Part 44

“Numerous monuments and inscriptions in Pompeii, indicate the Greek origin of the original colony, and the Egyptian customs and society which preceded the Roman dynasty. The temple of Isis still shows its sacrificial altar, and inscriptions in Egyptian characters cover the columns. Some of the largest and most beautiful of the silver vessels in the museum at Naples, were found in this temple. Curiously enough, as we entered these ancient precincts, in which the serpent was held sacred, a snake, reputed by the guide as venomous, crossing our path, was made a victim, which we offered on the altar.

“Beneath a superb portico in the street of the tombs, the skeletons of a female and several children were discovered; in the street near the temple of Isis, another skeleton was found at the depth of ten feet, and below it, a large collection of gold and silver medals in perfect preservation, chiefly of the reign of Domitian.

“The theaters, whose remains are distinct, are the comic, the tragic, and the amphitheater. They were lined with polished marble, and were, in every way, highly finished and elegant. Of the two former, the entire plan and the greater part of the structure are visible, and most of the seats are in place.

“The amphitheater was in a remote part of the city, near the eastern wall. It has undergone so little dilapidation, that it appears almost perfect. We approached it by ascending the ground until we were quite at the top, and we then descended by the stone seats, quite to the arena, which, by pacing, we found to be two hundred and forty feet by one hundred and twenty. From the arena we looked up over the entire circuit and elevation of the seats, which are almost perfectly preserved—thanks to the sepulture of seventeen hundred years. Had this amphitheater been in the midst of Naples, as the Coliseum was at Rome, it would, no doubt, have fared as ill at the hands of the architects. It was easy for us now to people it in imagination, with the thousands of Romans who have so often gazed and applauded from these seats, while blood, both brute and human, was flowing in the arena where we were standing. Such may have been the scenes when the tempest of fire broke forth, for the people of Pompeii are said to have been then engaged in the amphitheater.

“There are two buildings for _public baths_, which are well preserved; the bronze seats and braziers still remain in them. For men, there was a common bath, circular and large enough for entire immersion; it is of marble, and is now in good condition. The dome, or ceiling, has in part fallen in, but the portion over the bath is preserved. We measured the room and found it to be sixty feet by twenty. There was another bath for women, contiguous to this, but at a proper distance. This marble bath is quite perfect, and the room being entirely arched has been preserved uninjured. It is most interesting. There is a living fountain at one end, and there was an arrangement, whose object is even now quite apparent, for warming the room by hot air or steam. Here, in this ancient ladies’ bath, we dined upon our stores brought out from Naples. Intruding upon this retreat, once so sacred, we seated ourselves quite conveniently, on the side of the bath, in a fine frescoed room of sixty feet by sixteen. This was the most perfect building that we saw in Pompeii. In this vicinity, there is a _living fountain_ still abundant, and the river Sarno runs at this moment beneath Pompeii. Through a wide opening we saw its copious and lively stream still flowing in its ancient channel, apparently undisturbed by volcanic and earthquake convulsions.

“The walls of Pompeii are still in good condition; they were three miles in circuit, from eighteen to twenty feet high, and twenty feet thick. Seven gates have been discovered; the gate of Herculaneum, of Vesuvius, of Capua, of Nola, of Sarno, of Stabiæ, and of the theaters. The sites of nine towers have been ascertained. We ascended the wall by stairs of stone, doubtless coeval with the wall itself: the view was imposing. Vesuvius rose above the desolated city, looking down upon its naked walls and roofless houses. The volcanic mound still covers two-thirds of the city, and nothing on its upper surface tells of what lies below. It were greatly to be desired, that an enlightened and energetic government, with adequate means, would uncover the entire city, with its numerous hidden works of art and materials of history.

“The baker’s shop, with his oven of arched and modern form, the tub of stone in which he wet his broom, and the hourglass-shaped mills of hard lava for grinding the grain, we saw all perfect. There were mills of two sizes: one small, such as could be turned by hand, as when ‘two women were grinding at the mill,’ and one much larger, and provided with square holes to receive the ends of levers, requiring, of course, much more force to turn them, and doubtless worked by men. The shops of the wine and oil merchants were provided with large _amphoræ_ set in masonry under the counter, for storing those fluids, and numerous other arrangements for the convenience of the occupants were visible.

“In one house we saw a small circular window, in which part of the glass plate which originally filled it still remains. One other similar glass is said to have been found, although shutters were in general use for most of the windows. As there were no windows, as with us, opening upon the street, and all the doors and windows of the house opened upon private courts and gardens, there was in this mild and equable climate far less occasion for the use of glass than might seem at first requisite. That they understood the manufacture of glass, and how to color it, by the use of the oxyds of cobalt and copper, is abundantly proved by the remains of this ancient art now in the Borbonico museum, at Naples.

