AFTER 1800 YEARS.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1388, 14 March 1912, Page 5

AFTER 1800 YEARS.

POMPEIAN ELECTION PLACARDS.

Bγ Tpiorrapb—Press Association—Oopyrleb! (Reed. March 13, 11.5 p.m.) Rome, March 13. Excavations in Pompeii have uncovered a vintner's shop. The vintner had been overcome by lnva while filling rows of wine jars. Many election placards were found on the walls, and there was also discovered a hermcticnlly-sealed cauldron still containing water. Pompeii was once a prosperous provincial town, with a population of twenty to thirty thousand. Alter the Samnite wars (in fi.C. 290) the original Oscan inhabitants fell under the sway of Borne, and by the close of the Republic had become completely Romanised. After the earthquake in 13 A.D. Pompeii was reereetod in the new-Roman imperial style, in which a modified Oreek culture was combined with Italian element?, but was not quite completed when it was overtaken by the "catastrophe of 7!l, which covered the whole region with a layer of pumice-stone ami u.-ln-s, 10 to lj feet deep. Most of the inhabitants had time to e.icape. After the cnlnmiiy the survivors rescued from the loo*' iir-hes its many valuables, and particularly as much marble, as they could, consigning the town thenceforth "to oblivion a-s no longer relaying excavation. Later eruptions increased (ho mantle to a deiith oE 20 feet, and in the middle nsfes Pompeii remained unknown. In 17'i8 .'some accidental discoveries attracted attention anew to the site; but isiatucs and valuables only were sought for, and the ruins covered tip again. Since ISGO the excavations have been carried on systematically. The town is of an irregular oval form; its walls are 2835 yards in circuit. The excavated part, about half only, is probably the more important, comprising the i'oruin, several temples and public buildings, two theatres, many large 'dwellingI houses, and the amphitheatre.