One day, when festivities such as these were in full activity, Vesuvius sent up a tall and very black column of smoke, something like a pine-tree; and suddenly, in broad noonday, darkness black as pitch came over the scene! There was a frightful din of cries, groans, and imprecations, mingled confusedly together. The brother lost his sister, the husband his wife, the mother her child; for the darkness became so dense that nothing could be seen but the flashes which every now and then darted forth from the summit of the neighbouring mountain. The earth trembled, the houses shook and began to fall, and the sea rolled back from the land as ifterrified; the air became thick with dust; and then, amidsttremendous and awful noise, a shower of stones, scori?, andpumice⑨ fell upon the town, and blotted it out for ever!
The inhabitants died just as the catastrophe found them- guests in their banquet-halls, brides in their chambers, soldiers at their post, prisoners in their dungeons, thieves in their theft, maidens at the mirror, slaves at the fountain, traders in their shops, students at their books. Some attempted flight, guided by blind people, who had walked so long in darkness that no thicker shadows could ever come upon them; but of these many were struck down on the way. When, a few days afterwards, people came from the surrounding country to the place, they found nought but a black, level, smoking plain, sloping to the sea, and covered thickly with ashes! Down, down beneath, thousands and thousands were sleeping "the sleep that knows no waking," with all their little pomps, and vanities, and frivolities, and pleasures, and luxuries, buried with them.
This took place on the 23rd of August, 79 A. D. ; and the name of the town thus suddenly overwhelmed was POMPEII (Pompa"ee ). Sixteen hundred and seventeen years afterwards, curious persons began to dig and excavate on the spot, and lo! they found the city. very much as it waswhen o ver whelmed. The houses were standing, the paintings were fresh, and theCASTS OF BODIES DISCOVERED IN THE RUINS OF POMPEII.
(In the Museum at Naples.)
skeletons⑩ stood in the very positions and the very places inwhich death had overtaken their owners so long ago!
The marks left by the cups of the tipplers still remained on the counters; the prisoners still wore their fetters, thebelles their chains and bracelets; the miser held his hand on his hoarded coin; and the priests were lurking in the hollow images of their gods, from which they uttered responses and deceived the worshippers. There were the altars, with the blood dry and crusted upon them; the stables in which the victims of the sacrifice were kept; and the hall of mysteries, in which were symbolic paintings.
The researches are still going on, new wonders are every day coming to light, and we soon shall have almost as perfect an idea of a Roman town in the first century of the Christian era as if we had walked the streets and gossiped with the idle loungers at the fountains. Pompeii is the ghost of an extinct civilization rising up before us.
-Illustrated Magazine of Art
NOTES
① Frescoes, paintings made upon the walls themselves. In fresco-painting, the colours are laid upon the lime while it is still soft and wet.
② Belgravia, the south-western district of London, built between 1826 and 1852, on landbelonging to the Marquis of Westminster, one of whose titles is Viscount Belgrave; hence the name. Being full of splendid mansions, it is taken as the type of fashionable London.
③ Atrium, the principal public apartment, or reception-room, in a Roman house. Therewas an opening in the centre of the roof, towards which the other roofs sloped so as to throw down the rain into an open cistern in the middle of the floor, called the impluvium (Lat. pluvia , rain).
④ Tablinum, a recess or room at the farther end of the atrium , of which it formed a part.
⑤ Paved with mosaic.-Originally, Roman floors were beaten down with rammers; hence pavement (from Lat pavio , I beat). Sometimes pieces of marble were embedded in it; and this probably suggested the idea of mosaics, which are devices formed by in-laying a neutral ground with stones of different shapes and colours.
⑥ Peristyle, an open court, larger than the atrium , in the back part of the house. It was surrounded by columns, with garden in the centre. From the columns it received its name,- peristyle being a Greek word meaning a range of columns around a building.
⑦ Arabesque, a style of decoration in which the Arabians excelled, in which fruit, flowers,and other devices were interwoven with carved lines.
⑧ Libation on the altar of Bac"chus, wine poured out in honour of the god of wine.
⑨ Scori?, the slaggy, vitreous lava sent forth by volcanoes. Pu"mice is a light porous substance, like stony froth, found in all volcanic regions. It is used for polishing ivory, marble, glass, and metals.
⑩ Skeletons.-In 1865, while the excavations were proceeding under the direction of Signor Fiorelli, the workmen discovered peculiar cavities, at the bottom of which bones were discernible. These cavities were filled with liquid plaster, and when this had hardened, and the outer crust of pumice was removed, the casts of several human bodies were displayed. These, with many other relics of the buried city; are to be seen in the National Museum at Naples.
QUESTIONS
In what relation did Pompeii stand to Rome? How were its inhabitants chiefly occupied? What was the atrium in a Pompeian house? Describe the tablinum . What was the peristyle ? How was it decorated? Describe a Pompeian dinner party. When did the eruption which buried the city take place? How were the inhabitants occupied at the time ? When did the work of excavation begin? In what condition was the city found?
