accomplished by other slaves. The seamstresses (_carcinatrices_)
belonged to the least-important class; for that matter, there was little
or no sewing to do on the garments of the ancients. Lucretia had been
dead for many years, and the matrons of the empire did not waste their
time in spinning wool. When Livia wanted to make the garments of
Augustus with her own hands, this fancy of the Empress was considered to
be in very bad taste. A long retinue of slaves (cutters, linen-dressers,
folders, etc.), shared in the work of the feminine toilet, which, after
all, was the simplest that had been worn, since the nudity of the
earliest days. Over the scarf which they called _trophium_, and which
sufficed to hold up their bosoms, the Roman ladies passed a long-sleeved
_subucula_, made of fine wool, and over that they wore nothing but the
tunic when in the house. The _libertinæ_, or simple citizens' wives and
daughters, wore this robe short and coming scarcely to the knee, so as
to leave in sight the rich bracelets that they wore around their legs.
But the matrons lengthened the ordinary tunic by means of a plaited
furbelow or flounce (_instita_), edged, sometimes, with golden or purple
thread. In such case, it took the name of _stola_, and descended to
their feet. They knotted it at the waist, by means of a girdle
artistically hidden under a fold of the tucked-up garment. Below the
tunic, the women when on the street wore, lastly, their _toga_, which
was a roomy mantle enveloping the bosom and flung back over the left
shoulder; and thus attired, they moved along proudly, draped in white
woollens.
At length, the wife of Paratus is completely attired; she has drawn on
the white bootees worn by matrons; unless, indeed, she happens to prefer
the sandals worn by the libertinæ,--the freedwomen were so
called,--which left those large, handsome Roman feet, which we should
like to see a little smaller, uncovered. The selection of her jewelry is
now all that remains to be done. Sabina owned some curious specimens
that were found in the ruins of her house. The Latins had a discourteous
word to designate this collection of precious knick-knackery; they
called it the "woman's world," as though it were indeed all that there
was in the world for women. One room in the Museum at Naples is full of
these exhumed trinkets, consisting of serpents bent into rings and
bracelets, circlets of gold set with carved stones, earrings
representing sets of scales, clusters of pearls, threads of gold
skilfully twisted into necklaces; chaplets to which hung amulets, of
more or less decent design, intended as charms to ward off ill-luck;
pins with carved heads; rich clasps that held up the tunic sleeves or
the gathered folds of the mantle, cameoed with a superb relief and of
exquisite workmanship worthy of Greece; in fine, all that luxury and
art, sustaining each other, could invent that was most wonderful. The
Pompeian ladies, in their character of provincials, must have carried
this love of baubles that cost them so dearly, to extremes: thus, they
wore them in their hair, in their ears, on their necks, on their
shoulders, their arms, their wrists, their legs, even on their ankles
and their feet, but especially on their hands, every finger of which,
excepting the middle one, was covered with rings up to the third
joint, where their lovers slipped on those that they desired to
exchange with them.
[Illustration: Necklace, Ring, Bracelets, and Ear-rings found at
Pompeii.]
Her toilet completed, Sabina descended from her room in the upper story.
The ordinary guests, the friend of the house, the clients and _the
shadows_ (such was the name applied to the supernumeraries, the humble
doubles whom the invited guests brought with them), awaited her in the
peristyle. Nine guests in all--the number of the Muses. It was forbidden
to exceed that total at the suppers of the triclinium. There were never
more than nine, nor less than three, the number of the Graces. When a
great lord invited six thousand Romans to his table, the couches were
laid in the atrium. But there is not an atrium in Pompeii that could
contain the hundredth part of that number.
The ninth hour of the day, i.e., the third or fourth in the afternoon,
has sounded, and it is now that the supper begins in all respectable
houses. Some light collations, in the morning and at noon, have only
sharpened the appetites of the guests. All are now assembled; they wash
their hands and their feet, leave their sandals at the door, and are
shown into the triclinium.
