Pompeii

“ The myths with which the colored Italian air was filled in mediaeval ages no longer resembled those graceful, floating, cloud-like figures one sees in the ancient chambers of Pompeii,—the bubbles and rainbows of human fancy, rising aimless and buoyant, with a mere freshness of animal life, against a black background of utter and hopeless ignorance as to man's past or future. ”

“ There is no house in Pompeii in which a man should pause so long, or to which he should come back so often; for this is the most perfect specimen of the best age of building in the city. It is the fruit of a long age of peace, during which the people drank in thirstily the exquisite sense of beauty diffused from the Greek coast towns. ”

“ At Pompeii everything is antique and eighteen centuries old; first the sky, then the landscape, the seashore, and then the work of man, devastated undoubtedly, but not transformed, by time. The streets are not repaired; the high sidewalks that border them have not been lowered for the pedestrians of our time, and we promenade upon the same stones that were formerly trodden by the feet of Sericus the merchant and Epaphras the slave. As we enter these narrow streets we quit, perforce, the year in which we are living and the quarter that we inhabit. ”

“ It is here, in this most ancient Strada Tribunali, that the traveller should pause before he visits the old buried cities. Here and here only will he learn to comprehend how they were peopled; and only when he carries with him in the eyes of memory the aspect of the cellars and the shops, the crowded side streets and the pandemonium of noise, will he succeed in discovering at Pompeii more than a heap of ruins, out of which the interest dies quickly because his imagination has not gained materials out of which to reconstruct the living city. ”

“ And the profound mysteries of the Nile were degraded by a hundred meretricious and frivolous admixtures from the creeds of Cephisus and of Tibur. The temple of Isis in Pompeii was served by Roman and Greek priests, ignorant alike of the language and the customs of her ancient votaries; and the descendant of the dread Egyptian kings, beneath the appearance of reverential awe, secretly laughed to scorn the puny mummeries which imitated the solemn and typical worship of his burning clime. ”

“ Yes, this is a plain account of a visit to Pompeii. How greatly obliged, then, are the public, to those writers who enable them to travel without the vexations of travel; and to grow sentimental or to grow wise, without growing—hungry; for I will warrant to every man by the time he gets from Pompeii to Naples, not only a good covering of dust, but a famous appetite.
And yet, I suppose the reader is scolding because I have not already set him down quietly among the ruins of Balbec, forgetting that we ourselves had yet a walk of two miles through the hot sun before we could reach them. ”

“ Imagine how the excavators' hearts leaped when the spades took the gray ashes off this bright picture. It was too precious a thing to leave here in the rain and wind. So the excavators carefully took it up and put it into the museum of Naples where there are other valuable things from Pompeii.
There are many other houses almost as pleasant and beautiful as this House of the Faun. Every one has its atrium and its sunny court and its fountains and statues and its painted walls. But Pompeii was a city of business, too, and had many workshops. ”

“ Surely “reality is stranger than fiction.” What can be more strange than that the sun should shine again into the streets, and light up the painted walls and mosaic pavement of Pompeii. And yet so it is. That very old Pompeii, that lay for nearly eighteen centuries buried, is risen again. We walk through its streets, and tread the very stones worn out by the footsteps of Roman citizens, and by the wheels of their chariots. ”

“ If it be solemn to behold from this new City of the Dead, with its dark smoke hanging in the clear sky, how much more awful and impressive is it, viewed from the ghostly ruins of Herculaneum and Pompeii!
Stand at the bottom of the great market-place of Pompeii, and look up the silent streets, through the ruined temples of Jupiter and Isis, over the broken houses with their inmost sanctuaries open to the day, away to Mount Vesuvius, bright and snowy in the peaceful distance ”

