Pompeii

by Mary Beard

  For the political tensions between colonists and the earlier Pompeians, see F. Coarelli, ‘Pompei: il foro, le elezioni, e le circoscrizioni elettorali’, AION new series 7 (2000), 87–114; E. Lo Cascio, ‘Pompei dalla città sannitica alla colonia sillana: le vicende istituzionali’, in Les élites municipales, 111–23; H. Mouritsen, Elections, Magistrates and Municipal Elite. Studies in Pompeian Epigraphy (Rome, 1988), 70–89; T. P. Wiseman, ‘Cicero, Pro Sulla 60–61’, Liverpool Classical Monthly 2 (1977), 21–2. The survival of Oscan language is discussed by A. E. Cooley, ‘The survival of Oscan in Roman Pompeii’, in A. E. Cooley (ed.), Becoming Roman, Writing Latin? Literacy and Epigraphy in the Roman West (JRA suppl., Portsmouth, RI, 2002), 77–86. For the Oscan graffito in the brothel, see CIL IV ad 2200.

  Pompeian garum reaching Gaul is documented by B. Liou and R. Marichal, ‘Les inscriptions peintes sur l’amphore de l’anse St Gervais à Fos-sur-Mer’, Archaeonautica 2 (1978), 165. A sceptical view of the image of Spartacus is offered by A. van Hooff, ‘Reading the Spartaks fresco without red eyes’, in S. T. A. M. Mols and E. M. Moormann, Omni pede stare: Saggi architettonici e circumvesuviani in memoriam Jos de Waele (Naples, 2005), 251–6. The connections of Nero and Poppaea with the town underlie much of Butterworth and Laurence, Pompeii (above). S. de Caro, in ‘La lucerna d’oro di Pompei: un dono di Nerone a Venus Pompeiana’, in I culti della Campania antica : atti del convegno internazionale di studi in ricordo di Nazarena Valenza Mele (Rome, 1998), 239–44, identifies the very lamp given by ‘Nero’ to Venus. The satiric graffito about Nero’s ‘accountant’ can be found at CIL IV, 8075, and the reference to Suedius Clemens inglorious early career at Tacitus, Histories II, 12. The spread and replication of Augustan imagery (such as the images found in Pompeii) is a major theme of P. Zanker, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus (Ann Arbor, 1989).

  Chapter 2

  A classic (if somewhat lurid) study of Roman filth is A. Scobie, ‘Slums, sanitation and mortality in the Roman world’, Klio 68 (1986), 399–433. The same topic has been treated more recently in X. D Raventos and V. J. A. Remola, Sordes Urbis: La eliminición de residuos en la ciudad romana (Roma, 2000), with discussion of Antioch by W. Liebeschuetz (51–61) (the volume is fully reviewed by A. Wilson, ‘Detritus, disease and death in the city’, JRA 15 (2002), 478–84). Juvenal’s rant can be found at Satires III, 268–77 (trans. P. Green); Suetonius’ anecdotes are from his Life of Vespasian 5; the admonition to the ‘shitter’ is CIL IV, 6641. The papal visit to Pompeii in 1849 was the subject of an exhibition, with catalogue: Pio IX a Pompei: memorie e testimonianze di un viaggio (Naples, 1987).

  Street signs and finding the way are the subjects of R. Ling, ‘A stranger in town: finding the way in an ancient city’, Greece and Rome 37 (1990), 204–14. The clusters of bars and the ‘hospitality industry’ is discussed by S. J. R. Ellis, ‘The distribution of bars at Pompeii: archaeological, spatial and viewshed analyses’, JRA 17 (2004), 371–84. On zoning (or its absence) and deviant behaviour: R. Laurence, Roman Pompeii: space and society (2nd ed., London and New York, 2007), esp. 82–101; A. Wallace-Hadrill, ‘Public honour and private shame: the urban texture of Pompeii’, in T. J. Cornell and K. Lomas (ed.), Urban Society in Roman Italy (London, 1995), 39–62. Augustus’ quip about going home for lunch is from Quintilian, Education of the Orator VI, 3, 63. The ‘privatised’ street runs between city blocks I. 6 and I. 7.

  All aspects of the water supply are discussed in N. de Haan and G. Jansen (ed.), Cura Aquarum in Campania (Bulletin Antieke Beschaving – Annual Papers in Classical Archaeology, Leiden, 1996). The recent detailed revisions of the chronology of the water supply and aqueduct by C. P. J. Ohlig – De Aquis Pompeio-rum. Das Castellum Aquae in Pompeji: Herkunft, Zuleitung und Verteilung des Wasser (Nijmegen, 2001) is summarised and reviewed in A. Wilson, ‘Water for the Pompeians’, JRA 19 (2006), 501–8. R. Ling, ‘Street fountains and house fronts at Pompeii’, in Mols and Moormann, Omni pede stare (above), 271–6 discusses the house owner taking advantage of a re-positioned fountain. The interruption of supply on the eve of the eruption is documented by S. C. Nappo, ‘L’impianto idrico a Pompei nel 79 d.C.’, in Cura Aquarum, 37–45.

  The ground-breaking study of cart ruts was S. Tsujimura, ‘Ruts in Pompeii: the traffic system in the Roman city’, Opuscula Pompeiana 1 (1991), 58–86. Elaborate suggestions of the one-way system can be found in E. E. Poehler, ‘The circulation of traffic in Pompeii’s Regio VI’, JRA 19 (2006), 53–74. Pavements are discussed by C. Saliou, ‘Les trottoirs de Pompéi : une première approche’, Bulletin Antieke Beschaving, 74 (1999), 161–218. S. C. Nappo, ‘Fregio dipinto dal “praedium” di Giulia Felice con rappresentazione del foro di Pompei’, RStP 3 (1989), 79–96 is a complete publication of the Forum scenes. The Roman law mentioning the upkeep of roads is the ‘Table of Heraclea’, translated in M. H. Crawford et al. (ed.), Roman Statutes (London, 1996) Vol. 1, 355–91. Herodas, Mime III describes the ‘over the shoulder’ flogging (a method alluded to also in Cicero, Letters to Friends VII, 25, 1). A translation of Augustus’ adjudication of the Cnidian case can be found in M. G. L. Cooley (ed.), The Age of Augustus (LACTOR 17, London, 2003), 197–8.

