I am now on Italian soil in Naples, under a soft Italian sky, and God’s bright and cheerful sunshine, streaming through my window, is falling in golden ringlets upon the floor. Naples boasts 1,000,000 inhabitants, and possesses many charms for the traveler. In approaching the city from the bay the scene is peculiarly striking. It was perhaps this charming picture that gave rise to the saying: “See Naples and die.”
STREET OF CORNELIUS RUFUS, POMPEII.
A fine day this to visit Pompeii, which is only fifteen miles away. It is situated on a narrow table-land which on one side slopes gently down to the bay, and on the other side rises up steeply to the crest of Mt. Vesuvius. We go by train. In half an hour after leaving Naples, we hear the conductor shouting: “Pompeii! Pompeii!!” Fifteen minutes later we are standing before “Porta della Marina,” knocking for entrance.
While waiting for the keeper to open the gate, let me relate as briefly as possible the history of this “City of the Dead,” as Sir Walter Scott calls Pompeii. This city (pro. Pom-pay-ee) was in a flourishing condition hundreds of years before the Christian era. It was founded by the Oscans, but soon fell under Greek influence and civilization. The Greeks, in turn, were subdued by the strong hand of the Caesars and Pompeii became a Roman town.
In A. D. 63, there came an earthquake and a slight eruption of Vesuvius, which together destroyed the greater part of the city. As soon, however, as the earth ceased to tremble, and the mountain to smoke, the work of re-construction began. As in Chicago, after the great fire, the debris was removed, the city was enlarged, the streets were laid out with greater care and more regularity than before. Streams of gold now flowed in from every direction. The magician waved his wand, and lo! from the wreck and ruin of the past, there rose a city of palatial residences and marble temples. Art flourished. Every wall was pictured, every niche held a statue, every column was wreathed with a garland of sculptured roses. Fountains played, monuments arose in honor of Augustus and Nero, triumphal arches were flung across the principal entrances to the city, the marble forms of mythological gods filled the public squares and stood at every street corner. On the fifteenth page of “The Last Days of Pompeii” the author says: “Pompeii was the miniature of the civilization of that age. Within the narrow compass of its walks was contained, as it were, a specimen of every gift which Luxury offered to Power. In its minute but glittering shops, its tiny palaces, its baths, its forum, its theater, its circus, in the energy yet corruption, in the refinement yet the vice of its people, you beheld a model of the whole empire. It was a toy, a play thing, a show-box, in which the gods seemed pleased to keep the representation of the great monarchy of Earth, and which they afterward hid from Time to give to the wonder of Posterity!”
This “miniature city,” rising from the midst of a luxuriant vineyard, stood on a beautiful table land and was girt around with a strong wall. Back behind the city, and close at hand, rose the awful form of that sleeping volcano. The ambitious vine had climbed up and spread its fruitful branches over the crater itself. Purple clusters of luscious fruit silently slept in the sunshine, high aloft on the mountain side. Just below the city, in front and to the south, was the glassy Bay of Naples covered with vessels of commerce, and gilded galleys of the rich. All in all, Pompeii and its surroundings formed one of the most pleasing pictures that ever greeted the human eye.
Pompeii had just reached its boasted perfection when, on the 24th of August, A. D. 79, fifty years after the Crucifixion, it was destroyed by Vesuvius. Pliny, whose mother was among those buried alive, wrote two letters to his friend, the historian Tacitus, in which letters he gives a graphic description of this fearful scene. He speaks of “the premonitory earthquakes, day turned into night the extraordinary agitation of the sea, the dense clouds overhanging the land and sea, and riven by incessant flashes of lightning, the emission of fire and ashes, the descent of streams of lava, and the universal terror of men, who believed the end of the world had arrived.” At the time of the eruption many of the houses were closed; hence they were not filled, but simply surrounded by and covered with ashes. This of course excluded all air. Thus many houses were hermetically sealed, as was also the city itself. Of the 30,000 souls dwelling in Pompeii, 2,000 or more perished with the city. Pompeii, being built entirely of stone, marble and granite did not burn, but was simply buried beneath this incumbent mass. For 1,700 years it was wrapped in ashes and hid from the face of the earth. For centuries its very site was unknown, and even its name forgotten. “But earth, with faithful watch, has hoarded all,” and during the last few years much of the buried city has been unearthed and brought to light.
What a rich field for excavation! It has proved an inexhaustible store-house of wealth, and a perfect treasury of art. Great quantities of gold and silver coins and jewelry, frescoes, pictures, statuary, household furniture, and cooking utensils, have been found; also several large loaves of bread in a perfect state of preservation, and jars of pickled olives. How strange to have one’s appetite tempted by articles of food that were prepared for those who lived 1,700 years ago!