INTRODUCTION.
DESTRUCTION OF HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII.
“Many a calamity has befallen the world ere now, yet none like this replete with instruction and delight for remote generations.”—Goethe.
View of Naples and Mount Vesuvius.
Near the modern city of Naples, at the foot of Mount Vesuvius, once stood the ancient cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Whilst the former was considerably removed from the volcano, the latter was seated immediately at the base of the mountain, on a promontory projecting into the bay.
Vesuvius was not considered dangerous by the ancient occupants of the soil, as no eruption had ever been known to take place. Strabo noticed the igneous character of its rocks, but the whole district being covered with vines and plantations, undisturbed since the memory of man, he thence assumed the fires to be extinct for want of fuel. Even the sides of the mountain were overgrown with trees, and the summit alone continued barren and rough. The inhabitants of the neighbourhood were probably less inclined to consider the possibility of danger to themselves from the existence of two active volcanoes not far from them which seemed to serve as a vent for all subterranean commotions—the one, Mount Ætna; the other, Mount Epopeus in the island now called Ischia. Ætna, the majestic snowy mountain of Sicily, more than three times the height of Vesuvius, has been known, from the earliest times, as an active volcano; and many passages in Æschylus, Pindar, Thucydides, and Diodorus Siculus might be adduced, commemorating particular eruptions, &c. Pausanias mentions an instance of the piety of two youths who saved their parents at Catana (Book 10., ch. xxviii.) during the descent of the lava which threatened to surround them. In the year 73 B.C., Spartacus, a fugitive slave, at the head of a troop of gladiators and revolters, encamped on the summit of Vesuvius, where they were blockaded. The natural ruggedness of the place, and the density of the vines, favoured their subsequent escape. This is the earliest mention of the actual appearance of the volcano. The natural beauties of the district, then called Campania, are glorified by most writers; it was more particularly celebrated for its fertility and the luxuriant magnificence of its scenery.
The convulsions of nature have indeed changed the outline of the mountain, but the varied charms of the beautiful coast remain in undiminished attraction. Deep shades and crystal streamlets, sunny banks and refreshing groves, display the natural loveliness of a locality, favoured with the most luxuriant vegetation, and the finest climate in the world. These enable us fully to comprehend the pains and trouble bestowed by the ancient Romans in building villas and marine residences in so charming a situation. Thus, in the earliest times of the empire, the more wealthy and luxurious Romans established what we moderns should denominate watering places, for fashionable resort, on the coast, Baiæ, Dicæarchia, afterwards Puteoli, Cumæ, Neapolis, and Herculaneum, but the warm springs of the first two rendered them the most favourite resorts, and they became the Bath and Brighton of that era.
Lucullus, Pompey and Cæsar, had villas at Baiæ, Nero spent much time there, and Caligula contributed to the celebrity of the scene by his extraordinary bridge of boats. Hadrian died at Baiæ; and, at a later period, Alexander Severus erected many villas in the same neighbourhood. Some of the most splendid palaces were raised upon artificial foundations in the sea itself, and nothing could exceed the luxury and indolence indulged in by the visitors to these regions as depicted by some of the later poets. Horace himself speaks of the pleasant Baiæ as the most delicious place in the world.[49] And so it may have been, and all the neighbouring cities of the bay must have partaken more or less of the same glories. Pompeii was somewhat removed from these enchanting scenes, being on the other side of the bay of Naples, and the situation was not so pleasant as that of its fellow-sufferer Herculaneum. This city stood on a promontory, open, as Strabo says, to the south wind, which made it especially healthy. In fact, the art and style of everything found at Herculaneum show it to have been the resort of a superior class of people. Pompeii is supposed to have stood on the banks of the river Sarnus. The town itself was raised upon a considerable eminence so as to be protected in a great measure from the floods that at certain times of the year devastated the surrounding plain.
[49] “Nullus in orbe sinus Baiis prælucet amœnis.”—Ep. bk. i. 1, line 83.
The peace and tranquillity of these beautiful regions were first disturbed by natural convulsions in the year 63 A.D. A violent earthquake on the 16th February, threw down many parts of Pompeii, and seriously injured Herculaneum; six hundred sheep were swallowed up at once, statues were split, and many persons became insane. From this period, the Pompeians were disturbed by frequent shocks of earthquake; between the first symptoms in 63 and the dreadful catastrophe which involved their destruction, evidences still exist of the persevering endeavours of the inhabitants at restoration and repair. Many mosaics have been found, which display traces of a very different order of workmanship, in, the repair of damage caused by the earthquake, from that employed in their original construction.
In the reign of the emperor Titus, A.D. 79, the celebrated eruption of Vesuvius broke out, suddenly ejecting dense clouds of ashes and pumice-stones, beneath which Herculaneum, Pompeii, and Stabiæ were completely buried. Awful as such a phenomenon must at all times appear, the event was still more appalling to the inhabitants as they were unable, in the confusion of the moment, to comprehend the source whence these horrors proceeded. An eye witness has fortunately left a detailed account of the event in two letters which are still preserved. We insert the greater part of them as best exhibiting the realities of the scene and the excitement of the unfortunate sufferers.
PLINY’S LETTER TO TACITUS.
“Your request that I would send you an account of my uncle’s death, in order to transmit a more exact relation of it to posterity, deserves my acknowledgments; for if this action shall be celebrated by your pen, the glory of it, I am well assured, will be rendered for ever illustrious. And notwithstanding he perished by a misfortune, which, as it involved at the same time a most beautiful country in ruins, and destroyed so many populous cities, seems to promise him an everlasting remembrance; notwithstanding he has himself composed many and lasting works, yet I am persuaded the mentioning of him in your immortal writings will greatly contribute to eternise his name. Happy I esteem those to be whom Providence has distinguished with the abilities either of doing such actions as are worthy of being related, or of relating them in a manner worthy of being read; but doubly happy are they who are blessed with both these uncommon talents. In the number of which my uncle, as his own writings and your history will evidently prove, may justly be ranked. It is with extreme willingness, therefore, I execute your commands; and should indeed have claimed the task if you had not enjoined it.
“He was at that time with the fleet under his command at Misenum. On the 24th of August, about one in the afternoon, my mother desired him to observe a cloud which appeared of a very unusual size and shape. He had just returned from taking the benefit of the sun, and after bathing himself in cold water, and taking a slight repast, was retired to his study. He immediately arose and went out up on an eminence from whence he might more distinctly view this uncommon appearance. It was not at that distance discernible from what mountain this cloud issued, but it was found afterwards to ascend from Mount Vesuvius. I cannot give you a more exact description of its figure, than by resembling it to that of a pine tree, for it shot up a great height in the form of a trunk, which extended itself at the top into sort of branches, occasioned, I imagine, either by a sudden gust of air that impelled it, the force of which decreased as it advanced upwards, or the cloud itself being pressed back again by its own weight, expanded in this manner:—it appeared sometimes bright and sometimes dark and spotted, as it was either more or less impregnated with earth and cinder. This extraordinary phenomenon excited my uncle’s philosophical curiosity to take a nearer view of it. He ordered a light vessel to be got ready, and gave me the liberty, if I thought it proper, to attend him; I rather chose to continue my studies; for, as it happened, he had given me an employment of that kind. As he was coming out of the house he received a note from Rectina, the wife of Bassus, who was in the utmost alarm at the imminent danger which threatened her; for her villa being situated at the foot of Mount Vesuvius, there was no way to escape but by sea; she earnestly entreated him, therefore, to come to her assistance. He accordingly changed his first design, and what he began with a philosophical, he pursued with an heroical turn of mind. He ordered the galleys to put to sea, and went himself on board with an intention of assisting, not only Rectina, but several others; for the villas stand extremely thick upon that beautiful coast. When hastening to the place from whence others fled with the utmost terror, he steered his direct course to the point of danger, and with so much calmness and presence of mind, as to be able to make and dictate his observations upon the motion and figure of that dreadful scene. He was now so nigh the mountain, that the cinders, which grew thicker and hotter the nearer he approached, fell into the ships, together with pumice stones, and black pieces of burning rock. They were likewise in danger not only of being aground by the sudden retreat of the sea, but also from the vast fragments which rolled down from the mountain, and obstructed all the shore. Here he stopped to consider whether he should return back again; to which the pilot advising him, ‘Fortune,’ said he, ‘befriends the brave; carry me to Pomponianus.’ Pomponianus was then at Stabiæ, separated by a gulf, which the sea, after several insensible windings, forms upon the shore. He had already sent his baggage on board; for though he was not at that time in actual danger, yet being within the view of it, and indeed extremely near, if it should in the least increase, he was determined to put to sea as soon as the wind should change. It was favourable, however, for carrying my uncle to Pomponianus, whom he found in the greatest consternation. He embraced him with tenderness, encouraged and exhorted him to keep up his spirits, and the more to dissipate his fears, he ordered, with an air of unconcern, the bath to be got ready; when, after having bathed, he sat down to supper with great cheerfulness, or at least, what is equally heroic, with all the appearance of it. In the meanwhile, the eruption from Mount Vesuvius flamed out in several places with much violence, which the darkness of the night contributed to render still more visible and dreadful. But my uncle, in order to soothe the apprehensions of his friend, assured him it was only the burning of the villages, which the country people had abandoned to the flames; after this he retired to rest, and it is most certain he was so little discomposed as to fall into a deep sleep, for being pretty fat, and breathing hard, those who attended without, actually heard him snore. The court which led to his apartment being now almost filled with stones and ashes, if he had continued there any time longer, it would have been impossible for him to have made his way out; it was thought proper therefore to awaken him. He got up and went to Pomponianus and the rest of his company, who were unconcerned enough to think of going to bed. They consulted together whether it would be most prudent to trust to the houses, which now shook from side to side with frequent and violent concussions, or fly to the open fields, where the calcined stones and cinders, though light indeed, yet fell in large showers, and threatened destruction. In this distress they resolved for the fields, as the less dangerous situation of the two. A resolution which, while the rest of the company were hurried into by their fears, my uncle embraced upon cool and deliberate consideration. They went out then having pillows tied upon their heads with napkins, and this was their whole defence against the storm of stones that fell round them. It was now day everywhere else, but there a deeper darkness prevailed than in the most obscure night; which, however, was in some degree dissipated by torches and other lights of various kinds. They thought proper to go down farther upon the shore, to observe if they might safely put out to sea, but they found the waves still run extremely high and boisterous. There my uncle having drank a draught or two of cold water, threw himself down upon a cloth which was spread for him, when immediately the flames, and a strong smell of sulphur, which was the forerunner of them, dispersed the rest of the company, and obliged him to arise. He raised himself up with the assistance of two of his servants, and instantly fell down, dead, suffocated, as I conjecture, by some gross and noxious vapour, having always had weak lungs, and frequently subject to a difficulty of breathing. As soon as it was light again, which was not till the third day after this melancholy accident, his body was found entire, and without any marks of violence upon it, exactly in the same posture that he fell, and looking more like a man asleep than dead.
