A bench of masonry runs along the inner wall of the semicircular niche (9), which is covered by a roof in the form of a half dome and opens upon the street as do the large unroofed monuments of Veius and Mamia. A blank marble tablet was placed in the gable; the builder of the monument, who was doubtless living at the time of the eruption, preferred to leave it to his heirs to add the memorial inscription, but the disaster interfered with the fulfilment of his wishes. It was probably intended to bury the cinerary urn either in the floor of the niche or in the ground at the rear. The effect of the double series of pilasters at the corners, placed one upon the other without an intervening entablature, and of the fantastic stucco decoration of the gable, is not unpleasing, although the designs are far from classical; the tiles shown in the illustration are modern. The inner wall is painted in red and black panels; the vaulted ceiling, from which the stucco has now fallen, was moulded to represent a shell.
Both the niche and the tomb of the Blue Glass Vase seem to have belonged to the adjoining villa. The stucco decoration of the villa in its main features is identical with that of the niche; and the plot of ground behind the tombs is connected by a gateway with a garden of the villa (12 on the plan), which was too richly adorned to have been intended for the use of the occupants of the inn. In the middle of the garden was a pavilion supported by four mosaic columns (now in the Naples Museum), similar to that in the garden of the villa of Diomedes, and to others belonging to city houses. A mosaic fountain niche was made in the rear wall facing the entrance from the street, and in two corners were short columns on which were placed small figures,—on one a boy with a hare, in marble, on the other a frog of glazed terra cotta.
Nevertheless, the garden seems to possess a distinctly sepulchral character. Besides the entrances from the tombs and from the street, there was a third, which led into a court of the villa, with which the peristyle and living rooms were connected by a passageway; in the corner of the court nearest the garden, and facing the entrance from the street (15), was an elaborate domestic shrine, dedicated, as shown by the symbolical decoration, to Apollo, Bacchus, Hercules, and Mercury. The relation of the garden with the living rooms of the villa was only indirect; and we conclude that it was intended for gatherings and sacred rites in honor of the dead. Relatives could partake of the sepulchral banquet under the pavilion.
The tombs of the third group, as may be seen from Plate X, form a stately series. The prevailing type is that which was in vogue at the time of the destruction of the city—a high base, with marble steps at the top leading up to a massive superstructure in the form of an altar, faced with marble. The burial plot was enclosed by a low wall. In the base of the tomb was a sepulchral chamber, entered by a door in the rear or at one side; it was now the custom for relatives to enter the burial vault when they wished to pour libations on the ashes.
The first of the series (16 on the plan, seen in Plate X next to the cypress) was unfinished at the time of the eruption. Part of the marble veneering had not yet been added, the walls of the sepulchral chamber were in the rough, and there were no urns in the five niches designed for their reception. In the burial plot surrounding the tomb, however, a marble bust stone was found (Fig. 240) with the inscription, Iunoni Tyches Iuliae Augustae Vener[iae],—'To the Genius of Tyche, slave of Julia Augusta,—of the cult of Venus.'
The reference is plainly to a female slave of Livia, the wife of Augustus; how her ashes came to be deposited here it is not worth while, in default of information, to conjecture. In sepulchral inscriptions of women Iunoni sometimes takes the place of genio in men's epitaphs. Tyche was seemingly a member of a sisterhood for the worship of Venus, to which, as to the organization of the 'Servants of Mercury and Maia,' and of the 'Servants of Fortuna Augusta,' slaves were admitted.
The tomb of Umbricius Scaurus (17) is conspicuous by reason of its size and noteworthy on account of its decoration. The inscription on the front of the altar-shaped superstructure gives interesting details in regard to the man the memory of whom is here perpetuated: A. Umbricio A. f. Men. Scauro, II vir i. d.; huic decuriones locum monum[ento] et 𐆘 ∞ ∞ in funere et statuam equestr[em in f]oro ponendam censuerunt. Scaurus pater filio,—'To the memory of Aulus Umbricius Scaurus son of Aulus, of the tribe Menenia, duumvir with judiciary authority. The city council voted the place for a monument to this man and two thousand sesterces toward the cost of the funeral; they voted also that an equestrian statue in his honor should be set up in the Forum. Scaurus the father to the memory of his son.'
