Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/730

The Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal. [Mar., THE CITY OF THE DEAD. POMPEII, the buried city, whose remains are turned up, two thou- sand years after being overwhelmed by burning lava from Mount Vesuvius, is situated in the Neopolitan territory. It is less than two miles in circumference ; and in this narrow compass of its walls, are to be found all of luxury, that man, in his most ambitious mood, can look for. Stores of glittering showiness, dwellings of luxuriant affluence, and public buildings, that in their archi- tecture are superb, even in our day of splendid revivals. Although this gaudy little city be- longed, at its destruction, to the Roman Empire, yet was ifc eminently Grecian in its origin, and its style of architecture. The figures painted on its buildings are all dressed in the Greek pallium : the Roman tqga is never seen. The order of their peristyles is the Greek Doric, so very different from the Roman model of that order. The many terraces are invariably Greek, in their design, as are the saloons, theatre, forum, circus, and the palaces. ~A11 of these are petite in scale, but exquisite in taste. In the suburbs of Pompeii are to be seen the remains of villas, of which that of Diomedes is far the finest. From the examples here left to us, we may learn the amount of splendor in which the citizens of Pompeii lived ; and estimate, at the same time, by a contrast with our own style, the comforts, or discom- forts, which were theirs. The want of glass left their gorgeous- ly-furnished chambers in darkness; and the absence of all ideas of chimneys compelled them to use the comfortless brazier, with its sickening fumes of burning charcoal. In their domestic life, then, the Pom- peiians had not, with all their wealth and magnificence, the real luxuries, which we of this age of the world enjoy. The villa of Diomedes, to which we have alluded, may be taken as a sample, being the finest of the suburban residences of Pompeii, having three stories ; whereas most of the other houses had only one. It shows the double life of those easy people, which was at once public and private. The public part is composed of the vestibule, and the atrium, which comprehended, nearly always in the same order, the court, the audience- room, the wings, and the corridors. The private part contained the bed-rooms, the diniug-room, the sitting-rooms, the picture-gallery, the library, the baths, the parlor, and the court, set out with flowers and shrubs. All these apart- ments were ranged round the peristyle. Most of the small rooms, for private use, received no light, but from over the door; had no fire-places; and were very- far from being comfortable. It is evident, from the inconvenience of these rooms, that the life of the in- habitants of Pompeii was chiefly out of doors, and public ; and, that, except at night and their principal meals, which were towards the evening, they- passed nearly all their time at the Forum, or under the porticoes. The atrium, even of the house, was a kind of inner forum, in which they r received their great friends and their dependents ; and where they continued to live in the open air. The home of the English, the ingle of the Scotch, the coin du feu of the, French, or the fireside of the Americans, was totally- unknown to them. In almost every house, there is some difference, in detail, from the rest ; but the principal outline of the plan is the same in all. In every one, you find the hall, the tablinum, and the peristyle, communicating with each other. In all you find the walls richly painted, and with all the evidence of a people fond of the refining elegance of life.