“During all this time my mother and I, who were at Misenum—but as this has no connection with your history, so your inquiry went no farther than concerning my uncle’s death; with that therefore I will put an end to my letter. Suffer me only to add, that I have faithfully related to you what I was either an eyewitness of myself, or received immediately after the accident happened, and before there was time to vary the truth.
“You will choose out of this narrative such circumstances as shall be most suitable to your purpose; for there is a great difference between what is proper for a letter and a history—between writing to a friend and writing to the public. Farewell.”
TO CORNELIUS TACITUS.
“The letter which, in compliance with your request, I wrote concerning the death of my uncle, has raised, it seems, your curiosity to know what terrors and dangers attended me, while I continued at Misenum; for there, I think, the account in my former broke off. Though my shocked soul recoils, my tongue shall tell. My uncle having left us, I pursued the studies which prevented my going with him, till it was time to bathe. After which I went to supper, and from thence to bed, where my sleep was greatly broken and disturbed. There had been for many days before some shocks of an earthquake, which the less surprised us as they are extremely frequent in Campania; but they were so particularly violent that night, that they not only shook every thing about us, but seemed indeed to threaten total destruction. My mother flew to my chamber, where she found me rising, in order to awaken her. We went out into a small court belonging to the house, which separated the sea from the buildings. As I was at that time but eighteen years of age, I know not whether I should call my behaviour in this dangerous juncture courage or rashness; but I took up Livy and amused myself with turning over that author, and even making extracts from him, as if all about me had been in full security. While we were in this posture, a friend of my uncle’s who was just come from Spain to pay a visit, joined us, and observing me sitting by my mother with a book in my hand, greatly condemned her calmness, at the same time that he reproved me for my careless security; nevertheless I still went on with my author. Though it was now morning, the light was exceedingly faint and languid; the buildings all around us tottered, and though we stood upon open ground, yet as the place was narrow and confined, there was no remaining there without certain and great danger; we therefore resolved to quit the town. The people followed us in the utmost consternation, and (as to the mind distracted with terror, every suggestion seems more prudent than its own) pressed in great crowds about us in our way out. Being got at a convenient distance from the houses, we stood still, in the midst of a most dangerous and dreadful scene. The chariots which we had ordered to be drawn out, were so agitated backwards and forwards, though upon the most level ground, that we could not keep them steady, even by supporting them with large stones. The sea seemed to roll back upon itself, and to be driven from its banks by the convulsive motion of the earth; it is certain, at least, the shore was considerably enlarged, and several sea animals were left upon it. On the other side a black and dreadful cloud, bursting with an igneous serpentine vapour, darted out a long train of fire resembling flashes of lightning, but much larger. Upon this our Spanish friend, whom I mentioned above, addressing himself to my mother and me with greater warmth and earnestness, ‘If your brother and your uncle,’ said he, ‘is safe, he certainly wishes you may be so too; but if he perished, it was his desire, no doubt, that you might both survive him. Why, therefore, do you delay your escape a moment?’ ‘We could never think of our own safety,’ we said, ‘while we were uncertain of his.’ Hereupon our friend left us, and withdrew from the danger with the utmost precipitation. Soon afterwards the cloud seemed to descend and cover the whole ocean; as indeed it entirely hid the island of Caprea and the promontory of Misenum. My mother strongly conjured me to make my escape at any rate, which, as I was young, I might easily do; as for herself, she said, her age and corpulency rendered all attempts of that sort impossible; however, she should willingly meet death, if she could have the satisfaction of seeing that she was not the occasion of mine. But I absolutely refused to leave her, and taking her by the hand, I led her on: she complied with great reluctance, and not without many reproaches to herself for retarding my flight. The ashes now begun to fall upon us, though in no great quantity; I turned my head, and observed behind us a thick smoke, which came rolling after us like a torrent. I proposed, while we had yet any light, to turn out of the high road, lest we should be pressed to death in the dark, by the crowd that followed us. We had scarce stepped out of the path, when a darkness overspread us, not like that of a cloudy night, or when there is no moon, but of a room when it is shut up, and all the lights extinct. Nothing then was to be heard but the shrieks of women, the screams of children, and the cries of men; some calling for their children, others for their parents, others for their husbands, and only distinguishing each other by their voices; one lamenting his own fate, another that of his family; some wishing to die, from the very fear of dying; some lifting up their hands to the gods; but the greater part imagining that the last and eternal night was come, which was to destroy both the gods and the world together. Among these there are some who augmented the real terrors by imaginary ones, and made the frighted multitude falsely believe that Misenum was actually in flames. At length a glimmering light appeared, which we imagined to be rather the forerunner of an approaching burst of flames (as in truth it was), than the return of day; however, the fire fell at a distance from us: then again we were immersed in thick darkness, and a heavy shower of ashes rained upon us, which we were obliged every now and then to shake off, otherwise we should have been crushed and buried in the heap; I might boast that, during all this scene of horror, not a sigh or expression of fear escaped from me; had not my support been founded in that miserable, though strong consolation, that all mankind were involved in the same calamity, and that I imagined I was perishing with the world itself. At last this dreadful darkness was dissipated by degrees, like a cloud of smoke; the real day returned, and even the sun appeared, though very faintly, and as when an eclipse is coming on. Every object that presented itself to our eyes (which were extremely weakened) seemed changed, being covered over with white ashes as with a deep snow. We returned to Misenum, where we refreshed ourselves as well as we could, and passed an anxious night between hope and fear, though, indeed, with a much larger share of the latter; for the earthquake still continued, while several enthusiastic people ran up and down, heightening their own and their friend’s calamities, by terrible predictions. However, my mother and I, notwithstanding the danger we had passed, and that which still threatened us, had no thoughts of leaving the place till we should receive some account of my uncle.
“And now you will read this narrative without any view of inserting it in your history, of which it is by no means worthy; and indeed you must impute it to your own request, if it shall appear scarce to deserve even the trouble of a letter. Farewell.”