Why these honors were conferred upon Scaurus, who probably became a duumvir early in life and died soon after his term of office, is not clear. The upper part of the base of the tomb in front was adorned with stucco reliefs—now for the most part gone—in which gladiatorial combats and a venatio were depicted; but a painted inscription along the edge of one of the scenes indicates that the show thus commemorated was given by another man, N. Fistius Ampliatus; Munere [N. Fis]ti Ampliati die summo. Perhaps the last two words mean that 'on the last day' the younger Scaurus, a relative or friend of Ampliatus, shared the cost of the exhibition under some such arrangement as that between Lucretius Valens and his son (p. 222). If this be the correct explanation, it is evident that Scaurus could have given no shows in the Amphitheatre during his duumvirate, else the father would have taken pains to mention the fact in the inscription. His term of office may have come after the year 59, when such exhibitions were prohibited at Pompeii for ten years (p. 220).
The gladiatorial scenes, if space permitted, would merit a detailed presentation—they are so full of human interest. Two gladiators are fighting on horseback, the rest on foot. The vanquished with uplifted thumbs are mutely begging for mercy. The plea of some of them is heeded by the populace; in other groups we see the victor preparing to give the death thrust. Beside each gladiator was painted his name, school, and number of previous combats, as in a programme; and letters were added to give the result of this fight. One combatant, who was beaten and yet by the vote of the audience permitted to live, died on the sand from his wounds. We see him resting on one knee, faint from loss of blood; the letter M beside his name, for missus, is followed by the death sign Θ, the first letter of the Greek word for death, ΘΑΝΑΤΟΣ.
The animals shown in the venatio are mainly wild boars and bears, but we recognize also a lion and a bull. Lions were doubtless much more rarely seen in such exhibitions at Pompeii than at Rome.
As more attention came to be given to the outward appearance of tombs, less was bestowed upon the adornment of the sepulchral chamber. So in the tomb of Scaurus the burial vault is low, cramped, and with plain white walls. A massive pillar, as in the tomb of the Istacidii, supports the vaulted ceiling. It is pierced by two openings, forming four niches, two on each side. Three of these, when the tomb was opened, were closed by panes of glass, and there were traces of a curtain that hung over the one opposite the entrance. There were fourteen other niches in the walls at the sides.
No name is associated with the third tomb (18 on the plan) which, as shown by Plate X, is simply a large cylinder of masonry, the top of which probably had the shape of a truncated cone; the material is brick, with a facing of white stucco lined off to give the appearance of blocks of marble. The base is square; the enclosing wall is adorned with miniature towers. The structure illustrates in its simplest form the type of the massive tomb, or mausoleum, found at Rome; we are at once reminded of the imposing monument of Caecilia Metella on the Appian Way, and of Hadrian's Mausoleum in the city.
A blank tablet was placed by the builder on the front of the enclosing wall to receive an inscription after his death. The heirs, however, preferred to put the memorial on the tomb itself, where the place of an inscription is plainly seen, the slab itself having disappeared. The sepulchral chamber is in the superstructure; it was decorated with simple designs in the fourth style on a white ground. There were only three niches, perhaps for father, mother, and child; the urns were let into the bottoms of the niches, as often in the Roman columbaria.
One of the miniature towers on the enclosing wall is ornamented with a relief presenting a singular design; a woman in mourning habit is laying a fillet on a skeleton reclining on a heap of stones (Fig. 241). The scene may be interpreted as symbolizing the grief of a mother for a dead son.
There is only a simple bust stone in the burial lot (19) beyond the round monument. Next comes the beautiful tomb of Calventius Quietus (20), which may be seen in Plate X, as well as the tomb of Naevoleia Tyche (22; further to the right). Between these two is a walled enclosure (21) without a door, in which are three bust stones. The largest stone bears the name N. Istacidius Helenus; in front of one of the others a small jar was set to receive offerings for the dead. On the front of the enclosing wall is a tablet on which the names of N. Istacidius Januarius and of Mesonia Satulla appear with that of Helenus; they were all freedmen of the Istacidii (p. 412).
