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I have tried to consider these remarks with the respect due to 
their own force and to the high claims of the speaker. But they do 
not seem to me to be fatal to the positions taken up in my address, 
for the following reasons : — 
1. The formation of a vallum, though an interesting and important 
event, vras nothing very novel. Hadrian, the predecessor of 
Antoninus, had made one nearly twice as long between the mouth 
of the Tyne and the Solway Firth. Nor can it be considered to 
have any such startling and sensational character, as to make a very 
vivid impression upon the imagination of contemporaries. It was 
effected more than 1000 miles from Rome, among tribes regarded 
by the Romans as wild barbarians. But the event discussed in the 
above address occurred in Italy itself ; it fell upon two well-known 
cities not 200 miles from Rome, where eminent Romans possessed 
villas ; and it was, so far as the Italian pensinula is concerned, some- 
thing eminently startling and previously unheard of. 
2. By the kindness of Dr. Donaldson, I am in possession of the 
precise words of M. Aurelius, which I had certainly overlooked. 
Literally translated, they run thus : — “ How many entire cities, so to 
speak, have perished [or, are dead] ; Helice and Pompeii and 
Herculaneum and numberless others.”* 
Let it be observed that this is not contemporary evidence ; for it 
is a century after the event. Further, forasmuch as Helice, in Achaia, 
perished suddenly by an earthquake, it might be inferred that the 
Campanian cities had probably been destroyed in like manner. No 
student of these words, at the time of the revival of learning, would 
detect in them a hint that Vesuvius was in anywise implicated, 
although the contemporaries of the imperial author might happen to 
be well aware of it. But is it evidence which could be produced in 
a court of justice as on a level with that of Dion Cassius'? Do not 
the words “ numberless others ” imply that Pompeii and Herculaneum 
had been destroyed in some way which was not very uncommon ? I 
would still respectfully submit, that the passage would be justly 
classed by Lyell among the testimonies, which are not merely non- 
contemporary, but likewise somewhat vague and general. 
" n6crai Si TTo\eis < 5 \cu, 'Iv, ovtocs tiircv, reOvrjKafTLV, EA1/07 kcu Hoixttti'lol kcu 
UpicXavov, kcu aAA ai avapiQ/xipTou — Marti Antonini Commcntariorum, lib. iv. 
cap. 48. 
