Museum of Antiquity: A Description of Ancient Life

POMPEII. ToC

DESTRUCTION OF POMPEII.ToList

Pompeii was in its full glory at the commencement of the Christian era. It was a city of wealth and refinement, with about 35,000 inhabitants, and beautifully located at the foot of Mount Vesuvius; it possessed all local advantages that the most refined taste could desire. Upon the verge of the sea, at the entrance of a fertile plain, on the bank of a navigable river, it united the conveniences of a commercial town with the security of a military station, and the romantic beauty of a spot celebrated in all ages for its pre-eminent loveliness. Its environs, even to the heights of Vesuvius, were covered with villas, and the coast, all the way to Naples, was so ornamented with gardens and villages, that the shores of the whole gulf appeared as one city.What an enchanting picture must have presented itself to one approaching Pompeii by sea! He beheld the bright, cheerful Grecian temples spreading out on the slopes before him; the pillared Forum; the rounded marble Theatres. He saw the grand Palaces descending to the very edge of the blue waves by noble flights of steps, surrounded with green pines, laurels and cypresses, from amidst whose dark foliage marble statues of gods gleamed whitely.

The skillful architect, the sculptors, the painters, and the casters of bronze were all employed to make Pompeii an asylum of arts; all trades and callings endeavored to grace and beautify the city. The prodigious concourse of strangers who came here in search of health and recreation added new charms and life to the scene.

But behind all this, and encased as it were in a frame, the landscape rose in a gentle slope to the summit of the thundering mountain. But indications were not wanting of the peril with which the city was threatened. The whole district is volcanic; and a few years before the final catastrophe, an earthquake had shaken Pompeii to its foundations; some of the buildings were much injured. On August 24, A.D. 79, the inhabitants were busily engaged in repairing the damage thus wrought, when suddenly and without any previous warning a vast column of black smoke burst from the overhanging mountain. Rising to a prodigious height in the cloudless summer sky, it then gradually spread out like the head of some mighty Italian pine, hiding the sun, and overshadowing the earth for miles in distance.

The darkness grew into profound night, only broken by the blue and sulphurous flashes which darted from the pitchy cloud. Soon the thick rain of thin, light ashes, almost imperceptible to the touch, fell upon the land. Then quickly succeeded shower of small pumice stones and heavier ashes, and emitting stifling eruptic fumes. After a time the sounds of approaching torrent were heard, and soon streaming rivers of dense black mud poured slowly but irresistibly down the mountain sides, and circled through the streets, insidiously creeping into such recesses as even the subtle ashes had failed to penetrate. There was now no place of shelter left. No man could defend himself against this double enemy. It was too late for flight for such as had remained behind. Those who had taken refuge in the innermost parts of the houses, or in the subterranean passages, were closed up forever. Those who sought to flee through the streets were clogged by the small, loose pumice stones, which lay many feet deep, or were entangled and overwhelmed in the mud-streams, or were struck down by the rocks which fell from the heavens. If they escaped these dangers, blinded by the drifting ashes and groping in the dark, not knowing which way to go, they were overcome by the sulphurous vapors, and sinking on the highway were soon buried beneath the volcanic matter. Even many who had gained the open country, at the beginning of the eruption, were overtaken by the darkness and falling cinders, and perished miserably in the field or on the sea-shore, where they had vainly sought the means of flight.

In three days the doomed city had disappeared. It lay buried beneath a vast mass of ashes, pumice stone and hardened mud, from twenty to seventy feet deep. Those of its terror-stricken inhabitants who escaped destruction, abandoned forever its desolate site. Years, generations, centuries went by, and the existence of Pompeii—yea, even its very name—had ceased to be remembered. The rich volcanic soil became covered with a profusion of vegetation. Vineyards flourished and houses were built on the site of the buried city.

Nearly eighteen hundred years had elapsed since the thunderer Vesuvius had thrown the black mantle of ashes over the fair city before the resuscitation arrived. Some antique bronzes and utensils, discovered by a peasant, excited universal attention. Excavations were begun, and Pompeii, shaking off as it were her musty grave clothes, stared from the classic and poetical age of the first into the prosaic modern world of the nineteenth century. The world was startled, and looked with wondering interest to see this ancient stranger arising from her tomb—to behold the awakening of the remote past from the womb of the earth which had so long hoarded it.

The excavation has been assiduously prosecuted, until to-day three hundred and sixty houses, temples, theatres, schools, stores, factories, etc., have been thrown open before us with their treasured contents. It is often, but erroneously, supposed that Pompeii, like Herculaneum, was overwhelmed by a flood of lava. Had this been the case, the work of excavation would have been immensely more difficult, and the result would have been far less important. The marbles must have been calcined, the bronzes melted, the frescoes effaced, and smaller articles destroyed by the fiery flood. The ruin was effected by showers of dust and scoriÆ, and by torrents of liquid mud, which formed a mould, encasing the objects, thus preserving them from injury or decay. We thus gain a perfect picture of what a Roman city was eighteen hundred years ago, as everything is laid bare to us in almost a perfect state.

What wealth of splendid vessels and utensils was contained in the chests and closets! Gold and gilded ivory, pearls and precious stones were used to decorate tables, chairs and vessels for eating and drinking. Elegant lamps hung from the ceiling, and candelabra and little lamps of most exquisite shapes illuminated the apartments at night. To-day, looking at the walls, the eyes may feast on beautiful fresco paintings, with colors so vivid and fresh as if painted but yesterday; while gleaming everywhere on ceiling, wall and floor, are marbles of rarest hue, sculptured into every conceivable form of grace and beauty, and inlaid in most artistic designs.

Entering Pompeii.

We will now proceed to describe the general aspect of the city, and for this purpose it will be convenient to suppose that we have entered it by the gate of Herculaneum, though in other respects the Porta della Marina is the more usual and, perhaps, the best entrance.

On entering, the visitor finds himself in a street, running a little east of south, which leads to the Forum. To the right, stands a house formerly owned by a musician; to the left, a thermopolium or shop for hot drinks; beyond is the house of the Vestals; beyond this the custom-house; and a little further on, where another street runs into this one from the north at a very acute angle, stands a public fountain. In the last-named street is a surgeon's house; at least one so named from the quantity of surgical instruments found in it, all made of bronze. On the right or western side of the street, by which we entered, the houses, as we have said, are built on the declivity of a rock, and are several stories high.

The fountain is about one hundred and fifty yards from the city gate. About the same distance, further on, the street divides into two; the right-hand turning seems a by-street, the left-hand turning conducts you to the Forum. The most important feature in this space is a house called the house of Sallust or of ActÆon, from a painting in it representing that hunter's death. It stands on an area about forty yards square, and is encompassed on three sides by streets; by that namely which we have been describing, by another nearly parallel to it, and by a third, perpendicular to these two. The whole quarter at present excavated, as far as the Street of the Baths, continued by the Street of Fortune, is divided, by six longitudinal and one transverse street, into what the Romans called islands, or insulated masses of houses. Two of these are entirely occupied by the houses of Pansa and of the Faun, which, with their courts and gardens, are about one hundred yards long by forty wide.

From the Street of the Baths and that of Fortune, which bound these islands on the south, two streets lead to the two corners of the Forum; between them are baths, occupying nearly the whole island. Among other buildings are a milk-shop and gladiatorial school. At the northeast corner of the Forum was a triumphal arch. At the end of the Street of the Baths and beginning of that of Fortune, another triumphal arch is still to be made out, spanning the street of Mercury, so that this was plainly the way of state into the city. The Forum is distant from the gate of Herculaneum about four hundred yards. Of it we shall give a full description in its place. Near the south-eastern corner two streets enter it, one running to the south, the other to the east. We will follow the former for about eighty yards, when it turns eastward for two hundred yards, and conducts us to the quarter of the theatres. The other street, which runs eastward from the Forum, is of more importance, and is called the Street of the Silversmiths;[1] at the end of which a short street turns southwards, and meets the other route to the theatres. On both these routes the houses immediately bordering on the streets are cleared; but between them is a large rectangular plot of unexplored ground. Two very elegant houses at the southwest corner of the Forum were uncovered by the French general Championnet, while in command at Naples, and are known by his name. On the western side of the Forum two streets led down towards the sea; the excavations here consist almost entirely of public buildings, which will be described hereafter.

VIEW OF POMPEII.

VIEW OF POMPEII. (From a photograph.)ToList

The quarter of the theatres comprises a large temple, called the Temple of Neptune or Hercules, a temple of Isis, a temple of Æsculapius, two theatres, the Triangular Forum, and the quarters of the soldiers or gladiators. On the north and east it is bounded by streets; to the south and west it seems to have been enclosed partly by the town walls, partly by its own. Here the continuous excavation ends, and we must cross vineyards to the amphitheatre, about five hundred and fifty yards distant from the theatre, in the southeast corner of the city, close to the walls, and in an angle formed by them. Close to the amphitheatre are traces of walls supposed to have belonged to a Forum Boarium, or cattle market. Near at hand, a considerable building, called the villa of Julia Felix, has been excavated and filled up again. On the walls of it was discovered the following inscription, which may serve to convey an idea of the wealth of some of the Pompeian proprietors:

In Praedis Julle Sp F. Felicis
Locantur
Balneum Venerium Et Nongentum TabernÆ PergulÆ
Coenacula Ex Idibus Aug Primis
In Idus Aug. Sextas Annos Continuos Quinque
S. Q. D. L. E. N. C.

That is: "On the estate of Julia Felix, daughter of Spurius, are to be let a bath, a venereum, nine hundred shops, with booths and garrets, for a term of five continuous years, from the first to the sixth of the Ides of August." The formula, S. Q. D. L. E. N. C., with which the advertisement concludes, is thought to stand for—si quis domi lenocinium exerceat ne conducito: "let no one apply who keeps a brothel."

A little to the south of the smaller theatre was discovered, in 1851, the Gate of StabiÆ. Hence a long straight street, which has been called the Street of StabiÆ, traversed the whole breadth of the city, till it issued out on the northern side at the gate of Vesuvius. It has been cleared to the point where it intersects the Streets of Fortune and of Nola, which, with the Street of the Baths, traverse the city in its length. The Street of StabiÆ forms the boundary of the excavations; all that part of Pompeii which lies to the east of it, with the exception of the amphitheatre, and the line forming the Street of Nola, being still occupied by vineyards and cultivated fields. On the other hand, that part of the city lying to the west of it has been for the most part disinterred; though there are still some portions lying to the south and west of the Street of Abundance and the Forum, and to the east of the Vico Storto, which remain to be excavated.

The streets of Pompeii are paved with large irregular pieces of lava joined neatly together, in which the chariot wheels have worn ruts, still discernible; in some places they are an inch and a half deep, and in the narrow streets follow one track; where the streets are wider, the ruts are more numerous and irregular. The width of the streets varies from eight or nine feet to about twenty-two, including the footpaths or trottoirs. In many places they are so narrow that they may be crossed at one stride; where they are wider, a raised stepping-stone, and sometimes two or three, have been placed in the centre of the crossing. These stones, though in the middle of the carriage way, did not much inconvenience those who drove about in the biga, or two-horsed chariot, as the wheels passed freely in the spaces left, while the horses, being loosely harnessed, might either have stepped over the stones or passed by the sides. The curb-stones are elevated from one foot to eighteen inches, and separate the foot-pavement from the road. Throughout the city there is hardly a street unfurnished with this convenience. Where there is width to admit of a broad foot-path, the interval between the curb and the line of building is filled up with earth, which has then been covered over with stucco, and sometimes with a coarse mosaic of brickwork. Here and there traces of this sort of pavement still remain, especially in those streets which were protected by porticoes.

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Arrangement of Private Houses.

We will now give an account of some of the most remarkable private houses which have been disinterred; of the paintings, domestic utensils, and other articles found in them; and such information upon the domestic manners of the ancient Italians as may seem requisite to the illustration of these remains. This branch of our subject is not less interesting, nor less extensive than the other. Temples and theatres, in equal preservation, and of greater splendor than those at Pompeii, may be seen in many places; but towards acquainting us with the habitations, the private luxuries and elegancies of ancient life, not all the scattered fragments of domestic architecture which exist elsewhere have done so much as this city, with its fellow-sufferer, Herculaneum.

Towards the last years of the republic, the Romans naturalized the arts of Greece among themselves; and Grecian architecture came into fashion at Rome, as we may learn, among other sources, from the letters of Cicero to Atticus, which bear constant testimony to the strong interest which he took in ornamenting his several houses, and mention Cyrus, his Greek architect. At this time immense fortunes were easily made from the spoils of new conquests, or by peculation and maladministration of subject provinces, and the money thus ill and easily acquired was squandered in the most lavish luxury. One favorite mode of indulgence was in splendor of building. Lucius Cassius was the first who ornamented his house with columns of foreign marble; they were only six in number, and twelve feet high. He was soon surpassed by Scaurus, who placed in his house columns of the black marble called Lucullian, thirty-eight feet high, and of such vast and unusual weight that the superintendent of sewers, as we are told by Pliny,[2] took security for any injury which might happen to the works under his charge, before they were suffered to be conveyed along the streets. Another prodigal, by name Mamurra, set the example of lining his rooms with slabs of marble. The best estimate, however, of the growth of architectural luxury about this time may be found in what we are told by Pliny, that, in the year of Rome 676, the house of Lepidus was the finest in the city, and thirty-five years later it was not the hundredth.[3] We may mention, as an example of the lavish expenditure of the Romans, that Domitius Ahenobarbus offered for the house of Crassus a sum amounting to near $242,500, which was refused by the owner.[4] Nor were they less extravagant in their country houses. We may again quote Cicero, whose attachment to his Tusculan and Formian villas, and interest in ornamenting them, even in the most perilous times, is well known. Still more celebrated are the villas of Lucullus and Pollio; of the latter some remains are still to be seen near Pausilipo.

Augustus endeavored by his example to check this extravagant passion, but he produced little effect. And in the palaces of the emperors, and especially the Aurea Domus, the Golden House of Nero, the domestic architecture of Rome, or, we might probably say, of the world, reached its extreme.

The arrangement of the houses, though varied, of course, by local circumstances, and according to the rank and circumstances of the master, was pretty generally the same in all. The principal rooms, differing only in size and ornament, recur everywhere; those supplemental ones, which were invented only for convenience or luxury, vary according to the tastes and circumstances of the master.

GROUND PLAN OF A ROMAN HOUSE.

GROUND PLAN OF A ROMAN HOUSE.ToList

The private part comprised the peristyle, bed-chambers, triclinium, oeci, picture-gallery, library, baths, exedra, xystus, etc. We proceed to explain the meaning of these terms.

Before great mansions there was generally a court or area, upon which the portico opened, either surrounding three sides of the area, or merely running along the front of the house. In smaller houses the portico ranged even with the street. Within the portico, or if there was no portico, opening directly to the street, was the vestibule, consisting of one or more spacious apartments. It was considered to be without the house, and was always open for the reception of those who came to wait there until the doors should be opened. The prothyrum, in Greek architecture, was the same as the vestibule. In Roman architecture, it was a passage-room, between the outer or house-door which opened to the vestibule, and an inner door which closed the entrance of the atrium. In the vestibule, or in an apartment opening upon it, the porter, ostiarius, usually had his seat.

The atrium, or cavÆdium, for they appear to have signified the same thing, was the most important, and usually the most splendid apartment of the house. Here the owner received his crowd of morning visitors, who were not admitted to the inner apartments. The term is thus explained by Varro: "The hollow of the house (cavum Ædium) is a covered place within the walls, left open to the common use of all. It is called Tuscan, from the Tuscans, after the Romans began to imitate their cavÆdium. The word atrium is derived from the Atriates, a people of Tuscany, from whom the pattern of it was taken." Originally, then, the atrium was the common room of resort for the whole family, the place of their domestic occupations; and such it probably continued in the humbler ranks of life. A general description of it may easily be given. It was a large apartment, roofed over, but with an opening in the centre, called compluvium, towards which the roof sloped, so as to throw the rain-water into a cistern in the floor called impluvium.

The roof around the compluvium was edged with a row of highly ornamented tiles, called antefixes, on which a mask or some other figure was moulded. At the corners there were usually spouts, in the form of lions' or dogs' heads, or any fantastical device which the architect might fancy, which carried the rain-water clear out into the impluvium, whence it passed into cisterns; from which again it was drawn for household purposes. For drinking, river-water, and still more, well-water, was preferred. Often the atrium was adorned with fountains, supplied through leaden or earthenware pipes, from aqueducts or other raised heads of water; for the Romans knew the property of fluids, which causes them to stand at the same height in communicating vessels. This is distinctly recognized by Pliny,[5] though their common use of aqueducts, in preference to pipes, has led to a supposition that this great hydrostatical principle was unknown to them. The breadth of the impluvium, according to Vitruvius, was not less than a quarter, nor greater than a third, of the whole breadth of the atrium; its length was regulated by the same standard. The opening above it was often shaded by a colored veil, which diffused a softened light, and moderated the intense heat of an Italian sun.[6] The splendid columns of the house of Scaurus, at Rome, were placed, as we learn from Pliny,[7] in the atrium of his house. The walls were painted with landscapes or arabesques—a practice introduced about the time of Augustus—or lined with slabs of foreign and costly marbles, of which the Romans were passionately fond. The pavement was composed of the same precious material, or of still more valuable mosaics.

VESTIBULE OF A POMPEIAN HOUSE.