The monuments of Quietus and of Tyche are the finest examples of the altar type at Pompeii. Both are ornamented in good taste, but the carvings of the former are more delicate, while the motives of the latter are more elaborate. Quietus was a man of some prominence, as we see from the epitaph: C. Calventio Quieto Augustali; huic ob munificent[iam] decurionum decreto et populi conse[n]su bisellii honor datus est,—'To the memory of Gaius Calventius Quietus, member of the Brotherhood of Augustus. On account of his generosity the honor of a seat of double width was conferred upon him by the vote of the city council and the approval of the people.'
At the Theatre and the Amphitheatre, Quietus had the privilege of sitting on a bisellium, as if he were a member of the city council. Below the inscription is a representation of the 'seat of double width,' shown in Fig. 242. The square footstool at the middle implies that the seat was intended for a single person. The ends of the tomb were ornamented with finely carved reliefs of the civic crown, which was made of oak leaves and awarded to those who had saved the life of a Roman citizen (Fig. 243). As the inscription does not record any deed of valor, it may be that the crown is used here merely as a decorative device.
Though the monument of Quietus was built in the last years of the city, when such structures were generally provided with sepulchral chambers, it has no burial vault, and the enclosing wall is without a door. It is perhaps a cenotaph, a monument erected in honor of a man whose remains were interred elsewhere; it is also possible that Quietus had no relatives who wished to have an accessible sepulchral chamber in order to make libations to his ashes, and that for this reason the monument was made solid, the urn being buried in the earth underneath. The small turrets on the enclosing wall were adorned with reliefs; among them Oedipus solving the riddle of the Sphinx, and Theseus after the slaughter of the Minotaur. The suggestion is obvious: he who is commemorated here had solved the riddle of existence, had found an exit from the labyrinth of life.
Around the front and sides of the tomb of Naevoleia Tyche runs a border of acanthus arabesques, forming panels in which reliefs are placed. The border in front is interrupted at the middle of the upper side by the portrait of Tyche; the lower half of the panel is devoted to a ceremonial scene in which offerings appear to be made to the dead, while in the upper half, under the portrait, we read the inscription: Naevoleia L. lib[erta] Tyche sibi et C. Munatio Fausto Aug[ustali] et pagano, cui decuriones consensu populi bisellium ob merita eius decreverunt. Hoc monimentum Naevoleia Tyche libertis suis libertabusq[ue] et C. Munati Fausti viva fecit,—'Naevoleia Tyche, freedwoman of Lucius Naevoleius, for herself and for Gaius Munatius Faustus, member of the Brotherhood of Augustus and suburban official, to whom on account of his distinguished services the city council, with the approval of the people, granted a seat of double width. This monument Naevoleia Tyche built in her lifetime also for the freedmen and freedwomen of herself and of Gaius Munatius Faustus,' who was seemingly her husband.
Fig. 243.—End of the tomb of Naevoleia Tyche, with relief of a ship entering port; beyond, end of the tomb of Calventius Quietus, with the civic crown.
The bisellium of Faustus is shown in one of the end panels; in the other we see a ship sailing into port (Fig. 243). The carving of the relief is bold, though crude; we see the sailors furling the sail, as the vessel glides into still water. The scene is symbolical of death,—the entrance of the soul after the storms of life into a haven of rest. The thought is expressed by Cicero with deep feeling in his essay on Old Age: 'As for myself, I find the ripening of life truly agreeable; the nearer I come to the time of death, the more I feel like one who begins to see land and knows that sometime he will enter the harbor after the long voyage.'
The sepulchral chamber of this tomb has a large niche opposite the entrance; the urn standing in it apparently contained the cinerary remains of two persons, Tyche and Faustus. Other urns were found in the smaller niches in the walls and on the bench of masonry along the sides. Three were of glass, protected by lead cases; one of them is shown in Fig. 244. They contained ashes and fragments of bone, with remains of a liquid mixture, which was shown by chemical analysis to have consisted of water, wine, and oil. Lamps were found on the bench, one for each urn, and there were others in a corner; they were used on anniversary days to light the chamber.
The last monument consists of a walled enclosure, with a table and couches of masonry like those often found in the gardens of private houses (Fig. 245). In front of the table is a small round altar for libations. This was a place for banquets in honor of the dead, triclinium funebre; a tomb designed to serve the convenience of the living, like the niche of Cerrinius Restitutus and the benches of Veius and Mamia. The walls were painted in the last style.
