American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1879-10-18
Pompeian Festivities.

This is an odd custom that the world
has drifted into, of celebrating catastro-
Plies. The anniversary of the death of
great poet or General is nowadays
often the subject of festivity, as if the
death, and not the life, were a matter of
rejoicing; and while ago the good peo-
pie of Lisbon had a banquet and merry
making over the anniversary of their
big earthquake. Now, a disaster which
took place as long as IS centuries ago
is made the subject of public and festal
commemoration. Pompeii was in the
year 70 A. D., and was not in 20, and i'm
1879 the sages of Naples met amid the
ruins of her amphitheaters, close by the
doomed house of Sallust, and within
gunshot of the tomb of Diomed, to wax
eloquent over the so long ago demolished
and blotted-out seaside town. A new
excavation was made on the occasion,
and some Pompeian nabob's house
again saw the light, after having laid in
its lava shroud just IS centuries. The
contrast between the white necktied
and black swallow-tailed gentlemen
WIN tlitlS tIC Nitt'Sit ht''ois-
ton, and the toga'd and sandal-footed
gentry who used to gather in these mar
row streets and that broad forum, could
not have failed to strike every
one present. 1t would be curious to
know, too, how much or how little the
tongue spoken at the celebration RESENT
bled that which, eighteen hundred years
81
and beside those long stainless affairs.
Would Diomed have comprehended the
sedate Mayor of Naples eulogies, and
Sallust have been stirred by the sweet
measures of the poet of the day, could
they have risen from their tombs near
by? And would the wine of modern
Naples have tasted to those classic volup
tuaries as the choice vintagcs kept in the
tall, hospitable jars, which still stand
where they then stood, used to dop
Pompeii's resurrection, if not the date
of its ruin, certainly deserves celebra-
ton; for it has unearthed for us n world
of knowledge about an intensely inter-
esting period. The life of Rome rs we
were wont to read it in books was life
less enough on the printed page. a
knowledge of Pompeii has breathed once
more the spirit into il. We are carried
back to the very time; we sit ut the iron
table, where, us il would seem, Cl;tudius
and Julius just now sat, quailing
Falernian and eating hard biscuits; we
enter the bath whence Luculla has
just escaped, her loose robe wrapper
twined about her; we saunter in the
richly laden garden, where Diomed but
Yesterday RECALLED his friends; we al
most listen to the splash of the fountain
to whose music Sallust'S favorite maids
languidly reposed. No one can enter
the ghostly streets of Pompeii without
seeing, in vivid fancy, the whole life of
that city springing up all about him.
There are the ruts the chariots have
made; there are the landlords signs,
distinct over the doors; there is the pre-
pared meal, awaiting its customers. 1t
is safe to say that the discovery of
PompcIi exploded Il hundred theories
that have been made, and bolstercd by
arguments in others, about the Roman
life of old and that while it gave new
ideas as to the skill and beauty of Ro-
man art, it dispelled some pleasant illu-
sions regarding Roman character. And
when Pomper shall have been fully ex-
cavated and laid bare in its entirety for
I'LL to see, it will he the most precious
and instructive relic of antiquity which
the researches of the ages have pre-
scented TO mankind. -Boston Post.
\ LIVELY old woman in North Caro-
lima cooked big dinner for the friends
who came to celebrate her Tooth birthday;
and, unless the local paper lies, she still
lives, though that occurred seven years