“The remains of this town afford a truly interesting spectacle. It is like a resurrection from the dead; the progress of time and decay is arrested, and you are admitted to the temples, the theatres, and the domestic privacy of a people, who have ceased to exist for seventeen centuries. Nothing is wanting but the inhabitants: still, a morning’s walk through the silent streets of Pompeii, will give you a livelier idea of their modes of life, than all the books in the world. They seem like the French of the present day, to have existed only in public. Their temples, theatres, basilicas, and forums, are on the most splendid scale, but in their private dwellings, we discover little, or no attention to comfort. The houses in general, have a small court, round which the rooms are built, which are rather cells than rooms; the greater part are without windows, receiving light only from the door. There are no chimneys; the smoke of the kitchen, which is usually low and dark, must have found its way through a hole in the ceiling.
“The doors are so low, that you are obliged to stoop to pass through them. There are some traces of Mosaic flooring, and the stucco paintings, with which all the walls are covered, are but little injured; and upon their being wetted, they appear as fresh as ever. Brown, red, yellow, and blue, are the prevailing colours. It is a pity that the contents of the houses could not have been allowed to remain in the state in which they were found: but this would have been impossible. Travellers are the greatest thieves in the world. As it is, they will tear down, without scruple, the whole side of a room, to cut out a favourable specimen of the stucco painting. If it were not for this pilfering propensity, we might now see every thing as it really was left at the time of this great calamity; even to the skeleton which was found with a purse of gold in its hand. In the stocks of the guard-room, which was used as a military punishment, the skeletons of four soldiers were found sitting; but these poor fellows have now been released from their ignominious situation, and the stocks, with every thing else that was moveable, have been placed in the museum; the bones being consigned to their parent clay. Pompeii, therefore, exhibits nothing but bare walls, and the walls are without roofs; for these have been broken in, by the weight of the shower of ashes and pumice stones, that caused the destruction of the town.
“The amphitheatre is very perfect, as indeed are the two other theatres, intended for dramatic representations, though it is evident that they had sustained some injury from the earthquake, which, as we learn from Tacitus, had already much damaged this devoted town, before its final destruction by the eruption of Vesuvius. ‘Et motu terræ celebre Campaniæ oppidum Pompeii magna ex parte proruit.’—Tac. Ann. 15. c. 22.
“The paintings on the walls of the amphitheatre, represent the combats of gladiators and wild beasts, the dens of which remain just as they were seventeen hundred years ago. The two theatres for dramatic entertainments, are as close together as our own Drury Lane and Covent Garden. The larger one which might have contained five thousand persons, like the amphitheatre had no roof, but was open to the day. The stage is very much circumscribed—there is no depth, and consequently there are no side scenes; the forms and appearance are like that of our own theatres, when the drop scene is down, and forms the extent of the stage. In the back scene of the Roman stage, which instead of canvas, is composed of unchangeable brick and marble, are three doors; and there are two others on the sides, answering to our stage-doors. It seems that it was the theatrical etiquette, that the premiers roles should have their exits and entrances, through the doors of the back scene, and the inferior ones through those on the sides.
“The little theatre is covered, and in better preservation than the other; and it is supposed that this was intended for musical entertainments. The temple of Isis has suffered little injury; the statues alone have been taken away. You see the very altar on which the victims were offered, and you may now ascend without ceremony the private stairs, which led to the sanctum sanctorum of the goddess; where those mysterious rites were celebrated, the nature of which may be shrewdly guessed from the curiosities discovered there, and which are now to be seen in the Museo Borbonico. In a niche on the outside of the temple, was the statue of Harpocraes, the God of silence—who was most appropriately placed here; but
‘Foul deeds will rise
Though all the earth o’erwhelm them to men’s eyes.’
“The streets are very narrow; the marks of wheels on the pavement shew that carriages were in use, but there must have been some regulation to prevent their meeting each other; for one carriage would have occupied the whole of the street, except the narrow trottoir raised on each side for foot passengers, for whose accommodation, there are also raised stepping stones, in order to cross from one side to the other. The distances between the wheel traces, are four feet three inches.
“There is often an emblem over the door of a house, that determines the profession of its former owner. The word ‘Salve’ on one, seems to denote that it was an inn, as we have in our days the sign of ‘The Salutation.’ In the outer brick-work of another, is carved an emblem, which shocks the refinement of modern taste; but which has been an object even of religious adoration in many countries, probably as a symbol of creative power. The same device is found on the stucco of the inner court of another house, with this intimation, ‘Hic habitat Felicitas,’ a sufficient explanation of the character of its inhabitants. Many of the paintings on the walls are very elegant in the taste and design, and they often assist us in ascertaining the uses for which the different rooms were intended. For example, in the baths, we find Tritons, and Naiads; in the bed-chambers, Morpheus scatters his poppies; and in the eating-room, a sacrifice to Esculapius teaches us, that we should eat, to live;—and not live, to eat.
“In one of these rooms, are the remains of a triclinium. A baker’s shop is as plainly indicated, as if the loaves were now at his window. There is a mill for grinding the corn, and the oven for baking; and the surgeon, and the druggist, have also been traced, by the quality of the articles found in their respective dwellings.