_Pompeii, the City of the Dead.--The Monuments of the Past.--Temples,
Towers, and Palaces.--Tombs and Monuments.--Theatres and
Amphitheatres.--Streets and Squares._
A few days after their ascent of Vesuvius, the whole party started
off to visit Pompeii. The prospect of this journey gave them
unusual delight. Bob had now completely recovered his health and
spirits. Clive's poetic interest in so renowned a place was roused
to the highest pitch of enthusiasm. David's classical taste was
stimulated. Frank's healthy love of sight-seeing was excited by
the thought of a place that so far surpassed all others in interest;
and Uncle Moses evidently considered that this was the one thing
in Europe which could repay the traveller for the fatigues of a
pilgrimage. Thus each, in his own way, felt his inmost heart stirred
within him as they approached the disentombed city; and at length,
when they reached the entrance to the place, it is difficult to
say which one felt the strongest excitement.
They found a number of other visitors there, consisting of
representatives of all nations--Russians, Germans, Americans,
French, and English; ladies, gentlemen, and boys. Michael Angelo
was with them, and was more useful to them than any mere guide-book
could have been.
The first emotions of awe which filled their minds as they entered
the streets of the mysterious city gradually faded away, and they
began to examine everything with great interest. The first thing
that struck their attention was the extreme narrowness of the
streets. There was only room for one carriage to pass at a time.
The sidewalks were a foot higher than the carriage-way. There were
crossing-stones that stood high above the pavement. The sidewalks
were paved with brick, and the carriage-way with lava blocks, which
were very neatly joined together. Clive took a piece of brick as
a relic, and David broke off a fragment from one of the
crossing-stones for the same purpose.
They soon came to a ruined edifice, which Michael Angelo called
the Basilica. It was two hundred feet in length, and seventy in
width. At one end still remained the Tribunal or Seat of Justice,
seven feet above the pavement; and all around the walls were
columns formed of brick, covered with plaster. The boys picked off
some of the plaster as relics.
Leaving this, they went on and came to another ruined edifice,
which Michael Angelo called the Temple of Venus. It was built
round a courtyard, with porticos. Here David and Clive obtained
some more relics.
Beyond this was an open square surrounded by pillars, of which only
the lower parts remained. This was the Forum Civile; and beyond
this stood the Temple of Jupiter, which they visited without finding
anything that was particularly interesting. After this Michael
Angelo took them to a place which he said was the Public Bakery.
Here they saw millstones, ovens, water-vessels, and some other
articles of which they could not guess the use. Not far away were
some bakers' shops. In these shops loaves of bread were found by
the diggers. Of course they were burned to charcoal; but they
retained their original shape, and showed marks upon them which
were probably intended to indicate the bakery from which they came.
Heaps of corn were also found.
Going down the street where these were situated, they came to one
of the gates of the city. Beside this was a niche in the wall,
used as a sentry-box, upon which, all the party gazed with a profound
interest; for in that sentry-box those who disentombed the city
found a skeleton, in the armor and with the equipment of a Roman
soldier. Evidently the sentry had died at his post.
They took a good look at the walls here, which they found to be
about twenty-five feet high, and formed of huge stones, that were
joined together without cement. The gates had evidently been double.
Passing through this gate, they found themselves outside the city,
in what Michael Angelo called the "Street of Tombs." Looking down
it, they noticed a number of edifices of a monumental character,
lining it on either side. These were the tombs of wealthy citizens.
They visited several of them, and found them all alike. The interiors
were all simple, the walls being pierced with niches, in which were
deposited the urns that held the ashes of the dead. This was the
first time that they had seen anything of this kind, and they
examined it with deep and solemn interest. Here, too, Clive and
David succeeded in finding some relics in the shape of some burnt
fragments of human bones.
After this Michael Angelo led them to what was once the finest
mansion of the city, now known as the Villa of Diomede. They entered
here, and wandered through the halls, and rooms, and courtyards.