Shortly after the catastrophe all memorials of the devoted cities were lost; discussions on the places they had once occupied were excited only by some obscure passages in classical authors. Five successive eruptions contributed to bury them still deeper under the surface, and the sixth, which occurred in the year 1036, is the first instance of an emission of lava. Before that time the only agents of desolation were showers of sand, cinders, and scoriæ, together with loose fragments of rock. Volcanic ashes poured out in a current have been known to darken the air for hours, and even for days. Such must have been the nature of the phenomenon which the younger Pliny saw and compared to a lofty pine. Dion Cassius states that the ashes of this eruption were carried as far as Africa, and that the dust was so abundant as even to darken the air in the neighbourhood of Rome. Steam poured out in vast quantities, and uniting with the ashes that fell upon Herculaneum, formed a torrent of mud, imbedding all in solid tufa, whilst the ashes of Pompeii were not impregnated, and all lay in this city loose and unconsolidated. Stones of eight pounds weight fell on Pompeii, whilst Stabiæ was overwhelmed with fragments of about an ounce in weight, which must have drifted in immense quantities. During a later eruption fine ashes were borne by the wind as far as Constantinople. Whilst the ancient cities thus lay buried and forgotten, Neapolis, the residence and burial-place of Virgil,[50] grew into the great modern city of Naples, extending its suburban villages along the shore, and connecting itself by a chain of houses to the very roots of Vesuvius. The next town to Naples is Portici. It contains 6000 inhabitants. Immediately adjoining Portici is the still larger town of Resina, with a population of 11,000 souls. These bustling and much frequented places are built upon the lava which covers Herculaneum.
[50] See [Portrait Gallery, No. 121].
DISCOVERY OF THE ANCIENT CITIES.
Part of the Bay of Naples, showing the relative positions of Naples, Herculaneum, Pompeii, and Stabiæ to Mount Vesuvius.
![[Large map.]](#454886807300230445_illo612lg.jpg.id-3124651525247461697.wrap-0.html.html){kind=link}
In the year 1689, during some excavations in the plain at the foot of Vesuvius, where it was subsequently proved that Pompeii had flourished, a workman observed the regularity with which successive layers of earth and volcanic matter had been deposited. He compared them to pavements one upon the other; with remains of burnt vegetation, charcoal, and common earth beneath each volcanic deposit. Under one of these dense masses of scoria, dust, and pumice stone, he found large quantities of carbonised timber, locks, and iron work, evidently the remains of habitations, which, together with some old keys, and inscriptions giving the name of the locality, satisfied the learned of the day that they belonged to the ancient city of Pompeii. (Venuti, p. 37. Mém. de l’Académie Fran.; Mém. de Littérature, tom. xv. Des Embrasemens du Mont Vésuve, and also Bianchini, Istoria Universale, Roma, 1699, p. 246. Cochin, p. 31). The discovery created little excitement at the time; the government was indisposed to prosecute the research, and no farther excavation was carried on till the year 1749.
Meanwhile, the accidental sinking of a well in another place brought to light such treasures of art as to induce a systematic exploration in a more profitable locality. This was in the neighbourhood of Naples, where after seventeen centuries the city of Herculaneum was once more rescued from oblivion. The circumstances which led to the discovery are briefly these. The prince D’Elbœuf, of the house of Lorraine, came to Naples in 1706 (Cochin, p. 35), and ordered the construction of a marine villa for himself at Portici, in 1711. (Venuti, p. 38. Gori, Admiranda, p. 39.) He had a Frenchman in his service, who possessed the art of making a durable stucco from pulverised marble, and as many fragments of antique marbles as possible were collected for the manufacture of his composition. One day a countryman presented himself, asserting that in sinking a well at Resina (Venuti, p. 39), he had discovered a variety of precious marbles, some of which he had brought with him as specimens. These marbles were so beautiful and rare, that the prince was induced to purchase of the man the right of further excavation, and he immediately commenced a systematic course of exploration upon that spot. The stucco prepared by the Frenchman was not only an imitation of precious marbles, but also a cement similar to that employed by the ancients. Most of the antique buildings were so plastered internally, as it was harder and more durable than marble in its natural state. The excavators, therefore, were more delighted when they found large plain slabs and shafts of columns than elaborately carved foliage and statues, because the latter afforded them a smaller quantity of actual material. Stendardo was appointed to direct the works which were carried on branching sideways from the well, just above the level of the water; (Gori, p. 40. Venuti, p. 39. Cochin, p. 37;) at the expiration of two days, they found a statue of Hercules, evidently from a Grecian chisel, and they remarked with astonishment that it had formerly been restored (Gori, p. 40). Some days after this they came upon a female statue, which was at once pronounced to be a Cleopatra (Gori, p. 40). They next extricated a large square mass of marble, and upon removing a crust of bituminous matter it was found to be the architrave of a gateway, with letters of bronze inlaid into the surface. The inscription was
APPIVS. PVLCHER. CAII. FILIVS.
VIR. EPVLONVM. (Venuti, p. 39.)
Many columns of variegated alabaster were next discovered, and this led to the excavation of a circular temple, with twenty-four columns, and statues of Greek marble between them (Gori, p. 41). The pavement of this building was constructed of that rich yellow marble, called Giallo antico, and many columns of the same material lay in the vicinity. Seven of the twelve figures belonging to the temple were female, executed in a superior Grecian style. Prince Elbœuf dispatched them to Vienna as a present to Prince Eugene of Savoy (Venuti, p. 39). The best of these statues were afterwards sold to the King of Poland for 60,000 scudi; they are now at Dresden, and engraved in plates 19 to 26 of Becker’s “Augusteum” (Winckelmann, Werke, vol. ii. p. 135). The prince evidently knew very little of the real value of his discoveries, and during the next five years continued disinterring pieces of mosaic alabaster slabs, and a few statues, some of which decorated his villa, and the rest were sent over to France. Upon the discovery of a beautiful statue of one of the daughters of Balbus, the state interfered, and the Neapolitan government prohibited any further excavations. For thirty years the site was almost forgotten. In 1736, the King Carlo III. (Borbone) resolved to build a palace at Portici, and the ancient well was once more resorted to. The excavations were resumed, and very important results followed.
Animated discussions were still maintained respecting the name of the ancient city, for a city the excavations had already proved it to be. A communication to the Royal Society by a Mr. Sloane, in 1740, exhibits the matter as still in a state of uncertainty. The Marquis Venuti, keeper of the Farnese library which Carlo Borbone had inherited from Rome, was appointed superintendent of the excavations at Resina. He has left minute records of his proceedings both in the “Admiranda Notizia,” 2 et. seq., of Gori, and in his own work published at Venice and London, 1750. He commenced 12th November, 1738, by carrying on a kind of tunnel laterally from the old well. In a short time (Venuti, p. 40. Gori, p. 42) two bronze equestrian statues were found, and soon after three full length marble figures, larger than life, of Roman dignitaries, dressed in the toga, with massive piers of brick between, plastered with stucco, and painted with arabesques in various colours. The excavators had now reached the interior of the theatre, which the numerous seats and steps clearly indicated. An inscription, moreover, on the architrave contained part of the word Theatre, the name of the person at whose cost the building was erected, and that of the architect. A second inscription on the corresponding architrave of the opposite side is almost a repetition:—
L. ANNIVS. L. F. MAMMIANVS. RVFVS. IIVIR. QVINQ. THEATR... O....
P. NVMISIVS. ARC... TEC...
(Gori, p. 42. Venuti, p. 42.)
These architraves covered the side entrances to the orchestra, and both of them supported a colossal group in bronze of a chariot and two horses. The central group of the building was a quadriga, and probably represented the emperor in his chariot with four horses. All these bronze statues had been gilt. Some fine columns of rosso antico were transported to the cathedral of Naples, and others to the Royal Palace; they appear to have adorned the proscenium (Venuti, p. 71). The theatre was one of the most perfect specimens of ancient architecture. It had, from the floor, upwards of eighteen rows of seats (Gori, 44), and above these three other rows which seem to have been intended for the female part of the audience, and were covered with a portico to screen them from the rays of the sun. Statues of Drusus and Antonia, and of the nine Muses, were found in other parts of the building. A bronze colossal statue of Titus filled with lead (Gori, p. 45) was so heavy that twelve men were unable to move it. Many other bronze statues of municipal authorities and benefactors were found with their respective inscriptions.
The theatre was capable of containing 8000 persons. Nearly the whole of its surface, as well as the arched walks leading to the seats, was cased with marble. The area or pit was floored with thick squares of giallo antico, the beautiful marble of a yellowish hue. The pedestal, of white marble, which supported a chariot and four bronze horses, is still to be seen in its place; but the group itself had been crushed and broken in pieces by the immense weight of lava which fell on it. The fragments having been collected, might have been easily reunited, but they were carelessly thrown into a corner, like old iron, and part of them were stolen. The body of one horse and part of the charioteer, being deemed useless, were accordingly fused, to be converted into two large framed medallions of their Neapolitan Majesties. The remaining fragments were cast into the vaults of the royal palace; and, at last, it was resolved to make the best use of what was left; which was, to convert the four horses into one, by taking a fore leg of one of them, a hinder leg of another, the head of a third, and where the breach was irremediable, to cast a new piece. To this contrivance, the famous bronze horse now in the Museum owes its existence; and, considering its patchwork origin, still conveys a high idea of the skill of the ancient artist. A pompous inscription upon its pedestal records the circumstances of its construction (Bronzi di Ercolano, vol. ii., page 255).
