Pompeii, the burned and ruined city of Rome

The Forum seen from inside the basilica

One more feather on Fontana’s cap

River Sarno is a small steam flowing through Campania Region of Italy which is at present in news due to its extreme pollution levels (it contains 120,000 tons of filth!) used to inundate the towns on its banks like Naples regularly. As a permanent solution to the periodic flooding; a change in its course was (in 1599) was proposed; a Swiss born architect by name Dominico Fontana (the same architect who added the lanterns to the dome of St Peter’s Basilica) was entrusted with the works. As excavations progressed digging tools were knocking at strange objects and Fontana reported the matter to the authorities; no one presumed that an entire city was lying beneath.

A long forgotten catastrophe

A computer-generated depiction of the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 which buried Pompeii

The remains of Pompeii along with that of another lost city Herculaneum are located near the modern city of Naples in Italy. On a fine morning in August 24, 79 A D; Mount Vesuvius started to erupt; a process that lasted two full days; with a ferocity unheard of in history. The lava and volcanic dust that was emitted covered all the two towns (Pompeii and Herculaneum and the surroundings) one third of the 20,000 human beings lived there died and the rest fled leaving all what they have built and possessed. The world was too busy to remember all what had happened.

Mount Vesuvius (Monte Vesuvio)

Vesuvius is a strato volcano (standing isolated) located at the east of Naples; it is one among the three in Europe that have erupted since the last 100 years have a long history of eruptions and the most famous among them is the 79 AD eruption that flooded Campania region with pumice and lava; killing about one third of its population. Both cities with all the people and all what they had disappeared from the face of the earth. Herculaneum (now the site surrounded by the city of Ercolano) was buried under 75 feet of volcanic dust resulting in the death of 5000 people.

Shocked and reburied

“Garden of the Fugitives”. Some plaster casts of victims of the eruption still in actual Pompei

The initial digging by Fontana revealed many frescoes with erotic images (frescoes are pictures drawn by watercolor in a plaster that is fresh; so that the color penetrates in the plaster thereby making the picture very stable; beautiful frescoes can be found on the walls of Palace of Versailles, the Sistine Chapel etc). Shocked by the ‘highly erotic’ images Fontana reburied what he found to avoid any possible controversy.

King Charles and Weber

Charles III (king of Spain from 1759 – 1788 with Naples and Sicily under his rule) entrusted Karl Jacob Weber a Swiss architect to do serious excavations in the site; Weber’s experience as a gold hunter proved handy for this job. The excavation was so prolonged and after the death of Weber Francisco La Vega and then his brother Pietro and finally Giuseppe Fiorelli (1860) continued the job of excavation. In the layer of solidified ash; Fiorelli noted voids shaped with similarity to human body; Fiorelli injected plaster in to it and what emerged were dummies of human victims who died getting sandwiched in the volcanic debris.

Erotica unearthed

A paved street in pompeii

The objects unearthed form Pompeii (including even the household items) like potshards had some nude pictures exposing the phallus (phallus is an erect penis that was widely worshipped in ancient cultures like India Greece etc as a symbol of fertility). The nudes of Priapus/Mercury, ‘Pan’ (the Greek God of fertility half man half god), Hamadryads (nymphs associated with specific trees which died with its tree) etc lavishly decorated houses and utilities. Unfortunately they were interpreted with the standards of the eighteenth century morals and were taken for obscene arts.

Immediately after Christ

Teatro Grande with a large audience capacity, next to Teatro Piccolo.

Life and culture at these lost cities where a mixture of Greek and Romans; their gods, shrines, public buildings; all reflected the union of these two great cultures. The difference of Pompeii remnants from other lost cities like Machu Pichu, Angkor Wat etc is that those cities got deserted by the people due to economic or other reasons and the inhabitants took whatever they could carry leaving the tourists nothing but dilapidated houses. Here in Pompeii it was no warnings; people, their domestic animals and all they had a sudden death and got mummified in the volcanic dust. What a visitor gets is a three dimensional still vision of what existed in a city at a time immediately after the death of Jesus Christ.

The remnants unearthed from Herculaneum (in 1748) and Pompeii (1758) like animal and human bones, potshards, buildings with household articles and artifacts, frescoes drawn on walls, pillars and ceiling etc have given a photographic image of the lives led by the inhabitants of that area about 1700 years back. The city of Pompeii was very active one and all sorts of human activities like money lending, linen laundering, brewing, marketing, philandering etc found in a modern city was going on even minutes before the disaster.

