We
Proceeded To Resina And Alighted In Order To Descend Under Ground To
Herculaneum, Resina Being Built On The Spot Where Herculaneum Stood.
There
are always guides on this road on the look out for travellers; one
addressed us, and conducted us to a house where we alighted and entered.
Our guide then prepared a flambeau, and having unlocked and lifted up a
trap door invited us to descend.
A winding rampe under ground leads to
Herculaneum. We discovered a large theatre with its proscenium, seats,
corridors, vomitories, etc., and we were enabled, having two lighted
torches with us, to read the inscriptions. Some statues that were found
here have been removed to the Museum at Portici. This is the only part of
Herculaneum that has been excavated; for if any further excavations were
attempted, the whole town of Resina, which is built over it, would fall in.
Herculaneum no doubt contains many things of value, but it would be rather
too desperate a stake to expose the town of Resina to certain ruin, for the
sake of what might be found. At Pompeii the case is very different, there
being nothing built over its site.
After having satisfied our curiosity here, we regained the light of heaven
in Resina, and proceeded to Pompeii, which is seven miles further, the
total distance from Naples to Pompeii being ten miles. The part of Pompeii
already discovered looks like a town with the houses unroofed situated in a
deep gravel or sand pit, the depth of which is considerably greater than
the height of the buildings standing in it. You descend into it from the
brink, which is on a level with the rest of the country; Pompeii is
consequently exposed to the open air, and you have neither to go under
ground, nor to use flambeaux as at Herculaneum, but simply to descend as
into a pit. There is always a guard stationed at Pompeii to protect the
place from delapidation and thefts of antiquarians. From its resembling, as
I have already said, a town in the centre of a deep gravel pit, you come
upon it abruptly and on looking down you are surprized to see a city newly
brought to day. The streets and houses here remain entire, the roofs of the
houses excepted, which fell in by the effect of the excavation; so that you
here behold a Roman city nearly in the exact state it was hi when it was
buried under the ashes of Vesuvius, during its first eruption in the year
79 of the Christian era. It does not appear to me that the catastrophe of
Pompeii could have been occasioned by an earthquake, for if so the streets
and houses would not be found upright and entire: it appears rather to have
been caused by the showers of ashes and ecroulement of the mountain,
which covered it up and buried it for ever from the sight of day. The first
place our guide took us to see was a superb Amphitheatre about half as
large as the Coliseum:
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