Pompeii
2 of the 7 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Pompeii. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
pom-pa'ye, an ancient city of Italy. It was situated on the shore of the Bay of Naples, within a mile of the actual base of Mt. Vesuvius. It was a provincial city of importance and was the home of many wealthy Romans who maintained villas here. They traveled back and forth to Rome by means of galleys, or ships rowed by slaves. In 59 A. D. a riot took place in the amphitheater of Pompeii between the citizens of the place and the visitors. We learn from the historian Tacitus that many were killed and wounded on both sides. As a punishment, the Roman Senate ordered the amphitheater closed for ten years. It was large enough to seat 20,000 people. In 63 a violent earthquake shock ruined many of the public buildings. In 79 A. D. the famous eruption of Mount Vesuvius took place. Herculaneum, a neighboring city, was imbedded in a mass of lava. A mass of material, consisting of small stones and cinders and lighter material resembling ashes, covered Pompeii to a depth of eighteen or twenty feet, simply blotting the city and its inhabitants out of existence. Excavations were undertaken for the sake of finding treasure, but vine yards and mulberry groves soon spread over the face of the country and the very place of the city was forgotten. The best informed geographers were unable to determine its exact site. In 1748 the city was rediscovered accidentally. Explorations were begun and have continued with increasing efficiency up to recent times. The volcanic material lying over the city has been carted away until many of the streets and blocks have been laid entirely bare and restored as far as possible to their condition previous to the eruption. The ruins of Pompeii are of interest to the historian and antiquarian. During all these centuries the city has lain undisturbed. The buildings, even to the colors on the walls, have remained uninjured, being protected by what may be called a light, fluffy volcanic ash resembling plaster of paris. It is now possible for the student to reconstruct a complete picture of a Roman city as it was at the height of Roman prosperity. The city occupies an oval space surrounded by a wall about two miles in circumference. Turrets at intervals of one hundred yards or more strengthened the defences. There are eight gates, each protected by strong defensive works, in a state of poor repair, however, indicating that the day of their usefulness had already passed. As a rule the streets are straight and are laid out with regularity. Two or three of the main thoroughfares are thirty feet in width. Usually the streets are from twelve to fifteen feet wide, including a footway on either side. They are barely wide enough for the passage of a single vehicle. Photographs of these ancient thoroughfares show that they were paved with slabs of stone, in which the wheels of vehicles have worn two deep ruts. There were stepping stones for pedestrians at the crossings. The houses have an oriental rather than a western appearance. They are built facing inward on an interior court. The outer walls are unbroken, save by a gateway or entrance and small, inconspicuous windows at a considerable height from the ground. Passing through these gates into the interior courts, however, the visitor finds that no expense was spared in the adornment of the villas of the wealthier citizens. Marble courts, fountains, colonnades of marble pillars, beautiful reception rooms, couches, tables, rich wood, vases, statues, and artistically decorated walls exhibit a high degree of wealth and artistic taste. A favorite decorative color is the so-called Pompeiian red, an effect produced by an oxide of iron paint. The decorators were evidently men of artistic training and no little skill. The mythologies of Greece and Rome were drawn upon for subjects. Flowers, birds, and wild beasts were worked in with skill. Mosaic work in marble veneer of differing colors was a favorite form of interior flooring and of wall decoration. Domestic utensils, furniture, mechanics' tools, preserved fruits, various sorts of grain, loaves of bread, cake molds, fishing nets, pieces of decorated wall, statues, specimens of mosaic, and the like, have been placed on exhibition in the National Museum of Naples. Many inscriptions have been cared for in this way, but no manuscripts have been discovered. Among other interesting articles is a box of tablets on which are scratched the accounts of a banker. The walls of semi-public places were found to be covered with the scribblings of loungers; some of these are witty, some instructive, others merely coarse and scandalous. The baths were found to be in so perfect a state of preservation that the details of Roman bathhouses previously conjectured may be understood here at a glance. The appointments for warm and cold baths, attendants, the care of clothing, etc., were found to be complete. In certain parts of the city the lower part of the house, facing on the street, was planned usually for a shop. The front of the shop was open to the street, but was provided with wooden shutters to be closed at night or in time of disturbance. Fragments of these shutters have been found. Shops of silversmiths, cooks, mixers of hot drinks, bakers, grinders of flour, fullers, dyers, tanners, and painters have been identified. The office of a surgeon was also identified. Many of his intruments were of ingenious construction, but were made of bronze. In a sculptor's studio blocks of marble, half finished statues, and tools with which he worked, also of bronze, were found in a good state of preservation, as though he had left them and fled. Many of the buildings were entirely deserted, showing that the inhabitants had escaped either to the country or by way of the sea. In others, the remains of the entire family, including servants, were found, usually, however, in cellars or subterranean passages, in which they had evidently taken refuge. In all about 300 skeletons were found. For a graphic account of the horrors of the eruption and the blackness which fell upon the city, the reader is referred to Bulwer-Lytton's spirited novel, The Last Days of Pompeii. See also HERCULANEUM; PLINY; VESUVIUS.