The Wonders of Pompeii Part 7

Such were the walls of Pompeii. Let us now glance at the pavements. They will astonish us much more. At the outset the pavements were quite plain. There was a cement formed of a kind of mortar; this was then thoroughly dusted with pulverized brick, and the whole converted into a composition, which, when it had hardened, was like red granite. Many rooms and courts at Pompeii are paved with this composition which was called _opus signinum_. Then, in this crust, they at first ranged small cubes of marble, of gla.s.s, of calcareous stone, of colored enamel, forming squares or stripes, then others complicating the lines or varying the colors, and others again tracing regular designs, meandering lines, and arabesques, until the divided pebbles at length completely covered the reddish basis, and thus they finally became mosaics, those carpetings of stone which soon rose to the importance and value of great works of art.

The house of the Faun at Pompeii, which is the most richly paved of all, was a museum of mosaics. There was one before the door, upon the sidewalk, inscribed with the ancient salutation, _Salve!_ Another, at the end of the prothyrum, artistically represented masks. Others again, in the wings of the atrium, made up a little menagerie,--a brace of ducks, dead birds, sh.e.l.l-work, fish, doves taking pearls from a casket, and a cat devouring a quail--a perfect masterpiece of living movement and precision. Pliny mentions a house, the flooring of which represented the fragments of a meal: it was called _the ill-swept house_. But let us not quit the house of the Faun, where the mosaic-workers had, besides what we have told, wrought on the pavement of the cus a superb lion foreshortened--much worn away, indeed, but marvellous for vigor and boldness. In the triclinium another mosaic represented Acratus, the Bacchic genius, astride of a panther; lastly the piece in the exaedra, the finest that exists, is counted among the most precious specimens of ancient art. It is the famous battle of Arbelles or of Issus. A squadron of Greeks, already victorious, is rus.h.i.+ng upon the Persians; Alexander is galloping at the head of his cavalry. He has lost his helmet in the heat of the charge, his horses' manes stand erect, and his long spear has pierced the leader of the enemy. The Persians, overthrown and routed, are turning to flee; those who immediately surround Darius, the vanquished king, think of nothing but their own safety; but Darius is totally forgetful of himself. His hand extended toward his dying general, he turns his back to the flying rabble and seems to invite death. The whole scene--the headlong rush of the one army, the utter confusion of the other, the chariot of the King wheeling to the front, the rage, the terror, the pity expressed, and all this profoundly felt and clearly rendered--strikes the beholder at first glance and engraves itself upon his memory, leaving there the imperishable impression that masterpieces in art can alone produce. And yet this wonderful work was but the flooring of a saloon! The ancients put their feet where we put our hands, says an Englishman who utters but the simple truth. The finest tables in the palaces at Naples were cut from the pavements in the houses at Pompeii.

It was in the same dwelling that the celebrated bronze statuette of the Dancing Faun was found. It has its head and arms uplifted, its shoulders thrown back, its breast projecting, every muscle in motion, the whole body dancing. An accompanying piece, however, was lacking to this little deity so full of spring and vigor, and that piece has been exhumed by recent excavations, in quite an humble tenement. It represents a delicate youth, full of nonchalance and grace, a Narcissus hearkening to the musical echo in the distance. His head leans over, his ear is stretched to listen, his finger is turned in the direction whence he hears the sound--his whole body listens. Placed near each other in the museum, these two bronzes would make Pagans of us were religion but an affair of art.[I]

Then the mere wine-merchants of a little ancient city adorned their fountains with treasures like these! Others have been found, less precious, perhaps, but charming, nevertheless; the fisherman in sitting posture at the small mosaic fountain; the group representing Hercules holding a stag bent over his knee; a diminutive Apollo leaning, lyre in hand, against a pillar; an aged Silenus carrying a goat-skin of wine; a pretty Venus arranging her moistened tresses; a hunting Diana, etc.; without counting the Hermes and the double busts, one among the rest comprising the two heads of a male and female Faun full of intemperance and coa.r.s.e gayety. 'Tis true that everything is not perfect in these sculptures, particularly in the marbles. The statues of Livia, of Drusus, and of Eumachia, are but moderately good; those discovered in the temples, such as Isis, Bacchus, Venus, etc., have not come down from the Parthenon. The decline of taste makes itself apparent in the latest ornamentation of the tombs and edifices, and the decorative work of the houses, the marble embellishments; and, above all, those executed in stucco become overladen and tawdry, heavy and labored, toward the last.

