460 HERCULANUMj POMPEII AND STAB I A* 



Portici and Refina are built on the lava; and 

 beneath thefe two places is buried the great romart 

 city Herculanum. That this is really Herculanum, 

 and no other city, the many infcriptions and monu- 

 ments of various kinds that are conftantly found there 

 leave no room to doubt. Petronius calls it Herculis 

 Porticum, from whence its prefent name Portici takes 

 its rife. Lifts have been found, that fhew there were 

 nine-hundred taverns or public-houfes in the city: 

 from which circumftance we are enabled to form fome 

 judgement of its magnitude. 



In the firfl year of the reign of Titus, at that horri- 

 ble eruption of mount Vefuvius, Herculanum was 

 £rft covered by the burning afhes of the mountain, and 

 the violent torrents which the afhes drove along with 

 them into the city. Then the fiery ftream, or the lava, 

 burfr. forth, which took its courfe towards Herculanum, 

 and formed a kind of incruftation over the whole city, 

 under which the houfes and temples lay buried. The 

 inhabitants by that time had been able to fave their 

 lives and their moft valuable efFecls by flight. 



The firft difcoverv of the city was made about the 

 year 171 1. by the prince d'Elbeuf, who was going to 

 build a country-feat on the fea~coaft. He caufed the 

 lava to be perpendicularly broke through, for the pur- 

 pofe of linking a well. The labourers came at length 

 to the theatre of the fubterraneah city, and flruck upon 

 the point of the femicircle between two ftair-caies. 

 Here ftood three excellent ftatues, which the prince 

 d'Elbeuf, with great pains and expence, caufed to be 

 brought above ground. News of this tranfaction being- 

 carried to the auftrian viceroy at Naples, count Daun, 



(for 