VESTIBULE OF A POMPEIAN HOUSE.ToList

The tablinum was an appendage of the atrium, and usually entirely open to it. It contained, as its name imports,[8] the family archives, the statues, pictures, genealogical tables, and other relics of a long line of ancestors.

AlÆ, wings, were similar but smaller apartments, or rather recesses, on each side of the further part of the atrium. Fauces, jaws, were passages, more especially those which passed to the interior of the house from the atrium.In houses of small extent, strangers were lodged in chambers which surrounded and opened into the atrium. The great, whose connections spread into the provinces, and who were visited by numbers who, on coming to Rome, expected to profit by their hospitality, had usually a hospitium, or place of reception for strangers, either separate, or among the dependencies of their palaces.

Of the private apartments the first to be mentioned is the peristyle, which usually lay behind the atrium, and communicated with it both through the tablinum and by fauces. In its general plan it resembled the atrium, being in fact a court, open to the sky in the middle, and surrounded by a colonnade, but it was larger in its dimensions, and the centre court was often decorated with shrubs and flowers and fountains, and was then called xystus. It should be greater in extent when measured transversely than in length,[9] and the intercolumniations should not exceed four, nor fall short of three diameters of the columns.

Of the arrangement of the bed-chambers we know little. They seem to have been small and inconvenient. When there was room they had usually a procoeton, or ante-chamber. Vitruvius recommends that they should face the east, for the benefit of the early sun. One of the most important apartments in the whole house was the triclinium, or dining-room, so named from the three beds, which encompassed the table on three sides, leaving the fourth open to the attendants. The prodigality of the Romans in matters of eating is well known, and it extended to all matters connected with the pleasures of the table. In their rooms, their couches, and all the furniture of their entertainments, magnificence and extravagance were carried to their highest point. The rich had several of these apartments, to be used at different seasons, or on various occasions. Lucullus, celebrated for his wealth and profuse expenditure, had a certain standard of expenditure for each triclinium, so that when his servants were told which hall he was to sup in, they knew exactly the style of entertainment to be prepared; and there is a well-known story of the way in which he deceived Pompey and Cicero, when they insisted on going home with him to see his family supper, by merely sending word home that he would sup in the Apollo, one of the most splendid of his halls, in which he never gave an entertainment for less than 50,000 denarii, about $8,000. Sometimes the ceiling was contrived to open and let down a second course of meats, with showers of flowers and perfumed waters, while rope-dancers performed their evolutions over the heads of the company. The performances of these funambuli are frequently represented in paintings at Pompeii. Mazois, in his work entitled "Le Palais de Scaurus," has given a fancy picture of the habitation of a Roman noble of the highest class, in which he has embodied all the scattered notices of domestic life, which a diligent perusal of the Latin writers has enabled him to collect. His description of the triclinium of Scaurus will give the reader the best notion of the style in which such an apartment was furnished and ornamented. For each particular in the description he quotes some authority. We shall not, however, encumber our pages with references to a long list of books not likely to be in the possession of most readers.

"Bronze lamps,[10] dependent from chains of the same metal, or raised on richly-wrought candelabra, threw around the room a brilliant light. Slaves set apart for this service watched them, trimmed the wicks, and from time to time supplied them with oil.

"The triclinium is twice as long as it is broad, and divided, as it were, into two parts—the upper occupied by the table and the couches, the lower left empty for the convenience of the attendants and spectators. Around the former the walls, up to a certain height, are ornamented with valuable hangings. The decorations of the rest of the room are noble, and yet appropriate to its destination; garlands, entwined with ivy and vine-branches, divide the walls into compartments bordered with fanciful ornaments; in the centre of each of which are painted with admirable elegance young Fauns, or half-naked Bacchantes, carrying thyrsi, vases and all the furniture of festive meetings. Above the columns is a large frieze, divided into twelve compartments; each of these is surmounted by one of the signs of the Zodiac, and contains paintings of the meats which are in highest season in each month; so that under Sagittary (December), we see shrimps, shell-fish, and birds of passage; under Capricorn (January), lobsters, sea-fish, wild-boar and game; under Aquarius (February), ducks, plovers, pigeons, water-rails, etc.

TRICLINIUM.

TRICLINIUM.ToList

"The table, made of citron wood[11] from the extremity of Mauritania, more precious than gold, rested upon ivory feet, and was covered by a plateau of massive silver, chased and carved, weighing five hundred pounds. The couches, which would contain thirty persons, were made of bronze overlaid with ornaments in silver, gold and tortoise-shell; the mattresses of Gallic wool, dyed purple; the valuable cushions, stuffed with feathers, were covered with stuffs woven and embroidered with silk mixed with threads of gold. Chrysippus told us that they were made at Babylon, and had cost four millions of sesterces.[12]

"The mosaic pavement, by a singular caprice of the architect, represented all the fragments of a feast, as if they had fallen in common course on the floor; so that at the first glance the room seemed not to have been swept since the last meal, and it was called from hence, asarotos oikos, the unswept saloon. At the bottom of the hall were set out vases of Corinthian brass. This triclinium, the largest of four in the palace of Scaurus, would easily contain a table of sixty covers;[13] but he seldom brings together so large a number of guests, and when on great occasions he entertains four or five hundred persons, it is usually in the atrium. This eating-room is reserved for summer; he has others for spring, autumn, and winter, for the Romans turn the change of season into a source of luxury. His establishment is so appointed that for each triclinium he has a great number of tables of different sorts, and each table has its own service and its particular attendants.

"While waiting for their masters, young slaves strewed over the pavement saw-dust dyed with saffron and vermilion, mixed with a brilliant powder made from the lapis specularis, or talc."

Pinacotheca, the picture-gallery, and Bibliotheca, the library, need no explanation. The latter was usually small, as a large number of rolls (volumina) could be contained within a narrow space.

Exedra bore a double signification. It is either a seat, intended to contain a number of persons, like those before the Gate of Herculaneum, or a spacious hall for conversation and the general purposes of society. In the public baths, the word is especially applied to those apartments which were frequented by the philosophers.

Such was the arrangement, such the chief apartments of a Roman house; they were on the ground-floor, the upper stories being for the most part left to the occupation of slaves, freedmen, and the lower branches of the family. We must except, however, the terrace upon the top of all (solarium), a favorite place of resort, often adorned with rare flowers and shrubs, planted in huge cases of earth, and with fountains and trellises, under which the evening meal might at pleasure be taken.

The reader will not, of course, suppose that in all houses all these apartments were to be found, and in the same order. From the confined dwelling of the tradesman to the palace of the patrician, all degrees of accommodation and elegance were to be found. The only object of this long catalogue is to familiarize the reader with the general type of those objects which we are about to present to him, and to explain at once, and collectively, those terms of art which will be of most frequent occurrence.

The reader will gain a clear idea of a Roman house from the ground-plan of that of Diomedes, given a little further on, which is one of the largest and most regularly constructed at Pompeii.

We may here add a few observations, derived, as well as much of the preceding matter, from the valuable work of Mazois, relative to the materials and method of construction of the Pompeian houses. Every species of masonry described by Vitruvius, it is said, may here be met with; but the cheapest and most durable sorts have been generally preferred.

Copper, iron, lead, have been found employed for the same purposes as those for which we now use them. Iron is more plentiful than copper, contrary to what is generally observed in ancient works. It is evident from articles of furniture, etc., found in the ruins, that the Italians were highly skilled in the art of working metals, yet they seem to have excelled in ornamental work, rather than in the solid and neat construction of useful articles. For instance, their lock-work is coarse, hardly equal to that which is now executed in the same country; while the external ornaments of doors, bolts, handles, etc., are elegantly wrought.

The first private house that we will describe is found by passing down a street from the Street of Abundance. The visitor finds on the right, just beyond the back wall of the ThermÆ StabianÆ, the entrance of a handsome dwelling. An inscription in red letters on the outside wall containing the name of Siricus has occasioned the conjecture that this was the name of the owner of the house; while a mosaic inscription on the floor of the prothyrum, having the words Salve Lucru, has given rise to a second appellation for the dwelling.

On the left of the prothyrum is an apartment with two doors, one opening on a wooden staircase leading to an upper floor, the other forming the entry to a room next the street, with a window like that described in the other room next the prothyrum. The walls of this chamber are white, divided by red and yellow zones into compartments, in which are depicted the symbols of the principal deities—as the eagle and globe of Jove, the peacock of Juno, the lance, helmet and shield of Minerva, the panther of Bacchus, a Sphinx, having near it the mystical chest and sistrum of Isis, who was the Venus Physica of the Pompeians, the caduceus and other emblems of Mercury, etc. There are also two small landscapes.

Next to this is a large and handsome exedra, decorated with good pictures, a third of the size of life. That on the left represents Neptune and Apollo presiding at the building of Troy; the former, armed with his trident, is seated; the latter, crowned with laurel, is on foot, and leans with his right arm on a lyre. On the wall opposite to this is a picture of Vulcan presenting the arms of Achilles to Thetis. The celebrated shield is supported by Vulcan on the anvil, and displayed to Thetis, who is seated, whilst a winged female figure standing at her side points out to her with a rod the marvels of its workmanship. Agreeably to the Homeric description the shield is encircled with the signs of the zodiac, and in the middle are the bear, the dragon, etc. On the ground are the breast-plate, the greaves and the helmet.

HERCULES DRUNK.

HERCULES DRUNK. (From Pompeii.)ToList

In the third picture is seen Hercules crowned with ivy, inebriated, and lying on the ground at the foot of a cypress tree. He is clothed in a sandyx, or short transparent tunic, and has on his feet a sort of shoes, one of which he has kicked off. He supports himself on his left arm, while the right is raised in drunken ecstasy. A little Cupid plucks at his garland of ivy, another tries to drag away his ample goblet. In the middle of the picture is an altar with festoons. On the top of it three Cupids, assisted by another who has climbed up the tree, endeavor to bear on their shoulders the hero's quiver; while on the ground, to the left of the altar, four other Cupids are sporting with his club. A votive tablet with an image of Bacchus rests at the foot of the altar, and indicates the god to whom Hercules has been sacrificing.

On the left of the picture, on a little eminence, is a group of three females round a column having on its top a vase. The chief and central figure, which is naked to the waist, has in her hand a fan; she seems to look with interest on the drunken hero, but whom she represents it is difficult to say. On the right, half way up a mountain, sits Bacchus, looking on the scene with a complacency not unmixed with surprise. He is surrounded by his usual rout of attendants, one of whom bears a thyrsus. The annexed engraving will convey a clearer idea of the picture, which for grace, grandeur of composition, and delicacy and freshness of coloring, is among the best discovered at Pompeii. The exedra is also adorned with many other paintings and ornaments which it would be too long to describe.

On the same side of the atrium, beyond a passage leading to a kitchen with an oven, is an elegant triclinium fenestratum looking upon an adjacent garden. The walls are black, divided by red and yellow zones, with candelabra and architectural members intermixed with quadrupeds, birds, dolphins, Tritons, masks, etc., and in the middle of each compartment is a Bacchante. In each wall are three small paintings executed with greater care. The first, which has been removed, represented Æneas in his tent, who, accompanied by Mnestheus, Achates, and young Ascanius, presents his thigh to the surgeon, Iapis, in order to extract from it the barb of an arrow. Æneas supports himself with the lance in his right hand, and leans with the other on the shoulder of his son, who, overcome by his father's misfortune, wipes the tears from his eyes with the hem of his robe; while Iapis, kneeling on one leg before the hero, is intent on extracting the barb with his forceps. But the wound is not to be healed without divine interposition. In the background of the picture Venus is hastening to her son's relief, bearing in her hand the branch of dictamnus, which is to restore him to his pristine vigor.

The subject of the second picture, which is much damaged, is not easy to be explained. It represents a naked hero, armed with sword and spear, to whom a woman crowned with laurel and clothed in an ample peplum is pointing out another female figure. The latter expresses by her gestures her grief and indignation at the warrior's departure, the imminence of which is signified by the chariot that awaits him. Signor Fiorelli thinks he recognizes in this picture Turnus, Lavinia, and Amata, when the queen supplicates Turnus not to fight with the Trojans.

The third painting represents Hermaphroditus surrounded by six nymphs, variously employed.

From the atrium a narrow fauces or corridor led into the garden. Three steps on the left connected this part of the house with the other and more magnificent portion having its entrance from the Strada Stabiana. The garden was surrounded on two sides with a portico, on the right of which are some apartments which do not require particular notice.

The house entered at a higher level, by the three steps just mentioned, was at first considered as a separate house, and by Fiorelli has been called the House of the Russian Princes, from some excavations made here in 1851 in presence of the sons of the Emperor of Russia. The peculiarities observable in this house are that the atrium and peristyle are broader than they are deep, and that they are not separated by a tablinum and other rooms, but simply by a wall. In the centre of the Tuscan atrium, entered from the Street of StabiÆ, is a handsome marble impluvium. At the top of it is a square cippus, coated with marble, and having a leaden pipe which flung the water into a square vase or basin supported by a little base of white marble, ornamented with acanthus leaves. Beside the fountain is a table of the same material, supported by two legs beautifully sculptured, of a chimÆra and a griffin. On this table was a little bronze group of Hercules armed with his club, and a young Phrygian kneeling before him.

From the atrium the peristyle is entered by a large door. It is about forty-six feet broad and thirty-six deep, and has ten columns, one of which still sustains a fragment of the entablature. The walls were painted in red and yellow panels alternately, with figures of Latona, Diana, Bacchantes, etc. At the bottom of the peristyle, on the right, is a triclinium. In the middle is a small oecus, with two pillars richly ornamented with arabesques. A little apartment on the left has several pictures.

In this house, at a height of seventeen Neapolitan palms (nearly fifteen feet) from the level of the ground, were discovered four skeletons together in an almost vertical position. Twelve palms lower was another skeleton, with a hatchet near it. This man appears to have pierced the wall of one of the small chambers of the prothyrum, and was about to enter it, when he was smothered, either by the falling in of the earth or by the mephitic exhalations. It has been thought that these persons perished while engaged in searching for valuables after the catastrophe.

In the back room of a thermopolium not far from this spot was discovered a graffito of part of the first line of the Æneid, in which the rs were turned into ls:

Alma vilumque cano Tlo.We will now return to the house of Siricus. Contiguous to it in the Via del Lupanare is a building having two doors separated with pilasters. By way of sign, an elephant was painted on the wall, enveloped by a large serpent and tended by a pigmy. Above was the inscription: Sittius restituit elephantum; and beneath the following:

Hospitium hic locatur
Triclinium cum tribus lectis
Et comm.

Both the painting and the inscription have now disappeared. The discovery is curious, as proving that the ancients used signs for their taverns. Orelli has given in his Inscriptions in Gaul, one of a Cock (a Gallo Gallinacio). In that at Pompeii the last word stands for "commodis." "Here is a triclinium with three beds and other conveniences."

Just opposite the gate of Siricus was another house also supposed to be a caupona, or tavern, from some chequers painted on the door posts. On the wall are depicted two large serpents, the emblem so frequently met with. They were the symbols of the Lares viales, or compitales, and, as we have said, rendered the place sacred against the commission of any nuisance. The cross, which is sometimes seen on the walls of houses in a modern Italian city, serves the same purpose. Above the serpents is the following inscription, in tolerably large white characters: Otiosis locus hic non est, discede morator. "Lingerer, depart; this is no place for idlers." An injunction by the way which seems rather to militate against the idea of the house having been a tavern.

The inscription just mentioned suggests an opportunity for giving a short account of similar ones; we speak not of inscriptions cut in stone, and affixed to temples and other public buildings, but such as were either painted, scrawled in charcoal and other substances, or scratched with a sharp point, such as a nail or knife, on the stucco of walls and pillars. Such inscriptions afford us a peep both into the public and the domestic life of the Pompeians. Advertisements of a political character were commonly painted on the exterior walls in large letters in black and red paint; poetical effusions or pasquinades, etc., with coal or chalk (Martial, Epig. xii. 61, 9); while notices of a domestic kind are more usually found in the interior of the houses, scratched, as we have said, on the stucco, whence they have been called graffiti.

The numerous political inscriptions bear testimony to the activity of public life in Pompeii. These advertisements, which for the most part turn on the election of Ædiles, duumvirs, and other magistrates, show that the Pompeians, at the time when their city was destroyed, were in all the excitement of the approaching comitia for the election of such magistrates. We shall here select a few of the more interesting inscriptions, both relating to public and domestic matters.

It seems to have been customary to paint over old advertisements with a coat of white, and so to obtain a fresh surface for new ones, just as the bill-sticker remorselessly pastes his bill over that of some brother of the brush. In some cases this new coating has been detached, or has fallen off, thus revealing an older notice, belonging sometimes to a period antecedent to the Social War. Inscriptions of this kind are found only on the solid stone pillars of the more ancient buildings, and not on the stucco, with which at a later period almost everything was plastered. Their antiquity is further certified by some of them being in the Oscan dialect; while those in Latin are distinguished from more recent ones in the same language by the forms of the letters, by the names which appear in them, and by archaisms in grammar and orthography. Inscriptions in the Greek tongue are rare, though the letters of the Greek alphabet, scratched on walls at a little height from the ground, and thus evidently the work of school-boys, show that Greek must have been extensively taught at Pompeii.