Nevertheless, they reveal, if not a great aesthetic feeling, at least that yearning for elegance which entered so profoundly into the manners of the ancients. With us, in fine, art is never anything but a superfluity--something unfamiliar and foreign that comes in to us from the outside when we are wealthy. Our paintings and our sculptures do not make part and parcel of our houses. If we have a Venus of Milo on our mantel-clock, it is not because we wors.h.i.+p beauty, nor that, to our view, there is the slightest connection between the mother of the Graces and the hour of the day. Venus finds herself very much out of her element there; she is in exile, evidently. On the other hand, at Pompeii she is at home, as Saint Genevieve once was at Paris, as Saint Januarius still is at Naples. She was the venerated patroness whose protection they invoked, whose anger they feared. "May the wrath of the angry Pompeian Venus fall upon him!" was their form of imprecation. All these well-known stories of G.o.ds and demiG.o.ds who throned it on the walls, were the fairy tales, the holy legends, the thousand-times-repeated narratives that delighted the Pompeians. They had no need of explanatory programmes when they entered their domestic museums. To find something resembling this state of things, we should have to go into our country districts where there still reigns a divinity of other days--Glory--and admiringly observe with what religious devotion coa.r.s.e lithographs of the "Old Flag," and of the "Little Corporal," are there retained and cherished. There, and there only, our modern art has infused itself into the life and manners of the people. Is it equal to ancient art?

If, from painting and sculpture, we descend to inferior branches,--if, as we tried to do in the house of Pansa, we despoil the museum so as to restore their inmates to the homes of Pompeii, and put back in its place the fine candelabra with the carved panther bearing away the infant Bacchus at full speed; the precious _scyphus_, in which two centaurs take a bevy of little Cupids on their cruppers; that other vase on which Pallas is standing erect in a car, leaning on her spear; the silver saucepan,--there were such in those days,--the handle of which is secured by two birds' heads; the simple pair of scales--they carved scales then!--where one sees the half bust of a warrior wearing a splendid helmet; in fine, the humblest articles, utensils of lowest use, nay, even simple earthenware covered with graceful ornaments, sometimes exquisitely worked;--were we to go to the museum at Naples and ask what the ancients used instead of the hideous boxes in which we shut up our dead, and there behold this beautiful urn which looks as though it were incrusted with ivory, and which has upon it in bas-relief carved masks enveloped in complicated vine-tendrils twisted, laden with cl.u.s.ters of grapes, intermingled with other foliage, tangled all up in rollicking arabesques, forming rosettes, in the midst of which birds are seen perching, and leaving but two s.p.a.ces open where children dear to Bacchus are plucking grapes or treading them under foot, trilling stringed lyres, blowing on double flutes or tumbling about and snapping their fingers--the urn itself in blue gla.s.s and the reliefs in white--for the ancients knew how to carve gla.s.s,--ah! undoubtedly, in surveying all these marvels, we should be forced to concede that the citizen in old times was at least, as much of an artist as he is to-day. This was because in those times no barrier was erected between the citizen and the artist. There were no two opposing camps--on one side the Philistines, and on the other the people of G.o.d. There was no line of distinction between the needful and the superfluous, between the positive and the ideal. Art was daily bread, and not holiday pound-cake; it made its way everywhere; it illuminated, it gladdened, it perfumed everything. It did not stand either outside of or above ordinary life; it was the soul and the delight of life; in a word, it penetrated it, and was penetrated by it,--it _lived_! This is what these modest ruins teach.[J]

[Footnote F: See note on page 198. (The Footnote J of this book.--Transcriber.)]

[Footnote G: The learned Minervini has remarked certain differences in the washes put on the Pompeian walls. He has indicated finer ones with which, according to him, the ancients painted in fresco their more studied compositions, landscapes, and figures, while ordinary decorations were painted _dry_ by inferior painters. I recall the fact, as I pa.s.s on, that several paintings, particularly the most important, were detached, but secured to the wall with iron clamps. It has ever been noticed that the back of these pictures did not adhere to the walls--an excellent precaution against dampness. This custom of sawing off and s.h.i.+fting mural paintings was very ancient. It is known that the wealthy Romans adorned their houses with works of art borrowed or stolen from Greece, and all will remember the famous contract of Mummius, who, in arranging with some merchants to convey to Rome the masterpieces of Zeuxis and Apelles, stipulated that if they should be lost or damaged on the way, the merchants should replace them at their own expense.]

