Many of their seals were preserved in this manner; consisting of an oblong piece of metal, stamped with letters of the motto; instruments very similar to those used in England for marking linen. Thus possessed of types and of ink, how little were the Romans removed from the discovery of the art and advantages of printing!
At the end of one of the streets143, was discovered a skeleton of a Pompeian, who, apparently for the sake of sixty coins, a small plate, and a saucepan of silver, had remained in the house till the street was already half filled with volcanic matter. From the situation in which he was found, he had apparently been arrested in the act of escaping from the window. Two others were also found in the same street.
Only sixty skeletons144 have been discovered in all; it is, therefore, clear, that the greater part of the inhabitants had found time to escape. There were found in the vault of a house in the suburbs, the skeletons of seventeen individuals, who appear to have sought refuge there from the showers of ashes which poured from the sky. There was also preserved, in the same place145, a sketch of a woman, supposed to have been the mistress of the house, with an infant locked in her arms. Her form was imprinted upon the work, which formed her sepulchre; but only the bones remained. To these a chain of gold was suspended; and rings, with jewels, were upon her fingers. The remains of a soldier, also, were found in a niche, where, in all probability, he was performing the office of sentinel. His hand still grasped a lance, and the usual military accoutrements were also found there.
In one of the baths146, as we have before stated, was found the skeleton of a female, whose arms and neck were covered with jewels. In addition to gold bracelets, was a necklace; the workmanship of which is marvellous. Our most skilful jewellers could make nothing more elegant, or of a better taste. It has all the beautiful finish of the Moorish jewels of Granada, and of the same designs which are to be found in the dresses of the Moorish women, and of the Jewesses of Tetuan, on the coast of Africa.
It is generally supposed, that the destruction of this city was sudden and unexpected; and it is even recorded, that the people were surprised and overwhelmed at once by the volcanic storm, while in the theatre. (Dionys. of Hal.) But to this opinion many objections may be raised, amongst which this; that the number of skeletons in Pompeii does not amount to sixty; and ten times this number would be inconsiderable, when compared with the extent and population of the city.
The most perfect and most curious object, however, that has yet been discovered, is a villa at a little distance from the town. It consists of three courts; in the third and largest is a pond, and in the centre a small temple. There are numerous apartments of every description, paved in mosaic, coloured and adorned with various paintings on the walls; all in a very beautiful style. This villa is supposed to have belonged to Cicero.
“The ruins of Pompeii,” says Mr. Eustace, “possess a secret power, that captivates and melts the soul! In other times, and in other places, one single edifice, a temple, a theatre, a tomb, that had escaped the wreck of ages, would have enchanted us; nay, an arch, the remnant of a wall, even one solitary column, was beheld with veneration; but to discover a single ancient house, the abode of a Roman in his privacy, the scene of his domestic hours, was an object of fond, but hopeless longing. Here, not a temple, nor a theatre, nor a house, but a whole city rises before us, untouched, unaltered – the very same as it was eighteen hundred years ago, when inhabited by Romans. We range through the same streets; tread the very same pavement; behold the same walls; enter the same doors; and repose in the same apartments. We are surrounded by the same objects; and out of the same windows we contemplate the same scenery. In the midst of all this, not a voice is heard – not even the sound of a foot – to disturb the loneliness of the place, or to interrupt his reflections. All around is silence; not the silence of solitude and repose, but of death and devastation: – the silence of a great city without one single inhabitant:
‘Horror ubique animos, simul ipsa silentia terrent.’
“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! To visit it even now, is absolutely to live with the ancient Romans; and when we see houses, shops, furniture, fountains, streets, carriages, and implements of husbandry, exactly similar to those of the present day, we are apt to conclude, that customs and manners have undergone but little alteration for the last two thousand years.”
