Walking through Ancient Pompeii

After seeing the treasures of Pompeii in the museum in Naples, I felt ready to visit the ancient city. We got an early start, leaving Sorrento at 7:45am for the hour-long drive to the archaeological park. Lodo had told us to be prepared for big crowds and a chaotic mess at the entrance. The park can admit 15,00 to 20,000 visitors a day. It’s one of the most popular tourist attractions in Italy, with four and half million visitors every year. Even families with children visit the site although there are definitely some X-rated statues and paintings. 

 

Because we arrived about 15 minutes before the gates opened at 9am, we had to wait, along with several hundred other people, to get in. Once we made it past the entrance gate, the first thing we did was wait another 15 minutes in line for the toilet – at least that’s what the women had to do. The relatively small number of men on the trip didn’t have to wait at all. Without going into detail, I’ll just say that the facilities were less than pristine - no toilet paper, no toilet seats, no flush.

I knew from my pre-trip research that before becoming a Roman city, Pompeii was inhabited by Greeks and Etruscans. During Roman times, it was a prosperous commercial city with a population of about 20,000 people. The main local products were olive oil and wine. In addition, wheat, millet, and barley were grown in the fertile volcanic soil of the surrounding area. Mount Vesuvius was only 16 miles (26 kilometers) away from the city. 

 

17 years before the big eruption of Vesuvius, an earthquake had caused many buildings in Pompeii to collapse. At the time, people believed that natural disasters occurred because the gods were unhappy with them. But the residents of Pompeii apparently weren’t concerned about living in close proximity to Vesuvius. Believing that their conduct hadn’t angered the gods, they were confident that they had nothing to fear. 

 

A warning sign of the October, 79 CE eruption was the appearance of a huge cloud of ash and rock. The wind carried these ashes and poisonous gases towards Pompeii. For several hours, small rock fragments rained down on the city and roofs started to collapse. During this time, most of Pompeii’s residents (80-90 percent of the people, according to scholars) managed to flee to safety. Those who remained were taken by surprise the following day, when a pyroclastic flow raced down the side of the volcano and swept into the city. (A pyroclastic flow is a fast-moving, extremely hot mix of gas, ash, and rock.) The city was quickly covered with a layer of fine ash that was up to 6 meters (20 feet) deep in places. 

 

The first excavations at the site of ancient Pompeii took place in 1748. In the mid-1800s, workers digging with shovels realized that there were air pockets in the ashes. This is where the bodies of the approximately 1150 people who were unable to escape were found. Casts of the victims were made by pouring liquid plaster into the cavities. We saw casts of both human and animal victims in the on-site museum.

There’s much more in the archaeological park than you could possibly see all in a single day.  Because Pompeii was a wealthy city, it had a vast number of buildings, including many on a monumental scale. This included a forum, a huge amphitheater (capacity – 20,000 people), theaters, temples, thermal public baths, and markets. There were also plenty of pubs, inns, brothels (as a commercial center, Pompeii was famous for these), bakeries (31 have been identified), and street food establishments. And all of this is in addition to the private houses and multi-family residential buildings. 

 

As our excellent guide at the site said as we began our walk, Pompeii had everything you’d expect to find in a growing city with a lot of money and a lot of vices. The wealthy residents of Pompeii had made their money relatively recently through commercial activities and enjoyed showing off their riches through conspicuous consumption of luxury goods and lavish decoration that was meant to impress. Meanwhile, the long-established Roman elite looked down on them as nouveau riche upstarts and considered their decorative style overdone and tacky. 

 

From the archaeological site, we had a great view of Mount Vesuvius, just as the residents of Pompeii would have had. Our guide reminded us that prior to the eruption in 79CE, the volcano had a single cone which was twice as high as the two cones we could see now. As in ancient times, the volcano is surrounded today by groves of olive trees and vineyards. 

 

We walked into the sprawling space of the ancient forum, Pompeii’s main public square. It served as the center of commercial, political, religious, and social life. Before the destruction of Pompeii, the forum was paved with white limestone.