[Footnote H: "And how the ancients, even the most unskilful, understood the right treatment of nude subjects!" said an eminent critic to me, one day, as he was with me admiring these pictures; "and," he added, "we know nothing more about it now; _our_ statues are not nude, but undressed."]

[Footnote I: Recently, Signor Fiorelli has found another bronze statuette of a bent and crooked Silenus worth both the others.]

[Footnote J: A badly interpreted inscription on the gate of Nola had led, for a moment, to the belief that the importation of this singular wors.h.i.+p dated back to the early days of the little city; but we now know that it was introduced by Sylla into the Roman world. Isis was Nature, the patroness of the Pompeians, who venerated her equally in their physical Venus. This form of religion, mysterious, symbolical, full of secrets hidden from the people, as it was; these G.o.ddesses with heads of dogs, wolves, oxen, hawks; the G.o.d Onion, the G.o.d Garlic, the G.o.d Leek; all that Apuleius tells about it, besides the data furnished by the Pompeian excavations, the recovered bottle-brushes, the basins, the knives, the tripods, the cymbals, the citherae, etc.,--were worth the trouble of examination and study.

Upon the door of the temple, a strange inscription announced that Numerius Popidius, the son of Numerius, had, at his own expense, rebuilt the temple of Isis, thrown down by an earthquake, and that, in reward for his liberality, the decurions had admitted him gratuitously to their college at the age of six years. The antiquaries, or some of them, at least, finding this age improbable, have read it sixty instead of six, forgetting that there then existed two kinds of decurions, the _ornamentarii_ and _praetextati_--the honorary and the active officials.

The former might be a.s.sociated with the Pompeian Senate in recompense for services rendered by their fathers. An inscription found at Misenum confirms this fact. (See the _Memorie del l'Academia Ercolanese, anno_ 1833)--The minutes of the Herculaneum Academy, for the year 1833.]

VIII.

THE THEATRES.

THE ARRANGEMENT OF THE PLACES OF AMUs.e.m.e.nT.--ENTRANCE TICKETS.--THE VELARIUM, THE ORCHESTRA, THE STAGE.--THE ODEON.--THE HOLCONII.--THE SIDE SCENES, THE MASKS.--THE ATELLAN FARCES.--THE MIMES.--JUGGLERS, ETC.--A REMARK OF CICERO ON THE MELODRAMAS.--THE BARRACK OF THE GLADIATORS.--SCRATCHED INSCRIPTIONS, INSTRUMENTS OF TORTURE.--THE POMPEIAN GLADIATORS.--THE AMPHITHEATRE: HUNTS, COMBATS, BUTCHERIES, ETC.

We are now going to rest ourselves at the theatre. Pompeii had two such places of amus.e.m.e.nt, one tragic and the other comic, or, rather, one large and one smaller, for that is the only positive difference existing between them; all else on that point is pure hypothesis. Let us, then, say the large and small theatre, and we shall be sure to make no mistakes.

The grand saloon or body of the large theatre formed a semicircle, built against an embankment so that the tiers of seats ascended from the pit to the topmost gallery, without resting, on ma.s.sive substructures. In this respect it was of Greek construction. The four upper tiers resting upon an arched corridor, in the Roman style, alone reached the height on which stood the triangular Forum and the Greek temple. Thus, you can step directly from the level of the street to the highest galleries, from which your gaze, ranging above the stage, can sweep the country and the sea, and at the same moment plunge far below you into that sort of regularly-shaped ravine in which once sat five thousand Pompeians eager for the show.

