Chapter VI: Part 6

The interior of the temple does not fulfil the expectations, created by the magnificence of the exterior. Several steps conduct to a room, the door of which is perceived under the peristyle. “Although the chamber is hewn regularly, and is in good proportion, the walls are rough, its doors lead to nothing, and the entire appears to have been abandoned while the work was yet in progress. There are two lateral chambers, one of which is irregular, and the other presents two apertures, which seem to have been hewn for two coffins.”

Captain Irby speaks of this temple in the following manner: “The position is one of the most beautiful that could be imagined for the front of a great temple, the richness and exquisite finish of whose decorations offer a most remarkable contrast to the savage scenery that surrounds it. It is of a very lofty proportion, the elevation comprising two stories. The taste is not exactly to be commended; but many of the details and ornaments, and the size and proportion of the great doorway especially, to which there are five steps of ascent from the portico, are very noble. No part is built, the whole being purely a work of excavation; and its minutest embellishments, wherever the hand of man has not purposely effaced and obliterated them, are so perfect, that it may be doubted whether any work of the ancients, excepting, perhaps, some on the banks of the Nile, have come down to our time so little injured by the lapse of ages. There is, in fact, scarcely a building of forty years’ standing in England so well preserved in the greater part of its architectural decorations. Of the larger members of the architecture nothing is deficient, excepting a single column of the portico; the statues are numerous and colossal.”

The brook of Wady Mousa, after leaving the eastern defile by which it entered, passes directly across the valley, and makes its exit by a rocky ravine on the west, almost impassable by the foot of man. On the banks of this stream are situated the principal ruins of the city. There, at least, are found those in chief preservation—for, properly speaking, the whole valley may be said to be covered with ruins.

The remains of paved-ways, bridges, and other structures, may still be seen among the other ruins of the valley. Not the least interesting object, observable in the vale, is the aqueduct which is continued from the eastern approach along the face of the rocks constituting the eastern wall of this city. This aqueduct is partly hewn and partly built, and is yet in a very perfect condition.

The only inscriptions, hitherto discovered at Petra, are two which M. Laborde met with on tombs. One of these, in Greek characters, was so much mutilated as to be unreadable, and the other, a Latin one, notified that a certain Roman consul died at Petra, when governor of Arabia.

The only living being found residing in the immediate neighbourhood of the ruins, with the exception of the reptiles that infest the excavations, was a decrepit old man, who had lived for forty years on the top of Mount Hor, an eminence at the west of Petra, where a tomb, said to be that of Aaron, is seen. The wandering Arabs, who revere the Jewish traditions, hold this place as sacred, and support its old guardian by occasional pilgrimages and contributions[95].

For want of space we must here close our account; referring for a more enlarged knowledge of this celebrated “city of the desert,” to the travels of Burckhardt, Captains Irby and Mangles, and MM. Laborde and Linant. The following references lead to some of the passages, in which the fate of this city was foretold by the sacred writers[96].

“I will stretch out mine hand upon Edom, and will cut off man and
beast from it, and I will make it desolate from Teman; and they of
Dedan shall fall by the sword. And I will lay my vengeance upon Edom
by the hand of my people Israel, and they shall do in Edom according
to mine anger, and according to my fury, and they shall know my
vengeance, saith the Lord God.”—Ezekiel, xxv. 13, 14.

“Say unto it, thus saith the Lord God, behold, O Mount Seir, I am
against thee, and I will stretch out mine hand against thee, and I
will make thee most desolate, I will lay thy cities waste, and thou
shalt be desolate, and thou shalt know that I am the Lord. Because
thou hast had a perpetual hatred, and hast shed the blood of the
children of Israel, by the force of the sword, in the time of their
calamity.”—Ezekiel, xxxv. 3, 4.

“The cormorant and the bittern shall possess it, the owl also and the
raven shall dwell in it, and he shall stretch out upon it the line of
confusion, and the stones of emptiness. The thorns shall come up in
her palaces, nettles and brambles in the fortresses thereof, and it
shall be an habitation of dragons, and a court for owls.”—Isaiah,
xxxiv. 11, 13.

“And Edom shall be a desolation; every one, that goeth by it, shall
be astonished, and shall hiss at the plagues thereof.”—Jeremiah,
xlix. 17.

“And the house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a
flame, and the house of Esau for stubble, and they shall kindle in
them, and devour them, and there shall not be any remaining of the
house of Esau.”—Obadiah, 18.

NO. XVI.—PHIGALIA.

This was a town of Arcadia, called after Phigalus. Bacchus and Diana had each a temple there, and the public places were adorned with the statues of illustrious natives. “In the forum,” says Anacharsis, “is a statue which might serve for the history of the arts. The feet are almost joined, and the pendant hands are fastened close to the sides and thighs; for in this manner were statues formerly sculptured in Greece, and thus they are still in Egypt. It was erected for the athlete Arrhacion, who gained one of the prizes in the 52nd, 53rd, and 54th Olympiads. We may hence conclude that, two centuries before our time, many statuaries still servilely followed the Egyptian taste.”

This town was situated on a high and craggy rock, near Megalopolis. Being the key, as it were, of Arcadia, the Lacedemonians laid siege to it and took it 659 B. C. In order to regain the city, the inhabitants consulted the oracle of Delphos, who directed them to select one hundred men from Orestasium to assist them. These brave persons perished; but the Orestasians, in concert with the Phigalians, attacked their enemies and routed them. The Phigalians afterwards erected a monument in honour of the one hundred men who had fallen.