The normal form of electioneering advertisements contains the name of the person recommended, the office for which he is a candidate, and the name of the person, or persons, who recommended him, accompanied in general with the formula O. V. F. From examples written in full, recently discovered, it appears that these letters mean orat (or orant) vos faciatis: "beseech you to create" (Ædile and so forth). The letters in question were, before this discovery, very often thought to stand for orat ut faveat, "begs him to favor;" and thus the meaning of the inscription was entirely reversed, and the person recommending converted into the person recommended. In the following example for instance—M. Holconium Priscum duumvirum juri dicundo O. V. F. Philippus; the meaning, according to the older interpretation, will be: "Philippus beseeches M. Holconius Priscus, duumvir of justice, to favor or patronize him;" whereas the true sense is: "Philippus beseeches you to create M. Holconius Priscus a duumvir of justice." From this misinterpretation wrong names have frequently been given to houses; as is probably the case, for instance, with the house of Pansa, which, from the tenor of the inscription, more probably belonged to Paratus, who posted on his own walls a request to passers-by to make his friend Pansa Ædile. Had it been the house of Pansa, when a candidate for the Ædileship, and if it was the custom for such candidates to post recommendatory notices on their doors, it may be supposed that Pansa would have exhibited more than this single one from a solitary friend. This is a more probable meaning than that Paratus solicited in this way the patronage of Pansa; for it would have been a bad method to gain it by disfiguring his walls in so impertinent a manner. We do not indeed mean to deny that adulatory inscriptions were sometimes written on the houses or doors of powerful or popular men or pretty women. A verse of Plautus bears testimony to such a custom (Impleantur meÆ foreis elogiorum carbonibus. Mercator, act ii. sc. 3). But first, the inscription on the so-called house of Pansa was evidently not of an adulatory, but of a recommendatory character; and secondly, those of the former kind, as we learn from this same verse, seem to have been written by passing admirers, with some material ready to the hand, such as charcoal or the like, and not painted on the walls with care, and time, and expense; a proceeding which we can hardly think the owner of the house, if he was a modest and sensible man, would have tolerated.

Recommendations of candidates were often accompanied with a word or two in their praise; as dignus, or dignissimus est, probissimus, juvenis integer, frugi, omni bono meritus, and the like. Such recommendations are sometimes subscribed by guilds or corporations, as well as by private persons, and show that there were a great many such trade unions at Pompeii. Thus we find mentioned the offectores (dyers), pistores (bakers), aurifices (goldsmiths), pomarii (fruiterers), cÆparii (green-grocers), lignarii (wood merchants), plostrarii (cart-wrights), piscicapi (fishermen), agricolÆ (husbandmen), muliones (muleteers), culinarii (cooks), fullones (fullers), and others. Advertisements of this sort appear to have been laid hold of as a vehicle for street wit, just as electioneering squibs are perpetrated among ourselves. Thus we find mentioned, as if among the companies, the pilicrepi (ball-players), the seribibi (late topers), the dormientes universi (all the worshipful company of sleepers), and as a climax, Pompeiani universi (all the Pompeians, to a man, vote for so and so). One of these recommendations, purporting to emanate from a "teacher" or "professor," runs, Valentius cum discentes suos (Valentius with his disciples); the bad grammar being probably intended as a gibe upon one of the poor man's weak points.

The inscriptions in chalk and coal, the graffiti, and occasionally painted inscriptions, contain sometimes well-known verses from poets still extant. Some of these exhibit variations from the modern text, but being written by not very highly educated persons, they seldom or never present any various readings that it would be desirable to adopt, and indeed contain now and then prosodical errors. Other verses, some of them by no means contemptible, are either taken from pieces now lost, or are the invention of the writer himself. Many of these inscriptions are of course of an amatory character; some convey intelligence of not much importance to anybody but the writer—as, that he is troubled with a cold—or was seventeen centuries ago—or that he considers somebody who does not invite him to supper as no better than a brute and barbarian, or invokes blessings on the man that does. Some are capped by another hand with a biting sarcasm on the first writer, and many, as might be expected, are scurrilous and indecent. Some of the graffiti on the interior walls and pillars of houses are memoranda of domestic transactions; as, how much lard was bought, how many tunics sent to the wash, when a child or a donkey was born, and the like. One of this kind, scratched on the wall of the peristyle of the corner house in the Strada della Fortuna and Vicolo degli Scienziati, appears to be an account of the dispensator or overseer of the tasks in spinning allotted to the female slaves of the establishment, and is interesting as furnishing us with their names, which are Vitalis, Florentina, Amarullis, Januaria, Heracla, Maria (Maria, feminine of Marius, not Maria), Lalagia (reminding us of Horace's Lalage), Damalis, and Doris. The pensum, or weight of wool delivered to each to be spun, is spelled pesu, the n and final m being omitted, just as we find salve lucru, for lucrum, written on the threshold of the house of Siricus. In this form, pesu is very close to the Italian word peso.

We have already alluded now and then to the rude etchings and caricatures of these wall-artists, but to enter fully into the subject of the Pompeian inscriptions and graffiti would almost demand a separate volume, and we must therefore resume the thread of our description.

A little beyond the house of Siricus, a small street, running down at right angles from the direction of the Forum, enters the Via del Lupanare. Just at their junction, and having an entrance into both, stands the Lupanar, from which the latter street derives its name. We can not venture upon a description of this resort of Pagan immorality. It is kept locked up, but the guide will procure the key for those who may wish to see it. Next to it is the House of the Fuller, in which was found the elegant little bronze statuette of Narcissus, now in the Museum. The house contained nothing else of interest.

The Via del Lupanare terminates in the Street of the Augustals, or of the Dried Fruits. In this latter street, nearly opposite the end of the Via del Lupanare, but a little to the left, is the House of Narcissus, or of the Mosaic Fountain. This house is one of recent excavation. At the threshold is a Mosaic of a bear, with the word Have. The prothyrum is painted with figures on a yellow ground. On the left is a medallion of a satyr and nymph; the opposite medallion is destroyed.

The atrium is paved with mosaic. The first room on the right-hand side of it has a picture of Narcissus admiring himself in the water. The opposite picture has a female figure seated, with a child in her arms, and a large chest open before her. The tablinum is handsomely paved with mosaic and marble. Behind this, in place of a peristyle, is a court or garden, the wall of which is painted with a figure bearing a basin. At the bottom is a handsome mosaic fountain, from which the house derives one of its names, with a figure of Neptune surrounded by fishes and sea-fowl; above are depicted large wild boars.

On the opposite side of the way, at the eastern angle of the Street of the Lupanar, is the House of the Rudder and Trident, also called the House of Mars and Venus. The first of these names is derived from the mosaic pavement in the prothyrum, in which the objects mentioned are represented; while a medallion picture in the atrium, with heads of Mars and Venus, gave rise to the second appellation. The colors of this picture are still quite fresh, a result which Signor Fiorelli attributes to his having caused a varnish of wax to be laid over the painting at the time of its discovery. Without some such protection the colors of these pictures soon decay; the cinnabar, or vermilion, especially, turns black after a few days' exposure to the light.

The atrium, as usual, is surrounded with bed-chambers. A peculiarity not yet found in any other house is a niche or closet on the left of the atrium, having on one side an opening only large enough to introduce the hand, whence it has been conjectured that it served as a receptacle for some valuable objects. It is painted inside with a wall of quadrangular pieces of marble of various colors, terminated at top with a cornice. In each of the squares is a fish, bird, or quadruped.

This closet or niche stands at a door of the room in which is an entrance to a subterranean passage, having its exit in the Via del Lupanare. There is nothing very remarkable in the other apartments of this house. Behind is a peristyle with twelve columns, in the garden of which shrubs are said to have been discovered in a carbonized state.

Further down the same Street of the Augustals, at the angle which it forms with the Street of StabiÆ, is the house of a baker, having on the external wall the name Modestum in red letters. For a tradesman it seems to have been a comfortable house, having an atrium and fountain, and some painted chambers. Beyond the atrium is a spacious court with mills and an oven. The oven was charged with more than eighty loaves, the forms of which are still perfect, though they are reduced to a carbonaceous state. They are preserved in the Museum.The narrow street to which we have alluded, as entering the Via del Lupanare nearly opposite to the house of Siricus, has been called the Via del Balcone, from a small house with a projecting balcony or mÆnianum. Indications of balconies have been found elsewhere, and indeed there were evidently some in the Via del Lupanare; but this is the only instance of one restored to its pristine state, through the care of Signor Fiorelli in substituting fresh timbers for those which had become carbonized. The visitor may ascend to the first floor of this house, from which the balcony projects several feet into the narrow lane. In the atrium of this house is a very pretty fountain.

The house next to that of the Balcony, facing the entrance of a small street leading from the Via dell Abbondanza, and numbered 7 on the door post, has a few pictures in a tolerable state of preservation. In a painting in the furthest room on the left of the atrium Theseus is seen departing in his ship; Ariadne, roused from sleep, gazes on him with despair, while a little weeping Cupid stands by her side. In the same apartment are two other well-preserved pictures, the subjects of which it is not easy to explain. In one is a female displaying to a man two little figures in a nest, representing apparently the birth of the Dioscuri. The other is sometimes called the Rape of Helen. There are also several medallion heads around.

In the small street which runs parallel with the eastern side of the Forum, called the Vico di Eumachia, is a house named the Casa nuova della Caccia, to distinguish it from one of the same name previously discovered. As in the former instance, its appellation is derived from a large painting on the wall of the peristyle, of bears, lions, and other animals. On the right-hand wall of the tablinum is a picture of Bacchus discovering Ariadne. A satyr lifts her vest, while Silenus and other figures look on in admiration. The painting on the left-hand wall is destroyed. On entering the peristyle a door on the right leads down some steps into a garden, on one side of which is a small altar before a wall, on which is a painting of shrubs.

Proceeding from this street into the Vico Storto, which forms a continuation of it on the north, we find on the right a recently excavated house, which, from several slabs of variously colored marbles found in it, has been called the House of the Dealer in Marbles. Under a large court in the interior, surrounded with Doric columns, are some subterranean apartments, in one of which was discovered a well more than eighty feet deep and still supplied with fresh water; almost the only instance of the kind at Pompeii. The beautiful statuette of Silenus, already described, was found in this house. Here also was made the rare discovery of the skeletons of two horses, with the remains of a biga.

This description might be extended, but it would be tedious to repeat details of smaller and less interesting houses, the features of which present in general much uniformity; and we shall therefore conclude this account of the more recent discoveries with a notice of a group of bodies found in this neighborhood, the forms of which have been preserved to us through the ingenuity of Signor Fiorelli.

It has already been remarked that the showers of lapillo, or pumice stone, by which Pompeii was overwhelmed and buried, were followed by streams of a thick, tenacious mud, which flowing over the deposit of lapillo, and filling up all the crannies and interstices into which that substance had not been able to penetrate, completed the destruction of the city. The objects over which this mud flowed were enveloped in it as in a plaster mould, and where these objects happened to be human bodies, their decay left a cavity in which their forms were as accurately preserved and rendered as in the mould prepared for the casting of a bronze statue. Such cavities had often been observed. In some of them remnants of charred wood, accompanied with bronze or other ornaments, showed that the object inclosed had been a piece of furniture; while in others, the remains of bones and of articles of apparel evinced but too plainly that the hollow had been the living grave which had swallowed up some unfortunate human being. In a happy moment the idea occurred to Signor Fiorelli of filling up these cavities with liquid plaster, and thus obtaining a cast of the objects which had been inclosed in them. The experiment was first made in a small street leading from the Via del Balcone Pensile towards the Forum. The bodies here found were on the lapillo at a height of about fifteen feet from the level of the ground.

"Among the first casts thus obtained were those of four human beings. They are now preserved in a room at Pompeii, and more ghastly and painful, yet deeply interesting and touching objects, it is difficult to conceive. We have death itself moulded and cast—the very last struggle and final agony brought before us. They tell their story with a horrible dramatic truth that no sculptor could ever reach. They would have furnished a thrilling episode to the accomplished author of the 'Last Days of Pompeii.'

"These four persons had perished in a street. They had remained within the shelter of their homes until the thick black mud began to creep through every cranny and chink. Driven from their retreat they began to flee when it was too late. The streets were already buried deep in the loose pumice stones which had been falling for many hours in unremitting showers, and which reached almost to the windows of the first floor. These victims of the eruption were not found together, and they do not appear to have belonged to the same family or household. The most interesting of the casts is that of two women, probably mother and daughter, lying feet to feet. They appear from their garb to have been people of poor condition. The elder seems to lie tranquilly on her side. Overcome by the noxious gases, she probably fell and died without a struggle. Her limbs are extended, and her left arm drops loosely. On one finger is still seen her coarse iron ring. Her child was a girl of fifteen; she seems, poor thing, to have struggled hard for life. Her legs are drawn up convulsively; her little hands are clenched in agony. In one she holds her veil, or a part of her dress, with which she had covered her head, burying her face in her arm, to shield herself from the falling ashes and from the foul sulphurous smoke. The form of her head is perfectly preserved. The texture of her coarse linen garments may be traced, and even the fashion of her dress, with its long sleeves reaching to her wrists; here and there it is torn, and the smooth young skin appears in the plaster like polished marble. On her tiny feet may still be seen her embroidered sandals.

DISCOVERED BODY AT POMPEII.ToList

"At some distance from this group lay a third woman. She appears to have been about twenty-five years of age, and to have belonged to a better class than the other two. On one of her fingers were two silver rings, and her garments were of a finer texture. Her linen head-dress, falling over her shoulders like that of a matron in a Roman statue, can still be distinguished. She had fallen on her side, overcome by the heat and gases, but a terrible struggle seems to have preceded her last agony. One arm is raised in despair; the hands are clenched convulsively; her garments are gathered up on one side, leaving exposed a limb of beautiful shape. So perfect a mould of it has been formed by the soft and yielding mud, that the cast would seem to be taken from an exquisite work of Greek art. She had fled with her little treasure, which lay scattered around her—two silver cups, a few jewels, and some dozen silver coins; nor had she, like a good housewife, forgotten her keys, after having probably locked up her stores before seeking to escape. They were found by her side.

"The fourth cast is that of a man of the people, perhaps a common soldier. As may be seen in the cut, he is of almost colossal size; he lies on his left arm extended by his side, and his head rests on his right hand, and his legs drawn up as if, finding escape impossible, he had laid himself down to meet death like a brave man. His dress consists of a short coat or jerkin and tight-fitting breeches of some coarse stuff, perhaps leather. On one finger is seen his iron ring. His features are strongly marked the mouth open, as in death. Some of the teeth still remain, and even part of the moustache adheres to the plaster.

"The importance of Signor Fiorelli's discovery may be understood from the results we have described. It may furnish us with many curious particulars as to the dress and domestic habits of the Romans, and with many an interesting episode of the last day of Pompeii. Had it been made at an earlier period we might perhaps have possessed the perfect cast of the Diomedes, as they clung together in their last struggle, and of other victims whose remains are now mingled together in the bone-house."

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House of Diomedes.

This house, the most interesting, and by far the most extensive of the private buildings yet discovered, is the Suburban Villa, as it is called, from its position a little way without the gates, in the Street of the Tombs, which led to, or formed part of, the suburb called Augustus Felix. It is worthy of remark that the plan of this edifice is in close accord with the descriptions of country houses given us by Vitruvius and others—a circumstance which tends strongly to confirm the belief already expressed, that the houses of the city are built upon the Roman system of arrangement, although the Greek taste may predominate in their decoration. We will commence by extracting the most important passages in Pliny the Younger's description of his Laurentine villa, that the reader may have some general notion of the subject, some standard with which to compare that which we are about to describe.

"My villa is large enough for convenience, though not splendid. The first apartment which presents itself is a plain, yet not mean, atrium; then comes a portico, in shape like the letter O, which surrounds a small, but pleasant area. This is an excellent retreat in bad weather, being sheltered by glazed windows, and still more effectually by an overhanging roof. Opposite the centre of this portico is a pleasant cavÆdium, after which comes a handsome triclinium, which projects upon the beach, so that when the southwest wind urges the sea, the last broken waves just dash against its walls. On every side of this room are folding doors, or windows equally large, so that from the three sides there is a view, as it were, of three seas at once, while backwards the eye wanders through the apartments already described, the cavÆdium, portico, and atrium, to woods and distant mountains. To the left are several apartments, including a bed-chamber, and room fitted up as a library, which jets out in an elliptic form, and, by its several windows, admits the sun during its whole course. These apartments I make my winter abode. The rest of this side of the house is allotted to my slaves and freedmen, yet it is for the most part neat enough to receive my friends. To the right of the triclinium is a very elegant chamber, and another, which you may call either a very large chamber (cubiculum), or moderate-sized eating-room (coenatio), which commands a full prospect both of the sun and sea. Passing hence, through three or four other chambers, you enter the cella frigidaria of the baths, in which there are two basins projecting from opposite walls, abundantly large enough to swim in, if you feel inclined to do so in the first instance. Then come the anointing-room, the hypocaust, or furnace, and two small rooms; next the warm bath, which commands an admirable view of the sea. Not far off is the sphÆristerium, a room devoted to in-door exercises and games, exposed to the hottest sun of the declining day. Beside it is a triclinium, where the noise of the sea is never heard but in a storm, and then faintly, looking out upon the garden and the gestatio, or place for taking the air in a carriage or litter, which encompasses it. The gestatio is hedged with box, and with rosemary where the box is wanting; for box grows well where it is sheltered by buildings, but withers when exposed in an open situation to the wind, and especially within reach of spray from the sea. To the inner circle of the gestatio is joined a shady walk of vines, soft and tender even to the naked feet. The garden is full of mulberries and figs, the soil being especially suited to the former. Within the circuit of the gestatio there is also a cryptoportico, for extent comparable to public buildings, having windows on one side looking to the sea, on the other to the garden. In front of it is a xystus, fragrant with violets, where the sun's heat is increased by reflection from the cryptoportico, which, at the same time, breaks the northeast wind. At either end of it is a suite of apartments, in which, in truth, I place my chief delight."[14] Such was one of several villas described by Pliny. The directions given by Vitruvius for building country houses are very short. "The same principles," he says, "are to be observed in country houses as in town houses, except that in the latter the atrium lies next to the door, but in pseudo-urban houses the peristyles come first, then atria surrounded by paved porticoes, looking upon courts for gymnastic exercises and walking" (palÆstras et ambulationes).[15] It will appear that the distribution of the Suburban Villa was entirely in accordance with these rules.

