Buried Cities: Pompeii, Olympia, Mycenae (Complete)

POMPEII TO-DAY

Years came and went and changed the world. The old gods died, and the new religion of Christ grew strong. The old temples fell into ruins, and new churches were built in their places. Instead of the old Roman in his white toga came merchants in crimson velvet and knights in steel armor and gentlemen in ruffles and modern men in plain clothes.

Among all these changes, Pompeii was almost forgotten. But after a long while people began to be much interested in ancient Italy. They read old Roman books, and learned of her wonderful cities. They began to dig here and there and find beautiful statues and vases and jewels. They read the story of Pompeii in an old Roman book—a whole city suddenly buried just as her people had left her!

“There we should find treasures!” they said. “We should see houses, temples, shops, streets, as they were seventeen hundred years ago. We should find them full of statues and rich things. Perhaps we should find some of the people who lived in ancient days. But where to dig?”

Their question was answered by accident. At that time certain men were making a tunnel to carry spring water from the hills across the country to a little town near Naples. The tunnel happened to pass over buried Pompeii. They dug up some blocks of stone with Latin inscriptions carved on them. After that other people found little ancient relics near the same place.

“This must be where Pompeii lies buried,” the wise men said.

They began to excavate. That was about two hundred years ago. Ever since that time the work has gone on. Sometimes people have been discouraged and have given up. At other times six hundred men have been working busily. Kings have given money. Emperors and princes and queens have visited the excavations. Artists have made pictures of the ruins, and scholars have written books about them. But it is a great task to uncover a whole city that is buried ten or twelve feet deep. The excavation is not yet finished. Perhaps when you are old men and women the work will be completed, and a whole Roman city will be open to your eyes.

But even as it is to-day, that ghost of a city is among the world’s wonders. There is the thick stone wall that goes all about the town. On its wide top the soldiers used to stand to fight in ancient days. Now the stones are fallen; its towers are broken; its gates are open. Yet there the battered little giant stands at its task of protecting the town. Out of its eight gates stretch the paved streets.

Perhaps some day you will cross the ocean to visit this “dead city.” It lies on a slope at the foot of Vesuvius. Behind stands the tall, graceful volcano with its floating feather of steam and smoke. In front lies a little plain, and beyond it a long ridge of steep mountains. Off at the side shines the dark blue sea with island peaks rising out of it. On hillsides and plain are green vineyards and dark forests dotted with white farmhouses.

In some places there are high mounds of dirt outside the city wall. They are made by the ashes that have been dug out by the excavators and piled here. If you climb one of them you will be able to look over the city. You will find it a little place—less than a mile long and half a mile wide inside its ragged wall. And yet many thousand people used to live here. So the houses had to be crowded together. You will see no grassy lawns nor vacant lots nor playgrounds nor parks with pleasant trees. Many narrow streets cross one another and cut the city into solid blocks of buildings. You will be confused because you will see thousands of broken walls standing up, but no roofs. They are gone—crushed by the piling ashes long ago.

At last you will come down and go in at one of the gates through the rough, thick wall, past the empty watch towers. You will tread the very paving stones that men’s feet trampled nineteen hundred years ago as they fled from the volcano. You will climb a steep, narrow street. This is the street the fishermen and sailors used in olden times when they came in from the river or sea, carrying baskets of fish or leading mules loaded with goods from their ships. This is the street where people poured out to the sea on that terrible day of the eruption.

You will pass a ruined temple of Apollo with standing columns and lonely altar and steps that lead to a room that is gone. A little farther on you will come out into a large open paved space. It is the forum. This used to be the busiest place in all Pompeii. At certain hours of the day it was filled with little tables and with merchants calling out and with gentlemen and slaves buying good’s. But now it is empty and very still. Around the sides a few beautiful columns are yet standing with carved marble at the top connecting them. But others lie broken, and most of them are gone entirely. This is all that is left of the porches where men used to walk and talk of business and war and politics and gossip.

At one end of the forum is a high stone platform and wide stone steps leading up to a row of broken columns in front of a fallen wall. This is the ruin of the temple of Jupiter, the great Roman god. Daily, men used to come here to pray before a statue in a dim room. Here, in the ruins, the excavators found the head of that statue—a beautiful marble thing with long curling hair and beard, and calm face. They found, too, a great broken body of marble. And in that large body a smaller statue was partly carved. This was a puzzling thing, but the excavators studied it out at last. They said:

“Old Roman books tell us that sixteen years before the great eruption there had been another earthquake. It had shaken down many buildings and had cracked many walls. But the people loved their city, and when the earthquake was over, they began to rebuild and to make their houses and temples better than ever. We have found many signs of that earthquake. We have found uncarved blocks of marble in the forum. Evidently masons were at work there when the eruption stopped them. We have found rebuilt walls in some of the houses. And here is the temple of Jupiter being used as a marble shop. Probably the early earthquake had shaken down and broken the statue of the god. A sculptor was set to work to carve a new one from the ruin. But suddenly the volcano burst forth, the artist dropped his chisel and mallet, and here we have found his unfinished work—a statue within a statue.”

