ly new, chiefly
relating to music, rhetoric, and cookery. There are two volumes of
Epicurus "On Nature," and the others are mostly by writers of the same
school, only one fragment having been discovered, by an opponent of the
Epicurean system, Chrysippus.[557]

_Probability of future discoveries of MSS._--In the opinion of some
antiquaries, not one-hundredth part of the city has yet been explored:
and the quarters hitherto cleared out at a great expense, are those
where there was the least probability of discovering manuscripts. As
Italy could already boast her splendid Roman amphitheatres and Greek
temples, it was a matter of secondary interest to add to their number
those in the dark and dripping galleries of Herculaneum; and having so
many of the masterpieces of ancient art, we could have dispensed with
the inferior busts and statues which could alone have been expected to
reward our researches in the ruins of a provincial town. But from the
moment that it was ascertained that rolls of papyrus preserved in this
city could still be deciphered, every exertion ought to have been
steadily and exclusively directed towards the discovery of other
libraries. Private dwellings should have been searched, before so much
labor and expense were consumed in examining public edifices. A small
portion of that zeal and enlightened spirit which prompted the late
French and Tuscan expedition to Egypt might long ere this, in a country
nearer home, have snatched from oblivion some of the lost works of the
Augustan age, or of eminent Greek historians and philosophers. A single
roll of papyrus might have disclosed more matter of intense interest
than all that was ever written in hieroglyphics.

_Stabiae._--Besides the cities already mentioned, Stabiae, a small town
about six miles from Vesuvius, and near the site of the modern
Castel-a-Mare (see map of volcanic district of Naples), was overwhelmed
during the eruption of 79. Pliny mentions that, when his uncle was
there, he was obliged to make his escape, so great was the quantity of
falling stones and ashes. In the ruins of this place, a few skeletons
have been found buried in volcanic ejections, together with some
antiquities of no great value, and rolls of papyrus, which, like those
of Pompeii, were illegible.

_Torre del Greco overflowed by lava._--Of the towns hitherto mentioned,
Herculaneum alone has been overflowed by a stream of melted matter; but
this did not, as we have seen, e