of Edinburgh, Session 1881 - 82 . 
425 
occasion to remind my audience at a later point, in the actual con- 
flagration that ensued. Other distinguished contemporaries, who 
have preserved a total silence on the subject, such as Juvenal and 
Epictetus, I of course pass over. One non-contemporary historian 
must be reserved for a later stage in the investigation. 
1. To begin then with Martial. Born in a.d. 43, he must have 
been in his thirty-sixth year at the time when the eruption took 
place. He has left behind him epigrams to the number of 1523 ; of 
which the majority might have been spared with advantage to his 
reputation, both moral and poetical. To the subject before us he 
has dedicated one composition only. It is to be found in book iv. 
No. 44 (or, as some editions seem to make it, 43). It consists of 
six lines, and bears the title On Mount Vesuvius . The word Vesuvius, 
let me observe in passing, though employed by Latin prose writers, 
as, e.g ., the younger Pliny, cannot be brought into Latin verse, 
because all its syllables are short. Accordingly we find the forms 
Vesevus (Virgil), Vesbius or Vesvius, with the adjective Vesuvinus* 
(Statius), and in Greek, to pio-fiiw opo?. It is almost needless to 
observe, that Romans, especially in the lower classes, seem to have 
identified the sounds represented by the letters b and v, as do the 
Spaniards of the present day.f 
The gist of the epigram is, that Campania had been a smiling 
region, dearer to some deities than seats which they were supposed 
specially to affect ; but that these same divinities have reduced it all 
to ashes. 
I have found a fairly correct versified translation in a book of the 
last century. J It runs thus : — 
Here verdant vines oppress’d Vesuvio’s sides ; 
The generous grape here pour’d her purple tides. 
This Bacchus lov’d beyond his native scene [i.e. Nysa] ; 
Here dancing satyrs joy’d to trip the green. 
Far more than Sparta this in Venus’ grace ; 
And great Alcides once renown’d the place ; 
Now flaming embers spread dire waste around, 
And gods regret that gods can thus confound. 
* Jamque et flere pio Yesuvina incendia cantu Mens erat. — Statius, Silvae , 
lib. v. carm. iii. 205, 6. 
+ The illiterate often wrote Bia Noba for Via Nova. We usually speak of 
Sebastopol ; our regiments have, I believe, Sevastopol. 
+ In a note to Melmoth’s translation of Pliny’s Letters. 