“One peculiarity in the construction of the Pompeian houses favors the removal and preservation of the frescoes. The walls upon which the pictures are painted are not solid, but the frescoed surface is supported by studs of masonry or iron, at a distance of some four or five inches in front of the brick walls. Security from dampness is thus obtained, and the task of removing the valued surface much simplified and facilitated. The declining sun found us still lingering on the seats of the amphitheater, at the remotest angle of the city wall, dwelling with delight upon these memorials of the past, and speculating upon the probability of renewed activity in Vesuvius, whose quiet blue cone rose over our right shoulders crowned with a soft cloud of vapor. It was late in the evening of this most interesting day when we reached the door of our hotel, long after darkness had hidden the landscape.

THE MUSEUM.

“The Musæo Borbonico (as it is now called) contains all the most choice and valued works of art and objects of interest which the excavations at Herculaneum and Pompeii have brought to light. To this we repaired on the day following our visit to Pompeii, to follow up our researches into the details of these most interesting discoveries. Here we saw the golden ornaments found upon the skeletons in the house of Diomede, as before mentioned, and many others also. One pair of bracelets weighed a pound each. As for the workmanship, all that was said of the Etruscan golden ornaments is substantially true of the Pompeian. The ladies of these cities were certainly well provided with costly jewelry, both of pure gold and of the same metal set with precious stones. There was one ribbon of wrought gold. Ring stones and brooches without number are preserved here, and among the cameos in agate, are the largest as well as the smallest and most exquisite of these elaborate works of art ever found. Many of the latter can be appreciated only when examined under a strong magnifier.

“Utensils in earthen ware are abundant, but porcelain seems to have been unknown to the Romans. Blown and molded glass of various forms and colors, and designed for various uses, is also common. Pickle jars and olive jars, still retaining their preserved fruits in good condition, were found, and others contained cosmetics or colors. One elegant vase, of the color of =lapis lazuli=, has figures in white enamel cut on its sides, reminding us of the celebrated Portland vase. The Romans seldom employed iron for culinary purposes, but almost every vessel of this description was fashioned from bronze. A very extensive collection is found in this museum, reproducing nearly all our modern metallic vessels both of utility and ornament. They are generally elegant in form, and are often ornamented with artistic designs, especially in the attachment of the spouts, handles, feet or other prominent parts. They are generally also in a remarkable state of preservation, being for the most

## part merely covered by a thin coating of greenish rust, easily removed.

Sometimes, however, they are corroded through and through with holes. Among the bronze vessels in the collection is one showing that the Romans were well acquainted with the modern device of a heater to keep liquids hot in a large vessel. It is quite on the model of the coffee urn of our day. They also employed, as is evident, steam and hot water to keep dishes hot; for there is a very pretty affair in bronze, like a shallow pan, to hold water, set on legs, with a fire beneath, and provided with valves for the escape of steam.

“Among the objects most frequently found in Pompeii are fishing-nets and tackle, showing the habits of the people in this particular to be similar to those of the modern towns of the same coast, although now Pompeii is a mile from the sea. The iron rings in the walls for fastening vessels were also found, and prove still more conclusively the accumulations in seventeen hundred years. Two vases were discovered in Pompeii full of water; in one it was tasteless and limpid, and in the other brown and alkaline. Among the things preserved in the buried cities were walnuts, chestnuts, almonds, dates, dried figs, prunes, corn, oil, peas, lentils, pies and hams. Papyri were found in large numbers, but the rolls were blackened, as were the timber and the corn, as vegetables are by inhumation in coal beds. Beside the pickles, and olives, and roe of fish, already mentioned, we saw in a glass globe, in this part of the museum, wheat, and barley also, blackened by age and dampness. The loaves of bread, bearing the baker’s stamp, which were found in the shop already named, are singularly perfect, showing distinctly the lines of quartering in which the loaf was designed to be cut.

