"Nevoleia Tyché, freedwoman of Julia, for herself and for Caius Munatius Faustus, knight and mayor of the suburb, to whom the decurions, with the consent of the people, had awarded the honor of the bisellium. This monument has been offered during her lifetime by Nevoleia Tyché to her freedmen and to those of C. Munatius Faustus."
Assuredly, after reading this inscription, we cannot reproach the fair Pompeians with concealing their affections from the public. Nevoleia certainly was not the wife of Munatius; nevertheless, she loved him well, since she made a trysting with him even in the tomb. It was Queen Caroline Murat who, accompanied by Canova, was the first to penetrate to the inside of this dovecote (January 14, 1813). There were opened in her presence several glass urns with leaden cases, on the bottom of which still floated some ashes in a liquid not yet dried up, a mixture of water, wine, and oil. Other urns contained only some bones and the small coin which has been taken for Charon's obolus.
I have many other tombs left to mention. There are three, which are sarcophagi, still complete, never open, and proving that the ancients buried their dead even before Christianity prohibited the use of the funeral pyre. Families had their choice between the two systems, and burned neither men who had been struck by lightning (they thought the bodies of such to be incorruptible), nor new-born infants who had not yet cut their teeth. Thus it was that the remains of Diomed's youngest children could not be found, while those of the elder ones were preserved in a glass urn contained in a vase of lead.
A tomb that looks like a sentry-box, and stands as though on duty in front of the Herculaneum gate, had, during the eruption, been the refuge of a soldier, whose skeleton was found in it. Another strangely-decorated monument forms a covered hemicycle turned toward the south, fronting the sea, as though to offer a shelter for the fatigued and heated passers-by. Another, of rounded shape, presents inside a vault bestrewn with small flowers and decorated with bas-reliefs, one of which represents a female laying a fillet on the bones of her child. Other monuments are adorned with garlands. One of the least curious contained the magnificent blue and white glass vase, of which I shall have to speak further on. That of the priestess Mamia, ornamented with a superb inscription, forms a large circular bench terminating in a lion's claw. Visitors are fond of resting there to look out upon the landscape and the sea. Let us not forget the funereal triclinium, a simply-decorated dining-hall, where still are seen three beds of masonry, used at the banquets given in honor of the dead. These feasts, at which nothing was eaten but shell-fish (poor fare, remarks Juvenal), were celebrated nine days after the death. Hence came their title, novendialia. They were also called silicernia; and the guests conversed at them about the exploits and benevolent deeds of the man who had ceased to live. Polybius boasts greatly of these last honors paid to illustrious citizens. Thence it was, he says, that Roman greatness took its rise.
In fact, even at Pompeii, in this humble campo santo of the little city, we see at every step virtue rewarded after death by some munificent act of the decurions. Sometimes it is a perpetual grant (a favor difficult to obtain), indicated by the following letters: H.M.H.N.S. (hoc monumentum hæredes non sequitur), insuring to them the perpetual possession of their sepulchre, which could not be disposed of by their heirs. Sometimes the space conceded was indicated upon the tomb. For instance, we read in the sepulchre of the family of Nistacidius: "A. Nistacidius Helenus, mayor of the suburb Augusto-Felix. To Nistacidius Januarius and to Mesionia Satulla. Fifteen feet in depth, fifteen feet in frontage."
This bench of the priestess Mamia and that of Aulus Vetius (a military tribune and duumvir dispensing justice) were in like manner constructed, with the consent of the people, upon the lands conceded by the decurions. In fine—and this is the most singular feature—animals had their monuments. This, at least, is what the guides will tell you, as they point out a large tomb in a street of the suburbs. They call it the sepolcro dei bestiani, because the skeletons of bulls were found in it. The antiquaries rebel against this opinion. Some, upon the strength of the carved masks, affirm that it was a burial place for actors; others, observing that the inclosure walls shut in quite a spacious temple, intimate that it was a cemetery for priests. For my part, I have nothing to offer against the opinion of the guides. The Egyptians, whose gods Rome adopted, interred the bull Apis magnificently. Animals might, therefore, find burial in the noble suburb of Pompeii. As for the lower classes, they slept their final sleep where they could; perhaps in the common burial pit (commune sepulcrum), an ancient barbarism that has been kept up until our times; perhaps in those public burial ranges where one could purchase a simple niche (olla) for his urn. These niches were sometimes humble and touching presents interchanged by poor people.
And in this street, where death is so gay, so vain, so richly adorned, where the monuments arose amid the foliage of trees perennially green, which they had endeavored, but without success, to render serious and sombre, where the mausolea are pavilions and dining-rooms, in which the inscriptions recall whole narratives of life and even love affairs, there stood spacious inns and sumptuous villas—for instance, those of Arrius Diomed and Cicero. This Arrius Diomed was one of the freedmen of Julia, and the mayor of the suburb. A rich citizen, but with a bad heart, he left his wife and children to perish in his cellar, and fled alone with one slave only, and all the silver that he could carry away. He perished in front of his garden gate. May the earth press heavily upon him!
His villa, which consisted of three stories, not placed one above the other, but descending in terraces from the top of the hill, deserves a visit or two. You will there see a pretty court surrounded with columns and small rooms, one of which—of an elliptical shape and opening on a garden, and lighted by the evening twilight, but shielded from the sun by windows and by curtains, the glass panes and rings of which have been found—is the pleasantest nook cleared out among these ruins. You will also be shown the baths, the saloons, the bedchambers, the garden, a host of small apartments brilliantly decorated, basins of marble, and the cellar still intact, with amphoræ, inside of which were still a few drops of wine not yet dried up, the place where lay the poor suffocated family—seventeen skeletons surprised there together by death. The fine ashes that stifled them having hardened with time, retain the print of a young girl's bosom. It was this strange mould, which is now kept at the museum, that inspired the Arria Marcella of Theophile Gautier—that author's masterpiece, perhaps, but at all events a masterpiece.
As for Cicero, get them to show you his villa, if you choose. You will see absolutely nothing there, and it has been filled up again. Fine paintings were found there previously, along with superb mosaics and a rich collection of precious articles; but I shall not copy the inventory. Was it really the house of Cicero? Who can say? Antiquaries will have it so, and so be it, then! I do not deny that Cicero had a country property at Pompeii, for he often mentions it in his letters; but where it was, exactly, no one can demonstrate. He could have descried it from Baiæ or Misenum, he somewhere writes, had he possessed longer vision; but in such case he could also have seen the entire side of Pompeii that looks toward the sea. Therefore, I put aside these useless discussions and resume our methodical tour.