The last days of Pompeii ... Copyright edition

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THE LAST DAYS. OF POMPEII BY THE RIGHT HON. LORD LYTTON •• Such is Vesuvius ! and these things take placj in it every year. But all eruptions which have happened since would be trifling, even if all summed into one, compared to what occurred at the period we refer to. .....'•'••••*'* ' " Dav was turned into night, and lig'^mto darkness ;' an inexpressible quantity of dust and ashes was poure! ouTdduSng fnd sea tnd air, and burying two entire ot.es, Herculaneum and Pompeii, while the people were sittj £g in the theatre ! "-Don Cassius, hb. lxvi. LONDON 'GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS BROADWAY, LUDGATE HILL NEW YORK: 416 BROOME STREET ROUTLEDGE'S Demy 8vo. Sixpenny Novels SKETCHES BY BOZ. OLIVER TWIST. THE PICKWICK PAPERS. Part i. THE PICKWICK PAPERS. Part 2. NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. Part i. NICHOLAS NICKLEBY.

Preface

TO THE EDITION OF 1834. On visiting those disinterred remains of an ancient City, which, more perhaps than either the delicious breeze or the cloudless sun, the violet valleys and orange-groves of the South, attract the traveller to the neighbourhood of Naples ; on viewing, still fresh and vivid, the houses, the streets, the temples, the theatres of a place existing in the haughtiest age of the Roman empire — it was not unnatural, perhaps, that a writer who had before laboured, however unworthily, in the art to revive and to create, should feel a keen desire to people once more those deserted streets, to repair those graceful ruins, to reanimate the bones which were yet spared to his survey ; to traverse the gulf of eighteen centuries, and to wake to a second existence — the City of the Dead !

And the reader will easily imagine how sensibly this desire grew upon one whose task was undertaken in the immediate neighbourhood of Pompeii — the sea that once bore her commerce, and received her fugitives, at his feet — and the fatal mountain of Vesuvius, still breathing forth smoke and fire, constantly before his eyes ! * I was aware from the first, however, of the great difficulties with which I had to contend. To paint the manners, and exhibit the life of the Middle Ages, required the hand of a master genius ; yet, perhaps, that task was slight and easy in comparison with the attempt to portray a far earlier and more unfamiliar period. With the men and customs of the feudal time we have a natural sympathy and bond of alliance ; those men were our own ancestors — from those customs we received our own — the creed of our chivalric fathers is still ours — their tombs yet consecrate our churches— the ruins of their castles yet frown over our valleys.

We trace in their struggles for liberty and for justice our present institutions ; and in the elements of their social state we behold the origin of our own. But with the classical age we have no household and familiar associations. The creed of that departed religion, the customs of that past civilisation, present little that is sacred or attractive to our northern imaginations ; they are rendered yet more trite to us by the scholastic pedantries which first acquainted us with their nature, and are linked with the recollection of studies which were imposed as a labour, and not cultivated as a delight. Yet the enterprise, though arduous, seemed to me worth attempting ; and in the time and the scene I have chosen, much may be found to arouse the curiosity of the reader, and enlist his interest in the descriptions of the author.

It was the first century of our religion ; it was the most civilised period of Rome ; the conduct of the story lies amidst places whose relics we yet trace ; the catastrophe is among the most awful which the tragedies of Ancient History present to our survey. From the ample materials before me, my endeavour has been to select those which would be most attractive to a modern reader; — the customs and superstitions least unfamiliar to|him — the shadows that, when reanimated, would present to him such images as, while they represented the past, might be least uninteresting to the speculations of the present. It did, indeed, require a greater self-control than the reader may at first imagine, to reject much that was most inviting in itself; but which, while it might have added attraction to parts of the work, would have been injurious to the symmetry of the whole.

Thus, for instance, the date of my story is that of the short reign of Titus, when Rome was at its proudest and most gigantic eminence of luxury and power. It was, therefore, a most inviting temptation to the Author to conduct the characters of his tale, during the progress of its incidents, from Pompeii to Rome. What could afford such materials for description, or such field for the vanity of display, as that gorgeous city of the world, whose grandeur could lend so bright an inspiration to fancy — so favourable and so solemn a dignity to research ? But, in choosing for my subject — my catastrophe, the Destruction of Pompeii, it required but little insight into the higher principles of art to perceive that to Pompeii the story should be rigidly confined. , Placed in contrast with the mighty pomp of Rome, the luxuries and gaud of the vivid Campanian city would have sunk into insignificance.

