E. J. SEWELL, ESQ., ON POMPEIf. 



121 



hand, the two Pompeian "graffiti" show that Greek letters were 

 quite commonly used in this way, and, the Apocalypse being 

 written in Greek, all its readers would be able to understand 

 the person meant, if the numerical values of the Greek letters 

 supplied the means of discovery. 



To return to Pompeii : — The period illustrated by its remains, 

 and the conditions in which those remains are found, make its 

 case one of special interest. Pompeii was buried in a.d. 79, 

 some fifty years or so after the death of our Lord, and at a time 

 when a great part of the Xew Testament writings were still 

 quite recent literature, while some had not yet been written, or 

 at all events published. 



The Christian Church was struggling into existence and 

 notice, and its power in transforming men's thoughts and lives 

 had already brought upon it severe persecution. The conditions 

 of life and the circumstances in which all this was taking place 

 are of very special interest to us. 



In the second place, the remains preserved to us in Pompeii 

 are preserved in a different manner and under different condi- 

 tions to those which have prevailed in the case of all other 

 places of similar age. Covered up more than 1800 years ago by 

 showers of soft dry volcanic ash, they have been uninjured by 

 any violent treatment, or by the long wasting process of atmo- 

 spheric change, so that even the colours of wall-paintings un- 

 covered now are as fresh and vivid as they were in a.d. 79, 

 while the rapidity with which these colours now fade when 

 exposed to the air shows how much we have lost in other places 

 in the case of other similar remains where this fading has taken 

 place centuries ago. 



A third point in which Pompeii is of exceptional value to 

 students of the past is to be found in the fact that it was a small 

 provincial town and watering-place : the population did not in 

 all probability exceed 20,000, and the town, though now two 

 miles from the seashore, was in ancient times a prosperous sea- 

 port town situated close to the beach. Then, too, its position, 

 raised above the fogs of the plain, gave it a clear air, and its 

 situation sloping gently towards the east and south made it a 

 dry and sunny residence in which the heat of a southern sun 

 was tempered by the sea breezes. It resulted fi'om this, that 

 •the place became, before the close of the Eepublic, a resort of 

 Eomans of wealth and position, many of whom built or bought 

 villas in the neighbourhood. Among these was Cicero, whose 

 letters contain many allusions to his Pompeian villa. 



That Pompeii was a favourite place of residence is a fact of 