“The works of art found in Herculaneum are in general much better than those from Pompeii, and every external sign proves it to have been a town of more refinement and wealth than its neighbor. Numerous statues in bronze and marble have been collected from these cities, and a large hall in the museum is devoted to their exhibition. Many are mythological, but busts and statues of the several emperors are also common. One bronze horse, considerably injured and corroded, has been found, and an admirable bronze Hercules. The candelabra were numerous and elegant. One we observed fitted to take apart for the convenience of traveling; its sliding rod drops into a case or sheath, and the tripod foot folds together as snugly as the wing of a bird. A very beautiful candelabrum, taken from the house of Diomede, has a basis formed of a small flat table of bronze standing upon feet. It is elegantly inlaid with silver in the form of a running vine and of leaves; some portions have been burnished, to give an idea of its original beauty. A perpendicular rod rises three feet in hight, and supports a cross upon which are suspended four lamps. All the parts are preserved; and were this tasteful candelabrum put in order and burnished, it would be a fine form for our modern artists to copy, who, indeed, often profit by ancient models.

“The Roman steelyards had a scale suspended so as to receive the thing to be weighed, and the weight slid, as with us, upon a graduated beam; in one the counterpoise is fashioned into an elegant female head. There is a collection of surgical instruments, some of them very similar to those used at the present day. Iron probes, iron teeth extractors, elevators for the operation of trepanning, a cauterizing iron, lancets, catheters, amputating instruments, spatulas and obstetric forceps. Along with these things are rolls of the apothecary, ready to be divided into _pills_. The articles of the _toilet_ are abundant; pins of ivory in large numbers and great variety for the hair; combs, curling-tongs, boxes for perfumes and rouge, which is preserved in a small glass bottle; mirrors of metal, small, but sufficient for a lady’s face, and reflectors, to be used probably in a position to give seasonable notice of the approach of a visitor from the vestibule, similar to the arrangement now common in Holland and Germany. Numerous small objects attracted our attention, among which were the ivory dice, and tickets of bone or ivory for admission to the theater, marked and numbered. Musical instruments were common; among them numerous flutes or flageolets, prepared from bone. Numerous bronze penates, truly =dii minores=, often less than a finger’s length in hight, some partly finished, are to be seen in the museum at Naples.

“There is an apartment here, finished in the style of an ancient Roman house. This is in the extreme end of one of the long suites of rooms. The sky-blue panels have each, in the center, a female figure, volant or quiet; the upper part of the side walls, and of the dome, is divided into compartments, which are decorated by colored lines and forms of great beauty, the entire effect of which is charming. The eye delights to dwell upon them, and would never be tired, because the beauty, although exquisite, is simple and tasteful. We saw in the museum, as already mentioned, the helmet and skull of the Roman sentinel found at his post in the city gate at Pompeii, with his short sword by his side; there, too, was the complete armor of a Roman knight with a decorated and crested helmet, with figures embossed upon the breast-plate, and the coverings of the arms and limbs. We must not forget the iron stocks for punishment. A bar of iron or bronze of great weight had metallic projections standing upward, between which the feet were placed, and secured by a cross pin. It does not appear that the head was pinioned, as in modern times; but we could well understand how the feet of the apostles were rendered lame by confinement in the Roman stocks.

“The hall of ancient sculpture, chiefly from Pompeii and Herculaneum, with some figures from Rome, powerfully attracted our attention. These sculptures, usually of full size, and sometimes colossal, are very fine. Excellent, manly forms, and noble, elevated features of men, and of women, worthy of such companions, with great variety of characteristic attitude, and in general, in full costume, served to convey to us, as we may believe, a very perfect idea of the personal appearance of Roman citizens of that age. The family of Balbus found in Herculaneum, is

## particularly interesting. It is composed of the father, a noble figure,

the mother, equally impressive, and sons and daughters worthy of such parentage. Their features are calm and mild. It is a most interesting group, and in perfect preservation. The moral and intellectual expression of the figures in these rooms—through a long series of apartments and a host of figures—is as various as that of living people.

“It is convenient to introduce here a notice of the Farnesian bull; for this inimitable piece of sculpture is in this place, although it was not found interred in Pompeii or Herculaneum, but buried among the ruins of the baths of Caracalla. A large bull, of perfect and beautiful form, is rearing upon his hind legs, as if about to bound away in his course; but this he is prevented from doing, as he is powerfully held by the horns and the nose by two resolute, athletic young men, one on each side, who have him in such durance that his massive neck is wrinkled in large folds, as he turns his head backward in his efforts to escape from their grasp. The cause of the struggle becomes apparent, when we glance at a fine female form recumbent, and see that her abundant tresses are interwoven with the strands of a rope which is noosed around the horns of the bull, and it flashes at once on the mind, that should the maddened animal escape from his keepers, she will be quickly torn in pieces. Her noble sons have, in a critical moment, sprung forward to her rescue, and are just able to arrest her impending fate. Filial love proves to be stronger than disapprobation of an imputed fault, for which their mother was to have been immolated by this horrible death. In such a crisis we are not careful to balance the moral question: we instinctively applaud the filial piety, and do not ask for the spirit of Brutus. This wonderful group was sculptured out of a single block of marble of nine feet eight inches by thirteen feet, by Appollonius and Tauriscus, two artists in Greece, from which country it was brought, to grace the baths of Caracalla. It is truly wonderful that such a ponderous mass, embracing so many figures, could be brought over seas, from a distant country, to Rome, and again be transported from that city to Naples, without injury, after being buried for fifteen centuries in the baths of Caracalla.