Several temples and markets were located not far from the forum. Vendors would set up their stalls in the center of a market complex called the macellum. This is where people would come to buy fish, chicken, bread, and other products. Our guide pointed out inclined tables where fish was sold. We could still see traces of advertisements that were painted on the walls. 

Leaving the market area, we walked carefully (because those ancient stones are worn and slippery, not to mention uneven!) towards the public baths.

The thermal baths included a courtyard for pre-bath exercise and games. Some of the original decoration was still intact in the changing room, frigidarium (cold room), tepidarium (a warm room), and caldarium (hot room). There was also a super-heated sweating room with heated walls and floor and a grooved vaulted ceiling to channel humidity. 

After seeing the statue of the dancing faun in the museum in Naples, I was eager to see the House of the Faun, where it was found. This domus was the largest and most luxurious private residence in Pompeii. It took up an entire city block. I was hard for me to imagine a house that occupied 32,000 square feet (3000 square meters). 

 

We entered through a vestibule into one of the house’s two atria. A copy of the statue stood in the impluvium, which was used to collect rain water.

There were beautiful mosaic floors throughout the domus.

The House of the Faun had two peristyle courtyards. These are open-air courtyards surrounded by columns that are often filled with gardens.

On the floor of the dining room, located between the two courtyards, was a reproduction of the Alexander mosaic. The original is in the archaeological museum in Naples where it is undergoing restoration. The subject of this large mosaic is the battle between Alexander the Great and King Darius of Persia.

 

I noticed how the columns were constructed of brick that was covered with plaster and made to look like sculpted marble.

Another impressive domus, and one of the largest houses in Pompeii, was the House of the Vettii. It belonged to two brothers, former slaves who became rich through their work as wine traders. This is where we saw the art that was graphically sexual. 

 

The subject of the first fresco that greets visitors who entered the house was the god Priapus, the god of fertility. I was confused by this image of Priapus weighing his extremely large phallus on a scale against a bag of gold coins and I had to do a little research in order to understand it. The weight of the coins exceeds the weight of the god’s phallus, symbolizing the great wealth of the owners of the house. Phallic images were commonly found in Roman homes as the Romans believed such images could ward off bad luck.

 

The next fresco we saw was much less problematic. It’s a domestic shrine. The central figure is pouring a drink onto the altar and the sacred serpent symbolizes prosperity.

 

There were a number of frescoes depicting scenes from mythology. The painting below shows Daedalus and the wife of the King Minos.

 

In the next fresco, Dionysus (Bacchus) is looking over Ariadne, daughter of King Minos, as she sleeps.

This one shows Ixion being punished by Zeus for lusting after Hera, Zeus’s wife.

 

There are also several purely erotic frescoes and a garden with an erotic statue. Our guide suggested that these images were useful when entertaining guests who didn’t speak same language. Our guide stressed that it wasn’t uncommon to find erotic art in private homes in Pompeii. 

 

One thing I immediately noticed was the brilliance of the colors painted onto large areas of many of the walls in the House of the Vettii. The predominant colors were shades of red and ochre. I learned from our guide that blue was the most expensive color since it came from lapis, a stone imported from Afghanistan.

A question that came up during the course of our visit concerned bathrooms. We all wondered if people had toilets in their houses. The answer is No. Buckets were used in the houses, and the contents of the buckets were emptied out into the streets, which were built to slope away from the center and to descend in order to carry off waste. Thus, crossing streets could be quite hazardous. This explained the “stepping stones” that our guide pointed. The large raised stones allowed people to cross the street without actually putting their feet into the dirty water. 

From our earlier visit to Herculaneum, I was familiar with the thermopolium, the fast-food shop that sold hot food and drinks for customers to carry out. There were many of these in Pompeii. 

 

Poppies growing wild in the ruins – one of my most memorable images from Pompeii. 

 

By the time we walked back towards the forum, the crowds had definitely increased.

 

We stopped briefly in the forum for a group photo on our way to the exit.

 

And then, four hours after we arrived, our visit was over. Although we’d only seen a portion of the site, the visit was quite overwhelming, and I’d accomplished one of the main goals of my trip: I’d finally seen the real Pompeii and I’d walked through its ancient streets, after only imagining it for years. Now I was content to go home with my photos and my memories.  