The house is built upon the side of the hill, in such a manner that the ground falls away, not only in the line of the street, across the breadth of the house, but also from the front to the back, so that the doorway itself being elevated from five to six feet above the roadway, there is room at the back of the house for an extensive and magnificent suite of rooms between the level of the peristyle and the surface of the earth. These two levels are represented on the same plan, being distinguished by a difference in the shading. The darker parts show the walls of the upper floor, the lighter ones indicate the distribution of the lower. A further distinction is made in the references, which are by figures to the upper floor, and by letters to the lower. There are besides subterraneous vaults and galleries not expressed in the plan.

GROUND PLAN OF THE SUBURBAN VILLA OF DIOMEDES.

GROUND PLAN OF THE SUBURBAN VILLA OF DIOMEDES.ToList

1. Broad foot pavement raised nine inches or a foot above the carriage way, running along the whole length of the Street of Tombs. 2. Inclined planes, leading up to the porch on each side. 3. Entrance. 4. Peristyle. This arrangement corresponds exactly with the directions of Vitruvius for the building of country houses just quoted. The order of the peristyle is extremely elegant. The columns, their capitals, and entablatures, and the paintings on the walls are still in good preservation. The architectural decorations are worked in stucco; and it is observed by Mazois that both here and in other instances the artist has taken liberties, which he would not have indulged in had he been working in more valuable materials. On this ground that eminent architect hazards a conjecture that the plasterer had a distinct style of ornamenting, different from that of architects, or of the masons in their employ. The lower third of the columns, which is not fluted, is painted red. The pavement was formed of opus Signinum. 5. Uncovered court with an impluvium, which collected the rain water and fed a cistern, whence the common household wants were supplied. 6. Descending staircase, which led to a court and building on a lower level, appropriated to the offices, as the kitchen, bakehouse, etc., and to the use of slaves. It will be recollected that the ground slopes with a rapid descent away from the city gate. This lower story, therefore, was not under ground, though near eight feet below the level of the peristyle. It communicates with the road by a back door. From the bottom of the stair there runs a long corridor, A, somewhat indistinct in our small plan, owing to its being crossed several times by the lines of the upper floor, which leads down by a gentle slope to the portico surrounding the garden. This was the back stair, as we should call it, by which the servants communicated with that part of the house. There was another staircase, B, on the opposite side of the house, for the use of the family. 7. Door and passage to the upper garden, marked 17, on the same level as the court. 8. Open hall, corresponding in position with a tablinum. Being thus placed between the court and the gallery, 28, it must have been closed with folding doors of wood, which perhaps were glazed. 9, 10, 11, 12. Various rooms containing nothing remarkable. 13. Two rooms situated in the most agreeable manner at the two ends of a long gallery, 28, and looking out upon the upper terraces of the garden, from which the eye took in the whole gulf of Naples to the point of Sorrento, and the island of CapreÆ. 14. ProcÆton, or antechamber. 15. Lodge of the cubicular slave, or attendant upon the bed-room. 16. Bed-room, probably that of the master, or else the state-chamber. b. Alcove. Several rings were found here which had evidently belonged to a curtain to draw across the front of it. c. Hollow stand or counter of masonry, probably coated with stucco or marble, which served for a toilet-table. Several vases were found there, which must have contained perfumes or cosmetic oils. The form of this bed-room is very remarkable, and will not fail to strike the reader from its exact correspondence with the elliptic chamber or library described by Pliny in his Laurentine villa. The windows in the semi-circular end are so placed that they receive the rising, noontide, and setting sun. Bull's eyes, placed above the windows, permitted them to be altogether closed without darkening the room entirely. These windows opened on a garden, where, in Mazois' time, the care of the guardian had planted roses, which almost beguiled him into the belief that he had found the genuine produce of a Pompeian garden. This must have been a delightful room, from its ample size, elegance of ornament, and the quiet cheerful retirement of its situation.

17. Upper garden upon the level of the court.

18. Entrance to the baths, which, though originally rare in private houses, had become so common, long before the destruction of Pompeii, that few wealthy persons were without them. The word balneum was peculiarly applied to domestic, thermÆ to public baths. This specimen, which fortunately was almost perfect, small as it is, suffices to give an idea of the arrangement of private baths among the Romans. 19. Portico upon two sides of a small triangular court. There is as much skill in the disposition, as taste in the decoration, of this court, which presents a symmetrical plan, notwithstanding the irregular form of the space allotted to it. Its situation is conformable to the advice of Vitruvius; and as it could not front the west, it has been placed to the south. The columns of the portico are octagonal. At the extremity of the gallery, on the left of the entrance, there is a small furnace where was prepared some warm beverage or restorative for the use of the bathers, who were accustomed to take wine or cordials before they went away. Here a gridiron and two frying pans were found, still blackened with smoke. In the centre of the base, or third side of the court, is placed a bath, 20, about six feet square, lined with stucco, the edge of which is faced with marble. It was covered with a roof, the mark of which is still visible on the walls, supported by two pillars placed on the projecting angles. The holes in the walls to admit the three principal beams are so contrived that each side is lined with a single brick. Under this covering the whole wall was painted to represent water, with fish and other aquatic animals swimming about. The water was blue, and rather deep in color: the fish were represented in the most vivid and varied tints. Some years ago this painting recovered, on being wetted, the original freshness and brilliancy of its coloring; but exposure to the weather has done its work, and now scarce a trace of it remains. In the middle of it there is a circular broken space to which a mask was formerly attached, through which a stream gushed into the basin below. Two or three steps led down to this baptisterium, where the cold bath was taken in the open air. This court and portico were paved in mosaic. 21. Apodyterium. 22. Frigidarium. 23. Tepidarium. These two rooms, in neither of which was there a bathing vessel, show that frequently rooms thus named were not intended for bathing, but simply to preserve two intermediate gradations of temperature, between the burning heat of the caldarium or laconicum and the open air. In fact, no trace of any contrivance for the introduction or reception of water has been found in No. 22. It was simply a cold chamber, cella frigidaria. Nor was the little chamber, 23, large enough to receive conveniently a bathing vessel; but seats of wood were found there for the convenience of those who had quitted the bath, and who came there to undergo the discipline of the strigil, and a minute process of purification and anointing. This room is not above twelve feet by six: the bath, therefore, could not have been calculated for the reception of more than one, or, at most, of two persons at once. Here the great question relative to the use of glass windows by the ancients was finally settled. This apartment was lighted by a window closed by a movable frame of wood, which, though converted into charcoal, still held, when it was found, four panes of glass about six inches square. A more elaborate and curious glass window was found at a later period in the public baths. 24. Caldarium. It might, however, be employed at pleasure as a tepid or cold bath, when the weather was too cold for bathing in the open air. The suspensura caldariorum, as Vitruvius calls the hollow walls and floors raised upon pillars, are in remarkably good preservation. By means of these the whole apartment was entirely enveloped in flame, and might be easily raised to a most stifling temperature.

We will, however, add that Vitruvius directs a bed of clay mixed with hair to be laid between the pillars and the pavement; and some tradition of this custom may be imagined to subsist, for the potters of the country, in some cases, work up wool with their clay, a practice unknown elsewhere, as we believe, in the art of pottery. The burning vapor passed out above the ceiling, gaining no entrance into the apartment. Air and light were admitted by two windows, one higher than the other. In one of these Mazois found a fragment of glass. The bathing-vessel, e, lined with stucco, and coated on the outside with marble, was fed by two cocks, which must have been very small, to judge from the space which they occupied. Hence, hot and cold water were supplied at pleasure; and it was only to fill the vessel with boiling water, and the whole apartment would be converted into one great vapor bath.

As it would have been difficult or impossible to have kept alive a lamp or torch in so dense a steam, there is near the door a circular hole, closed formerly by a glass, which served to admit the light of a lamp placed in the adjoining chamber. The hypocaust, or furnace and apparatus, 25, for heating the water, are so placed that they can not be seen from the triangular court. They are small, but correspond with the small quantity of boiling water which they were required to furnish. f. Stone table. g. Cistern. h. Mouth of hypocaust. i. A furnace, probably for boiling water when merely a tepid bath was required, without heating the suspensura caldariorum. By the side of the hypocaust were placed the vases for hot and cold water, as described in the chapter on Baths; their pedestals were observable between the mouth of the furnace and the letter k. l. Wooden staircase, no longer in existence, which led to the apartments above. 26. Reservoir.

Such was the distribution of this bath. Some paintings and mosaics, which are ordinary enough, formed its only decorations; yet, from the little that remains, we can discover that the good taste which reigned everywhere, and the freshness of the colors, must have rendered the effect of the whole most agreeable.

27. This chamber seems to have been used as a wardrobe, where the numerous garments of the opulent masters of this dwelling were kept under presses, to give them a lustre. This conjecture is founded upon the remains of calcined stuffs, and the fragments of wardrobes and carbonized plank found in the course of excavation.

28. Great gallery, lighted by windows which looked upon the two terraces, 34, separated by the large hall, 33. This gallery furnished an agreeable promenade, when the weather did not permit the enjoyment of the external porticoes or terraces.

29, 29. These two small apartments, which were open to the gallery, and probably were closed by glass, may very well have been, one a library, the other a reading-room, since the place in which books were kept was not usually the place in which they were read; being small and confined, suitable to the comparatively small number of volumes which an ancient library generally contained, and also to the limited space within which a considerable number of rolls of papyrus might be placed.

A bust, painted on the wall of one of them, confirms this supposition, for it is known that the ancients were fond of keeping the portraits of eminent men before their eyes, and especially of placing those of literary men in their libraries.

30. The form of this hall is suitable to a triclinium, and its situation, protected from the immediate action of the sun's rays, would seem to mark it as a summer triclinium. Still the guests enjoyed the view of the country and of the sea, by means of a door opening upon the terrace. In front of the little chamber, 31, is a square opening for the staircase, which descends to the point B upon the floor below. It is to be remarked, that at the entrance of each division of the building there is a lodge for a slave. No doubt each suite of rooms had its peculiar keeper. The chamber, 10, seems to have been reserved for the keeper of the peristyle; the apartment, 15, belonged to the slave of the bed-chamber, who watched the apartment of his master; a recess under the staircase, 35, was, without doubt, the place of the atriensis, or attendant on the atrium, when the hall, 8, was open, to give admission to the interior of the house; and when this hall was closed, he attended in the chamber, 12, which commanded the entrance through the passage, or fauces.

Lastly, the small lodge, 31, is so placed as to keep watch over all communication between the upper floor, where is the peristyle, and the lower floor, in which the apartments of the family seem to have been chiefly situated.

32. Apartment, entirely ruined, to which it is difficult to assign a name.

33. Large cyzicene oecus, about thirty-six feet by twenty-six. All the windows of this apartment opened almost to the level of the floor, and gave a view of the garden, the terraces and trellises which ornamented them, as well as of the vast and beautiful prospect towards the sea and Vesuvius.

34. Large terraces, perhaps formerly covered with trellises, which communicate with the terraces over the gallery by which the garden is surrounded.

35. Staircase leading to the upper floor, on which may have been the gynÆceum, or suite of apartments belonging to the women. So retired a situation, however, did not always suit the taste of the Roman ladies.

Cornelius Nepos says that "they occupy for the most part the first floor in the front of the house." Mazois was long impressed with the idea that there must have been an upper story here, but for a long time he could not find the staircase.

At last he discovered in this place marks in the plaster, which left no doubt in his mind but that it had existed here, though being of wood it disappeared with the other woodwork. He recognized the inclination and the height of the steps, and found that they were high and narrow, like those stone stairs which exist still in the same dwelling.

36. A sort of vestibule at the entrance of the building, appropriated to the offices. This lower court probably contained the kitchen.

37. Bake-house, apartments of the inferior slaves, stables, and other accessories. These are separated from the main building by means of a mesaulon, or small internal court, to diminish the danger in case of a fire happening in the kitchen or bake-house. There were two ways of communication from the level of the street to the level of the garden; on one side by the corridor, A, A, principally reserved for the servants, on the other by the staircase, B, C, C, C, Portico round the garden.

The side beneath the house and that at the right of the plan are perfectly preserved, but it has been found necessary to support the terrace on this side by inserting a modern pillar between each of the old ones, and to build two massive piers beneath the terrace on which the great cyzicene hall is situated. This portico was elegantly ornamented. If we may judge of the whole from a part, which is given by Mazois, the interior entablature was ornamented with light mouldings and running patterns, while there was a little picture over each pillar. That in his plate represents a swan flying away with a serpent. The pillars were square, the lower part painted with flowers springing from trellises, apparently of very delicate execution. The same style of painting occurs in the court of the baths. The ceiling of the portico beneath the terrace is, in respect of its construction, one of the most curious specimens of ancient building which have reached our time. It is a plane surface of masonry, hung in the air, supported neither on the principle of the arch, nor by iron cramps, but owing its existence entirely to the adherence of the mortar by which it is cemented. It is divided into compartments by false beams (caissons) of the same construction. The whole is of remarkable solidity. D. Open hall at the end of the western portico. E. Fountain, supplied perhaps by the water of the cistern. There was formerly a well upon the terrace, 34, by which water might be drawn from the reservoir of this fountain, but it was effaced when the area of the terrace was restored. F, F, F. Different chambers, halls, triclinium, in which the remains of a carpet were found on the floor, and other rooms, to which it is difficult to assign any particular destination. They are all decorated in the most elegant and refined manner, but their paintings are hastening to decay with a rapidity which is grievous to behold. Fortunately, the Academy of Naples has published a volume of details, in which the greater part of the frescos of this villa are engraved. G. Passage, leading by the staircase B to the upper floor, and by the staircase H to the subterranean galleries. There is a similar staircase, H, on the other side of the portico.

These galleries form a crypt beneath the portico, lighted and aired by loop-holes on the level of the ground. AmphorÆ, placed in sand against the wall, are still to be seen there, and for this reason it has been conjectured that the crypt served the purposes of a cellar; but even this crypt was coarsely painted. I. Mesaulon, or court, which separates the offices from the house. K. Small room at the extremity of the garden. L. An oratory; the niche served to receive a little statue. M. Xystus, or garden. N. Piscina, with a jet d'eau. O. Enclosure covered with a trellis. P. Door to the country and towards the sea. Q. This enclosure, about fifteen feet wide, appears to have been covered with a trellis, and must have been much frequented, since there is a noble flight of steps leading down to it from the upper garden. It fronted the south, and must have been a delightful winter promenade.

The arch to the left is the end of the open hall, D, above the portico; on each side are the terraces, 34, 34, and in the centre are the remains of the cyzicene hall. Beneath on the level of the portico, are the several rooms marked F, probably the chief summer abode of the family, being well adapted to that purpose by their refreshing coolness. Their ceilings for the most part are semicircular vaults, richly painted, and the more valuable because few ceilings have been found in existence. We should attempt in vain to describe the complicated subjects, the intricate and varied patterns with which the fertile fancy of the arabesque painter has clothed the walls and ceilings, without the aid of drawings, which we are unable to give; and, indeed, colored plates would be requisite to convey an adequate notion of their effect. In the splendid work which Mr. Donaldson has published upon Pompeii, several subjects taken from these rooms will be found, some of them colored, together with eight mosaics, some of very complicated, all of elegant design; and to this and similar works we must refer the further gratification of the reader's curiosity.

Such was this mansion, in which no doubt the owner took pride and pleasure, to judge from the expense lavished with unsparing hand on its decoration; and if he could be supposed to have any cognizance of what is now passing on earth, his vanity might find some consolation for having been prematurely deprived of it, in the posthumous celebrity which it has obtained. But his taste and wealth have done nothing to perpetuate his name, for not a trace remains that can indicate to what person or to what family it belonged. It is indeed usually called the Villa of Marcus Arius Diomedes, on the strength of a tomb discovered about the same period immediately opposite to it, bearing that name. No other tomb had then been discovered so near it, and on this coincidence of situation a conclusion was drawn that this must have been a family sepulchre, attached to the house, and, by consequence, that the house itself belonged to Diomedes. The conjecture at the outset rested but on a sandy foundation, which has since been entirely sapped by the discovery of numerous other tombs almost equally near. All that we know of the owner or his family may be comprised in one sentence, which, short as it is, speaks forcibly to our feelings. Their life was one of elegant luxury and enjoyment, in the midst of which death came on them by surprise, a death of singular and lingering agony.