“In walking through this city of the dead,” says Chateaubriand, “one idea has pursued me. As the labourers clear the different edifices, they remove whatever they discover, – household utensils, implements of divers trades, pieces of furniture, statues, MSS., &c., all of which are promiscuously carried to the Portici Museum. In my opinion, people might have employed their time better. Why not have left these things as they found them, and where they found them? Instead of their removal, they should have preserved them on the spot; – roofs, ceilings, floors, and windows, should have been carefully restored, in order to prevent the destruction of the walls and paintings. The ancient inclosure of the town should be rebuilt, the gates repaired, and a guard of soldiers stationed there, together with some individuals well versed in the arts. Would not this have been the most interesting museum in the world? A Roman town preserved quite entire, as if its inhabitants had issued forth but a quarter of an hour before!”
“I am filled with astonishment,” says Dupaty, “in walking from house to house, from temple to temple, from street to street, in a city built two thousand years ago, inhabited by the Romans, dug out by a king of Naples, and in perfect preservation. I speak of Pompeii.
“The inhabitants of this city were asleep, when suddenly an impetuous wind arose, and, detaching a portion of the cinders which covered the summit of Vesuvius, hurried them in whirlwinds through the air over Pompeii, and within a quarter of an hour entirely overwhelmed it, together with Herculaneum, Sorento, a multitude of towns and villages, thousands of men and women, and the elder Pliny. What a dreadful awakening for the inhabitants? Imprudent men! Why did you build Pompeii at the foot of Vesuvius, on its lava, and on its ashes? In fact, mankind resemble ants, which, after an accident has destroyed one of their hillocks, set about repairing it the next moment. Pompeii was covered with ashes. The descendants of those very men, who perished under those ashes, planted vineyards, mulberry, fig, and poplar trees on them; the roofs of this city were become fields and orchards. One day, while some peasants were digging, the spade penetrated a little deeper than usual; something was found to resist. It was a city. It was Pompeii. I entered several of the rooms, and found in one of them a mill, with which the soldiers ground their corn for bread; in another an oil-mill, in which they crushed the olives. The first resembles our coffee-mills; the second is formed of two mill-stones, which were moved by the hand, in a vast mortar, round an iron centre. In another of these rooms I saw chains still fastened to the leg of a criminal; in a second, heaps of human bones; and in a third, a golden necklace.
“What is become of all the inhabitants? We see nobody in the shops! not a creature in the streets! all the houses are open! Let us begin by visiting the houses on the right. This is not a private house; that prodigious number of chirurgical instruments prove this edifice must have had some relation to the art in which they are used. This was surely a school for surgery. These houses are very small; they are exceedingly ill contrived; all the apartments are detached; but then what neatness! what elegance! In each of them is an inner portico, a mosaic pavement, a square colonnade, and in the middle a cistern, to collect the water falling from the roof. In each of them are hot-baths, and stoves, and everywhere paintings in fresco, in the best taste, and on the most pleasing grounds. Has Raffaele been here to copy his arabesques?
“Let us pass over to the other side of the street. These houses are three stories high; their foundation is on the lava, which has formed here a sort of hill, on the declivity of which they are built. From above, in the third story, the windows look into the street; and from the first story, into a garden.
“But what do I perceive in that chamber. They are ten death’s-heads. The unfortunate wretches saved themselves here, where they could not be saved. This is the head of a little child: its father and mother then are there! Let us go up stairs again; the heart feels not at ease here. Suppose we take a step into this temple for a moment, since it is left open. What deity do I perceive in the bottom of that niche? It is the god of Silence, who makes a sign with his finger, to command silence, and points to the goddess Isis, in the further recess of the sacrarium.
“In the front of the porch there are three altars. Here the victims were slaughtered, and the blood, flowing along this gutter into the middle of that basin, fell from thence upon the head of the priests. This little chamber, near the altar, was undoubtedly the sacristy. The priests purified themselves in this bathing-place.
“Here are some inscriptions: ‘Popidi ambleati, Cornelia celsa.’ This is a monument erected to the memory of those who have been benefactors to Isis; that is to say, to her priests.
“I cannot be far from the country-house of Aufidius; for there are the gates of the city. Here is the tomb of the family of Diomedes. Let us rest a moment under these porticoes, where the philosophers used to sit.
