648 



OBJECTS DISCOVERED IN 



[Ch. XXV. 



Both 



at Herculaneum and Pompeii, temples have been 

 found with, inscriptions commemorating the rebuilding of 

 the edifices after they had been thrown down by an earth- 



quake. 



x 



This earthquake happened in the reign of Nero, 



sixteen years before the cities were overwhelmed. 



In Pom- 

 peii, one fourth of which is now laid open to the day, both 

 the public and 



private buildings bear testimony to 



the 



catastrophe. The walls are rent, and an many places tra- 

 versed by fissures still open. Columns are lying on the 

 ground only half hewn from huge blocks of travertin, and the 

 temple for which they were designed is seen half repaired. 

 In some few places the pavement had sunk in, but in general 

 it was undisturbed, ^consisting of large irregular flags of 

 lava joined neatly together, in which the carriage wheels 



Small number of skeletons. — A very small number of 

 skeletons have been discovered in either city ; and it is clear 

 that most of the inhabitants not only found time to escape, 

 but also to carry with them the principal part of their valu- 

 able effects. In the barracks at Pompeii were the skeletons 

 of two soldiers chained to the stocks, and in the vaults of a 

 country-house in the suburbs were the skeletons of seventeen 

 persons, who appear to have fled there to escape from the 

 shower of ashes. They were found enclosed in an indurated 

 tuff, and in this matrix was preserved a perfect cast of a 

 woman, perhaps the mistress of the house, with an infant in 

 her arms. Although her form was imprinted on the rock, 

 nothing but the bones remained. To these a chain of gold 

 was suspended, and on the fingers of the skeletons were rings 

 with jewels. Against the sides of the same vault was ranged 

 a long line of earthen amphorae. 



* Swinburne and Lalande. Paderni, Phil. Trans. 1758, vol. i. p. 619. 



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have often worn ruts an inch and a half deep. In the wider 

 streets, the ruts are numerous and irregular ; in the narrower, 

 there are only two, one on each side, which are very con- 



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spicuous. It is impossible not to look with some interest 

 even on these ruts, which were worn by chariot wheels more 

 than seventeen centuries ago; and, independently of their nrds th 

 antiquity, it is remarkable to see such deep incisions so con- 

 tinuous in a stone of great hardness. 



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