When Vesuvius first showed signs of the coming storm the air was still, as we learn from the description of Pliny, and the smoke of the mountain rose up straight, until the atmosphere would bear it no higher, and then spread on all sides into a canopy, suggesting to him the idea of an enormous pine tree. After this a wind sprung up from the west, which was favorable to carry Pliny from Misenum to StabiÆ, but prevented his return. The next morning probably it veered something to the north, when, in the younger Pliny's words, a cloud seemed to descend upon the earth, to cover the sea, and hide the Isle of CapreÆ from his view. The ashes are said by Dion Cassius to have reached Egypt, and in fact a line drawn southeast from Vesuvius would pass very near Pompeii, and cut Egypt. It was probably at this moment that the hail of fire fell thickest at Pompeii, at daybreak on the second morning, and if any had thus long survived the stifling air and torrid earth which surrounded them, their misery probably was at this moment brought to a close. The villa of which we speak lay exactly between the city and the mountain, and must have felt the first, and, if there were degrees of misery, where all perished alike, the worst effects of this fearful visitation. Fearful is such a visitation in the present day, even to those who crowd to see an eruption of Vesuvius as they would to a picture-gallery or an opera; how much more terrible, accompanied by the certainty of impending death, to those whom neither history nor experience had familiarized with the most awful phenomenon presented by nature. At this, or possibly an earlier moment, the love of life proved too strong for the social affections of the owner of the house. He fled, abandoning to their fate a numerous family, and a young and beautiful daughter, and bent his way, with his most precious movables, accompanied only by a single slave, to the sea, which he never reached alive. His daughter, two children, and other members of his family and household sought protection in the subterranean vaults, which, by the help of the wine-jars already stored there, and the provisions which they brought down with them, they probably considered as sufficient refuge against an evil of which they could not guess the whole extent. It was a vain hope; the same fate awaited them all by different ways. The strong vaults and narrow openings to the day protected them, indeed, from the falling cinders; but the heat, sufficient to char wood, and volatilize the more subtle part of the ashes, could not be kept out by such means. The vital air was changed into a sulphurous vapor, charged with burning dust. In their despair, longing for the pure breath of heaven, they rushed to the door, already choked with scoriÆ and ruins, and perished in agonies on which the imagination does not willingly dwell.

WALL PAINTING AT POMPEII.

WALL PAINTING AT POMPEII.ToList

This the reader will probably be inclined to think might do very well for the conclusion of a romance, but why invent such sentimental stories to figure in a grave historical account? It is a remarkable instance, perhaps the strongest which has yet occurred, of the peculiar interest which the discoveries at Pompeii possess, as introducing us to the homes, nay, to the very persons of a long-forgotten age, that every circumstance of this tale can be verified by evidence little less than conclusive. Beside the garden gate, marked P, two skeletons were found; one presumed to be the master, had in his hand the key of that gate, and near him were about a hundred gold and silver coins; the other, stretched beside some silver vases, was probably a slave charged with the transport of them. When the vaults beneath the room, D, were discovered, at the foot of the staircase, H, the skeletons of eighteen adult persons, a boy and an infant were found huddled up together, unmoved during seventeen centuries since they sank in death. They were covered by several feet of ashes of extreme fineness, evidently slowly borne in through the vent-holes, and afterwards consolidated by damp. The substance thus formed resembles the sand used by metal founders for castings, but is yet more delicate, and took perfect impressions of everything on which it lay. Unfortunately this property was not observed until almost too late, and little was preserved except the neck and breast of a girl, which are said to display extraordinary beauty of form. So exact is the impression, that the very texture of the dress in which she was clothed is apparent, which by its extraordinary fineness evidently shows that she had not been a slave, and may be taken for the fine gauze which Seneca calls woven wind. On other fragments the impression of jewels worn on the neck and arms is distinct, and marks that several members of the family here perished. The jewels themselves were found beside them, comprising, in gold, two necklaces, one set with blue stones, and four rings, containing engraved gems. Two of the skeletons belonged to children, and some of their blonde hair was still existent; most of them are said to have been recognized as female. Each sex probably acted in conformity to its character, the men trusting to their own strength to escape, the women waiting with patience the issue of a danger from which their own exertions could not save them.

In the same vault bronze candelabra and other articles, jewels and coins were found. AmphorÆ were also found ranged against the wall, in some of which the contents, dried and hardened by time, were still preserved. ArchÆologists, it is said, pretend to recognize in this substance the flavor of the rich strong wine for which the neighborhood of Vesuvius is celebrated.

Besides the interior garden within the portico, there must have been another garden extending along the southern side of the house. The passage from the peristyle, 7, the position of the elliptic chamber, 16, and the trellis work, Q, with its spacious steps, leave no doubt on this subject. It has been stated in a German periodical that traces of the plowshare have been distinguished in the fields adjoining this villa. This is the only authority we have for supposing that the process of excavation has been extended at all beyond the house itself. The garden to the south is still, to the best of our information, uncleared, nor is it likely that it contains objects of sufficient interest to recompense the labor which would be consumed in laying it open. Our limited knowledge of ancient horticulture is not therefore likely to be increased by means of Pompeii; for such small flower-pots as are attached to houses within the town can not contain anything worth notice beyond a fountain or a summer triclinium.

HOUSEHOLD UTENSILS.

HOUSEHOLD UTENSILS.ToList

We will do our best, however, to complete the reader's notion of an Italian villa, and show what might have been, since we can not show what has been here, by borrowing Pliny's account of the garden attached to his Tuscan villa, the only account of a Roman garden which has come down to us.

"In front of the house lies a spacious hippodrome, entirely open in the middle, by which means the eye, upon your first entrance, takes in its whole extent at one view. It is encompassed on every side with plane trees covered with ivy, so that while their heads flourish with their own green, their bodies enjoy a borrowed verdure; and thus the ivy twining round the trunk and branches, spreads from tree to tree and connects them together. Between each plane tree are placed box trees, and behind these, bay trees, which blend their shade with that of the planes. This plantation, forming a straight boundary on both sides of the hippodrome, bends at the further end into a semi-circle, which, being set round and sheltered with cypresses, casts a deeper and more gloomy shade; while the inward circular walks (for there are several) enjoying an open exposure, are full of roses, and correct the coolness of the shade by the warmth of the sun.

"Having passed through these several winding alleys, you enter a straight walk, which breaks out into a variety of others, divided by box edges. In one place you have a little meadow; in another the box is cut into a thousand different forms, sometimes into letters; here expressing the name of the master, there that of the artificer; while here and there little obelisks rise, intermixed with fruit trees; when on a sudden, in the midst of this elegant regularity, you are surprised with an imitation of the negligent beauties of rural nature, in the centre of which lies a spot surrounded with a knot of dwarf plane trees. Beyond this is a walk, interspersed with the smooth and twining acanthus, where the trees are also cut into a variety of names and shapes. At the upper end is an alcove of white marble, shaded with vines, supported by four small columns of Carystian marble. Here is a triclinium, out of which the water, gushing through several little pipes, as if it were pressed out by the weight of the persons who repose upon it, falls into a stone cistern underneath, from whence it is received into a fine polished marble basin, so artfully contrived that it is always full without ever overflowing. When I sup here, this basin serves for a table, the larger sort of dishes being placed round the margin, while the smaller swim about in the form of little vessels and water-fowl.

"Corresponding to this is a fountain, which is incessantly emptying and filling; for the water, which it throws up to a great height, falling back again into it, is returned as fast as it is received, by means of two openings.

"Fronting the alcove stands a summer-house of exquisite marble, whose doors project and open into a green enclosure, while from its upper and lower windows also the eye is presented with a variety of different verdures. Next to this is a little private closet, which, though it seems distinct, may be laid into the same room, furnished with a couch; and notwithstanding it has windows on every side, yet it enjoys a very agreeable gloominess, by means of a spreading vine, which climbs to the top and entirely overshades it. Here you may lie and fancy yourself in a wood, with this difference only, that you are not exposed to the weather. In this place a fountain also rises, and instantly disappears. In different quarters are disposed several marble seats, which serve, as well as the summer-house, as so many reliefs after one is tired of walking. Near each seat is a little fountain, and throughout the whole hippodrome several small rills run murmuring along, wheresoever the hand of art thought proper to conduct them, watering here and there different spots of verdure, and in their progress refreshing the whole."

page decoration 7

page decoration 5

Stores and Eating Houses.

To notice all the houses excavated at Pompeii, would be wearisome in the extreme. We intend therefore merely to select some of the most important, to be described at length, the arrangement of which may serve, with variations according to place and circumstances, as a type of the whole. Some, which offer no particularity in their construction, are remarkable for the beauty of their paintings or other decorations; and, indeed, it is from the paintings on the walls that many of the houses have derived their names. Some again are designated from mosaics or inscriptions on the threshold, from the trade or profession evidently exercised by the proprietors, or from some accident, as the presence of distinguished persons at their excavation—as, for instance, those called the House of the Emperor Joseph II., del Gran Duca, degli Scienziati, etc. As it is the object of this work to convey a general notion of the remains of Pompeii, and to exhibit, as far as our materials will permit, the private life of the first century in all its degrees, we shall begin with one or two of the stores. These present great similarity in their arrangements, and indicate that the tribe of storekeepers was very inferior in wealth and comfort to that of our own time and country. They are for the most part very small, and sometimes without any interior apartment on the ground floor. The upper floor must have comprised one or two sleeping-rooms; but there is, as we believe, only one house in which the upper floor is in existence.

It is rare at Pompeii to see a whole house set apart for purposes of trade, a part being occupied by the store itself, the rest furnishing a comfortable dwelling for the owner. The houses of the richer classes, instead of presenting a handsome elevation to the street, were usually surrounded with stores. They furnished considerable revenue.

Cicero, in a letter to Atticus, speaks of the ruinous state into which some of his stores had fallen, "insomuch that not only the men, but the mice had quitted them," and hints at the gain which he hoped to derive from this seemingly untoward circumstance. One Julia Felix possessed nine hundred stores, as we learn from an inscription in Pompeii.

At night the whole front was closed with shutters, sliding in grooves cut in the lintel and basement wall before the counter, and by the door, which is thrown far back, so as to be hardly visible.

There is an oven at the end of the counter furthest from the street, and three steps have been presumed to support different sorts of vessels or measures for liquids. From these indications it is supposed to have been a cook's shop; for the sale, perhaps, both of undressed and dressed provisions, as is indicated in the view. The oven probably served to prepare, and keep constantly hot, some popular dishes for the service of any chance customer; the jars might hold oil, olives, or the fish-pickle called garum, an article of the highest importance in a Roman kitchen, for the manufacture of which Pompeii was celebrated.[16]

RESTAURANT.

RESTAURANT. (From Wall Painting.)ToList

Fixed vessels appear inconvenient for such uses on account of the difficulty of cleaning them out; but the practice, it is said, continues to this day at Rome, where the small shopkeepers keep their oil in similar jars, fixed in a counter of masonry. All the ornaments in the view are copied from Pompeii. In front of the store, which stands opposite the passage leading behind the small theatre to the Soldiers' Quarters, are three stepping-stones, to enable persons to cross the road without wetting their feet in bad weather.

In conjunction with a street view, we give the view of another shop, which has also a counter containing jars for the reception of some liquid commodity. By some it is called a Thermopolium, or store for the sale of hot drinks, while others call it an oil store. In front is a fountain. It is situated at the angle of the street immediately adjoining the House of Pansa. The left-hand street leads to the Gate of Herculaneum; the right, skirting Pansa's house, is terminated by the city walls.

Tracks of wheels are very visible on the pavement. The interior was gaily painted in blue panels and red borders, as we learn from the colored view in Mr. Donaldson's Pompeii, from which this is taken. The counter is faced and covered with marble. Numerous thermopolia have been discovered in Pompeii, many of them identified, or supposed to be identified, by the stains left upon the counters by wet glasses.

BED AND TABLE AT POMPEII. (From Wall Painting.)ToList

In the centre is a small altar, placed before a niche, ornamented with the painting of some goddess holding a cornucopia. She is reposing on a couch, closely resembling a modern French bed. The mattress is white, striped with violet, and spotted with gold; the cushion is violet. The tunic of the goddess is blue, the bed, the table, and the cornucopia, gold. This house stands just by the gate of Herculaneum, adjoining the broad flight of steps which leads up to the ramparts. Bonucci supposes that it belonged to the officer appointed to take charge of the gate and walls.

We may take this opportunity to describe the nature and arrangement of the triclinium, of which such frequent mention has been made. In the earlier times of Rome, men sat at table—the habit of reclining was introduced from Carthage after the Punic wars. At first these beds were clumsy in form, and covered with mattresses stuffed with rushes or straw. Hair and wool mattresses were introduced from Gaul at a later period, and were soon followed by cushions stuffed with feathers. At first these tricliniary beds were small, low, and round, and made of wood; afterwards, in the time of Augustus, square and highly ornamented couches came into fashion. In the reign of Tiberius they began to be veneered with costly woods or tortoiseshell, and were covered with valuable embroideries, the richest of which came from Babylon, and cost incredible sums.

Each couch contained three persons, and, properly, the whole arrangement consisted of three couches, so that the number at table did not exceed the number of the Muses, and each person had his seat according to his rank and dignity. The places were thus appropriated: 1. The host. 2. His wife. 3. Guest. 4. Consular place, or place of honor. This was the most convenient situation at table, because he who occupied it, resting on his left arm, could easily with his right reach any part of the table without inconvenience to his neighbors. It was, therefore, set apart for the person of highest rank. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Other guests.

PLAN OF A TRICLINIUM.

PLAN OF A TRICLINIUM.ToList

The entertainment itself usually comprised three services; the first consisting of fresh eggs, olives, oysters, salad, and other light delicacies; the second of made dishes, fish, and roast meats; the third of pastry, confectionery, and fruits. A remarkable painting, discovered at Pompeii, gives a curious idea of a complete feast. It represents a table set out with every requisite for a grand dinner. In the centre is a large dish, in which four peacocks are placed, one at each corner, forming a magnificent dome with their tails. All round are lobsters—one holding in his claws a blue egg, a second an oyster, a third a stuffed rat, a fourth a little basket full of grasshoppers. Four dishes of fish decorate the bottom, above which are several partridges, and hares, and squirrels, each holding its head between its paws. The whole is surrounded by something resembling a German sausage; then comes a row of yolks of eggs; then a row of peaches, small melons, and cherries; and lastly, a row of vegetables of different sorts. The whole is covered with a sort of green-colored sauce.

Another house, also of the minor class, yet superior to any hitherto described, is recommended to our notice by the beauty of the paintings found. That the proprietor was not rich is evident from its limited extent and accommodation; yet he had some small property, as we may infer from the shop communicating with the house, in which were sold such articles of agricultural produce as were not required for the use of the family.

This house was formerly decorated with paintings taken from the Odyssey, and from the elegant fictions of Grecian mythology. When Mazois visited it in 1812, two paintings in the atrium were still in existence, though in a very perishing state. Shortly after he had copied them they fell, owing to the plaster detaching itself from the wall. One of them is taken from the Odyssey, and represents Ulysses and Circe, at the moment when the hero, having drunk the charmed cup with impunity, by virtue of the antidote given him by Mercury, draws his sword and advances to avenge his companions.[17] The goddess, terrified, makes her submission at once, as described by Homer, while her two attendants fly in alarm; yet one of them, with a natural curiosity, can not resist the temptation to look back, and observe the termination of so unexpected a scene. Circe uses the very gesture of supplication so constantly described by Homer and the tragedians, as she sinks on her knees, extending one hand to clasp the knees of Ulysses, with the other endeavoring to touch his beard.[18] This picture is remarkable, as teaching us the origin of that ugly and unmeaning glory with which the heads of saints are often surrounded. The Italians borrowed it from the Greek artists of the lower empire, in whose paintings it generally has the appearance, as we believe, of a solid plate of gold. The glory round Circe's head has the same character, the outer limb or circle being strongly defined, not shaded off and divining into rays, as we usually see it in the Italian school. This glory was called nimbus, or aureola, and is defined by Servius to be "the luminous fluid which encircles the heads of the gods." It belongs with peculiar propriety to Circe, as the daughter of the sun. The emperors, with their usual modesty, assumed it as the mark of their divinity; and, under this respectable patronage, it passed, like many other Pagan superstitions and customs, in the use of the church.

The other picture represents Achilles at Scyros, where Thetis had hidden him among the daughters of Lycomedes, to prevent his engaging in the Trojan war. Ulysses discovered him by bringing for sale arms mixed with female trinkets, in the character of a merchant. The story is well known. The painting represents the moment when the young hero is seizing the arms. Deidamia seems not to know what to make of the matter, and tries to hold him back, while Ulysses is seen behind with his finger on his lips, closely observing all that passes.

HEAD OF CIRCE.

HEAD OF CIRCE.ToList

page decoration 3

Houses of Pansa and Sallust.

The two compartments marked 30 are houses of a very mean class, having formerly an upper story. Behind the last of them is a court, which gives light to one of the chambers of Pansa's house. On the other side of the island or block are three houses (32), small, but of much more respectable extent and accommodation, which probably were also meant to be let. In that nearest the garden were found the skeletons of four women, with gold ear and finger rings having engraved stones, besides other valuables; showing that such inquilini or lodgers, were not always of the lowest class.