“I am not mistaken. The country-house of Aufidius is charming; the paintings in fresco are delicious. What an excellent effect have those blue grounds! With what propriety, and consequently with what taste, are the figures distributed in the panels! Flora herself has woven that garland. But who has painted this Venus? this Adonis? this youthful Narcissus, in that bath? And here again, this charming Mercury? It is surely not a week since they were painted.
“I like this portico round the garden; and this square covered cellar round the portico. Do these amphoræ contain the true Falernian? How many consulates has this wine been kept?
“But it is late. It was about this time the play began. Let us go to the covered theatre: it is shut. Let us go to the uncovered theatre; that too is shut.
“I know not how far I have succeeded in this attempt to give you an idea of Pompeii.” Excellently147.
NO. XX. – RAMA
Rama is supposed to have been built with materials, furnished by the ruins of Lydda, three miles distant; and it is the spot in which our titular saint, St. George, is said to have suffered martyrdom; although, according to most authors, his remains repose in a magnificent temple at Lydda.
Notwithstanding the present desolate condition of Rama, it was, when the army of the Crusaders arrived, a magnificent city, filled with wealth, and abundance of all the luxuries of the East. It was exceedingly populous, adorned with stately buildings, and well fortified with walls and towers.
The Musselmans here reverence the tomb of Locman, the wise; also the sepulchres of seventy prophets, who are believed to have been buried here.
Rama is situated about thirty miles from Jerusalem, in the middle of an extensive and fertile plain, which is part of the great field of Sharon. “It makes,” says Dr. Clarke, “a considerable figure at a distance; but we found nothing within the place except traces of devastation and death. It exhibited one scene of ruin: houses, fallen or deserted, appeared on every side; and instead of inhabitants, we beheld only the skeletons or putrifying carcasses of horses and camels. A plague, or rather murrain, during the preceding year, had committed such ravages, that not only men, women, and children, but cattle of all kinds, and every thing that had life, became its victims. Few of the inhabitants of Europe can have been aware of the state of suffering, to which all the coast of Palestine and Syria was exposed. It followed, and in part accompanied, the dreadful ravages, caused by the march of the French army. From the accounts we received, it seemed as if the exterminating hand of Providence was exercised in sweeping from the earth every trace of ancient existence. ‘In Rama148 there was a voice heard; lamentation and weeping, and great mourning; Rachel weeping for her children, and could not be comforted, because they were not.’”149
NO. XXI. – ROME
To seek for Rome, vain stranger, art thou come,
And find’st no mark, within Rome’s walls, of Rome?
See here the craggy walls, the towers defaced,
And piles that frighten more than once they pleased:
See the vast theatres, a shapeless load,
And sights more tragic than they ever show’d.
This, this is Rome! Her haughty carcass spread
Still awes in ruin, and commands when dead.
The subject world first took from her their fate;
And when she only stood unconquer’d yet,
Herself she last subdued, to make the work complete.
But ah! so dear the fatal triumph cost,
That conquering Rome is in the conquer’d lost.
Yet rolling Tiber still maintains his stream,
Swell’d with the glories of the Roman name.
Strange power of fate! unshaken moles must waste;
While things that ever move, for ever last. – Vitalis.
As the plan of this work does not admit of our giving any thing like a history of the various trials and fortunes of Rome; we must confine ourselves, almost entirely, to a few particulars relative to its origin, summit of glory and empire, its decay, and ultimate ruin.
There is no unquestionable narrative of facts, on which any writer can build the primitive history of this vast city and empire; but in its place we have a mass of popular traditions and fabulous records. On the taking of Troy, Æneas, a prince of that city, quitted his native land, and after a long period, spent in encountering a variety of vicissitudes, he arrived on the coast of Italy, was received with hospitality by the King of Latium, whose name was Latinus, and afterwards obtained his throne, from the circumstance of having married his daughter.
Æneas after this built the city of Lavinium, and, thirty years after, his son founded that of Alba Longa, which then became the capital of Latium. Three hundred years after, Romulus founded Rome.
