Rollo in Naples

by Jacob Abbott

The inhabitants of Pompeii had no chimneys, because the climate there is so mild that they seldom needed a fire; and when they did need one, it was easier to make a small one in an open vessel, and let it stand in the middle of the room, or wherever it was required, than to make a chimney and a fireplace. The open pan in which the fires were made in those days stood on legs, and could be moved about any where. The fire was made of small twigs cut from the trees. The people would let the pan stand in the open air until the twigs were burnt to coal, and then they would carry the pan, with the embers still glowing, into the room which they wished to warm, and place it wherever it was required.

The same contrivance is used at the present day in Naples, and in all the towns of that region. In going along the streets in a cool evening or morning, you will often see one of these brass pans before a door, with a little fire blazing in it, and children or other persons before it, warming their hands. Afterwards, if you watch, you will see that the people take it into the house.

The ancient inhabitants of Pompeii depended entirely on arrangements like these for warming their rooms. There is not a chimney to be found in the whole town.

In respect to windows, the reason why they did not have them was because they had no glass to put into them. They could not make glass in those days well enough and easily enough to use it for windows. Of course they had openings in their houses to admit the air and the light, and these openings might perhaps be called windows. But in order to prevent the wind and rain from coming in, it was necessary to have them placed in sheltered situations, as, for example, under porticos and piazzas. The custom therefore arose of having a great many porticos in the houses, with rooms opening from them; and in order that they might not be too much exposed, they were generally made so as to have the open side of them inwards, towards the centre of the house, where a small, square place was left, without a roof over it, to admit the light and air.

Of course the rain would come in through this open space, and the floor of it was generally formed into a square marble basin, to receive the water. This was called the impluvium. Sometimes there was a fountain in the centre of the impluvium, and all around it were the porticos, within and under which were the doors opening into the different rooms.

The guide, who conducted Mr. George and his party, led them into several of these houses, and every one was much interested in examining the arrangement of the rooms, and in imagining how the people looked in going in and out, and in living in them. The bed rooms were extremely small. The walls of some of them were beautifully painted, but the rooms themselves were often not much bigger than a state room in a steamship. The bedstead was a sort of berth, formed upon a marble shelf built across from wall to wall.

In some of the houses there were more rooms than could be arranged around one court; and in such cases there were two, and sometimes three courts. In one case, the third court was a garden, with a beautiful portico formed of ornamental columns all around it. Beneath this portico the ladies of the house, in rainy weather, could walk at their ease, and see the flowers growing in the garden, just as well as if the weather were fair.

Under this portico, all around, was a subterranean chamber, which seemed to be used as a sort of cellar. And yet it was very neatly finished, and the walls of it were ornamented in such a way as to lead people to suppose that it might have been used as a cool walk in warm weather. This passage way was first discovered by means of the steps leading down to it. It was almost full of earth, which earth consisted of volcanic sand and ashes, which had flowed into it in the form of mud.

On one side of this subterranean passage way, near the entrance, there were a number of skeletons found. These skeletons were in a standing position against the wall, where the persons had been stopped and buried up by the mud as it flowed in. The marks left by the bodies against the wall remain to this day, and Rollo and all the party saw them.

One of the skeletons was that of a female, and there were a great many rings on the fingers of the hands, and bracelets, necklaces, and other ornaments on the other bones. From this circumstance it is supposed that this person was the wife of the owner of the house, and that in trying to save herself and her jewelry upon her, she had fled with the servants to this cellar, and there had been overwhelmed.