Among the Brigands

by James De Mille

  CHAPTER XVIII.

  _Pompeii, the City of the Dead.--The Monuments of the Past.--Temples,Towers, and Palaces.--Tombs and Monuments.--Theatres andAmphitheatres.--Streets and Squares._

  A few days after their ascent of Vesuvius, the whole party startedoff to visit Pompeii. The prospect of this journey gave themunusual delight. Bob had now completely recovered his health andspirits. Clive's poetic interest in so renowned a place was rousedto the highest pitch of enthusiasm. David's classical taste wasstimulated. Frank's healthy love of sight-seeing was excited bythe thought of a place that so far surpassed all others in interest;and Uncle Moses evidently considered that this was the one thingin Europe which could repay the traveller for the fatigues of apilgrimage. Thus each, in his own way, felt his inmost heart stirredwithin him as they approached the disentombed city; and at length,when they reached the entrance to the place, it is difficult tosay which one felt the strongest excitement.

  They found a number of other visitors there, consisting ofrepresentatives of all nations--Russians, Germans, Americans,French, and English; ladies, gentlemen, and boys. Michael Angelowas with them, and was more useful to them than any mere guide-bookcould have been.

  The first emotions of awe which filled their minds as they enteredthe streets of the mysterious city gradually faded away, and theybegan to examine everything with great interest. The first thingthat struck their attention was the extreme narrowness of thestreets. There was only room for one carriage to pass at a time.The sidewalks were a foot higher than the carriage-way. There werecrossing-stones that stood high above the pavement. The sidewalkswere paved with brick, and the carriage-way with lava blocks, whichwere very neatly joined together. Clive took a piece of brick asa relic, and David broke off a fragment from one of thecrossing-stones for the same purpose.

  They soon came to a ruined edifice, which Michael Angelo calledthe Basilica. It was two hundred feet in length, and seventy inwidth. At one end still remained the Tribunal or Seat of Justice,seven feet above the pavement; and all around the walls werecolumns formed of brick, covered with plaster. The boys picked offsome of the plaster as relics.

  Leaving this, they went on and came to another ruined edifice,which Michael Angelo called the Temple of Venus. It was builtround a courtyard, with porticos. Here David and Clive obtainedsome more relics.

  Beyond this was an open square surrounded by pillars, of which onlythe lower parts remained. This was the Forum Civile; and beyondthis stood the Temple of Jupiter, which they visited without findinganything that was particularly interesting. After this MichaelAngelo took them to a place which he said was the Public Bakery.Here they saw millstones, ovens, water-vessels, and some otherarticles of which they could not guess the use. Not far away weresome bakers' shops. In these shops loaves of bread were found bythe diggers. Of course they were burned to charcoal; but theyretained their original shape, and showed marks upon them whichwere probably intended to indicate the bakery from which they came.Heaps of corn were also found.

  Going down the street where these were situated, they came to oneof the gates of the city. Beside this was a niche in the wall,used as a sentry-box, upon which, all the party gazed with a profoundinterest; for in that sentry-box those who disentombed the cityfound a skeleton, in the armor and with the equipment of a Romansoldier. Evidently the sentry had died at his post.

  They took a good look at the walls here, which they found to beabout twenty-five feet high, and formed of huge stones, that werejoined together without cement. The gates had evidently been double.

  Passing through this gate, they found themselves outside the city,in what Michael Angelo called the "Street of Tombs." Looking downit, they noticed a number of edifices of a monumental character,lining it on either side. These were the tombs of wealthy citizens.They visited several of them, and found them all alike. The interiorswere all simple, the walls being pierced with niches, in which weredeposited the urns that held the ashes of the dead. This was thefirst time that they had seen anything of this kind, and theyexamined it with deep and solemn interest. Here, too, Clive andDavid succeeded in finding some relics in the shape of some burntfragments of human bones.