The three bronze bedsteads are covered with cushions and drapery; the
one at the end (_the medius_) in one corner represents the place of
honor reserved for the important guest, the consular personage. On the
couch to the right recline the host, the hostess, and the friend of the
house. The other guests take the remaining places. Then, in come the
slaves bearing trays, which they put, one by one, upon the small bronze
table with the marble top which is stationed between the three couches
like a tripod. Ah! what glowing descriptions I should have to make were
I at the house of Trimalcion or Lucullus! I should depict to you the
winged hares, the pullets and fish carved in pieces, with pork meat; the
wild boar served up whole upon an enormous platter and stuffed with
living thrushes, which fly out in every direction when the boar's
stomach is cut open; the side dishes of birds' tongues; of enormous
_murenæ_ or eels; barbel caught in the Western Ocean and stifled in salt
pickle; surprises of all kinds for the guests, such as sets of dishes
descending from the ceiling, fantastic apparitions, dancing girls,
mountebanks, gladiators, trained female athletes,--all the orgies, in
fine, of those strange old times. But let us not forget where we really
are. Paratus is not an emperor, and has to confine himself to a simple
citizen repast, quiet and unassuming throughout. The bill of fare of one
of these suppers has been preserved, and here we give it:
_First Course._--Sea urchins. Raw oysters at discretion. _Pelorides_ or
palourdes (a sort of shell-fish now found on the coasts of Poitou in
France). Thorny shelled oysters; larks; a hen pullet with asparagus;
stewed oysters and mussels; white and black sea-tulips.
_Second Course._--_Spondulae_, a variety of oyster; sweet water mussels;
sea nettles; becaficoes; cutlets of kid and boar's meat; chicken pie;
becaficoes again, but differently prepared, with an asparagus sauce;
_murex_ and purple fish. The latter were but different kinds of
shell-fish.
_Third Course._--The teats of a sow _au naturel_; they were cut as soon
as the animal had littered; wild boar's head (this was the main dish);
sow's teats in a ragout; the breasts and necks of roast ducks;
fricasseed wild duck; roast hare, a great delicacy; roasted Phrygian
chickens; starch cream; cakes from Vicenza.
All this was washed down with the light Pompeian wine, which was not
bad, and could be kept for ten years, if boiled. The wine of Vesuvius,
once highly esteemed, has lost its reputation, owing to the concoctions
now sold to travellers under the label of _Lachrymæ Christi_. The
vintages of the volcano must have been more honestly prepared at the
period when they were sung by Martial. Every day there is found in the
cellars of Pompeii some short-necked, full-bodied, and elongated
_amphora_, terminating in a point so as to stick upright in the ground,
and nearly all are marked with an inscription stating the age and origin
of the liquor they contained. The names of the consuls usually
designated the year of the vintage. The further back the consul, the
more respectable the wine. A Roman, in the days of the Empire, having
been asked under what consul his wine dated, boldly replied, "Under
none!" thereby proclaiming that his cellar had been stocked under the
earliest kings of Rome.
These inscriptions on the amphoræ make us acquainted with an old
Vesuvian wine called _picatum_, or, in other words, with a taste of
pitch; _fundanum_, or Fondi wine, much esteemed, and many others. In
fine, let us not forget the famous growth of Falernus, sung by the
poets, which did not disappear until the time of Theodoric.
But besides the amphoræ, how much other testimony there still remains of
the olden libations,--those rich _crateræ_, or broad, shallow goblets of
bronze damascened with silver; those delicately chiselled cups; those
glasses and bottles which Vesuvius has preserved for us; that jug, the
handle of which is formed of a satyr bending backward to rub his
shoulders against the edge of the vase; those vessels of all shapes on
which eagles perch or swans and serpents writhe; those cups of baked
clay adorned with so many arabesques and inviting descriptions.
"Friend," says one of them "drink of my contents."
"Friend of my soul, this goblet sip!"
rhymes the modern bard.
What a mass of curious and costly things! What is the use of rummaging
in books! With the museums of Naples before us, we can reconstruct all
the triclinia of Pompeii at a glance.
There, then, are the guests, gay, serene, reclining or leaning on their
elbows on the three couches. The table is before them, but only to be
looked at, for slaves are continually moving to and fro, from one to the
other, serving every guest with a portion of each dish on a slice of
bread. Pansa daintily carries the delicate morsel offered him to his
mouth with his fingers, and flings the bread under the table, where a
slave, in crouching attitude, gathers up all the debris of the repast.
No forks are used, for the ancients were unacquainted with them. At the
most, they knew the use of the spoon or cochlea, which they employed in
eating eggs. After each dish they dipped their fingers in a basin
presented to them, and then wiped them upon a napkin that they carried
with them as we take our handkerchiefs with us. The wealthiest people
had some that were very costly and which they threw into the fire when
they had been soiled; the fire cleansed without burning them. Refined
people wiped their fingers on the hair of the cupbearers,--another
Oriental usage. Recollect Jesus and Mary Magdalene.
