Pompeii - a blog by Nina

On one sunny and extremely hot Italian day we set off to walk around the ruins of Pompeii.

We packed up our tents and were ready to go buy 8 am. After parking our car just out side the entrance for three Euros an hour, we got two audio guides and went in.

The Walls
The entry to this World Heritage site is through a gate in the old wall up a 2000 year old Roman street. Before Rome even started Pompeii was a flourishing city. It was a refuge for travelers, Greeks, Etruscans, it didn’t matter. But it was heavily fortified before the Roman Empire took it. When the Roman’s conquered Pompeii they found themselves in the middle of the Empire and no need for defensive walls, so the walls fell into disrepair.

This is us at the entrance to the city through the town wall.

Temple of Venus
Going towards the center of the city we stop to have a look at the Temple of Venus the roman goddess of love, it was destroyed in the earthquake that nearly destroyed Pompeii 16 years before Vesuvius erupted and obliterated the city. The earthquake happened in 62 AD and the eruption in 69 AD. The temple had not been completely restored. The temple was on a raised platform with stairs leading up to it , it had columns all the way around it, every thing was clad in marble.

This is all that is left of the temple.

The Forum
The Roman’s were smart; they even thought of putting small white stones between the dark paving stones to reflect the moonlight guiding the carts up to the Forum.

View down Pompeiian main road.  The bumps in the street are
pedestrian crossings allowing chariots to go through the gaps.

The Forum with Vesuvius in the background.  It was the centre for political, social and religious happenings, generally set out as a main square with buildings facing onto it. 

The first building we went into was the Basilica, in Roman times a basilica was a place wear markets were held, games were played and announcements made or any other thing that would usually happen in the mane square when it was to hot or it was raining.

The Basilica.  The podium at the back was where the senators sat to make announcements or to give speeches.

Then we had a look at the political side of the forum, first the senate building were the 100 or so senators gathered to discus the laws and other maters of great importance, then we had a look at the tribunal house, the tribunes are lower than senators but higher than men that had the right to vote. After that we went to the hall that the men that had the right to vote gathered to vote.

Then we went to the wool makers, here women washed, spun, dyed and weaved fleeces into cloth. They also repaired old wool here.

Afterwards we saw the meat and fish market; it was a rectangular building with a one story high balcony around the edges of a caught yard supported buy columns, it had frescos on the walls and in the centre of the caught yard five sinks arranged circle served as a place to clean the fish.  In one corner of the market was a plaster cast of a man that died in the eruption.  When the excavators were excavating the road they came across holes or crevices in the ground, these were bodies that had been covered by ash and then decomposed, leaving a crevice.  By filling the crevices with plaster and waiting for it to dry and carefully excavating them, they found out these were bodies of humans and animals.  In some you could see the folds of their clothes and their expressions as they painfully died.

A plaster cast of a human.

Up one end of the square was the Temple of Jupiter.  It was at the end of the square that you had to walk past to get to most of the houses.  So when you are in the forum you can’t help but see the temple. Juno and Minerva were also Gods of that temple.

The Temple of Jupiter.

A Typical House
In a typical Pompeiian house you enter at the front through a lavishly decorated hall in to the atrium, an internal courtyard.  It generally has a well in the centre and all the rooms face on to the atrium.  Out the back in the richest houses is a colonnaded garden.

A atrium          formal entrance hall

Al ala                  "wings" opening from atrium

C cubiculum   small room; bedroom

Cu culina          kitchen

E exedra          garden room

P peristylium  colonnaded garden

T taberna          shop

Ta tablinum          office; study

Tri triclinium          dining room

V vestibulum  entrance hall

The floor plan of a rich man's house.

The dining room was often the nicest bit of the house with frescos on the walls, mosaics on the floor and couches around a small central table.  Slaves cooked in a small kitchen next to the dining room, they would lay down on couches around the table and eat with their fingers.

A fresco from a dining room.

A mozaic in a dining room.

A colonnaded garden from a rich man’s house.

The Baths
The Romans were crazy about their cleanliness so they went to the baths every day.  Baths weren’t generally in their houses.  If you could afford it you went to the baths near the forum, if you couldn’t, you went to the baths outside the wall of the town.

The baths were separated in to two halves, one for the women and one for the men.  You went through a hall to a courtyard where you took off your clothes and left them on a shelf.  If you could afford it you left your servant to guard them.  Then you went through another hall to the frigidarium, the cold baths.  Afterwards you went to the tepidarium, a warm room in between the cold baths and the hot baths so you could acclimatize yourself.  Finally you went to the hot baths, the caldarium.

The frigidarium.

The tepidarium wall.

_ _ _