At first glance, you discover three main divisions; these are the different ranks of tiers, the _caveae_. There are three caveae--the lowermost, the middle, and the upper ones. The lowermost was considered the most select. It comprised only the four first rows of benches, or seats, which were broader and not so high as the others. These were the places reserved for magistrates and other eminent persons. Thither they had their seats carried and also the _bisellia_, or benches for two persons, on which they alone had the right to sit. A low wall, rising behind the fourth range and surmounted with a marble rail that has now disappeared, separated this lowermost cavea from the rest. The duumviri, the decurions, the augustales, the aediles, Holconius, Cornelius Rufus, and Pansa, if he was elected, sat there majestically apart from common mortals. The middle division was for quiet, every-day, private citizens, like ourselves. Separated into wedge-like corners (_cunei_) by six flights of steps cutting it in as many places, it comprised a limited number of seats marked by slight lines, still visible. A ticket of admission (a _tessera_ or domino) of bone, earthenware, or bronze--a sort of counter cut in almond or _en pigeon_ shape, sometimes too in the form of a ring--indicated exactly the cavea, the corner, the tier, and the seat for the person holding it. Tessarae of this kind have been found on which were Greek and Roman characters (a proof that the Greek would not have been understood without translation). Upon one of them is inscribed the name of aeschylus, in the genitive; and hence it has been inferred that his "Prometheus" or his "Persians" must have been played on the Pompeian stage, unless, indeed, this genitive designated one of the wedge-divisions marked out by the name or the statue of the tragic poet. Others have mentioned one of these counters that announced the representation of a piece by Plautus,--the _Casina_; but I can a.s.sure you that the relic is a forgery, if, indeed, such a one ever existed.

You should, then, before entering, provide yourself with a real tessera, which you may purchase for very little money. Plautus asked that folks should pay an _as_ apiece. "Let those," he said, "who have not got it retire to their homes." The price of the seats was proclaimed aloud by a crier, who also received the money, unless the show was gratuitously offered to the populace by some magistrate who wished to retain public favor, or some candidate anxious to procure it. You handed in your ticket to a sort of usher, called the _designator_, or the _locarius_, who pointed out your seat to you, and, if required, conducted you thither. You could then take your place in the middle tier, at the top of which was the statue of Marcus Holconius Rufus, duumvir, military tribune, and patron of the colony. This statue had been set up there by order of the decurions. The holes hollowed in the pedestal by the nails that secured the marble feet of the statue are still visible.

Finally, at the summit of the half-moon was the uppermost cavea, a.s.signed to the common herd and the women. So, after all, we are somewhat ahead of the Romans in gallantry. Railings separated this tier from the one we sit in, so as to prevent "the low rabble" from invading the seats occupied by us respectable men of substance. Upon the wall of the people's gallery is still seen the ring that held the pole of the _velarium_. This velarium was an awning that was stretched above the heads of the spectators to protect them from the sun. In earlier times the Romans had scouted at this innovation, which they called a piece of Campanian effeminacy. But little by little, increasing luxury reduced the Puritans of Rome to silence, and they willingly accepted a velarium of silk--an homage of Caesar. Nero, who carried everything to excess, went further: he caused a velarium of purple to be embroidered with gold. Caligula frequently amused himself by suddenly withdrawing this movable shelter and leaving the naked heads of the spectators exposed to the beating rays of the sun. But it seems that at Pompeii the wind frequently prevented the hoisting of the canvas, and so the poet Martial tells us that he will keep on his hat.

Such was the arrangement of the main body of the house. Let us now descend to the orchestra, which, in the Greek theatres, was set apart for the dancing of the choirs, but in the Roman theatres, was reserved for the great dignitaries, and at Rome itself for the prince, the vestals, and the senators. I have somewhere read that, in the great city, the foreign amba.s.sadors were excluded from these places of honor because among them could be found the sons of freedmen.

Would you like to go up on the stage? Raised about five feet above the orchestra, it was broader than ours, but not so deep. The personages of the antique repertory did not swell to such numbers as in our fairy spectacles. Far from it. The stage extended between a proscenium or front, stretching out upon the orchestra by means of a wooden platform, which has disappeared, and the _postscenium_ or side scenes. There was, also, a _hyposcenium_ or subterranean part of the theatre, for the scene-s.h.i.+fters and machinists. The curtain or _siparium_ (a Roman invention) did not rise to the ceiling as with us, but, on the contrary, descended so as to disclose the stage, and rolled together underground, by means of ingenious processes which Mazois has explained to us. Thus, the curtain fell at the beginning and rose at the end of the piece.