On the south side of the theatre, stood a basilica or public building which contained the celebrated equestrian statues of the Balbi—of one block of marble (Gori, p. 59),—These fine statues possess the additional value of having finally set at rest the question respecting the proper name of the city. On the front of the pedestals is inscribed—
M. NONIO. M. F.
BALBO. PR. PRO. COS.
HERCVLANENSES.
(Gerhard, Neapel. p. 22. Gori, p. 167. Venuti, p. 59.)
The certainty of this city having been the ancient Herculaneum is said to have materially increased the energy of the excavators. In the same basilica were found the famous pictures of Hercules and Telephus, Theseus and the Minotaur, and many others, together with bronze statues of Nero and Germanicus, and a Vespasian, with two sitting figures of marble, nine feet high. The streets of the city were paved with blocks of lava, they were flanked with causeways, and lined with porticos. The private buildings, which resembled those of Pompeii, were very difficult of access, from the nature of the material that overwhelmed them, and could only be examined in small portions at a time. No maps of sufficient accuracy have been laid down of the earliest excavations, and it will be better to reserve all accounts of domestic arrangements till we can illustrate them by the Pompeian remains. One large villa, however, seems to have been a very important structure. It was surrounded by a garden enclosed within a square wall and ditch. The floors were ornamented with beautiful mosaics and the halls contained a rich variety of busts and statues. One of the chambers served the purpose of a bath; another, supposed to have been a sacrarium, was painted with serpents, and within it was found a brazen tripod, containing cinders and ashes; but the most curious discovery of all, was an apartment in this villa used as a library, and fitted up with wooden presses around the walls, about six feet in height; a double row of presses stood in the middle of the room, so as to admit of a free passage on every side. The wood of which the presses had been made was burned to a cinder, and gave way at the first touch; but the volumes, composed of a much more perishable substance, the Egyptian or Syracusan papyrus, were, although completely carbonised, through the effect of the heat, still so far preserved as to admit of their removal. A number of these supposed pieces of charcoal were at first carried off, which by accidental fracture exposed the remains of letters and proved to be so many ancient manuscripts. The Greek manuscripts consisted of rolls scarcely a foot in length, and but two or three inches in thickness. Some had a label in front, at one end of the roll, with the name of the work or the author, which was visible from its place in the library.[51]
[51] See a Pompeian painting described at [p. 50], [Cubiculum 3].
The sixteen centuries during which the substances had been crushed together, rendered it almost hopeless to unroll, and still less to decipher them; but Camillo Paderni devoted twelve days to the occupation underground, and succeeded in carrying away 337 manuscripts. Almost all are in Greek, very few in Latin, and some of the rolls are forty or fifty feet in length. The lines are arranged in columns across the shortest surface, as in our newspapers, each line extending only about two or three inches in length. The greater part of the works in this collection relate to Epicurean philosophy. Their decipherment has naturally occupied much of the attention of the learned, and many of the manuscripts have been published at Oxford.
The condition of Herculaneum was at the period of its discovery more interesting and much more worthy the notice of the traveller than it is at present. The object of its excavation having unfortunately been confined to the discovery of statues, paintings, and other curiosities, and not carried on with a view to lay open the city, and thus to ascertain the features of its buildings and streets, most of the latter were again filled up with rubbish as soon as they were divested of everything moveable. Even the marble was torn from the temples.
Herculaneum may therefore be said to have been overwhelmed a second time by its modern discoverers; and the appearance it previously presented can now only be ascertained from the accounts of those who beheld it in a more perfect state. The existence of the large towns of Portici and Resina overhead render it impossible for many parts of the excavations to remain open to the sky; one portion, however, was allowed to be so until the sinking of the main road, subject to incessant traffic, compelled the government to have the undercuttings filled in, and the apertures blocked up. A part of the city nearer to the mountain has been thrown open and the sun is again permitted to shine upon gardens and habitations now desolate and mouldering.
From the hard nature of the rock at Herculaneum, the city was for a long time supposed to have been buried in lava, and the darkness and obscurity of the passages prevented the discovery of the truth. But now, since daylight has been admitted, the whole mass is found to be nothing more than hard tufa, rendered, at the lower parts, still more compact by the percolation of water, which in all cases leaves the finest possible sediment. Lava is stone that has been actually melted, and flows over the surface in the same way as molten iron issues from a furnace. The beds of real lava may be easily distinguished in the upper levels of the earth laid open in these excavations. All the timber of the houses has been completely reduced to charcoal, but every beam was found perfect as to shape and in its proper position; many of the bronzes, however, were melted. These effects seem to be the result of an intense heat diffused through the entire mass at a subsequent period; for, at the time of the first eruption, great quantities of boiling water appear to have been mixed with the fine dust and scoria, the same materials that fell dry and loose upon Pompeii.
An entrance from the road at Resina to the excavations was formed in 1750. It is still the only means of access to the most important buildings, and consists of a narrow passage cut through the solid lava. The ancient city lies at a depth of seventy feet below the modern level.
The great difficulty of excavating Herculaneum, on account of the soil above being occupied by crowded habitations, induced the government to turn their attention more particularly to Pompeii.
“Nearly seventeen centuries had rolled away when the City of Pompeii was disinterred from its silent tomb, all vivid with undimmed hues; its walls fresh as if painted yesterday, not a hue faded on the rich mosaic of its floors; in its forum the half-finished columns as left by the workman’s hands; in its gardens the sacrificial tripod; in its halls the chest of treasure; in its baths the strigil; in its theatres the counter of admission; in its saloons the furniture and the lamp; in its triclinia the fragments of the last feast; in its cubicula the perfumes and the rouge of faded beauty; and everywhere the bones and skeletons of those who once moved the springs of that minute, yet gorgeous machine of luxury and of life.
“In the house of Diomed, in the subterranean vaults, twenty skeletons (one of a babe) were discovered in one spot by the door, covered by a fine ashen dust, that had evidently been wafted slowly through the apertures, until it had filled the whole space. There were jewels and coins, candelabra for unavailing light, and wine hardened in the amphoræ for a prolongation of agonised life. The sand, consolidated by damps, had taken the forms of the skeletons as in a cast; and the traveller may yet see the impression of a female neck and bosom of young and round proportions.
“It seems to the inquirer as if the air had been gradually changed into a sulphurous vapour; the inmates of the vaults had rushed to the door to find it closed and blocked up by the scoria without, and, in their attempts to force it, had been suffocated with the atmosphere.
“In the garden was found a skeleton with a key by its bony hand, and near it a bag of coins. This is believed to have been the master of the house, who had probably sought to escape by the garden, and been destroyed either by the vapours or some fragment of stone. Beside some silver vases lay another skeleton, probably of a slave.
“The houses of Sallust and of Pansa, the temple of Isis, with the juggling concealments behind the statues—the lurking place of its holy oracles—are now bared to the gaze of the curious. In one of the chambers of that temple was found a huge skeleton with an axe by the side of it: two walls had been pierced by the axe—the victim could penetrate no farther. In the midst of the city was found another skeleton, by the side of which was a heap of coins and many of the mystic ornaments of the fane of Isis.”[52]
[52] Bulwer’s “Last Days of Pompeii.”
Linen and fishing nets; loaves of bread with the impress of the baker’s name; even fruits, as walnuts, almonds, peach-stones, and chestnuts, were distinctly recognisable. Eggs have been found whole and empty, and a jar of oil had olives still floating in it; the oil burnt upon application of flame, but the fruit was flavourless. Very few jewels were discovered, which shows that the inhabitants had time to escape; a wooden comb was found with teeth on both sides, closer on one side than the other. Lace fabricated of pure gold, a folding parasol similar to those now in use, a case of surgeon’s instruments, balances, sculptors’ tools, chisels and compasses, writing materials, vessels of white cut and coloured glass, coals collected for fuel, and wine still remaining in jars, may all be found in the curious catalogue of articles that had braved the lapse of time. Other circumstances there are which claim our better feelings. At the city gate, the sentinel, faithful to his trust, was found in his sentry box, a skeleton, clothed in
“The very armour he had on,”
when his dreadful doom overtook him; in the barracks, near the triangular forum, malefactors were found in the public stocks; the crumbling remains of prisoners were discovered in the dungeons near the temple of Jupiter, no one in that hour of general horror and confusion having thought of them or of their wretchedness, in being thus immured alive. The bones of the ass, that worked the baker’s mill, were found there; the skeletons of horses remained in the cribs in which they had been stabled for the last time.
The discoveries that had been made long before the arrival of Prince Elbœuf, and which were communicated to the French Academy of Science, 1689, were remembered by the Neapolitan Government, and in the beginning of the year 1749 we have the first authentic reference to the ancient city of Pompeii. “On the 18th of January, at a place called Civita,” so runs the official announcement, “not far from Torre dell’ Annunciata, where the ancient Pompeii may have been, was found an apartment decorated with sixteen charming little dancing females brightly coloured, two centaurs and figures, bands of arabesques forming panels with Cupids in the midst, and twelve fauns dancing on a rope, all upon a black ground.” (Pitture d’Ercolano, vol. i., p. 93, tavole 17 to 28, and vol. iii., tavole 28 to 35 inclusive.) They are very small figures, and have since been removed to the Museo Borbonico. About the same time a labourer, whilst ploughing in the neighbouring fields, found a statue of brass.
