1. The Destruction of Pompeii & Herculaneum by C.A.R Hills
Sources:
The Destruction of Pompeii & Herculaneum by C.A.R Hills
Antiquity 1 by
Unlocking the Past by

2. What has the discovery of Pompeii & Herculaneum told us about ancient life?

3. Historical evidence
They bare whole towns with 2 storeyed buildings in tact.
Pots and jugs still in the kitchen
Meals still waiting on tables.
Historical records tend to only recount the activities of the rich BUT Pompeii gives us evidence of how the ‘ordinary’ people lived.
Very little of private houses left in Rome but here in P and H many private houses and streets remain.

4. The city
The following buildings/amenities have been excavated forum temples theatres amphitheatres pubic baths palaestra shops private dwellings
Walled city with 8 gates
Streets paved and guttered with a good water supply

5. The Forum

6. The Forum pavement

7. Basilica – a public building

8. Basilica in Herculaneum, Hercules and Telephus with Arcadia

9. The Forum baths

10. Cork model of the Forum

11. Gladiator barracks

12. Temple of Apollo - podium

13. Homes [domus] Usually the wealthy Ornately decorated usually
Might stay in the one family for generations
Typically faced inwards
Very plain looking from the outside
Designed for security, privacy and peace & quiet
Few windows to the streets
Main hall [atrium] was fed light by opening in roof
Often 2 storeys
Greek influence shown by peristyles, large open colonnaded courtyards at the back of the house
These were often embellished with statues, fountains & gardens

14. Fountain - House of Fontana Grande

15. Homes [cont…..]
Homes for the poor might have been over a shop. Ostia has good examples of this type of housing At the time of the eruption many larger houses had been divided into a number of smaller flats
People tended to live in insulae [large blocks]
Some houses split into flats for several families especially during the last ears before 79AD
No residential area
800 house have been excavated at Pompeii
The ‘best’ 50-room mansions of 2000 square metres down to homes of only a few rooms

16. Insula of Julia Felix

17. Homes – features of a wealthy home
The houses of Pompeii were exquisitely designed. The size and décor of your house usually depended on how rich you were.
The houses in Pompeii never had doorsteps but they always had gardens. The gardens were usually full of brightly coloured flowers and beautiful green trees.
As soon as you walk in the door of a Pompeian house you are standing in the fauces. This is also known as the entrance hall. In older houses the fauces was usually divided into two. It was also sometimes used as a cloakroom the door posts in the fauces was beautifully decorated and the floor in a wealthy house would be covered with a mosaic

18. Heating hypocaust

19. Fauces - House of Faun

20. Homes [cont…..] –features of a wealthy home
If you walk through the fauces you arrive at the main room [atrium], this was where guests were received. The atrium was covered by a roof which sloped downwards to allow rainwater to enter the impluvium. Every house had an impluvium; this was a pool for rainwater that then carried the water down into a system for general use. In the corner of the atrium there was a lararium [shrine for the household gods]. The families would worship their household gods every morning and every evening.
After the atrium, there was the tablinum. This was a room were all the business between the master of the house and his clients took place. The tablinum was divided from the atrium by curtains or a wooden screen. It opened out into the garden

21. Couch, from the “House of Carbonized Furniture”

22. Atrium from tablinum – House of the Tragic Poet

23. Atrium from entrance – House of the Tragic Poet

24. Compluvium House of the Tragic Poet

25. Homes [cont…..] –features of a wealthy home
Next to the tablinum was the triclinum, which was also known as the winter dining room. This room had three large couches with cushions and also with niches in the walls for supporting extra wooden couches. Each couch was allocated to certain people e.g. The first couch was occupied by the master of the house and the chief guest was seated on the middle couch.  
At the back of the house was the summer dining room also known as the triclinium this room opened out into the garden. The couches in this room were in the shape of a three-sided square. Opening out into the garden was broad windows, and in the garden there were stone couches that would not rot in the rain.

