Temperatures rose in thermal springs, tremors shook the earth, and on Aug. 24, 79 A.D., Mount Vesuvius spewed blistering ash and pumice over Pompeii. But today I enter Pompeii without trepidation, through the Porta Marina, one of the six gates of the walled city. Stones of lava, inlaid with chips of white marble, pave the road leading into the Via dell’Abbondanza. More than 2,000 years ago, carts carried provisions (including fish from the Gulf and salt from the bustling port) along here at night, aided by the light reflected from the marble.
Stepping into the city’s main square, the marble-pillared Forum, I imagine it as it was, a bustling area, bordered with religious, commercial, and administrative structures. To the north is the Capitolium, Pompeii’s most sacred building—after the Rome conquest, it became the Temple of the Capitoline Triad, venerating Jove, Juno, and Minerva. Statues honoring prominent men once stood in front of it and it was here that politicians declaimed. Surrounding the Forum were the food and drink outlets: Wine, soups, and snacks were stored in large terra cotta containers—the first form of thermos flasks. A piquant mix of fermented oily fish entrails and salt would have been one of the treats on offer.
From the second century B.C., however, the Macellum, to the east of the Forum, was the city’s main market. In the center of a porticoed courtyard, under a conical roof, stalls sold fish, wine, poultry, and meat. The smells would have been pungent: Vessels placed outside shops collected urine––ammonia, found in the urine, was used to launder clothing, and was subject to a special tax.
Slaves, steam, and sexual acrobatics
The Forum Baths were an important feature of life in Pompeii, used as a place to meet, socialize, and indulge in sexual acrobatics. Slaves tended the calidarium (hot room) and kept the temperature to 125° F. A double wall surrounded the room while an oven of brick with a boiler turned the water to steam that passed into the floor and walls. Fresh cold water filled a basin the size of a sauna, ready to be splashed on overheated bodies. Today you can admire the tepidarium, still decorated with terra cotta statues of Atlas, and the frigidarium, where bathers would plunge into icy water to tone their skin.
The largest house in Pompeii is the House of the Faun, which, strangely enough, contains the copy of an exquisite bronze statue of a dancing faun (the original is in the National Archeological Museum of Naples, well worth a detour). A mosaic depicting the Battle between Alexander and Darius can also be seen in the villa. Most of these homes had a vestibule, small cubiculum for sleeping and working, a sitting room, and indoor gardens; an opening cut into the roof of the atrium allowed rainwater to fall into a basin, a cistern, and then a well. An internal courtyard or peristyle, surrounded by a portico, allowed the host and his guests to take a stroll and perhaps walk off part of a gargantuan banquet.
The lives of citizens and slaves changed on Aug. 24 at midday in 79 A.D. Some fled with whatever possessions they could carry and survived, but most waited too long. Several plaster casts of the volcano’s victims are stored in the Forum Granary and their desperate expressions of terror are etched in plaster for eternity.
A violent earthquake had struck the Vesuvian area in 62 A.D., but for years Vesuvius had been dormant, and so, when the ground began to shiver, many residents suspected another earthquake. The pressure caused by the violent explosion of Mount Vesuvius blew the top of the volcano 12 miles into the sky and destroyed part of the cone leaving a semicircular remnant, Mount Somma. The horror could be seen as far away as Messina, while the dust was blown as far as South Africa. The Greeks and Romans had long considered Vesuvius the entrance to the underworld; Pliny the Younger described the destruction to his friend, the historian Tacitus: “Many sought the aid of the gods, still more imagined there were no gods left, and that the universe was plunged into eternal darkness forevermore.”
