The Temple of Concord.

109

The other remains at Girgenti are inconsiderable. Only a shapeless mass of ruin marks the site of the colossal temple once sacred to the worship of Jupiter. It was about 360 feet in length, according to Diodorus, and the flutings of its columns were of sufficient size for a man to stand in. It had two fronts, both pediments being embellished with superb sculptures--that on the eastern representing the War of the Titans, and that on the western the Capture of Troy.

AUTHORITIES.-Quatremère de Quincy, Dictionnaire d'Architecture; Wilkins, Antiquities of Magna Græcia; Bartlett, Pictures from Sicily; Encyclop. Metropolitana, art. Architecture; J. Dennis, Handbook to Sicily; Dr. Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, art. Agrigentum; &c.

VII.

Pompeii.

THE STREET OF TOMBS-THE AMPHITHEATRE.

"Day was turned into night, and light into darkness: an inexpressible quantity of dust and ashes was poured out, deluging land, sea, and air, and burying two cities, Herculaneum and Pompeii, while the people were sitting in the theatre."

E

DION CASSIUs, lib. lxvi.

EW events in past history are more impressively pathetic than the destruc

tion of the two cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii by the lava-floods of Vesuvius, and its terrible showers of ashes. There is something which appeals to the dullest imagination in the suddenness and strangeness of the catastrophe;life so suddenly checked; the wheels of labour arrested while in full motion; youth and age, wealth and poverty, all involved in the common ruin; death striking down its hundreds and its tens of hundreds by a blow which no human ingenuity could foresee or avert; and death, too, attended by such awful outward circumstances that it seemed as if the day of doom had come for the universal earth!

Remains of Pompeii.

III

Pompeii, a city of Campania, was situated on a rising ground of volcanic rocks at the mouth of the river Sarno, and looking out on the Bay of Naples. It occupied the ridge of a promontory which shot out, as it were, from the base of Mount Vesuvius, and was washed on the west and south by the sea, on the east by the river already spoken of. It is supposed to have been built by the Oscans, and to have derived its name from the word Пoμπεîα, "store-houses," implying that it was a place of considerable trade. It was successively occupied by the Etruscans and the Samnites. Having acknowledged the supremacy of Rome, the town was admitted to the rank of a mancipium, and allowed the privilege of being governed by its own laws. A military colony, however, was planted in the city to overawe the disaffected, and under Nero, A.D. 55, it became to all intents and purposes a Roman town.

It had previously become a favourite resort of the nobles and wealthy magnates of Rome, who were attracted to it by its genial climate and romantic position. Cossinius, the Roman general, made it his head-quarters during the Servile War, and while bathing on the beach narrowly escaped capture by Spartacus, the leader of the rebels. In the suburb Cicero had a villa, where he composed his treatise De Officiis, and entertained the

young Octavius, Balbus, Pansa, and Hirtius as his guests. Claudius found an asylum within its walls from the cruel tyranny of Tiberius; and here his son Drusus lost his life by choking himself with a pear. Phædrus the fabulist resided at Pompeii to escape the persecutions of Sejanus; and Seneca spent his early years in its charming neighbourhood. Such are a few of the associations that render the city of interest to the classical scholar.

In A.D. 63 it suffered severely from an earthquake, which overthrew a great portion of the city, and destroyed numerous flocks of sheep and herds of cattle. The Pompeians abandoned the city in their terror, but recovering their courage, in the course of a few months began to rebuild it. The work of restoration was hardly completed when, on the 26th of August A.D. 79, occurred an eruption of Vesuvius which involved Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Stabiæ in irretrievable ruin. Herculaneum was destroyed by floods of mud or lava; Pompeii by incessant showers of boiling water, ashes, red hot pumice-stones, and loose volcanic materials, which fell in incredible quantities.

An admirable account of the leading phenomena which marked this extraordinary event is given in his "Epistles" by the younger Pliny. We follow it closely in the subjoined narrative.

Eruption of Vesuvius.

113

For some days previously shocks of earthquake had occurred, but as these are extremely frequent in Campania, they had caused Pliny and his uncle little surprise. But on the night prior to the eruption they had been particularly violent, so that they not only shook everything in the houses, but seemed to threaten total destruction. When day broke, it was with a faint, uncertain light; a general convulsion of the elements seemed perceptible; the buildings tottered like weak and aged men; and every one who could, made haste to leave the town and gain the open country. Pliny and his attendants were among the fugitives. When they had arrived at a convenient distance from the houses, they stood still in the midst of a scene of peril and horror. The chariots which they had ordered to be prepared were so agitated backwards and forwards, though upon the most level ground, that they could not be supported even by steadying them with large stones. The sea seemed to roll back upon itself, and to be hurled from its shores by the violent motion of the earth: a vast area of its bed was exposed, and strange sea-monsters crawled among the slimy weeds; while the face of heaven was overshadowed by a black and dreadful cloud, which seemed alive in its depths with a fiery vapour that at intervals darted out long jets or tongues