The Flame of Hercules [antikvár]

In the early summer of 1709, a Prince d'Elboeuf ordered a shaft sunk in woodland at the edge of a cliff above the Bay of Naples. Water was needed for new building, and under the trees, he thought, might be a spring. Topsoil was cleared, and the workmen struck tufa, a dust thrown out by the volcano Vesuvius, not far off, and set rock-hard by moisture, time, and the sun. Work was slow, a few feet a day, but when the shaft was down about sixty feet, a workman bounced the point of a pickax and stung his hands on a slab of marble. What he said may be guessed, but what he did is fact. He found the site of a buried city, and his little drama was played out, properly, above the stage of its theater. The Prince ordered the roof holed. The inside of the building was solid with tufa. For seven years, until 1716, men hollowed and dug it clean. All the marbling, statuary, and bronzé went to the Prince's home or as gifts to his friends. Other attempts were made after that,