Photos from Pompeii

Pompeii is vast - at least a mile in diameter and dense with structures. The streets, of heavy and smooth basalt, have fared the best of all since they are too hard to break and too banal to steal.


(Pompeii's amphitheater: the seats are covered, but the echo is fully operational.)


(Stepping stones across the deeper streets, which supposedly ran with muck, but were cleansed by the water continually running from the lips of the fountains.)


(Many of the aquaducts in Rome are still functional - they feed the large and small fountains dotting the city. Rome's waterways were sacked in 500 and rebuilt almost 1000 years later. Pompeii's were never reopened...that's how you know the city's dead: the fountains are dry.)


(A public bathroom: wooden benches spanned these stone supports, and continuously flowing water flushed everything into the sewer.)


(Lunch counters were everywhere - giant pots were imbedded into the cement, and the whole thing was covered in marble or fresco.)


(The old harbor: before the eruption, the sea came up to the city's edge - there are still stone loops with which to secure a boat.)