DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.53553#0084
66
ble; the inland commodities received from Nola, Nocera,
and other places in that district, were there exchanged for
transmarine goods brought up the river Sarno. Of the port,
however, which it is said to have possessed, no trace re-
mains ; its distance from the sea is upwards of a mile at pre-
sent, owing probably to volcanic additions of territory, not
to the retiring of the sea, which, as I have shewn above,
has rather advanced, than receded, in these regions. Per-
haps, too, the sea may at all times have been as far off as
it now is; and what Strabo calls a port, was very likely a.
basin, or wet dock, formed by the Sarno, similar to the fine
basin at Bruges, or to the West India docks now building
in England. But whatever may have been the trade of
Pompeji, there can be no doubt, from its remains, that, both
in size and importance, it greatly surpassed Herculaneum.
It had two theatres, one a very large one; its barracks prove
it to have been a military station; and the length of the
high street, as well as the elegant apartments in many of its
houses, together with the variety of fine specimens of the
plastic arts, sufficiently attest its former extent and opulence.
Staeite
has not yet been visited by me; perhaps I shall not go
thither at all. Nothing but some remains of villas, stript
of all that is worth seeing, are to be seen there. The town
itself had been destroyed in the civil wars of Sylla, long
before the calamity which befel the two other places. Its
situation was still further to the south-east of the volcano
than Pompeji, nearly where the modern Gragnano stands.
Thus much, my dear T. for the situation and former con-
dition of these Vesuvian towns; now to the mode and time
of tl.eir destruction, then to the manner and period of their
discovery,
ble; the inland commodities received from Nola, Nocera,
and other places in that district, were there exchanged for
transmarine goods brought up the river Sarno. Of the port,
however, which it is said to have possessed, no trace re-
mains ; its distance from the sea is upwards of a mile at pre-
sent, owing probably to volcanic additions of territory, not
to the retiring of the sea, which, as I have shewn above,
has rather advanced, than receded, in these regions. Per-
haps, too, the sea may at all times have been as far off as
it now is; and what Strabo calls a port, was very likely a.
basin, or wet dock, formed by the Sarno, similar to the fine
basin at Bruges, or to the West India docks now building
in England. But whatever may have been the trade of
Pompeji, there can be no doubt, from its remains, that, both
in size and importance, it greatly surpassed Herculaneum.
It had two theatres, one a very large one; its barracks prove
it to have been a military station; and the length of the
high street, as well as the elegant apartments in many of its
houses, together with the variety of fine specimens of the
plastic arts, sufficiently attest its former extent and opulence.
Staeite
has not yet been visited by me; perhaps I shall not go
thither at all. Nothing but some remains of villas, stript
of all that is worth seeing, are to be seen there. The town
itself had been destroyed in the civil wars of Sylla, long
before the calamity which befel the two other places. Its
situation was still further to the south-east of the volcano
than Pompeji, nearly where the modern Gragnano stands.
Thus much, my dear T. for the situation and former con-
dition of these Vesuvian towns; now to the mode and time
of tl.eir destruction, then to the manner and period of their
discovery,