Over the entrance in front we read: Cn. Vibrio Q. f. Fal. Saturnino Callistus lib.,—'To the memory of Gnaeus Vibrius Saturninus son of Quintus, of the tribe Falerna; erected by his freedman Callistus.' As Saturninus did not belong to the tribe Menenia, he was very likely not a native of Pompeii. His ashes were probably placed in an urn and buried in the earth between the altar and the entrance.
There is every reason to suppose that the series of tombs on the south side of the highway is continued beyond the villa of Diomedes; but it has not yet been found possible to carry the excavations further in that direction.
The tombs of the fourth group present no new types of design or construction. Several of them are of interest, however, on account of peculiarities of arrangement. At the time of the eruption two of the monuments (33, 35) were in process of building; it is impossible to tell what form they were to have. A third (36) had been commenced on a large scale, but apparently the money of the heirs gave out, and little pyramids were set up at the corners of the walled enclosure, the urns being buried in the earth.
Two of the monuments were erected for children (40, 41). They stand near together on the high ground in the angle formed by the Vesuvius Road. They are small vaulted niches, ornamented with reliefs in white stucco, most of which has fallen off. The urn in each was placed in the earth under the bottom of the niche, with a small pipe tile leading to the surface, through which libations could be poured down upon it. A tablet is set in the sustaining wall at the side of the street below the larger niche (41), with the simple inscription, N. Velasio Grato, vix[it] ann. XII,—'To the memory of Numerius Velasius Gratus, who lived twelve years.' The inscription belonging to the other niche was even more simple, giving no first name: Salvius puer vixit annis VI,—'The boy Salvius lived six years.'
One tomb (34) is noteworthy on account of its door. This has the appearance of a double door, but it is made of a single slab of marble, and swings, like an ordinary Roman door, by means of pivots which are fitted into sockets in the threshold and lintel. It was also provided with a lock. The exterior of the tomb was unfinished; the reticulate masonry still lacked its facing of more costly material. The sepulchral chamber, however, contained several cinerary urns; one of them, of alabaster, was in a large niche facing the entrance, and a gold seal ring, with the figure of a deer in an intaglio, was found in it among the ashes and fragments of bone. There were also several lamps, a small altar of terra cotta, and a few glass perfume vials. Two amphorae, of the sort used for wine, stood against the sides of the chamber; such were sometimes utilized as repositories for ashes.
One of the volutes of the well preserved limestone tomb of M. Alleius Luccius Libella (37) is seen in Plate X. The monument has the shape of an altar, and is apparently solid. It was erected by the widow, Alleia Decimilla, priestess of Ceres, in memory of her husband, who was duumvir in 26 A.D., and of a son of the same name, who was a member of the city council and died in his eighteenth year. The burial plot was given by the city. As no opening was left in the monument, Decimilla evidently planned to have her ashes deposited in another tomb, perhaps that of her father's family.
The remaining four tombs are of the same type; the idea is that of a temple, the columnar construction being suggested not by projecting half-columns, as in the tomb of the Istacidii, but by more or less prominent pilasters at the corners and on the sides. Two of the tombs (38 and 39) stand where the tongue of land between the highway and the Vesuvius Road begins to descend to the level of the pavement.
The remains of the tomb of Ceius Labeo (38) are shown in Plate X (in the foreground, at the left). The appearance of this monument was somewhat like that of the Istacidii; there was a second story, the roof of which was supported entirely by columns; between these, statues of members of the family were placed, of both men and women, some of marble, others of tufa coated with stucco. The base was ornamented with stucco reliefs, which have almost entirely disappeared; above, in front, were two portrait medallions.
The large sepulchral chamber can be seen in the plate. The floor was more than six feet below the surface of the ground. A vaulted niche in the rear wall was connected with the outside by means of a small opening at the top, through which libations could be poured or offerings dropped upon the urn below. In the vicinity of the monument was found the inscription: L. Ceio L. f. Men. Labeoni iter[um] d. v. i. d. quinq[uennali] Menomachus l[ibertus],—'To the memory of Lucius Ceius Labeo son of Lucius, of the tribe Menenia, twice duumvir with judiciary authority, also quinquennial duumvir; erected by his freedman, Menomachus.'
