III
THE RUINS OF POMPEII[39]
Since you last heard from me we have been to see Pompeii and we are now waiting for the return of spring weather, to visit, first Pæstum, and then the islands; after which we shall return to Rome. I was astonished at the remains of this city. I had no conception of anything so perfect yet remaining. My idea of the mode of its destruction was this: first an earthquake came and shattered it, and unroofed almost all its temples and split its columns; then a rain of light small pumice-stones fell; then torrents of boiling water mixt with ashes filled up its crevices.
A wide flat hill from which the city was excavated is now covered with woods, and you see the tombs and theaters, the temples and houses, surrounded by uninhabited wilderness. We entered the town from the sides toward the sea, and first saw two theaters; one more magnificent than the other, strewn with the ruins of the white marble which formed their seats and cornices, wrought with deep bold sculpture. In the front between the stage and the seats is the circular space occasionally occupied by the chorus. The stage is very narrow but long and divided from this space by a narrow enclosure parallel to it, I suppose for the orchestra. On each side are the Consuls' boxes, and below in the theater of Herculaneum were found two equestrian statues of excellent workmanship, occupying the same space as the great bronze lamps did at Drury Lane. The smallest of the theaters is said to have been comic, tho I should doubt. From both you see, as you sit on the seats, a prospect of the most wonderful beauty.
You then pass through ancient streets; they are very narrow and the houses rather small, but are constructed on an admirable plan, especially for the climate. The rooms are built round a court, or sometimes two, according to the extent of the house. In the midst is a fountain sometimes surrounded with a portico, supported on fluted columns of white stucco; the floor is paved with mosaics sometimes wrought in imitation of vine leaves, sometimes in quaint figures, and more or less beautiful according to the rank of the inhabitant. There were paintings on all, but most of them have been removed to decorate the royal museums. Little winged figures and small ornaments of exquisite elegance yet remain. There is an ideal life in the forms of these paintings of an incomparable loveliness, tho most are evidently the work of very inferior artists. It seems as if from the atmosphere of mental beauty that surrounds them, every human being caught a splendor not his own.
In one house you see how the bedrooms were managed: a small sofa was built up, where the cushions were placed; two pictures, one representing Diana and Endymion and the other Venus and Mars, decorate the chamber; and a little niche which contains the statue of a domestic god. The floor is composed of a rich mosaic of the rarest marbles, agate, jasper and porphyry; it looks to the marble fountain and the snow white columns, whose etablatures strew the floor of the portico they supported. The houses have only one story, and the apartments, tho not large, are very lofty. A great advantage results from this, wholly unknown in our cities.
The public buildings, whose ruins are now forests as it were of white fluted columns, and which then supported entablatures loaded with sculpture, were seen on all sides over the roofs of the houses. This was the excellence of the ancients: their private expenses were comparatively moderate; the dwelling of one of the chief senators of Pompeii is elegant indeed, and adorned with the most beautiful specimens of art, but small. But their public buildings are everywhere marked by the bold and grand designs of an unsparing magnificence. In the little town of Pompeii (it contained about twenty thousand inhabitants) it is wonderful to see the number and grandeur of their public buildings.
Another advantage, too, is that in the present case the glorious scenery around is not shut out, and that unlike the inhabitants of the Cimmerian ravines of modern cities, the ancient Pompeiian could contemplate the clouds and the lamps of heaven; could see the moon rise high behind Vesuvius, and the sun set in the sea, tremulous with an atmosphere of golden vapor, below Inarnine and Misenum.