There was one temple dedicated to Diana Conservatrix, in which was her statue, and another dedicated to Apollo the Deliverer.

Chandler relates, that M. Joachim Bocher, an architect of Paris, was desirous of examining a building near Caritena. He was still remote from that place, when he perceived a ruin, two hours from Verrizza, which prevented him from going further. This ruin stands on an eminence, sheltered by lofty mountains. The temple, it is supposed, was that of Apollo Epicurius, near Phigalia. It was of the Doric order, and had six columns in front. The number which ranged round the cella was thirty-eight. Two at the angles are fallen; the rest are entire, in good preservation, and support their architraves. Within them lies a confused heap. The stone inclines to grey, with reddish veins. To its beauty is added great precision in the workmanship. These remains had their effect, striking equally the mind and the eye of the beholder.

The walls of Phigalia alone remain; they were flanked with towers, both square and circular. One gate towards the east is yet covered by blocks, which approach each other like the underside of a staircase. There has been a temple, of fine limestone, of the Doric order, on which is an inscription.

Pausanias describes Phigalia as surrounded by mountains, of which one named _Cotylium_ was distant about forty stadia, or five miles. The temple of Apollo stood on this, at a place called Bassæ.

Under the ruins of this temple, the Baron Von Stachelberg discovered, in 1812, some curious bas-reliefs, which are now in the British Museum. They were executed in the time of Pericles, the temple having been built by Ictinus, the architect of the Parthenon.

These bas-reliefs, representing the battle of the Centaurs and Lapithæ, and the combat between the Greeks and Amazons, composed the frieze in the interior of the cella, in the temple of Apollo the Deliverer. The battle of the Centaurs and Lapithæ is sculptured on eleven slabs of marble; that of the Greeks and Amazons occupies twelve.

Besides these there are other fragments from the same temple:—1. A fragment of a Doric capital of one of the columns of the peristyle. 2. A fragment of an Ionic temple of one of the columns of the cella. 3. Two fragments of the tiles, which surmounted the pediments, and formed the superior moulding. 4. Fragments of metopes, found in the porticos.

The following observations lately appeared in the Times newspaper:—“In the saloon of the British Museum are the celebrated bas-reliefs, found at Mount Cobylus, near the ancient city of Phigalia, in Arcadia. They represent the battles of the Greeks and Amazons, and those of Theseus and the Lapithæ against the Centaurs. According to Pausanias, they were the work of Ictinus, a contemporary of Phidias. The grandeur of conception displayed in their composition, the variety of attitude and action shown, is not surpassed by those in the Elgin saloon, though their execution may be inferior. The combat of the Greeks and Amazons occupies twelve slabs of marble, and that of the Centaurs eleven. Both the history of the Amazons and the battle, here represented, are obscure. The origin of the name is derived from two words, ‘Ama’ or ‘Ma,’ which in all old languages signifies ‘mother’—its ubiquity is proof of its antiquity—and the ancient name of the sun, as found in the Temple of Heliopolis, in Egypt, is ‘On,’ ‘Ton,’ or ‘Zoan;’ but that any nation of Amazons, in the vulgar acceptation of the word, ever existed, is more than problematical. Faber says that those nations, who worshipped the female principle of the world, such as the Iberians, the Cimmerians, the Mootæ, the Atalantians of Mauritania, and the Ionians, were Amazons, and a celebrated invasion of Attica by them is mentioned. We are told that Eumolphus, an Egyptian, was the leader; and Pausanias mentions an Attic victory or trophy, called an Amazonium, erected to their manes. According to Arrian, the Queen of the Amazons, on the borders of the Caspian Sea, sent ambassadors with defiance to Alexander. In the time of Pompey, they were still supposed to exist; and Dion Cassius says, that in the Mithridatic war buskins and boots were found by the Roman soldiers, undoubtedly Amazonian. The worship of the male and female deities in Greece caused peace between the sects, and the origin of their quarrel and their name was forgotten in Europe. In Asia the Persians and the Jews seem still to have formed an exception. Cambyses, in his invasion, destroyed in Egypt everything connected with the female worship; he overturned the sphinxes, but he left the obelisks untouched. The scene of the combat, depicted on these tablets, is drawn with great force and spirit: some of the Amazons have long tunics, others short vestments, only reaching to the knee; one on horseback has trousers, and loose sleeves reaching to the wrist; on the head of some is the Archaic helmet, and those without have the hair fastened in a knot on the top; they all but one wear boots, which reach to the knees; their robes are fastened with a zone; some have two belts crossed between the breasts; their arms are swords, and the double-headed Scythian battle-axe, as also spears, bows, and arrows. None of these last are preserved, they being probably of bronze, as the holes remain, and added afterwards, as was the custom with ancient sculpture; the shields are small, and of the lunar form, opening at top. The Athenian warriors have cloaks, or tunics, fastened round the neck, and tightened about the waist by a belt; it reaches no lower than the knee; the right arm is bare. In one group a fierce warrior has seized a mounted Amazon by the hair; he is dragging her from the horse, which is rearing. The action of the female figure is very fine: she firmly maintains her seat, till relieved by another; who, with uplifted axe and shield to protect her from the flying arrows, shall have brained her antagonist. The 18th slab has five figures and two horses; in one the horse has fallen, and an Athenian warrior has his right hand fixed on the throat of the Amazon, while, with the other hand, he has grasped her foot, and drags her, who seems to have lost all recollection, from the horse’s back. The position of the centre figure is very fine: he is within the guard of the shield of the Amazon, and is striking a deadly blow with his hand, in which has been a sword. In another group an Athenian has fallen; he rests on his left hand, and extends his right in supplication to the female warriors who surround him, and is in the act of surrendering, while behind him an Amazon is striking him with her battle-axe. In the sculptures of the Lapithæ and Centaurs all the warriors, with the exception of Theseus, are armed with swords, who, as an imitator of Hercules, has a club. The shields are large and circular; they have a broad border round the circumference, and resemble those of the Ephibi of Athens. Of the helmets there are four kinds—one which fits the head closely, without either crest or vizor; another with a crest, and one with guards for the ears, and a fourth with a pointed vizor. In one of the sculptures Theseus is seen attacking a Centaur; he has the head of the monster under his left arm, and with the right, which probably held a club of bronze, as the hole remains, he is destroying him. He appears to have arrived just in time to save Hippodomia, whom the Centaur has disrobed, and who is clinging to the statue of Diana. From the tiara behind, and the lion’s skin, this figure is supposed to be Theseus; the Centaur is Eurytion; a female figure is also seen pleading on her behalf, and, in the distance, a Goddess is hastening in a car drawn by stags to the rescue; this probably is Diana, as the temple was dedicated to Apollo.”