There were bust stones in the plot belonging to this monument, and also about the adjoining tomb (39); the names of those whose ashes were deposited under the stones, in part, at least, seem to have been painted upon the base of Labeo's tomb, but they were illegible at the time of excavation. The adjoining tomb (39) is without a name, but was built after that erected in honor of Labeo.
The tombs at the end of the fourth group (42, 43) belong to one household. In the sustaining wall along the highway a sepulchral tablet of tufa is seen with the inscription: Arriae M. f. Diomedes l[ibertus] sibi suis,—'Diomedes, a freedman, for Arria, daughter of Marcus Arrius, for himself and for his family.' On the elevation directly above is his tomb, the end of which is seen in Plate X (in the foreground). It bears the inscription: M. Arrius Ↄ. l. Diomedes sibi suis memoriae, magister pag[i] Aug[usti] Felic[is] suburb[ani],—'Marcus Arrius Diomedes, freedman of Arria, magistrate of the suburb Pagus Augustus Felix, in memory of himself and his family.'
The abbreviation Ↄ. l. takes the place of Gaiae libertus, 'freedman of Gaia,' the letter C, which stands for Gaius, being reversed; Gaia is used, as in legal formulas, to show that the person referred to is a woman. The slave Diomedes, after receiving his freedom, was entitled to the use of the family name, and was known as Marcus Arrius Diomedes. His mistress, as Roman ladies generally, was called not by a first name, but by the feminine form of the family name, Arria, which was as plainly suggested to a Roman reading the name Arrius followed by the symbol as if it had been written in full.
On the front of the tomb we observe in stucco relief two bundles of rods, fasces, with axes, having reference to the official position of Diomedes as a magistrate of a suburb. The axes are quite out of place. Suburban officers did not have the 'power of life and death'; the lictors of such magistrates carried bundles of rods without axes. The vain display of authority reminds one of the pompous petty official held up to ridicule by Horace in his Journey to Brundisium; it suggests also the rods and axes painted on the posts at the entrance of the dining room of Trimalchio, in Petronius's novel. The tomb was constructed without a burial vault, but there were two bust stones near by with names of freedmen of Diomedes.
The monument to Arria (43) lies further back; it fronts on the Vesuvius Road. Diomedes found a way to reconcile happily his own love of display with his duty to his former mistress; he built a larger monument for her, but chose for his own the more conspicuous position. The small sepulchral chamber of Arria's tomb contained nothing of interest and is now walled up.
CHAPTER LI
BURIAL PLACES NEAR THE NOLA, STABIAN, AND
NOCERA GATES
No part of the highway leading from the Nola Gate has yet been excavated. In the year 1854, however, excavations were made for a short distance along the city wall near this gate, and thirty-six cinerary urns were found buried in the earth. In or near them were perfume vials of terra cotta with a few of glass. Here in the pomerium, the strip of land along the outside of the walls, which was left vacant for religious as well as practical reasons, the poor were permitted to bury the ashes of their dead without cost. In some cases the place of the urn was indicated by a bust stone; often the spot was kept in memory merely by cutting upon the outside of the city wall the name of the person whose ashes rested here.
There was another cemetery of the poor a short distance southwest of the Amphitheatre, south of the modern highway. It lay along a road which branched off from the highway leading to Stabiae and ran east in the direction of Nocera. Sepulchral remains were found here in 1755-57, and again in 1893-94, when further explorations were made. They consist of cinerary urns, buried in the earth, with small glass perfume vials in or near them, and a bust stone to mark the spot. A few of the stones are of marble and bear a name; the great majority are roughly carved out of blocks of lava, and if a name was painted on the front it has disappeared.
Of special significance, in connection with these burial places, is the arrangement for making offerings to the dead. In order that libations might be poured directly upon the cinerary urns, these were connected with the surface of the ground by means of tubes. In one instance a lead pipe ran from above into an opening made for it in the top of the lead case inclosing an urn. More often the connection was made by means of round tiles; in the case of one urn, three tiles were joined together, making a tube five feet long. The upper end of the libation tube did not project from the ground, but was placed just below the surface and covered with a flat stone; over this was a thin layer of earth, which the relatives would remove on the feast days of the dead. Pagan antiquity was never able to dissociate the spirit of the dead from the place of interment; the worship of ancestors was in no small degree the product of local associations.
