Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1879-10-15
Misfellany.
The Lost City.

Pompeii was little town by the sea,
five miles from Vesuvius, which had been
girt about with wall long before the
military power of the Romans taught
them to despise such feeble defences. Its
gateways and towers were already crum-
bling when Naples was indeed u "new
city," and its great road that led north
westerly through Herculaneum and along
the shore to Naples, between Vesuvius
and the sea, paved with hard volcanic
rock from an eruption of which there was
no history or tradition. was worn into
deep ruts by 1.-THE traffic of unnumbered
wears. Over it came those Roman citizens
Cicero was one of them-wbo were
wont in summer time to escape from the
eternal miasmas that hang around the
Tber, and journeyed southwark over the
Appian Way to that beautiful watering
place between the sea and the river and
the mountain which lay on the further
curve of the Gulf of Cumae. For those
who preferred to go by ship-alas! there
was no steamboat to take Cicero to his
villa-it was pleasant sail from Ostia to
the watergate of Pompeii, more than a
III lie inland.
T he old Pompeians were every bit as
fond of amusements as their happy-go-
luckv II, ascendants are and on the twenty
fonrih da> of Angus. in the year 70, they
we've assen rbled, rs was their wont on II
fine day, in the great amphitheatre to
,yitness ono n, those contests which were
nerhans almost rs brutal rs our modern
prize fights. Tw. 'nty years before, in the
wear 50. thew had got into row in the
same place with a l'arcel OF neighboring
Nucerian BOYS, who ha 4 come over to see
the show, and as Tacitus says, from
provincial sarcasms arose mutual re-
breaches; and from stones recourse was
had to arms" and as the M cerians got
the worst of it they complained to the
Emperor Nero, and as punishment the
theatre was shut up for ten years. -,
But everything was working well IN
70, and the public displays were at their
highest pitch throughout Italy. No doubt
many of the Pompeiian youths had gone
to Rome eight years before to see the
great triumphial procession when Vespa,.
sian and Titus returned from the seige OF
Jerusalem and bore the golden table and
the golden candlestick, and the table OF
the laws from the temple through the
streets amid vast army of captives, and
dragged Simon, the son OF Glora, Ipe
conquered Jewish general, to the place
of execution with cord around his neck,
while the soldiers scourged him with rods
as he went. and perhaps they looked npon
the beautiful Bernce, the daughter OF
Agrppa Herod |. The people of Pompeii
knew what good performance was, as
times were, and we may suppose they
were having one of the first class, when
the sudden blackening of the heaveus
from the first ieruption of Vesuvius that
had occurred within historic times warned
them of some impending and unknown
danger, and scattered them in panic to
their own homes. From that day nc
human eye looked upon that magnificent
amphitheatre for period of 1875 years
until it was uncovered in 1855 by excava,
vations undertaken BY Charles IL oi
Naples. During that interval the Pom;
peiian plain had remained desolate and
uninhabited waste, and up to 174S, when
some remains of statues were dis
covered in sinking well, the very site O.
the city was unknown.-ChIoo9o inter-
Ocean.