The wrath of Vesuvius
If Pompeii was a commercial center, Herculaneum, smaller and better preserved, was home to the movers and shakers of the first century. Named for the mythic semi-god Hercules, the city on the western slope of Vesuvius was known for its beach and port and the terraces of many of the villas overlooked the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Bay of Naples. This idyll was not spared trauma either: A flow of boiling mud smothered the city, oozing beneath doors, slithering through cracks, suffocating everything in its path. Over the ages it solidified into a tufaceous mass, 9 to 15 feet deep, securing hundreds of structures that would have otherwise decayed. The original city of Herculaneum, uncovered during the construction of a villa in the 18th century, is now approximately 50 feet lower than the modern nearby town of Ercolano.
Scholars were held in high regard here and statues of Caesar Augustus stood by the entrance to the College of the Augustali, a boarding school established by freedmen and the middle class. Frescos dedicated to Hercules and a mosaic of Neptune and Amphitrite decorate the walls. Excavations are in progress at the Villa dei Papiri, built by Julius Caesar’s father-in-law, which is thought to have been a library or a center of education, as nearly 2,000 carbonized papyrus scrolls in Greek and Latin have been found here.
Just south of Pompeii is Stabiae, high on a bluff overlooking the Bay of Naples. This town was part of a luxurious urban sprawl built by Rome’s upper echelon as a spa—the waters had a reputation for their healing properties. The modern town of Castellamare di Stabia is built over the old spa resort.
The eruption of Mount Vesuvius also destroyed Stabiae. At least 2,000 members of the community are thought to have perished as Vesuvius devastated the city with ash, cinders, and rock, while earthquakes added to the destruction. Many of those who made it to the beach died of poisonous gas inhalation as they waited for rescue.
During my trip to Stabiae, I was invited to see the Villa San Marco, a well-preserved construction with painted ceilings, stuccos, and mosaics. Two peristyles and a fountain decorate the seaside villa, and bronze braziers, cooking pots, and depositoriums for storing food stand eerily ready in the kitchen. An altar in the atrium waits for sacrificial food.
When will it blow again?
Mount Vesuvius has erupted approximately three dozen times since 79 A.D. with the last severe eruption on March 31, 1944, as the Second World War raged, destroying allied air force planes at Terzigno. The eruption destroyed many towns in the volcano’s path including the towns of San Sebastiasno and Massa di Somma.
When 10,000-year-old Vesuvius sleeps, its slopes become rich with vegetation. The fertile, black earth in the region of Campagnia has supported families for generations and, though the government has offered to move the people, most refuse to leave their orchards and vineyards. Currently 650,000 people live near the closely monitored volcano; scientists believe that, while it will not erupt in the near future, there is a high probability of another explosive eruption as violent as that of the first century A.D. Meanwhile, the cities offer a vivid portrait of life, frozen for all time, a unique, not to be missed learning experience.
SIDEBAR
When to go and how to get there
Pompeii: Open from April through October: 8.30 a.m. to 7.30 p.m.
From November through March: 8.30 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Admission: One day: $13; three days: $23
Information: tel. (39)81-857-5347
From Pompeii by train: Circumvesuviana Napoli-Sorrento; stop: Pompeii Villa dei Misteri; entrance: Porta Marina.
Circumvesuviana Napoli-Poggiomarino; stop: Pompeii Santuario; entrance: Piazza Anfiteatro.
By bus: SITA from Napoli & Salerno; Cstp Express Coach from Salerno.
By car: Autostrada A3 Napoli- Salerno; exit: Pompeii.
From Herculaneum by train: Pompeii-Porta Marina or Piazza Anfiteatro
Circumvesuviana; direction Napoli; stop: Ercolanoscavi.
By car: Autostrada A3 Napoli-Salerno; direction Napoli; exit: Ercolano.
From Stabiaeby train: From Pompeii/Porta Marina: Circumvesuviana; direction Sorrento; stop; Via Nocerno + Bus 1 Red.
From Pompeii/Piazza Anfiteatro: Circumvesuviana; direction Napoli; stop: Torre Annunciata + Circumvesuviana; direction: Sorrento +Bus 1 Red.
By car from Pompeii: Superstrada (Freeway) to Sorrento; exit: Castellammare di Stabiae, turn to Varano.