24th of August, AD 79
Day was turned into night, and light into darkness; an inexpressible quantity of dust and ashes was poured out, deluging land, sea and air, and burying the entire city, Pompeii, while the people were siting in the theatre.
CONTENTS
01
THE LOST CITY
02
THE LIVING CITY
03
THE LAST DAY
04
THE DISCOVERY
About Pompeii History of Pompeii Art & Architecture Religion & Burials
The People’s Pompeii Daily Life In Pompeii Work & Play Shops & Businesses
The Destruction of Pompeii After The Eruption
The Excavation Influence On European Culture Pompeii As A Source Pompeii Today
1
THE LOST CITY
ABOUT POMPEII
P
ompeii, Italian Pompei, is famous being the “city that disappeared�. It is an ancient city of Campania, Italy, 14 miles southeast of Naples, at the southeastern base of Mount Vesuvius. It was built on a spur formed by a prehistoric lava flow to the north of the mouth of the Sarnus (modern Sarno) River. Pompeii was destroyed, together with Herculaneum, Stabiae, Torre Annunziata, and other communities, by the violent eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. The circumstances of their destruction preserved their remains as a unique document of Greco-Roman life. Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Torre Annunziata were collectively designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1997. Pompeii supported between 10,000 and 20,000 inhabitants at the time of its destruction. The modern town of Pompeii lies to the east and contains the Basilica of Santa Maria del Rosario, a pilgrimage centre.
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ABOUT POMPEII
The ruins of Pompeii location are positioned at the coordinates 40째 45' 00" N 14째 29' 10" E, in close proximity to the contemporary suburban township of Pompeii. It is standing on a drive that is formed by a flow of lava to the northern region of the mouth of the renowned Sarno River. In the present day it is identified as some expanse inland, on the other hand in very old times it would have been closer to the coastline. Pompeii location is around 5 miles away as of Mt Vesuvius.
40째 45' 00" N 14째 29' 10" E Today it is some distance inland, but in ancient times it would have been nearer to the coast. Pompeii is about 5 miles away from Mount Vesuvius. It covered a total of 163 acres and was a major city in the region of Campania.
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HISTORY OF POMPEII
I
t seems certain that Pompeii, Herculaneum, and nearby towns
Pompeii is first mentioned in history in 310 BcE., when, during the Second
were first settled by Oscanspeaking descendants of the Neolithic inhabitants of Campania. Archaeological evidence indicates that the Oscan village of Pompeii, strategically located near the mouth of the Sarnus River, soon came under the influence of the cultured Greeks who had settled across the bay in the 8th century BcE. Greek influence was challenged, however, when the Etruscans came into Campania in the 7th century. The Etruscans’ influence remained strong until their sea power was destroyed by King Hieron I of Syracuse in a naval battle off Cumae in 474 BcE. A second period of Greek hegemony followed. Then, toward the end of the 5th century, the warlike Samnites, an Italic tribe, conquered Campania, and Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Stabiae became Samnite towns.
Samnite War, a Roman fleet landed at the Sarnus port of Pompeii and from there made an unsuccessful attack on the neighbouring city of Nuceria. At the end of the Samnite wars, Campania became a part of the Roman confederation, and the cities became “allies” of Rome. But they were not completely subjugated and Romanized until the time of the Social War. Pompeii joined the Italians in their revolt against Rome in this war and was besieged by the Roman general Lucius Cornelius Sulla in 89 BcE. After the war, Pompeii, along with the rest of Italy south of the Po River, received Roman citizenship. However, as a punishment for Pompeii’s part in the war, a colony of Roman veterans was established there under Publius Sulla, the nephew of the Roman general. Latin replaced Oscan as the official language, and the city soon became Romanized in institutions, architecture, and culture.
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HISTORY OF POMPEII
A riot in the amphitheatre at Pompeii between the Pompeians and the Nucerians, in 59 CE, is reported by the Roman historian Tacitus. An earthquake in 62 CE did great damage in both Pompeii and Herculaneum. The cities had not yet recovered from this catastrophe when final destruction overcame them 17 years later.