A Preview of Pompeii

I was very excited about the prospect of visiting Pompeii. But before the trip, I’d read that while I’d see plenty of ruins at the archaeological park, most of the art had been removed from the site and was on exhibit in the Naples National Archaeological Museum. I knew a museum visit was imperative, preferably prior to visiting the archaeological site.

On the day our group was in Naples, several of my fellow travelers had a similar idea. And armed with a photo of this map, drawn by our trip leader, Lodo, we set out for the museum right after lunch. 

I began with the Domus exhibit, which contains furnishings from Pompeii, and the exhibit of Daily Life Objects from the Vesuvian Area. There was an impressive amount of information (in both Italian and English) in the wall text that accompanied the displays in both areas. It covered the history of Pompeii prior to its coming under Roman rule in 80 BCE and its subsequent transformation as its public spaces and sacred sites were reorganized according to the Roman model. From the late first century BCE to the early first century CE, a great deal of new construction took place in the city. From the text, I learned that Pompeii had experienced an earthquake in 62-63 CE, 17 years before the devasting volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius that destroyed the city. 

 

In ancient Rome, a domus was a private, single-family townhouse. Only wealthy upper-class families could afford to have a domus. The layout of a domus was fairly standard. Near the entrance, there would be an atrium where guests were received and business was conducted. Beyond this public space, there would be a colonnaded courtyard/garden that the family would use for relaxing and dining. Various rooms around the courtyard would be used as bedrooms and for other daily needs of the family. 

 

The museum’s Domus exhibition space was filled with all sorts of furniture, garden sculptures, fountains, and figurines of gods and goddesses in bronze and terra cotta. It was obvious that the people of Pompeii appreciated fine design and excellent craftsmanship. One of the first artifacts that caught my attention was this marble-topped table. Its three legs are fully sculpted to portray lions. 

 

The round table top below features inlays of colored marble on white marble. It rests on an antique column.

 

This bronze safe would have been kept in a public part of the house, such as the atrium. It’s decorated with putti(cherubs) and Bacchic characters.

 

In this pair of wall paintings, the depiction of geometric architectural elements gives the design a strikingly modern feel. The bright colors (red, burgundy, light blue, and ochre) are typical of Pompeiian painting.

 

Isn’t this folding table gorgeous? A bronze band frames the marble top. The curvilinear legs reminded me of Art Nouveau style. If you look closely, you’ll see that the satyrs are holding bunnies.

These two small frescoes were found on the walls of a domus.

There were also several small bronze and marble sculptures. 

When archaeologists discovered this bronze statuette of a dancing faun in a grand domus in Pompeii, they named the building the House of the Faun. The piece was made at the end of the second century BCE.

One of the most elegant pieces I saw was this white marble sculpture of a sphinx that was found in the House of the. Since it dates back to the early first century CE, it wasn’t very old when the city was destroyed. The table top is a modern addition.

 

Furniture was often decorated with ivory plaques, such as this one from the first century CE which shows an episode from the abduction of Persephone.

 

The wide range of artifacts in the section of the museum that focused on daily life in the Vesuvian area provided insight into the habits and customs of the inhabitants of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Among the artifacts displayed were musical instruments, surgical instruments, tableware, storage vessels, and articles used for body care.

 

Here are two everyday items from houses in Pompeii, both dating back to the first century CE. The first is a lead-glazed terracotta mug decorated with stylized animals and trees. The second is a lead-glazed terra cotta deep wine cup decorated with vegetal motifs and doves. While the wealthiest families might have tableware of costly silver or bronze, the less well-off could buy copies made of glazed pottery as status symbols.

The Romans started to make lead-glazed pottery in the first century BCE. The most common objects were tableware and lamps, but statuettes of exotic animals, crocodiles, and frogs were also made to decorate gardens. This reflects the growing interest in Egypt that followed the Roman victory in the Battle of Actium whereby Egypt became a Roman province. 