The city of Phigalia is now become a mere village, known by the name of Paolitza[97].

NO. XVII.—PLATÆA.

This city has long been famous; for it was in a plain near to it that was fought the celebrated battle between the Greeks and Persians[98]. On the evening previous to the engagement, the Grecians held a council of war, in which it was resolved, that they should decamp from the place they were in, and march to another more conveniently situated for water. Night being come on, and the officers endeavouring at the head of their corps to make more haste than ordinary to the camp marked out for them, great confusion happened among the troops, some going one way and some another, without observing any order or regularity in their march. At last they halted near the little city of Platæa.

On the first news of the Grecians being decamped, Mardonius drew his army into order of battle, and pursued them with hideous shouting and bawling of his barbarian forces, who thought they were advancing not so much in order of battle, as to strip and plunder a flying enemy; and their general likewise, making himself sure of victory, proudly insulted Artabazus; reproaching him with his fearful and cowardly prudence, and with the false notion, he had conceived of the Lacedæmonians, who never fled, as he pretended, before an enemy; whereas here was an instance of the contrary. But the general found quickly this was no false or ill-grounded notion. He happened to fall in with the Lacedæmonians, who were alone and separated from the body of the Grecian army, to the number of fifty thousand men, together with three thousand of the Tegeatæ. The encounter was exceedingly fierce and resolute on both sides; the men fought with the courage of lions, and the barbarians perceived that they had to do with soldiers, who were determined to conquer or die on the field. The Athenian troops, to whom Pausanias sent an officer, were already upon their march to their aid; but the Greeks who had taken part with the Persians, to the number of fifty thousand men, went out to meet them on their way, and hindered them from proceeding any farther. Aristides, with his little body of men, bore up firmly against them, and withstood their attack, telling them how insignificant a superiority of numbers is against true courage and bravery. The battle being thus divided, and fought in two different places, the Spartans were the first who broke in upon the Persian forces, and put them in disorder. Mardonius, their general, falling dead of a wound he had received in the engagement, all his army betook themselves to flight; and those Greeks, who were engaged against Aristides, did the same thing as soon as they understood the barbarians were defeated. The latter ran away to their former camp which they had quitted, where they were sheltered and fortified with an inclosure of wood.

The manner, in which the Lacedæmonians treated the Platæans some time after, is, also, not unworthy of remembrance. About the end of the campaign, which is that wherein Mitylene was taken, the Platæans, being in absolute want of provisions, and unable to make the least defence, surrendered, upon condition that they should not be punished till they had been tried and judged in form of justice. Five commissioners came for that purpose from Lacedæmon; and these, without charging them for any crime, barely asked them, Whether they had done any service to the Lacedæmonians and the allies in war? The Platæans were much surprised as well as puzzled at this question, and were sensible that it had been suggested by the Thebans, their professed enemies, who had vowed their destruction. They therefore put the Lacedæmonians in mind of the services, they had done to Greece in general; both at the battle of Artemesium, and that of Platæa, and particularly in Lacedæmonia, at the time of the earthquake, which was followed by the revolt of their slaves. The only reason, they declared, of their having joined the Athenians afterwards, was to defend themselves from the hostilities of the Thebans, against whom they had implored the assistance of the Lacedæmonians to no purpose: that if that was imputed to them as a crime, which was only their misfortune, it ought not however entirely to obliterate the remembrance of their former services. “Cast your eyes,” said they, “on the monuments of your ancestors, which you see here, to whom we annually pay all the honours, which can be rendered to the manes of the dead. You thought fit to entrust their bodies with us, as we were eye-witnesses of their bravery; and yet you will now give up their ashes to their murderers, in abandoning us to the Thebans, who fought against us at the battle of Platæa. Will you enslave a province where Greece recovered its liberty? Will you destroy the temples of those gods to whom you owe the victory? Will you abolish the memory of their founders, who contributed so greatly to your safety? On this occasion, we may venture to say, our interest is inseparable from your glory; and you cannot deliver up your ancient friends and benefactors to the unjust hatred of the Thebans, without eternal infamy to yourselves.”

