Many years ago there stood a town in Italy, at the foot of Mount
Vesuvius, which was to Rome what Brighton or Hastings is to London--a
very fashionable watering-place, at which Roman gentlemen and members of
the senate built villas, to which they were in the habit of retiring
from the fatigues of business or the broils of politics. The outsides of
all the houses were adorned with frescoes, and every shop glittered with
all the colors of the rainbow. At the end of each street there was a
charming fountain, and any one who sat down beside it to cool himself
had a delightful view of the Mediterranean, then as beautiful, as blue,
and as sunny as it is now. On a fine day, crowds might be seen lounging
here; some sauntering up and down in gala dresses of purple, while
slaves passed to and fro, bearing on their heads splendid vases; others
sat on marble benches, shaded from the sun by awnings, and having before
them tables covered with wine, and fruit, and flowers. Every house in
that town was a little palace, and every palace was like a temple, or
one of our great public buildings.
On entering one of these mansions, the visitor passed through a
vestibule decorated with rows of pillars, and then found himself in the
room in which the household gods kept guard over the owner’s treasure,
which was placed in a safe, or strong box, secured with brass or iron
bands. Issuing thence, the visitor found himself in an apartment paved
with mosaic, and decorated with paintings, in which were kept the family
papers and archives. It contained a dining room and a supper room, and a
number of sleeping rooms; a cabinet, filled with rare jewels and
antiquities, and sometimes a fine collection of paintings; and, last of
all, a pillared peristyle, opening out upon the garden, in which the
finest fruit hung temptingly in the rich light of a golden sky, and
fountains, which flung their waters aloft in every imaginable form and
device, cooled the air and discoursed sweet music to the ear. On the
gate there was always the image of a dog, and underneath it the
inscription, “Beware the dog.”
The pillars in the peristyle were encircled with garlands of flowers,
which were renewed every morning. The tables of citron-wood were inlaid
with silver; the couches were of bronze, gilt and jewelled, and were
furnished with thick cushions and tapestry, embroidered with marvellous
skill. When the master gave a dinner party, the guests reclined upon
these cushions, washed their hands in silver basins, and dried them with
napkins fringed with purple. They ate oysters brought from the shores of
Britain, kids which were carved to the sound of music, and fruits served
up on ice in the hottest days of summer; and while the cup-bearers
filled their golden cups with the rarest and most delicate wines, other
attendants crowned them with flowers wet with dew, and dancers executed
for their pleasure the most graceful movements.
One day, when such festivities as these were in full activity, Vesuvius
sent up a tall and very black column of smoke, something like a
pine-tree; and suddenly, in broad noonday, darkness black as pitch came
over the scene! There was a frightful din of cries and groans, mingled
confusedly together. The brother lost his sister, the husband his wife,
the mother her child; for the darkness became so dense that nothing
could be seen but the flashes which every now and then darted forth from
the summit of the neighboring mountain. The earth trembled, the houses
shook and began to fall, and the sea rolled back from the land as if
terrified; the air became thick with dust; and then, amidst tremendous
and awful noise, a shower of ashes and stones fell upon the town and
blotted it out forever!
The inhabitants died just as the catastrophe found them--guests in their
banqueting halls, soldiers at their posts, prisoners in their dungeons,
thieves in their theft, maidens at the mirror, slaves at the fountain,
traders in their shops, students at their books. Some attempted flight,
guided by blind people, who had walked so long in darkness that no
thicker shadows could ever come upon them; but of these many were struck
down on the way. When, a few days afterwards, people came from the
surrounding country to the place, they found naught but a black, level,
smoking plain, sloping to the sea, and covered thickly with ashes!
Down, down beneath, thousands and thousands were sleeping “the sleep
that knows no waking,” with all their little pomps, and vanities, and
pleasures, and luxuries buried with them.
This took place on the 23d of August, A.D. 79; and the name of the town,
thus suddenly overwhelmed with ruin, was Pompeii. Sixteen hundred and
seventeen years afterwards, curious persons began to dig and excavate on
the spot, and lo! they found the city pretty much as it was when
overwhelmed. The houses were standing, the paintings were fresh, and the
skeletons stood in the very positions and the very places in which death
had overtaken their owners so long ago! The researches are still going
on, new wonders are every day coming to light, and we soon shall have
almost as perfect an idea of a Roman town, in the first century of the
Christian era, as if we had walked the streets and gossiped with the
idle loungers at the fountains. Pompeii is the ghost of an extinct
civilization rising up before us.
--ANONYMOUS.