HISTORY OF POMPEII
Mount Vesuvius, best known of the eruption that destroyed the city of Pompeii
Mount Vesuvius erupted on 24th August, AD 79 . A vivid eyewitness report is preserved in two letters written by Pliny the Younger to the historian Tacitus, who had inquired about the death of Pliny the Elder, commander of the Roman fleet at Misenum. Pliny the Elder had rushed from Misenum to help the stricken population and to get a close view of the volcanic phenomena, and he died at Stabiae. Site excavations and volcanological studies, notably in the late 20th century, have brought out further details. Just after midday on 24th August, fragments of ash, pumice, and other volcanic debris began pouring down on Pompeii, quickly covering the city to a depth of more than 9 feet (3 metres) and causing the roofs of many houses to fall in. Surges of pyroclastic material and heated gas, known as nuÊes ardentes, reached the city walls on the morning 25th August and soon asphyxiated those residents who had not been killed by falling debris. Additional pyroclastic flows and rains of ash followed, adding at least another 9 feet of debris and preserving in a pall of ash the bodies of the inhabitants who perished while taking shelter in their houses or trying to escape toward the coast or by the roads leading to Stabiae or Nuceria. Thus Pompeii remained buried under a layer of pumice stones and ash 19 to 23 feet (6 to 7 metres) deep. The city’s sudden burial served to protect it for the next 17 centuries from vandalism, looting, and the destructive effects of climate and weather.
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ART & ARCHITECTURE
I
n 90 Bc, a regional rebellion broke out against the Romans, and a year later the Roman Dictator Sulla
besieged and captured Pompeii. Reprisals followed, and Pompeii transformed itself again, this time into a Roman colony. Latin became the official language, and a Roman constitution was imposed on the new colony. By the time Augustus became the first Roman Emperor in 27 Bc, prominent Pompeians had become devotees of Roman fashion and custom. Pompeii had come a long way from its humble origins. Now a bustling town, it was home to about 10,000 –12,000 people, with as many again living in the surrounding countryside. As Pompeii’s population increased, so did its urbanisation, as older houses were subdivided and upper storeys added to make room for the newcomers. The social structure underwent a shake-up, as the old ruling aristocracy began to lose ground to a new class of self-made men who built larger and showier villas in the Roman style.
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THE SHEER BEAUTY & EXTENT OF THE RUINS OF POMPEII
ART & ARCHITECTURE
In some ways, Pompeian houses were very different to those we live in today. For one thing, in Pompeii, all the living rooms of the house faced inward. Instead of having a front garden or even a gate, the front door opened directly onto the pavement, and the rooms to either side of the door were usually either utility rooms or a shopfront. From the front door, a passage led back to the largest room in the house, the atrium, which was lit by a rectangular aperture in the middle of its high, wooden roof. Rainwater fell through this open skylight into a rectangular basin in the floor beneath, and ran into a storage cistern under the floor — an arrangement similar to our modern water tanks, though almost certainly more attractive! Private rooms, which often contained couches, were situated to either side of the atrium, and at the far end lay the three most important rooms: the outer triclinia, or dining rooms, and the central tablinum, a formal reception room used by the master of the house for business and greeting guests. The doors to the house were thrown open at an early hour to admit the family dependents who had been waiting patiently on the benches beside the front door. Pompeian architecture was clearly more homogeneous than our modern houses today; most, if not all, of the private dwellings found in the city conform to this basic Roman layout. However, the wealthier citizens of Pompeii were in many ways as attuned to style and fashion as we are today, and newer houses were built to conform to the latest trends.
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ART & ARCHITECTURE
The so-called First Pompeian Style used the formal, austere atrium as a
In the first century AD, Pompeians began to build upper storeys onto
showplace to impress visitors with grand decorations of moulded plaster painted to imitate polychrome marble blocks. All manner of business was conducted in the atrium, so it was designed to display the family’s wealth, piety and lineage. Beyond the formal atrium lay the peristyle — a garden surrounded by colonnades which was a less formal, more richly decorated part of the house, a place to relax or dine. Many houses were built
buildings and carve small apartments out of larger houses. This may have been an attempt to cope with a growing population, to house the families of emancipated slaves, or simply to create rooms for rent. Decoration in the atrium and the surrounding rooms also became more showy, perhaps when older houses came into the hands of self-made men who had no ancestry to boast of. After the aqueduct was built, fashionable homeowners also constructed elaborate garden areas, as found in the House of D. Octavius Quartio, which boasts fountains, watercourses, pavilions and formal plantings extending the length of its vast garden. In smaller houses where space was limited, fantasy landscapes were painted on blank walls to open up imaginary vistas and give an impression of space.
POMPEIAN STYLES in this style between the third and second centuries Bc, a time when the aristocracy still held sway. After the establishment of the Roman military colony in 80 Bc, the illusionistic Second Style, which opened up the walls with columns and architectural vistas, became popular. Towards the end of the first century Bc, illusion was abandoned and the delicate and exquisite Third Style was in vogue.
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In the last years of the city, the rich and complex Fourth Style returned to the earlier fashion of ‘opening’ walls using illusionistic decoration, but with an even greater emphasis on creating a fantasy world.