One would conclude, that these just remonstrances would have made some impression on the Lacedæmonians; but they were biassed more by the answer the Thebans made, and which was expressed in the most bitter and haughty terms against the Platæans, and, besides, they had brought their instructions from Lacedæmon. They stood, therefore, to their first question, “Whether the Platæans had done them any service during the war?” And making them pass one after another, as they severally answered “No,” each was immediately butchered, and not one escaped. About two hundred were killed in this manner; and twenty-five Athenians, who were among them, met the same unhappy fate. Their wives, who were taken prisoners, were made slaves. The Thebans afterwards peopled their city with exiles from Megara and Platæa; but, the year after, they demolished the latter entirely. It was in this manner the Lacedæmonians, in the hopes of reaping great advantages from the Thebans, sacrificed the Platæans to their animosity, ninety-three years after their first alliance with the Athenians.

Herodotus relates, that cenotaphs, composed of heaps of earth, were raised near the town; but no vestige of these remain; nor are there any traces of the sepulchres of those who fell at Platæa. These are mentioned by Plutarch, who says, that at the anniversary of those who were killed at Platæa, the Archon crossed the city to go to the sepulchres, and drawing water from the fountain in a vase, washed the columns of the tombs, and made libations of wine, oil, milk, and perfumes.

Here was a temple of Minerva, in which Polygnotus executed a group of the return of Ulysses; and a statue of the goddess of great size, of gilt wood; but the face, hands, and feet, were of ivory. Also a temple of Diana, in which was a monument of Euchidas, a citizen of Platæa, to commemorate his having run from Platæa to Delphos, and returned before sunset: he expired a few minutes after. The distance was thirty-seven leagues and a half.

Mr. Dodwell says, he could find no certain traces of this temple, nor of one dedicated to Ceres, unless several heaps of large stones might be regarded as such. Neither could he find any remains of a stadium. He saw, however, a frieze of white marble, enriched with Ionic ornaments.

Dr. Clarke says, that the upper part of the promontory is covered with ruins; amidst which he found some pieces of serpentine porphyry; and the peasants, he says, in ploughing the soil in the neighbourhood, find their labours frequently obstructed by large blocks of stone, and earth, filled with broken remains of terra cottas. The ground-plot and foundations of temples are visible among the vestiges of the citadel, and remains of towers are conspicuous upon the walls.

The walls form a triangle of about three thousand three hundred yards in compass. In some parts they are in a high state of preservation, and extremely interesting; since they were rebuilt in the reign of Alexander, after having been destroyed by the Persians. They are of regular masonry, eight feet in thickness, and fortified by towers, most of which are square.[99]

The view from the ruins is extremely interesting and beautiful. “When we look towards Thebes,” says Mr. Dodwell, “we behold the Asopos, and the other small streams, winding through this memorable plain, which, towards the west, is separated by a low range of hills from the equally celebrated field of Leuctra; while the distant view is terminated by the two pointed summits of Helicon, and the snow-topped heights of Parnassus.”—“What must this city have been, in all its pride and glory!” exclaims Mr. Williams. “The remains now appear grey as twilight; but without a charm of returning day. Time is modelling now, instead of art. Miles of ancient pottery and tiles, hardly allowing the blades of corn to grow among the ruins; sheep-tracks among the massive foundations; asses loaded with brush-wood, from shrubs growing in the courts of ancient palaces and temples; shepherds with their flocks, the bells of the goats heard from among the rocks; tombs and sarcophagi of ancient heroes, covered with moss, some broken and some entire; fragments, and ornaments, and stones containing mutilated inscriptions;—these are the objects, which Platæa now presents. But who, that stands there, with a recollection of its ancient glory, and having Parnassus full in view, can quit the spot without regret?[100]”

NO. XVIII.—PÆSTUM.[101]

Wreck of the mighty—relics of the dead—
Who may remove the veil o’er PÆSTUM spread,
Who pierce the clouds that rest upon your name,
Or from oblivion’s eddies snatch your fame?—
Yet as she stands within your mould’ring walls,
_Fancy_—the days of former pride recalls;
And at her bidding—lo! the Tyrrhene shore,
Swarms with its countless multitude once more;
And bright pavilions rise;—her magic art
Peoples thy streets, and throngs thy busy mart.
In quick succession her creative power
Restores the splendour of Phœnicia’s hour,
Revives the Sybarite’s unbless’d repose,
Toss’d on the foldings of the Pæstum rose,
Lucania’s thraldom—Rome’s imperial sway,
The Vandal’s triumph—and the robber’s prey.

But truth beholds thee now, a dreary waste;
Where solitude usurps the realms of taste.
Where once thy doubly blooming roses smiled,
The nettle riots, and the thorn runs wild;
Primeval silence broods upon thy plain,
And ruin holds her desolate domain:
Save where, in massive pride, three temples stand
Colossal fragments of a mighty land.
Sepulchral monuments of fame, that tower
In proud derision of barbarian power;
That still survive and mock, with front sublime,
The spoiler’s vengeance, and the strifes of time.

ROGERS.