Her awful fate would have seemed but a petty and isolated wreck in the vast seas of the imperial sway ; and the auxiliary I should have summoned to the interest of my story, would only have destroyed and overpowered the cause it was invoked to support. I was therefore compelled to relinquish an episodical excursion so alluring in itself, and, confining my story strictly to Pompeii, to leave to others the honour of delineating the hollow but majestic civilisation of Rome. The city, whose fate supplied me with so superb and awful a catastrophe, supplied easily, from the first survey of its remains, the characters most suited to the subject and the scene : the half- Grecian colony of Hercules, mingling with the manners of Italy so much of the costumes of Hellas, suggested of itself the characters of Glaucus and Ione.

The worship of Isis, its existent fane, with its false oracles unveiled — the trade of Pompeii with Alexandria — the associations of the Sarnus with the Nile, — called forth the Egyptian Arbaces, the base Calenus, and the fervent Apæcides. The early struggles of Christianity with the heathen superstition suggested the creation of Olinthus : and the burnt fields of Campania, long celebrated for the spells of the sorceress, naturally produced the Saga of Vesuvius. For :he existence of the Blind Girl, I am indebted to a casual conversation with a gentleman, well known amongst the English at Naples for his general knowledge of the many paths of life. Speaking of the utter darkness which accompanied the first recorded eruption of Vesuvius, and the additional obstacle it presented to the escape of the inhabitants, he observed that the blind * Nearly the whole of this work was written at Naples last winter (1832-3).

PREFACE.

TO TIIE EDITION OF 1834. IV would be the most favoured in such a moment, and find the easiest deliverance. In this remark originated the creation of Nydia. _ The characters, therefore, are the natural offspring of the scene and time. The incidents of the tale are equally consonant, perhaps, to the then existent society ; for it is not only the ordinary habits of life, the feasts and the forum, the baths and the amphitheatre, the common-place routine of the classic luxury, which we recall the past to behold ;— equally important, and more deeply interesting, are the passions, the crimes, the misfortunes, and reverses that might have chanced to the shades we thus summon to life ! We understand any epoch of the world but ill if we do not examine its romance. There is as much truth in the poetry of life as in its prose.

As the greatest difficulty in treating of an unfamiliar and distant period is to make the characters introduced "live and move " before the eye of the reader, so such should doubtless be the first object of a work of the present description ; and all attempts at the display of learning should be considered but as means subservient to this, the main requisite of fiction. The first art of the Poet (the creator) is to breathe the breath of life into his creatures — the next is to make their words and actions appro priate to the era in which they are to speak and act. This last art is, perhaps, the better effected by not bringing the art itself constantly before the reader — by not crowding the page with quotations, and the margin with notes. The intuitive spirit which infuses antiquity into ancient images, is, per haps, the true learning which a work of this nature requires ; without it, pedantry is offensive — with it, useless.

No man who is thoroughly aware of what Prose Fiction has now become — of its dignity, of its influence, of the manner in which it has gradually absorbed all similar departments of litera l-are, of its power in teaching as well as amusing — can so far forget its connection with History, with Philosophy, with Politics — its utter harmony with Poetry and obedience to Truth — as to debase its nature to the level of scholastic frivolities : he raises scholarship to the creative, and does not bow the creative to the scholastic. With respect to the language used by the characters introduced, I have studied carefully to avoid what has always seemed to me a fatal error in those who have attempted, in modern times, to intro duce the beings of a classical age.* Authors have mostly given to them the stilted sentences, the cold and didactic solemnities of language which they find in the more admired of the classical writers.