RELIGION & BURIALS
T
he Pompeians worshipped many gods, primarily Graeco-Roman deities such as Jupiter (the Greek
Zeus), Juno (Hera), Minerva (Athena) and Apollo. The oldest temple in Pompeii, which dates to the sixth century Bc, may have been a temple of Minerva. A temple of Apollo stands next to the Forum and a temple of Jupiter at its north end, both built in the second century bc. In about 80 Bc, a temple of Venus was built on high ground in the southwest corner of the city overlooking the sea, from which mythology tells us the goddess was born. Roman temples were designed to house cult statues of the god or goddess to which they were dedicated; unlike most churches today, they were not usually entered by the worshippers. Instead, priests venerated the gods with processions and sacrifices on the altar, which stood in front of the temple. The Romans believed it was crucial to perform these important rituals correctly, and the only way to know whether the god had been appeased was by divination, which meant examining the livers of sacrificial animals and the direction in which birds flew or how they ate in order to interpret the god’s mood and intentions. In addition to the public temples, most houses had a small shrine or lararium, where daily ceremonials and rituals were performed to appease the lares and penates who guarded the house. The lares (household gods) are usually depicted on these shrines dressed in short tunics and carrying drinking horns and wine buckets.
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As Rome’s empire spread, several new religions spread to Pompeii from overseas. The Egyptian cult of Isis was popular in Pompeii before the Roman colony was established in 80 Bc, and appealed especially to the poor and oppressed, thanks to its story of death and resurrection and the promise of immortality. In the mythology, Osiris, the husband of Isis, is killed, and the tears of his grieving wife cause the Nile to flood; however, her magical skills enable her to bring Osiris back to life. When it was first discovered, the Temple of Isis at Pompeii was in exceptionally fine condition, with most of the temple vessels and fittings still in place. At the time of the eruption, the priests had tried to save the treasures of the temple, and the body of one of them was found next to a bag of gold near the Via dell’Abbondanza, (Street of Abundance). The Bacchic cult also became highly popular in this vineyard-surrounded city, perhaps because it advocated extensive drinking of wine, which was thought to induce religious ecstasy. One famous room in the Villa of the Mysteries depicts the god Bacchus initiating members into his secret society.
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Mosaic from Pompeii depicting masked characters in a scene from a play: two women consult a witch
RELIGION & BURIALS
2
THE LIVING CITY
P
ompeii was a city of 20,000 residents. In many ways it was very progressive: Pompeii had indoor running water, a thriving marketplace and a structured government. The homes of the wealthiest citizens reveal beautiful works of art, particularly frescoes and paintings of the gods and goddesses of ancient Rome. Pompeii also contained public baths, cobblestone streets, sidewalks and many private shops where its residents could purchase almost anything they wanted.
THE PEOPLE’S POMPEII
At Pompeii the populations were broken up into three broad categories: Slaves, those freed from slavery (freedman) and the freeborn. The freeborn ruled these towns with the freed slaves coming in directly after them, but without the slaves the freeborn and freed slaves wouldn’t be able to function. The slaves would perform the jobs that they are given most of these jobs being foul and dirty eg. stepping in urine to clean clothes in the fulleries. The Freed slaves usually took up the jobs and businesses that the freeborn and wealthy consider dirty and not worthy of operating these jobs being the operation and running of fulleries, the operation and owning of bakeries, running Tavern/inns, and the running of bars and prostitution. The Wealthy freeborn ran the oil and wine industries. These industries had to be run by the wealthy freeborn for to make wine you land and to make oil you need land. The Garum industry is also run by the wealthy freeborn with an emissary waiting for the fisherman to make port so that the fish could be bought for their masters.
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THE PEOPLE’S POMPEII
These categories were also broken down into more groups for the sake of society, with the freeborn being broken down into the wealthy and the none wealthy, the Freed slaves (freedman) were either turned back into slaves because they defaulted on a deal or they became wealthy (but still not freeborn), and slaves. Women were considered to be different all together as well. The best example of Social Hierarchy is at the theatre with men sitting at the front then the freed slaves behind them and women and slaves up the back. It was considered a serious crime to not sit your designated area with severe punishment being handed down by the magistrate. The Markets another part of the local economy was held in the forum, with local farmers from outside of Pompeii coming every Friday night to get ready for Saturday when the markets were held. The farmers were most likely Freeborn who weren’t part of the wealthy families there is also the possibility that they were freed slaves but freeborn is more likely. Women who weren’t even considered citizens were usually left at home but often work alongside the husband in his business. There were also some very influential and very powerful women in Pompeii. The names of the women were Eumachia and Phellix. Eumachia had a the largest cloth manufacturing building in all of Pompeii that was accompanied by a statue of Eumachia, Phellix had a house from which she rented out rooms allowing for her to make a business. She went as far as to Isis onto her building, a hot food stall and a dining area, all for the tenants to use.