The best view of this house is from the front of the doorway. It offers to the eye, successively, the doorway, the prothyrum, the atrium, with its impluvium, the Ionic peristyle, and the garden wall, with Vesuvius in the distance. The entrance is decorated with two pilasters of the Corinthian order. Besides the outer door, there was another at the end of the prothyrum, to secure the atrium against too early intrusion. The latter apartment was paved with marble, with a gentle inclination towards the impluvium. Through the tablinum the peristyle is seen, with two of its Ionic capitals still remaining. The columns are sixteen in number, fluted, except for about one-third of their height from the bottom. They are made of a volcanic stone, and, with their capitals, are of good execution. But at some period subsequent to the erection of the house, probably after the earthquake, A.D. 63, they have been covered with hard stucco, and large leaves of the same material set under the volutes, so as to transform them into a sort of pseudo-Corinthian, or Composite order. It is not impossible that the exclusively Italian order, which we call Composite, may have originated in a similar caprice. Of the disposition of the garden, which occupied the open part of the peristyle, we have little to say. Probably it was planted with choice flowers. Slabs of marble were placed at the angles to receive the drippings of the roof, which were conducted by metal conduits into the central basin, which is about six feet in depth, and was painted green. In the centre of it there stood a jet d'eau, as there are indications enough to prove. This apartment, if such it may be called, was unusually spacious, measuring about sixty-five feet by fifty. The height of the columns was equal to the width of the colonnade, about sixteen feet. Their unfluted part is painted yellow, the rest is coated with white stucco. The floor is elevated two steps above the level of the tablinum.

A curious religious painting, now almost effaced, was found in the kitchen, representing the worship offered to the Lares, under whose protection and custody the provisions and all the cooking utensils were placed. In the centre is a sacrifice in honor of those deities, who are represented below in the usual form of two huge serpents brooding over an altar. There is something remarkable in the upper figures. The female figure in the centre holds a cornucopia, and each of the male figures holds a small vase in the hand nearer to the altar, and a horn in the other. All the faces are quite black, and the heads of the male figures are surrounded with something resembling a glory. Their dress in general, and especially their boots, which are just like the Hungarian boots now worn on the stage, appear different from anything which is to be met with elsewhere. Are these figures meant for the Lares themselves? On each side are represented different sorts of eatables. On the left a bunch of small birds, a string of fish, a boar with a girth about his body, and a magnificently curling tail, and a few loaves, or rather cakes, of the precise pattern of some which have been found in Pompeii: on the right, an eel spitted on a wire, a ham, a boar's head, and a joint of meat, which, as pig-meat seems to have been in request here, we may conjecture to be a loin of pork; at least it is as like that as anything else. It is suspended by a reed, as is still done at Rome. The execution of this painting is coarse and careless in the extreme, yet there is a spirit and freedom of touch which has hit off the character of the objects represented, and forbids us to impute the negligence which is displayed to incapacity. Another object of interest in the kitchen is a stove for stews and similar preparations, very much like those charcoal stoves which are seen in extensive kitchens at the present day. Before it lie a knife, strainers, and a strange-looking sort of a frying-pan, with four spherical cavities, as if it were meant to cook eggs. A similar one, containing twenty-nine egg-holes, has been found, which is circular, about fifteen inches in diameter, and without a handle. Another article of kitchen furniture is a sort of flat ladle pierced with holes, said to belong to the class called trua. It was meant apparently to stir up vegetables, etc., while boiling, and to strain the water from them.

KITCHEN FURNITURE AT POMPEII.

KITCHEN FURNITURE AT POMPEII.ToList

This house has been long excavated, and perhaps that is the reason that, considering its extent and splendor, the notices of it are particularly meagre. Of the decorations we have been able to procure no detailed accounts, though several paintings are said to have been found in it, and among them, one of Danae amid the golden shower, deserving of notice. Of the garden little can be said, for little is known. According to the best indications which Mazois could observe, it consisted of a number of straight parallel beds, divided by narrow paths, which gave access to them for horticultural purposes, but with no walk for air and exercise except the portico which adjoins the house.

Inferior to the House of Pansa, and to some others in size, but second to none in elegance of decoration and in the interest which it excites, is a house in the street leading from the Gate of Herculaneum to the Forum, called by some the House of ActÆon, from a painting found in it; by others the House of Caius Sallustius. It occupies the southernmost portion of an insula extending backwards to the city walls.

It is remarkable that the architects of Pompeii seem to have been careless for the most part whether they built on a regular or an irregular area. The practice of surrounding the owner's abode with shops, enabled them to turn to advantage the sides and corners of any piece of ground, however misshapen. Thus in another plan the apartments of the dwelling-houses are almost all well shaped and rectangular, though not one of the four angles of the area is a right angle.

The general view of this house is taken from the street in front, and runs completely through to the garden wall. One of the pilasters which flank the doorway has its capital still in good preservation. It is cut out of gray lava, and represents a Silenus and Faun side by side, each holding one end of an empty leather bottle, thrown over their shoulders. Ornaments of this character, which can be comprehended under none of the orders of architecture, are common in Pompeii, and far from unpleasing in their effect, however contrary to established principles. On the right is the large opening into the vestibule. In the centre of the view is the atrium, easily recognized by the impluvium, and beyond it through the tablinum are seen the pillars of the portico. Beyond the impluvium is the place of a small altar for the worship of the Lares. A bronze hind, through the mouth of which a stream of water flowed, formerly stood in the centre of the basin. It bore a figure of Hercules upon its back.

The walls of the atrium and tablinum are curiously stuccoed in large raised panels, with deep channels between them, the panels being painted of different colors, strongly contrasted with each other.

We find among them different shades of the same color, several reds, for instance, as sinopis, cinnabar, and others. This sort of decoration has caused some persons to call this the house of a color-seller—a conjecture entirely at variance with the luxury and elegance which reign in it. The floor was of red cement, with bits of white marble imbedded in it.

The altar in the atrium and the little oratory in the left-hand ala belong to the worship of the Lares domestici or familiares, as is indicated by the paintings found in the false doorway, but now removed. They consisted of a serpent below and a group of four figures above, employed in celebrating a sacrifice to these gods.

In the centre is a tripod, into which a priest, his head covered, is pouring the contents of a patera. On each side are two young men, dressed alike, apparently in the prÆtexta; at least their robes are white, and there is a double red stripe down the front of their tunics, and a red drapery is thrown over the shoulders of each. In one hand each holds a patera; in the other each holds aloft a cow's horn perforated at the small end, through which a stream is spouting into the patera at a considerable distance. This, though an inconvenient, seems to have been a common drinking-vessel. The method of using it has already been described. In the background is a man playing on the double flute.The worship of the Lares was thus publicly represented, and their images were exposed to view, that all persons might have an opportunity of saluting them and invoking prosperity on the house. Noble families had also a place of domestic worship (adytum or penetrale) in the most retired part of their mansions, where their most valuable records and hereditary memorials were preserved.

The worship of these little deities (Dii minuti, or patellarii) was universally popular, partly perhaps on account of its economical nature, for they seem to have been satisfied with anything that came to hand, partly perhaps from a sort of feeling of good fellowship in them and towards them, like that connected with the Brownies and Cluricaunes, and other household goblins of northern extraction.

Like those goblins they were represented sometimes under very grotesque forms. There is a bronze figure of one found at Herculaneum, and figured in the Antiquites d'Herculanum, plate xvii. vol. viii., which represents a little old man sitting on the ground with his knees up to his chin, a huge head, ass's ears, a long beard, and a roguish face, which would agree well with our notion of a Brownie. Their statues were often placed behind the door, as having power to keep out all things hurtful, especially evil genii. Respected as they were, they sometimes met with rough treatment, and were kicked or cuffed, or thrown out of window without ceremony, if any unlucky accident had chanced through their neglect. Sometimes they were imaged under the form of dogs, the emblems of fidelity and watchfulness, sometimes, like their brethren of the highways (Lares compitales), in the shape of serpents.

The tutelary genii of men or places, a class of beings closely allied to Lares, were supposed to manifest themselves in the same shape: as, for example, a sacred serpent was believed at Athens to keep watch in the temple of Athene in the Acropolis. Hence paintings of these animals became in some sort the guardians of the spot in which they were set up, like images of saints in Roman Catholic countries, and not unfrequently were employed when it was wished to secure any place from irreverent treatment.

From these associations the presence of serpents came to be considered of good omen, and by a natural consequence they were kept (a harmless sort of course) in the houses, where they nestled about the altars, and came out like dogs or cats to be patted by the visitors, and beg for something to eat. Nay, at table, if we may build upon insulated passages, they crept about the cups of the guests; and in hot weather ladies would use them as live boas, and twist them round their necks for the sake of coolness.

Martial, however, our authority for this, seems to consider it as an odd taste. Virgil, therefore, in a fine passage, in which he has availed himself of the divine nature attributed to serpents, is only describing a scene which he may often have witnessed:

Scarce had he finished, when with speckled pride,
A serpent from the tomb began to glide;
His hugy bulk on seven high volumes rolled;
Blue was his breadth of back, but streaked with scaly gold;
Thus, riding on his curls, he seemed to pass
A rolling fire along, and singe the grass.
More various colors through his body run,
Than Iris, when her bow imbibes the sun.
Betwixt the rising altars, and around,
The rolling monster shot along the ground.
With harmless play amidst the bowls he passed,
And with his lolling tongue assayed the taste;
Thus fed with holy food, the wondrous guest
Within the hollow tomb retired to rest.
The pious prince, surprised at what he viewed,
The funeral honors with more zeal renewed;
Doubtful if this the place's genius were,
Or guardian of his father's sepulchre.

We may conjecture from the paintings, which bear a marked resemblance to one another, that these snakes were of considerable size, and of the same species, probably that called Æsculapius, which was brought from Epidaurus to Rome with the worship of the god, and, as we are told by Pliny, was commonly fed in the houses of Rome. These sacred animals made war on the rats and mice, and thus kept down one species of vermin; but as they bore a charmed life, and no one laid violent hands on them, they multiplied so fast, that, like the monkeys of Benares, they became an intolerable nuisance. The frequent fires at Rome were the only things that kept them under.

Passing through the tablinum, we enter the portico of the xystus, or garden, a spot small in extent, but full of ornament and of beauty, though not that sort of beauty which the notion of a garden suggests to us. It is not larger than a city garden, the object of our continual ridicule; yet while the latter is ornamented only with one or two scraggy poplars, and a few gooseberry-bushes with many more thorns than leaves, the former is elegantly decorated by the hand of art, and set apart as the favorite retreat of festive pleasure. True it is that the climate of Italy suits out-of-door amusements better than our own, and that Pompeii was not exposed to that plague of soot which soon turns marble goddesses into chimney-sweepers. The portico is composed of columns, fluted and corded, the lower portion of them painted blue, without pedestals, yet approaching to the Roman rather than to the Grecian Doric. The entablature is gone. From the portico we ascend by three steps to the xystus. Its small extent, not exceeding in its greatest dimensions seventy feet by twenty, did not permit trees, hardly even shrubs, to be planted in it. The centre, therefore, was occupied by a pavement, and on each side boxes filled with earth were ranged for flowers; while, to make amends for the want of real verdure, the whole wall opposite the portico is painted with trellises and fountains, and birds drinking from them; and above, with thickets enriched and ornamented with numerous tribes of their winged inhabitants.The most interesting discoveries at Pompeii are those which throw light on, or confirm passages of ancient authors. Exactly the same style of ornament is described by Pliny the Younger as existing in his Tuscan villa. "Another cubiculum is adorned with sculptured marble for the height of the podium; above which is a painting of trees, and birds sitting on them, not inferior in elegance to the marble itself. Under it is a small fountain, and in the fountain a cup, round which the playing of several small water-pipes makes a most agreeable murmur." At the end of this branch of the garden, which is shaped like an L, we see an interesting monument of the customs of private life. It is a summer triclinium, in plan like that which has been mentioned in the preceding chapter, but much more elegantly decorated. The couches are of masonry, intended to be covered with mattresses and rich tapestry when the feast was to be held here: the round table in the centre was of marble. Above it was a trellis, as is shown by the square pillars in front and the holes in the walls which enclose two sides of the triclinium. These walls are elegantly painted in panels, in the prevailing taste; but above the panelling there is a whimsical frieze, appropriate to the purpose of this little pavilion, consisting of all sorts of eatables which can be introduced at a feast. When Mazois first saw it the colors were fresh and beautiful; but when he wrote, after a lapse of ten years, it was already in decay, and ere now it has probably disappeared, so perishable are all those beauties which can not be protected from the inclemency of the weather by removal. In front a stream of water pours into a basin from the wall, on which, half painted, half raised in relief, is a mimic fountain surmounted by a stag. Between the fountain and triclinium, in a line between the two pilasters which supported the trellis, was a small altar, on which the due libations might be poured by the festive party. In the other limb of the garden is a small furnace, probably intended to keep water constantly hot for the use of those who preferred warm potations. Usually the Romans drank their wine mixed with snow, and clarified through a strainer, of which there are many in the Museum of Naples, curiously pierced in intricate patterns; but those who were under medical care were not always suffered to enjoy this luxury. Martial laments his being condemned by his physician to drink no cold wine, and concludes with wishing that his enviers may have nothing but warm water. At the other end of the garden, opposite the front of the triclinium, was a cistern which collected the rain waters, whence they were drawn for the use of the garden and of the house. There was also a cistern at the end of the portico, next the triclinium.

The several rooms to the left of the atrium offer nothing remarkable. On the right, however, as will be evident upon inspecting the plan, a suite of apartments existed, carefully detached from the remainder of the house, and communicating only with the atrium by a single passage. The disposition and the ornaments of this portion of the house prove that it was a private venereum, a place, if not consecrated to the goddess from whom it derives its name, at least especially devoted to her service. The strictest privacy has been studied in its arrangements; no building overlooks it; the only entrance is closed by two doors, both of which we may conjecture, were never suffered to be open at once; and beside them was the apartment of a slave, whose duty was to act as porter and prevent intrusion. Passing the second door, the visitor found himself under a portico supported by octagonal columns, with a court or open area in the centre, and in the middle of it a small basin. At each end of the portico is a small cabinet, with appropriate paintings: in one of them a painting of Venus, Mars, and Cupid is conspicuous.

The apartments were paved with marble, and the walls lined breast-high with the same material. A niche in the cabinet nearest the triclinium contained a small image, a gold vase, a gold coin, and twelve bronze medals of the reign of Vespasian; and near this spot were found eight small bronze columns, which appear to have formed part of a bed.

In the adjoining lane four skeletons were found, apparently a female attended by three slaves; the tenant perhaps of this elegant apartment. Beside her was a round plate of silver, which probably was a mirror, together with several golden rings set with engraved stones, two ear-rings, and five bracelets of the same metal.

Both cabinets had glazed windows, which commanded a view of the court and of each other; it is conjectured that they were provided with curtains. The court itself presents no trace of pavement, and, therefore, probably served as a garden.

The ground of the wall is black, a color well calculated to set off doubtful complexions to the best advantage, while its sombre aspect is redeemed by a profusion of gold-colored ornament, in the most elegant taste. The columns were painted with the color called sinopis Ponticum, a species of red ochre of brilliant tint. Nearly all the wall of the court between the cabinets is occupied by a large painting of ActÆon, from which the house derives one of its names; on either side it is flanked by the representation of a statue on a high pedestal. The centre piece comprises a double action. In one part we see a rocky grotto, in which Diana was bathing when the unwary hunter made his appearance above: in the other he is torn by his own dogs, a severe punishment for an unintentional intrusion. The background represents a wild and mountainous landscape. A painted frieze, and other paintings on the walls, complete the decorations of the portico.

The large apartment was a triclinium for the use of this portion of the house, where the place of the table, and of the beds which surrounded it on three sides, was marked by a mosaic pavement. Over the left-hand portico there was a terrace. The space marked 36 contained the stair which gave access to it, a stove connected probably with the service of the triclinium and other conveniences.

In the centre room is the opening into the tablinum, which probably was only separated from the atrium by curtains (parapetasmata), which might be drawn or undrawn at pleasure. Through the tablinum the pillars of the peristyle and the fountain painted on the garden wall are seen. To the right of the tablinum is the fauces, and on each side of the atrium the alÆ are seen, partly shut off, like the tablinum, by handsome draperies. The nearer doors belong to chambers which open into the atrium. Above the colored courses of stucco blocks the walls are painted in the light, almost Chinese style of architecture, which is so common, and a row of scenic masks fills the place of a cornice. The ceiling is richly fretted.

The compluvium also was ornamented with a row of triangular tiles called antefixes, on which a mask or some other object was moulded in relief. Below, lions' heads are placed along the cornice at intervals, forming spouts through which the water was discharged into the impluvium beneath. Part of this cornice, found in the house of which we speak, is well deserving our notice, because it contains, within itself, specimens of three different epochs of art, at which we must suppose the house was first built, and subsequently repaired.

It is made of fine clay, with a lion's head moulded upon it, well designed, and carefully finished. It is plain, therefore, that it was not meant to be stuccoed, or the labor bestowed in its execution would have been in great part wasted. At a later period it has been coated over with the finest stucco, and additional enrichments and mouldings have been introduced, yet without injury to the design or inferiority in the workmanship; indicating that at the time of its execution the original simplicity of art had given way to a more enriched and elaborate style of ornament, yet without any perceptible decay, either in the taste of the designer or the skill of the workman.

Still later this elegant stucco cornice had been covered with a third coating of the coarsest materials, and of design and execution most barbarous, when it is considered how fine a model the artists had before their eyes.

In the restoration, the impluvium is surrounded with a mosaic border. This has disappeared, if ever there was one; but mosaics are frequently found in this situation, and it is, therefore, at all events, an allowable liberty to place one here, in a house so distinguished for the richness and elegance of its decorations.

Beside the impluvium stood a machine, now in the National Museum, for heating water, and at the same time warming the room if requisite. The high circular part, with the lid open, is a reservoir, communicating with the semi-circular piece, which is hollow, and had a spout to discharge the heated water. The three eagles placed on it are meant to support a kettle. The charcoal was contained in the square base.