  After this Michael Angelo led them to what was once the finestmansion of the city, now known as the Villa of Diomede. They enteredhere, and wandered through the halls, and rooms, and courtyards.They saw rich mosaic pavements; the basins of what once werefountains; the lower parts of marble pillars that once belonged tostately colonnades. They saw some rooms that once had been usedfor cold baths, and others that had been used for vapor baths.Dining-rooms, reception-rooms, bed-rooms, kitchens, libraries,opened up all around, and told them of that vanished past whichhad once peopled all these apartments with busy human life. Farmore than basilicas, or temples, or streets, or walls, were theyaffected by this glimpse into the home of a household; and theytraversed that deserted home in eloquent silence. After goingthrough all the house, they descended into the cellars. These werevery spacious, and extended beneath the entire villa. Here, atone end, they saw what is called the Wine Cellar. Many wine jarswere standing there--huge earthen vessels, as large as a hogshead,with wide mouths and round bottoms, which made it impossible forthem to stand erect, unless they were placed against some support.In these wine jars there was now no wine, however, but only dustand ashes.

  Here Michael Angelo had much to tell them.

  He told them that several skeletons had been found in these vaults,belonging to hapless wretches who had, no doubt, fled here to escapethe storm of ashes which was raging above. One of these skeletonshad a bunch of keys in its bony fingers; and this circumstance ledsome to suppose that it was the skeleton of Diomede himself; butothers thought that it belonged to his steward. Whoever he was, hehad fled here only to meet his doom, and to leave his bones as amemorial to ages in the far distant future.

  Leaving this place, they visited another house, which is calledthe Villa of Caius Sallust. At one corner of the house they sawsomething which at once struck them all as being rather singular.It was nothing else than a shop, small in size, fitted up withshelves and counters; a row of jars was fixed on one side, and inthe rear were furnaces. Michael Angelo informed them that it hadonce been an eating-house. The boys thought it excessively odd thatthe occupants of such a house--people, too, who bore such a nameas Sallust--should tolerate such an establishment; but there wasthe undeniable fact before their eyes. Afterwards their surprisesdiminished; For in many other houses in Pompeii--they found shopsof the same kind, and saw that the ancient Pompeians were not abovetrade; and that, if they did not keep the shops themselves, theywere at least very willing to hire the fronts of their houses toother parties who did wish to do so. In Sallust's house they sawthe traces of very elegant ornaments, and learned from MichaelAngelo that many of the articles discovered here showed that itmust once have been the abode of a luxurious and refined family.

  The elegant house of the Dioscuri was visited next. It is in theVia dei Mercurii, and is a very interesting and extensive ruin,and contains some handsome fresco paintings. After this they visitedmany other houses, a description of which is not necessary; theywere all like the Villa of Diomede, though less interesting; andamong them all there was the same general character. In all theseonly the lower stories remained, though in a few a small part ofthe second story was visible.

  As the chief part of the Pompeian house was on the ground floor,the loss of the upper story did not make any particular difference.Among these they found another temple, called the Pantheon--a largeedifice, which showed signs of great former beauty. It was twoHundred and thirty feet long, and nearly two hundred feet wide. Analtar is still standing, around which are twelve pedestals, uponwhich once stood twelve statues. A few houses and temples followed,after which Michael Angelo informed them that he was about to takethem to one of the greatest curiosities in the city.

  The building to which he led them was in much better preservationthan the majority of the edifices in Pompeii, though not nearly solarg
e as many that they had seen. It was about sixty feet wide,and a little longer, being nearly square in shape, and was evidentlya temple of some kind.

  "What is this?" asked David.

  "This is the Temple of Isis," said Michael Angelo.