When the president Dupaty first beheld Pæstum, he expressed his admiration in the following manner:—“No; I am not at Pæstum, in a city of the Sybarites! Never did the Sybarites choose for their habitation so horrible a desert; never did they build a city in the midst of weeds, on a parched soil, on a spot where the little water to be met with is stagnant and dirty. Lead me to one of those groves of roses, which still bloom in the poetry of Virgil.[102] Show me some baths of alabaster; some palaces of marble; show me on all sides voluptuousness, and you will indeed make me believe I am at Pæstum. It is true, nevertheless, that it was the Sybarites who built these three temples, in one of which I write this letter, seated on the ruins of a pediment, which has withstood the ravages of two thousand years. How strange! Sybarites and works that have endured two thousand years! How could Sybarites imagine and erect so prodigious a number of columns of such vile materials, of such uncouth workmanship, of so heavy a mass, and such a sameness of form? It is not the character of Grecian columns to crush the earth; they lightly mounted into the air; these, on the contrary, weigh ponderously on the earth; they fall. The Grecian columns had an elegant and slender shape, around which the eye continually glided; these have a wide and clumsy form, around which it is impossible for the eye to turn: our pencils and our graving-tools, which flatter every monument, have endeavoured in vain to beautify them. I am of the opinion of those, who think that these temples were the earliest essays of the Grecian architecture, and not its masterpieces. The Greeks, when they erected these pillars, were searching for the column. It must be admitted, however, that, notwithstanding their rusticity, these temples do possess beauties; they present at least simplicity, unity, and a whole, which constitute the first of beauties: the imagination may supply almost all the others, but it never can supply these. It is impossible to visit these places without emotion. I proceed across desert fields, along a frightful road, far from all human traces, at the foot of rugged mountains, on shores where there is nothing but the sea; and suddenly I behold a temple, then a second, then a third: I make my way through grass and weeds; I mount on the socle of a column, or on the ruins of a pediment: a cloud of ravens take their flight; cows low in the bottom of a sanctuary; the adder, basking between the column and the weeds, hisses and makes his escape; a young shepherd, however, carelessly leaning on an ancient cornice, stands serenading with his reedy pipe the vast silence of this desert.” Such was the language of Dupaty, when he entered these celebrated ruins; nor was his enthusiasm in any way misplaced.

Pæstum was a town of Lucania, called by the Greeks Posidonia and Neptunia, from its being situated in the bay. It was then called Sinus Pæstanus; now the Gulf of Salerno.

Obscurity hangs not only over the origin, but over the general history of this city. The mere outlines have been sketched, perhaps, with accuracy; but the details are, doubtless, obliterated for ever.

In scenery Pæstum yields not only to Baiæ, but to many other towns in the vicinity of Vesuvius; yet, in noble and well-preserved monuments of antiquity, it surpasses any city in Italy; the immortal capital alone excepted.

The origin of the city may be safely referred to remote antiquity; but those are probably in the right, who would fix the period at which the existing temples were erected, as a little posterior to the building of the Parthenon at Athens. But even this calculation leaves them the venerable age of twenty-two centuries; and so firm and strong are they still, that, except in the case of extraordinary convulsions of nature, two thousand two hundred and many more years may pass over their mighty columns and architraves, and they remain, as they now are,—the object of the world’s admiration.

Whatever age we may ascribe to the temples, certain it is that the city cannot be less than two thousand five hundred years old.

It was founded by a colony of the Dorians, who called it Posetan; a Phœnician name for the God of the Sea, to whom it was dedicated. Those settlers were driven out by the Sybarites, who extended the name to Posidonia. The Sybarites were expelled by the Lucanians; and these, in turn, were expelled by the Romans, who took possession of it (A.C. 480). From this time the poets alone are found to speak of it. It was, nevertheless, the first city of Southern Italy, that embraced the Christian doctrine. In 840, the Saracens, having subdued Sicily, surprised the city, and took possession. The question now arises, to whom was Pæsium indebted for its temples? To this it has been answered, that, as the ruins seem to exhibit the oldest specimens of Greek architecture now in existence, the probability is, that they were erected by the Dorians.

“In beholding them,” says Mr. Eustace, “and contemplating their solidity, bordering upon heaviness, we are tempted to consider them as an intermediate link between the Egyptian and Grecian monuments; and the first attempt to pass from the immense masses of the former, to the graceful proportions of the latter.”

“On entering the walls,” says Mr. Forsyth, “I felt the religion of the place. I stood as on sacred ground. I stood amazed at the long obscurity of its mighty ruins. They can be descried with a glass from Salerno; the high road of Calabria commands a distant view; the city of Capaccio looks down upon them, and a few wretches have always lived on the spot; yet they remain unnoticed by the best Neapolitan antiquaries.”

The FIRST temple[103] that presents itself, to the traveller from Naples, is the smallest. It consists of six pillars at each end, and thirteen on each side. The cella occupied more than one-third of the length, and had a portico of two rows of columns, the shafts and capitals of which, now overgrown with grass and weeds, encumber the pavement, and almost fill the area of the temple:—

————The serpent sleeps, and the she-wolf
Suckles her young.

The columns of this temple are thick in proportion to their elevation, and much closer to each other than they are generally found to be in Greek temples; “and this,” says Mr. Forsyth, “crowds them advantageously on the eye, enlarges our idea of the space, and gives a grand and heroic air to a monument of very moderate dimensions.”

In the open space[104] between the first and second temples, were two other large buildings, built of the same sort of stone, and nearly of the same size. Their substructions still remain, encumbered with fragments of the columns of the entablatures; and so overgrown with brambles, nettles, and weeds, as scarcely to admit a near inspection.

