the city of herculaneum rested on the shores of the mediterranean. its seaside buildings housed the boats of fishermen and traders. like its better known neighbor, pompeii, herculaneum was built in the shadow of vesuvius, which erupted in a.d. 79 to bury both cities in ash and lava. excavation superintendent tommasa budetta and her assistants dug through the lava to expose warehouses that once sat on the beach. inside, victims of the cataclysm as they waited to be rescued. interpreter: pouring into the streets from the stores, they went toward the beach, attempting to flee and to save themselves by sea. here they waited for ships to take them to safe shores. unfortunately, they were choked and crushed under the volcanic debris. naturally, at the moment of the eruption, rich and poor found themselves together, one on top of the other in the rooms which i have behind my shoulders. keach: jewelry of gold and gems distinguished the hands of some. but fate was equally cruel to all classes, an egalitarian ending to lives of privilege and poverty alike. onl

and then during the 18th century, the discoveries at herculaneum and pompeii, baalbek, and palmeira opened new horizon on the ancient world. and that was the time that theorists like winckelmann and, slightly later, goethe, propounded their theory that the greek style, this noble simplicity, was the true style, was the perfection of art, that the greeks had known true liberty because of the light of reason, and that their art had attained its perfection because of liberty. the message for the 18th century, then, was clear-- that this was the art for free peoples, a vision of an ordered and harmonious universe governed by classical ideals of perfection and harmony. neo-classicism, then, perhaps it is, but better to call it the art of the age of reason. in the last half of the 18th century, these ideas grew more influential. even architectal forms would be interpreted in terms of the search for rationality, as seen in one of the finest examples of the art of the age of reason--the palais royal. the palais royal is a comparatively quiet and sedate place today. once upon a time, this was the h