Though Livy has given a very circumstantial account of the origin of this city, sufficient data have been afforded, since his history was written, to justify our doubting many of his statements. The first author in modern times, that led Europe to these doubts, was, we believe, Dr. Taylor; who, in a work written about sixty years ago, entitled Elements of Civil Law, has the following passage: – “It was not peculiar to this people, to have the dawn of their history wrapped up in fable and mythology, or set in with something that looked like marvellous and preternatural. There is scarce a nation, that we are acquainted with, but has this foible in a greater or lesser degree, and almost pleads a right to be indulged in it. “Datur hæc venia antiquitati, ut miscendo humana divinis primordia urbium augustiora faciat.” (Liv. I. Præf.) Indeed the Romans themselves had some suspicion of their own history. They generally dated their periods not AB U. C. but began their æra from their consuls, by whom they always reckoned. The records of Rome were burned at the irruption of the Gauls: they had nothing for it but tradition before that period. Nor was there an author extant of that age, or near it, at the time that Livy compiled his history. Diocles Peparethius (the father of Roman history, since Fabius Pictor, the first historian that Rome produced, and all his followers, copied him implicitly) was a writer of no very great credit. The birth and education of Romulus, is the exact counter-part of that of another founder of a great empire; and Romulus, I am satisfied, could not resemble more his brother Remus, than his brother Cyrus. The expedient of Tarquin’s conveying advice to his son, by striking off the heads of flowers, is given with the minutest difference, by Aristotle to Periander of Corinth, and by Herodotus to Thrasybulus. Which similarity is very ill accounted for by Camerarius. This was one of those ambulatory stories which (Plutarch in his Greek and Roman Parallels will furnish us with many such) seem confined to no one age, race, or country; but have been adopted in their turn, at several periods of time, and by several very different people, and are perhaps, at least some of them, true of none. And, lastly, one would imagine, that the history of the seven kings, which has such an air of romance in it, was made on purpose for Florus to be ingenious upon in his recapitulation of the regal state of Rome.”
The truth of this subject we leave to abler hands; proceeding at once to the manner in which the ceremonies are recorded to have been adopted at the first laying down the foundations of the city. Romulus, having sent for some of the Tuscans, to instruct him in the ceremonies that ought to be observed in laying the foundations, and they having instructed him according to his desire, his work began in the following manner: – First, he dug a trench, and threw into it the first-fruits of all things, either good by custom, or necessary by nature; and every man taking a small turf of earth of the country from which he came, they all cast them in promiscuously together. Making their trench their centre, they described the city in a circle round it. Then the founder fitted to a plough a brazen plough-share; and yoking together a bull and a cow, drew a deep line or furrow round the bounds; those that followed after, taking care that the clods fell inwards towards the city. They built the wall upon this line, which they called Pomœrium, from pone mœnia. Though the phrase of Pomœrium proferre be commonly used in authors, to signify the enlarging of the city, it is, nevertheless, certain that the city might be enlarged without that ceremony. For Tacitus and Gellius declare no person to have had a right of extending the Pomœrium, but such a one as had taken away some part of an enemy’s country in war; whereby, it is manifest, that several great men, who never obtained the honour, increased the buildings with considerable additions. It is remarkable that the same ceremony with which the foundations of their cities were first laid, they used, too, in destroying and rasing places taken from the enemy; which we find was begun by the chief commander’s turning up some of the walls with a plough.
We do not, as we have before stated, propose to give even a slight history of this celebrated city. It is sufficient for our purpose to state, that it was first governed by kings, and then by consuls, up to the time when the Gauls took the city, under their commander Brennus. This was the first calamity that Rome experienced at the hands of an enemy; and this occurred in the three hundred and sixty-fifth year after its foundation.