“ The ruins of Pompeii prove it to have been a city of great luxury and elegance. The excavations, which have brought to light the wonders of this buried city, attest a very high material civilization; yet it was only a second-rate provincial town, of which not much is commemorated in history. It was simply a resort for Roman nobles who had villas in its neighborhood. It was surrounded with a wall, and was built with great regularity. Its streets were paved, and it had its forum, its amphitheatre, its theatre, its temples, its basilicas, its baths, its arches, and its monuments. ”

“ Pompeii stood in the heart of the country. Its citizens must have had farms upon the mountain slopes; they must have had concern in husbandry as well as trade; there must have been hourly comings and goings between the crowded streets and the sweet hillsides of Varano, where the grapes ripened and the wine-vats gathered the crushed juice, where the oil dripped slowly from the olive-presses, and the jars stood waiting for the mountain honey. ”

“ Elmo, make one feel very passive and contemplative, and disinclined to bustle about in search of meaner sights. Yet I confess Pompeii, and the remains of Pompeian art and life in the Museum, have been impressive enough to rival the sea and sky. It is a thing never to be forgotten—that walk through the silent city of the past, and then the sight of utensils and eatables and ornaments and half-washed linen and hundreds of other traces of life so startlingly like our own in its minutest details, suddenly arrested by the fiery deluge. ”

“ The principal inn of Pompeii was just inside the gate. We went over the ruins of it. The skeleton of an ass was found chained to a ring in the stable, and the tire of a wheel lay in the court-yard. Chequers are painted on the side of the door as a sign.
Below the tombs stands the “suburban villa of Diomed,” one of the most sumptuous edifices of Pompeii. Here was found everything that the age could furnish for the dwelling of a man of wealth. Statues, frescoes, jewels, wine, household utensils of every description, skeletons of servants and dogs, and every kind of elegant furniture. ”

“ Harshness in the poet and pride in the orator make their refinement and culture seem but skin deep.
We note that Pompeii was a paradise built beside a crater. The traveler tells us if we strike the rocky earth it rings hollow. Close by the calm lake is a boiling spring. In the very heart of the orange groves rises a column of smoke and steam. "The mist of lava jars on the music of summer, the scent of sulphur mingles with the scent of roses." Not for a moment can the traveler forget that beneath all this opulence of color and fragrance rages a colossal furnace. ”

“ Such was Pompeii, a seething, noisy, eager city, filled with the reek of dense humanity. But now it is swept clean by winds and sunlight. Its very 212 stews are fragrant. In the morning sweet air blows in from the sea; at night it steals down no less sweetly from the mountains. In all the city there is not one stench. The freshness and the silence of the long streets weigh upon the nerves. ”

“ They hoped for better things from Pompeii. At any rate Pompeii was above ground; what might be there would be visible. No fuss with torches. No humbugging with lanterns. No wandering through long black passages. No mountains bringing forth mice.
Their expectations were encouraged as they walked up the street of Tombs leading to the Herculaneum Gate. Tombs were all around, any quantity, all sizes, little black vaults full of pigeon-holes. These they narrowly examined, and when the guide wasn't looking they filled their pockets with the ashes of the dead. ”

“ Thus it is that the stones of Pompeii are full of revelations with reference to its people. The Basilica is easy to reconstruct and provide with living occupants. Yonder duumviri, up between the Corinthian columns; in front of them the accused; here the crowd; lovers confiding their secrets to the wall; thinkers scribbling their maxims on them; wags getting off their witticisms in the same style; the slaves, in fine, the poor, announcing to the most remote posterity that they had, at least, the game of tennis to console them for their abject condition! ”

“ But perhaps the most poetical thing Pompeii has yielded to modern research, was that grand figure of a Roman soldier, clad in complete armor; who, true to his duty, true to his proud name of a soldier of Rome, and full of the stern courage which had given to that name its glory, stood to his post by the city gate, erect and unflinching, till the hell that raged around him burned out the dauntless spirit it could not conquer.
We never read of Pompeii but we think of that soldier; we can not write of Pompeii without the natural impulse to grant to him the mention he so well deserves. ”

