Click on hypertex to view wonderful pictures
From all accounts, Pompeii was a located in an area of uncommon natural beauty and favorable climate. It was a city of elegant public, buildings, beautiful temples, and exquisitely decorated private villas. There were fountains, statues, paintings, frescos, and well-groomed gardens throughout.
Villa of Mysteries:Click Here.
It was a place of culture and the arts, with theatres both open to the air and covered. The sport and exercise fields and amphitheatres provided a host of entertainments, sporting events, circuses, naval battles, festivals and games.
The markets and shops, contained goods from afar as well as excellent local produce, including olives and figs and seafood from the abundant sea. They had plumbing, ornate public baths, central heating and paved streets.
Pliny pre-eruption writes:
These shores are watered by warm springs; they are famed beyond any other for their shellfish and their fine fish. Nowhere do olives produce more oil--the production strives to match the demands of human pleasure.
Statius Silvae writes:
How shall I now tell the magnificent and elegant appearance of its places--the temples, the many-columned porticos, the twinned mass of open and covered theaters, quadrennial games as great as Rome's? What shall I say of, a compound of Roman honor and Greek license?
Winters are mild, summers cool, a placid sea washes its shores with slow-moving wave. Untroubled peace and all the freedoms of a life of leisure; one's rest is not disturbed the night through. The forum has no furors, no legal battles here; the rule of custom is the only law for men and its fairness needs no enforcers.
Small fountain: House of the small Fountain:Click Here.
Round about you will find a variety of pleasures--the allure of Baiae with its hot springs, or you can enjoy a visit to the god-hallowed cave of the prophet Sibyl and the cape made famous by an Iliadic oar {In Misenum, the oar-topped tomb of the Trojan Misenus.) There is a copious vintage for you from Bacchus' Mt. Gaurus, or the home of the Teleboae where Pharus raises a light dear to sailors, big as the night-wandering moon [Capri] . You will appreciate the heights of Surrentum loved by the wild Lyaeus (literally, the god of loosening), ennobled above all by my friend Pollius' residence, and the pools that profit one's circulation, and reborn Stabaie
Florius
Campania's coastal area is the finest, not only in Italy but in the entire world. Nowhere is the climate gentler. Spring comes with its flowers twice a year there. Nowhere is the soil richer
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Here's the follow-up discussion on this article: | View all related messages |
For a complete listing of article comments, questions, and other discussions related to Mary Ellen Bradshaw's Virtual Journeys topic, please visit the Discussions page.