Behind the roofless porches of the forum are other ruined buildings—where the officers of the city did business, where the citizens met to vote, where tailors spread out their cloth and sold robes and cloaks. One large market building is particularly interesting. You will enter a courtyard with walls all around it and signs of lost porches. Broken partitions show where little stalls used to open upon the court. Other stalls opened upon the street. In some of these the excavators found, buried in the ashes and charred by the fire, figs, chestnuts, plums, grapes, glass dishes of fruit, loaves of bread, and little cakes. Were customers buying the night’s dessert when Vesuvius frightened them away? In a cool corner of the building is a fish market with sloping marble counter. Near it in the middle of the courtyard are the bases of columns arranged in a circle around a deep basin in the floor. In the bottom of this basin the excavators found a thick layer of fish scales. Evidently the masters used to buy their fish from the market in the corner. Then the slaves carried them here to the shaded pool of water and cleaned them and scaled them and washed them. In another corner the excavators found skeletons of sheep. Here was a pen for live animals which a man might buy for his banquet or for a sacrifice to his gods. His slave would lead the sheep away through the crowds. But on that terrible day when the volcano belched, the poor bleating animals were deserted. Their pen held them and the ashes covered them and to-day we can see their skeletons.

The walls around the market are still standing, though the top is broken and the roof is fallen. They are still covered with paintings. If you will look at them you can guess what used to be for sale here. There are game birds and fish and wine jars all pictured here in beautiful colors. There are cupids playing about a flour mill and cupids weaving garlands. There are also pictures of the gods and heroes and the deeds they did. Imagine this painted market full of chattering people, the little shops gay with piles of beautiful fruit and vegetables, the graceful columns and dark porches adding beauty. Imagine these people crying out and running and these columns swaying and falling when Vesuvius bellowed and shook the earth. And yet we can see the very fruits that men were buying and the pictures they were enjoying.

The forum with its markets and shops and offices and temples and statues was the very heart of the city. Many streets led into it. Perhaps you will walk down one of them, between broken walls, past open doorways. After several street corners you will come to a large building with high walls still standing and with tall, arched entrance. This also was one of the gay places in Pompeii, for it was a bathhouse. Every day all the ladies and gentlemen of the town came strolling toward it down the streets. The men went in at the wide doorway. The women turned and entered their own apartments around the corner. And as they walked toward the entrance they passed little shops built into the walls of the bathhouse. At every stall stood the shopkeeper, bowing, smiling, begging, calling. “Perfumes, sweet lady!”

“Rings, rings, beautiful madam, for your beautiful fingers!”

“Oil for your body, sir, after the bath!”

“A taste of sweets, madam, before you enter! Honey cakes of my own making!”

“Don’t forget to buy my dressing for your hair before you go in! You’ll get nothing like it in there.”

So they chattered and called and coaxed. Some of the people bought, and some went laughing by and entered the bathhouse. As the gentlemen went in, a large court opened before them. Here were men bowling or jumping or running or punching the bag or playing ball or taking some other kind of exercise before the bath. Others were resting in the shade of the porches. A poet sat in a cool corner reading his verses to a few listeners. Some men, after their games, were scraping their sweating bodies with the strigil. Others were splashing in the marble swimming tank. Here and there barbers were working over handsome gentlemen—smoothing their faces, perfuming their hair, polishing their nails. There was talk and laughter everywhere. Men were lazily coming and going through a door that led into the baths. There were large rooms with high ceilings and painted walls. In one we can still see the round marble basin. The walls are painted with trees and birds and swimming fish and statues. It was like bathing in a beautiful garden to bathe here. Another room was for the hot bath, with double walls and hot air circulating between to make the whole room warm. The bathhouse was a great building full of comforts. No wonder that all the idle Pompeians came here to bathe, to play, to visit, to tell and hear the news. It was a gay and noisy place. We have a letter that one of those old Romans wrote to a friend. He says:

“I am living near a bath. Sounds are heard on all sides. The men of strong muscle exercise and swing the heavy lead weights. I hear their groans as they strain, and the whistling of their breath. I hear the massagist slapping a lazy fellow who is being rubbed with ointment. A ball player begins to play and counts his throws. Perhaps there is a sudden quarrel, or a thief is caught, or some one is singing in the bath. And the bathers plunge into the swimming tank with loud splashes. Above all the din you hear the calls of the hair puller and the sellers of cakes and sweetmeats and sausages.”

After you leave the baths perhaps you will turn down Stabian Street. It has narrow sidewalks. The broken walls of houses fence it in closely on both sides and cast black shadows across it. It is paved with clean blocks of lava. You will see wheel ruts worn deep in the hard stone. Almost two thousand years old they are, made by the carts of the farmers, perhaps, who brought in vegetables for the market. At the street crossings you will see three or four big stone blocks standing up above the pavement. They are stepping-stones for rainy weather. Evidently floods used to pour down these sloping streets. You can imagine little Roman boys skipping across from block to block and trying to keep their sandals dry.

The street will lead you to the district of good houses where the wealthy men lived. Through open doorways you will get glimpses into the old ruined courtyards. It is hard guessing how the rooms used to look. But when you come to the door of the house of Vettius you will cry out with wonder. There is a lovely garden in the corner of the house. A long passage leads to it straight from the street. Around it runs a paved porch with pretty columns. Here you will walk in the shade and look out at the gay little garden, blooming in the sunshine. In every corner tiny streams of water spurt from little statues of bronze and marble and trickle into cool basins. Marble tables stand among the flowers. You will half expect a slave to bring out old drinking cups and wine bowls and set them here for his master’s pleasure, or tablets and stylus for him to write his letters. Everything is in order and beautiful. It was not quite so when the excavators uncovered this house. The statues were thrown down. The flowers were scorched and dead under the piled-up ashes. But it was easy for the modern excavators to tell from the ground where the flower beds had been and where the gravel paths. Even the lead water pipe that carried the stream to the fountain needed little repairing. So the excavators set up the statues, cleaned the marble tables and benches, planted shrubs and flowers, repaired the porch roof, and we have a garden such as the old Romans loved and such as many houses in Pompeii had.