INTRODUCTION. 



The objects which are described in the following pages ' were exca- 

 vated at or near Boscoreale at the foot of Mount Vesuvius. 2 Most of 

 them were found in the villa from which came the celebrated Treasure, 

 part of which is now in the Louvre, some in the excavations of 1894-6, 

 others in 1898. One piece 3 is very probably from a villa in the Piazza 

 del Mercato of the village of Boscoreale, excavated in 1897-8; six 

 pieces, which entered the Museum in 1903, 4 are from another villa 5 in 

 the same neighborhood. 



The small but fertile plain of the Sarnus, which lay on the Gulf of 

 Cumae — the modern Bay of Naples — between the Sorrentine pen- 

 insula on the south and Vesuvius on the north, and extended back in 

 a north-easterly direction to the foot-hills of the Apennines, was ancient- 

 ly, as now, highly cultivated and thickly peopled. Besides the towns 

 of Nuceria in the south-eastern part of the plain, Stabiae, now Cas- 

 tellammare, in the south-west, and Pompeii in the north-west at the 

 mouth of the river, there were here, as in the entire region about the 

 bay, numerous country-houses and estates belonging to wealthy 

 Romans. Many of these villas, as they were called, were situated on 

 the slopes of the mountains, particularly the Mons Lactarius above 

 Stabiae and Vesuvius opposite. 



For over eighteen hundred years habitation in the neighborhood 

 of Vesuvius has been largely dependent on the caprices of that volcano, 

 the outbursts of which have destroyed or devastated time after time 

 the towns at its base. In earlier days, however, this was not the case. 

 The geographer Strabo, who flourished in the reign of Augustus, de- 

 scribes it 6 as covered with beautiful fields, except at the top, which, 

 though level for the most part, looked as if it had at some time been 

 burned by subterraneous fires. The architect Vitruvius, who lived 



1 I am indebted to Professor F. B. Tarbell. who read portions of the manuscript, for many helpful 

 suggestions; to Professor F. W. Kelsey and the Macmillan Company for kindly permitting the repro- 

 duction of the plan of the Villa Ruslica at Boscoreale and furnishing the electrotype; to Assistant 

 Curators Simms. Owen and Nichols of Field Museum of Natural History and Mr. Edward E. Ayer for 

 information courteously given, and to my brother, Louis De Cou, for drawings. 



2 The collection was bought by Mr. Edward E. Ayer, and presented to Field Museum of Natural 

 History by Mr. Ayer, Mr. H. H. Porter, Mr. D. H. Burnham and Mr. Charles Singer. 



2 No. 24658. 



< Nos. 24668-24673. 



MThis villa is not included in the list on p. 154. F. B. T.] 



« V. 4, p. 247. 



149 