Among the earliest buildings excavated at Pompeii was the Amphitheatre; it was cleared in 1755, and seems to have been capable of holding ten thousand people (Pompeiana, p. 259). In the amphitheatre, games were held, gladiators fought for their lives with wild beasts, or with one another, and these savage spectacles were under the particular superintendence of an edile. We are informed by Dion Cassius, that the eruption came on whilst the populace were assembled in the theatre, but which of the theatres is meant, as there were several, remains doubtful. Thus far is certain, that sufficient time was left for escape, as no skeletons were found in either of them. From the seats of this amphitheatre may certainly be obtained the grandest view of the mountain, and if, as Bulwer’s admirable romance “the Last Days of Pompeii” depicts it, the assembly was held on this spot, the first signs of the coming destruction would have been seen by all the multitude. An announcement connected with these performances has since been discovered upon the walls of the Basilica. A placard—the playbill of those times—announced that the troops of gladiators belonging to Ampliatus would contend in the amphitheatre on the 17th of May, and that another exhibition would take place on the 31st, exactly three months before the destruction of the city.
The Temple of Isis was accidentally discovered in 1765, by some workmen employed in making a subterraneous aqueduct to Torre dell’ Annunciata. These discoveries induced Charles III. to transfer his attention exclusively to Pompeii (Pompeiana, p. 5). The Triangular Forum, the Temple of Æsculapius, and the two great theatres were all laid open in the course of two or three successive years. These buildings are all in the same quarter of the town, but quite remote from the great forum and public buildings which were not discovered until 1816.
It is a remarkable fact that Fontana, the great architect, carried a subterraneous canal in 1592 directly under the court of the Temple of Isis. He was employed to convey the waters of the river Sarno to the town of Torre dell’ Annunziata; and it seems wonderful that the existence of this interesting city was not made known at the time.
The situation of Pompeii, as it originally stood upon an elevation surrounded by a fertile plain, is well shown in the accompanying view. The eminence marked in the woodcut by the long pale light mounds on the right between the tower of a farm-house and the base of the volcano, is the site of the city. Pompeii was never buried beneath the surface of the ground; on the contrary, many of its walls were always conspicuous, as, for instance, that at the back of the tragic theatre. The locality seems to have been known to the peasants of the vicinity by the name of civita (city). The rains of successive seasons may probably have carried away most of the stones and ashes that fell around the city, whilst the walls of the houses themselves would serve to retain all that had fallen upon them.
Other villas also were excavated at Gragnano, the ancient Stabiæ, and most of their decorations were removed to the Museo Borbonico. The baths discovered at Stabiæ, in 1827, were very interesting. They are described in “Gell’s Pompeiana,” 2nd series, vol. i. pp. 131 and 140.
| Bay of Naples. | The river Sarnus. | Mounds marking the extent of Pompeii. |
VIEW OF VESUVIUS, FROM BETWEEN CASTELLAMARE AND GRAGNANO.
For our present purpose, the public buildings and temples of Pompeii and Herculaneum require a less detailed account; a slight enumeration of them, however, is necessary to show the extent and importance of the community, whose taste and refinement required such dwellings for their private enjoyment, and also to prove that the buildings, from which many of the designs on the walls of the Pompeian Court have been taken, do not owe their origin to the slight and flimsy taste prevailing among the frequenters of a seaside town in the modern sense of the word, but to the higher refinement and habits of those who, leaving Rome in the heat of a summer sun, sought the ease and indulgence of a life such as Campania alone afforded, and yet could not tolerate the contrast of an inferior art around them. This is proved by a comparison of the Pompeian decorations with those of the same period in the baths of Titus, at Rome. The same style and the same peculiarities of taste are evident, and they perfectly illustrate the remarks of Vitruvius, which will be considered in a future place.
When the French occupied Naples, the walls surrounding the city were entirely cleared; this was in October, 1812, and in the March following the street of tombs. Murat defrayed most of the expenses of excavation, and in a short time the Forum and Basilica, with the adjacent buildings, were laid open. At one time 3000 men were employed in the work of exploration.
The Forum (1816) is the largest and by far the grandest spot in Pompeii. It is surrounded by a Grecian Doric colonnade, the Temple of Jupiter, two triumphal arches, forming the north end, and the Temple of Venus and Basilica on the west. Facing the Temple of Jupiter were large buildings, profusely decorated with statues, called the Curiæ and Ærarium, and the remaining side of the forum was occupied by various buildings, among them the Pantheon and the Chalcidicum of Eumachia; these were excavated between 1817 and 1821. The discovery of the public baths did not take place till 1824. These contributed materially to a better comprehension of many passages in ancient authors, being more perfect examples than the vast ranges for similar purposes still existing at Rome.
Tlie general result of the Pompeian excavations up to the present time may be thus summed up; three forums, nine temples, a basilica, a chalcidicum, three piazze, an amphitheatre, two theatres, a prison, double baths, nearly one hundred houses and shops, several villas, town walls, six gates, and twelve tombs.
The impression likely to be produced on the mind of a spectator from the scene in its present condition, may be gathered from the following passages extracted from my own journal, recording my first visit to Pompeii, September 16th, 1843.
JOURNAL.
“By half-past ten we were at the railway station, just outside the gates of Naples, and immediately started for Pompeii. The line of rail continues along the shore of the bay; nothing can exceed the bustle, confusion, and want of system on this amusing road. There exists neither distinction of classes nor limitation of luggage, so that fruit-stalls and puppet-shows—Polichinello, by the way, is here in his native land—are heaped together in the carriages. The first station we reached was Portici, the next Resina, accompanied by the classic cry of Ercolano—signore, Porta d’Ercolano—then Torre del Greco, where heaps of lava piled one upon the other, attest the awful eruption of the last century. Torre dell’ Annunciata being the nearest station to Pompeii we alighted here, and proceeded along a dusty road, lined with cactus, poplar, stone pine, and the castor-oil tree. Festoons of the richest vines hung from tree to tree, and the black clusters peeped out beneath the broad-spread leaves, already beginning to change into the gold of the approaching Autumn. The fields were teeming with corn, hemp, and cotton. No beggars, the pest of Naples, crowded round our carratella, and the dust which rolled in dense clouds was our only annoyance. We now turned our thoughts to Pompeii. A small guard house of soldiers marked the entrance to these classic precincts, and for some distance further the road was planted with willows, producing a rich and solemn effect, and well preparing us for the street of tombs which soon broke upon our view. The road was lined with tombs for a considerable distance before we approached the city gate, called Porta d’Ercolano, on the Herculaneum side; but previously to examining the tombs, we diverged to the right to explore the villa of Diomed, where we found everything in exact accordance with the description of Sir William Gell and Mr. Malkin’s work, ‘Pompeii,’ by the Society of Entertaining Knowledge.
“The tombs are all small but minutely ornamented, the upper parts still remain, and they appear altogether much more complete than I had expected. The gate of Herculaneum, with its grooves, sentry box, and road-pavements, corresponds exactly with prints and descriptions given by numerous travellers.
“At this point of view, little is really wanting. The eye pursues a long line of ascending road, with tombs and thick trees on each side, broken only by the gate of the city, through the arch of which a long continuation of houses is clearly visible. We entered the city; everything is on a small scale, but the walls at this entrance to the city seem high in proportion; the footway and carriage-road remain undisturbed, and still retain the track of chariot wheels. The motion and noise of inhabitants alone seem wanting—no decay is visible, and the impression produced by the scene was that of a populous city during church time. We wandered on through streets and lanes, prying into buildings both public and private, after the manner of that wonderful prince mentioned in the ‘Arabian Nights Entertainments,’ who explored a city, the inhabitants of which had been turned into stone.
“In the shops, many of the walls remain perfect, roofs alone have disappeared, but counters, doorways, and depositaries are just such as we see daily at Naples, and scarcely inferior in point of freshness.
“The mosaic strewn floors are wonderfully perfect—a little patching and inequality of level caused by the previous earthquake are here and there perceptible; the chief difficulty at first is to know the floor from the pavement, that is, to distinguish the inside of a house from the courtyard. All external walls were plastered and coloured, so that a mistake might easily arise.
“The Houses of the Quæstor, Sallust, and the Faun, are exquisite specimens of proportion and arrangement in domestic building. The beautifully painted walls, columns, and inlaid marble or mosaic floor, combine with the deep blue sky, forming so glorious a whole that the rooflessness is forgotten, and the eye reposes with delight on the assembled harmonies.
