow Street in Pompeii.]
You will say, perhaps, good reader, that I disenchant you; on the
contrary, I prevent your disenchantment. Do not prepare the way for your
own disappointment by unreasonable expectations or by ill-founded
notions; this is all that I ask of your judgment. Do not come hither to
look for the relics of Roman grandeur. Other impressions await you at
Pompeii. What you are about to see is an entire city, or at all events
the third of an ancient city, remote, detached from every modern town,
and forming in itself something isolated and complete which you will
find nowhere else. Here is no Capitol rebuilt; no Pantheon consecrated
now to the God of Christianity; no Acropolis surmounting a Danish or
Bavarian city; no Maison Carrée (as at Nismes) transformed to a gallery
of paintings and forming one of the adornments of a modern Boulevard.
At Pompeii everything is antique and eighteen centuries old; first the
sky, then the landscape, the seashore, and then the work of man,
devastated undoubtedly, but not transformed, by time. The streets are
not repaired; the high sidewalks that border them have not been lowered
for the pedestrians of our time, and we promenade upon the same stones
that were formerly trodden by the feet of Sericus the merchant and
Epaphras the slave. As we enter these narrow streets we quit, perforce,
the year in which we are living and the quarter that we inhabit. Behold
us in a moment transported to another age and into another world.
Antiquity invades and absorbs us and, were it but for an hour, we are
Romans. That, however, is not all. I have already repeatedly said that
Vesuvius did not destroy Pompeii--it has preserved it.
The structures that have been exhumed crumble away in the air in a few
months--more than they had done beneath the ashes in eighteen centuries.
When first disinterred the painted walls reappear fresh and glowing as
though their coloring were but of yesterday. Each wall thus becomes, as
it were, a page of illustrated archeology, unveiling to us some point
hitherto unknown of the manners, customs, private habits, creeds and
traditions; or, to sum all up in a word, of the life of the ancients.
The furniture one finds, the objects of art or the household utensils,
reveal to us the mansion; there is not a single panel which, when
closely examined, does not tell us something. Such and such a pillar has
retained the inscription scratched upon it with the point of his knife
by a Pompeian who had nothing else to do; such a piece of wall on the
street set apart for posters, presents in huge letters the announcement
of a public spectacle, or proclaims the candidature of some citizen for
a contested office of the state.
I say nothing of the skeletons, whose attitudes relate, in a most
striking manner, the horrors of the catastrophe and the frantic
struggles of the last moment. In fine, for any one who has the faculty
of observation, every step is a surprise, a discovery, a confession won
concerning the public and private life of the ancients. Although at
first sight mute, these blocks of stone, when interrogated, soon speak
and confide their secrets to science or to the imagination that catches
a meaning with half a word; they tell, little by little, all that they
know, and all the strange, mysterious things that took place on these
same pavements, under this same sky, in those miraculous times, the most
interesting in history, viz.: the eighth century of Rome and the first
of the Christian era.
[Footnote A: The money accruing from this sale is applied to the
Pompeian library mentioned elsewhere.]
II.
THE FORUM.
DIOMED'S INN.--THE NICHE OF MINERVA.--THE APPEARANCE AND THE
MONUMENTS OF THE FORUM.--THE ANTIQUE TEMPLE.--THE PAGAN EX-VOTO
OFFERINGS.--THE MERCHANTS' CITY EXCHANGE AND THE PETTY
EXCHANGE.--THE PANTHEON, OR WAS IT A TEMPLE, A SLAUGHTER-HOUSE, OR
A TAVERN?--THE STYLE OF COOKING AND THE FORM OF RELIGION.--THE
TEMPLE OF VENUS.--- THE BASILICA.--THE INSCRIPTIONS OF PASSERS-BY
UPON THE WALLS.--THE FORUM REBUILT.
As you alight at the station, in the first place breakfast at the
_popina_ of Diomed. It is a tavern of our own day, which has assumed an
antique title to please travellers. You may there drink Falernian wine
manufactured by Scala, the Neapolitan chemist, and, should you ask for
some _jentaculum_ in the Roman style--_aliquid scitamentorum_,
_glandionidum suillam taridum_, _pernonidem_, _sinciput aut omenta
porcina_, _aut aliquid ad eum modum_--they will serve you a beefsteak
and potatoes. Your strength refreshed, you will scale the sloping
hillock of ashes and rubbish that conceals the ruins from your view; you
will pay your two francs at the office and you will pass the
gate-keeper's turnstile, astonished, as it is, to find itself in such a
place. These formalities once concluded you have nothing more that is
modern to go through unless it be the companionship of a guide in
military uniform who escorts you, in reality to _watch_, you (especially
if you belong to the country of Lord Elgin), but not to mulct you in the
least. Placards in all the known languages forbid you to offer him so
much as an _obolus_. You make your _entrée_, in a word, into the antique
life, and you are as free as a Pompeian.