You are aware that in ancient drama the question of scenery was greatly simplified by the rule of the unity of place. The stage arrangement, for instance, represented the palace of a prince. Therefore, there was no canvas painted at the back of the stage; it was _built_ up. This decoration, styled the _scena stabilis_, rose as high as the loftiest tier in the theatre, and was of stone and marble in the Pompeian edifice. It represented a magnificent wall pierced for three doors; in the centre was the royal door, where princes entered; on the right, the entrance of the household and females; at the left, the entrance for guests and strangers. These were matters to be fixed in the mind of the spectator. Between these doors were rounded and square niches for statues. In the side-scenes, was the moveable decoration (_scena ductilis_), which was slid in front of the back-piece in case of a change of scene, as, for instance, when playing the _Ajax_ of Sophocles, where the place of action is transferred from the Greek camp to the sh.o.r.es of the h.e.l.lespont. Then, there were other side-scenes not of much account, owing to lack of room, and on each wing a turning piece with three broad flats representing three different subjects. There were square niches in the walls of the proscenium either for statues or for policemen to keep an eye on the spectators. Such, stated in a few lines and in libretto style, was the stage in ancient times.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Smaller Theatre at Pompeii.]

I confess that I have a preference for the smaller theatre which has been called the Odeon. Is that because, possibly, tragedies were never played there? Is it because this establishment seems more complete and in better preservation, thanks to the intelligent replacements of La Vega, the architect? It was covered, as two inscriptions found there explicitly declare, with a wooden roof, probably, the walls not being strong enough to sustain an arch. It was reached through a pa.s.sage all bordered with inscriptions, traced on the walls by the populace waiting to secure admission as they pa.s.sed slowly in, one after the other. A lengthy file of gladiators had carved their names also upon the walls, along with an enumeration of their victories; barbarian slaves, and some freedmen, likewise, had left their marks. These probably const.i.tuted the audience that occupied the uppermost seats approached by the higher vomitories. On the other hand, there were no lateral vomitories. The spectators entered the orchestra directly by large doors, and thence ascended to the four tiers of the lower (_cavea_) which curved like hooks at their extremities, and were separated from the middle cavea by a parapet of marble terminating in vigorously-carved lion's paws. Among these carvings we may particularly note a crouching Atlas, of short, thick-set form, sustaining on his shoulders and his arms, which are doubled behind him, a marble slab which was once the stand of a vase or candlestick. This athletic effort is violently rendered by the artist.

Above the orchestra ran the _tribunalia_, reminding us of our modern stage-boxes. These were the places reserved at Rome for the vestal virgins; at Pompeii, they were very probably those of the public priestesses--of Eumachia, whose statue we have already seen, or of Mamia whose tomb we have inspected. The seats of the three cavea were of blocks of lava; and there can still be seen in them the hollows in which the occupants placed their feet so as not to soil the spectators below them. Let us remember that the Roman mantles were of white wool, and that the sandals of the ancients got muddied just as our shoes do. The citizens who occupied the central cavea brought their cus.h.i.+ons with them or folded their spotless togas on the seats before they took their places. It was necessary, then, to protect them from the mud and the dust in which the spectators occupying the upper tiers had been walking.

The number of ranges of seats was seventeen, divided into wedges by six flights of steps, and in stalls by lines yet visible upon the stone. The upper tiers were approached by vomitories and by a subterranean corridor. The orchestra formed an arc the chord of which was indicated by a marble strip with this inscription:

"M. Olconius M.F. Vervs, Pro Ludis."

This Olconius or Holconius was the Marquis of Carabas of Pompeii. His name may be read everywhere in the streets, on the monuments, and on the walls of the houses. We have seen already that the fruiterers wanted him for aedile. We have pointed out the position of his statue in the theatre. We know by inscriptions that he was not the only ill.u.s.trious member of his family. There were also a Marcus Holconius Celer, a Marcus Holconius Rufus, etc. Were this petty munic.i.p.al aristocracy worth the trouble of hunting up, we could easily find it on the electoral programmes by collecting the names usually affixed thereon. But Holconius is the one most conspicuous of them all; so, hats off to Holconius!

I return to the theatre. Two large side windows illuminated the stage, which, being covered, had need of light. The back scene was not carved, but painted and pierced for five doors instead of three; those at the ends, which were masked by movable side scenes served, perhaps, as entrances to the lobbies of the priestesses.

