IN POMPEII

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18897, 25 June 1923, Page 10

IN POMPEII

THE “STREET OF ABUNDANCE.” EXCAVATIONS REVEAL ANCIENT CIVILISATION. Excavations were recommenced at Pompeii in 1911 on new. lines and under fresh direction. The part which has patiently been cleared in this period is now open to the public; a scientific description of the discoveries made is in preparation, and accommodation lor visitors is being built. According to the Romo correspondent of the Manchester Guardian, the now excavations have followed along Via dell’ Abbondanza, starting from the house of Epidius Rutus, and have laid open for 603 metros of this “Street of Abundance” in the direction of the old Porta Urbulana. The houses hero wore no longer simple onestory buildings, but palaces with several stones, with colonnades and largo windows and terraces—very like those which are to bo seen in the background in Renaissance paintings. In excavating it was necessary to strengthen the upper parts of the buildings fcetorc proceeding downwards, ’floor by floor, to the ground level. The position of every object was marked and photographed, in order to be able subsequently to replace it in position. The interior of many of the houses has still to be explored; the external aspect of the street may be claimed to have been completely restored. Those 1 excavations have thrown a flood of light on the life of the Pompeian middle class and common people. Shops alternate with the villas of the now-rich, and the innumerable bars and inns stand cheek by jowl with the shrines of the Lares (lararia), exactly as in Southern Italy to-day. where every church has its tavern alongside.

Here is a large outfitter’s establishment; the proprietor was Marcus Caeeilius. In place ot a shop window, the front of his premises is adorned by a series of frescoes illustrating the business done within. There is Mercury as tutelary genius, and Venus Pompeiana on board a ship drawn by elephants. The proprietor and his wife appear in these frescoes engaged in buying and selling, with a troop of employees around them.

Hero is a fullonica, or fuller’s ■washhouse, in perfect preservation, with its entrance hall and offices, its washtubs, and the terraces for spreading out and drying the clothes. Among tne pans in the kitchen there are still Ui© remains* of a lamb prepared for cooking. On the wall one may read an election bill on behalf of the owner: “L. Holconium fullpnes universi rogunt” (“All the fullers are voting for Lucius Hoiconius’’). Many election and theatre notices are to be road on the front of the villa of the aodile Aldus Thebius Valeris. They announce that great gladiatorial combats will take place at Putteoli, “numeribus Augustorum” (“at Caesar’s expense”); that there: will be fights between wild beasts and hunting; and that the public will he protected from the sun (“ V T enalio. Athletae. Vela emit”). Among the richer, buildings the most splendid as yet is that of Messius, a great palace with rod and yellow halls adorned with mythological paintings and portraits of the owner’s four daughters. More modest but more interesting is the small villa of Hymenaeus the moralist. In the triclinium (the dining-room), with its set of couches arranged along three sides of a rectangle, the lamp is let into the partition wall and its light is softened l by a crystal shade. The walls are adorned with improving texts admonishing the guests to behave well, ■not to quarrel, etc. “Lascivos vultus et blandos aider ©cellos” (“Turn thine eyes from lascivious and alluring' faces”); “Ooniuge ab alterius sit tibi in ore pudor” (“Speak no ill of thy neighbour’s wife”). It is embarrassing to find on the floor above, little rooms decorated with Venuses and Amoretti, and with inscriptions recommending jiist the opposite of the chaste texts on the ground floor. The dishes were brought up into these little rooms by a special lift, as in a tavern. Hymenaeus the moralist (or shall we say the hypocrite?) cannot have been mueh, respected by his fellow-citizens of Pompeii. Ho had thougiit fit to. have painted many times in bold characters on the front and sides of his villa a quite untranslatable inscription. ! As we have mentioned, shrines and little temples abound amid the inns and drinking bars in this Via dell’ Abbondanza, and tavern and temple alike are decorated with Bacchic symbols—guardian spirits with green wreaths on their heads, and with short yellow skirts, like those of ballet-dancers. In a mysterious subterranean room, magnificently ornamented, five dead bodies were found. It is supposed that thev were assembled adherents of some Dionysias or Oriental cult.

The bars are open to the street, narrow, without seats, precisely like modern' Italian bars. In front of them is a marble counter behind which stood the rows of amphorae ready for supplying customers. In one of these bars there was discovered, among other things, an oven for preparing hot wine. A scrawled advertisement near its entrance shows a sort of dandy gaily dancing in, but he has not a man’s head but a monkey’s.

Vegetable and flower gardens and pergolas add to the attractions of the villas and inns. And soon, through the original lead piping, resoldered, (here will be brought in tho water of the same Samo whose ripples soothed the leisure and the siesta of the Pompeians of old.