It is an error as absurd to make Romans in common life talk in the periods of Cicero, as it would be in a novelist to endow his English personages with the long-drawn sentences of Johnson or Burke. The fault is the greater, because, while it pretends to learning, it betrays in reality the ignorance of just criticism — it fatigues, it wearies, it revolts — and we have not the satisfaction, in yawning, to think that we yawn eruditely. To impart anything like fidelity to the dialogues of classic actors, we must beware (to use a university phrase) how we " cram " for the occasion ! Nothing can give to a writer a more stiff and uneasy gait than the sudden and hasty adoption of the toga. We must bring to our task the familiarised knowledge of many years ; the allusions, the phraseology, the language generally, must flow from a stream that has long been full ; the flowers must be transplanted from a living soil, and not bought second-hand at the nearest market-place.

This advantage — which is, in fact, only that of familiarity with our subject — is one derived rather from accident than merit, and depends upon the degree in which the classics have entered into the education of our youth and the studies of our maturity. Yet, even did a writer possess the utmost advantage of this nature which education and study can bestow, it might be scarcely possible so entirely to transport himself to an age so different from his own, but that he would incur some inaccuracies, some errors of inadvertence or forgetful ness. And when, in works upon the manners of the Ancients — works even of the gravest character, composed by the profoundest scholars — some such imperfections will often be discovered, even by a critic in comparison but superficially informed, it would be far too presumptuous in me to hope that I have been more fortunate than men infinitely more learned, in a work in which learning is infinitely less required.

It is for this reason that I venture to believe that scholars themselves will be the most lenient of my judges. Enough if this book, whatever its imperfections, should be found a portrait — unskilful, perhaps, in colouring, faulty in drawing, but not altogether unfaithful to the features and the costume of the age which I have attempted to paint. May it be (what is far more important) a just representation of the human passions and the human heart, whose elements in all ages are the same ! * What the strong common sense of Sir Walter Scott has expressed so well in his Preface to " Ivanhoe" (1st edition), appears to me at least as applicable to a writer who draws from classical as to one who borrows from feudal antiquity. Let me avail myselt of tbe words I refer to, and humbly and reverently appropriate them for the moment : — "It is true that I neither can, nor do pretend, to the observation [observance?] of complete accuracy even in matters of outward costume, much less in the more important points of language and manners.

But the same motive which prevents my writing the dialogue of the piece in Anglo-Saxon, or in Norman -French [in Latin or in Greek], and which prohibits my sending forth this essay printed with the types of Caxton or AVynken de Worde [-written -with a ?eed upon five rolls of parchment, fastened to a cylinder, and adorned il< il 'h a boss~\ prevents my attempting to confine nyself within the limits of the period to which my story is laid. It is necessary, tor exciting interest of any kind, that the subject assumed should be, as it were, translated into the manners as well as the language of the age we live in. " In point of justice, therefore, to the multitudes who will, I trust, devour this book with avidity [hem /], I have so far explained ancient manners in modern language, and so far detailed the characters and sentiments of my persons, that the modern reader will not find himself, I should hope, much trammelled by the repulsive dryness of mere antiquity.

In this, I respectfully contend, I have in no respect exceeded the fairlicense due to the author of a fictitious composition. " It is true," proceeds my authority, " that this license is confined within legitimate bounds; the author must introduce nothing inconsistent with the manners of tbe a^e." — Preface to "Ivanhoe." I can add nothing to these judicious and discriminating remarks ; they form the canons of true criticism by which all fiction that portrays tbe past should be judged.

PREFACE.

TO THE EDITION OF 1850. This work has had the good fortune to be so general a favourite with the Public, that the Author is spared the task of obtruding any comments in its vindication from adverse criticism. The profound scholarship of German criticism, which has given so minute an attention to the domestic life of the ancients, has sufficiently testified to the general fidelity with which the manners, habits, and customs, of the inhabitants of Pompeii have been described in these pages. And writing the work almost on the spot, and amidst a population that still preserve a strong family likeness to their classic forefathers, I could scarcely fail to catch something of those living colours which mere book-study alone would not have sufficed to bestow ; it is, I suspect, to this accidental advantage that this work is principally indebted for a greater popularity than has hitherto attended the attempts of scholars to create an interest, by fictitious narrative, in the manners and persons of a classic age.