Would you like to go behind the scenes? Pa.s.sing by the barracks of the gladiators, we enter an apartment adorned with columns, which was, very likely, the common hall and dressing-room of the actors. A celebrated mosaic in the house of the poet (or jeweller), shows us a scenic representation: in it we observe the _choragus_, surrounded by masks and other accessories (the choragus was the manager and director); he is making two actors, got up as satyrs, rehea.r.s.e their parts; behind them, another comedian, a.s.sisted by a costumer of some kind, is trying to put on a yellow garment which is too small for him. Thus we can re-people the antechamber of the stage. We see already those comic masks that were the princ.i.p.al resource in the wardrobe of the ancient players. Some of them were typical; for instance, that of the young virgin, with her hair parted on her forehead and carefully combed; that of the slave-driver (or _hegemonus_), recognized by his raised eyelids, his wrinkled brows and his twists of hair done up in a wig; that of the wizard, with immense eyes starting from their sockets, seamed skin covered with pimples, with enormous ears, and short hair frizzed in snaky ringlets; that of the bearded, furious, staring, and sinister old man; and above all, those of the Atellan low comedians, who, born in Campania, dwell there still, and must a.s.suredly have amused the little city through which we are pa.s.sing. Atella, the country of Maccus was only some seven or eight leagues distant from Pompeii, and numerous interests and business connections united the inhabitants of the two places. I have frequently stated that the Oscan language, in which the Atellan farces were written, had once been the only tongue, and had continued to be the popular dialect of the Pompeians. The Latin gradually intermingled with these pieces, and the confusion of the two idioms was an exhaustless source of witticisms, puns, and bulls of all kinds, that must have afforded Homeric laughter to the plebeians of Pompeii. The longsh.o.r.emen of Naples, in our day, seek exactly similar effects in the admixture of pure Italian and the local _patois_. The t.i.tles of some of the Atellian farces are still extant: "Pappus, the Doctor Shown Out," "Maccus Married," "Maccus as Safe Keeper," etc. These are nearly the same subjects that are still treated every day on the boards at Naples; the same rough daubs, half improvised on the spur of the moment; the same frankly coa.r.s.e and indecent gayety. The Odeon where we are now, was the Pompeian San Carlino. Bucco, the stupid and mocking buffoon; the dotard Pappus, who reminds us of the Venetian Pantaloon; Mandacus, who is the Neapolitan Guappo; the Oscan Casnar, a first edition of Ca.s.sandra; and finally, Maccus, the king of the company, the Punchinello who still survives and flourishes,--such were the ancient mimes, and such, too, are their modern successors. All these must have appeared in their turn on the small stage of the Odeon; and the slaves, the freedmen crowded together in the upper tiers, the citizens ranged in the middle cavea or family-circle, the duumvirs, the decurions, the augustals, the aediles seated majestically on the bisellia of the orchestra, even the priestesses of the proscenium and the melancholy Eumachia, whose statue confesses, I know not what anguish of the heart,--all these must have roared with laughter at the rude and extravagant sallies of their low comedians, who, notwithstanding the parts they played, were more highly appreciated than the rest and had the exclusive privilege of wearing the t.i.tle of Roman citizens.

Now, if these trivialities revolt your fastidious taste, you can picture to yourself the representation of some comedy of Plautus in the Odeon of Pompeii; that is, admitting, to begin with, that you can find a comedy by that author which in no wise shocks our susceptibilities. You can also fill the stage with mimes and pantomimists, for the favor accorded to that cla.s.s of actors under the emperors is well known. The Caesars--I am speaking of the Romans--somewhat feared spoken comedy, attributing political proclivities to it, as they did; and, hence, they encouraged to their utmost that mute comedy which, at the same time, in the Imperial Babel, had the advantage of being understood by all the conquered nations. In the provinces, this supreme art of gesticulation, "these talking fingers, these loquacious hands, this voluble silence, this unspoken explanation," as was once choicely said, were serviceable in advancing the great work of Roman unity. "The subst.i.tution of ballet pantomimes for comedy and tragedy resulted in causing the old masterpieces to be neglected, thereby enfeebling the practice of the national idioms and seconding the propagation, if not of the language, at least of the customs and ideas of the Romans." (Charles Magnin.)