The first thing one sees is an arcade and such a niche as might serve
for an image of the Madonna; but be reassured, for the niche contains a
Minerva. It is no longer the superstition of our own time that strikes
our gaze. Under the arcade open extensive store-houses that probably
served as a place of deposit for merchandise. You then enter an
ascending paved street, pass by the temple of Venus and the Basilica,
and arrive at the Forum. There, one should pause.
At first glance, the observer distinguishes nothing but a long square
space closed at the further extremity by a regular-shaped mound rising
between two arcades; lateral alleys extend lengthwise on the right and
the left between shafts of columns and dilapidated architectural
work. Here and there some compound masses of stone-work indicate altars
or the pedestals of statues no longer seen. Vesuvius, still threatening,
smokes away at the extremity of the picture.
[Illustration: Plan of Vesuvius.]
Look more closely and you will perceive that the fluted columns are of
Caserta stone, of tufa, or of brick, coated with stucco and raised two
steps above the level of the square. Under the lower step runs the
kennel. These columns sustained a gallery upon which one mounted by
narrow and abrupt steps that time has spared. This upper gallery must
have been covered. The women walked in it. A second story of columns,
most likely interrupted in front of the monuments, rested upon the other
one. Mazois has reconstructed this colonnade in two superior
orders--Doric below and Ionic above--with exquisite elegance. The
pavement of the square, on which you may still walk, was of travertine.
Thus we see the Forum rising again, as it were, in our presence.
Let us glance at the ruins that surround it. That mound at the other end
was the foundation of a temple, the diminutive size of which strikes the
newcomer at first sight. Every one is not aware that the temple, far
from being a place of assemblage for devout multitudes, was, with the
ancients, in reality, but a larger niche inclosing the statue of the
deity to be worshipped. The consecrated building received only a small
number of the elect after they had been befittingly purified, and the
crowd remained outside. It was not the palace, but the mere cell of the
god. This cell (_cella_) was, at first, the whole temple, and was just
large enough to hold the statue and the altar. By degrees it came to be
ornamented with a front portico, then with a rear portico, and then with
side colonnades, thus attaining by embellishment after embellishment the
rich elegance of the Madeleine at Paris. But the proportions of our
cathedrals were never adopted by the ancients. Thus, Christianity rarely
appropriates the Greek or Roman temples for its worship. It has
preferred the vast basilicas, the royal name of which assumes a
religious meaning.
The Romans built their temples in this wise: The augur--that is to say,
the priest who read the future in the flight of birds--traced in the sky
with his short staff a spacious square, which he then marked on the
soil. Stakes were at once fixed along the four lines, and draperies were
hung between the stakes. In the midst of this space, the area or
inclosure of the temple, the augur marked out a cross--the augural
cross, indicating the four cardinal points; the transverse lines fixed
the limits of the _cella_; the point where the two branches met was the
place for the door, and the first stone was deposited on the threshold.
Numerous lighted lamps illuminated these ceremonies, after which the
chief priest, the _pontifex maximus_, consecrated the area, and from
that moment it became settled and immovable. If it crumbled, it must be
rebuilt on the same spot, and the least change made, even should it be
to enlarge it, would be regarded as a profanation. Thus had the dwelling
of the god that rises before us at the extremity of the Forum been
consecrated.
Like most of the Roman temples, this edifice is elevated on a foundation
(the _podium_), and turned toward the north. One ascends to it by a
flight of steps that cuts in the centre a platform where, perhaps, the
altar stood. Upon the _podium_ there remain some vestiges of the twelve
columns that formed the front portico or _pronaos_. Twelve columns, did
I say?--three on each side, six in front; always an even number at the
facades, so that a central column may not mask the doorway and that the
temple may be freely entered by the intercolumnar middle space.
To the right and the left of the steps were pedestals that formerly
sustained statues probably colossal. Behind the _pronaos_ could be
recognized the place where the _cella_ used to be. Nothing remains of it
now but the mosaic pavement and the walls. Traces of columns enable us
to reconstruct this sanctuary richly. We can there raise--and it has
been done on paper--two colonnades--the first one of the Ionic order,
supporting a gallery; the second of the Corinthian order, sustaining the
light wooden platform of painted wood which no longer exists. The walls,
covered with stucco, still retain pretty decorative paintings. Three
small subterranean chambers, of very solid construction, perhaps
contained the treasury and archives of the State, or something else
entirely different--why not those of the temple? In those times the
Church was rich; the Saviour had not ordained poverty as its portion.
[Illustration: THE FORUM.]
What deity's house is it that we are visiting now? Jupiter's, says
common opinion, upon the strength of a colossal statue of which
fragments have been found that might well have fitted the King of the
Gods. Others think it the temple of Venus, the _Venus Physica_ (the
beautiful in nature, say æsthetic philosophers) being the patroness of
Pompeii. We shall frequently, hereafter, meet with the name of this
goddess. Several detached limbs in stone and in bronze, which are not
broken at the extremity as though they belonged to a statue, but are
polished on all sides and cut in such a manner as to admit of being
suspended, were found among the ruins; they were votive offerings.
