Unit 1 Living and Dying in Pompeii

Question 1

1.1 A perfect paradigm or a confused conundrum

Answer 1

79CE the eruption of Vesuvius destroys and buries Pompeii

Account by Pliny the Younger whose uncle Pliny the Elder (commander of the fleet at in Misenum) died in the rescue attempt

Pliny the younger presented the event in such way as to commemorate his uncle and the involvement of hs own family in the disaster

1855 Giuseppe Fiorelli, superindendant at Pompeii 1863-75 devised plans which divided the site into regions (regiones) using Roman numerals to identify each site i.e. I-IX equated to nine regions of Pompeii, each regio was then subdivide into town blocks (insulae) He supported a more systematic (rather than ad hoc) excavation of the site

Question 2

1.1 A perfect paradigm or a confused conundrum II

Answer 2

Each doorway in an insulae is numbered and the streets have been given names e.g. Via dell’Abbondanza - the street of abundance named after the personification of abundance decorating a fountain in the street (Roman names unknown)

Pompeii not a Roman ‘foundation, but an independent city influenced by Campanian and Oscan culture and Hellenistic trends. Became a Roman town after the Social War of 90-88 BCE

Question 3

1. 2 Living in Pompeii Julia Felix and Eumachia

1. 2.1 Julia Felix

Answer 3

Most written evidence for individuals in Pompeii remains biased towards men

Julia Felix - her ‘Praedia’ estate, Daughter of Spurious including a sign -TO LET The baths of Venus, shops, offices and upper floor apartments (notice discovered an removed in 1756 and is now in the Archeological Museum in Naples

Tabernae - a ‘place of business, booth, shop, stall. office. hut, rude dwelling’

Pergulae - school, lecture-room, brothel

Question 4

1.2.2 Eumachia

Answer 4

One of the richest and most influential people in Pompeii - famous for her euergetism (doing good deeds by people of high status) - The Eumenchia Building one of the largest buildings in the Pompeiian forum and her tomb

Julia Felix and Eumenchia were women, did own property and could wield power

Challenges gender assumptions caused by reading Roman literary sources

Question 5

1.3 Dying in Pompeii

Answer 5

In Pompeiian tombs the dead can sometimes speak more loudly than the living

Necropolis - from the Greek ‘City of the dead’ placed outside the city as per the law

The majority of the bodies in Pompeii were cremated, this was the preferred rite at the time through much of the Roman world (79CE)

Tombs had both users and audiences

The elite began to play down monumentalism in funerary ornaments finding them somewhat crass whereas ‘wealthy freed slaves’ wanted to proclaim their elevation setting up prominent toms in the necropolis in the post-Tiberian era

A military cemetery in say Britain, would have looked quite different to the cemeteries in Pompeii