HISTORICAL NOTICE OF POMPEII

POMPEII is situated in that district of Italy named by the ancients Campania, comprised between the mountains of Samnium and the Tyrrhenian sea, and bounded on the north by the river Liris, and on the south by the Silarus. The line of coast included between these points is broken by two far-projecting capes, Misenum and the promontory of Minerva, between which lies a deep recess, called from its shape Crater, the Cup, or the Gulf of Cum, and known in modern times as the Bay of Naples. At the bottom of this bay stood Pompeii, about thirteen miles south east of Naples, and five from Vesuvius. Of its history very little is known. It is related to have been founded by Hercules, as well as its neighbour and fellow-victim, Herculaneum. Solinus says that the name of Pompeii is derived from Pompe, in allusion to the pomp with which Hercules celebrated his victories, while awaiting his fleet at the mouth of the river Sarnus. Being furnished with so respectable and credible an origin, it would be waste of time to inquire any further. An almost impenetrable darkness hangs over these remote ages and when men are driven to take refuge in mythology, it is plain that they can find little satisfaction in history. Strabo, however, asserts that these towns were founded by Pelasgians and Tyrrhenians. The first inhabitants that we can trace on this coast are the Osci, who appear to have been the same as the Ausones, and of Pelasgian extraction. At an early, but still an unknown period, a colony from Chalcis in Euboea founded the town of Cum . Parthenope, afterwards called Neapolis, now Naples, was an offset from thence, or from a kindred colony of Eretrians. Pompeii and Herculaneum also fell into their power, but their establishments seem to have extended no further in this direction.

Bay of Naples.

Campania, where, in Pliny's words, all imaginable delights were in constant rivalry, has always been celebrated as tempting by its riches the arms of strangers, and punishing the cupidity of its conquerors by enervating, and subjecting them in their turn to some sterner enemy; in consequence, it has experienced a rapid succession of masters.

According to Strabo, in the passage already quoted, Pompeii was first occupied by the Oscans, then by the Tyrrhenians, or Etruscans, and next by the Samnites, who, about the year B.C. 440, or a little after, conquered Campania; and the branch of that nation settled there subsequently assumed the name of Campanians. The cities of Campania appear to have been independent. There is no trace of a central government. Capua was no doubt the chief city, but we hear only of local governments of a republican form, called in Oscan, meddix, in which the chief magistrate was entitled meddix tuticus.

The first direct notice of Pompeii which we find in history is in B.C. 310, when, during the second Samnite war, a Roman fleet under P. Cornelius entered the mouth of the Sarnus. The crews proceeded up that river as far as Nuceria, and ravaged the country around, but were ultimately driven back with great loss. How long Pompeii had existed before that date it is impossible to say; but, as Overbeck remarks, the remains of some parts of its walls, as well as of the Greek temple in the Forum Triangulare, commonly called the Temple of Hercules, seem to denote a period coeval with that of P stum, or the seventh century B.C.

When the Romans reduced the Samnites, towards the end of the third century B.C., the cities of the districts occupied by that people, and amongst them those of Campania, appear to have received a municipal constitution. Under this new state of things, Pompeii, as may be inferred from inscriptions, &c., seems to have retained many of its ancient Oscan customs, as well as the Oscan tongue. It was an independent municipium, with a senate and assembly of the people, and magistrates chosen by them, among whom the principal were Quatuorviri. Pompeii no doubt participated in the Campanian revolt, B.C. 216, in the second Punic war, and joined Hannibal, who proposed to make Capua the capital of Italy. His long stay in this delightful climate proved fatal to the discipline even of his victorious troops, and when he was compelled to abandon Italy the incensed Romans took a terrible revenge on their revolted subjects. Capua, we know,, was severely punished; but neither on this occasion, nor on their first occupation of the country, is mention made of Herculaneum or Pompeii.

