122 



E. J. SEVVELL^ ESQ., ON POMPEII. 



considerable importance, because it furnishes the reason why the 

 decorations and artistic remains of many of the houses in 

 Pompeii are of more than usual interest. 



It is one of the most interestino- results of recent investis^a- 

 tions (based largely upon inscriptions and archaeological dis- 

 covery) into the conditions of life in the Eoman Empire, to 

 discover that our reliance upon the writers of ancient Eome has 

 led us to think too exclusively of the conditions which prevailed 

 in Eome itself, though these differed in many respects from the 

 conditions of life in the cities of Syria, Egypt, or Asia, and even 

 from those in a provincial town of Italy. The intrigues and 

 infamies of the Imperial Court, which bulk so largely in the 

 writings of authors resident in Eome, fade into unimportance at 

 a distance from the " cloaca gentium," while the solid achieve- 

 ments of the Eoman Empire, its administrative triumphs, were 

 sometimes greatest under the emperors whose personal character 

 was the worst. 



Pompeii, as has already been mentioned, was not a large 

 place. It was a walled town about three-quarters of a mile 

 long and less than half-a-mile wide. The 20,000 inhabitants 

 therefore lived at close quarters : the forum and market-place 

 with all their busy life, the gladiatorial shows and all the other 

 amusements of the amphitheatre, the shops, the baths, and the 

 various temples, were within a few minutes' walk from any 

 man's house. 



The limits of time and space permissible for this paper only 

 allow the most general outline of the history of the place- 

 Yet some notion of that history is absolutely necessary to the 

 understanding of the features of its life. 



Pompeii was, in origin, an Oscan town, and the Oscan 

 inscriptions found in it furnish us with a great part of our 

 materials for the study of that interesting dialect.* 



The place in the Forum still exists where the standards of 

 the measures in use, both dry and liquid, were to be found. 

 The names were originally in Oscan but have now been erased,, 

 and the cavities supplying the standard measures of capacity 



^ Tlie best etymology of the name derives it from the Oscan word 

 "pompe," five. The letter "p" in Oscan took the place of " qu " in 

 ordinary Latin — thus " pod " was the Oscan form of " quod." The 

 letter " o " was often used in Oscan where other vowels appear in Latin. 

 These two facts show that " quinque " in Latin corresponded tO' 

 "pompe" in Oscan, so that "Pompeii" means "the fives." What 

 particular combination of five led to this name has not yet been 

 discovered. 