In the vicinity of these remains is a sepulchral monument of modest dimensions, which, as we learn from the tablet over the entrance, was erected by Marcus Petasius Dasius in memory of his two sons, Severus and Communis, and of a freedwoman named Vitalis. There was no floor in the burial chamber; the urns were placed in the earth and marked by bust stones, among which was one set up for Dasius himself, with the initials M. P. D.
The Stabian Road has been excavated for but a short distance near the gate. The only monuments completely cleared are two large, semicircular benches, like those of Veius and Mamia (p. 409). At the rear of each is a small sepulchral enclosure in which the urns were buried. The memorial tablet belonging to the monument nearest the gate has disappeared, but two boundary stones at the corners of the lot bear the inscription: M. Tullio M. f. ex d[ecurionum] d[ecreto],—'To Marcus Tullius son of Marcus, in accordance with a vote of the city council.' The Tullius named was perhaps the builder of the temple of Fortuna Augusta (p. 132).
The inscription of the second bench, like that of Mamia, is cut in large letters on the back of the seat: M. Alleio Q. f. Men. Minio, II v. i. d.; locus sepulturae publice datus ex d. d.,—'To the memory of Marcus Alleius Minius son of Marcus, of the tribe Menenia, duumvir with judiciary authority. The place of burial was given in the name of the city by vote of the municipal council.'
A third bench, close to the second, lies under a modern house and has not been uncovered. Further from the gate a rectangular seat, probably belonging to the same series of monuments, was discovered in 1854, it was built in memory of a certain Clovatius, duumvir, as shown by a fragment of an inscription that came to light at the same time. From still another tomb are reliefs with gladiatorial combats, now in the Naples Museum.
With the exception of those near the Herculaneum Gate, the most important tombs yet discovered at Pompeii are in a group beyond the Amphitheatre, excavated in 1886-87. They are six in number, and lie close together on both sides of a road which ran east from the Nocera Gate, bending slightly to the north (Fig. 246). This road was not in use in the last years of the city; the stones of the pavement and sidewalk had been removed. The monuments, however, were large and stately, erected by people of means, and the ruins are characteristic and impressive. The tombs were built of common materials, stucco being used on exposed surfaces instead of marble. The simplicity of construction, and the shapes of the letters in the election notices and other inscriptions painted on them, suggest a relatively early date, which is confirmed by the age of the coins found in the urns; the monuments belong to the early decades of the Empire.
Fig. 246.—Plan of the tombs east of the Amphitheatre.
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The first tomb at the right (No. 1 on the plan) was built in the form of a commemorative arch, with pilasters at the corners. Above was a low cylinder surmounted by a truncated cone, on which stood a terminal member in the shape of a pine cone, found near by. The cinerary urn was buried in the earth below an opening in the floor of the passage under the arch (shown in the plan). No name appears in connection with this monument.
Fig. 247.—View of two tombs east of the Amphitheatre.
That at the left is No. 3 on the plan; the next is No. 4.
Another monument of the arch type, that of Mancius Diogenes, is seen on the opposite side of the street (5; Fig. 248). The structure is shallow, the vaulted opening low. On the top of the arch were three niches, in which stood three travertine statues; two of these, both of women, have been preserved, and are of indifferent workmanship. A marble tablet was placed in front, over the vault, with the inscription, P. Mancio P. l[iberto] Diogeni ex testamento arbitratu Manciae P. l[ibertae] Dorinis,—'To the memory of Publius Mancius Diogenes, freedman of Publius Mancius; (the monument was erected) in accordance with the terms of his will, under the direction of Mancia Doris, freedwoman of Publius Mancius.'
There is a curious ambiguity in this inscription; we cannot tell whether Doris, seemingly the wife of Diogenes, was manumitted by the Publius Mancius who gave him his freedom, or by Diogenes himself after he had gained his freedom and was entitled to use the name Publius Mancius. Four bust stones stood in front of the tomb and two at the rear, arranged as indicated on the plan; those in front are seen in our illustration.
The tomb at the left of that just described (4; Fig. 247) is of interest as showing the result of an attempt to blend the arch type with that of the temple. A passage roofed with a flat vault runs through the middle of the first story. The second story had the appearance of a diminutive temple with four Corinthian columns in front. The niche representing the cella was of the full width of the tomb, and occupied two thirds of the depth; the other third was given to the portico. Four statues of tufa coated with stucco that were found here probably stood under the portico or in the intercolumniations, where they would best be seen from below; three were statues of men, the fourth of a woman.