In the Social, or Marsic war, which broke out in B.C. 91, the Campanian cities raised the standard of revolt. The Pompeians appear to have played a principal part on this occasion, as Appian makes particular mention of them in enumerating the nations which joined the insurrection. In the second year of the war, L. Sulla having defeated the Samnites under Cluentius, and driven them into Nola, laid siege to Pompeii. We have no particulars of this siege, but many refer to it the dilapidated state in which the walls of Pompeii have been discovered, whilst others attribute those appearances to the earthquake which preceded the eruption by which the city was destroyed. At the end of the war Capua was severely punished, its inhabitants being dispossessed, and a colony sent from Rome to cultivate their fertile territory. Stabi , a town within four or five miles of Pompeii, was entirely destroyed, and scattered villas built where it formerly stood. We know not by what means Pompeii not only escaped this fate, but even obtained the Roman franchise, which was probably granted by virtue of a capitulation. A military colony was however established there by Sulla, which, from the patron goddess of the city, and from Sulla, who had subdued it, obtained the names of COLONIA VENERIA CORNELIA. Subsequently we find this colony under the government of the dictator's nephew, P. Sylla, who, in B.C. 64, was accused of exciting troubles in it, and urging it to revolt from Rome. On this occasion Sylla was defended by Cicero, and ultimately acquitted.

After the establishment of Sulla's colony, Pompeii, like Baiae, Puteoli, and other towns in that delightful neighbourhood, became a favourite resort of the wealthy Romans. Among these was Cicero, who mentions his villa at Pompeii. After this period, the Oscan tongue, as well as the Oscan magistrates,were supplanted by Roman. Under the empire we find two principal classes of citizens : decurions, who answered to the Roman senate, and Augustales, or priests of Augustus, whose rank was somewhat equivalent to that of the Roman equites. There was besides a popular body, who, in their comitia, or assemblies, chose their own magistrates, regulated their own worship and priesthood, made municipal laws, and conferred rewards and distinctions. The heads of the government and supreme administrators of the law were the Decemviri juri dicundo, who presided at the assemblies of the Decurions, or senate, and resembled, in their way, the Roman consuls. Below these were diles, Quinquennales, or censors, a Qu stor, and other inferior magistrates. The imperial power seems sometimes to have been represented by Officers called Curatores, whose title is occasionally met with in inscriptions. We should remember that there was always a considerable Greek population in the city.

From this time forward, Pompeii shared the common fortune of the empire, and there is little remarkable to be related of it. Tacitus calls it a "populous" town of Campania; but there is no means of ascertaining the number of its population, which has been variously estimated at from 20,000 to 40,000. Augustus sent thither some Roman colonists in B.C. 7, who established themselves in the northern suburb outside the gate of Herculaneum. This settlement obtained the name of Pagus Augustus Felix. We learn from an anecdote in Suetonius that the emperor Claudius had a villa at Pompeii, whose little son was choked here by throwing up a pear and catching it in his mouth. In the year 59, Pompeii was made to catching feel its dependence upon Rome. The senator, Livineius Regulus, who, after having been banished from the Roman capital, appears to have fixed his abode at Pompeii, gave in the amphitheatre of that place some grand gladiatorial shows, which were attended by the inhabitants of the neighbouring towns. During this exhibition, a quarrel, which originated in certain provincial sarcasms, arose between the Pompeians and the people of Nuceria. The dispute terminated in a battle, and the Nucerians were worsted. Not prospering in the voie de fait, they went to law, and carried their complaint before the Emperor Nero, who finally adjudged that, among other things, the Pompeians should be suspended from all theatrical amusements for ten years : a sentence which, according, to modern ideas, we can hardly believe to be serious, but which certainly was both meant and felt to be so, and which bears strong testimony to the importance attached by the Romans to all public amusements.

Upon the external walls of a house in the street of Mercury, as it is called, near the city wall, was found a caricature or rude drawing scratched on the plaster with a sharp-pointed instrument by some patriotic Pompeian, to commemorate, it has been conjectured, this squabble and victory. We give a facsimile of it. It seems to be a joint production; for the armed figure descending the steps is evidently the work of a more skillful hand than that which drew the other two figures, if they deserve that term. The figure on the right seems to be meant for a gladiator, cased in armour, descending the steps of the amphitheatre, bearing in his left hand a shield, and in his right a palm branch, the token of victory. It is observable that his helmet has a complete visor, and apparently resembles the helmet of the middle ages much more than the usual form of the Roman helmet. The abortive figures on the left probably represent one of the victors on some elevated spot, dragging a prisoner, with his arms bound, after him up the ladder which leads to it. It might not have been very easy to decipher all this; but like the sign-painter who found it necessary to write under his production, " This is a bear!" the artist or artists have thought it prudent to subjoin the following inscription, which, in point of Latin, is much on a par with the drawing which may be interpreted, Campanians, you perished in victory together with the Nucerians."