Vespasian died in A.D. 79. The humor--which is the same thing as saying the sanity--of the man is manifested in his remark, as he felt his life ebbing away: "Well, I suppose I shall soon be a god." Pliny says of him, "Greatness and majesty produced in him no other effect than to render his power of doing good equal to his desire." Suetonius declares: "By him the State was strengthened and adorned."
In this same year occurred the destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum. These two cities, by the manner in which they were by one event both destroyed and preserved, have afforded us so much material for the study of Roman home life that a reference to them is entirely in accord with the plan of this book. Among the Romans, even more so than among ourselves, woman's life was home life. As we look into those Pompeian houses, which the catastrophe of a day rendered impregnable to the siege of centuries, we see in reality before us much which the scraps of information afforded by the ancient writers fail to make intelligible. By a singular good fortune, we are in possession of the narrative furnished by a trustworthy eyewitness of the disaster which overwhelmed Pompeii; it is contained in the two letters which Pliny the Younger wrote to Tacitus, informing him how Pliny and his mother watched the eruption of Vesuvius while his uncle was perishing in the attempt to rescue the wife of a friend and at the same time to satisfy his spirit of inquiry. We will not recite the well-known account, except as it refers to the women who, if for no other reason than that it was their fate or fortune to be present on this memorable occasion, deserve a mention in the history of Roman women. Pliny says: "On the twenty-fourth of August, about one in the afternoon, my uncle was desired by my mother to observe a cloud which appeared of a very unusual size and shape.... This extraordinary phenomenon excited his 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 proper, to attend him. I preferred to continue my studies.... 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 turn of mind he pursued with heroic purpose. He ordered the galleys to put to sea and himself went on board, with an intention of assisting not only Rectina, but several others, for villas stand extremely thick upon that beautiful coast." In this design he was unsuccessful; so he went to what is now called Castellamare, in the Gulf of Naples. While there he was suffocated by the poisonous gases which accompanied the eruption. In a second letter, Pliny describes his mother and himself seeking to escape from the effects of a "black and dreadful cloud, bursting with an igneous, serpentine vapor, darting out a long train of fire, resembling flashes of lightning, but much larger.... Soon the cloud seemed to descend, and cover the whole ocean, as indeed it entirely hid the island of Caprese 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 would 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 complying with great reluctance, and with many reproaches to herself for retarding my flight.... 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 are extinct. Nothing was then 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 their hands to the gods; but the greater part imagining that the last and eternal night was come, which was to destroy the gods and the world together.... Heavy showers 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." The mother and the son escaped, however, and returned to Misenum, where in the midst of still threatening danger they awaited news of the intrepid and fated naturalist.
A POMPEIAN HOUSE
From a water-color by M. Hoffbauer, after a restoration by Jules Bouchot
from Pliny's description.
This interior, called the house of Pansa, is surrounded by three streets and an alley. The view is from the vestibule. In the centre is a basin, formed to receive water which fell from the roof through an opening which also gave light to the rooms, the doors and portières of which are seen on each side. Near to the basin was the altar for the household god; the space beyond this was the dining room, which led to the peristyle, reception room, and garden. As in the atrium, rooms opened into the peristyle and other parts. The ground-floor exteriors were usually rented for shops. Trade by the Roman nobility was always considered degrading, especially if not extensive, says Cicero; they therefore traded by making their slaves or freedmen the ostensible merchants.
Two-fifths of the city of Pompeii have now been cleared, and we can see the external conditions of the Roman woman's life as it would have been impossible for modern times to conceive them had it not been for that ancient catastrophe. We can see the streets as they were in the days of Agrippina; we can look into the shops where the women of ancient Italy sought bargains across the marble counters; we can go to the temples where they worshipped, to the theatre where they were thrilled and amused; indeed, we have a theatre ticket, with the number of the seat and the name of the play. Best of all, we can enter houses almost intact, and examine the environments of that home life which in all ages is the special domain of woman. No account of woman can be made complete without a study of her home, and for this reason we quote freely from M. Boissier's fine description of the Pompeian residence. "The principal rooms are all on the ground floor. The richest inhabitants build themselves houses situated on four streets, thus occupying the whole block. If they were economical, they cut off from this large plot of ground some strips, which they let for a good sum; and we sometimes find shops occupying the whole exterior of the house. While with us the front is reserved for the best rooms, in Pompeii it was given up to business purposes, or else closed with thick walls, in which there were no openings. The whole house, instead of looking toward the street, faces the interior. It communicates with the outer world only by the entrance door, kept strictly closed and guarded; there are few windows, and these only in the upper stories. Families wished to live in private, far from the indifferent and from strangers.... The head of the house did not desire to look into the street, and he was specially averse to having persons in the street look into his house. Even within the mansion he had divisions and distinctions. The part into which he welcomed his visitors was not that to which he retired with his family; and it was not easy to penetrate into this sanctuary, separated from every other part by corridors, closed by doors or hangings, and guarded by porters. The owner received when he wished, he remained in seclusion when so inclined; and in case any client, more troublesome and obstinate than usual, lingered in the vestibule to meet him on his way out, he had a back door on a narrow street, which permitted him to escape....
"If the rooms are not large, they are numerous. The Roman used his residence as he did his slaves; he had different rooms for each event of the day, as he had servants for every necessity of life. Each room in his house is made precisely for the use to which it is destined. He is not satisfied, as we are, with a single dining room; he has them of various sizes, and he uses one or another at different seasons of the year, or according to the number of friends whom he wishes to entertain. The chamber where he takes his siesta during the day and that to which he retires to sleep at night are very small, admitting light and air only through the door, which is not a disadvantage in the South, where coolness is promoted by darkness. Besides, he is there only while he is asleep; for the rest he has his atrium and his peristylium.
"Here he prefers to stay when he is at home. He is here not only with his wife and children, but under the eyes of his servants, and sometimes in their society. In spite of his fancy for seclusion and isolation, of which I have spoken, he does not shun their company; for the family of antiquity is more extensive than ours. It embraces, while recognizing their inferiority, the slave and the freedman; so that the master, in living with them, feels himself among his own people. These open and closed atria, where the family spends its time, are found in all Pompeian houses without exception; they are indispensable to furnish light for the rest of the dwelling. Consequently, all persons, even the poorer classes, took pleasure in ornamenting them tastefully, and sometimes with profusion. If the extent of ground permitted it, various shrubs were planted, and a few flowers were made to grow."
Rome had for its next emperor Titus, who, in the two years of his reign, showed himself the best and wisest ruler Rome had ever known. "I have lost a day," he said, when at evening he could not remember having afforded anyone assistance. He inherited his father's good sense, he had profited by the elder's experience, and he came to the throne after having tasted and become satiated with the vices common to his age. He first married Arrisidia, the daughter of a knight. Of her we know nothing further. After her death, he took to wife Marcia Furnilla, a woman of very noble family, but probably of ignoble mind, for he divorced her, and retained the custody of their daughter. This was a Julia, who was true to the character common to the imperial women of that name. We shall have occasion to discuss her a little later.