26. Tablinum – House of Faun

27. Triclinum – Tragic Poet

28. Kitchen in the House of the Tragic Poet

29. Homes [cont…..] –features of a wealthy home
In a Pompeian house there was no set place for a kitchen but it was usually behind the atrium, the toilet was often next door or even inside the kitchen. The contents of the toilet drained off into a pit. Only public toilets had a sewage system.
Then there was the peristylium, which was the garden. The surrounding walls of a Pompeian garden were painted with outdoor scenes. The most popular style garden was with a colonnade, which offered the people of the house some shade during summer.
Pompeian houses were always painted white to keep them cool. Around a Pompeian there was always beautiful painting representing things like gods or there were usually a lot of paintings showing sexual scenes.
Pompeian houses were beautifully built and decorated. The richer you were the more mosaics and paintings you had in your house.

30. Peristyle - House of Amorini Dorati

31. 1st peristyle – House of Faun

32. 2nd peristyle – House of Faun

33. Room off the peristyle – House of Amorini Dorati

34. Religion- temples 10 excavated in Pompeii
Two functions – to house the gods and be a place for rituals to be carried out by the priests
Not places of regular worship by the public [except temple of Isis]
Temple of Apollo rebuilt and remodelled several times, and enlarged after 62AD
Temple of Venus which had been destroyed in 62 had only just begun to be rebuilt in 79
When Pompeii became a Roman colony in 80BC the temple of Jupiter was converted to the temple of the Jupiter, Juno and Minerva – it had not been repaired after 62
2 temples associated with imperial [Roman] rule were temples of Vespasian, and Fortuna Augusta

35. Temple of Jupiter

36. Religion
At least 2 eastern religions practiced in Pompeii – an ivory figurine of a Hindu fertility goddess, Lakshmi and a bronze bust of the near Eastern fertility goddess, Sabzias found
Shrines & altars also found on the streets, many at crossroads
1 shrine near a fountain on the Via dell’Abondanza had the charred remains of a sacrifice made at the time of the eruption
Images of gods were painted on the alls of shops
In the temples rituals etc were carried by priests and priestesses
Images of Venus found throughout Pompeii – the goddess of love and success
One aspiring politician wrote in graffiti, “Vote for me and the Venus of Pompeii will bring success to everything you undertake”

37. Temple of Apollo with altar

38. Religion- Temple of Isis
Dedicated to the Egyptian god, Isis
Worshippers of Isis met in then temple twice a day
1st in the morning celebrating the rising of the sun, the rebirth of Osiris
2nd in the early afternoon ceremony of water, where Nile water was blessed
Badly damaged in 62 but fully rebuilt by freedman in the name of his son, N Popidius Celsinus
Ceremonial objects found with skeletons suggesting the priests had fled Vesuvius with statues, a silver urn and other vessels

39. Religion- household
Household religion was central to roman citizens at the time.
Houses in Pompeii had small shrines [lararium]
Each day offerings were made to the household gods
After the earthquake of 62 most lararia were quickly restored
In 79AD people fled with their lares as many lararia found without their lares as well as many being found in the streets near skeletons
Vesta the goddess of the hearth [fireplace]
Panates, guardian spirits of the pantry!!

40. Paintings
Despite kitchens and bedrooms often being small even in the better houses, generally they were much more beautiful than modern houses.
Floor mosaics, wall paintings & decoration exist in abundance in Pompeii & Herculaneum.
Art historians are able to identify 4 styles of painting
Most famous paintings at Pompeii are those of the Villa of Mysteries showing initiation ceremonies into the worship of the Greek god, Dionysius.
These are great works of art BUT also very important historical documents.

41. Painting of Narcissus – House of Loreius Tiburtinus

42. Paintings cont…. 4 main points about Roman wall painting
Ancient houses were painted much more than today. Today we tend to think of individually commissioned murals as reserved for only the very rich yet in Pompeii and Herculaneum it was a daily occurrence.
Quality varies from room to room. The more important, and therefore more highly visible and visited rooms, received better paintings.
Paintings must be considered in the context of the architecture settings in which they occur. What was the function of the room? Was it well lit? How does it work with pavements? With furniture?
Wall paintings are a measure of the artistic taste and social aspirations of the owner of the house.

43. Painting of the Poet – House of Menander

44. Painting to right of fountain in the House of Fontana Piccola

45. Paintings in the House of Ara Massima

46. Villa of Mysteries

47. Painting in the Villa of Mysteries

48. Streets Had raised pavements on either side
Stepping stones placed at intervals so people could sidestep water and rubbish
Streets were cobbled
Evidence of many ruts in the streets from traffic
Streets very narrow by modern standards
Rarely more than 4 metres wide in Pompeii while those of Herculaneum were even narrow hardly wide enough for a chariot
Most intersections had a public fountain with sculptured headstones

49. Pompeian Street

50. Villa of Mysteries room with frescoes

51. Another Pompeian street with stepping stones and wheel ruts
Another Pompeian street with stepping stones and wheel ruts. NB how narrow they are!!