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a seaport at the mouth of the Sarnus, on the Neapolitan Riviera, Vol. VII-Cyc founded about 600 b. c. by the Oscans, and after them, occupied by the Tyrrheno - Pelasgians, and by the Samnites, till these, about 80 B. C., were dispossessed by the Romans. From that time down to its destruction, A. D. 79, it became (with Herculaneum) a watering place for the wealthy, frequented by the aristocracy, if not by Caligula and Nero, in whose honor it erected triumphal arches. On Feb. 5, A. D. 63, by an earthquake in the vicinity, all the palatial buildings were wrecked, and years elapsed ere the fugitive citizens recovered confidence enough to reoccupy_and rebuild what was once Pompeii. Tawdriness replaced simplicity of decoration -the columns, capitals, and cornices being ornamented with reliefs in stucco picked out with parti-colored designs, while private houses, fantastically restored and adorned, infringed every artistic or æsthetic canon to favor the grotesque style of the Decadence. Revolutionized as it was for the worse, the city, however, retained a good deal of Greek character and coloring, and had relapsed into more than its former gayety and licentiousness, when on Aug. 23 (or, more probably, on Nov. 23) 79, with a return of the shocks of earthquake, Vesuvius was seen to throw up a column of black smoke, ashes, pumice, and redhot stones, settling down on the doomed cities with a force increased by the raintorrents that intermittently fell. The panic of the citizens was aggravated by repeated shocks of earthquake and for three days the flight continued till Pompeii was abandoned by all who could effect their escape. By the fourth day the sun had partially reappeared, as if shining through a fog, and the more courageous of the citizens began to return for such of their property as they could disinter. The desolation and distress were such that the reigning emperor Titus organized relief on an imperial scale. This attempt was soon abandoned, and Pompeii remained a heap of hardened mud and ashes, gradually overgrown with grass till 1592, when the architect Fontana, in cutting an aqueduct, came on some ancient buildings. But only in 1748, under the Bourbon Charles III., they recognized were as part of Pompeii. Unsystematic, unscientific excavations proceeded fitfully till 1860, when the Italian kingdom took in hand the unearthing of the city. This was carried out with admirable ingenuity, care, and successall treasure trove being vigilantly preserved till now Pompeii possesses a distinction unknown to it in the zenith of its imperial favor, and attracts the pil- 20 grim from every clime. Pompeii as now exposed formed an irregular ellipse, extending from E. to W., in circumference about 2,843 yards; it had eight gates. Its most important part-not quite onehalf, including the Forum, adjacent temples, and public buildings, two theaters with colonnades, amphitheater, and many private houses-has already been exhumed, and five main streets made out. The streets, which are straight and narrow-the broader 24 feet wide, the narrower 14 feet only are admirably paved with polygonal blocks of lava. The street corners are provided with fountains, ornamented usually with the head of a god or a mask. Notices painted in red let ters, and referring to municipal elections for which some particular candidate is recommended, occur frequently on the street walls, while trade-signs are few and far between. An occasional "phallus," to avert the evil eye, projects from over a doorway, and, much more common, one or two large snakes, emblems of the Lares, are to be seen. The stuccoed walls, to judge from the Graffiti or roughly scratched drawings on them, were as tempting to the Pompeian gamin, as to our own. House construction consists mainly of concrete (rubble held together by cement or brick, and sometimes of stone blocks, especially at the corners. Two-storied, sometimes three-storied houses are numerous, though the upper floors, built of wood, have been consumed by the eruption. Shops usually occupied the ground floors of dwelling-houses, on their street aspect, let out to merchants or dealers as at the present day, but not connected with the back part of the house. They could be separated from the street by large wooden doors, while inside they had tables covered with marble, in which earthen vessels for wine or oil were inserted. The shopkeeper had sometimes a second room at the back, when he did not live on an upper floor or in another part of the town. Only a personal visit can convey an idea of the indoor life of the Pompeians, among whom the absence of glass, the fewness of the openings in the street aspect of the house wall, and the protection of these with iron gratings are among the points noted by the most casual visitor. The feature that most strikes the Northerner being the smallness of the rooms, particularly the bedrooms-quite intelligible, however, when he realizes that the Pompeians led an open-air life, and performed their toilets at the bath, public or private. As rebuilt after 63, Pompeii shows little marble, the columns being of tufa or brick cemented by mortar. A coating of stucco was laid over wall or column, and presented an ample field for ornamental painting. This must have given to Pompeii its bright, gay coloring. On the center of the interior walls is generally seen a painting unconnected with the others often of a nymph, or a genius, when not distinctly erotic in theme-typifying faithfully the voluptuous sensual life of this pleasure-haunt of paganism.