Ihrciiiancinfi Ma/niurl/jis. I Si 



"plete oblivion. This calamity was ihc grL-at ciuplion of 

 VesuviuSj'wluch happcuLci on the iD'llli day of AuiiU^st*, two 

 full months from the accession of the emperor 'i'itus Ves- ^, 

 pasian. Hercuhneum was !)urie(l under a mass of lava, 

 and vol'diinic matter, to the depth of twenty-four feet. 

 Pompeii, being niore distant from the niountain, was over- 

 wlielmcd principa'ly with a shower of ashes, nor in any 

 place more than half the depth of the Other city. But the 

 fate of both was sudden and inevitable; and yet it appears 

 that almost all of the inhabitants, and, what is an equally 

 surprising circumstance, more of the Herculancans than 

 the Pompcians, escaped. By the few skeletons which have 

 been found in either place, the relation of Dio Cassius, 

 who states the destruction of the people while assembled 

 at the theatre, is proved to be totally erroneous. It may be 

 proper to remark, that before this eruption the wlipte of 

 Vesuvius was in a state of cultivation and fertility, from the 

 lop to the bottom ; and though the form and soil of the 

 mountain in one particvilar spot seemed to denote the traces 

 of some former explosion, yet no extant memorial of any 

 kind had recorded it. 



" Neither of these two cities was discovered again till a 

 long period of sixteen hundred and thirty-four years had 

 elapsed. It was in the year 1/13, that some labourers, in 

 sinking a well, struck their tools against a statue, which 

 was on a bench in the theatre of flerculaneum. Forty 

 years afterwards Pompeii was excavated with much less dif- 

 ticulty, as the incumbent stratum was neither so hard nor 

 so deep as that of the former city. 



** The number of the manuscripts saved from both those 

 cities is said to be about five hundred; but, if I am rightly 

 infqrmed by those whose official situation must give them a 

 competent knowledge of the subject, your royal highness, 

 by facilitating the development of these volumes, will pro- 

 bably be the means of further excavation, and of rescumg 

 from iheir interment an iniinite quantity of others. About 

 thirl v years ago, his Sicilian majesty ordered the develop^. 

 4neut, tne transcription, and the jn-inting of the volumes 

 which had thc;ii been saved, to be undertaken. This ope- 

 ration was accordingly begun, and has never beeti discon- 

 tinued till the late invasion of the French. But its mode, 

 however excellent, was extremely slow; it has been per- 



• U.C. 832. 

 A. D. 79. 

 Fliivi'is V'tspasii^nus v ) r- < 



1 !t;:b Vcsjl.l>l I'Uls f) J 



M 3 fcjriucd 