At length, the repast being concluded, the guests took off their
wreaths, which they stripped of their leaves into a goblet that was
passed around the circle for every one to taste, and this ceremony
concluded the libations.
I have endeavored to describe the supper of a rich Pompeian and exhibit
his dwelling as it would appear reconstructed and re-occupied. Reduce
its dimensions and simplify it as much as possible by suppressing the
peristyle, the columns, the paintings, the tablinum, the exedra, and all
the rooms devoted to pleasure or vanity, and you will have the house of
a poor man. On the contrary, if you develop it, by enriching it beyond
measure, you may build in your fancy one of those superb Roman palaces,
the extravagant luxuriousness of which augmented, from day to day, under
the emperors. Lucius Crassus, who was the first to introduce columns of
foreign marble, in his dwelling, erected only six of them but twelve
feet high. At a later period, Marcus Scaurus surrounded his atrium with
a colonnade of black marble rising thirty-eight feet above the soil.
Mamurra did not stop at so fair a limit. That distinguished Roman knight
covered his whole house with marble. The residence of Lepidus was the
handsomest in Rome seventy-eight years before Christ. Thirty-five years
later, it was but the hundredth. In spite of some attempts at reaction
by Augustus, this passion for splendor reached a frantic pitch. A
freedman in the reign of Claudius decorated his triclinium with
thirty-two columns of onyx. I say nothing of the slaves that were
counted by thousands in the old palaces, and by hundreds in the
triclinium and kitchen alone.
"O ye beneficent gods! how many men employed to serve a single stomach!"
exclaimed Seneca, who passed in his day for a master of rhetoric. In our
time, he would be deemed a socialist.
[Footnote D: So strong was this feeling, that the very name
_inquilinus_, or lodger, was an insult. Cicero not having been born at
Rome, Catiline called him offensively _civis inquilinus_--a lodger
citizen. (_Sallust_.)]
[Footnote E: Let not fingers that are too thick, and ill-pared nails,
make gestures too conspicuous.]
[Illustration: Peristyle of the House of the Quaestor at Pompeii.]
VII.
ART IN POMPEII.
THE HOMES OF THE WEALTHY.--THE TRIANGULAR FORUM AND THE
TEMPLES.--POMPEIAN ARCHITECTURE: ITS MERITS AND ITS DEFECTS.--THE
ARTISTS OF THE LITTLE CITY.--THE PAINTINGS HERE.--LANDSCAPES,
FIGURES, ROPE-DANCERS, DANCING-GIRLS, CENTAURS, GODS, HEROES, THE
ILIAD ILLUSTRATED.--MOSAICS.--STATUES AND
STATUETTES.--JEWELRY.--CARVED GLASS.--ART AND LIFE.
The house of Pansa was large, but not much ornamented. There are others
which are shown in preference to the visitor. Let us mention them
concisely in the catalogue and inventory style:
The house of the Faun.--Fine mosaics; a masterpiece in bronze; the
Dancing Faun, of which we shall speak farther on. Besides the atrium and
the peristyle, a third court, the xysta, surrounded with forty-four
columns, duplicated on the upper story. Numberless precious things were
found there, in the presence of the son of Goethe. The owner was a
wine-merchant.(?)
The house of the Quæstor, or of Castor and Pollux.--Large safes of very
thick and very hard wood, lined with copper and ornamented with
arabesques, perhaps the public money-chests, hence this was probably the
residence of the quæstor who had charge of the public funds; a
Corinthian atrium; fine paintings--the _Bacchante_ the _Medea_, the
_Children of Niobe_, etc. Rich development of the courtyards.
The house of the Poet.--Homeric paintings; celebrated mosaics; the dog
at the doorsill, with the inscription _Cave Canem_; the _Choragus
causing the recitation of a piece_. All these are at the museum.
The house of Sallust.--A fine bronze group; Hercules pursuing a deer
(taken to the Museum at Palermo); a pretty stucco relievo in one of the
bedchambers; Three couches of masonry in the triclinium; a decent and
modest _venereum_ that ladies may visit. There is seen an Acteon
surprising Diana in the bath, the stag's antlers growing on his forehead
and the hounds tearing him. The two scenes connect in the same picture,
as in the paintings of the middle ages. Was this a warning to rash
people? This venereum contained a bedchamber, a triclinium and a
lararium, or small marble niche in which the household god was
enshrined.