If the mimes do not suffice, call into the Odeon the rope-dancers, the acrobats, the jugglers, the ventriloquists,--for all these lower orders of public performers existed among the ancients and swarmed in the Pompeian pictures,--or the flute-players enlivening the waits with their melody and accompanying the voice of the actors at moments of dramatic climax. "How can he feel afraid," asked Cicero, in this connection, "since he recites such fine verses while he accompanies himself on the flute?" What would the great orator have said had he been present at our melodramas?

We may then imagine what kind of play we please on the little Pompeian stage. For my part, I prefer the Atellan farces. They were the buffooneries of the locality, the coa.r.s.e pleasantry of native growth, the hilarity of the vineyard and the grain-field, exuberant fancy, grotesque in solemn earnest; in a word, ideal sport and frolic without the least regard to reality--in fine, Punchinello's comedy. We prefer Moliere; but how many things there are in Moliere which come in a direct line from Maccus!

It is time to leave the theatre. I have said that the Odeon opened into the gladiators' barracks. These barracks form a s.p.a.cious court--a sort of cloister--surrounded by seventy-four pillars, unfortunately spoiled by the Pompeians of the restoration period. They topped them with new capitals of stucco notoriously ill adapted to them. This gallery was surrounded with curious dwellings, among which was a prison where three skeletons were found, with their legs fastened in irons of ingeniously cruel device. The instrument in question may be seen at the museum. It looks like a prostrate ladder, in which the limbs of the prisoners were secured tightly between short and narrow rungs--four bars of iron. These poor wretches had to remain in a sitting or reclining posture, and perished thus, without the power to rise or turn over, on the day when Vesuvius swallowed up the city.

It was for a long time thought that these barracks were the quarters of the soldiery, because arms were found there; but the latter were too highly ornamented to belong to practical fighting troops, and were the very indications that suggested to Father Garrucci the firmly established idea, that the dwellings surrounding the gallery must have been occupied by gladiators. These habitations consist of some sixty cells: now there were sixty gladiators in Pompeii because an alb.u.m programme announced thirty pair of them to fight in the amphitheatre.

The pillars of the gallery were covered with inscriptions scratched on their surface. Many of these graphites formed simple Greek names Pompaios, Arpokrates, Celsa, etc., or Latin names, or fragments of sentences, _curate pecunias, fur es Torque, Rustico feliciter!_ etc.

Others proved clearly that the place was inhabited by gladiators: _inludus Velius_ (that is to say _not in the game, out of the ring_) _bis victor libertus--leonibus, victor Veneri parmam feret_. Other inscriptions designate families or troops of gladiators, of which there are a couple familiar to us already, that of N. Festus Ampliatus and that of N. Popidius Rufus; and a third, with which we are not acquainted, namely, that of Pomponius Faustinus.

What has not been written concerning the gladiators? The origin of their b.l.o.o.d.y sports; the immolations, voluntary at first, and soon afterward compulsory, that did honor to the ashes of the dead warriors; then the combats around the funeral pyres; then, ere long, the introduction of these funeral spectacles as part of the public festivals, especially in the triumphal parades of victorious generals; then into private pageants, and then into the banquets of tyrants who caused the heads of the proscribed to be brought to them at table. The skill of such and such an artist in decapitation (_decollandi artifex_) was the subject of remark and compliment. Ah, those were the grand ages!

As the reader also knows, the gladiators were at first prisoners of war, barbarians; then, prisoners not coming in sufficient number, condemned culprits and slaves were employed, ere long, in hosts so strong as, to revolt in Campania at the summons of Spartacus. Consular armies were vanquished and the Roman prisoners, transformed to gladiators, in their turn were compelled to butcher each other around the funeral pyres of their chiefs. However, these combats had gradually ceased to be penalties and punishments, and soon were nothing but barbarous spectacles, violent pantomimic performances, like those which England and Spain have not yet been able to suppress. The troops of mercenary fighters slaughtered each other in the arenas to amuse the Romans (not to render them warlike). Citizens took part in these tournaments, and among them even n.o.bles, emperors, and women; and, at last, the Samnites, Gauls, and Thracians, who descended into the arena, were only Romans in disguise. These shows became more and more varied; they were diversified with hunts (_venationes_), in which wild beasts fought with each other or against _bestiarii_, or Christians; the amphitheatres, transformed to lakes, offered to the gaze of the delighted spectator real naval battles, and ten thousand gladiators were let loose against each other by the imperial caprice of Trajan. These entertainments lasted one hundred and twenty-three days. Imagine the carnage!