The arrangement of the five bust stones in the vaulted passage is indicated on the plan. The three nearest the street entrance bear the name of a freedman, L. Caesius L. l. Logus,—'Lucius Caesius Logus, freedman of Lucius Caesius,' and of Titia Vesbina and Titia Optata, both evidently freedwomen manumitted by a lady named Titia. We are probably safe in assuming that the two inmost stones, without names, are those of Caesius and Titia, husband and wife, who gave Logus, Vesbina, and Optata their freedom, and built the monument. It was not necessary to place the names of the builders upon the commemorative stones, because they were doubtless given in the memorial tablet in front, which has disappeared. Coins of Augustus and Tiberius were found in the urns.
One tomb (2) has the form of a niche, resembling those of the two children near the end of the Street of Tombs (p. 425), but larger and more costly than they. The corners are embellished with three-quarter columns, which have Doric flutings and composite capitals. On the walls at the entrance we see, modelled in stucco, doorposts with double doors swung back. Two marble bust stones, the places of which are indicated on the plan, show where the urns of the two most important members of the family, Apuleius and his wife Veia, were buried; their names doubtless appeared in an inscription on the front of the monument. In one of the urns was found a coin of Tiberius of the year 10 A.D. The other was enclosed in a lead case, and a lead libation tube was extended from the ashes through both covers to the surface.
The names of Apuleius and Veia are obtained from two other bust stones, in front of the niche. One reads, Festae Apulei f[iliae] vix[it] ann[os] XVII,—'To the memory of Festa, daughter of Apuleius, who lived seventeen years.' The other has simply [C]onviva Veiaes vix. an. XX,—'Conviva, slave of Veia, lived twenty years.' An as of the time of the Republic was found in the urn of Conviva; and a square tile, the upper end of which was closed by a piece of marble, served as a libation tube for the urn of Festa.
The two remaining tombs are of the temple type, one (3; Fig. 247) having pilasters at the corners, the other half-columns at the corners and on the sides (6). The first has a vaulted sepulchral chamber, entered from the rear. On the inside of the wall next the street are three low niches, the top of which is nearly on a level with the sidewalk; each of them contained an urn. Directly over the inner niches, in the outside of the wall and opening toward the street, are three other niches, shown in the illustration, in the bottom of which were libation tubes leading to the urns below. Relatives could thus pour their offerings of wine or oil upon the urns without entering the sepulchral chamber. Lava bust stones were placed against the back of the outer niches. The hair on one of them is treated in a manner to indicate that a woman is represented. The entrance of the tomb was closed by a large block of lava. On account of the arrangement for offering libations from the outside, it was not necessary to make the burial vault easy of access.
The entrance to the other tomb (6; Fig. 248) was in front, and closed by a door of limestone. It led, not to a sepulchral chamber, but to a stairway by which one ascended to the second story. Here statues were placed, but the exact form of the upper part cannot be determined. The finding of five tufa capitals suggests that the second story may have been a columnar structure, like that of the tomb of the Istacidii; when the excavations are carried further east enough other fragments will perhaps be found to make a complete restoration possible. One of the statues is of a man holding a roll of papyrus in his hand, with a round manuscript case, scrinium, at his feet.
Among the inscriptions painted on these tombs were two, relating to gladiatorial combats, which have already been mentioned (p. 221). One of the election notices, oddly enough, refers to a candidate for an office in Nuceria: L. Munatium Caeserninum Nuceriae II vir. quinq. v. b. o. v. f. (for duumvirum quinquennalem, virum bonum, oro vos, facite),—'Make Lucius Caeserninus quinquennial duumvir of Nuceria, I beg of you, he's a good man.' As long as the relations of the Pompeians and Nucerians were friendly, the highway between the two towns was doubtless much travelled by the citizens of both places.
