To these examples from north Italy may be added two from the south,
Herculaneum and Naples. Herculaneum had much the same early history as
its more important neighbour Pompeii. First an Oscan settlement, then
Etruscan, then Samnite, it passed later under Roman rule. After the
Social Wars (89 B.C.) it appears as a 'municipium'; of its history
from that date till its destruction (A.D. 79) we know next to nothing.
But excavations, commenced in the eighteenth century and now long
suspended, have thrown light on its ground-plan.[83] This was a
rectangular pattern of oblong house-blocks, measuring 54 x 89 yds., or
in some cases a little more, and divided by streets varying from 15 to
30 ft. in width which ran at right angles or parallel to one another.
Only a part of the town has been as yet unearthed. In that a broad
colonnaded main street ran from north-west to south-east; on the
north-east side of this street stood a row of house-blocks with a
structure taken to be a Basilica, and on the south-west of it were ten
house-blocks, one of which includes some public baths. At the north
end of this area are a theatre and temple, at the south end two large
structures which have been called temples but are more like large
private houses; on the east (according to the eighteenth-century
searchers) are graves.
[83] M. Ruggiero, _Scavi di Ercolano_ (Naples, 1885), plates ii
and xii; Beloch. _Campanien_, pp. 215 foll.; Nissen, _Ital.
Landeskunde_, ii. 759; Waldstein and Shoobridge, _Herculaneum_
(London, 1908), pp. 60 foil.; E.R. Barker, _Buried Herculaneum_
(1908); Gall in Pauly-Wissowa, viii. (1912) 532-48.
[Illustration: FIG. 19. HERCULANEUM]
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