[Illustration: The House of Lucretius.]
The house of Marcus Lucretius.--Very curious. A peristyle forming a sort
of platform, occupied with baubles, which they have had the good taste
to leave there; a miniature fountain, little tiers of seats, a small
conduit, a small fish-tank, grotesque little figures in bronze,
statuettes and images of all sorts,--Bacchus and Bacchantes, Fauns and
Satyrs, one of which, with its arm raised above its head, is charming.
Another in the form of a Hermes holds a kid in its arms; the she-goat
trying to get a glimpse of her little one, is raising her fore-feet as
though to clamber up on the spoiler. These odds and ends make up a
pretty collection of toys, a shelf, as it were, on an ancient what-not
of knick-knacks.
Then, there are the Adonis and the Hermaphrodite in the house of Adonis;
the sacrarium or domestic chapel in the house of the Mosaic Columns; the
wild beasts adorning the house of the Hunt; above all, the fresh
excavations, where the paintings retain their undiminished brilliance.
But if all these houses are to be visited, they are not to be described.
Antiquaries dart upon this prey with frenzy, measuring the tiniest
stone, discussing the smallest painting, and leaving not a single
frieze or panel without some comment, so that, after having read their
remarks, one fancies that everything is precious in this exhumed
curiosity-shop. These folks deceive themselves and they deceive us;
their feelings as virtuosos thoroughly exhaust themselves upon a theme
which is very attractive, very curious, 'tis true, but which calls for
less completely scientific hands to set it to music, the more so that in
Pompeii there is nothing grand, or massive, or difficult to comprehend.
Everything stands right forth to the gaze and explains itself as clearly
and sharply as the light of day.
Moreover, these houses have been despoiled. I might tell you of a pretty
picture or a rich mosaic in such-and-such a room. You would go thither
to look for it and not find it. The museum at Naples has it, and if it
be not there it is nowhere. Time, the atmosphere, and the sunlight have
destroyed it. Therefore, those who make out an inventory of these houses
for you are preparing you bitter disappointments.
The only way to get an idea of Pompeian art is not to examine all these
monuments separately, but to group them in one's mind, and then to pay
the museum an attentive visit. Thus we can put together a little ideal
city, an artistic Pompeii, which we are going to make the attempt to
explore.
Pompeii had two and even three forums. The third was a market; the
first, with which you are already acquainted, was a public square; the
other, which we are about to visit, is a sort of Acropolis, inclosed
like that of Athens, and placed upon the highest spot of ground in the
city. From a bench, still in its proper position at the extremity of
this forum, you may distinguish the valley of the Sarno, the shady
mountains that close its perspective, the cultivated checker-work of the
country side, green tufts of the woodlands, and then the gently curving
coast-line where Stabiæ wound in and out, with the picturesque heights
of Sorrento, the deep blue of the sea, the transparent azure of the
heavens, the infinite limpidity of the distant horizon, the brilliant
clearness and the antique color. Those who have not beheld this scenery,
can only half comprehend its monuments, which would ever be out of
place beneath another sky.
It was in this bright sunlight that the Pompeian Acropolis, the
triangular Forum, stood. Eight Ionic columns adorned its entrance and
sustained a portico of the purest elegance, from which ran two long
slender colonnades widening apart from each other and forming an acute
angle. They are still surmounted with their architrave, which they
lightly supported. The terrace, looking out upon the country and the
sea, formed the third side of the triangle, in the middle of which rose
some altars,--the ustrinum, in which the dead were burned, a small round
temple covering a sacred well, and, finally, a Greek temple rising above
all the rest from the height of its foundation and marking its columns
unobstructedly against the sky. This platform, resting upon solid
supports and covered with monuments in a fine style of art, was the best
written page and the most substantially correct one in Pompeii.
Unfortunately, here, as everywhere else, stucco had been plastered over
the stone-work. The columns were painted. Nowhere could a front of pure
marble--the white on the blue--be seen defined against the sky.