A usual activity

Fresco of a Roman woman from Pompeii

Those were the times between BC and AD people at that time were less pretentious and lived led by their animal instincts. In Pompeii brothels were not banned or commercial sex was not illegal. Brothels used to display there products and services as beautiful frescoes outside their shop wall. For them sex was considered as a normal human activity sans taboo. Posters of brothels used to display frescoes of the girls in their payrolls along with exquisite postures of their ‘services’ to lure customers, the name of the girl and fee for entertainment were also given beneath the frescoes. These were too much for a 18^th century moral police to bear and they did everything to destroy/conceal those beauties; they reburied, covered with plaster or bundled in to secret cabinets.

A short history

A paved street in pompeii

Pompeii and Herculaneum were cities of this region inhabited by Etruscans during the 7^th and 6^th centuries BC; they had a mixed culture flourished as a transit port for the Greeks and the Phoenicians; its initial inhabitants were a tribe known as Osci (Opici) of Etruscan origin who worshipped a variety of gods of Greek and Roman origin including the Fertility Goddess Ops. There were conflicts with Romans in which Rome had won and Campania remained under Roman supremacy.

Here come the Samnites

In course of history another warring tribe known as Samnites (people from Samnia of Southern Italy who also spoke Oscan) captured the area and established their command in art and culture. They developed cities like Pompeii and Herculaneum and continuously fought against Rome. All went as usual until one day when Vesuvius erupted putting an end to all events for ever. What one see now at this site is a well preserved photographic still image of some lives that was put to an abrupt end.

Nero!

For a visitor there are numerous locations and structures of interest ‘Villa of Poppaea (located between Naples and Sorrento discovered by Francis Le Vega in 18^th century) is one of the most interesting; it remained under 10 meters deep of pumice emerged in ship shape. Its owner was Poppaea Sabina the second wife of Emperor Nero (a very controversial figure, the murderer of his mother (Agrippina), half-brother (Britanicus), wife (Octavia) early oppressor of Christians, who fiddled while Rome burned etc are his titles!). The remnants indicate that the mansion was empty during the eruption (probably under repair) hence no human remnants found in it. (it is said that Nero killed Poppaea by kicking on her abdomen; at a time when she was in her advanced stage of pregnancy.

Villa Mystery

It is yet another mystery; the building is some what intact with its beautiful and mysterious frescoes (on which archaeologists rake their heads); in which a woman is made by some other members doing some rituals. Scientists say it is an initiation ceremony of a cult in which first a member is admitted after performing cult rituals. Whatever the reason be the frescoes are excellent to look at! The occupants of the Villa Mystery were not as fortunate as those of Villa Poppaea as many dead bodies were seen at the site.

Towards responsible Tourism

The Circumvesuviana stop at Pompeii, a popular tourist destination.

A tourist to Pompeii has too many monuments to be seen; he can spend a full day for the purpose. The ancient streets paved with polygonal blocks of hard stones with curbs and elevated potions to be used during flooding, Temple of Vespesian, The Temple of Jupiter (the most prominent site of worship along with Goddesses Juno and Minerva), Temple of Isis (the only structure that was rebuilt after the tremor occurred in 62 AD; many jewels and ornaments were recovered from the site), Men’s tepidarium (with hot and cold water baths), the residence of ‘Eumechia the Priestess’(a woman with commands at high levels), the house of a baker (Terentius Proculus), A Basilica (made in Greek style functioned as a court house). Tower of Mercury, the brothels with exquisite frescoes etc are just some of the many locations of interest.

A hot spot!

Portrait on the wall of a Pompeii house

The sites of Pompeii and Herculaneum are part of the Vesuvius National Park a UNESCO approved World Heritage Site which has developed in to a hot tourist destination. Economy of the city of Pompei is very much depended upon on the revenue from these tourists (more than 2.5 million) who visit these ruins. All facilities for sight seeing, boarding and lodging to tourists are available at nominal expenses at the present city of Pompei.

The influx of tourists brings problems along with cash; the monuments that are located in a very vast area get vandalized or destroyed. The exposed ruins get weathered by sun and rain and loose the original shape. The monuments which successfully remained under pumice for the last 17 centuries find it hard to cope with the exposure to sun and rain.

The Government of Italy has at present has started to issue to tourists tickets for a packaged tour program that connects Pompeii, Herculaneum, Villa Poppaea, Stabiae etc so as to lessen the pressure on Pompeii alone.

(Stabiae located near Castellammare di Stabia (about 4.5 km from Pompeii) was a port city just 16 km away from Vesuvius. It got completely submerged in the tephra from the Vesuvius. It was a resort of wealthy Romans and the sites include many mansions like Villa San Marco, Villa Del Pastore, Villa Arian etc. and Villa Poppaea in a step to lessen the pressure on Pompeii).