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POWERFUL WOMEN IN POMPEII EUMACHIA
DAILY LIFE IN POMPEII
A
rchaeological excavations of Pompeii represent an exceptional source of information about daily
life in Pompei and in Roman Empire under the rule of Emperor Tito. Historians wrote about daily life in Roman times, a routine that was not different from the one of our grandparents. Life was made of simple actions and it was actually far from our “stressful” life.
HORA PRIMA DIURNA (04:27 - 05:42)
Since there was no electricity, people had to live according to the “rhythms” of the sun. They got up very early in the morning to start their work. Only a few houses had water so most citizens had to go to take water at public fountains. Water was very important, this is why it was used with great parsimony. For their personal care and to wash themselves, Romans went to thermal baths. For breakfast, they ate bread and cheese, maybe with vegetable or anything left. Barber’s shops opened at sunrise: these shops were also a place to chat and relax.
HORA SECUNDA (05:42 - 06:58)
Everyone was at work, from noble merchants to slaves. Shops were open, markets were ready, farmers were in the fields. Everyone was performing his/her personal job.
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DAILY LIFE IN POMPEII
HORA QUARTA (08:13 - 09:29)
Streets were crowded, market was full of life, sellers sold and citizens bought what they needed. In the forum people walked, talked, discussed about problems of the town.
HORA SEPTIMA (12:00 - 13:15)
This was the moment for relax. Sometimes rich noblemen offered to the town an exhibition of gladiators and so people went to the amphitheatre. This was a very cruel and violent show: we could not appreciate it today. Some of the people consider the gladiators and their performances like the football matches of today. Fans fought as they do today. After a terrible fight between fans from Pompeii and fans from Nocera that provoked several deaths, the shows with gladiators were prohibited for several years. Nero restored them to satisfy a request by Poppea, who came from Pompeii. This is also the perfect moment for a break made of bread, cake, fish, fruits, etc.
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DAILY LIFE IN POMPEII
HORA OCTAVA (13:15 - 14:31) This is the moment of thermal baths. They were cheap and also slaves can use them. This was the best way to allow people to wash themselves also relaxing or having fun in a period in which only a few houses were provided with water. Average life expectancy during Roman age was 35 years, more than the previous and the following period. Romans could not know that the most important discovery for human health was hygiene. Today we cannot understand why they passed from hot water to cold water. But thermal baths do not have to be considered as modern beauty farms. They were also the place for business and politics. People also exercised in these facilities: “mens sana in corpore sano”.
HORA DECIMA (15:46 - 17:20) A short time before sunset, Romans had dinner eating olives and eggs and if they could afford it, also fish, meat, cakes. They did not have many possibilities of entertainment. Streets were not a safe place. So they went to bed early.
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WORK & PLAY
B
athing in Pompeii was a public activity, not a private one, and
the public baths were important social meeting places. They were so important, in fact, that Pompeii (which had only 12,000 residents) boasted three major bathing complexes: the Stabian baths, which were the oldest; the Forum baths, built after 80 Bc; and the Suburban baths, built in the early first century AD. A fourth, the Central baths, was under construction, but was still incomplete at the time of the AD 79 eruption. At the baths, men and women had separate areas; if there were no separate facilities, women bathed in the morning and men in the afternoon. In addition to the main bathing block, which had facilities for hot, warm and cold bathing, there was usually an adjoining gymnasium for exercise. After the aqueduct system was built and a plentiful water supply was assured, an open-air swimming pool was even added to the Stabian baths.
Aside from the daily bathing ritual, the spectacles of the amphitheatre were the most popular form of entertainment in Pompeii. Pompeii’s amphitheatre was built sometime after 80 Bc, making it the oldest known example of its kind in the Roman world. The contests Pompeians enjoyed were ultra-violent even by today’s standards, ranging from gladiator versus gladiator combat to fights that pitted men against various dangerous animals. Spectacles took place in the arena of the amphitheatre and often lasted two or three days. They were highly publicised and well attended, not only by the citizens of Pompeii but also by people from neighbouring towns, and sometimes became just as rowdy as modern sporting events. In AD 59 a riot broke out in the amphitheatre between Pompeian fans and the people of nearby Nuceria, and as a result the amphitheatre was closed for ten years – a hefty penalty for the crime. The riot is celebrated in a graffito found on the facade of the House of the Dioscuri, which portrays a triumphant gladiator carrying a palm of victory and saying, “Campanians, you perished with the Nucerians in our victory.” (The region surrounding Mount Vesuvius was called Campania). Other Pompeian graffiti
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WORK & PLAY IN EVERYDAY POMPEII
WORK & PLAY
have been found depicting gladiatorial contests and listing the victories of favourite gladiators. These gladiators were
FIGHT CLUB THE IMPORTANCE OF THE AMPHITHEATRE
often foreign slaves, and both men and women idolised them; one graffito reads: “Celadus the Thracian makes all the girls sigh.” Theatrical performances were another, gentler form of popular entertainment. Pompeii’s theatre was an old one, built in the second century BC in the Greek style and then enlarged and modernised in the Augustan period to make it more like a Roman theatre. Comedies and rustic farces were performed there, as well as mimed re-enactments of mythological scenes. The dramas of ancient Greece must also have been popular, judging from the wall paintings depicting the famous Greek playwright Menander. A small roofed odeum, or concert hall, was built next to the theatre in about 75 BC to provide an additional venue for musical entertainment.