The remaining temples furnish us few data on architecture. You know
those of the Forum. The temple of Fortune, now greatly dilapidated, must
have resembled that of Jupiter. Erected by Marcus Tullius, a reputed
relative of Cicero, it yields us nothing but very mediocre statues and
inscriptions full of errors, proving that the priesthood of the place,
by no means Ciceronian in their acquirements, did not thoroughly know
even their own language. The temple of Esculapius, besides its altar,
has retained a very odd capital, Corinthian if you will, but on which
cabbage leaves, instead of the acanthus, are seen enveloping a head of
Neptune. The temple of Isis, still standing, is more curious than
handsome. It shows[F] that the Egyptian goddess was venerated at
Pompeii, but it tells us nothing about antique art. It is entered at the
side, by a sort of corridor leading into the sacred inclosure. The
temple is on the right; the columns inclose it; a vaulted niche is
hollowed out beneath the altar, where it served as a hiding-place for
the priests,--at least so say the romance-writers. Unfortunately for
this idea, the doorway of the recess stood forth and still stands forth
to the gaze, rendering the alleged trickery impossible.
Behind the cella, another niche contained a statue of Bacchus, who was,
perhaps, the same god as Osiris. An expurgation room, intended for
ablutions and purifications, descending to a subterranean reservoir,
occupied an angle of the courtyard. In front of this apartment stands an
altar, on which were found some remnants of sacrifices. Isis, then, was
the only divinity invoked at the moment of the eruption. Her painted
statue held a cross with a handle to it, in one hand, and a cithera in
the other, and her hair fell in long and carefully curled ringlets.
This is all that the temples give us. Artistically speaking, it is but
little. Neither are the other monuments much richer in their information
concerning ancient architecture. They let us know that the material
chiefly employed consisted of lava, of tufa, of brick, excellently
prepared, having more surface and less thickness than ours; of
_peperino_ (Sarno stone), which time renders very hard, sometimes with
travertine and even marble in the ornaments; then there was Roman
mortar, celebrated for its solidity, less perfect at Pompeii, however,
than at Rome; and finally, the stucco surface, covering the entire city
with its smooth and polished crust, like a variegated mantle. But these
edifices tell us nothing in particular; there is neither a style
peculiar to Pompeii discernible in them, nor do we find artists of the
place bearing any noted name, or possessing any singularity of taste and
method. On the other hand, there is an easy eclecticism that adopts all
forms with equal facility and betrays the decadence or the sterility of
the time. I recall the fact that the city was in process of
reconstruction when it was destroyed. Its unskilful repairs disclose a
certain predilection for that cheap kind of elegance which among us, has
taken the place of art. Stucco tricks off and disfigures everything.
Reality is sacrificed to appearance, and genuine elegance to that kind
of showy avarice which assumes a false look of profusion. In many
places, the flutings are economically preserved by means of moulds that
fill them in the lower part of the columns. Painting takes the place of
sculpture at every point where it can supply it. The capitals affect odd
shapes, sometimes successfully, but always at variance with the
simplicity of high art. Add to these objections other faults, glaring at
first glance,--for instance, the adornment of the temple of Mercury,
where the panels terminate alternately in pediments and in arcades; the
façade of the purgatorium in the temple of Isis, where the arcade itself
cutting the cornice, becomes involved hideously with the pediment. I
shall say nothing either, of the fountains, or of the columns, alas!
formed of shell-work and mosaic.
Faults like these shock the eye of purists; but let us constantly bear
in mind that we are in a small city, the finest residence in which
belonged to a wine-merchant. We could not with fairness expect to find
there the Parthenon, or even the Pantheon of Rome. The Pompeian
architects worked for simple burghers whose moderate wish was to own
pretty houses, not too large nor too dear, but of rich external
appearance and a gayety of look that gratified the eye. These good
tradesmen were served to their hearts' content by skilful persons who
turned everything to good account, cutting rooms by scores within a
space that would not be sufficient for one large saloon in our palaces,
profiting by all the accidents of the soil to raise their structures by
stories into amphitheatres, devising one ingenious subterfuge after
another to mask the defects of alignment, and, in a word, with feeble
resources and narrow means, realizing what the ancients always
dreamed--art combined with every-day life.
For proof of this I point to their paintings covering those handsome
stucco walls, which were so carefully prepared, so frequently overlaid
with the finest mortar, so ingeniously dashed with shining powder, and,
then, so often smoothed, repolished and repacked with wooden rollers
that they, at last, looked like and passed for marble. Whether painted
in fresco or _dry_, in encaustic or by other processes, matters
little--that belongs to technical authorities to decide.[G]