They saw rich mosaic pavements; the basins of what once were
fountains; the lower parts of marble pillars that once belonged to
stately colonnades. They saw some rooms that once had been used
for cold baths, and others that had been used for vapor baths.
Dining-rooms, reception-rooms, bed-rooms, kitchens, libraries,
opened up all around, and told them of that vanished past which
had once peopled all these apartments with busy human life. Far
more than basilicas, or temples, or streets, or walls, were they
affected by this glimpse into the home of a household; and they
traversed that deserted home in eloquent silence. After going
through all the house, they descended into the cellars. These were
very spacious, and extended beneath the entire villa. Here, at
one end, they saw what is called the Wine Cellar. Many wine jars
were standing there--huge earthen vessels, as large as a hogshead,
with wide mouths and round bottoms, which made it impossible for
them to stand erect, unless they were placed against some support.
In these wine jars there was now no wine, however, but only dust
and ashes.
Here Michael Angelo had much to tell them.
He told them that several skeletons had been found in these vaults,
belonging to hapless wretches who had, no doubt, fled here to escape
the storm of ashes which was raging above. One of these skeletons
had a bunch of keys in its bony fingers; and this circumstance led
some to suppose that it was the skeleton of Diomede himself; but
others thought that it belonged to his steward. Whoever he was, he
had fled here only to meet his doom, and to leave his bones as a
memorial to ages in the far distant future.
Leaving this place, they visited another house, which is called
the Villa of Caius Sallust. At one corner of the house they saw
something which at once struck them all as being rather singular.
It was nothing else than a shop, small in size, fitted up with
shelves and counters; a row of jars was fixed on one side, and in
the rear were furnaces. Michael Angelo informed them that it had
once been an eating-house. The boys thought it excessively odd that
the occupants of such a house--people, too, who bore such a name
as Sallust--should tolerate such an establishment; but there was
the undeniable fact before their eyes. Afterwards their surprises
diminished; For in many other houses in Pompeii--they found shops
of the same kind, and saw that the ancient Pompeians were not above
trade; and that, if they did not keep the shops themselves, they
were at least very willing to hire the fronts of their houses to
other parties who did wish to do so. In Sallust's house they saw
the traces of very elegant ornaments, and learned from Michael
Angelo that many of the articles discovered here showed that it
must once have been the abode of a luxurious and refined family.
The elegant house of the Dioscuri was visited next. It is in the
Via dei Mercurii, and is a very interesting and extensive ruin,
and contains some handsome fresco paintings. After this they visited
many other houses, a description of which is not necessary; they
were all like the Villa of Diomede, though less interesting; and
among them all there was the same general character. In all these
only the lower stories remained, though in a few a small part of
the second story was visible.
As the chief part of the Pompeian house was on the ground floor,
the loss of the upper story did not make any particular difference.
Among these they found another temple, called the Pantheon--a large
edifice, which showed signs of great former beauty. It was two
Hundred and thirty feet long, and nearly two hundred feet wide. An
altar is still standing, around which are twelve pedestals, upon
which once stood twelve statues. A few houses and temples followed,
after which Michael Angelo informed them that he was about to take
them to one of the greatest curiosities in the city.
The building to which he led them was in much better preservation
than the majority of the edifices in Pompeii, though not nearly so
large as many that they had seen. It was about sixty feet wide,
and a little longer, being nearly square in shape, and was evidently
a temple of some kind.
"What is this?" asked David.
"This is the Temple of Isis," said Michael Angelo.
"The Temple of Isis!" exclaimed David, in eager excitement. "Is
it, indeed!" and he looked around with a face full of intense
interest. Hitherto, though all the boys had shown much interest,
yet, David had surpassed them all in his enthusiasm. This was
partly on account of his taste for classical studies, and his love
for all connected with classical antiquity, but more especially
from the fact that he had very recently read Bulwer's _Last
Days of Pompeii_; and on this occasion that whole story, with all
its descriptions and all its incidents, was brought vividly before
him by the surrounding scene. Most of all was the Temple of Isis
associated with that story, and it seemed more familiar to him than
anything else that he had found in the city. Glaucus and Ione, the
Christian Olynthus, and the dark Arbaces seemed to haunt the place.