If the visitor pauses to think of the religious feeling which the ancients manifested generally in relation to their burial places, it gives somewhat of a shock to see notices even of a semi-public character painted in bright red letters upon tombs. All such inscriptions, however, are surpassed in ludicrous incongruity with the purpose of the monument by the following advertisement regarding a stray horse: Equa siquei aberavit cum semuncis honerata a. d. VII Kal. Septembres (corrected into Decembres), convenito Q. Deciu[m] Q. l. Hilarum ... L. l. ... chionem, citra pontem Sarni fundo Mamiano,—'If anybody lost a mare with a small pack-saddle, November 25, let him come and see Quintus Decius Hilarus, freedman of Quintus Decius, or ... (the name is illegible), freedman of Lucius, on the estate of the Mamii, this side of the bridge over the Sarno.' The two freedmen were very likely in partnership, working a farm belonging to the family, one representative of which we have already met, Mamia the priestess (p. 410).
A more serious desecration of burial places, after offerings to the dead ceased to be made by relatives, or a family became extinct, was probably not uncommon. Different families had different gods, and those of one household were quite independent of those of another. Ordinarily a man had no reason to fear or respect the gods of his neighbor; notwithstanding the associations of worship connected with tombs, the general feeling toward them was very different from that manifested toward temples, where local divinities or the great gods were worshipped. The most stringent regulations of the emperors could not prevent the ransacking of the tombs about Rome for objects of value, and the removal of their materials of construction for building purposes. The superstructure of two of the monuments near the Herculaneum Gate had disappeared apparently before the destruction of the city, and of the tomb of Porcius only the core remained.
PART V
POMPEIAN ART
CHAPTER LII
ARCHITECTURE
In the preceding pages the principal buildings of Pompeii have been described, and reference has been made to many works of art. We shall now offer a few observations of a more general nature in regard to the remains of architecture, sculpture, and painting.
The different periods in the architectural history of the city have been defined in a previous chapter. The most significant of these, from every point of view, is that which we have called the Tufa Period, which corresponds roughly with the second century B.C. Its importance is chiefly due to the fact that it records for us a phase of architectural development, a style, of which only slight traces are found elsewhere,—in the East. It is the last offshoot of untrammelled Hellenistic art in the field of construction; the architecture of the following period was still derived from Hellenistic sources, but was dominated by Roman conceptions, and received from Rome the impulse that determined the direction of its development. The remains of the Tufa Period at Pompeii furnish materials for a missing chapter in the history of architecture.
As we have seen, the stone preferred in this period for all purposes was the gray tufa. Where used for columns, pilasters, and entablatures, it was covered with stucco; in plain walls it appeared in its natural color. Unfortunately, the covering of stucco is preserved in only a few cases; the best example is presented by an Ionic capital in the first peristyle of the house of the Faun. The stucco was generally white, but color was sometimes employed, as in the Corinthian columns and pilasters of the exedra in the same house, which are painted a deep wine red.
No other period of Pompeian art shows in an equal degree the impress of a single characteristic and self-consistent style, alike in public buildings, temples, and private houses, in the interior decoration as well as in the treatment of exteriors. The wall decoration of the first style is simply the adaptation of tufa construction to decorative use. The motives are identical. The forms are the same, but these naturally appear in a freer handling upon interior walls, the effect being heightened by the use or imitation of slabs of marble of various colors.
This style throughout gives the impression of roominess and largeness. It is monumental, especially when viewed in contrast with the later architecture of Pompeii. No building erected after the city became a Roman colony can be compared, for ample dimensions and spatial effects, with the Basilica. In the same class are the temples of Jupiter and Apollo, with the impressive two-storied colonnades enclosing the areas on which they stand; the contrast with the later temples, as those of Fortuna Augusta and Vespasian, is striking. All the more important houses of this period are monumental in design and proportions, with imposing entrances, large and lofty atriums, and high doors opening upon the atrium; the shops in front also were high, and in two stories.
In point of detail, the architecture of the Tufa Period reveals less of strength and symmetry than its stately proportions and modest material would lead us to expect. The ornamentation is a debased descendant of the Greek. It is characterized by superficial elegance, together with an apparent striving after simplicity and an ill-concealed poverty of form and color. Though the ornamental forms still manifest fine Greek feeling, they lack delicacy of modelling and vigor of expression. They are taken from Greek religious architecture, but all appreciation of the three orders as distinct types, each suited for a different environment, has disappeared. In consequence, we often find a mixture of the orders, a blending of Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian elements; and still more frequently do we meet with a marked departure from the original proportions.