The SECOND[105], or the Temple of NEPTUNE, is not the largest, but by far the most massy and imposing of the three: it has six columns in front and fourteen in length; the angular column to the west, with its capital, has been struck and partially shivered by lightning. It once threatened to fall and ruin the symmetry of one of the most perfect monuments now in existence, but it has been secured by iron cramps. An inner peristyle of much smaller columns rises in the cella, in two stories, with only an architrave, which has neither frieze nor cornice between the columns, which thus almost seem standing, the one on the capital of the other—a defect in architecture, which is, however, justified by Vitruvius and the example of the Parthenon. The light pillars of this interior peristyle, of which some have fallen, rise a few feet above the exterior cornice and the massy columns of the temple. Whether you gaze at this wonderful edifice from without or from within, as you stand on the floor of the cella, which is much encumbered with heaps of fallen stones and rubbish, the effect is awfully grand. The utter solitude, and the silence, never broken save by the flight and screams of the crows and birds of prey, which, your approach may scare from the cornices and architraves, where they roost in great numbers, add to the solemn impression, produced by those firm-set and eternal-looking columns.

The THIRD edifice is the largest[106]. It has nine pillars at the end and eighteen on the sides. Its size is not its only distinction; a row of pillars, extending from the middle pillar at one end to the middle pillar on the other, divides it into equal parts, and it is considered that though it is now called a temple, it was not one originally. Some imagine it to have been a Curia, others a Basilica, and others an Exchange.

These relics stand on the edge of a vast and desolate plain[107], that extends from the neighbourhood of Salerno nearly to the confines of Calabria. The approach to them is exceedingly impressive. For miles scarcely a human habitation is seen, or any living creature, save herds of buffaloes. And when you are within the lines of the ancient walls of the town—of the once opulent and magnificent Pæstum—only a miserable little taverna, or house of entertainment, a barn, and a mean modern edifice, belonging to the nominal bishop of the place, and nearly always uninhabited, meet your eye. But there the three ancient edifices rise before you in the most imposing and sublime manner—they can hardly be called ruins, they have still such a character of firmness and entireness. Their columns seem to be rooted in the earth, or to have grown from it!

“Accustomed as we were[108] to the ancient and modern magnificence of Rome,” says Stuart, “in regard to the Parthenon, and, by what we had heard and read, impressed with an advantageous opinion of what we were to see, we found the image our fancy had preconceived greatly inferior to the real object.” Yet Wheler, who upon such a subject cannot be considered as of equal authority with Stuart, says of the monuments of antiquity yet remaining at Athens,—“I dare prefer them before any place in the world, _Rome only excepted_.” “If,” continues Dr. Clarke, “there be upon earth any buildings, which may be fairly brought into a comparison with the Parthenon, they are the temples of Pæstum in Lucania. But even these can only be so with reference to their superior antiquity, to their severe simplicity, and to the perfection of design visible in their structure. In graceful proportion, in magnificence, in costliness of materials, in splendid decoration, and in every thing that may denote the highest degree of improvement to which the Doric style of architecture ever attained, they are vastly inferior.” This is, at least, that author’s opinion. Lusieri, however, entertained different sentiments. Lusieri had resided at Pæstum; and had dedicated to those buildings a degree of study which, added to his knowledge of the arts, well qualified him to decide upon a question as to the relative merits of the Athenian and Posidonian specimens of Grecian architecture. His opinion is very remarkable. He considered the temples at Pæstum as examples of a pure style, or, as he termed it, of a more correct and classical taste. “In these buildings,” said he, “the Doric order attained a pre-eminence beyond which it never passed; not a stone has been there placed without some evident and important design; every part of the structure bespeaks its own essential utility[109].”

“Can there be any doubt,” says Mr. Williams, “that in the temple of Neptune at Pæstum, the very forms have something within themselves, calculated to fill the mind with the impression which belongs to the sublime; whilst, in the temple of Theseus (at Athens), the simple preservation of its form bespeaks that species of admiration, that peculiar feeling, which beauty is calculated to draw forth? It required not age to constitute the one sublime, or the other beautiful. In truth, their respective characters must have been much more deeply impressed upon them in their most perfect state, than in the mutilated form in which they now stand; surrounded by the adventitious attributes with which antiquity invests every monument of human art.”

Several medals[110] have been found at Pæstum; but they denote a degeneracy from Grecian skill and elegance, being more clumsily designed and executed than most coins of Magna Græcia.

The private habitations[111] were unable to resist the dilapidations of so many ages; but the town wall is almost entire, and incloses an area of three miles in circumference. In many places it is of the original height, and built with oblong stones, dug out of the adjacent fields. They are a red tavertino, formed by a sediment of sulphureous water, of which a strong stream washes the foot of the walls. It comes from the mountains, and, spreading itself over a flat, forms pools, where buffaloes are in summer continually wallowing up to their noses.

These walls are built of huge polyhedric stones[112], which afford some idea of what has been lately thought the Cyclopean construction. Their materials, however, are a grey stone, without any mixture of the marble, granite, and lava, which are held essential to their construction. They are five, at least[113], and, in some places, twelve feet high. They are formed of solid blocks of stone, with towers at intervals; the archway of one gate only, however, stands entire. Considering the materials and the extent of this rampart, which incloses a space of nearly four miles round, with the many towers that rose at intervals, and its elevation of more than forty feet, it must be acknowledged that it was, on the whole, a work not only of great strength, but of great magnificence.

The material, of which they are built, is the same throughout each of the temples and common to all. It is an exceedingly hard, but porous and brittle stone, of a sober brownish-grey colour. It is a curious fact, that not only the ignorant people on the spot, but Neapolitan antiquaries also, wonder whence the ancients brought these masses of curious stone: and yet few things are more certain, than that they found them on the spot.

