The walls, in the interior of the buildings, are generally adorned with fresco paintings, the colours of which are in a state of perfect preservation, and have all the freshness of recent finishing. The shells, also, which decorate some of the public fountains, have sustained no injury from the lapse of ages, or the volcanic products in which they were buried.
During the progress of excavation,[137] at Pompeii, a painting was found in the Casa Carolina, which scarcely held together to be copied, and fell to pieces upon the first rain. It was of grotesque character, and represented a pigmy painter, whose only covering was a tunic. He is at work upon the portrait of another pigmy, clothed in a manner to indicate a person of distinction. The artist is sitting opposite to his sitter, at an awful distance from the picture, which is placed under an easel, similar in construction to ours. By the side of the artist stands his palette, which is a little table with four feet, and by it is a pot to wash his pencils in. He therefore was working with gum, or some sort of water-colours: but he did not confine himself to this branch of the arts; for to the right we see his colour-grinder, who prepares, in a vessel placed over some hot coals, colours mixed with wax and oil. Two amateurs enter the studio, and appear to be conversing with respect to the picture. On the noise occasioned by their entrance, a scholar, seated in the distance, turns round to look at them. It is difficult to explain the presence of the bird in the painting-room. The picture is not complete: a second bird, and, at the opposite side, a child playing with a dog, had perished before Mazois (an artist who has preserved some of the most valuable remains at Pompeii) copied it. This picture is very curious, since it shows how few things, in the mechanical practice of painting, have changed during two thousand years.
There is another picture[138] preserved at Pompeii, representing a female, employed in making a copy of a bearded Bacchus. She is dressed in a light green tunic, without sleeves, over which she wears a dark red mantle. Beside her is a box, such, as we are told by Varro, as painters used, divided into compartments, into which she dips her brush.
Among the recent discoveries at Pompeii[139], may also be enumerated a bronze vase, encrusted with silver, the size and form of which have been much admired, and a bronze statue of Apollo, of admirable workmanship. The deity is represented as sacrificing, with his avenging arm, the family of Niobe; and the beauty of its form, and the life of the figure, are so fine, that it is said to be the finest statue in the Bourbon Museum. “As to the furniture,” says Mr. Mathews, “they illustrate Solomon’s apophthegm, that there is nothing new under the sun; for there is much, that, with a little scouring, would scarcely appear old-fashioned at the present day.”
“It was a source of great amusement,” says Mr. Blunt, “to observe the doors of café-keepers, barbers, tailors, tradesmen, in short, of every description, surmounted by very tolerable pictures, indicating their respective occupations. Thus, at a surgeon and apothecary’s, for instance, I have seen a series of paintings displaying a variety of cases, to which the doctor is applying his healing hand. In one he is extracting a tooth; in another applying an emetic; in a third bandaging an arm or a leg.” In 1819, several surgical instruments were discovered in the ruins of a house near the gate adjoining to the burial-ground[140].
In a street, which conducts to the Forum, called the Street of Fortune, an immense number of utensils have been found. Amongst other articles, were vases, basins with handles, bells, elastic springs, hinges, buckles for harness, a lock, an inkstand, gold ear-rings, a silver spoon, an oval caldron, a saucepan, a mould for pastry, and a weight of alabaster used in spinning, with its ivory axis remaining; a number of lamps, three boxes, in one of which were found several coins of Titus, Vespasian, Domitian, &c. Among the most curious things found, were seven glazed plates, packed in straw; a pair of scales and steelyard were also discovered.
Fishing-nets[141], some of them quite entire, have been found in great numbers in Herculaneum as well as in Pompeii. Linen, also, with the texture well defined. In the shop of a baker a loaf was found, still retaining its form, with the baker’s name stamped upon it, and which, to satisfy the curiosity of modern professors of the art, we shall give: it was “Eleris J. Crani Riser.” On the counter of an apothecary’s shop was a box of pills; and by the side of it, a small cylindrical roll, evidently ready for cutting up.
Along the south-side of another building runs a broad street, which, from various articles of jewellery being found there, is called the Street of the Silversmiths. On the walls of the shops several inscriptions appear, one of which has been thus translated: “The Scribe Issus beseeches Marcus Cerrinius Vatia, the Ædile, to patronise him; he is deserving.”
Near to the small theatre, a large angular inclosure has been excavated, which has been called the Provision Market by some, by others the Soldiers’ Quarters. It contains a number of small chambers, supposed to have been occupied by butchers, and vendors of meats, liquors, &c. In one of these was discovered utensils for the manufacture of soap.
If we again fancy for a moment the furniture[142], implements, and utensils, which would be brought to light in our own houses and shops, supposing them to be overwhelmed, and thus laid open some centuries hence, we might conjecture that many of the same description must have belonged to those of a nation so civilised as the Romans; but still it is pleasing to ascertain, from a testimony that cannot deceive us, the evidence of the relics themselves, that they had scales very little different from our own; silver spoons, knives (but no forks), gridirons, spits, frying-pans, scissars, needles, instruments of surgery, syringes, saws, and many more, all made of fine brass; that they had hammers, and picks, and compasses, and iron crows, all of which were met with in a statuary’s shop; and that they had stamps which they used, as well for other purposes, as for impressing the name of its owner on bread before it was sent to the oven. Thus on a loaf, still preserved, is legible: Siligo C. Glanii:—This is Caius Glanius’ loaf.