The Pillars of Hercules

“So were we. I wanted to go into the jungle in a canoe, but instead we shopped in Manaus—”

“I went to Antarctica. In the summer of course. Penguins—”

“We cruised China. That was special—”

“Down the Yangtze—”

“Vietnam on the Princess—”

In the morning we were anchored off Sorrento, high steep cliffs and pretty palms and dark junipers, the carved porches and stucco walls of hotels and villas. At the Hotel Vittoria Excelsior it was possible to see the suite where Caruso had stayed. Across the bay was Mount Vesuvius, Naples in its shadow, smothered in a cloud of dust.

This was a different Italy from the one I had seen in the winter. I had been traveling second-class on trains, among working people and students; in my Italy of cheap hotels and pizzas I often lingered to watch people arguing, or goosing each other, or making obscure gestures. I seldom saw a ruin or a museum. But this Seabourn Italy was the Grand Tour of the Italy of colorful boatmen and expensive taxis and day trips. It was the coast of castles and villas, but there was no need to go ashore: you could sit under the awnings and simply admire Italy, its glorious seaside. Just look at it, and then doze and let the ship sail you to a new coast. After all, the Mediterranean shore was much prettier viewed at a distance.

Some Seabourn passengers bought ceramics in Sorrento, and lace, and leather goods. Others, of whom I was one, went on the Pompeii tour.

Pompeii was a Roman seaside resort which was buried, along with Herculaneum, in A.D. 79, mummifying many of the inhabitants and wrapping in ashes of Vesuvius, and preserving for posterity, Roman frivolity and ingenuity, the passions as well as the day-to-day life of these people, some resident and some on holiday. Many of our images of Roman decadence, the salacious postcards of big penises and scenes of buggery that are sold in Naples, originate in Pompeii. An illustrated booklet, Forbidden Pompeii, in five languages, was stacked in every souvenir shop. The site itself, just a glorified ground plan, all that remained of Pompeii, was in an industrial area, full of garages and factories and auto repair shops, in a suburb of Naples.

It had been plundered long ago. Even its so-called excavation—which was recent: the mid-eighteenth century—had been just a form of looting and treasure seeking. It had no studious or archaeological intention. No one cared to investigate the Roman way of life or the organization of ancient households. Some bits of pottery that were unearthed influenced Josiah Wedgwood’s so-called “Etruscan” pottery designs as well as creating fashions in some English furniture designs. But that was all. Digging up Pompeii was a quest for trinkets and corpses.

Sometimes the digging was ritualized. General Grant stopped in Pompeii in 1877 on his triumphant trip around the world. To honor his visit, the Italian authorities dug up a ruined house for the general. This sort of excavation was “one of the special compliments paid to visitors of renown.” General Grant was given a chair and he sat and smoked a cigar while the workers began shoveling. A loaf of bread (baked in A.D. 79) was unearthed. Then some bronze ornaments. The Italians were disappointed and ashamed. They had hoped to find a human body. They eagerly offered to excavate another house in anticipation of perhaps finding a corpse or some old jewelry for General Grant. The general said he was hungry. A man in his party suggested going to a nearby restaurant, and he joked, “To excavate a beefsteak!”

Our guide was Riccardo. That was another aspect of this new cruiseship Italy. Instead of the buttonholed strangers I had depended on before, I now had a guide showing me around. They were just as friendly but oddly irrelevant. Riccardo was a good-humored Neapolitan who had recently moved to Sorrento.

“Eight meters of volcanic ashes,” Riccardo said. “Four square miles of city, where twenty-five thousand people—”

Like the history lecture yesterday, the tour was anecdotal, filled with meaningless numbers and generalizations, but from this bouncy little Figaro they were like a salesman’s obliging patter. “Big wine shop!” he said, as we walked down one of Pompeii’s paved streets. “See wagon ruts in the road? These are stepping-stones. See graffiti? Notice this is a bakery—just like the bakery oven we have today for pizza and bread.”

We went through the Forum, we saw a toilet. “They called it a Vespasian, because he was the emperor who taxed the people for each peepee.”

“I didn’t realize there’d be all this walking,” Mr. Mouser said.

Riccardo said, “I will show you a brothel. A real one!”

We hurried after him, turning corners. Then Riccardo paused and said, “You see that big phallus on the wall?”

It looked like a peg on a coatrack. To tease him I said, “You think that’s a big one?”

“I think maybe normal,” Riccardo said.