Give health to this Roman
boy. O fairest Athena, shed new beauty upon our violet crowned Athens.
For there is coming to visit her the best of men, my master Tetreius."
[Illustration: _A Marble Table_: The lions' heads were painted yellow.
You can see a table much like this in the garden pictured later.]
VESUVIUS
So a living city was buried in a few hours. Wooded hills and green
fields lay covered under great ash heaps. Ever since that terrible
eruption Vesuvius has been restless. Sometimes she has been quiet for
a hundred years or more and men have almost forgotten that she ever
thundered and spouted and buried cities. But all at once she would move
again. She would shoot steam and ashes into the sky. At night fire
would leap out of her top. A few times she sent out dust and lava and
destroyed houses and fields. A man who lived five hundred years after
Pompeii was destroyed described Vesuvius as she was in his time. He
said:
"This mountain is steep and thick with woods below. Above, it is very
craggy and wild. At the top is a deep cave. It seems to reach the bottom
of the mountain. If you peep in you can see fire.
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