what Michael Angelo called the "Street of Tombs." Looking down
it, they noticed a number of edifices of a monumental character,
lining it on either side. These were the tombs of wealthy citizens.
They visited several of them, and found them all alike. The interiors
were all simple, the walls being pierced with niches, in which were
deposited the urns that held the ashes of the dead. This was the
first time that they had seen anything of this kind, and they
examined it with deep and solemn interest. Here, too, Clive and
David succeeded in finding some relics in the shape of some burnt
fragments of human bones.

After this Michael Angelo led them to what was once the finest
mansion of the city, now known as the Villa of Diomede. They entered
here, and wandered through the halls, and rooms, and courtyards.
They saw rich mosaic pavements; the basins of what once were
fountains; the lower parts of marble pillars that once belonged to
stately colonnades. They saw some rooms that once had been used
for cold baths, and others that had been used for vapor baths.
Dining-rooms, reception-rooms, bed-rooms, kitchens, libraries,
opened up all around, and told them of that vanished past which
had once peopled all these apartments with busy human life. Far
more than basilicas, or temples, or streets, or walls, were they
affected by this glimpse into the home of a household; and they
traversed that deserted home in eloquent silence. After going
through all the house, they descended into the cellars. These were
very spacious, and extended beneath the entire villa. Here, at
one end, they saw what is called the Wine Cellar. Many wine jars
were standing there--huge earthen vessels, as large as a hogshead,
with wide mouths and round bottoms, which made it impossible for
them to stand erect, unless they were placed against some support.
In these wine jars there was now no wine, however, but only dust
and ashes.

Here Michael Angelo had much to tell them.

He told them that several skeletons had been found in these vaults,
belonging to hapless wretches who had, no doubt, fled here to escape
the storm of ashes which was raging above. One of these skeletons
had a bunch of keys in its bony fingers; and this circumstance led
some to suppose that it was the skeleton of Diomede himself; but
others thought that it belonged to his steward. Whoever he was, he
had fled here only to meet his doom, and to leave his bones as a
memorial to ages in the