As you walk round the city walls[121], and see how the volcanic matter is piled upon it in one heap, it looks as though the hand of man had purposely buried it, by carrying and throwing over it the volcanic matter. This matter does not spread in any direction beyond the town, over the fine plain which gently declines towards the bay of Naples. The volcanic eruption was so confined in its course or its fall, as to bury Pompeii, and only Pompeii:—for the showers of ashes and pumice-stone, which descended in the immediate neighbourhood, certainly made but a slight difference in the elevation of the plain. When a town has been buried by lava, like Herculaneum, the process is easily traced. You can follow the black, hardened lava from the cone of the mountain to the sea, whose waters it invaded for “many a rood;” and those who have seen the lava in its liquid state, when it flows on like a river of molten iron, can conceive at once how it would bury every thing it found in its way. There is often a confusion of ideas, among those who have not had the advantage of visiting these interesting places, as to the matter which covers Pompeii and Herculaneum. They fancy they were both buried by lava. Herculaneum was so, and the work of excavating there was like digging in a quarry of very hard stone. The descent into the places, cleared, is like the descent into a quarry or mine, and you are always under ground, lighted by torches. But Pompeii[122] was covered by loose mud, pumice-stone, and ashes; over which, in the course of centuries, there collected vegetable soil. Beneath this shallow soil, the whole is very crumbly and easy to dig,—in few spots more difficult than one of our common gravel-pits. The matter excavated is carried off in carts, and thrown outside the town; and at times when the labour is carried on with activity, as cart after cart withdraws with the earth that covered them, you see houses entire, except their roofs, which have nearly all fallen in, make their appearance; and, by degrees, a whole street opens to the sunshine or the shower, just like the streets of any inhabited neighbouring town. It is curious to observe, as the volcanic matter is removed, that the houses are built principally of lava, the more ancient product of the same Vesuvius, whose latter result buried and concealed Pompeii for so many ages.
It is certainly surprising[123], that this most interesting city should have remained undiscovered till so late a period, and that antiquaries and learned men should have so long and materially erred about its situation. In many places, masses of ruins, portions of the buried theatres, temples, and houses, were not two feet below the surface of the soil. The country people were continually digging up pieces of worked marble, and other antique objects. In several spots they had even laid open the outer walls of the town; and yet men did not find out what it was that the peculiar isolated mound of cinders and ashes, earth and pumice-stone, covered. There is another circumstance which increases the wonder of Pompeii being so long concealed. A subterranean canal, cut from the river Sarno, traverses the city, and is seen darkly and silently gliding under the temple of Isis. This is said to have been cut towards the middle of the fifteenth century, to supply the contiguous town of Torre dell’ Annunziata with fresh water; it probably ran anciently in the same channel; but cutting it, or clearing it, workmen must have crossed under Pompeii from one side to the other.
In a work, so limited in extent as this, it is utterly impossible to give any thing like a representation of the various objects to be seen in the exceedingly curious ruins of this city. We can, therefore, only give a general outline, and refer the reader to the very beautiful illustrations, published by Sir William Gell, in 1817 and 1819; and more especially to those published by the same accomplished antiquary in 1832. Never was there any thing equal, or in any way assimilating to them, in the world before! The former work contains all that was excavated up to those years; the latter the topography, edifices, and ornaments of Pompeii, the result of excavation since 1819.
“Pompeii,” writes Mr. Taylor to M. Ch. Nodier, “has passed near twenty centuries in the bowels of the earth; nations have trodden above its site, while its monuments still remained standing, and all their ornaments untouched. A cotemporary of Augustus, could he return hither, might say, ‘I greet thee, O my country! my dwelling is the only spot upon the earth which has preserved its form; an immunity extending even to the smallest objects of my affection. Here is my couch; there are my favourite authors. My paintings, also, are still fresh, as when the ingenious artist spread them over my walls. Come, let us traverse the town; let us visit the theatre; I recognise the spot where I joined, for the first time, in the plaudits given to the fine scenes of Terence and Euripides. Rome is but one vast museum;—Pompeii is a living antiquity.’”
The houses of Pompeii are upon a small scale; generally of one, sometimes of two stories. The principal apartments are always behind, inclosing a court, with a portico round it, and a marble cistern in the middle. The pavements are all mosaic, and the walls are stained with agreeable colours; the decorations are basso-relievos in stucco, and paintings in medallion. Marble seems to have been common.
On both sides of the street[124] the houses stand quite in contact with each other, as in modern times. They are nearly of the same height and dimensions, being similarly paved and painted. The houses, as we have before stated, are on a small scale. The principal apartments are always behind, surrounding a court, with a small piazza about it, and having a cistern of marble in its centre.
An edifice, supposed to be Sallust’s house, has an unusually showy appearance. The rooms are painted with the figures of gods and goddesses, and the floors decorated with marbles and mosaic pavements.
The gates of the city, now visible, are five in number. These are known by the names of Herculaneum or Naples, Vesuvius, Nola, Sarno, and Stabiæ[125]. The city was surrounded with walls, the greater portion of which have also been traced. Its greatest length is little more than half a mile, and its circuit nearly two miles. It occupied an area of about one hundred and sixty-one acres. The general figure of the city is something like that of an egg. There have been excavated about eighty houses, an immense number of small shops, the public baths, two theatres, two basilicæ, eight temples, the prison, the amphitheatre, with other public buildings of less note; and also fountains and tombs. The streets are paved with large irregular pieces of lava, neatly dovetailed into each other. This pavement is rutted with the chariot wheels, sometimes to the depth of one inch and a half. In general, the streets are so narrow, that they may be crossed at one stride; where they are of greater breadth, a stepping-stone was placed in the middle for the convenience of foot passengers. On each side of the street there is a footpath, the sides of which are provided with curbs, varying from one foot to eighteen inches high, to prevent the encroachments of the chariots.
It is well known[126], that amongst the Romans bathing formed part of every day’s occupation. In the year 1824, the baths of Pompeii were excavated. They are admirably arranged, spacious, highly decorated, and superior to any thing of the kind in modern cities. They are, fortunately, in good preservation, and throw considerable light on what the ancients have written upon the subject. Various circumstances prove, that the completion of the baths only a short while preceded the destruction of the city.