Part 2 (2/2)

So all the southern part of Italy seems to be the home of volcanoes and earthquakes.

There are many other such places scattered over the world--Iceland, Mexico, South America, j.a.pan, the Sandwich Islands. Here the same terrible play is going on--thunder, clouds, falling ashes, scalding rain, flowing lava. The earth is being turned inside out, and men are learning what she is made of.

[ILl.u.s.tRATION: _Bronze lampholder_: Five lamps hung from the branches of this bronze tree. It was twenty inches high.]

POMPEII TO-DAY

Years came and went and changed the world. The old G.o.ds 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 pa.s.s 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 s.h.i.+nes 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 gra.s.sy 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 s.h.i.+ps. This is the street where people poured out to the sea on that terrible day of the eruption.

You will pa.s.s 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 s.p.a.ce. 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 G.o.d. 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 G.o.d. 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 part.i.tions 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, gla.s.s 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 G.o.ds. 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 G.o.ds and heroes and the deeds they did.

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