Perhaps, too, the writers I allude to, and of whose labours I would speak with the highest respect, did not sufficiently remember, that in works of imagination, the description of manners, however important as an accessary, must still be subordinate to the vital elements of interest, viz., plot, character, and passion. And, in reviving the ancient shadows, they have rather sought occasion to display erudition, than to show how the human heart beats the same, whether under the Grecian tunic or the Roman toga. It is this, indeed, which distinguishes the imitators of classic learning from the classic literature itself. For, in classic literature, there is no want of movement and passion — of all the more animated elements of what we now call Romance. Indeed, romance itself, as we take it from the Middle Ages, owes much to Grecian fable.

Many of the adventures of knight-errantry are borrowed either from the trials of Ulysses, or the achievements of Theseus. And while Homer, yet unrestored to his throne among the poets, was only known to the literature of early chivalry, in a spurious or grotesque form — the genius of Gothic fiction was constructing many a tale for Northern wonder from the mutilated fragments of the divine old tale-teller. Amongst those losses of the past which we have most to deplore are the old novels or romances for which Miletus was famous. But, judging from all else of Greek literature that is left to us, there can be little doubt that they were well fitted to sustain the attention of lively and impatient audiences by the same arts which are necessary to the modern tale-teller : that they could not have failed in variety of incident and surprises of ingenious fancy ; in the contrasts of character ; and, least of all, in the delineations of the tender passion, which, however modified in its expression by differences of national habits, forms the main subject of human interest, in all the multiform varieties of fictitious narrative — from the Chinese to the Arab — from the Arab to the Scandinavian — and which, at this day, animates the tale of many an itinerant Boccacio, gathering his spell-bound listeners round him, on sunny evenings, by the Sicilian seas. CONTENTS. BOOK i. PAGE PACK

Chapter I. Chapter

V. The Two Gentlemen of Pompeii More of the Flower-girl. — The Progress of Love ........ 22 9

Chapter II. Chapter VI

The Blind Flower-girl, and the Beauty of Fashion. — The Athenian's Confession. — The Reader's Introduction to Arbaces of Egypt The Fowler snares again the Bird that had just escaped, and sets his Nets for a new Victim ....... 25 10

Book III. Chapter I

CHAPTER IV.

The Forum of the Pompeians; — the First Rude Machinery by which the New Era of the World was wrought .... The Stream of Love runs on — Whither ? . 69 61

CHAPTER V.

Nydia encounters Julia. — Interview of the Heathen Sister and Converted Brother. —

CHAPTER II.

The Noonday Excursion on the Campanian Seas An Athenian's Notion of Christianity . 72 63

CHAPTER VI. CHAPTER III.

The Porter— the Girl— and the Gladiator . 74 The Congregation . • ■ • - • • CONTENTS. TAGE r.\GE

CHAPTER VII. CHAPTER

X. The Dressing-room of a Pompeian Beauty. — Important Conversation between Julia and Nydia 77 The Lord of the Burning Belt and his Minion. — Fate writes her Prophecy in Red Letters, but who shall read them ? . .84

CHAPTER VIII.

Julia seeks Arbaces. — The Result of that Interview 79

Chapter XI

Progress of Events. — The Plot thickens. — The Web is woven, but the Net changes Hands 87

CHAPTER IX.

A Storm in the South. — The Witch's Cavern 81

Book IV. Chapter I

CHAPTER IX.

Reflections on the Zeal of the Early Christians. — Two Men come to a Perilous Resolve. — Walls have Ears — Particularly Sacred Walls 90 In which an Adventure happens to Ione . 113

CHAPTER X.

What becomes of Nydia in the House of Arbaces. — The Egyptian feels Compassion for Glaucus. — Compassion is often a very useless Visitor to the Guilty . . . 114

CHAPTER II.

A Classic Host, Cook, and Kitchen. — Apæcides seeks Ione — their Conversation 91

CHAPTER XI. CHAPTER III.

Nydia affects the Sorceress . . . 1 15 A Fashionable Party and a Dinner a la mode in Pompeii 95

CHAPTER XII. A Wasp ventures into the Spider's Web . 117

CHAPTER IV. CHAPTER XIII.

The Story halts for a Moment at an Episode 100 The Slave consults the Oracle. — They who blind themselves the Blind may fool. — Two New Prisoners made in one Night . 118

CHAPTER V.

The Philtre— Its Effect 102

CHAPTER VI. CHAPTER XIV.

A Reunion of Different Actors. — Streams that flowed apparently apart rush into one Gulf 103 Nydia accosts Calenus 121

CHAPTER XV.

