DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61277#0168
140
WALLS OF POMPEII.
the gates, and of which, at the time that I visited
Italy, only one had been laid open, would also
be more easily found, while there would be a
greater facility in transporting the ashes and
earth, and a guard might be placed over the
monuments to prevent dilapidations. These
walls are, I am told, real fortifications, being
from eighteen to twenty feet in height, in
some places higher, and fortified at intervals with
a kind of quadrangular towers, which are in a
state of partial preservation, and do not seem to
have much exceeded the height of the walls,
which are twelve feet broad, and are ornamented
both on the sides towards the city and towards
the country with parapets, which probably served
in time of war as a security for the soldiery, and
in peace as a promenade for the inhabitants. The
parapets are furnished with loop-holes almost
close to each other, and in several places there
are flights of steps leading up from the city.
They are not uniform, in consequence of the in-
juries they have sustained at various periods, and
are mostly built of masses of fine stone, four feet
broad by five long, and two in thickness, without
lime, and yet well joined together; although so
irregularly, that the architecture is of the kind
denominated incertum.
WALLS OF POMPEII.
the gates, and of which, at the time that I visited
Italy, only one had been laid open, would also
be more easily found, while there would be a
greater facility in transporting the ashes and
earth, and a guard might be placed over the
monuments to prevent dilapidations. These
walls are, I am told, real fortifications, being
from eighteen to twenty feet in height, in
some places higher, and fortified at intervals with
a kind of quadrangular towers, which are in a
state of partial preservation, and do not seem to
have much exceeded the height of the walls,
which are twelve feet broad, and are ornamented
both on the sides towards the city and towards
the country with parapets, which probably served
in time of war as a security for the soldiery, and
in peace as a promenade for the inhabitants. The
parapets are furnished with loop-holes almost
close to each other, and in several places there
are flights of steps leading up from the city.
They are not uniform, in consequence of the in-
juries they have sustained at various periods, and
are mostly built of masses of fine stone, four feet
broad by five long, and two in thickness, without
lime, and yet well joined together; although so
irregularly, that the architecture is of the kind
denominated incertum.