The Last Days of Pompeii | Page 3

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This Etext was prepared by John T. Horner, [email protected].

THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII by Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

BOOK THE FIRST
Chapter I
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF POMPEII.
'HO, Diomed, well met! Do you sup with Glaucus to-night?' said a

young man of small stature, who wore his tunic in those loose and
effeminate folds which proved him to be a gentleman and a coxcomb.
'Alas, no! dear Clodius; he has not invited me,' replied Diomed, a man
of portly frame and of middle age. 'By Pollux, a scurvy trick! for they
say his suppers are the best in Pompeii'.
'Pretty well--though there is never enough of wine for me. It is not the
old Greek blood that flows in his veins, for he pretends that wine makes
him dull the next morning.'
'There may be another reason for that thrift,' said Diomed, raising his
brows. 'With all his conceit and extravagance he is not so rich, I fancy,
as he affects to be, and perhaps loves to save his amphorae better than
his wit.'
'An additional reason for supping with him while the sesterces last.
Next year, Diomed, we must find another Glaucus.'
'He is fond of the dice, too, I hear.'
'He is fond of every pleasure; and while he likes the pleasure of giving
suppers, we are all fond of him.'
'Ha, ha, Clodius, that is well said! Have you ever seen my wine-cellars,
by-the-by?'
'I think not, my good Diomed.'
'Well, you must sup with me some evening; I have tolerable muraenae
in my reservoir, and I ask Pansa the aedile to meet you.'
'O, no state with me!--Persicos odi apparatus, I am easily contented.
Well, the day wanes; I am for the baths--and you...'
'To the quaestor--business of state--afterwards to the temple of Isis.
Vale!'
'An ostentatious, bustling, ill-bred fellow,' muttered Clodius to himself,

as he sauntered slowly away. 'He thinks with his feasts and his
wine-cellars to make us forget that he is the son of a freedman--and so
we will, when we do him the honour of winning his money; these rich
plebeians are a harvest for us spendthrift nobles.'
Thus soliloquising, Clodius arrived in the Via Domitiana, which was
crowded with passengers and chariots, and exhibited all that gay and
animated exuberance of life and motion which we find at this day in the
streets of Naples.
The bells of the cars as they rapidly glided by each other jingled
merrily on the ear, and Clodius with smiles or nods claimed familiar
acquaintance with whatever equipage was most elegant or fantastic: in
fact, no idler was better known in Pompeii.
'What, Clodius! and how have you slept on your good fortune?' cried,
in a pleasant and musical voice, a young man, in a chariot of the most
fastidious and graceful fashion. Upon its surface of bronze were
elaborately wrought, in the still exquisite workmanship of Greece,
reliefs of the Olympian games; the two horses that drew the car were of
the rarest breed of Parthia; their slender limbs seemed to disdain the
ground and court the air, and yet at the slightest touch of the charioteer,
who stood behind the young owner of the equipage, they paused
motionless, as if suddenly transformed into stone--lifeless, but lifelike,
as one of the breathing wonders of Praxiteles. The owner himself was
of that slender and beautiful symmetry from which the sculptors of
Athens drew their models; his Grecian origin betrayed itself in his light
but clustering locks, and the perfect harmony of his features. He wore
no toga, which in the time of the emperors had indeed ceased to be the
general distinction of the Romans, and was especially ridiculed by the
pretenders to