OF THE WALLS AND GATES OF POMPEII

The most ancient specimens of fortification with which we are acquainted are the Cyclopean walls of Tiryns, Mycenae, and other places in Greece and Italy.

Closely akin to these, but of a more artificial structure, are the walls of Cortona, Fiesole, Volterra, and other cities built by the Tyrrhenians, or Etruscans, from whom this second style, though naturally and evidently derived from the former, and of frequent occurrence in Greece as well as Italy, has obtained the name of the Etruscan style. To this a large part of the walls of Pompeii appears to belong: it will not therefore be irrelevant to prefix to this chapter some account of the peculiarities of this species of architecture.

The Cyclopes are most generally known as mythological personages serving as journeymen to Vulcan, and chiefly employed in forging Jupiter's thunderbolts. They seem to have enjoyed the same sort of reputation that Julius Caesar and the Devil enjoyed in the middle ages, and much later among the uneducated peasantry of Europe ; that is, most works of remote antiquity and unusual magnitude were ascribed to them. Who they really were, and by what race the buildings ascribed to them were erected, are questions which cannot be treated but at considerable length, and in a way not likely to interest the general reader. We shall therefore proceed at once to describe these remains: which are impressive from the solidity of their construction and the massive grandeur of their (-arts, and venerable from the extreme antiquity which they boast. Not less than three thousand years have elapsed since the fortifications of Tiryns and Mycenae were built; yet they still remain, apparently as perfect as when visited by Pausanias sixteen centuries ago, and seem to defy the wasting hand of time, when unassisted by the destructive agency of man.

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