re, attached to the house, and, by
consequence, that the house itself belonged to Diomedes. The
conjecture at the outset rested but on a sandy foundation, which has
since been entirely sapped by the discovery of numerous other tombs
almost equally near. All that we know of the owner or his family may
be comprised in one sentence, which, short as it is, speaks forcibly
to our feelings. Their life was one of elegant luxury and enjoyment,
in the midst of which death came on them by surprise, a death of
singular and lingering agony.

When Vesuvius first showed signs of the coming storm the air was
still, as we learn from the description of Pliny, and the smoke of the
mountain rose up straight, until the atmosphere would bear it no
higher, and then spread on all sides into a canopy, suggesting to him
the idea of an enormous pine tree. After this a wind sprung up from
the west, which was favorable to carry Pliny from Misenum to Stabiae,
but prevented his return. The next morning probably it veered
something to the north, when, in the younger Pliny's words, a cloud
seemed to descend upon the earth, to cover the sea, and hide the Isle
of Capreae from his view. The ashes are said by Dion Cassius to have
reached Egypt, and in fact a line drawn southeast from Vesuvius would
pass very near Pompeii, and cut Egypt. It was probably at this moment
that the hail of fire fell thickest at Pompeii, at daybreak on the
second morning, and if any had thus long survived the stifling air and
torrid earth which surrounded them, their misery probably was at this
moment brought to a close. The villa of which we speak lay exactly
between the city and the mountain, and must have felt the first, and,
if there were degrees of misery, where all perished alike, the worst
effects of this fearful visitation. Fearful is such a visitation in
the present day, even to those who crowd to see an eruption of
Vesuvius as they would to a picture-gallery or an opera; how much more
terrible, accompanied by the certainty of impending death, to those
whom neither history nor experience had familiarized with the most
awful phenomenon presented by nature. At this, or possibly an earlier
moment, the love of life proved too strong for the social affections
of the owner of the house. He fled, abandoning to their fate a
numerous family, and a young and beautiful daughter, and bent his way,
with his most precious movables, accompanied only by a single slave,
to the sea, whi