SHOPS & BUSINESSES
I
ts fertile and well-drained volcanic soil and mild climate made Pompeii
an agricultural hub, and her port and geographic position gave her easy access to markets near and far. The savvy Pompeians took advantage of these natural assets to make their town, and themselves, into a trading power in the Mediterranean.
BOOMING BUSINESS POMPEII AS A TRADING CENTRE
The wines of Pompeii were well known in the Roman world. Wine must have been produced in great quantity as archaeologists still discover rustic villas complete with wine presses throughout the region, and amphorae bearing trade stamps from Pompeii have turned up as far away as Gaul (modern day France), Spain and even Carthage in North Africa. Pompeian farmers also specialised in growing vegetables, especially onions, for which the town was famous, and olives for oil. Herders raised sheep for their meat and milk as well as their wool – another important Pompeian product, which was cleaned, dyed and made into felt at numerous fulleries (fullonica) in the city. Pompeii’s coastal location also made it a popular producer of garum, a fish sauce which
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was in great demand as a relish; jars containing Pompeian garum have been found as far afield as Gaul. Shops of all kinds lined the bustling main streets of Pompeii; even today, they are identifiable by the remains of the sliding shutters which merchants used to close their storefronts at night. The shopping in Pompeii was world-class for its time: when tallying customers’ purchases, shopkeepers used standardised weights which had to be periodically checked against the official weights kept in the Forum. The bakery was a daily stop for most residents; many bakeries contained mills to grind their own grain, and the bread was baked and sold on the same premises. Bars selling snacks and drinks were also common; they consisted of an L-shaped counter in which were sunk large jars, or dolia, containing foodstuffs. Sometimes they offered a back room for customers
to eat a meal, drink and perhaps even gamble. A number of inns probably offered more intimate entertainment in the form of prostitution, and archaeologists have even discovered a large purpose-built brothel, complete with small cubicles and wall paintings showing the variety of services offered.
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3
THE LAST DAY
THE DESTRUCTION OF POMPEII
O
n the 24th august, AD 79, volcanic ash spewed violently from Mt. Vesuvius, covering the towns
of Pompeii and nearby Herculaneum. An earthquake in 62 was a warning that Vesuvius could come to life, but Romans did not understand it. As far as they knew, Vesuvius was a dead mountain. The volcano erupted on a hot summer day, first flinging hot stones down onto Pompeii, then raining burning ash that didn’t stop coming until it covered everything. When Vesuvius erupted on 24th August, just one day after Vulcanalia, the festival of the Roman god of fire, including that from volcanoes. The cloud of gas and dust loomed over the destroyed mountain, but the heavier pumice, tuff and rock fragments started beating down on Pompeii like a horrific black hail storm. As the citizens ran for cover from the pummelling they were taking in the streets, they took cover in public buildings, cellars, cisterns and other low lying areas which were south of the city, away from the eruption. While the eruptive column of gas would blast upward for over 11 hours, within a short time, gravity forced the black eruptive cloud downward. With the prevailing wind coming in from the NW, the falling material headed directly for Pompeii, like a giant wave of black, smoky, toxic gas mixed with dust, rock fragments and debris. A pyroclastic flow of superheated gas and rock went west to the coast and the city of Herculaneum. This assault on the city would continue for three days. Volcanic debris covered the areas mainly to the southeast, reaching as far as Paestum, some 100 km away. With the critical decision being to stay inside and wait for the assault to stop or try to run away, the choice was certainly one of life or death. While many died fleeing, those who remained in low lying areas died because of the accumulation of toxic gas close to the ground.
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The bodies found in cellars, cisterns and low lying areas died from asphyxiation by gas which is heavier than air and accumulates in areas low to the ground. Those who stayed inside found that the 11 hours of non-stop pummelling by volcanic debris caused an accumulation on the roofs, which were now collapsing. They sought to take valuables from their homes and make their way out of the city, yet this was becoming arduous as ash was accumulating on the streets at an incredible rate of 6 inches per hour. At dusk, 90 % of the population of Pompeii had reached safety, but they had no idea what would happen next. There would be more life and death decisions for those who had survived the first day as the mountain which had become a volcano was not finished.