Italy, in becoming Catholic, has retained these Pagan customs. Besides
her supreme God, she worships a host of demi-gods, to whom she dedicates
her towns and consecrates her temples, where garlands of ex-voto
offerings testify to the intercession of the priests and the gratitude
of the true believers.
On the two sides of the temple of Jupiter--such is the
generally-accepted name--rise arcades, as I have already remarked. The
one on the left is a vaulted entrance, which, being too low and standing
too far forward, does not correspond with the other and deranges, one
cannot exactly make out why, the symmetry of this part of the Forum. The
other arcade is evidently a triumphal portal. Nothing remains of it now
but the body of the work in brick, some niches and traces of pilasters;
but it is easy to replace the marbles and the statues which must have
adorned this monument in rather poor taste. Such was the extremity of
the Forum.
Four considerable edifices follow each other on the eastern side of this
public square. These are, going from south to north, the palace of
Eumachia, the temple of Mercury, the Senate Chamber, and the Pantheon.
What is the Eumachia palace? An inscription found at that place reads:
"Eumachia, in her name and in the name of her son, has erected to
Concord and to august Piety, a Chalcidicum, a crypt and porticoes."
What is a Chalcidicum? Long and grave have been the discussions on this
subject among the savans. They have agreed, however, on one point, that
it should be a species of structure invented at Chalcis, a city of
Eubea.
However that may be, this much-despoiled palace presents a vast open
gallery, which was, certainly, the portico mentioned above. Around the
portico ran a closed gallery along three sides, and that must have been
the crypt. Upon the fourth side--that is to say, before the entry that
fronts the Forum--stood forth a sort of porch, a large exterior
vestibule: that was probably the Chalcidicum.
The edifice is curious. Behind the vestibule are two walls, not
parallel, one of which follows the alignment of the Forum, and the other
that of the interior portico. The space between this double wall is
utilized and some shops hide themselves in its recesses. Thus the
irregularity of the plan is not merely corrected--it is turned to useful
account. The ancients were shrewd fellows. This portico rested on
fifty-eight columns, surrounding a court-yard. In the court-yard, a
large movable stone, in good preservation, with the ring that served to
lift it, covered a cistern. At the extremity of the portico, in a
hemicycle, stood a headless statue--perhaps the Piety or Concord to
which the entire edifice was dedicated. Behind the hemicycle a sort of
square niche buried itself in the wall between two doors, one of which,
painted on the wall for the sake of symmetry, is a useful and curious
document. It is separated into three long and narrow panels and is
provided with a ring that should have served to move it. Doors are
nowhere to be seen now in Pompeii, because they were of wood, and
consequently were consumed by the fire; hence, this painted
representation has filled the savants with delight; they now know that
the ancients shut themselves in at home by processes exactly like our
own.
Between, the two doors, in the square niche, the statue of Eumachia, or,
at least, a moulded model of that statue, is still erect upon its
pedestal. It is of a female of tall stature, who looks sad and ill. An
inscription informs us that the statue was erected in her honor by the
fullers. These artisans formed quite a respectable corporation at
Pompeii, and we shall presently visit the manufactory where they
worked. Everything is now explained: the edifice of Eumachia must have
been the Palace of Industry of that city and period. This is the
Pompeian Merchants' Exchange, where transactions took place in the
portico, and in winter, in the crypt. The tribunal of commerce sat in
the hemicycle, at the foot of the statue of Concord, raised there to
appease quarrels between the merchants. In the court-yard, the huge
blocks of stone still standing were the tables on which their goods were
spread. The cistern and the large vats yielded the conveniences to wash
them. In fine, the Chalcidicum was the smaller Exchange, and the niches
still seen there must have been the stands of the auctioneers. But what
was there in common between this market, this fullers' counter, and the
melancholy priestess?
Religion at that period entered into everything, even into trade and
industry. A secret door put the edifice of Eumachia in communication
with the adjacent temple. That temple, which was dedicated to
Mercury--why to Mercury?--or to Quirinus--why _not_ to Mercury?--at this
day forms a small museum of precious relics. The entrance to it is
closed with a grating through which a sufficient view may be had of the
bas-relief on the altar, representing a sacrifice. A personage whose
head is half-veiled presides at the ceremony; behind that person a child
carries the consecrated water in a vase, and the _victimarius_, bearing
an axe, leads the bull that is to be offered up. Behind the sacrificial
party are some flute-players. On the two sides of the altar other
bas-reliefs represent the instruments that were used at the sacrifices;
the _lituus_, or curved staff of the augur; the _acerra_, or perfuming
censer; the _mantile_, or consecrated cloth that--let us simply say, the
napkin,--and, finally, the vases peculiar to these ceremonies, the
_patere_, the _simpulum_, and the _prefericulum_.