صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

CHAPTER II.

POMPEII AND HERCULANEUM.

Let us turn the prow,

And in the track of him who went to die,
Traverse this valley of waters, landing where
A waking dream awaits us. At a step

Two thousand years roll backward, and we stand,
Like those so long within that awful place,
Immovable, nor asking, Can it be?-

'Tis but a mockery of the sense,

Idle and vain! We are but where we were;
Still wandering in a city of the dead!

ROGERS.

On the plain which surrounds the base of Vesuvius, and occupies the space between it and the sea, the geologist, as well as the antiquary, discovers many remarkable traces of former changes. Of the towns which once occupied the ancient Campania, history has preserved sufficient records to furnish us with no unsatisfactory picture of their state while yet occupied by a busy populace, and sharing in the social and political changes of the Roman peninsula. Far more remarkable historic records, however, have rendered them objects of peculiar interest to future ages. Pompeii and Herculaneum, after being engulphed for so many centuries beneath the lava and ashes of Vesuvius, have been brought to light again, and partially explored, revealing to us the inner social life of Roman citizens contemporary with Pliny, such as no written history could furnish. The situation of Vesuvius is still remarkable; and its surrounding Campania has attractions which counterbalance all the dangers of the

fiery mountain, and still, as of old, attract a busy populace to occupy the fertile, but treacherous plains. A modern traveller remarks of the site: "It is so advantageous, that the scene which it unfolds to the eye probably surpasses that displayed from any other eminence. That scene is Naples, with its bay, its islands, and its bordering promontories; the whole of that delicious region justly denominated the Campania Felice (happy Campania), with its numberless towns and townlike villages. It loses itself in the immensity of the sea on one side, and on the other is bordered by the Apennines, forming a semicircular frame of various tints and bold outline. I own I do not admire views taken from very elevated points: they, indeed, give a very good geographical idea of a country; but they destroy all the illusions of rural beauty, reduce hills and vales to the same level, and confound all the graceful swells and hollows of an undulated surface, into general flatuess and uniformity."

The first recorded eruption of Mount Vesuvius, is that which occurred in the reign of Titus, and overwhelmed the cities which are now being restored to light. This remarkable eruption is graphically described by the younger Pliny, in two epistles addressed by him to Tacitus, the historian. It would appear that, previous to this occurrence, the pent-up fires gave no external indications of their destructive power. Vesuvius had then presented only such features as are still familiar to us in many extinct volcanoes; and though its hollow caverns and rugged rocks were not unnoted even then, as affording indications of the work of fire, no traditions of the Roman occupants of Pompeii preserved any distinct tradition of the crater of Vesuvius having ever formed an aperture through which the central fires escaped to pour destruction over the neighbouring plains. Yet there are abundant traces apparent, of many remarkable geological changes having taken place on the whole surrounding

district, including eruptions of ashes and lava; many of which must be referred to the historic era.

Pompeii appears to have been originally a sea-port, built on an elevated plain, close to the Mediterranean shores; so that its chief characteristics, during its earlier occupation by the Osci, or the Tyrseni and Pelasgi, who are its first recorded possessors, were probably those of a maritime town. Now, however, it stands nearly two miles distant from the sea. Its site is an elevated bed of lava. Around it lie the evidences of successive volcanic changes; nor is it impossible that, even beneath it, lie the traces of a still earlier population, on the same remarkable site. Previous to the occupation of Pompeii by the Romans, it was held by a Greek colony: nor was it till about the year 360 before the Christian era, that it fell under the power of Rome; the inhabitants having sought the protection of that rising power against the Samnites, who had then been masters of it for about eighty years. It is not surprising, therefore, that with the repeated changes of occupancy which history records, we should have no distinct accounts of any remarkable natural phenomena occurring in the district prior to the Roman

era.

It is only in the latter years of the century immediately succeeding the Christian era, that we find Pompeii particularly noticed. In the reign of Nero, the Pompeians fell under the displeasure of the emperor. This occurred in the year A. D. 59; and the emperor adjudged that they should be deprived of all theatrical amusements for ten years,—a punishment sufficiently characteristic of the emperor, but which was regarded as peculiarly severe by the gay and pleasure-loving citizens of Pompeii. But other and more terrible visitations were at hand. Only four years of this involuntary abstinence from pleasure had passed, when, in the year 63 of the present era, a fearful earthquake involved the larger por

tion of the town in ruins; and, in the following year, another earthquake shook the whole surrounding Campania, and disturbed the frivolous Emperor Nero, while he was singing at Naples. These successive occurrences sufficed to give no unequivocal evidence of the pent-up fires which lay concealed beneath the fertile and beautiful plains so often celebrated by the poets; and at length, in the year 79, the fatal eruption occurred which involved both Pompeii and Herculaneum in ruins.

The elder Pliny, incited by the remarkable appearance of the eruption, while still in progress, ascended the mountain, and perished while endeavouring to make himself more familiar with the peculiar characteristics of so singular a phenomenon. But his nephew, commonly known as the younger Pliny, has left on record an account of this first recorded eruption of the mountain, which suffices abundantly to supply us with a definite idea of the destruction of the cities, the re-discovery of which, during the last century, excited so much interest. But, independent of all extraneous records, it is surprising how ample and minute is the history which its own relics supplies. It was naturally a source of no common interest when it was found that a Roman city lay buried beneath the modern vineyards of the Campania. Rome, indeed, as well as other scenes of classic occupation, still present relics of the Roman era to the eye of the curious; but these have stood the wasting tooth of centuries, the ravages of barbarians, and the changing tastes of many successive centuries, and of various races. But Pompeii and Herculaneum have been sealed up like the treasures deposited in ancient tombs, and are restored to us nearly as perfect as on the morning when the lurid sky and trembling earth gave warning to the ancient Pompeians of the approaching destruction of their town.

Herculaneum does not appear to have been a city of the same importance as Pompeii; but the greater suddenness

and completeness of its overthrow, while creating more effectual obstacles to its complete exploration than are found at Pompeii, have also, there is reason to believe, preserved a more complete accumulation of Roman remains than have been found on the site of Pompeii. Herculaneum, after being completely buried under showers of ashes, was subsequently still more effectually shut in by the overflow of lava; and it is now about seventy feet below the surface. Pompeii, on the contrary, being farther removed from the centre of the destructive elements, appears to have been, at first, only partially buried by the showers of ashes, which were disturbed soon after by the proprietors returning to dig out their most valuable treasures from the ruined dwellings. The first re-discovery of Herculaneum occurred in 1713, by the sinking of a well, when several interesting relics were found; and after private explorers had pursued the search for several years, with no great success, the Neapolitan government at length undertook the work, and were rewarded by a magnificent collection of statues, paintings, bronzes, vases, and domestic impleplements, of all varieties of forms and uses, which now form a very prominent attraction of the Royal Museum at Portici.

The first indications of the site of Pompeii were observed so early as 1689, but it was not till 1755 that any effectual attempts were made to explore its remains. This, it was found, was a much simpler and less difficult process than the attempt to exhume the buried treasures of Herculaneum, as it was not only much less deeply situated, but the loose ashes are removed with little labour. The process of excavation has accordingly been resumed from time to time, till nearly a fourth of the city has been almost entirely cleared from the rubbish, and numerous valuable discoveries have been added to the Royal Neapolitan Museum.

Few works can be conceived more exciting than this

« السابقةمتابعة »