In one of the chambers of this very temple, as Michael Angelo was
now telling,--even while leading the way to that chamber,--had
been found a huge skeleton, with an axe beside it; two walls had
been beaten through by that axe, but the desperate fugitive could
go no farther. In another part of the city had been found, another
skeleton, carrying a bag of Coins and some ornaments of this Temple
of Isis. David listened to Michael Angelo's account with strange
interest, for it seemed to him as though the fabled characters of
Bulwer's story were endowed with actual reality by Michael Angelo's
prosaic statements.
After inspecting the chamber just mentioned, they were taken to a
place where they saw what had once been the pedestal of a statue.
Here Michael Angelo showed them a hollow niche, which was so
contrived that one might conceal himself there, and speak words
which the ignorant and superstitious populace might believe to come
from the idol's own stony lips. This one thing showed the full
depth of ancient ignorance and superstition; and over this Michael
Angelo waxed quite eloquent, and proceeded to deliver himself of
a number of impressive sentences of a highly important character,
which he uttered with that fluent volubility peculiar to the whole
race of guides, ciceroni, and showmen, in all parts of the world.
These moral maxims were part of Michael Angelo's regular routine,
and the moment that he found himself here in this Temple of Isis,
the stream of wisdom would always begin to flow.
The next place to which Michael Angelo intended to take them was
the amphitheatre, which could be seen from where they were standing.
All this time David had been more eager than any of the others,
and far more profoundly moved. He felt his soul stirred to its
inmost depth by the thrilling scenes through which he had been
moving. It seemed to him as though there were revealed here to
his eyes, in one glance, all that he had been laboriously acquiring
from books by the study of years. But this was better than books.
These Roman houses, into which he could walk, were far better than
any number of plans or engraved prints, however accurately done.
These temples afforded an insight into the old pagan religion better
far than volumes of description. These streets, and shops, and
public squares, and wall, and gates, and tombs, all gave him an
insight into the departed Roman civilization that was far fresher,
and more vivid, and more profound, than any that he had ever gained
before. It seemed to him that one day was too small for such a
place. He must come again and again, he thought. He was unwilling
to go on with the rest, but lingered longer than any over each
spot, and was always the last to quit any place which they visited.
They stopped on their way at the Tragic and Comic Theatres, and
at length reached the Amphitheatre itself. This edifice is by
far the largest in the city, and is better preserved than any.
It is built of large blocks of a dark volcanic stone, and
constructed in that massive style which the Romans lived, and of
which they have left the best examples in these huge amphitheatres.
As this Amphitheatre now stands, it might still serve for one of
those displays for which it was built. Tier after tier those
seats arise, which once had accommodations for fifteen or twenty
thousand human beings. On these, it is said, the Pompeians were
seated when that awful volcanic storm burst forth by which the
city was rained. Down from these seats they fled in wildest
disorder, all panic-stricken, rushing down the steps, and crowding
through the doorways, trampling one another under foot, in that
mad race for life; while overhead the storm gathered darker and
darker, and the showers of ashes fell, and the suffocating
sulphuric vapors arose, and amid the volcanic storm the lightnings
of the sky flashed forth, illuminating all the surrounding gloom
with a horrid lustre, and blending with the subterranean rumblings
of the earthquake the thunder of the upper air.
From this cause the Amphitheatre may be considered the central spot
of interest in Pompeii. What little has been told of the fate of
the city gathers around this place, and to him who sits upon those
seats there is a more vivid realization of that awful scene than
can be obtained anywhere else.
On reaching the Amphitheatre they seated themselves on the stone
steps, about half way up the circle of seats, and each one gave
way to the feelings that filled him. They had walked now for hours,
and all of them felt somewhat wearied, so that the rest on these
seats was grateful. Here they sat and rested.