CHAPTER III
LA CITTÀ MORTA
Pompeii can never be visited without the same haunting conviction, the same oppressive thought: how terribly difficult it is to understand the City of the Dead which holds in so small a space the whole secret of the antique world! There are far more grandiose and impressive ruins to be seen in Rome; the city of Timgad in Northern Africa is more complete as a specimen of a Roman settlement than the half-excavated town near Vesuvius; yet here, and here only, can the men of the past stretch hands, as it were, across the barrier of eighteen intervening centuries to the dweller of to-day, and the dead-and-gone spirits of a highly organized civilization can whisper into the living ears of the twentieth century. For Pompeii will speak to us, if we will take the trouble to learn the tongue in which alone she can convey the secret of her story. It is needless to say that this language is not obtainable by one or two cursory visits to the Naples Museum, and a few hurried half-hours given to the contents of the guide-book; no, the language of Pompeii, which constitutes the key of access to the hidden chambers of the Roman world, can only be acquired with much expenditure of precious time and with infinite trouble. But “life is short and time is [pg 39]fleeting,” and our bustling age expects to seize its required knowledge in the twinkling of an eye; well, in that case the story of Pompeii must remain a sealed volume to the traveller, who is conveyed to the City of the Dead in a train crammed with fellow-tourists; who eats a heavy unwholesome luncheon to the sound of mandoline-players twanging sprightly Neapolitan airs; and who is finally piloted round the sacred area by a chattering guide in the oppressive heat and glare of a sunny afternoon. Fatigued in mind and body, such an one will sink with ill-concealed relief upon the dusty velvet cushions of the returning train, thoroughly disappointed in the vaunted marvels of Pompeii, which his imagination had led him to expect. A vague impression of low broken walls, of narrow—to his eyes absurdly narrow—streets, of broken columns and of peeling frescoes fills his tired brain, as he is borne back to his hotel in Naples. But this disenchantment is his own fault, for no one who sets foot within the Sea Gate of the buried city in the proper spirit of knowledge and appreciation can possibly fail to enjoy the privilege which has thus been afforded him—
“to stand within the City Disinterred;
And hear the autumnal leaves like light footfalls
Of spirits passing through the streets; and hear
The Mountain’s slumberous voice at intervals
Thrill through those roofless halls.”
Before passing through the Porta Marina into the purlieus of the city, let us first of all instil into our minds the essential difference that exists between the ruins of Pompeii and the historic fragments of Rome or Athens. When we gaze upon the well-known sites of the vanished glories of the Palatine or the Acropolis, [pg 40]we experience no effort in looking backward through the vista of the past and in conjuring up some vague representation of the scenes that were once enacted in these places; the more imaginative feel the very air vibrating with the unseen spirits of men and women famous in the world’s history. He must be indeed a Philistine or a dullard who cannot contrive to arouse a passing exaltation at the thought of treading in the footsteps of Cicero and the Caesars in Rome, of Pericles and Socrates in Athens, for the very soil of the Forum and the stones of the citadel of Pallas seem impregnated with the very essence of history. But this is far from being the case at Pompeii, where long careful study of details and a grasp of hard facts are really of more avail than a poetic imagination in reclothing with flesh the dry bones of the past, for the importance of the Campanian city is almost purely social. The names of many of its prominent citizens are certainly familiar to us from inscriptions found, yet who were these persons that we should take so deep an interest in their lives and fates? Who were Pansa the ædile, Eumachia the priestess, Caecilius Jucundus, Aulus Vettius and Epidius Rufus, and a score of other Pompeian worthies? The answer is, they were officials or simple dwellers in a flourishing provincial town; they had no especial literary or public reputation; their names were probably little known beyond the walls of their own city. Imagine an English country town, such as Exeter or Shrewsbury, suddenly overwhelmed by some unforeseen freak of Nature and afterwards embalmed in the manner of Pompeii as a curiosity for the edification of future ages. To what extent, we ask, would the discovery of a place of this [pg 41]size and population supply the existing dweller with a complete impression of our national life and civilization in the opening years of the twentieth century? The reply will be that it would give a very good idea of the average provincial town, but that it would hardly serve as a fair criterion to judge of the life pursued in the capital, or in the really large cities. Such a comparison will afford us a certain clue to the unveiling of the mysteries of Pompeii.