Roman Pompeii THE CITY THAT WAS BURIED

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22271, 9 December 1937, Page 2 (Supplement)

Roman Pompeii THE CITY THAT WAS BURIED

On November 9, in the year 79, that is, more than 1850 years ago, the volcano of Vesuvius burst without warning into terrible eruption. Flames, hundreds of feet high, shot from the crater; clouds of smoke and ashes billowed out .and rose many miles in the air, blotting out the sunset and turning the dying day to murky, fire-streaked night. Molten lava poured from the crater, flowed down the steep mountain side, and completely, buried the busy, prosperous. Roman city of Pompeii. For days a rain of burning ashes continued to fall, smothering and killing every plant, every shrub, every flower that had escaped the

slow march of the lava stream. Many people, killed by the falling ashes, were burled beneath the lava, and those who managed to escape found themselves homeless. But Pompeii is no longer a buried city. After remaining so long beneath the coat of lava that destroyed it in a night, and then protected it for centuries, it was Long rows of solidly-built brick houses, bake shops, temples, law courts, baths, and theatres stand there, and apart from the absence of roofs and doors, and for the broken pillars lying about, the city is just as it was when Vesuvius uttered its first warning rumble. You enter the silent and deserted city through a gate . facing the Mediterranean Sea, called the

(By Norman Borrow)

Marine Gate, and go up a long street that leads to the Forum of Justice. The houses on either side are all of one storey, and all very much alike. Pictures of animals, birds, and flowers are laid in mosaic of coloured marbles on the floors. At the threshold of.one of these houses you will see, worked in mosaic, a Latin sentence of welcome, or the picture of a bear, or a faun, and usually with some inscription that might well be the motto of the family that lived there. The first room you enter is a sort of vestibule or hall. In the centre of the next you find a large marble basin, with a foun-

tain in it, though the fountain is no longer playing. On either side are bedrooms. Beyond is a reception room—drawing room we should call it. Then suddenly you come upon a little garden, and beyond that again a dining room. There are many things in Pompeii that will show you how very old the city was even when Vesuvius swept the life from it. There is a temple on one corner, and it is a shorter cut to go between the columns of the temple from one street to the other than to go round. You can see how a pathway has been worn deep in the heavy flagstone floor of *he building by thousands , and thousands of time-saving feet. The broad stone steps that lead down into the school, and up to the

circle of the principal theatre, are almost worn through. There are ruts in the flagstones of the streets, lOin deep, that have been worn by the chariot wheels of generations of Pompeians. But the most striking evidence of the great age of the city is this. In one of the main streets there is a ponderous stone tank. A water spout runs into it that kept the tank supplied. On the spot where the hot and thirsty workers from the Compagna—the country round about—used to rest their right hands when they bent over to put their lips to the spout, the thick stone has been worn down to a broail groove, an inch or two deep. Think of the millions of hands that must have rested on that spot to wear , down stone that is as hard as iron. , , . .