52. Shops & Hotels etc
Much evidence of shops, workshops, hotels, restaurants & places of entertainment
One hotel in Pompeii has a large dining room, kitchen and 6 bedrooms
Some guest wrote their names in bedrooms
Two friends, Lucius & Primigenus, shared one room and 4 actors shred another
Plenty of snack bars [thermopolia] in Pompeii – you can still see food counters & containers from which dishes were served
No large scale industry nor factories in Pompeii but plenty of small scale business such as dry cleaners, bakers

53. Shop with wooden clothes press

54. Thermopolium & fountain

55. Public buildings
Amphitheatre the oldest surviving in the empire [c 80BC]
Lacks the network of underground rooms found at the Colosseum in Rome
Forum, temples, law courts, council offices, business headquarters
One of the earliest buildings found in Pompeii was the Temple of Apollo [6th C BC]
A temple to a Greek god at this time suggests the early influence of Greek colonists

56. Fortified towns Pompeii has strong walls, towers and gates
Earliest sections of wall date from 5th C BC
12 towers added in about 100BC
Sulla besieged the town in 89 BC during the revolt of much of Italy against Rome in what has become known as the Social War [socii is Latin for ‘allies’]
Herculaneum also had walls though les well preserved
An indication of how peaceful the Roman empire had become is the existence of grand houses on the promontory overlooking the sea at Herculaneum often using parts of the defensive wall as sun terraces!!
Cemeteries were outside the town gates by Roman custom

57. Graffiti
This gives us a real insight into the real thoughts of the ordinary citizen, adult or child, of Pompeii
Herculaneum [a more dignified town!?] had far less graffiti
Much related to the annual March elections for town officials
It is said of one candidate that “he stands for good bread” [bonam panem fert]
Another said that “Vibius Restitutus slept here alone and missed his dear Urbana”!!!
One girls rejects the overtures of Tertius because he is too ugly!
Obscene graffiti is very common, both heterosexual and homosexual
Someone else write “everyone writes on walls except me”
A schoolboy also writes that if you don’t like the works of Cicero you will be whacked!!

58. Graffiti cont….
Gladiators get much praise – Celadus the Thracian is “the girls heart throb” [suspirium puellarum]
Actors seem equally popular – one group inform us that they are “companions of the Paris Club” while another writes “Actius our favourite, come back quickly
There are signs of a high level of literary culture with Virgil, Tibullus, Lucretius and Ovid being quoted [think of you quoting Shakespeare!]
Some of these literary quotes, obviously by children judging by their height, are probably an attempt to show off what they had learnt at school
One adult quoted or wrote some delightful folk poetry Nothing lasts forever though the sun shines gold it must sink into the sea The moon has also disappeared which but now so brightly gleamed so if the loved one rages hold fast, this storm will soon yield to the soft Zephyrs

59. Some more graffiti!!! Samius to Cornelius – go hang yourself!
Health to those who invite me to lunch
The weaver, Successus, loves Iris the slave of the innkeeper’s wife
I am surprised, O wall, that you who have to bear the weariness of so many writers, are still standing
Lovers, like bees, need a life of honey

60. Real people! It has been possible to identify individuals of Pompeii.
A bronze statue of the banker Lucius Caecilius Iucundus includes a wart on his face
There is also a wall? painting of a young married couple holding a papyrus roll and a wax tablet possibly showing Paquius Proculus who we know rose from being a baker to the town official of aedile
We know that 7 children died in an upper room of the house of Paquius Proculus
Population of Pompeii has been quoted as between 8000 and 10,000 [antiquity 1] but generally as about 20,000

61. Real people! Cont….
One piece of graffiti states “Hail, profit!” perhaps giving us a real glimpse of what Pompeians were all about!!
40% slaves
We know that the following were included amongst the people of Pompeii: artists, metal workers, glass blowers, potters as well as bakers, inn keepers, weaving & spinning [cottage industries], wine making, olive oil production, bath attendants and brothel keepers!
Venus, goddess of love, was the patron god of the city!