Arbaces and Ione. — Nydia gains the Garden — will she escape and save the Athenian? 122

CHAPTER VII.

In which the Reader learns the Condition of Glaucus. — Friendship tested. — Enmity softened. — Love the same ; — because the one loving is blind 107

CHAPTER XVI.

The Sorrow of Boon Companions for our Afflictions. — The Dungeon and its Victims 124

CHAPTER VIII. CHAPTER XVII.

A Classic Funeral 1 1 1 A Change for Glaucus 127 BOOK Y.

Chapter I. Chapter VI

The Dream of Arbaces. — A Visitor and a Warning to the Egyptian .... 132 Calenus and Burbo. — Diomed and Clodius. — The Girl of the Amphitheatre and Julia 145

CHAPTER VII. CHAPTER II.

The Progress of the Destruction . . . 147 The Amphitheatre 135

CHAPTER VIII. CHAPTER III.

Arbaces encounters Glaucus and Ione . 148 Sallust and Nydia's Letter . . . .140

CHAPTER IX.

The Despair of the Lovers. — The Condition of the Multitude 149

CHAPTER IV.

The Amphitheatre once more . . .141

CHAPTER X.

The Next Morning. — The Fate of Nydia . 151

CHAPTER V.

The Cell of the Prisoner and the Den of the Dead.— Grief unconscious of Horror , , 144 CHAPTER THE LAST. Wherein all Things cease . , , .152 DAYS OF POMPEII.

Book I. Chapter

I. THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF POMPEII. u Hj3, Diomed, well met! Do you sup with Glaucus to-night? " said a young man of small stature, who wore his tunic in those loose and effeminate folds which proved him to be a gentle man and a coxcomb. animated exuberance of life and motion which we find at this day in the streets of Naples. The bells of the cars as they rapidly glided by each other jingled merrily on the ear, and Clodius with smiles or nods claimed familiar acquaintance with whatever equipage was most elegant or fantastic : in fact, no idler was better known in Pompeii. " What, Clodius ! and how have you slept on your good fortune?" cried, in a pleasant and musical voice, a young man, in a chariot of the most fastidious and graceful fashion. Upon its surface of bronze were elaborately wrought, in the still exquisite workmanship of Greece, reliefs of the Olympian games ; the two horses that drew the car were of the rarest breed of Parthia ; their slender limbs seemed to disdain the ground and court the air, and yet at the slightest touch of the charioteer, who stood behind the young owner of the equipage, they paused motionless, as if suddenly transformed into stone — lifeless, but lifelike, as one of the breathing wonders of Praxiteles.

The owner himself was of that slender and beautiful symmetry from which the sculptors of Athens drew their models ; his Grecian origin betrayed itself in his light but clustering locks, and the perfect harmony of his features. He wore no toga, which in the time of the emperors had indeed ceased to be the general distinction of the Romans, and was especially ridiculed by the pretenders to fashion ; but his tunic glowed in the richest hues of the Tyrian dye, and the fibulae, or buckles, by which it was fastened, sparkled with emeralds : around his neck was a chain of gold, which in the middle of his breast twisted itself into the form of a serpent's head, from the mouth of which hung pendent a large signet ring of elaborate and most exquisite workmanship ; the sleeves of the tunic were loose, and fringed at the hand with gold : and across the waist a girdle wrought in arabesque designs, and of the same material as the fringe, served in lieu of pockets for the receptacle of the handkerchief and the purse, the stilus and the tablets.

" My dear Glaucus ! " said Clodius, " I rejoice to see that your losses have so little affected your mien. Why, you seem as if you had been in spired by Apollo, and your face shines with "Alas, no! dear Clodius; he has not invited me," replied Diomed, a man of portly frame and of middle age. " By Pollux, a scurvy trick ! for they say his suppers are the best in Pompeii." " Pretty well — though there is never enough of wine for me. It is not the old Greek blood that flows in his veins, for he pretends that wine makes him dull the next morning." " There may be another reason for that thrift," said Diomed, raising his brows. " With all his conceit and extravagance he is not so rich, I fancy, as he affects to be, and perhaps loves to save his amphoræ better than his wit." " An additional reason for supping with him while the sesterces last.