“The whole city is encompassed by enormous mounds of debris, under which it was formerly buried. These lumps are now caked together, and in their sloping sides trees have already sprung up, so that all appearance of rubbish is fortunately concealed.
“I was greatly disappointed with the scale of many objects, especially the Baths. Sir William Gell’s views are very correct, but the living figures introduced are on an utterly false scale. The Telamons, a series of terra-cotta figures, tinted red, with yellow hair and drapery, supporting the frieze, seem, in his pictures, the size of life, whereas they are only two feet high, one-third in fact of the size they are made to appear in his drawings.
“Modern roofs are extended over all parts retaining ornament, stucco, or paintings; some of the finest mosaics are carefully boarded over—the famous lion, for instance—whilst others are protected by coarse glass frames with slides such as we use for cucumber-beds in kitchen gardens. A beautiful marble pavement attracted our attention, in the house of Actæon or Sallust, but the great mosaic of Darius is not visible, being plastered over preparatory to its removal to Naples. The borders alone remain uncovered. The Forum, with its Basilica, temples of Jupiter, Vesta, and Venus, are only realisations of my previous conception, allowing, as before, for the reduction of size. The best mosaics, paintings, statues and bronzes have been removed to Naples, but their place is frequently supplied by copies, which serve equally well to illustrate their effect.
“The tragic theatre is complete in form; the stone seats, however, have nearly all disappeared. The amphitheatre is considerably distant from the rest of the excavations; it is remarkably perfect, and the view of Vesuvius from the summit of this building is surprisingly grand. It contrasts strangely with the beautiful limestone range of mountains on the other side of the bay. Vesuvius appears more rugged and frowning in this aspect—beheld from the remains of its victim—than from the more-frequently painted scene, the Chiaja of Naples. The deep blue and gray-brown of the volcano is studded with white dots, each of which is a villa or hermitage, creeping up to the mouth of the crater, regardless of the warnings of the buried cities, and the devastation at its roots in Torre del Greco, and in Nola of the plain beyond. They seem like flies settled on the head of a sleeping monster, or, to speak in better phrase, like white sails on the calm and azure sea, which, at the moment I am writing, seems incapable of harbouring the terrors and destruction which mankind so frequently experience, and which two days ago we saw in all their sublimity.
“In the baths of Pompeii a slight refreshment was offered us, and at a little farm-house in the neighbourhood of the amphitheatre, we enjoyed a more substantial meal. The comic theatre is small, but much more perfect than the one previously visited. In all the public buildings a commencement of restoration after the earthquake was clearly visible, especially in the forum.
“Vegetation takes root, at every opportunity, between cracks of stones, or wherever mould is collected; grass there is none. The wild fig and the luxuriant fern are the most frequent intruders, but they do not spread sufficiently to afford shelter, and the walls themselves are not high enough to serve as protection against the scorching sun. As the sun neared the horizon, we were warned to depart, and, mounting our car in preference to the railway, we rattled off along the high road, well pleased with a journey that, after defraying all expenses, did not exceed the cost of 3s. 4d. So ended my first day at Pompeii, 1843.
“I could not help contrasting all this with our first visit to Herculaneum, which is entirely underground, imbedded in hard tufa, and exposed only in small portions protruding here and there, where we threaded long caverns and galleries cut in the wet, cold, and dripping material, the bad vapours of which are very dangerous. I would compare Herculaneum to a geological fossil half worked out of the compact material which surrounds it. There is an important difference in the overwhelming of the two cities. Pompeii was covered solely with fine dust and powdered scoria, all dry but rendered compact by the great pressure of the fallen mass. Herculaneum was filled up by a dense rolling liquid, or rather paste of fine powder mixed with boiling water strongly impregnated with sulphur, and forming what has now become a perfectly hard compact stone, and only to be removed with the axe. In Pompeii all excavations are carried on with the shovel, as the dry powder easily gives way.”
The private houses of Pompeii have been variously named, sometimes from an inscription on the door post, or from the subject of some principal painting, at other times from the supposed occupation or condition of the owner, or from a peculiar object found in the dwelling; and not unfrequently the presence of some distinguished person at the time of excavation has conferred a lasting title on some particular remains. The application of these names will be seen in the houses of Pansa, of Meleager, the Quæstor, the Surgeon, the Fountain, and that of Queen Caroline. Some of the houses have had the names changed, as that of the Tragic Poet is now called the House with Homeric Paintings. All the houses seem to have been buried somewhat higher than the top of the ground floor. Upon this bed of ashes is found a layer of ashes mixed with mould, and remains of buildings to the depth of seven feet. The moisture retained in the vegetable mould had destroyed the surface of the paintings, and not unfrequently the pattern was seen on the mould to which the stucco still adhered. In this manner has the decoration of the upper apartments been destroyed, and the pressure of superincumbent masses has crumbled the woodwork. That the houses had upper ranges of chambers is evident from the remains of staircases leading to them both within and without. The first floors were nobly paved, mosaics having been found at various levels one above the other. Ceilings also were variously decorated with paintings like the walls, and sometimes composed of stucco. Mr. Falkener (pp. 66 and 67) observed a gorgeously ornamented ceiling to a tablinum. It consisted of a large circle in a square panel boldly moulded, and enriched with stucco ornament, with ultramarine, vermilion, and purple colouring, together with a profusion of gilding. Fragments of equally elaborate ceilings were found in such a position as to lead to the conviction that they belonged to apartments of different stories, one above the other.
The visitor to Pompeii is generally struck with the intensity and crudeness of the colours on the walls. This is easily accounted for in the necessity for the exclusion of light in hot countries; for with light heat comes also, and all who have visited Italy will remember the care with which the modern sitting rooms are darkened during daytime. The strength of these colours would thus be always toned down by shade.[53] With all the variegation of colour in these Pompeian walls, one pervading principle may be observed, viz., that the strongest and darkest colours are confined to the bottom of the room. Thus if the dado, or lower part of the wall, be black, the rest will be red or yellow, and the ceiling white; and if the dado be red, the rest of the wall yellow or blue. If the dado be yellow, all the rest of the room will be white.
ARRANGEMENT OF A POMPEIAN HOUSE.
| Painted Garden. | |||||||||
| Peristyle. | Fauces. | Ala. | Cubiculum. | ||||||
| Tablinum. | Impluvium. | ||||||||
INTERIOR OF THE ATRIUM OF THE HOUSE OF THE TRAGIC POET, ACCORDING TO THE RESTORATION OF SIR WILLIAM GELL.
The principal divisions of a Roman house consist of three square chambers, leading one into the other; the first and last of these are lighted by a square opening in the middle of the ceiling, but the central apartment is destitute of any means for the entrance of the daylight; in fact, it receives only such light as can be communicated from the rooms on either side; still as there was no actual partition between these chambers, beyond that made by curtains,[54] sufficient light must have obtained entrance, which could be modulated at pleasure. The name of this central room was the Tablinum. The first room, which is generally the largest, is called the Atrium, and has a square tank or basin in the middle of the floor to collect the water dropping from the roof, and to receive the falling rain, as the apartment is directly open to the sky. The aperture in the roof is not very large, and this arrangement for the free descent of rain affords two essential luxuries to the inhabitant of a southern climate—shade and moisture. In a country like our own it is scarcely possible to estimate their value.
[54] Sir William Gell (vol. i. p. 160 of Pompeiana, Second Series) states that the iron rods on which curtains or draperies were suspended from column to column were discovered perfect in an excavation at Herculaneum in 1828.
The further room had a larger aperture above, and the open space below was laid out with plants like a garden, bordered with columns, so that the narrow covered space left on each side formed a miniature cloister. It was called Peristyle, from the Greek words, meaning surrounded by columns. In the map of ancient Rome, made in the time of Septimius Severus, this arrangement in the private houses is distinctly visible. As in our modern houses, the proportions varied both according to the caprice of the owner, or the limitations of space. Some had a greater number of apartments, and others a double set. Not a few added an extensive series of domestic offices, dining-rooms, and bed chambers, some of them up stairs. Many houses had a second and third story of bed-rooms above the common level, but in all well constructed houses, whatever the rank of the owner, these three apartments, Atrium, Tablinum, and Peristyle, remain the essential portions. Here, as much of the life of a leading citizen was public, he received his clients and allowed the slaves to wait upon him. It was only in the inner apartment, such as the œci and triclinia, that he could indulge in privacy.
In the better class of houses, the Atrium was generally surrounded by smaller rooms, called cubicula, and the square of the Atrium was broken by the further part being widened on each side T fashion, into alæ, or wings, which correspond to the transepts of our cathedrals. The tablinum, again, was narrowed by a partition which took off a side passage, called fauces, through which the servants passed from one end of the house to the other without disturbing those occupied in the middle chamber. The floor of this tablinum was frequently ornamented with elegant pictures, in mosaic, as that of the Tragic Poet’s House, by the choragus teaching his actors, and distributing his masks (Gell, vol. i. pl. 45). The famous large mosaic, the Battle of Issus, in the House of the Faun, has already been mentioned. In some houses, but very rarely, there was a passage on both sides of the tablinum; as in the reproduction described in these pages, the House of the Coloured Capitals, and a few others, but the majority have one only.
