Ancient Pompeii

Ancient Pompeii has become a site of international fame for the very particular drama which must have occurred during the golden age of the Roman Empire.

The thought of an erupting volcano, with clouds of billowing black gas and dust, a rain of pumice stone and finally rivers of molten rock are fit for the best Hollywood drama and tragedy.

Pompeii in a Time-Freeze

Having been discovered well over a century ago, Pompeii's fame has been ensured by the vast range of artifacts which have been brought to light, many of which bear witness of a highly advanced civilisation. For example, complete sets of surgical instruments are in many ways similar to the instruments utilised by surgeons nowadays: The time-freeze brought about by the volcano's lava has in a sense saved the city from the destruction of time which would have otherwise come about.

The city of Herculaneum followed a similar fate and is perhaps a little well less known and has returned artifacts equal if not greater in quality to those of Pompeii (although in smaller volume).

Apart from the immeasurable art treasures and testimony of life during Roman times, ancient Pompeii has allowed us to study other aspects of Romanity which would otherwise be impossible to study, for example the classification of Roman wall paintings into four styles is entirely based on what is to be found at Pompeii. As such we can see that the four levels of classification are actually based on a relatively small window of time.

Pompeian surprises

Pompeii has also yielded a number of surprises. The ancient Romans of Pompeii and other cities of wealth were certainly not immoral but ancient Roman sense of morality was not the same as that which was built up during the Christianized middle ages.

To the Romans, nudity was not well regarded and in fact in this sense they were rather stricter in as much as they considered actors to be as base as common prostitutes. Having said that prostitutes had their own guilds and could practice their trade quite openly. Paintings of nudity were obviously rendered acceptable in rich homes by ensuring they represented popular mythology such as the affair between the gods Mars and Venus being discovered by her husband Vulcan.

A marked and obvious difference was the phallus, which the Romans regarded as a perfectly acceptable symbol of fertility, luck and plenty. These qualities were embodied through a deity called Priapus. But what has all of this to do with ancient Pompeii: it is easy to imagine how the large number of such symbols and artifacts might have proved inconvenient to 19th century Roman-catholic morality, so many of them were carefully put away in the "secret room" of Naples museum. Only opened to visitors under specific request.

Ancient Pompeii in modern times

Nowadays much of ancient Pompeii still lies underground, more than anything for its own protection. Part of it is actually built over and some has been pillaged by the famous "tombaroli" which the likes of Indiana Jones would be well acquainted with. Remembering that we are talking about an entire city, the simple maintenance and restoration of what has already been brought to light is greatly expensive and arduous, particularly when there is the constant presence of barbarians attempting to take away whatever they can.

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"ancient pompeii" was written by Giovanni Milani-Santarpia for www.mariamilani.com - Rome apartments