And out in front was a little
shop where the master sold the thin loaves and the fancy little cakes.
In the hundreds of houses and shops of this little town the excavators
have found bronze tables and lamps and lamp stands and wine jars and
kitchen pots and pans and spoons and glass vases and silver cups and
gold hairpins and jewelry and ivory combs and bronze strigils and
mirrors and several statues of bronze and marble. But where they
had hoped to find thousands of precious things they have found only
hundreds. Many pedestals are empty of their statues. Here and there the
very paintings have been cut from the walls. Those are the pictures we
should most like to see. How beautiful could they have been?
"Evidently men came back soon after the eruption," say the excavators.
"The tops of their ruined houses must have stood up above the ashes.
They dug down and rescued their most precious things. We have even found
broken places in walls where we think men dug tunnels from one house to
another. That is why the temple and market place have so few statues.
That is why we find so little jewelry and money and dishes. But we have
enough. The city is our treasure."
One rich find they did make, however. There was a pleasant farmhouse out
of town on the slope of Vesuvius.
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