From such a sea might you well believe that Aphrodite rose to take the empire of the earth.
'It is still early for the bath,' said the Greek, who was the creature of every poetical impulse; 'let us wander from the crowded city, and look upon the sea while the noon yet laughs along its billows.' 'With all my heart,' said Clodius; 'and the bay, too, is always the most animated part of the city.' Pompeii was the miniature of the civilization of that age.

Within the narrow compass of its walls was contained, as it were, a specimen of every gift which luxury offered to power.

In its minute but glittering shops, its tiny palaces, its baths, its forum, its theatre, its circus--in the energy yet corruption, in the refinement yet the vice, of its people, you beheld a model of the whole empire.

It was a toy, a plaything, a showbox, in which the gods seemed pleased to keep the representation of the great monarchy of earth, and which they afterwards hid from time, to give to the wonder of posterity--the moral of the maxim, that under the sun there is nothing new.
Crowded in the glassy bay were the vessels of commerce and the gilded galleys for the pleasures of the rich citizens.

The boats of the fishermen glided rapidly to and fro; and afar off you saw the tall masts of the fleet under the command of Pliny.