In the preceding pages we have taken indiscriminately, from all quarters of the town, houses of all classes, from the smallest to the most splendid, in the belief that such would be the best way of showing the gradations of wealth and comfort, the different styles of dwelling adopted by different classes of citizens, in proportion to their means. It would, however, be manifestly impossible so to classify all the houses which contain something worthy of description, and we shall, therefore, adopt a topographical arrangement as the simplest one, commencing at the Gate of Herculaneum, and proceeding in as regular order as circumstances will permit through the excavated part of the town.

Most of the houses immediately about the gate appear to have been small inns or eating-houses, probably used chiefly by country people, who came into market, or by the lower order of travelers. Immediately to the right of it, however, at the beginning of the street called the Via Consularis, or Domitiana, there is a dwelling of a better class, called the House of the Musician, from paintings of musical instruments which ornamented the walls. Among these were the sistrum, trumpet, double flute, and others. Upon the right side of the street, however, the buildings soon improve, and in that quarter are situated some of the most remarkable mansions, in respect of extent and construction, which Pompeii affords. They stand in part upon the site of the walls which have been demolished upon this, the side next the port, for what purpose it is not very easy to say; not to make room for the growth of the city, for these houses stand at the very limit of the available ground, being partly built upon a steep rock. Hence, besides the upper floors, which have perished, they consist each of two or three stories, one below another, so that the apartments next the street are always on the highest level. Those who are familiar with the metropolis of Scotland will readily call to mind a similar mode of construction very observable on the north side of the High Street, where the ground-floor is sometimes situated about the middle of the house.

One of the most remarkable of these houses contains three stories; the first, level with the street, contains the public part of the house, the vestibule, atrium, and tablinum, which opens upon a spacious terrace. Beside these is the peristyle and other private apartments, at the back of which the terrace of which we have just spoken offers an agreeable walk for the whole breadth of the house, and forms the roof of a spacious set of apartments at a lower level, which are accessible either by a sloping passage from the street, running under the atrium, or by a staircase communicating with the peristyle. This floor contains baths, a triclinium, a spacious saloon, and other rooms necessary for the private use of a family. Behind these rooms is another terrace, which overlooks a spacious court surrounded by porticoes, and containing a piscina or reservoir in the centre. The pillars on the side next the house are somewhat higher than on the other three sides, so as to give the terrace there a greater elevation. Below this second story there is yet a third, in part under ground, which contains another set of baths, and, besides apartments for other purposes, the lodging of the slaves. This was divided into little cells, scarcely the length of a man, dark and damp; and we can not enter into it without a lively feeling of the wretched state to which these beings were reduced.

A few steps further on the same side, is another house somewhat of the same description, which evidently belonged to some man of importance, probably to Julius Polybius, whose name has been found in several inscriptions. Fragments of richly-gilt stucco-work enable us to estimate the richness of its decoration and the probable wealth of its owner. It will be readily distinguished by its immense Corinthian atrium, or rather peristyle. It has the further peculiarity of having two vestibules each communicating with the street and with the atrium. The portico of the atrium is formed by arcades and piers, ornamented with attached columns, the centre being occupied by a court and fountain. These arcades appear to be enclosed by windows. Square holes, worked in the marble coping of a dwarf wall which surrounds the little court, were perfectly distinguishable, and it is concluded that they were meant to receive the window-frames.

Pliny the Younger describes a similar glazed portico at his Laurentine villa; and an antique painting, representing the baths of Faustina, gives the view of a portico, the apertures of which are entirely glazed, as we suppose them to have been here. The portico, and three apartments which communicate with it, were paved in mosaic. Attached to one of the corner piers there is a fountain. The kitchen and other apartments were below this floor. There was also an upper story, as is clear from the remains of stair-cases. This house extends to the point at which a by-street turns away from the main road to the Forum. We will now return to the gate, to describe the triangular island of houses which bounds the main street on the eastern side.

That close to the gate, called the House of the Triclinium, derives its name from a large triclinium in the centre of the peristyle, which is spacious and handsome, and bounded by the city walls. The House of the Vestals is a little further on. What claim it has to this title, except by the rule of contraries, we are at a loss to guess; seeing that the style of its decorations is very far from corresponding with that purity of thought and manners which we are accustomed to associate with the title of vestal. The paintings are numerous and beautiful, and the mosaics remarkably fine. Upon the threshold here, as in several other houses, we find the word "Salve" (Welcome), worked in mosaic. One may be seen in cut on page 30.

We enter by a vestibule, divided into three compartments, and ornamented with four attached columns, which introduces us to an atrium, fitted up in the usual manner, and surrounded by the usual apartments. The most remarkable of these is a triclinium, which formerly was richly paved with glass mosaics. Hence we pass into the private apartments, which are thus described by Bonucci:—"This house seems to have been originally two separate houses, afterwards, probably, bought by some rich man, and thrown into one. After traversing a little court, around which are the sleeping chambers, and that destined to business, we hastened to render our visit to the Penates. We entered the pantry, and rendered back to the proprietors the greeting that, from the threshold of this mansion, they still direct to strangers. We next passed through the kitchen and its dependencies. The corn-mills seemed waiting for the accustomed hands to grind with them, after so many years of repose. Oil standing in glass vessels, chestnuts, dates, raisins, and figs, in the next chamber, announce the provision for the approaching winter, and large amphorÆ of wine recall to us the consulates of CÆsar and of Cicero.

BROOCHES OF GOLD

BROOCHES OF GOLD FOUND AT POMPEII.ToList

"We entered the private apartment. Magnificent porticoes are to be seen around it. Numerous beautiful columns covered with stucco, and with very fresh colors, surrounded a very agreeable garden, a pond, and a bath. Elegant paintings, delicate ornaments, stags, sphinxes, wild and fanciful flowers everywhere cover the walls. The cabinets of young girls, and their toilets, with appropriate paintings, are disposed along the sides. In this last were found a great quantity of female ornaments, such as seen in the cut, and others, and the skeleton of a little dog. At the extremity is seen a semicircular room adorned with niches, and formerly with statues, mosaics, and marbles. An altar, on which the sacred fire burned perpetually, rose in the centre. This is the sacrarium. In this secret and sacred place the most solemn and memorable days of the family were spent in rejoicing; and here, on birthdays, sacrifices were offered to Juno, or the Genius, the protector of the new-born child."The next house is called the House of a Surgeon, because a variety of surgical instruments were found in it. In number they amounted to forty; some resembled instruments still in use, others are different from anything employed by modern surgeons. In many the description of Celsus is realized, as, for instance, in the specillum, or probe, which is concave on one side and flat on the other; the scalper excisorius, in the shape of a lancet-point on one side and of a mallet on the other; a hook and forceps, used in obstetrical practice. The latter are said to equal in the convenience and ingenuity of their construction the best efforts of modern cutlers. Needles, cutting compasses (circini excisorii), and other instruments were found, all of the purest brass with bronze handles, and usually enclosed in brass or boxwood cases.

There is nothing remarkable in the house itself, which contains the usual apartments, atrium, peristyle, etc., except the paintings. These consist chiefly of architectural designs, combinations of golden and bronze-colored columns placed in perspective, surmounted by rich architraves, elaborate friezes, and decorated cornices, one order above another. Intermixed are arabesque ornaments, grotesque paintings, and compartments with figures, all apparently employed in domestic occupations.

One of them represents a female figure carrying rolls of papyrus to a man who is seated and intently reading. The method of reading these rolls or volumes, which were written in transverse columns across the breadth of the papyrus, is clearly shown here. Behind him a young woman is seated, playing on the harp. All these figures are placed under the light architectural designs above described, which seem intended to surmount a terrace. It is a common practice at the present day in Italy, especially near Naples, to construct light treillages on the tops of the houses, where the inhabitants enjoy the evening breeze, al fresco, in the same way as is represented in these paintings.

The peristyle is small, but in good preservation. Its inter-columniations are filled up by a dwarf wall painted red, the lower part of the columns being painted blue. This house runs through the island from one street to the other. Adjoining it, on the south, is the custom-house, telonium. Here a wide entrance admits us into an ample chamber, where many scales were found, and among them a steelyard, statera, much resembling those now in use, but more richly and tastefully ornamented.

SCALES FOUND AT POMPEII.

SCALES FOUND AT POMPEII.ToList

Many weights of lead and marble were found here; one with the inscription, "Eme et habebis" (Buy and you shall have), also scales. Near the custom-house is a soap manufactory. In the first room were heaps of lime, the admirable quality of which has excited the wonder of modern plasterers. In an inner room are the soap-vats, placed on a level with the ground.

Besides these, the block contains three houses which have been distinguished by names, the House of Isis and Osiris, the House of Narcissus, and the House of the Female Dancers. Of these the latter is remarkable for the beauty of the paintings which adorn its Tuscan atrium.

Among them are four very elegant figures of female dancers, from which the name given to the house is taken. Another represents a figure reposing on the border of a clear lake, surrounded by villas and palaces, on the bosom of which a flock of ducks and wild-fowl are swimming. The house of Narcissus is distinguished by the elegance of its peristyle; the inter-columniations are filled up by a dwarf wall, which is hollowed at the top, probably to receive earth for the cultivation of select flowers. Our materials do not admit of a fuller description of the houses in this quarter.

Passing onwards from the House of Sallust, the next island to the south, separated from it by a narrow lane, affords nothing remarkable, except the shop of a baker, to the details of which, in conjunction with the art of dyeing, we purpose to devote a separate chapter. It is terminated in a sharp point by the fountain before mentioned. The disposition of the streets and houses everywhere is most unsymmetrical, but here it is remarkably so, even for Pompeii. Just by the house with the double vestibule the main street divides into two, inclined to each other at a very acute angle, which form, together with a third cross street of more importance, called the Strada delle Terme, or Street of the Baths, another small triangular island.

The house of the apex was an apothecary's shop. A great many drugs, glasses, and vials of the most singular forms, were found here; in some of the latter fluids were yet remaining. In particular one large glass vase is to be mentioned, capable of holding two gallons, in which was a gallon and a half of a reddish liquid, said to be balsam. On being opened, the contents began to evaporate very fast, and it was, therefore, closed hermetically. About an inch in depth of the contents has been thus lost, leaving on the sides of the vessel a sediment, reaching up to the level to which it was formerly filled. The right-hand street leads to buildings entirely in ruins, the left-hand one, which is a continuation of the Via Consularis, or Domitiana, conducts us towards the Forum.

Immediately to the eastward of the district just described is the House of Pansa, which occupies a whole block. The block between it and the city walls, on the north, offers nothing remarkable. Beyond, still to the east, is a block separated from it by a narrow street, called the Via della Fullonica, and bounded on the other side by the Street of Mercury, which runs in a straight line from the walls nearly to the Forum. This block contains, besides several private houses of great beauty, the Fullonica, or establishment for the fulling and dyeing of woolen cloths. This, together with the bake-house above mentioned, will be described further on.

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House of Holconius.

Passing on the insula or block, bounded on the north by the Street of Holconius, on the south by the Street of Isis, on the west by the Street of the Theatres, and on the east by that of StabiÆ, we find two remarkable houses excavated within the last few years. That at the northern corner of the street of the Theatres, numbered 4 on the entrance, is sometimes called the House of Holconius. The two stores which precede it, numbered 2 and 3, seem to have been the property of the master of the house, and communicate with each other. A third shop, numbered 1, at the angle of the street, appears to have been occupied by a dyer, and is called Taberna Offectoris. On the front of the house were some inscriptions for electioneering purposes.

The pilasters on either side of the main entrance are painted red to about the height of a man, beyond which they are of white plaster. On entering the prothyrum may be observed a large hole in the wall, destined for the reception of the repagulum, or strong wooden bar with which the door was secured. The door appears, from the places for bolts on the threshold, to have been composed of two pieces (bifora). The walls of the prothyrum are painted black, with a red podium, divided into three compartments by green and yellow lines, in the middle of which are an aquatic bird, perhaps an ibis, a swan with spread wings, and an ornament that can not be made out. Towards the top the walls are painted with fantastic pieces of architecture on a white ground; amidst which, on one side, is a nymph descending apparently from heaven. She has a golden-colored vest, on her shoulders is a veil agitated by the breeze, and she bears in her hand a large dish filled with fruits and herbs. On the other side was a similar figure, playing on the lyre, with a sky-blue vest and rose-colored veil that fluttered about her. The remaining architectural paintings contained little winged Cupids, one holding a cornucopia, another a drum, and two with baskets of fruits and flowers. These were the good geniuses, which, by being depicted at the entrance of a house, repelled all evil influences and rendered it a joyful abode.

The pavement of the Tuscan atrium is variegated with small pieces of white marble placed in rows. The impluvium in the middle appears to have been under repair, as it is stripped of its marble lining. The walls of the atrium are painted red, with vertical black zones like pilasters, or antÆ, besides lines and ornaments of various colors. On the wall to the left of the entrance is painted a recumbent Silenus, crowned with ivy, and pressing in his arms the little Bacchus, who in alarm is endeavoring to escape from his embraces. Near it, on a yellow ground, is the bearded head of a man, with two claws projecting from his temples like horns, and a beard floating as if it was in the water. It may probably be a mask of Oceanus, who is represented on coins of Agrigentum in a somewhat similar manner. Under the head is the figure of a hippocampus.

Many objects were found in this atrium, some at the height of four or five yards from the floor, which must consequently have fallen in from the upper stories; and others on the pavement itself. But one of the most important discoveries was the skeleton of a woman, near the entrance of the tablinum. She appears to have been in the act of flight, and had with her a small box containing her valuables and nick-nacks. Among the most curious of these was a necklace composed of amulets, or charms, which, it will be observed, are all attributes of Isis and her attendant, Anubis, or of her husband Osiris, here considered as Bacchus. The mystic articles kept in the Isiac coffer were, says Eusebius, a ball, dice, (turbo) wheel, mirror, lock of wool.

The first bed-chamber on the right of the atrium communicated with the store No. 3, and was probably occupied by the slave who conducted the business of it. The first bed-chamber on the left had a similar communication with the store outside.

WALL PAINTING DISCOVERED AT POMPEII.

WALL PAINTING DISCOVERED AT POMPEII.ToList

There are few houses in Pompeii in which the paintings are more numerous or better preserved than in that which we are examining. The second bed-chamber on the right has several. In this room may be observed a space hollowed in the wall to receive the foot of a bed or coutch. The walls are white, with a red podium, and are surmounted by a cornice from which springs the vault. The upper part is painted with lines, between which are depicted griffins in repose, baskets with thyrsi, branches of herbs, and other objects.

The lower part of the walls is divided into larger compartments by candelabra supporting little globes. In each compartment are eight small pictures, representing the heads and busts of Bacchic personages, in a very good state of preservation. On the left is Bacchus, crowned with ivy, his head covered with the mitra, a sort of veil of fine texture which descends upon his left shoulder. This ornament, as well as the cast of his features, reveals the half feminine nature of the deity. Opposite to him is the picture of Ariadne, also crowned with ivy, clothed in a green chiton and a violet himation. She presses to her bosom the infant Iacchus, crowned with the eternal ivy, and bearing in his hand the thyrsus. Then follow Bacchic or Panic figures, some conversing, some drinking together, some moving apparently in the mazes of the dance. Paris, with the Phrygian cap and crook, seems to preside over this voluptuous scene, and to listen to a little Cupid seated on his shoulder.

In the chamber on the opposite side of the atrium, fronting that just described, were also four pictures, two of which are destroyed, the walls having apparently been broken through, not long after the destruction of Pompeii, by persons in search of their buried property. Of the other two, which are almost effaced, one represents an aged Faun, holding in his hands a thyrsus and a vase; the other a young woman conversing with an African slave. A wooden chest seems to have stood close to the left-hand wall.

The left ala, or wing, has its walls painted in yellow and red compartments, with a black podium. In the middle of each was a valuable painting, but these, with the exception of the greater part of one fronting the entrance, have been almost destroyed. The one saved represents Apollo, who has overtaken Daphne, and is clasping her in his arms, while the nymph, who has fallen on her knees, repels the embraces of the deity. A malicious little Cupid, standing on tiptoes, draws aside the golden-tissued veil which covered the nymph, and displays her naked form. On the left of the same apartment is a picture, almost effaced, of Perseus and Andromeda; and on the right another with three male figures, of which only the lower part remains.

The right ala, which, however, from its capability of being closed with a door, does not properly come under that denomination, seems, from various culinary utensils of metal and earthenware found in it, to have served as a kitchen, or rather perhaps as a store-closet.

The tablinum, opposite the entrance, and, as usual, without any enclosure on the side of the atrium, has a small marble threshold, and on its floor little squares of colored marbles surrounded with a mosaic border. The yellow walls, divided into compartments by vertical stripes of red, white, and black, were beautifully ornamented with the usual architectural designs and flying figures. On each side were two larger pictures, of which only that on the left of the spectator remains. It represents Leda showing to Tyndareus a nest containing the two boys produced from the egg. A stucco cornice runs round the wall, above which a flying nymph is painted on a white ground, between two balconies, from which a man and woman are looking down. There are also figures of sphinxes, goats, etc.

A wooden staircase on the left of the tablinum, the first step being of stone, led to the floor above. On the right is the passage called fauces, leading to the peristyle. On its left-hand side, near the ground, was a rudely traced figure of a gladiator, with an inscription above, of which only the first letters, PRIMI, remain. On the left wall of the fauces, near the extremity, and level with the eye, is another inscription, or graffito, in small characters, difficult to be deciphered from the unusual nexus of the letters, but which the learned have supposed to express the design of an invalid to get rid of the pains in his limbs by bathing them in water.