  "The Temple of Isis!" exclaimed David, in eager excitement. "Isit, indeed!" and he looked around with a face full of intenseinterest. Hitherto, though all the boys had shown much interest,yet, David had surpassed them all in his enthusiasm. This waspartly on account of his taste for classical studies, and his lovefor all connected with classical antiquity, but more especiallyfrom the fact that he had very recently read Bulwer's _LastDays of Pompeii_; and on this occasion that whole story, with allits descriptions and all its incidents, was brought vividly beforehim by the surrounding scene. Most of all was the Temple of Isisassociated with that story, and it seemed more familiar to him thananything else that he had found in the city. Glaucus and Ione, theChristian Olynthus, and the dark Arbaces seemed to haunt the place.In one of the chambers of this very temple, as Michael Angelo wasnow telling,--even while leading the way to that chamber,--hadbeen found a huge skeleton, with an axe beside it; two walls hadbeen beaten through by that axe, but the desperate fugitive couldgo no farther. In another part of the city had been found, anotherskeleton, carrying a bag of Coins and some ornaments of this Templeof Isis. David listened to Michael Angelo's account with strangeinterest, for it seemed to him as though the fabled characters ofBulwer's story were endowed with actual reality by Michael Angelo'sprosaic statements.

  After inspecting the chamber just mentioned, they were taken to aplace where they saw what had once been the pedestal of a statue.Here Michael Angelo showed them a hollow niche, which was socontrived that one might conceal himself there, and speak wordswhich the ignorant and superstitious populace might believe to comefrom the idol's own stony lips. This one thing showed the fulldepth of ancient ignorance and superstition; and over this MichaelAngelo waxed quite eloquent, and proceeded to deliver himself ofa number of impressive sentences of a highly important character,which he uttered with that fluent volubility peculiar to the wholerace of guides, ciceroni, and showmen, in all parts of the world.These moral maxims were part of Michael Angelo's regular routine,and the moment that he found himself here in this Temple of Isis,the stream of wisdom would always begin to flow.

  The next place to which Michael Angelo intended to take them wasthe amphitheatre, which could be seen from where they were standing.All this time David had been more eager than any of the others,and far more profoundly moved. He felt his soul stirred to itsinmost depth by the thrilling scenes through which he had beenmoving. It seemed to him as though there were revealed here tohis eyes, in one glance, all that he had been laboriously acquiringfrom books by the study of years. But this was better than books.These Roman houses, into which he could walk, were far better thanany number of plans or engraved prints, however accurately done.These temples afforded an insight into the old pagan religion betterfar than volumes of description. These streets, and shops, andpublic squares, and wall, and gates, and tombs, all gave him aninsight into the departed Roman civilization that was far fresher,and more vivid, and more profound, than any that he had ever gainedbefore. It seemed to him that one day was too small for such aplace. He must come again and again, he thought. He was unwillingto go on with the rest, but lingered longer than any over eachspot, and was always the last to quit any place which they visited.

  They stopped on their way at the Tragic and Comic Theatres, andat length reached the Amphitheatre itself. This edifice is byfar the largest in the city, and is better preserved than any.It is built of large blocks of a dark volcanic stone, andconstructed in that massive style which the Romans lived, and ofwhich they have left the best examples in these huge amphitheatres.As this Amphitheatre now stands, it might still serve for one ofthose displays for which it was built. Tier after tier thoseseats arise, which once had accommodations for fifteen or twentythousand human beings. On these, it is said, the Pompeians wereseated when that awful volcanic storm burst forth by which thecity was rained. Down from these seats they fled in wildestdisorder, all panic-stricken, rushing down the steps, and crowdingthrough the doorways, trampling one another under foot, in thatmad race for life; while overhead the storm gathered darker anddarker, and the showers of ashes fell, and the suffocatingsulphuric vapors arose, and amid the volcanic storm the lightningsof the sky flashed forth, illuminating all the surrounding gloomwith a horrid lustre, and blending with the subterranean rumblingsof the earthquake the thunder of the upper air.

  From this cause the Amphitheatre may be considered the central spotof interest in Pompeii. What little has been told of the fate ofthe city gathers around this place, and to him who sits upon thoseseats there is a more vivid realization of that awful scene thancan be obtained anywhere else.

  On reaching the Amphitheatre they seated themselves on the stonesteps, about half way up the circle of seats, and each one gaveway to the feelings that filled him. They had walked now for hours,and all of them felt somewhat wearied, so that the rest on theseseats was grateful. Here they sat and rested.