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DAY WAS INTO
AND LIG
DARK
S TURNED NIGHT,
GHT INTO
KNESS
THE DESTRUCTION OF POMPEII
The people who had survived so far wandered with difficulty in a land they no longer knew. The sound of the erupting mountain was deafening. The darkness which had turned day into night made seeing impossible. The dust and debris made breathing torturous. The crowds struggling with carts, animals, children and the elderly and infirm were all struggling to find safety.
THE ERUPTION LASTED FOR MORE THAN 24 HOURS 52
As the day wore on, the cities around the volcano were experiencing different phenomena and reacting accordingly.At Pompeii, many people who did not escape between the afternoon and night of the 24th took shelter in the ground-floor spaces of buildings and were trapped by the accumulation of pumice that blocked doors and windows. Eventually, they died from progressive asphyxiation, or from an attempt to flee. Others died when they were crushed by collapsing roofs and masonry structures. Those who had taken refuge indoors with access to a higher level of egress were able to climb out and escape. Amidst this chaos, something strange happened at Pompeii on the morning of the 25th. The rain of pumice which had battered the city for 18 hours became much less intense. There was still the roar of the volcanic cloud, but the deafening clatter that the pumice made when it hit a structure was much diminished. It seemed as if the worst was over and the people who had taken refuge inside took to the streets to start their journey to safety. What they didn’t realise was that this reprieve from the pounding of the pumice was not a good sign. It was a signal that the type of eruption was about to change from the Plinian, with its fierce eruptive column, to a Peleean with deadly pyroclastic flows.
THE DESTRUCTION OF POMPEII
At between 7:30 a.m. to 8 a.m., the earth shook violently, producing the new surges which would reach Pompeii. The first two surges, a few minutes apart, poured over the city walls and reached the centre of the city. It caught the Pompeiians completely by surprise and killed everyone instantly. The fifth surge, then swept over the town, burying it up to a depth of 60 cm (2 ft.) to the south and 1.8 meters (6 ft.) to the north. Continuing its deadly and destructive course, the surge took only a few minutes to strike the entire region south of Pompeii, arriving at the seaport near the coastal lagoon and the river port on the Sarno River. It killed all those who were still hoping to escape the eruption’s fury. Around 8 a.m. an enormous pyroclastic cloud, the sixth surge, was emitted, bringing the most destructive of the events that violently struck the city of Pompeii. The cloud was preceded by lightning and fire and by a strong smell of sulphur in the air. The same surge continued its violent and destructive course over the rest of the region. This final surge was so powerful that it swept across the Bay of Naples to the island of Capri in the south and Miseno in the west. The activity of Vesuvius continued for days with lesser violence. In the end, the tops of the highest walls were the only things left unburied the sole testimony that remained of the city of Pompeii. Pompeii’s neighbouring communities, most famously Herculaneum had completely disappeared, and the entire region had taken on the appearance of a desert. And so the mountain that had suddenly become a volcano, and the cities which had teemed with life just hours before, were obliterated. They became the stuff of myth. The landscape would be lush and fertile once more, but the cities slowly faded from memory until one day, some 1,500 years later they would be rediscovered.
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THE DESTRUCTION OF POMPEII
09
AFTER THE ERUPTION
T
he effect of the eruption was evidently totally traumatic, as is shown by the failure to reoccupy the sites of the cities destroyed. It was normal practice to rebuild the cities of this region after even the most massive earthquakes; but neither Herculaneum nor Pompeii was reoccupied. Instead, the site of Pompeii was riddled with tunnels by explorers, not by modern explorers as is often imagined, but by the Romans themselves after the eruption. Room after room of the city's buildings had holes hacked through the walls by tunnellers, and though Pompeii has richer finds than any other Roman site, it is a city already extensively sacked by looters. The cities on the north of the Bay swiftly recovered, and Puteoli continued to be a significant commercial centre. The Bay of Naples continued to attract rich holidaymakers, but never again regained the massive levels of popularity of the two centuries before the disaster, the time when it had been the playground of many rich senators and emperors. It was not until the 18th century, when Naples flourished under the Bourbon kings, that the villas of the rich courtiers and ambassadors of that time brought a new flowering to the region. It was at this period that the aristocrats of Europe, as they progressed on their Grand Tours, made the Bay of Naples and its hidden Roman treasures a focus of international fascination.
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THE DISCOVERY
4
THE EXCAVATION
T
he ruins at Pompeii were first discovered late in the 16th century by the architect Domenico Fontana. Herculaneum was discovered in 1709, and systematic excavation began there in 1738. Work did not begin at Pompeii until 1748, and in 1763 an inscription (“Rei publicae Pompeianorum�) was found that identified the site as Pompeii. The work at these towns in the mid-18th century marked the start of the modern science of archaeology.
