Ancient Revelations:
Archeology

By BARBARA RIZZA MELLIN

Imagine a powdery substance falling from the sky and covering your body, your home, your city. Now, imagine that this is not a dusting of snow but rather gray ash spewing from an erupting volcano. It wasn’t the molten rocks or flowing lava that destroyed Pompeii nearly 2000 years ago; it was the ash, covering everything with a layer more than 20 feet deep.

Before Mt. Vesuvius erupted in 79 A.D. Pompeii was a prosperous city of trade, commerce and luxurious residences at the mouth of the River Sarno in Italy. Twenty thousand of its 22,000 residents escaped the tragedy, but their city did not. After the eruption all lay buried, forgotten and virtually undisturbed for 1,600 years. It was not until 1860 that systematic excavation of the archeological site was begun, and it continues to the present. Approximately one quarter of the city is still buried beneath ash, yet to be exposed and examined.

Today, you can visit the remains, either on your own or as a day trip from Naples or Rome. I suggest you take a tour with a knowledgeable guide or at least take advantage of the audio guides available at the entrance. Most of the ruins look like half crumbled walls, stone cubicles or marble columns, and if you don’t know what they were originally used for, you’ll be seeing only the surface and missing the significance of the visit.

The ruins are interesting enough on their own, but it’s knowing what existed here before the volcanic eruption that makes this place so remarkable. It is a time capsule that lets us view the past and picture what life was like for everyday citizens of ancient Rome. Yes, Pompeii was a Roman colony, and many families came here to escape the heat and congestion of the imperial city.

When you enter the city through one of the two arched gates of Porta Marina (one gate was originally for pedestrians; the other for carts and animals) you come upon the forum, or central pedestrian gathering space once paved in brilliant travertine. Rows of columns define the area, which now exhibits the ruins of municipal buildings, a basilica (for secular business) and a temple. As you stand in the middle of the large open space, you see Mount Vesuvius gleaming in the distance, ever present.

The city of Pompeii is a tribute to Roman civic planning. In addition to the forum, there are theaters, a sports arena, and other public facilities all found on the outskirts of an orderly, straight grid of roads, surrounded by a protective wall.

Large, raised, circular stepping stones were positioned along the streets to enable residents to cross during the rainy season without getting their feet wet. The stones are spaced so that chariot wheels could pass on either side. On some of the streets, you can still see deep grooves carved over time by repeated chariot use.

As I walked along, with my own footsteps falling into the worn ruts, I couldn’t help but feel a connection to the past. It seems traffic flow has been a problem since ancient times, and to facilitate maneuvering vehicles, some streets are designated as one way, marked with a plaque picturing an animal pointing in the appropriate direction.

One of the main roads of the city is Mercury Street, named for the tower of Mercury at its end. (There are 14 watchtowers and seven gates in the wall that surrounds the 66-acre city.) A public fountain ornamented with the face of Mercury also adorns the street.

Fountains like this, fed from a spur of the Augustan aqueduct of Sernio, are found throughout the city. The wealthier families, however, actually had running water in their homes. The lead pipes, originally buried underground, can be seen along some of the roadways.

As you walk from house to house, you see much more than functional facilities. You see buildings in which their owners took great pride. You see floors decorated with inlaid marble or detailed mosaics. You see walls embellished with fresco paintings. (Frescos are created by applying paint pigments directly to wet plaster creating a chemical bond that withstands the ravages of time.) And you see wonderful architectural details such are carvings and columns.

House number 23 along Mercury Street is the House of the Small Fountain, named for a lovely tile-decorated fountain in its garden. The mosaic of blue, green, gold and cinnabar that surrounds it is still quite vibrant. On the walls next to the fountain are painted frescos. One with a view of the port is in particularly good shape and reflects the vibrant life that must have existed in this community.

As in most of the houses in Pompeii, the roof, which was destroyed under the weight of the ash, has been reconstructed, but portions of the walls and the floor are original. We see small, decorative diamond-shaped marble inlays covering the stone ground, resembling modern designer flooring. There are no windows, but an opening in the roof acted as a skylight letting in both sunshine and rain. A basin in the floor below captured the rainwater. A fairly rich family must have owned this house since it also featured running water and upstairs bedrooms.

Another home, owned by an even wealthier family is the House of the Faun, named for the bronze statue of the mythological wood-nymph god of the forest that embellishes the garden. One of two at this home, the garden measures 11×11 feet and is edged with Doric columns faced with brick over cement. In the back corner is a shrine. With beautiful marble inlays, fresco-decorated walls, 88 columns, two atriums, six bedrooms, servants’ quarters and grand entrances, this surely was a glorious edifice.

The exedra or dining room floor is decorated with a magnificent (and now famous) battle mosaic showing the conquest of Alexander the Great over his enemy Darius, King of the Persians. The original of both the mosaic and the dancing faun statue are in the National Museum in nearby Naples, but the reproductions at Pompeii place these masterpieces in context and allow us to visualize the grand lifestyle that once existed here. This extraordinary house covering an entire block — 128 feet by 352 feet — is thought to have belonged to Publius Sulla, an official administrator of Pompeii.

On every street, you see ruins of other grand and lesser homes, some with even more magnificent mosaics and frescos. One amusing mosaic at the entrance of another home shows a dog above the words Cave Canem: warning “Beware of the dog.”

It is the commercial buildings, however, that most impressed me, for they reveal even more about the activities of everyday life in this ancient world. A bar and wine shop still shows its curved stone counter where patrons once gathered. An area of small cubicles under repeating arches housed individual shops — like a modern strip mall — their original marble floors hinting at the foot traffic that might have entered.

A small cubicle that was once one of 34 bakeries lets us see the ovens, which still contained bread when the site was uncovered. Conical shaped grinding stones that milled corn for a large population line the back wall. As I looked at these ruins, I could image people working at the bakery — the pistrinum — or coming in to buy fresh-baked bread as part of daily life in an energetic city.

Another place where people came together was the public baths. Romans were famous for building great bathhouses wherever they went (even as far north as Bath, England) and Pompeii is no exception. Here the roof, as well as the floor, is original. If you hold up your hand to block the light coming in through the window high on the wall above the fountain that boasts the name of its artist on its edge, you’ll see the face of mercury that is otherwise obscured. It is just one of many sculpted decorations that indicate the importance of this place.

In addition to bathing and sitting areas there was also a sauna steam room heated by pipes under the floor. With double wall construction and a central boiler system that fed hot water to basins and pipes, the public baths must have seemed like the epitome of modern convenience.

Of course it’s the people who make any city great. And here in Pompeii we actually see the cast remains of some of the citizens who failed to flee the devastation of Vesuvius. Their bodies were covered with ash, and their forms decayed over centuries leaving only the skeletons. Plaster of Paris was inserted into the space under the ash to give us molded forms of the individuals as they fell. Thirteen human bodies from the Garden of the Fugitives, a pregnant woman and a youth huddled against the inevitable are among the casts on display.

When I visited in March of 2006, some of the casts were unceremoniously displayed in a storage area among salvaged amphora and other artifacts. Despite their disquieting setting, the figures render the whole city relevant and real.

It is almost impossible to image what it must have been like to see a mountain explode and cover your world with ash. Yet, because of this amazing protective covering, we can imagine what life was like before the eruption. Walking the streets of Pompeii is like traveling 2000 years back in time to find the past is not so different from the present.

Barbara Rizza Mellin is a free-lance writer who lives in Chelmsford.