ROMANCE OF HERCULANEUM

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 316, 6 January 1909, Page 4

ROMANCE OF HERCULANEUM

A BURIED CITY OF PI.KASIIIE AND ITS XEW BlliTll. A city that was—and is not —and will he. A city beautiful, a seal of learning, a temple of art, a home oi' music and dance and laughter, a eiiy .set iu h land of loveliness, of poetry and table; behind her the great cone oi Vesuvius, its fertile slopes covered as now with vineyards, ehe.stnut trees anil cord; befoie her the waters of the most beautiful | bay in Mm world; over all the deep 1 blue sky of Italy. .Mcreulaneum was happy once. But for the first century after Christ, when Vesuvius put out her light for sixteen hundred years, she lay in an utter darkness of death. There came, a false dawn; and now is come indeed the day of her new birth. The story of the city that was and will he opens with a fable, llercuh l © passed that way, brought her to being, and left her u s a piveious jewel by the Lsea. Then strange, races came ami eompiered, and were conquered, and last of all came the Uomans. in the days of Christ the city is seen as a quiet little health resort, entirely Romanised, patronised by great folk wearied with "the and liie wealth and the clatter of Home."'

Fountains played in the fair straight I streets. Bronze statues, among the I most .beautiful that the world has ever I seen, caught and reflected Ihe sunlight. Uoves Itew ailiont the eoltimned porlieou* of the stalely buildings. Iu the theatre, the. great Urcek tragedies and comedies were played. The marble baths offered refreshment to all. The country villas were set in great gardens, where roses and priceless murbles relieved the sombre hues of ilex and cypress. Dowu by the sea lived the lishermen. A quiet spirit of prosperity prevailed. Then without warning, at 1 o'clock iu the afternoon 011 24th August, A.D.i'D, Vesuvius, long thought to be an extinct volcano, siruek thu sudden death blow. I'laiuca, darkness, and lightning, earthquake, a cloud Of ashes, poisonous exhalations, rain, and then a river of mud. Slowly, irresistibly, the-mud swept down I on the doomed city, crept into every j cranny, covered all things in a black | shroud.

For sixteen hundred years the shroud of nun!, nearly a hundred feet in depth, kept its scrri't. "Then. dunag tire leenlh century, the veil was lifted, exeav;itioni made, treasures uonderJul and be\ond price were brought to light; but save for a sinail portion, the city was reburied, ami so it has remained I'm- n century ami a half to the present time, wheu the work of excavation begins anew. 1 Now Professor VTalstein has a hundred reasons wherewith to show tliat of all ancient sites ilercuJaneuni promises to yield the. richest harvest of treasure. ISho was nut as Athens or Home, Delphi or Olympia, Alexandria or Her* gamon; she is richer than them all; a greater treasure ju bronzes and manuscripts than ever eame from these cities was brought to light in the eighteenth century from oue of her villas alone. | So sudden and complete was the catastrophic that the life of the city was j arrested in full vigour—to be sealed and preserved through the ages. Jlarbarouo hordes have devastated Athens and Home from the decline of the Human Kmpiiv, through the .Middle Ages, almost to our own day. But llerculaneuin has slept in the profouadest peace. Untouched by vandal hands, hidden from lime and his destroying weapons—sun, wind and rain, frost and snow—the city was as a young and beautiful body lovingly embalmed. Vesuvius was greater than man and greater than time. Pompeii is nearly six miles from Vesuvius. but iJei'ciilaneum was nearer, less than live utiles from the volcano. 'Pompeii was buried by degrees, and the people had ample time'in which to save their valuables, and in latter days were able to return to carry oil' what yet remained. Hut no valuables were saved from iJeicitlaiit'imi, ami since the city was buried to a depth of nearly a hundred feet, it was impossible for anything to be recovered. The burial was a* sudden as complete. The torrent of liquid mud, of ashes mixed with water, swooped relentlessly down upon the city; there was time only for the people to escape from the houses and streets if not from the death storm of the volcano—and though many bodies were found in Pompeii, lV\v have been discovered in llerculaneuin. All (lie treasures remained. And now they lie, all most perfectly preserved., in the matrix of the once plastic mud. (.lently the mini stream would sleal into a hous.\ breaking nothing, but covering a'l tilings with a most perfect preservative. And so il is that some of the bronzes already brought to light have almost their original freshness glass was mil

melted, marible not calcined, and rolls of manuscripts were damaged sg slightly as still to liu decipherable, And'" what manuscripts may not nv main! Imoiii one villa aloue came right hundred rolls—as it happened. disappointing treatises of pliiioso[i!iy—in other houses may lie found the works of all the great Creek tragedians or writers of comedy, perhaps the missing

works of Plato and Aristotle, ov tin: last books of Livy, or intimate lett'.-r< about tlie early days of Christianity. And it seeius certain that the future will bring discoveries of valuable works of Creek art, of far more importance than those niiide at any site hitherto known in elas-ic lands. Only glimpses of a small portion of

the city have been seen. A beautiful little theatre has been discovered, decorated Avith statues in every part, a basilica of -mysterious purpose, a few temples, a remarkably lino villa stored with art treasures, more than a hundred entire statues and busts, and many such objects as inkstands, surgical instruments, spindles, scales, fishingtackle, and gold rings and bracelets. Ceneratious will pas* (before all is fouud

| and revealed and llerculaneum livos | again in her new glory.—Daily Express.