Part of the gladiators of Pompeii were Greeks, and part were real barbarians. The traces that they have left in the little city show that they got along quite merrily there. 'Tis true that they could not live, as they did at Rome, in close intimacy with emperors and empresses, but they were, none the less, the spoiled pets of the residents of Pompeii.

Lodged in a sumptuous barrack, they must have been objects of envy to many of the population. The walls are full of inscriptions concerning them; the bathing establishments, the inns, and the disreputable haunts, transmit their names to posterity. The citizens, their wives, and even their children admired them. In the house of Proculus, at no great height above the ground, is a picture of a gladiator which must have been daubed there by the young lad of the house. The gladiator whose likeness was thus given dwelt in the house. His helmet was found there.

So, then, he was the guest of the family, and Heaven knows how they feasted him, petted him, and listened to him.

In order to see the gladiators under arms, we must pa.s.s over the part of the city that has not yet been uncovered, and through vineyards and orchards, until, in a corner of Pompeii, as though down in the bottom of a ravine, we find the amphitheatre. It is a circus, surrounded by tiers of seats and ab.u.t.ting on the city ramparts. The exterior wall is not high, because the amphitheatre had to be hollowed out in the soil. One might fancy it to be a huge vessel deeply embedded in the sand. In this external wall there remain two large arcades and four flights of steps ascending to the top of the structure. The arena was so called because of the layer of sand which covered it and imbibed the blood.

It is reached by two large vaulted and paved corridors with a quite steep inclination. One of these is strengthened with seven arches that support the weight of the tiers. Both of them intersect a transverse, circular corridor, beyond which they widen. It was through this that the armed gladiators, on horseback and on foot, poured forth into the arena, to the sound of trumpets and martial music, and made the circuit of the amphitheatre before entering the lists. They then retraced their steps and came in again, in couples, according to the order of combat.

To the right of the princ.i.p.al entrance a doorway opens into two square rooms with gratings, where the wild beasts were probably kept. Another very narrow corridor ran from the street to the arena, near which it ascended, by a small staircase, to a little round apartment apparently the _spoliatorium_, where they stripped the dead gladiators. The arena formed an oval of sixty-eight yards by thirty-six. It was surrounded by a wall of two yards in height, above which may still be seen the holes where gratings and thick iron bars were inserted as a precaution against the bounds of the panthers. In the large amphitheatres a ditch was dug around this rampart and filled with water to intimidate the elephants, as the ancients believed them to have a horror of that element.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Amphitheatre of Pompeii.]

Paintings and inscriptions covered the walls or podium of the arena.

These inscriptions acquaint us with the names of the duumvirs,--N.

Istadicius, A. Audius, O. Caesetius Saxtus Capito, M. Gantrius Marcellus, who, instead of the plays and the illumination, which they would have had to pay for, on a.s.suming office, had caused three cunei to be constructed on the order of the decurions. Another inscription gives us to understand that two other duumvirs, Caius Quinctius Valgus and Marcus Portius, holding five-year terms, had inst.i.tuted the first games at their expense for the honor of the colony, and had granted the ground on which the amphitheatre stood, in perpetuity. These two magistrates must have been very generous men, and very fond of public shows. We know that they contributed, in like manner, to the construction of the Odeon.

Would you now like to go over the general sweep of the tiers--the _visorium_? Three grand divisions as in the theatre; the lowermost separated, by entries and private flights of steps, into eighteen boxes; the middle and upper one divided into cunei, the first by twenty stairways, the second by forty. Around the latter was an inclosing wall, intersected by vomitories and forming a platform where a number of spectators, arriving too late for seats, could still find standing-room, and where the manuvres were executed that were requisite to hoist the velarium, or awning. All these made up an aggregate of twenty-four ranges of seats, upon which were packed perhaps twenty thousand spectators. So much for the audience. Nothing could be more simple or more ingenious than the system of extrication by which the movement, to and fro, of this enormous throng was made possible, and easy. The circular and vaulted corridor which, under the tiers, ran around the arena and conducted, by a great number of distinct stairways, to the tiers of the lower and middle cavea, while upper stairways enabled the populace to ascend to the highest story a.s.signed to it.