The city of Veii had just surrendered to Camillus after a ten years’ siege, when the Gauls made an irruption into Italy, and had begun to besiege Clusium, a Tuscan city; at which time a deputation arrived at Rome with an entreaty from the Clusians, that the Romans would interfere in their behalf, through the medium of ambassadors. This request was immediately complied with; and three of the Fabii, persons of the highest rank, were despatched to the Gallic camp. The Gauls, out of respect to the name of Rome, received these ambassadors with all imaginable civility; but they could not be induced to raise the siege. Upon this, the ambassadors going into the town, and encouraging the Clusians to a sally, one of them was seen personally engaged in the action. This, being contrary to the generally received law of nations, was resented in so high a manner by the enemy, that, breaking up from before Clusium, their whole army marched directly against Rome. At about eleven miles from the city, they met with the Roman army, commanded by the military tribunes; who, engaging without any order or discipline, received an entire defeat. Upon the arrival of this ill news at Rome, the greatest part of the inhabitants immediately fled. Those that resolved to stay, however, fortified themselves in the Capitol. The Gauls soon appeared at the city gates; and, destroying all with fire and sword, carried on the siege of the Capitol with all imaginable fury. At last, resolving on a general assault, they were discovered by the cackling of geese; and as many as had climbed the ramparts were driven down by Manlius; when Camillus, setting upon them in the rear with twenty thousand men he had got together about the country, gave them a total overthrow.
The city, however, had been set on fire by the barbarians, and so entirely demolished, that, upon the return of the people, they resolved upon abandoning the ruins, and seeking a more eligible abode in the recently conquered city of Veii, a town already built and well provided with all things. But this being opposed by Camillus, they set to work with such extraordinary diligence, that the vacant space of the old city was quickly covered with new buildings, and the whole finished within the short space of one year. The Romans, however, on this occasion, were in too great a hurry to think of either order or regularity. The city was, therefore, rebuilt without any reference to order; no care being taken to form the streets in straight lines.
In this conflagration, all the public records were burned; but there is no reason to believe, that it was accompanied by any losses, which a lover of the arts should mourn for. As many writers have remarked, the Romans were not naturally a people of taste. They never excelled in the fine arts; and even their own writers invariably allow, that they were indebted for every thing that was elegant in the arts to the people of Greece150.
It is possible that, during the three hundred and fifty years, which elapsed from the Gallic invasion till the reign of Augustus, many magnificent buildings may have been erected; but we have no evidence that such was the case; and the few facts, which we are enabled to glean from the pages of ancient writers, are scarcely favourable to the supposition. The commencement of the age of Roman luxury is generally dated from the year 146 B. C., when the fall of Carthage and of Corinth elevated the power of the republic to a conspicuous height. Yet, more than fifty years afterwards, no marble columns had been introduced into any public buildings; and the example of using them as decorations of private houses was set by the orator Crassus, in the beginning of the first century before the Christian era.
The architectural splendour of the city must be dated from the age of Augustus. “I found it of brick,” he was accustomed to say; “I shall leave it of marble.” Nor was he content with his own labours; at his instigation many private individuals contributed to the embellishment of the capital. The Pantheon, one of the noblest structures of Rome, and several others, were the works of his chief minister, Agrippa.
Tiberius and Caligula betrayed no wish to imitate their predecessor; but several works of utility and magnitude were completed under Claudius. Then came, however, the emperor Nero; with whose reign is associated that memorable conflagration, which malice attributed to the Christians, and which raged beyond all example of former ages. This fire left, of the fourteen regions into which Augustus had divided the city, only four parts untouched. It was, therefore, fatal to many of the most venerable fanes and trophies of the earlier ages. This conflagration lasted from six to nine days. In the time of Titus, too, another fire ravaged the city for three days and nights; and in that of Trajan, another conflagration consumed part of the Forum, and the Golden House of Nero; after which few remains of the ancient city were left; the rest being, to use the language of Tacitus, “scanty relics, lacerated and half-burned.”
The city, nevertheless, soon rose with fresh grandeur and beauty from its ashes. Trajan performed his part; and Hadrian followed with redoubled assiduity. They were followed by the Antonines; and so effective was the example they set, that most of the more opulent senators of Rome deemed it an honour, and almost an obligation, to contribute to the glory and external splendour of their native city. These monuments of architecture were adorned with the finest and most beautiful productions of sculpture and painting. Every quarter of Rome was filled with temples, theatres, amphitheatres, porticoes, triumphal arches, and aqueducts; with baths, and other buildings, conducive to the health and pleasure, not of the noble citizens only, but of the meanest.