The reader may derive a clearer and certainly a more poetical idea of an ancient house from the following extracts from Sir Bulwer Lytton’s “Last Days of Pompeii.” The house which he describes is taken from a personal examination and the assistance of his antiquarian friend, Sir William Gell:—
“You enter then usually by a small entrance passage, called vestibulum, into a hall sometimes with—but more frequently without—the ornament of columns; around three sides of this hall are doors communicating with several bedchambers—among which is the porter’s—the best of these being usually appropriated to country visitors. At the extremity of the hall on either side to the right and left, if the house is large, there are two small recesses, rather than chambers, generally devoted to the ladies of the mansion; and in the centre of the tessellated pavement of the hall is invariably a square shallow reservoir for rain water—classically termed impluvium—which was admitted by an aperture in the roof above, the said aperture being covered at will by an awning. Near this impluvium, which had a peculiar sanctity in the eyes of the ancients, were sometimes—but at Pompeii more rarely than at Rome—placed images of the household gods. The hospitable hearth often mentioned by the Roman poets, and consecrated to the Lares, was at Pompeii almost invariably formed by a moveable brazier; while in some corner, often the most ostentatious place, was deposited a huge wooden chest, ornamented and strengthened by bands of bronze or iron, and secured by strong hooks upon a stone pedestal, so firmly as to defy the attempts of any robber to detach it from its position. It is supposed that this chest was the moneybox, or coffer, of the master of the house; though as no money has been found in any of the chests discovered at Pompeii, it is probable that it was sometimes rather designed for ornament than use. In this hall—or atrium, to speak classically—the clients and visitors of inferior rank were usually received. In the houses of the more ‘respectable,’ an atriensis, or slave peculiarly devoted to the service of the hall, was invariably retained, and his rank among his fellow-slaves was high and important. The reservoir in the centre must have been rather a dangerous ornament; but the centre of the hall was like the grass plot of a college, and interdicted to the passers to and fro, who found ample space in the margin. Right opposite the entrance at the other side of the hall, was an apartment (tablinum), in which the pavement was usually adorned with rich mosaics, and the wall covered with elaborate paintings. Here were usually kept the records of the family or those of any public office that had been filled by the owner; on one side of this saloon, if we may so call it, was often a dining-room or triclinium; on the other side, perhaps, what we should now term a cabinet of gems, containing whatever curiosities were deemed most rare and costly; and invariably a small passage for the slaves to cross to the further parts of the house without passing the apartments thus mentioned. These rooms all opened on a square or oblong colonnade, technically termed peristyle. If the house was small its boundary ceased with this colonnade, and in that case its centre, however diminutive, was ordinarily appropriated to the purpose of a garden, and adorned with vases of flowers placed upon pedestals; while under the colonnade, to the right and left, were doors admitting to bedrooms, to a second triclinium, or eating-room—for the ancients generally appropriated two rooms at least to that purpose, one for summer and one for winter, or perhaps one for ordinary, the other for festive occasions—and if the owner affected letters, a cabinet dignified by the name of library—for a very small room was sufficient to contain the few rolls of papyrus which the ancients deemed a notable collection of books.
“At the end of the peristyle was generally the kitchen. Supposing the house was large, it did not end with the peristyle, and the centre thereof was not, in that case, a garden, but might be perhaps adorned with a fountain or basin for fish; and at its end, exactly opposite to the tablinum, was generally another eating room, on either side of which were bed rooms, and perhaps a picture saloon or pinacotheca. These apartments communicated again with a square or oblong space, usually adorned on three sides with a colonnade like the peristyle, and very much resembling the peristyle, only usually longer. This was the proper viridarium or garden, being commonly adorned with a fountain or statues, and a profusion of gay flowers; at its extreme end was the gardener’s-house; on either side beneath the colonnade were sometimes, if the size of the family required it, additional rooms.
“At Pompeii, a second or third story was rarely of importance, being built only above a small part of the house and containing rooms for the slaves; differing in this respect from the more magnificent edifices of Rome, which generally contained the principal eating-room (or cœnaculum) on the second floor. The apartments themselves were ordinarily of small size; for in those delightful climes they received any extraordinary number of visitors in the peristyle (or portico), the hall, or in the garden; and even their banquet rooms, however elaborately adorned and carefully selected in point of aspect, were of diminutive proportions; for the intellectual ancients being fond of society, not of crowds, rarely feasted more than nine at a time, so that large dinner rooms were not so necessary with them as with us. But the suite of rooms seen at once from the entrance, must have had a very imposing effect: you beheld at once the hall richly paved and painted—the tablinum—the graceful peristyle, and if the house extended further, the opposite banquet-room, and the garden which closed the view with some gushing fount or marble statue.
“The reader will now have a tolerable notion of the Pompeian houses, which resembled in some respects the Grecian, but mostly the Roman fashion of domestic architecture. In almost every house there is some difference in detail from the rest, but the principal outline is the same in all. In all, you find the hall, the tablinum, and the peristyle, communicating with each other; in all you find the walls richly painted; and in all the evidence of a people fond of the refining elegances of life. The purity of the taste of the Pompeians in decoration is, however, questionable; they were fond of the gaudiest colours, of fantastic designs; they often painted the lower half of their columns a bright red, leaving the rest uncoloured: and where the garden was small, its wall was frequently tinted to deceive the eye as to its extent, imitating trees, birds, temples, &c., in perspective; a meretricious delusion which the graceful pedantry of Pliny himself adopted with a complacent pride in its ingenuity.”
The novelist then proceeds to describe the house known by the name of the Tragic Poet. (See [plan No. 2] on [page 38].)
“You enter by a long and narrow vestibule, on the floor of which is the image of a dog in mosaic, with the well-known ‘Cave canem,’ or ‘Beware the dog.’ On either side is a chamber of some size: for the interior part of the house not being large enough to contain the two great divisions of private and public departments, these two rooms were set apart for the reception of visitors who, neither by rank nor familiarity, were entitled to admission in the penetralia of the mansion.
“Advancing up the vestibule, you enter an atrium that, when first discovered, was rich in paintings, which in point of expression would scarcely disgrace a Raphael. You may see them now transplanted to the Neapolitan Museum; they are still the admiration of connoisseurs—they depict the parting of Achilles and Briseis.
“Who does not acknowledge the force, the vigour, the beauty, employed in delineating the forms and faces of Achilles and the immortal slave?
“On one side of the atrium, a small staircase admitted to the apartments for the slaves on the second floor; there also were two or three small bedrooms, the walls of which portrayed the Rape of Europa, the battle of the Amazons, &c.
“You now enter the tablinum, across which, at either end, hung rich draperies of Tyrian purple, half withdrawn. On the walls was depicted a poet reading his verses to his friends; and in the pavement was inserted a small and most exquisite mosaic, typical of the instructions given by the director of the stage to his comedians.
“You passed through the saloon, and entered the peristyle; and here, as I have said before was usually the case with smaller houses of Pompeii, the mansion ended. From each of the seven columns that adorned this court hung festoons of garlands; the centre, supplying the place of a garden, bloomed with the rarest flowers, placed in vases of white marble, that were supported on pedestals. At the left hand of this small garden was a diminutive fane, resembling one of those small chapels placed at the sides of roads in Catholic countries, and dedicated to the Penates; before it stood a bronze tripod; to the left of the colonnade were two small cubicula or bedrooms; to the right was the triclinium, in which the guests were now assembled.
“This room is usually termed by the antiquaries of Naples, ‘The Chamber of Leda;’ and in the beautiful work of Sir William Gell, the reader will find an engraving from that most delicate and graceful painting of Leda presenting her new-born to her husband, from which the room derives its name. This charming apartment opened upon the fragrant garden. Round the table of citrean wood, highly polished and delicately wrought with silver arabesques, were placed the three couches, which were yet more common at Pompeii than the semicircular seat that had grown lately into fashion at Rome; and on these couches of bronze, studded with richer metals, were laid thick quiltings, covered with elaborate broidery, and yielding luxuriously to the pressure.”
The following plans, [pp. 38] and [39], are collected into one group to afford a more easy view of the differences in their general construction. They are not drawn to scale, and have no pretensions to detail. The principal apartments only are named upon them, and the following is a list of their chief peculiarities, together with the dates when they were excavated, and the various names by which they have been known. The first numbers correspond with those on the plans.
[1]. House of the Emperor Joseph II. (1767-69), was a mansion of great magnificence, of three stories. It was beautifully situated on the side towards the sea. This house had a suite of baths; and in the furnace-room the skeleton of a female was discovered. The regularity of plan is very remarkable; but, unfortunately, the excavations were filled in again, so that nothing now remains to be seen.
