The Wonders of Pompeii | Page 2

the Kitchen, and the
Table.--The Morning Occupations of a Pompeian.--The Toilet of a
Pompeian Lady.--A Citizen Supper: the Courses, the Guests.--The
Homes of the Poor, and the Palaces of Rome. 135
VII.
ART IN POMPEII.
The Homes of the Wealthy.--The Triangular Forum and the
Temples.--Pompeian Architecture: Its Merits and its Defects.--The
Artists of the Little City.--The Paintings here.--Landscapes, Figures,
Rope-dancers, Dancing-girls, Centaurs, Gods, Heroes, the Iliad
Illustrated.--Mosaics.--Statues and Statuettes.--Jewelry.--Carved
Glass.--Art and Life. 167
VIII.
THE THEATRES.
The Arrangement of the Places of Amusement.--Entrance Tickets.--The
Velarium, the Orchestra, the Stage.--The Odeon.--The Holconii.--The
Side Scenes, the Masks.--The Atellan Farces.--The Mimes.--Jugglers,
etc.--A Remark of Cicero on the Melodramas.--The Barrack of the
Gladiators.--Scratched Inscriptions, Instruments of Torture.--The
Pompeian Gladiators.--The Amphitheatre: Hunts, Combats, Butcheries,
etc. 199
IX.
THE ERUPTION.
The Deluge of Ashes.--The Deluge of Fire.--The Flight of the
Pompeians.--The Preoccupations of the Pompeian Women.--The

Victims: the Family of Diomed; the Sentinel; the Woman Walled up in
a Tomb; the Priest of Isis; the Lovers clinging together, etc.--The
Skeletons.--The Dead Bodies moulded by Vesuvius. 232

DIALOGUE.
(IN A BOOKSTORE AT NAPLES.)
A TRAVELLER (_entering_).--Have you any work on Pompeii?
THE SALESMAN.--Yes; we have several. Here, for instance, is
Bulwer's "Last Days of Pompeii."
TRAVELLER.--Too thoroughly romantic.
SALESMAN.--Well, here are the folios of Mazois.
TRAVELLER.--Too heavy.
SALESMAN.--Here's Dumas's "Corricolo."
TRAVELLER.--Too light.
SALESMAN.--How would Nicolini's magnificent work suit you?
TRAVELLER.--Oh! that's too dear.
SALESMAN.--Here's Commander Aloë's "Guide."
TRAVELLER.--That's too dry.
SALESMAN.--Neither dry, nor romantic, nor light, nor heavy! What,
then, would you have, sir?
TRAVELLER.--A small, portable work; accurate, conscientious, and
within everybody's reach.
SALESMAN.--Ah, sir, we have nothing of that kind; besides, it is

impossible to get up such a work.
THE AUTHOR (_aside_).--Who knows?

THE
WONDERS OF POMPEII.

I.
THE EXHUMED CITY.
THE ANTIQUE LANDSCAPE--THE HISTORY OF POMPEII
BEFORE AND AFTER ITS DESTRUCTION.--HOW IT WAS
BURIED AND EXHUMED.--WINKELMANN AS A
PROPHET.--THE EXCAVATIONS IN THE REIGN OF CHARLES
III., OF MURAT, AND OF FERDINAND.--THE EXCAVATIONS
AS THEY NOW ARE.--SIGNOR FIORELLI.--APPEARANCE OF
THE RUINS.--WHAT IS AND WHAT IS NOT FOUND THERE.
A railroad runs from Naples to Pompeii. Are you alone? The trip
occupies one hour, and you have just time enough to read what follows,
pausing once in a while to glance at Vesuvius and the sea; the clear,
bright waters hemmed in by the gentle curve of the promontories; a
bluish coast that approaches and becomes green; a green coast that
withdraws into the distance and becomes blue; Castellamare looming
up, and Naples receding. All these lines and colors existed too at the
time when Pompeii was destroyed: the island of Prochyta, the cities of
Baiæ, of Bauli, of Neapolis, and of Surrentum bore the names that they
retain. Portici was called Herculaneum; Torre dell'Annunziata was
called Oplontes; Castellamare, Stabiæ; Misenum and Minerva
designated the two extremities of the gulf. However, Vesuvius was not
what it has become; fertile and wooded almost to the summit, covered
with orchards and vines, it must have resembled the picturesque heights
of Monte San Angelo, toward which we are rolling. The summit alone,

honeycombed with caverns and covered with black stones, betrayed to
the learned a volcano "long extinct." It was to blaze out again, however,
in a terrible eruption; and, since then, it has constantly flamed and
smoked, menacing the ruins it has made and the new cities that brave it,
calmly reposing at its feet.
What do you expect to find at Pompeii? At a distance, its antiquity
seems enormous, and the word "ruins" awakens colossal conceptions in
the excited fancy of the traveller. But, be not self-deceived; that is the
first rule in knocking about over the world. Pompeii was a small city of
only thirty thousand souls; something like what Geneva was thirty
years ago. Like Geneva, too, it was marvellously situated--in the depth
of a picturesque valley between mountains shutting in the horizon on
one side, at a few steps from the sea and from a streamlet, once a river,
which plunges into it--and by its charming site attracted personages of
distinction, although it was peopled chiefly with merchants and others
in easy circumstances; shrewd, prudent folk, and probably honest and
clever enough, as well. The etymologists, after having exhausted, in
their lexicons, all the words that chime in sound with Pompeii, have, at
length, agreed in deriving the name from a Greek verb which signifies
_to send, to transport_, and hence they conclude that many of the
Pompeians were engaged in exportation, or perhaps, were emigrants
sent from a distance to form a colony. Yet these opinions are but
conjectures, and it is useless to dwell on them.
All that can be positively stated is that the city was the entrepôt of the
trade of Nola, Nocera, and Atella. Its port was large enough to receive a
naval armament, for it sheltered the