The stone of these edifices[114] was probably formed at Pæstum itself, by the brackish water of the Salso acting on vegetable earth, roots, and plants; for you can distinguish their petrified tubes in every column:—and Mr. Macfarlane, who passed a considerable time on the spot, adds, “The brackish water of the river Salso that runs by the wall of the town, and in different branches across the plain, has so strong a petrifying virtue that you can almost follow the operation with the eye. The waters of the neighbouring Sele (a considerable river—the ancient Silarus) have in all ages been remarkable for the same quality. In many places where the soil had been removed, we perceived strata of stone similar to the stones which compose the temples; and I could almost venture to say that the substratum of all the plain, from the Sele to Acropoli, is of the like substance. Curious petrifactions of leaves, pieces of wood, insects, and other vegetable and animal matters, are observed in the materials of columns, walls, &c.”

Taking these wonderful objects into view[115], their immemorial antiquity, their astonishing preservation, their grandeur, or rather grandiosity, their bold columnar elevation, at once massive and open, their severe simplicity of design, that simplicity in which art gradually begins, and to which, after a thousand revolutions of ornament, it again returns, taking, says Mr. Forsyth, all into one view, “I do not hesitate to call these the most impressive monuments I ever beheld on earth.”

Within[116] those walls, that once encircled a populous and splendid city, now rise one cottage, two farm-houses, a villa, and a church. The remaining space is covered with thick, matted grass, overgrown with brambles, spreading over the ruins, or buried under yellow, undulating corn; a few rose-bushes flourish neglected here and there, and still blossom twice a year;—in May and December. They are remarkable for their fragrance. Amid these objects and scenes, rural and ordinary, rise the three temples, like the mausoleums of the ruined city, dark, silent, and majestic[117].

“Majestic fanes of deities unknown!
Ages have roll’d since here ye stood—alone;—
Since your walls echoed to the sacred choir,
Or blazed your altars sacrificial fire.
And now—the wandering classic pilgrim sees
The wild bird nestling in the sculptured frieze;
Each fluted shaft by desert weeds embraced,
Triglyphs, obscured entablatures defaced;
Sees ill-timed verdure clothe each awful pile,
While Nature lends her melancholy smile;
And misplaced garniture of flowers that shed
Their sweets, as if in mockery of the dead.”—ROGERS.

NO. XIX.—POMPEII.

This city is said to have been built by Hercules; and so called, because the hero there exhibited a long procession (Pompa) of the captives, he had taken in Spain, and the head of Geryon, which he had obtained by conquest.

The Oscans, Cumæans, Etruscans, and Samnites, seem to have been successive possessors of the district in which the city stood.

Although evidently of Grecian origin, nothing certain is known of its early history. With many other cities, it underwent various reverses during the Punic and Social wars of the Romans. It was besieged by Sylla; and, about the age of Augustus, became a colony; when its history merges in the more important annals of the Roman Empire.

Pompeii shared the fate of Herculaneum[118].

In the month of February, A. D. 63, the Pompeians were surprised by an earthquake and eruption, which caused considerable damage. As soon, however, as the inhabitants had recovered their consternation, they began to clear away the ruins, and to repair the damage sustained by the edifices.

After an interval of sixteen years, during which period several shocks were experienced, on the night of the 29th of August, A. D. 79, a volume of smoke and ashes issued from the mouth of the crater of Vesuvius with a tremendous explosion. After rising to a certain height, it extended itself like a lofty pine; and, assuming a variety of colours, fell and covered the surrounding country with desolation and dismay.

The inhabitants, terrified by repeated shocks, and breathing an atmosphere no longer fit to support life, sought refuge in flight; but were suffocated by the ashes, oppressed by flames of fire, or overwhelmed by the falling edifices. In this awful time, Pliny the Elder lost his life.

Pompeii, notwithstanding this, once more rose from its ashes; but was again overwhelmed in A. D. 471[119].

It would be difficult to decide upon the relative magnitude of Pompeii and Herculaneum: yet, from the lead it takes in ancient authors, the former must, in all probability, have been the most populous. Its walls were once washed by the waves: but the sea has since retired to some distance. The chief approach from Rome to Pompeii was through Naples and Herculaneum, along a branch of the Appian way[120].

As you walk round the city walls[121], and see how the volcanic matter is piled upon it in one heap, it looks as though the hand of man had purposely buried it, by carrying and throwing over it the volcanic matter. This matter does not spread in any direction beyond the town, over the fine plain which gently declines towards the bay of Naples. The volcanic eruption was so confined in its course or its fall, as to bury Pompeii, and only Pompeii:—for the showers of ashes and pumice-stone, which descended in the immediate neighbourhood, certainly made but a slight difference in the elevation of the plain. When a town has been buried by lava, like Herculaneum, the process is easily traced. You can follow the black, hardened lava from the cone of the mountain to the sea, whose waters it invaded for “many a rood;” and those who have seen the lava in its liquid state, when it flows on like a river of molten iron, can conceive at once how it would bury every thing it found in its way. There is often a confusion of ideas, among those who have not had the advantage of visiting these interesting places, as to the matter which covers Pompeii and Herculaneum. They fancy they were both buried by lava. Herculaneum was so, and the work of excavating there was like digging in a quarry of very hard stone. The descent into the places, cleared, is like the descent into a quarry or mine, and you are always under ground, lighted by torches. But Pompeii[122] was covered by loose mud, pumice-stone, and ashes; over which, in the course of centuries, there collected vegetable soil. Beneath this shallow soil, the whole is very crumbly and easy to dig,—in few spots more difficult than one of our common gravel-pits. The matter excavated is carried off in carts, and thrown outside the town; and at times when the labour is carried on with activity, as cart after cart withdraws with the earth that covered them, you see houses entire, except their roofs, which have nearly all fallen in, make their appearance; and, by degrees, a whole street opens to the sunshine or the shower, just like the streets of any inhabited neighbouring town. It is curious to observe, as the volcanic matter is removed, that the houses are built principally of lava, the more ancient product of the same Vesuvius, whose latter result buried and concealed Pompeii for so many ages.