[2]. House of the Tragic Poet (1824-26) is called in the Museo Borbonico, “Casa Omerica,” the Homeric House: the same which Bulwer describes as the house of Glaucus. Remarkable for the beauty and dignified character of its paintings, most of them illustrating Homeric subjects.
A list of a few of the principal paintings and mosaics in this house will suffice to show the taste of its occupant.
Cave Canem. Mosaic at entrance.
In atrium, on right wall, next to entrance, The Marriage of Peleus and Thetis. On side wall, right hand, The Parting of Achilles and Briseis. On same wall, separated only by a door, The Departure of Chryseis. Opposite to the parting of Achilles and Briseis was represented The Fall of Icarus. In a cubiculum on this side was the small frieze of Battle of Amazons (copied in the Atrium of Pompeian Court, [page 47]). The tablinum was adorned with a picture of A Poet reading, and the mosaic pavement representing The Choragus and Actors. In a little chamber to the left of tablinum was a small picture of Venus fishing. At the end of ambulatory of peristyle near triclinium was the famous picture of The Sacrifice of Iphigenia, painted on the wall adjoining the oven of the Fullonica. The Deserted Ariadne ([page 57]) adorned a small chamber to the left of the peristyle. The opposite side of the peristyle was occupied by the kitchen, latrina, and triclinium, which latter contained the exquisite picture of Leda presenting her Infant Progeny to Tyndareus; hence this apartment is sometimes called the Chamber of Leda. Other pictures in the same room are Venus, Cupid, and Adonis, and an elaborate composition of Theseus deserting Ariadne. He is in the act of stepping on board a ship, where sailors are making ready for departure. Ariadne lies asleep on the shore; her head is surrounded with a blue circular glory, which is not uncommon in Pompeian paintings. Many of these pictures are on a comparatively large scale, and only equalled in artistic excellence by those which have been discovered in the houses of the Dioscuri and of Ceres, one of the smallest houses in Pompeii. It has only one ala (plan given in Mus. Bor., vol. ii., tav. 55, and in Gell, vol. i., pl. 35, p. 143).
1. House of Joseph II.
2. House of the Tragic Poet, or, House of the Homeric Paintings.
3. House of Queen Caroline.
4. House of the Meleager or Apollo, and House of Nereids, or of Isis.
5. House of Sallust, or Actæon.
6. Houses of the Mosaic Fountain, and of the Shell Fountain.
7. House with the Coloured Capitals, near the Pantheon.
8. House of the Dioscuri, Quæstor, or Centaur.
9. House of the Female Musician, the Flute Player or “Sonatrice.”—Excavated by Mr. Falkener.
10. From ancient Marble Map of Rome, representing Private Houses.
[3]. House of Queen Caroline (1813), now called that of Adonis, remarkable for the width of Atrium when viewed from vestibule. The kitchen has windows opening to the street. In an open court is a permanent semicircular couch of stone, the sigma of Martial, and so called from the shape that the Greek letter had at this period acquired. (See notice on the changes in the Greek alphabet, in the Catalogue of Greek Court, p. 22). In the Atrium, plants were painted on the wall, as if sprung up out of the ground. A celebrated caricature painting of the studio of a portrait painter was discovered by Mazois in this house.
[4]. House of the Meleager or Apollo (1830-31), called also the House of Isis, or of the Nereids. The house is very extensive, and the various apartments are arranged in a different manner from what is generally seen at Pompeii. The block plan, [No. 4], will sufficiently explain the distribution of the various parts. The vestibulum is very long and narrow.
[5]. House of Sallust (1809). Known also as the House of Actæon. The venereum is the peculiar feature of this house. The skeleton of a young female, with four rings on one of her fingers, was discovered as if just in the act of escaping; five gold bracelets, two ear-rings, and thirty-two pieces of money were lying near her. The skeletons of three other females, probably slaves, were found near her. The doorway of the Prothyrum was very broad, and was closed with a quadrivalve door, folding back like our shutters.
[6]. Two houses side by side, called from the features of their peristyles, the Greater and the Smaller Fountain (1826). The small fountain itself made of shells, the greater one encrusted with mosaics. In the former house a remarkable painting of a sea-port, supposed to represent Dicæarchia, or Puteoli, was discovered. Two staircases indicate the former existence of upper rooms. Here they found oil, in vases, with olives still swimming in it.
[7]. House of the Coloured Capitals (1833-34). A very large house near the so-called Pantheon.
It is a magnificent specimen of arrangement and decoration. The long range of colonnade, forming a second peristyle or decorated garden, is peculiar to this habitation. (Plan given in Mus. Bor., vol. x., tav. A & B.)
[8]. House of the Dioscuri (1828-29). This beautiful mansion has been known by a great variety of names—The Quaestor, the Centaur, Castor and Pollux. The latter name (Dioscuri also) is derived from the spirited figures of the sons of Leda, painted reining in their horses on the side walls of the left-hand vestibulum. A running Mercury, with purse in hand, was painted on one of the posts of the same entrance. The exterior of this house is much more carefully decorated than was usual among the Pompeians. Many of the stucco ornaments have been picked out with colour. Highly-decorated wooden chests, lined and bound externally with iron, were found in the atrium, at the entrance of the left-hand ala, which still contained a few gold and silver coins that had escaped the grasp of some one who had returned to the spot after the destruction of the city, and made excavation, evidently directed to that particular spot.
This house is one of the finest for the grandeur and taste displayed in every part of it. The celebrated paintings, Perseus and Andromeda, Medea and her Children, were found on the piers at the lower angles of the great central Peristyle. The great Exedra, or Triclinium, at its extremity, was closed with folding doors, the sockets of which still remain, and the floor was decorated with the famous circular mosaic of The Lion crowned with Garlands by young Cupids. (Engraved in Mus. Bor., vol. vii., tav. 61.) (Plan given in Gell’s Pompeiana, vol. ii., pl. 63.)
[9]. House of the Female Musician (1847). Known by the Italian name Della Sonatrice, called likewise House of the Triumphant Bacchus. It is a very interesting excavation, displaying much magnificence and elegance of decoration. It may be regarded as a double house of three stories. Several of the paintings of the Sydenham Court have been copied from the walls of this mansion. The name of the house is derived from a painting in one of the chambers representing a young actress in a mask playing the double flute. A picture was found near the foot of the stairs displaying writing materials, such as tablets, stylus, atramentum, or ink-bottle, and a sealed letter, which preserves the direction on it, “To the Decurion Marcus Lucretius.” Hence, the house is not unfrequently called by his name, in the supposition that he must have been the owner. Mr. Falkener was present during the excavation of this house, and has published a very interesting account of his observations in the Museum of Classical Antiquities. The arrangement of the portion beyond the tablinum is very singular, consisting of a fountain and basin surrounded by a variety of small figures arranged in front of it. The house seems, at the period of its destruction, to have been undergoing alteration. Many of the central pictures had been taken out from the walls, preparatory to the insertion of fresh ones. The artists appear to have sometimes painted on wood for that purpose. Many years ago, the workmen came to an apartment at Stabiæ, where the pictures had been separated from a wall preparatory to removal, which the ruin of the city prevented: the paintings therefore were found leaning against the wall of the apartment. (The plan of this house is given in Mus. Bor., vol. xiv., tav. A and B.)
[10]. Plan of some private dwellings copied from the celebrated fragments of a map of Rome, engraved on marble about the time of Septimius Severus. (Bellorius Ichnographia, Tab. 7, page 35.)
The House of Pansa. (1811-14.) One of the largest of the superior class of mansions hitherto discovered. It has an extensive garden, and the rooms were distributed with great regularity. This house is more generally referred to in illustration of a Pompeian house, and for that reason has been made the subject of a larger and more elaborate plan than the rest. In one of the bed-rooms, five female skeletons were found, some of them with gold ear-rings. The name of the house is derived from the red letters PANSAM. ÆD. PARATVS. ROG. daubed upon the door-post. (The plan of this house is given large at the [end of this book].)
The House of Ceres (1827). Called also the House of Zephyrus and Flora, from an interesting painting of the Marriage of Zephyrus and Flora; it is also known as the House of the Ship (Naviglio), which latter name is derived from a painting in one of the shops. Another name, also, is of the Bacchantes. The beautiful seated divinities, Bacchus and Ceres, between the Tablinum and Alæ of this court, were copied from this House of Ceres. A third sitting deity, Jupiter, with a round plate behind his head, like the nimbus of saints in old pictures, belonged to this series. It is remarkably dignified. (See Mus. Bor., vol. vi., tav. 52.)
The House of the Faun (1829-31). So called from the discovery of the beautiful little Faun introduced in this court, copied in the original material, bronze. This house is celebrated for its great mosaic, representing Alexander and Darius at the Battle of Issus. The apartments were very numerous and on a grand scale.