Pompeii

, or Pompeium , a town of Camp an i a, built, as some suppose, by Hercules, and so called because the hero there exhibited the long proce ion ( pomp a ) of the herds of Geryon, which he had obtained by conquest. It was partly demolished by an earthquake, A.D. 63, and afterwards rebuilt. Sixteen years after it was swallowed up by another earthquake, which accompanied one of the eruptions of mount Vesuvius. Herculaneum, in its neighbourhood, shared the same fate. The people of the town were then a embled in a theatre, where public spectacles were exhibited. See: Herculaneum . Livy , bk. 9 , ch. 38 .— Strabo , bk. 6 .— Mela , bk. 2 , ch. 4 .— Dionysius of Halicarna us , bk. 1 .— Seneca , Quæstiones Natura les , bk. 4 .— Solinus , bk. 8 .