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THE EXCAVATION
1748 1860
During the first phase, the excavation was carried out essentially in order to find art objects. Many artefacts considered suitable for the private collection of the Bourbon king Charles III (reigned 1759-88) were removed, and transported to Naples - where they remain to this day, displayed in the Museo Nazionale. Meanwhile, other wall paintings were stripped from the walls and framed, and yet other artefacts and wall paintings were damaged or irreparably destroyed. After the spoliation, buildings such as Villa di Cicerone and Villa di Giulia Felice were back-filled, although many famous scholars, among them Johann Winckelmann, demonstrated strongly against this, as they had against the previous destruction. Due to their pressure, the practices were stopped to some extent, although the stripping of the wall paintings continued. By the end of the 18th century, two wide areas had been uncovered: the Quartiere dei Teatri with the Tempio d'Iside, and the Via delle Tombe with the Villa di Diomede. Two of the archaeologists most connected with this phase were Karl Weber and Francesco La Vega, who wrote detailed diary accounts of the works they carried out, and made very precise designs of the buildings being uncovered.
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THE EXCAVATION
During the period (1806-1815) of French control of Naples the excavation methodology changed: things became more organised, and an itinerary was drawn up to accommodate the visits of scholars and important personages. The French wanted to excavate the buried town systematically, going from west to east. In some periods of their influence they employed as many as 1500 workmen, and this concentration of effort resulted in the Foro, the Terme, the Casa di Pansa, the Casa di Sallustio and the Casa del Chirurgo all being excavated. With the return of the Bourbon king Ferdinand I to Naples, this method of organising the excavations continued, but there were fewer funds available to back the project. By 1860 much of the western part of the town had been excavated.
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THE EXCAVATION
1863 1923 Giuseppe Fiorelli directed the Pompeii excavation from 1863 to 1875 introducing an entirely new system for the project. Instead of uncovering the streets first, in order to excavate the houses from the ground floor up, he imposed a system of uncovering the houses from the top down - a better way of preserving everything that was discovered. In this way the data collected during the excavations could be used to help with the restoration of the ancient buildings and of their interiors - although the most important wall paintings and mosaics still continued to be stripped and transported to Naples.
Fiorelli also took the topography of the town and divided it into a system of ‘regiones’, ‘insulae’ and ‘domus’ - and he developed the use of plaster casts to recreate the forms of plants and human bodies that had been covered by the volcanic ash, and had then left a hole - shaped in the form of the plant or person - in that ash after putrefaction. Michele Ruggiero, Giulio De Petra, Ettore Pais and Antonio Sogliano, continued Fiorelli’s work in the following years, and during the last 20 years of the century began to restore the roofs of the houses with wood and tiles - in order to protect the remaining wall paintings and mosaics inside.
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THE EXCAVATION
During these years many famous scholars came to study the remains of Pompeii, and one of them, August Mau, in 1882, created a system for categorizing the Pompeian pictures into a range of decorative styles. His work still provides the standard framework for the study of these ancient Roman paintings. Vittorio Spinazzola, starting from around 1910, uncovered the Casa di Loreio Tiburtino, the Casa dell’Efebo, the Casa di Trebio Valente and Via dell’Abbondanza, which goes from west to east all along the length of the town. He reconstructed the facades of the houses along this street with their balconies, upper floors and roofs, using a meticulous excavation technique. In doing so he demonstrated how it was possible both to understand the dynamics of how the buildings had been buried in the first place, and also what the original structure of the houses had been - thus making it possible to restore them accurately.
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THE EXCAVATION
1924 2003 Spinazzola was succeeded by one of the most dynamic and controversial archaeologists in the history of the excavation of Pompeii - one Amedeo Maiuri. Maiuri uncovered the city's walls, and found a large necropolis along its southern walls - while his excavation of the Via di Nocera allowed him also to explore Regio I and Regio II. This, however, was carried out using inaccurate methodology, with inadequate instruments, and the project suffered from chronic underfunding, so the houses were not well restored and were eventually practically abandoned. Maiuri also uncovered the Casa del Menandro and Villa dei Mister, and he undertook stratigraphical research under the AD 79 level, in his search for the origins of Pompeii. Alfonso De Franciscis became director of excavations in 1964 - his period in charge was characterised by an emphasis on the restoration of buildings that had already been uncovered. Only the magnificent Casa di Polibio was uncovered in this period.
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THE EXCAVATION
Following him, Fausto Zevi and Giuseppina Cerulli Irelli had to work hard to resolve the problems caused in Pompeii by the earthquake of 1980. Then in 1984 Baldassare Conticello started an extensive and systematic restoration of buildings in Regio I and II, where excavation work had already been completed. The excavation of the Complesso dei Casti Amanti was done ex novo (from scratch). The present director, Pietro Giovanni Guzzo (who started his stint in Pompeii in 1994) has had to confront many management and financial
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THE EXCAVATION
problems in order to plan the finishing of excavations and the complete restoration of the buildings. In the most recent years, excavations have been carried out outside the Porta Stabia, and also in Murecine, near the river Sarno, where the Hospitium dei Sulpici has been uncovered.