 

I couldn’t help smiling when I saw this whimsical lead-glazed terracotta statuette of a frog.

 

Games were an important part of everyday life.

 

Archaeologists recovered over 3000 bronze vessels from cities and towns in the area around Vesuvius. Many were functional kitchen items. Below is a bronze serving vessel shaped like a basket and a bronze serving cup decorated with silver and copper. 

 

There were several examples of bronze and silver lamps.

 

The silver treasure found in a domus called the House of Menander in Pompeii consists of 118 items. It must have belonged to a member of the ruling class.

 

As a glass artist, I was especially in the Roman glassware found in Pompeii. The technology for making glass developed in Mesopotamia and Egypt between 3000 and 1500 BCE. Beginning in the mid-first century CE, Campania became a center for glassmaking. Here are some of the most beautiful examples of glassware found in Pompeii. 

 

The museum has a staggeringly large number of frescoes from Pompeii on display. Here are some that I found particularly memorable. Several feature mythological characters. In the first photo below, we see Ares and Aphrodite. They were a popular subject, often found in Roman homes. In the second photo, Io, with the bovine horns, is guarded by Argus at the request of Hera to prevent Zeus from seducing her. 

In the photo below, the Athenians celebrate Theseus after he kills the Minotuar.

 

One of the most well-known images from Pompeii is this double portrait of the baker Terentius Neo and his wife. 

 

There is elaborate detail in this fresco which shows a scene of ritual sacrifice. The snakes are a symbol of prosperity.

 

Below, we can see the god Bacchus, dressed in grape vines, giving water to a panther. The conical mountain in the painting was long believed to be Mount Vesuvius, as it appeared before the 79CE eruption. However, art historians now believe that may not be the case.

In the homes of Pompeii’s wealthiest residents, large areas of the walls were covered with frescoes, such as the one below. It shows a naumachia, the Roman public spectacle of a mock naval battle staged in an enormous artificial basin.

I found this tiny fresco of a rabbit and some figs quite charming.

I started learning to do mosaics a few years ago and although I was getting tired, I didn’t want to stop before I saw the mosaics from Pompeii. All were found in homes of the wealthiest families. Here are photos of a few of the many that I saw, and look carefully at the close-ups. 

 

First of all, a panther with symbols of Dionysus, from the first century CE. 

Next, fish and ducks, from the early first century BCE.

 

Also from this time period is the large round mosaic with several figures and a lion at the center. 

Another early work is this scene of life on the Nile.

 

The goddess Venus is the subject of this slate wall panel done in a style of mosaic that uses polychrome marble inlays.

 

The identity of the woman in this mosaic portrait is unknown.

I was awed by the intricacy of the mosaic work on this column. This type of column was often found in garden architecture.

Here is an example of a mosaic pavement showing the head of Medusa.

 

I was surprised to learn that there was a Temple to Isis in Pompeii. Egyptian influence can be seen in the statue, where Isis holds an ankh (Egyptian symbol of life) in her left hand. The limestone stele contains 20 lines of hieroglyphs.

My final stop in the museum was in a section called the Secret Cabinet or Secret Room where access is restricted to those 18 years of age and older. This is due to the explicit erotic content of the frescoes, mosaics, sculpture, furniture, and other artifacts in the exhibit. All were found in various residences in Pompeii. It was obvious that the pursuit of sexual pleasure was viewed as a natural part of life. Although I took some photos, I am not going to include them in this blog post because I cannot control who has access to it. If you are interested in viewing these high-quality works of art (and they are definitely worth seeing), I encourage you to search online for Pompeii Secret Cabinet. 

 

I didn’t get back to the hotel in Sorrento until around 6pm. Once again I was starving so I headed around the corner to a restaurant where a woman was making pasta by hand in the window. Although it was obviously a tourist trap, I had some delicious spinach ravioli with tomato sauce and meatballs on the side (because I choose to believe that protein can balance out the carbs). Also, I was feeling pretty stanchi (pronounced stahnky, this Italian word means tired) at this point and I desperately needed to recover some energy so I’d be ready to walk the streets of ancient Pompeii tomorrow.