HERCULANEUM.

“The same eruption which destroyed Pompeii, Stabiæ, Oplontia and Teglanum, entombed Herculaneum also. Its site was, however, unknown, as well as that of the other buried towns; and the fatal event is only occasionally alluded to by the Roman writers. In the year 63, an earthquake had shattered these cities, a precursor of their coming doom. In 1711, a peasant, in digging a well, discovered, at twenty feet depth, pieces of colored marble. In 1713, the digging being continued, they struck down into a temple, and discovered the statues of Cleopatra and Hercules; and subsequent explorations disclosed the theater. Our time being very fully occupied with Pompeii on the day when we were there, we reserved to another opportunity a visit to Herculaneum. We descended quite conveniently down steps of stone, and arrived at the pit of the theater, seventy-nine feet below the level of the main street of Portici, and Torre del Greco. With a guide, we proceeded, by the light of candles and torches, until we came to this subterranean theater, which had been filled with volcanic materials. I do not call it lava, because there is every reason to believe that, like Pompeii, Herculaneum was buried by pumice, cinders, ashes, lapilli and sand. There has been much discussion on this subject; but had the buildings of Herculaneum been inclosed in heated lava, it is obvious that every fresco painting and marble would have been destroyed, and much more, the numerous papyri and other substances of an organic character, which have been found there. Now it happens that the frescoes of Herculaneum, so far as it has been uncovered, are not only of a higher character in respect of art than those in Pompeii, but also in better preservation. The solidity of the material enveloping Herculaneum is easily understood, when we remember that it has been for over seventeen hundred years under the enormous pressure of seventy or eighty feet of superincumbent rock. Since the catastrophe of August, A. D. 79, numerous flows of molten lava have passed over the site of Herculaneum; and these successive accumulations have amounted to the thickness just named. Add the effects of water, dissolving lime and silica, and infiltrating these materials among the loose pumice, and we see cause enough to account for the solidification of these loose materials. Moreover, no sluggish and semi-viscid lava (such as the Vesuvian lavas a short distance from their outlet always are) could ever have entered all the intricate passages of the theater and other buildings; while a fluid magma of volcanic mud would act in the same situation just as it is now found, like plaster of Paris in a mold.

“When we see with what labor and expense the excavations have been made in Herculaneum, and how difficult it is to dispose of the materials, which must be borne a long way through narrow passages like the galleries of a mine, and raised nearly one hundred feet to the surface, where a populous town forbids the accumulation of rubbish; we are the more easily reconciled to the suspension of the labor, and to the throwing of the fragments into cavities that had been previously excavated, and from which all interesting matters had been removed.

“Discoveries in Herculaneum have been very numerous, but are so similar to those made in Pompeii that it is unnecessary to go much into detail beyond what has been already mentioned. This city being, in fact, contemporary with Pompeii, we should, of course, expect to find great similarity. It would seem, however, to have been a grander city, and probably more populous. It has been computed that the theater would contain ten thousand people, which would imply a large population. Two temples were discovered, one of them one hundred and fifty feet by sixty. This contained a statue of Jupiter. Opposite to this was another building of two hundred and twenty-eight feet by one hundred and thirty-two, supposed to have been constructed for the courts of justice. It had a colonnade supporting a portico; its pavement was of marble, its walls were frescoed, and there were bronze statues standing between the forty-two columns that supported the roof.

“The theater is now the only public place that can be seen in Herculaneum, and the excavations have brought its form very distinctly into view. Its marble seats and the pit have been so far cleared, that we distinctly comprehend the design and plan. The galleries of access from the streets, and some of the rooms that were appendages of the theater, have been opened. It appears to have had two principal gates and seven entrances, called vomitories. Many statues, and mosaics, and frescoes, have been found in Herculaneum, and some of them, especially the statues, are of surpassing beauty. We were desirous to see the famed impression of a mask, and by holding a candle near to it the form could be distinctly seen. The impression is in concave, and is that of a strongly marked face of an adult; the copy is well defined, and corresponds perfectly with a molding made by soft aqueous materials, and not at all to one made by lava.