Person frozen in time, Plaster casts of victims
Many areas are still to be uncovered in Pompeii, but it is even more important to restore what has already been excavated. Today 44 of the 66 hectares of urban area are visible, and it is unanimously considered that the other 22 hectares must be left under the volcanic debris, in order to preserve this important part of our past for future generations.
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POMPEII AS A SOURCE
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A NEW, NEOCLASSICAL, ATTITUDE EMERGED, INFLUENCING PHILOSOPHERS, MEN OF LETTERS AND ARTISTS.
INFLUENCE ON EUROPEAN CULTURE
T
he discoveries at Pompeii and other sites buried by the Vesuvian eruption had a profound influence on
European taste. News of the excavations kindled a wave of enthusiasm for antiquity that spread throughout Europe. The laudatory pronouncements of the eminent German classicist Johann Joachim Winckelmann, who made his first trip to Naples in 1755, and the etchings of Giambattista Piranesi did much to popularize the excavations. Naples, Pompeii, and Herculaneum became important stops on the European Grand Tour made by English visitors. Artists, architects, potters, and even furniture makers drew much inspiration from Pompeii. Contemporary painted interiors were inspired by the frescoed walls found in the excavations. The stucco work popularized in England by the 18th century architects James and Robert Adam used the same motifs. In France, the Louis XVI style incorporated Pompeian motifs, and the apartment of Louis’s queen, Marie Antoinette, at Fontainebleau was decorated in this style, which became popular throughout Europe. Jacques-Louis David and his student Jean-AugusteDominique Ingres drew inspiration for their paintings from the excavations. Indeed, the Neoclassic style stimulated by the discoveries at Pompeii completely replaced the Rococo and became the artistic style of the French Revolution and of the Napoleonic period.
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POMPEII AS A SOURCE
T
he discovery of Pompeii is of huge importance for the modern-day understanding of the ancient
Roman-Italic world - partly because the more public and monumental ruins left behind by Imperial Rome have often been misleading. Their ruination and destruction left crucial questions unanswered, and made it impossible in many ways to gather a satisfactory understanding of the Roman world from them. Ancient Greek and Roman texts are also often obscure and enigmatic, because the ancient writers naturally took for granted, and did not explain, things that the modern reader cannot begin to guess at. The excavations at Pompeii and Herculaneum, by contrast, offer an intact vision of daily life in a Roman society in all its aspects. They have produced not only many treasures, but also many objects that are less precious but extremely useful for the understanding of everyday life during the years of the Roman empire. In the buildings of these towns - from the monumental to the most simple - the ancient world appears in all its complexity, with great clarity. The same principle applies to the ancient texts of classical times. These have Rome and other big cities as their main point of reference, meaning that the history they speak of corresponds to the history of big centres and cities - while the ancient Roman world was actually made up, above all, of a great number of small towns and villages. In order to find out about the morality, culture, sense of state and religion for the vast majority of people in the Roman-Italic world, it is to Pompeii and Herculaneum that we must turn. It is here that we are most likely to find the truth about the society that made Rome 'caput mundi'.
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POMPEII TODAY
M
any modern visitors see Pompeii as merely
a collection of ruined buildings, and find it difficult to believe that in AD 79 the streets, houses, public buildings were full of life. They don’t realise that many parts of the ancient town were uncovered more than two centuries ago, and that inadequate technology and debatable methods were used in the excavations, especially when the first works were carried out.
In Pompeii all is original: the tombs along the stone paved streets; the houses, with their frescoes - some with simple designs and gaudy colours, others more elegant and complex which open onto shadowed arcades made precious by gardens in bloom and gushing fountains.
They don’t recognise what a miracle it is that buildings that were originally erected to last for only a few decades, and that even on that basis would have required frequent upkeep, are still in existence - and able to tell us something of the life that was lived within them.
The workshops and the shops immediately suggest the busy and noisy life once so much in evidence along the streets, and the religious sanctuaries are awesome even today - with monumental columns still emphasising the sacredness of the altars. The ‘Forum’, when it is crowded with people, also still reflects an image of previous times - perhaps the times of various elections, when different factions confronted each other in the square or under the large portico.
Today the biggest danger for the old town is the increasing number of visitors, who often do not understand that they are touching, creeping, walking along, an open air museum, which requires much respect and attention.
It is perhaps only in Pompeii, and the other towns buried by Vesuvius, that people of today can be in such direct contact with the ancient Roman world - it is for this reason that these places leave such an unforgettable memory on the minds of imaginative visitors.
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2014