Pompeii was an old town, built more than six hundred years before, and occupied at the time of its destruction by the aristocracy of Rome. Triumphal arches were erected there in honor of Caligula and Nero, who probably honored it by visits. It possessed costly temples, handsome theatres and other public buildings, luxurious residences, and all the ostentatious magnificence arising from the wealth of the proud patricians of Rome.
THE RUINS OF POMPEII.
What Pompeii was in its best days we are not now able to estimate. It was essentially, in its architecture, a Greek city, rich and artistic, gay and luxurious. But on February 5, 63 A.D., came the first of the long series of earthquakes, and when it ended nearly all of old Pompeii was levelled with the ground. It was not yet a lost city, but was a thoroughly ruined one. In the years that followed it was rapidly rebuilt, Roman architecture and decoration, of often tawdry and inferior character, replacing the chaste and artistic Greek. Once more the city became a centre of gayety, ostentation, and licentiousness, when, in 79 A.D., the eruption of Vesuvius came, and the overwhelming storm of ashes came down like a thick-descending fall of snow on the doomed city.
The description given by Pliny relates to a less endangered point. Upon Pompeii the ashes settled down in seemingly unending volumes, continuing for three days, during which all was enveloped in darkness and gloom. The citizens fled in terror, such as were able to, though many perished and were buried deep in their ruined homes. On the fourth day the sun began to reappear, as if shining through a fog, and the bolder fugitives returned in search of their lost property.
What they saw must have been frightfully disheartening. Where the busy city had stood was now a level plain of white ashes, so deep that not a house-top could be seen, and only the upper walls of the great theatre and the amphitheatre were visible. Digging into the fleecy ashes, many of them recovered articles of value, while thieves also may have reaped a rich harvest. The emperor Titus even undertook to clear and rebuild the city, but soon abandoned the task as too costly a one, and for many centuries afterwards Pompeii remained buried in mud and ashes, lost to the world, its site forgotten, and the forms of many of its old inhabitants preserved intact in the bed of ashes in which they had perished.
It was only in 1748 that its site was recognized, and only since 1860 has there been a systematic effort to dig the old city out of its grave. At present nearly one-half—the most important half—of Pompeii has been laid bare, and we are able to see for ourselves how the Romans lived. The narrow streets, fourteen to twenty-four feet wide, are well paved with blocks of lava, which are cut into deep ruts by the wheels of chariots that rolled over them two thousand years ago. On each side rise the walls of houses, two, and sometimes three, stories in height, and some of them richly painted and adorned, while walls and columns are brightly painted in red, blue, and yellow, which must have given the old city a gay and festive hue.
The ornaments, articles of furniture, and domestic utensils found in these houses go far to teach us the modes of life in Roman times, and reveal to us that the Romans possessed many comforts and conveniences for which we had not given them credit. Even the forms of the inhabitants have in many cases been recovered. Though these forms have long vanished, the hollows made by their bodies in the hardened ashes in which they lay and slowly decayed have remained unchanged, and by pouring liquid plaster of Paris into these cavities perfect casts have been obtained, showing the exact shape of face and body, and even every fold of the clothes of these victims of Vesuvius eighteen hundred years ago. They are not altogether pleasant to see, for they express the agony of those caught in the swift descending death of the falling volcanic shroud, but as tenants of an archæological museum they stand unrivalled in lifelike fidelity.
Herculaneum, which was buried to a depth of from forty to one hundred feet, and with wet material which has grown much harder than the ashes of Pompeii, has been but little explored. It was the larger and more important city of the two, while none of its treasures could have been recovered by their owners. The art relics found there far exceed in interest and value those of Pompeii, but the work is so difficult that as yet very little has been done in the task of restoring this "dead city of Campania" to the light of the modern day.