It is certainly surprising[123], that this most interesting city should have remained undiscovered till so late a period, and that antiquaries and learned men should have so long and materially erred about its situation. In many places, masses of ruins, portions of the buried theatres, temples, and houses, were not two feet below the surface of the soil. The country people were continually digging up pieces of worked marble, and other antique objects. In several spots they had even laid open the outer walls of the town; and yet men did not find out what it was that the peculiar isolated mound of cinders and ashes, earth and pumice-stone, covered. There is another circumstance which increases the wonder of Pompeii being so long concealed. A subterranean canal, cut from the river Sarno, traverses the city, and is seen darkly and silently gliding under the temple of Isis. This is said to have been cut towards the middle of the fifteenth century, to supply the contiguous town of Torre dell’ Annunziata with fresh water; it probably ran anciently in the same channel; but cutting it, or clearing it, workmen must have crossed under Pompeii from one side to the other.

In a work, so limited in extent as this, it is utterly impossible to give any thing like a representation of the various objects to be seen in the exceedingly curious ruins of this city. We can, therefore, only give a general outline, and refer the reader to the very beautiful illustrations, published by Sir William Gell, in 1817 and 1819; and more especially to those published by the same accomplished antiquary in 1832. Never was there any thing equal, or in any way assimilating to them, in the world before! The former work contains all that was excavated up to those years; the latter the topography, edifices, and ornaments of Pompeii, the result of excavation since 1819.

“Pompeii,” writes Mr. Taylor to M. Ch. Nodier, “has passed near twenty centuries in the bowels of the earth; nations have trodden above its site, while its monuments still remained standing, and all their ornaments untouched. A cotemporary of Augustus, could he return hither, might say, ‘I greet thee, O my country! my dwelling is the only spot upon the earth which has preserved its form; an immunity extending even to the smallest objects of my affection. Here is my couch; there are my favourite authors. My paintings, also, are still fresh, as when the ingenious artist spread them over my walls. Come, let us traverse the town; let us visit the theatre; I recognise the spot where I joined, for the first time, in the plaudits given to the fine scenes of Terence and Euripides. Rome is but one vast museum;—Pompeii is _a living antiquity_.’”

The houses of Pompeii are upon a small scale; generally of one, sometimes of two stories. The principal apartments are always behind, inclosing a court, with a portico round it, and a marble cistern in the middle. The pavements are all mosaic, and the walls are stained with agreeable colours; the decorations are basso-relievos in stucco, and paintings in medallion. Marble seems to have been common.

On both sides of the street[124] the houses stand quite in contact with each other, as in modern times. They are nearly of the same height and dimensions, being similarly paved and painted. The houses, as we have before stated, are on a small scale. The principal apartments are always behind, surrounding a court, with a small piazza about it, and having a cistern of marble in its centre.

An edifice, supposed to be Sallust’s house, has an unusually showy appearance. The rooms are painted with the figures of gods and goddesses, and the floors decorated with marbles and mosaic pavements.

The gates of the city, now visible, are five in number. These are known by the names of Herculaneum or Naples, Vesuvius, Nola, Sarno, and Stabiæ[125]. The city was surrounded with walls, the greater portion of which have also been traced. Its greatest length is little more than half a mile, and its circuit nearly two miles. It occupied an area of about one hundred and sixty-one acres. The general figure of the city is something like that of an egg. There have been excavated about eighty houses, an immense number of small shops, the public baths, two theatres, two basilicæ, eight temples, the prison, the amphitheatre, with other public buildings of less note; and also fountains and tombs. The streets are paved with large irregular pieces of lava, neatly dovetailed into each other. This pavement is rutted with the chariot wheels, sometimes to the depth of one inch and a half. In general, the streets are so narrow, that they may be crossed at one stride; where they are of greater breadth, a stepping-stone was placed in the middle for the convenience of foot passengers. On each side of the street there is a footpath, the sides of which are provided with curbs, varying from one foot to eighteen inches high, to prevent the encroachments of the chariots.

It is well known[126], that amongst the Romans bathing formed part of every day’s occupation. In the year 1824, the baths of Pompeii were excavated. They are admirably arranged, spacious, highly decorated, and superior to any thing of the kind in modern cities. They are, fortunately, in good preservation, and throw considerable light on what the ancients have written upon the subject. Various circumstances prove, that the completion of the baths only a short while preceded the destruction of the city.

They occupy a considerable space, and are divided into three separate apartments. One of these was set apart for the fire-places and the accommodation of the servants, and the other two were each occupied by a set of baths, one of which was appropriated to the men, and the other to the women. The apartments and passages are paved with white marble in mosaic, or alternate white and black squares. The chambers are ornamented with various devices, and highly finished. Above one thousand lamps were discovered during the excavation.