“ Perhaps the whole world does not exhibit so awful a spectacle as Pompeii; and when it was first discovered, when skeletons were found heaped together in the streets and houses, when all the utensils, and even the very bread, of the poor suffocated inhabitants, were discernible, what a speculation must this ill-fated city have furnished to a thinking mind! ”

“ Sometimes we stumble over an old prejudice or a primitive emotion, prick ourselves with an arrow of ancestral conscience, and tremble with an ancient fear. Mayhap in slumber we descend to these regions, exploring below our consciousness and delving in the catacombs of antiquity.
The destruction of Pompeii was effected, however, not by Vesuvius, but by the antiquarian. He it was to whom Pompeii fell as a spoil, he who turned Pompeii from a piece of life to a piece of learning, by transporting most of its treasures to a museum. The word is surely short for mausoleum. ”

“ As she pauses and looks over her shoulder at us who follow, she recalls one of the figures which Pompeii has preserved on the walls of its ruined villas, graceful, airy, with the careless, light beauty of Greek art domiciled in Italy. As we turn into one of the branching galleries, a new spectacle meets our view. ”

“ But come hither, and see what enjoyments, what hopes are ours—and not the splendor of imperial banquets, nor the shouts of the crowded circus, nor the noisy forum, nor the glittering theatre, nor the luxuriant gardens, nor the voluptuous baths of Rome—shall seem to thee to constitute a life of more vivid and uninterrupted happiness than that which thou so unreasonably pitiest as the career of Glaucus the Athenian!—Farewell!'
Nearly Seventeen Centuries had rolled away when the City of Pompeii was disinterred from its silent tomb, all vivid with undimmed hues ”

“ Fig. 22.—Bust of Jupiter found at Pompeii.
Naples Museum.
Great force of will is seen also in the face of the Pompeian god; but it is will dominated by alert and all-embracing mind. The forehead expands in a broad arch; the eyes, wide open, look out with full vision under sharply cut brows. Here we have no secret brooding; a powerful yet clearly defined and comprehensible personality is stamped upon features carved in bold, free lines. ”

“ This is the last tragic act in the Pompeian Forum. After this time, there will be disputes regarding the rights of the old residents and the colonists, public questions of many kinds will call for settlement; the elections will come each year, and the ardent southern temperament may assert itself in violent scenes. Yet all these disturbances will be only as the ripples on the surface; the depths will remain undisturbed. The life of Pompeii has become an integral part of the life of the Roman world. ”

“ The walls of Pompeii are built above the fields of the Dead, and the rivers of the sleepless Hell. Be warned and fly!'
'Witch, I thank thee for thy care of one not ungrateful. On yon table stands a cup of gold; take it, it is thine. I dreamt not that there lived one, out of the priesthood of Isis, who would have saved Arbaces from destruction. The signs thou hast seen in the bed of the extinct volcano,' continued the Egyptian, musingly, 'surely tell of some coming danger to the city; perhaps another earthquake—fiercer than the last. ”

“ A great and rich town, which, after sleeping eighteen centuries in its deep and dark grave, is again shone on by the sun, and stands among other cities as much a stranger to them as any one of its former inhabitants would be among men of the present day, is surely one of the wonders of the world; and such is Pompeii. The distance from Naples to Pompeii, is little more than ten English miles. Near the Torre dell’Annunziata, to the left, and amid hills planted with vineyards, the town itself, which, throwing off its shroud of ashes, came forth from its grave, breaks on the view. ”

“ Nothing can exceed either the brilliancy or the delicacy of the coloring of this picture in the original, the splendid plumage of the bird and the bright gold of the chariot shaft and wheel being relieved and heightened by a gray background and the greenish brown of the course. The colorists of Pompeii have obviously influenced the taste of Christendom. There are few houses of pretension decorated within the last quarter of a century, either in Europe or America, which do not exhibit combinations and contrasts of color of which the hint was found in exhumed Pompeii. ”