The principal conquests of the Romans, were achieved under the republic; and the emperors, for the most part, were satisfied with preserving those dominions which had been acquired by the policy of the senate, the active emulation of the senators, and the martial enthusiasm of the people. The seven first centuries were filled with a rapid succession of triumphs; but it was for Augustus, to relinquish the ambitious design of subduing the whole earth, and to introduce moderation into the public councils. He bequeathed a valuable legacy to his successors, the advice of confining the empire within those limits which nature seemed to have placed as its permanent bulwarks and boundaries: – on the west the Atlantic ocean; the Rhine and Danube on the north; the Euphrates on the east; and towards the south the deserts of Africa and Arabia.
The first exception to this policy was the conquest of Britain; the second the conquests of Trajan. It was, however, revived by Hadrian; nearly the first measure of whose reign was the resignation of all that emperor’s eastern conquests.
The Roman empire, in the time of the Antonines, was about two thousand miles in breadth, from the wall of Antoninus and the northern limits of Dacia, to Mount Atlas and the tropic of Cancer. It extended, in length, more than three thousand miles, from the Western Ocean to the Euphrates; it was situated in the finest part of the temperate zone, between the twenty-fourth and fifty-sixth degrees of northern latitude; and it was supposed to contain above sixteen hundred thousand square miles, for the most part of fertile and well cultivated land.
Pius studied the defence of the empire rather than the enlargement of it – a line of policy, which rendered him more serviceable to the commonwealth than the greatest conqueror. Marcus and Lucius (Antonini) made the first division of the empire. At length it was put up to public sale and sold to the highest bidder. It was afterwards arrested in its ruin by Alexander Severus. The fortunes of the empire, after the progress of several successive tyrants, was again restored by the courage, conduct, and extraordinary virtues of Claudius the Second; to whom has been attributed, with every probability of truth, the courage of Trajan, the moderation of Augustus, and the piety of Antoninus.
Then followed Aurelian, Tacitus, and Probus; and Rome felt redeemed from the ruin that awaited her: but Constantine laid the inevitable groundwork of its destruction, by removing the imperial throne to Byzantium. Rome became an easy prey to her barbarian enemies; by whom she was several times sacked, pillaged, and partially burned. The most powerful of these enemies was Alaric: – the people he had to conquer and take advantage of, are thus described by Ammianus Marcellinus: – “Their long robes of silk purple float in the wind, and as they are agitated, by art or accident, they occasionally discover the under-garments, the rich tunics, embroidered with the figures of various animals. Followed by a train of fifty servants, and tearing up the pavement, they move along the street with the same impetuous speed, as if they had travelled with post-horses; and the example of the senators is boldly imitated by the matrons and ladies, whose covered-carriages are continually driving round the immense space of the city and suburbs. Whenever these persons of high distinction condescend to visit the public baths, they assume, on their entrance, a tone of loud and insolent command, and appropriate to their own use the conveniences which were designed for the Roman people. As soon as they have indulged themselves in the refreshments of the bath, they resume their rings, and the other ensigns of their dignity; select from their private wardrobe of the finest linen, such as might suffice for a dozen persons, the garments the most agreeable to their fancy, and maintain till their departure the same haughty demeanour, which, perhaps, might have been excused in the great Marcellus, after the conquest of Syracuse.
“Sometimes, indeed, these heroes undertake more arduous achievements; they visit their estates in Italy, and procure themselves, by the toil of servile hands, the amusements of the chase. If at any time, but more especially on a hot day, they have courage to sail in their painted galleys, from the Lucrine Lake to their elegant villas on the sea-coast of Puteoli and Cajeta, they compare their own expeditions to the marches of Cæsar and Alexander. Yet, should a fly presume to settle on the silken folds of their gilded umbrellas; should a sun-beam penetrate through some unregarded and imperceptible chink they deplore their intolerable hardships, and lament, in affected language, that they were not born in the land of the Cimmerians, the regions of eternal darkness.”