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Introduction
| New research | Status
Patronage and business |
The
household | Pleasures of
the flesh
Core values | Find
out more
Pompeii is famous for the magical quality of the ruins preserved in Vesuvius's
volcanic ash. Such is the quality of what remains that it is easy to assume
that we can learn there all we want about the Roman way of life. In fact,
the ruins raise far more questions than they answer.
Emerging history
Pompeii was first excavated over 200 years ago. The primitive and
negligent excavation carried out early on has hampered the study of the
town ever since – the fingerprints of everyday life were simply wiped
away in the enthusiastic quest for treasure. For many years, historians
have almost overlooked Pompeii as a legitimate source of information.
The story of the eruption
of Vesuvius in AD 79 is well known, but the history of the town in
the years immediately preceding its destruction is only now emerging.
Researchers using new methods have looked afresh at the evidence in Pompeii,
drawing on archives of tablet records (see box)
and on analyses of ruined buildings that bring the silent walls to life.
This new work has made a key contribution to our understanding of Roman
society at the height of the empire. Now we know that Pompeii isn't simply
a well-preserved example of an average Roman town. Even before the eruption,
it was far more than that.
A social experiment
The mid-1st century AD was a time of great shifts in Roman society.
The highly destructive earthquake that damaged much of Pompeii in AD 62
appears to have turned the town into a vast, overheated social experiment.
The disruption caused by the earthquake may have removed restraints, and
as opportunities were seized, the pace of change is likely to have accelerated.
Changes, which elsewhere took generations to occur, here seem to have
taken place in the space of less than a decade.
The new academic work on Pompeii offers us a forensic jigsaw puzzle –
a vision of a society that has been assembled from fragments. Historians
have, among many other things, compared decorative styles to trace the
rise of 'new money', examined perspective in architecture as a function
of patronage, considered how neighbourhoods were defined by the distribution
of water supplies. And through the discovery of a fish skeleton, archaeologists
from the University of Bradford
have shed light on the town's social inequalities.
Archaeologists and historians have also referred to the great literature
in which this particular period was so rich.The excavation findings really
spring to life when set beside the writings of Seneca, Plautus, the famous
republican orator Cicero, who owned a villa in Pompeii, and, most especially,
Petronius, whose Satyricon
is set largely among the freedmen of the town.
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Accounts of the past
Some of the most compelling evidence of what Pompeii was like
in the century or so before it was buried comes from two collections
of waxed wooden tablets.
The first were excavated in 1875-6 from the house of the banker
Lucius Caecilius Jucundus. A cabinet with 154 tablets comprising
receipts for various payments and colonial taxes was found in a
room at the back of the inner courtyard. Financial activities had
been recorded up to the year of the earthquake. Here is one from
AD 56:
Umbricia Januaria declares that she has received from Lucius
Caecilius Jucundus 11,039 sesterces, which sum came into the hands
of Lucius Caecilius Jucundus by agreement as the proceeds of an
auction sale for Umbricia Januaria, the commission due him having
been deducted. Done at Pompeii, on the 12th of December, in the
consulship of Lucius Duvius and Publius Clodius.
The waxed tablets of the archive of the Sulpicii
were found in 1959 at Murecine, about 600 metres (1,970 feet) from
one of Pompeii's gates, during the construction of a highway. The
texts, 170 of which have been published, range in date from AD 26
to 61, and originated with the Sulpicii firm of financiers, all
of whom were freedmen. They lent huge sums either as money lenders
or as bankers to local businessmen.
Some 87 of the Sulpicii tablets are business documents – for
example, contracts of sale, loan and lease, IOUs, accounts. In addition,
40 of the texts relate to judicial matters, such as promises to
appear in court, court proceedings and oaths.
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