Next year, Diomed, we must find another Glaucus." He is fond of the dice, too, I hear." " He is fond of every pleasure ; and while he likes the pleasure of giving suppers, we are all fond of him." " Ha, ha, Clodius, that is well said ! Have you ever seen my wine-cellars, by-the-by? " " I think not, my good Diomed." " Well, you must sup with me some evening ; I have tolerable murænæ* in my reservoir, and I will ask Pansa the ædile to meet you." " O, no state with me ! — Persicos odi apparatus, I am easily contented. Well, the day wanes; I am for the baths — and you " " To the quæstor — business of state — afterwards to the temple of Isis. Vale ! " " An ostentatious, bustling, ill-bred fellow," muttered Clodius to himself, as he sauntered slowly away. " He thinks with his feasts and his wine-cellars to make us forget that he is the son of a freedman ; — and so we will, when we do him the honour of winning his money ; these rich plebeians are a harvest for us spendthrift nobles."

Thus soliloquising, Clodius arrived in the Via Domitiana, which was crowded with passengers and chariots, and exhibited all that gay and * Afurœnœ—X&m^rcys. THE IAST DA YS OF POMPEII 10 happiness like a glory ; any one might take you for the winner, and me for the loser." " Who ever forgets the invitation of Glaucus ! " " But which way go you now ? " " Why,' I thought of visiting the baths: but it wants yet an hour to the usual time." " Well, I will dismiss my chariot, and go with you. So, so, my Phylias," stroking the horse nearest to him, which by a low neigh and with backward ears playfully acknowledged the cour tesy: " a holiday for you to-day. Is he not hand some, Clodius ? " " And what is there in the loss or gain of those dull pieces of metal that should change our spirit, my Clodius ?

By Venus, while yet young, we can cover our full locks with chaplets — while yet the cithara sounds on unsated ears — while yet the smile of Lydia or of Chloe flashes over our veins in which the blood runs so swiftly, so long shall we find delight in the sunny air, and make bald time itself but the treasurer of our joys You sup with me to-night, you know," " Worthy of Phœbus," returned the noble para site, — "or of Glaucus."

Chapter II. The Blind Flower-girl, And The Beauty Of Fashion

— THE ATHENIAN'S CONFESSION.— THE TO ARBACES OF EGYPT. READER'S

Introduction

Talking lightly on a thousand matters, the two young men sauntered through the streets ; they were now in that quarter which was filled with the gayest shops, their open interiors all and each radiant with the gaudy yet harmonious colours of frescoes, inconceivably varied in fancy and design. The sparkling fountains, that at every vista threw upwards their grateful spray in the summer air ; the crowd of passengers, or rather loiterers, mostly clad in robes of the Tyrian dye ; the gay groups collected round each more attractive shop ; the slaves passing to and fro with buckets of bronze, cast in the most graceful shapes, and borne upon their heads ; the country girls stationed at frequent intervals with baskets of blushing fruit, and flowers more alluring to the ancient Italians than to their descendants (with whom, indeed, " latet anguis in hcrba," a disease seems lurking in every violet and rose),* the numerous haunts which fulfilled with that idle people the office of cafes and clubs at this day ; the shops, where on shelves of marble were ranged the vases of wine and oil, and before whose thresholds, seats, protected from the sun by a purple awning, invited the weary to rest and the indolent to lounge — made a scene of such glowing and vivacious excitement, as might well give the Athenian spirit of Glaucus an excuse for its susceptibility to joy.

"Talk to me no more of Rome," said he to Clodius. " Pleasure is too stately and ponderous in those mighty walls : even in the precincts of the court — even in the Golden House of Nero, and the incipient glories of the palace of Titus, there is a certain dulness of magnificence — the eye aches — the spirit is wearied ; besides, my Clodius, we are discontented when we compare the enormous luxury and wealth of others with the mediocrity of our own state. But here we surrender ourselves easily to pleasure, and we have the brilliancy of luxury without the lassitude of its pomp." " It was from that feeling that you chose your summer retreat at Pompeii ? " "It was. I prefer it to Baiæ : I grant the charms of the latter, but I love not the pedants who resort there, and who seem to weigh out their pleasures by the drachm."