At the extremity of the fauces, on the right, there is an entrance to a room which has also another door leading into the portico of the peristyle. The walls are painted black and red, and in the compartments are depicted birds, animals, fruits, etc. Two skeletons were found in this room. In the apartment to the left, or east of the tablinum, of which the destination can not be certainly determined, the walls are also painted black, with architectural designs in the middle, and figures of winged Cupids variously employed. On the larger walls are two paintings, of which that on the right represents the often-repeated subject of Ariadne, who, just awakened from sleep, and supported by a female figure with wings, supposed to be Nemesis, views with an attitude of grief and stupor the departing ship of Theseus, already far from Naxos. On the left side is a picture of Phryxus, crossing the sea on the ram and stretching out his arms to Helle, who has fallen over and appears on the point of drowning. The form of this chamber, twice as long as it is broad, its vicinity to the kitchen, and the window, through which the slaves might easily convey the viands, appear to show that it was a triclinium, or dining-room.

The floor, which is lower by a step than the peristyle, is paved with opus Signinum, and ornamented only at one end with a mosaic. On one of the walls, about ten feet from the floor, is the graffito, Sodales Avete (Welcome Comrades), which could have been inscribed there only by a person, probably a slave, mounted on a bench or a ladder.

The viridarium, or xystus, surrounded with spacious porticoes, was once filled with the choicest flowers, and refreshed by the grateful murmur of two fountains. One of these in the middle of the peristyle is square, having in its centre a sort of round table from which the water gushed forth. The other fountain, which faces the tablinum, is composed of a little marble staircase, surmounted by the statue of a boy having in his right hand a vase from which the water spirted, and under his left arm a goose. The statue is rather damaged.

Many objects were found in the peristyle, mostly of the kind usually discovered in Pompeian houses. Among them was an amphora, having the following epigraph in black paint:

COUM. GRAN.
OF.
ROMÆ. ATERIO. FELICI.

which has been interpreted to mean that it contained Coan wine flavored with pomegranate, and that it came from Rome, from the stores of Aterius Felix.

The portico is surrounded by strong columns, and seems to have had a second order resting on the first, as may be inferred from some indications to the right of him who enters from the fauces. The walls are painted red and black, with architectural designs, candelabra, meanders, birds, winged Cupids, etc. There are also fourteen small pictures enclosed in red lines, eight of which represent landscapes and sea-shores, with fishermen, and the other six fruits and eatables. On the wall on the right side is the following graffito, or inscription, scratched with some sharp instrument:

IIX. ID. IVL. AXVNGIA. PCC.
ALIV. MANVPLOS. CCL.

That is: "On the 25th July, hog's lard, two hundred pounds, Garlic, two hundred bunches." It seems, therefore, to be a domestic memorandum of articles either bought or sold.

Around the portico are several rooms, all having marble thresholds, and closed by doors turning on bronze hinges. On the right hand of the peristyle, near the entrance, is a private door, or posticum, leading into the Street of the Theatres, by which the master of the house might escape his importunate clients.

The rooms at the sides of the peristyle offer nothing remarkable, but the three chambers opposite to the tablinum are of considerable size, and contain some good pictures. The first on the right has two figures of Nereids traversing the sea, one on a sea-bull the other on a hippocampus. Both the monsters are guided by a Cupid with reins and whip, and followed by dolphins. Another painting opposite the entrance is too much effaced to be made out. The same wall has a feature not observed in any other Pompeian house, namely, a square aperture of rather more than a foot reaching down to the floor, and opening upon an enclosed place with a canal or drain for carrying off the water of the adjoining houses. It seems also to have been a receptacle for lamps, several of which were found there.

Adjoining this room is a large exedra with a little impluvium in the middle, which seems to indicate an aperture in the roof, a construction hitherto found only in atria. The absence of any channels in the floor for conducting water seems to show that it could not have been a fountain. This exedra is remarkable for its paintings. In the wall in front is depicted Narcissus with a javelin in his hand, leaning over a rock and admiring himself in the water, in which his image is reflected; but great part of the painting is destroyed. A little Cupid is extinguishing his torch in the stream. In the background is a building with an image of the bearded Bacchus; and near it a terminal figure of Priapus Ithyphallicus, with grapes and other fruits. This picture was much damaged in the process of excavation.

On the left wall is a painting of a naked Hermaphroditus. In his right hand is a little torch reversed; his left arm rests on the shoulders of Silenus, who appears to accompany his songs on the lyre, whilst a winged Cupid sounds the double flute. On the other side is a Bacchante with a thyrsus and tambourine, and near her a little Satyr, who also holds a torch reversed.

But the best picture in this apartment is that representing Ariadne discovered by Bacchus. A youthful figure with wings, supposed to represent Sleep, stands at Ariadne's head, and seems to indicate that she is under his influence. Meanwhile a little Faun lifts the veil that covers her, and with an attitude indicating surprise at her beauty, turns to Bacchus and seems to invite him to contemplate her charms. The deity himself, crowned with ivy and berries, clothed in a short tunic and a pallium agitated by the breeze, holds in his right hand the thyrsus, and lifts his left in token of admiration. In the background a Bacchante sounds her tympanum, and invites the followers of the god to descend from the mountains. These, preceded by Silenus, obey the summons; one is playing the double flute, another sounding the cymbals, a third bears on her head a basket of fruit. A Faun and a Bacchante, planted on a mountain on the left, survey the scene from a distance.

The adjoining triclinium, entered by a door from the exedra, had also three paintings, one of which however is almost destroyed. Of the remaining two, that on the left represents Achilles discovered by Ulysses among the damsels of Lycomedes. The subject of that on the right is the Judgment of Paris. It is more remarkable for its spirit and coloring than for the accuracy of its drawing. This apartment has also six medallions with heads of Bacchic personages.

In the same block as the house just described, and having its entrance in the same street, stands the house of Cornelius Rufus. It is a handsome dwelling, but as its plan and decorations have nothing to distinguish them from other Pompeian houses, we forbear to describe them. The only remarkable feature in this excavation was the discovery of a Hermes at the bottom of the atrium on the left, on which was a marble bust of the owner, as large as life and well executed, having his name inscribed beneath.

Not far from the houses just described, in the Street of StabiÆ, at the angle formed by the street leading to the amphitheatre, stands the House of Apollo Citharoedus, excavated in 1864. It derives its name from a fine bronze statue, as large as life, of Apollo sounding the lyre, which was found there, but has now been placed in the Museum at Naples. In this house the tablinum and a peristyle beyond are on a higher level than the atrium; consequently the fauces, or passage leading to the latter, ascends. In the peristyle is a semicircular fountain, on the margin of which were disposed several animals in bronze, representing a hunting scene. In the centre was a wild boar in flight attacked by two dogs; at the sides were placed a lion, a stag, and a serpent. These animals, arranged in the same way in which they were found, are now preserved in the Museum.

Adjoining the House of Lucretius are several stores. That next door but one appears to have belonged to a chemist or color-maker. On the right of the atrium is a triple furnace, constructed for the reception of three large cauldrons at different levels, which were reached by steps. The house contained a great quantity of carbonized drugs. At the sides of the entrance were two stores for the sale of the manufactured articles. In one of these stores was discovered, some yards below the old level of the soil, the skeleton of a woman with two bracelets of gold, two of silver, four ear-rings, five rings, forty-seven gold, and one hundred and ninety-seven silver coins, in a purse of netted gold.

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House of the Tragic Poet

Painted by J. Coomans Engraved & Printed by Illman Brothers.

HOUSE OF THE TRAGIC POET—SALLUSTToList

FOR THE MUSEUM OF ANTIQUITY

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General Survey of the City.

Proceeding southward along the Street of Mercury, we pass under the triumphal arch of Nero, and crossing the transverse street which leads towards the Gate of Nola, enter the Street of the Forum, a continuation of the Street of Mercury, leading straight to the triumphal arch at the north end of the Forum, and bounding the island of the Baths on the eastern side. This street is one of the most spacious in Pompeii. A long list of articles was found here in the course of excavation. One of the houses about the centre of the street nearly opposite the entrance to the ThermÆ, is of more consequence than the rest, and has been named the House of Bacchus, from a large painting of that god on a door opposite to the entry. Channels for the introduction of water were found in the atrium, which has been surrounded by a small trough, formed to contain flowers, the outer side of which is painted blue, to imitate water, with boats floating upon it. The wall behind this is painted with pillars, between which are balustrades of various forms. Cranes and other birds perch upon these, and there is a back ground of reeds and other vegetables, above which the sky is visible. The greater portion of the eastern side of the street is occupied by a row of shops with a portico in front of them. It is flanked on either side by footpaths, and must have presented a noble appearance when terminated by triumphal arches at either end, and overlooked by the splendid Temple of Jupiter and that of Fortune elevated on its lofty basis.It is to be noticed that the last-named edifice does not stand symmetrically either with the Street of the Forum or with the Street of the Baths running past the House of the Pansa. "The portico," we quote again from Gell, "is turned a little towards the Forum, and the front of the temple is so contrived that a part of it might be seen also from the other street. It is highly probable that these circumstances are the result of design rather than of chance. The Greeks seem to have preferred the view of a magnificent building from a corner, and there is scarcely a right-angled plan to be found either in ancient or modern Italy." In the Street of the Forum has been established a temporary museum of articles found in Pompeii. Adjoining it is a library containing all the best works that have been written on the city.

GOLD BREASTPINS FOUND AT POMPEII.

GOLD BREASTPINS FOUND AT POMPEII.ToList

The street running westward between the baths and the Forum presents nothing remarkable, except that in it are the signs of the milk-shop and school of gladiators. There is also an altar, probably dedicated to Jupiter, placed against the wall of a house; above it is a bass-relief in stucco, with an eagle in the tympanum. Eastward of the Forum this street assumes the name of the Street of Dried Fruits, from an inscription showing that dried fruits were sold in it; and, indeed, a considerable quantity of figs, raisins, chestnuts, plums, hempseed, and similar articles were found. It is now, however, usually called the Street of the Augustals.

Near the point at which this street is intersected by that of Eumachia, running at the back of the east side of the Forum, there is a remarkably graceful painting of a youthful Bacchus pressing the juice of the grape into a vase placed upon a pillar, at the foot of which is a rampant animal expecting the liquor, apparently meant for a tiger or panther, but of very diminutive size. This picture is one foot five inches high and one foot two inches wide. It probably served for the sign of a wine-merchant. Corresponding with it, on the other side of the shop, is a painting of Mercury, to render that knavish god propitious to the owner's trade.

We will now proceed to the Street of Abundance, or of the Merchants, formerly called the Street of the Silversmiths. This is about twenty-eight feet wide, and bordered on each side by foot-paths about six feet wide, which are described as made in several places of a hard plaster, probably analogous to opus Signinum. At the end next the Forum it is blocked up by two steps, which deny access to wheel carriages, and is in other parts so much encumbered by large stepping-stones that the passage of such vehicles, if not prohibited, must have been difficult and inconvenient.

We may here take notice of a peculiarity in this street. It slopes with a very gentle descent away from the Forum, and the courses of masonry, instead of being laid horizontally, run parallel to the slope of the ground, a unique instance, as we believe, of such a construction.

The doors of several shops in this street have left perfect impressions on the volcanic deposit, by which it appears that the planks of which they were made lapped one over the other, like the planks of a boat.

Although the houses that line this street have now been cleared, there still remains a large unexcavated space on its southern side. The only house requiring notice is that called the Casa del Cinghiale, or House of the Wild Boar, a little way down on the right-hand side in going from the Forum. Its name is derived from the mosaic pavement of the prothyrum, representing a boar attacked by two dogs. The house is remarkable for its well-preserved peristyle of fourteen Ionic columns, with their capitals. On the right is a brick staircase leading to a large garden. The atrium is bordered with a mosaic representing the walls of a city with towers and battlements, supposed by some to be the walls of Pompeii.

Just beyond this house is a small street or lane, turning down to the right, called the Vicolo dei Dodici Dei, from a painting on the outside wall of the corner house, in the manner of a frieze, representing the twelve greater divinities. Below is the usual painting of serpents. At the corner of the quadrivium is the apothecary's shop, in which was a large collection of surgical instruments, mortars, drugs, and pills. The house is not otherwise remarkable.

Of the early excavations at the southern extremity of the town few records are preserved. In the Quarter of the Theatres, besides the public buildings, there are but two houses of any interest. These occupy the space between the Temple of Æsculapius and the small theatre. The easternmost of them is one of the most interesting yet discovered in Pompeii, not for the beauty or curiosity of the building itself, but for its contents, which prove it to have been the abode of a sculptor. Here were found statues, some half finished, others just begun, with blocks of marble, and all the tools required by the artist. Among these were thirty-two mallets, many compasses, curved and straight, a great quantity of chisels, three or four levers, jacks for raising blocks, saws, etc., etc. The house has the usual arrangement of atrium, tablinum, and peristyle, but, owing to the inclination of the ground, the peristyle is on a higher level than the public part of the house, and communicates with it by a flight of steps. A large reservoir for water extended under the peristyle, which was in good preservation when first found, but has been much injured by the failure of the vault beneath.

A LABORATORY, AS FOUND IN POMPEII.

A LABORATORY, AS FOUND IN POMPEII.ToList

Returning by the southernmost of the two roads which lead to the Forum, we find, beside the wall of the triangular Forum as it is called, one of the most remarkable houses in Pompeii, if not for its size, at least for its construction.

The excavations here made were begun in April, 1769, in the presence of the Emperor Joseph II., after whom this house has been named; but after curiosity was satisfied, they were filled up again with rubbish, as was then usual, and vines and poplars covered them almost entirely at the time when Mazois examined the place, insomuch that the underground stories were all that he could personally observe. The emperor was accompanied in his visit by his celebrated minister, Count Kaunitz, the King and Queen of Naples, and one or two distinguished antiquaries. This was one of the first private dwellings excavated at Pompeii. It appears to have been a mansion of considerable magnificence, and, from its elevated position, must have commanded a fine view over the Bay of Naples towards Sorrento. The "find" was so good on the occasion of the emperor's visit, as to excite his suspicion of some deceit. The numerous articles turned up afforded Sir W. Hamilton an opportunity to display his antiquarian knowledge. Joseph appears to have been rather disgusted on hearing that only thirty men were employed on the excavations, and insisted that three thousand were necessary. We give a cut of the house, page 119.

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FOOTNOTES:

[1] Now the Street of Abundance.

[2] Nat. Hist. xxxvi. 2.

[3] Ib. xxxvi. 15.

[4] Sexagies sestertium.

[5] Nat. Hist. xxxi. 6, S. 31: Aqua in plumbo subit altitudinem exortus sui.

[6] Rubent (vela scil.) in cavis Ædium, et museum a sole defendunt. We may conclude, then, that the impluvium was sometimes ornamented with moss or flowers, unless the words cavis Ædium may be extended to the court of the peristyle, which was commonly laid out as a garden. [The latter seems more likely.]

[7] xxxvi. 1.

[8] From tabula, or tabella, a picture. Another derivation is, "quasi e tabulis compactum," because the large openings into it might be closed by shutters.

[9] This rule, however, is seldom observed in the Pompeian houses.

[10] The best of these were made at Ægina. The more common ones cost from $100 to $125; some sold for as much as $2000. Plin. Hist. Nat. xxxiv. 3.

[11] These citreÆ mensÆ have given rise to considerable discussion. Pliny says that they were made of the roots or knots of the wood, and esteemed on account of their veins and markings, which were like a tiger's skin, or peacock's tail (xiii. 91. sqq.) Some copies read cedri for citri; and it has been suggested that the cypress is really meant, the roots and knots of which are large and veined; whereas the citron is never used for cabinet work, and is neither veined nor knotted.

[12] About $161,000.

[13] The common furniture of a triclinium was three couches, placed on three sides of a square table, each containing three persons, in accordance with the favorite maxim, that a party should not consist of more than the Muses nor of fewer than the Graces, not more than nine nor less than three. Where such numbers were entertained, couches must have been placed along the sides of long tables.

[14] Plin. Ep. lib. ii. 17. We have very much shortened the original, leaving out the description of, at least, one upper floor, and other particulars which did not appear necessary to the illustration of our subject.

[15] Vitruvius, vi. 8.

[16] It was made of the entrails of fish macerated in brine. That made from the fish called scomber was the best. This word is sometimes translated a herring, but the best authorities render it a mackerel. It was caught, according to Pliny, in the Straits of Gibraltar, entering from the ocean, and was used for no purpose but to make garum. The best was called garum sociorum, a term of which we have seen no satisfactory explanation, and sold for 1,000 sesterces for two congii, about $20 a gallon. An inferior kind, made from the anchovy (aphya), was called alec, a name also given to the dregs of garum. "No liquid, except unguents," Pliny says, "fetched a higher price."—Hist. Nat. xxxi. 43.

[17]

"Hence, seek the sty—there wallow with thy friends."
She spake. I drawing from beside my thigh
My faulchion keen, with death-denouncing looks
Rushed on her; she with a shrill scream of fear
Ran under my raised arm, seized fast my knees,
And in winged accents plaintive thus began:
"Say, who art thou," etc.—Cowper's Odyss. x. 320.

[18]

She sat before him, clasped with her left hand
His knees; her right beneath his chin she placed,
And thus the king, Saturnian Jove, implored.—Il. i. 500.

FIRST WALLS DISCOVERED IN POMPEII

FIRST WALLS DISCOVERED IN POMPEIIToList

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