  Chapter 3

  Almost all recent studies of Pompeian domestic architecture refer back to A. Wallace-Hadrill’s classic book, Houses and Society in Pompeii and Herculaneum (Princeton, NJ, 1994). Also fundamental, on the use of rooms within the house, is the work of P. M. Allison. Her major study is Pompeian Households: an analysis of the material culture (Los Angeles, 2004), supplemented with an excellent ‘online companion’ at www.stoa.org/projects/ph/home. An important collection of essays is Laurence and Wallace-Hadrill (ed.), Domestic Space in the Roman World (above).

  The House of the Tragic Poet (VI. 8. 5) is beautifully reconstructed by N. Wood, The House of the Tragic Poet (London, 1996). The nineteenth-century interested in the house is discussed by S. Hales, ‘Re-casting antiquity: Pompeii and the Crystal Palace’, Arion 14 (2006), 99–133. The garden of the House of Julius Polybius (IX.13.1–3) is described in W. F. Jashemski, The Gardens of Pompeii, Herculaneum and the villas destroyed by Vesuvius, Vol 2 (New York, 1993), 240–52; the garden a few doors away (in what is now usually called the House of the Painters at Work, IX. 12) in A. M. Ciarallo, ‘The Garden of the “Casa dei Casti Amanti” (Pompeii, Italy)’, Garden History 21 (1993), 110–16. Petronius’ description of the entrance to Trimalchio’s house is at Satyrica 28–9.

  All aspects of The House of the Menander (I. 10. 4) and the neighbouring houses in the block have been exhaustively studied and published by R. Ling and others, in several volumes. Particularly relevant are R. Ling, The Insula of the Menander at Pompeii, Vol 1, The Structures (Oxford, 1997) and P. M. Allison, Vol. 3 The Finds, a contextual study (Oxford, 2006). G. Stefani (ed.), Menander: la casa del Menandro di Pompei (Milan, 2003) is a well illustrated exhibition catalogue, featuring finds from the house. The House of Julius Polybius is the subject of Ciarallo and de Carolis (ed.), La casa di Giulio Polibio (above) – which includes an article on the lighting. That house, the House of Venus in a Bikini (I. 11. 6) and the House of the Prince of Naples (VI. 15. 8) are included in Allison’s Pompeian Households.

  The wooden furniture from Herculaneum is discussed by S. T. A. M. Mols, Wooden Furniture in Herculaneum: form, technique and function (Amsterdam, 1999). The toilet specialist is G. Jansen, whose work is usefully summarised in G. Jansen, ‘Private toilets at Pompei: appearance and operation’, in Bon and Jones (ed.), Sequence and Space (above), 121–34. Seneca’s anecdote about sponges can be found at Letters LXX, 20. The detritus from Herculaneum is being analysed as part of the British School at Rome’s Herculaneum Conservation Project. The architecture of formal dining, at Pompeii and elsewhere, is discussed in K. M. D. Dunbabin, The Roman Banquet: images of conviviality (Cambridge, 2003).

  A good introduction to recent work on the Roman family (including special reference to Pompeian material) is B. Rawson and P. Weaver (ed.), The Roman Family in
Italy: status, sentiment, space (Oxford, 1997). The term ‘housefuls’ is advocated by A. Wallace-Hadrill. The instititions of patronage are well discussed in A. Wallace-Hadrill (ed.), Patronage in Ancient Society (London, 1989). Temporal zoning is suggested by Laurence, Roman Pompeii (above), 154–66. The most relevant section of Vitruvius is On Architecture, VI, 5; the moans of Martial are from his Epigrams X, 100.

  Koloski Ostrow, The Sarno Bath Complex (above) discusses the layout of the accommodation there. F. Pirson explores the rental properties of the Insula Arriana Polliana (VI. 6) and of the Estate of Julia Felix (II. 4. 2) in Laurence and Wallace Hadrill (ed.), Domestic Space, 165–81. L. H. Petersen offers a positive account of the House of Octavius Quartio in The Freedman in Roman Art and Art History (Cambridge, 2006), 129–36, in contrast to the sniffier approach of Zanker, Pompeii (above), 145–56 (who uses the name Loreius Tiburtinus for the house). The most comprehensive published material on the House of Fabius Rufus can be found in M. Aoyagi and U. Pappalardo (ed.), Pompei (Regiones VI-VII). Insula Occidentalis. Volume I Tokyo-Pompei (Naples, 2006). Seneca’s comments on the baths are in Letters LVI. Renting from the first of July is referred to by Petronius, Satyrica 38; Trimalchio’s insult to his wife is at Satyrica 74. Cicero’s views on garden features can be found at On the Laws II, 2; Letters to his brother Quintus III, 7, 7; to Atticus, I, 16, 18. For ‘I wish I could be a ring ...’, see E. Courtney, Musa Lapidaria: a selection of Latin verse inscriptions (Atlanta, Georgia, 1995), 82–3.

  The most ambitious attempt to tie the houses of Pompeii to particular individuals is that of M. della Corte, Case ed Abitanti di Pompei (3rd ed., Naples, 1965), criticised by Mouritsen, Elections, Magistrates and Municipal Elite (above), 9–27, and P. M. Allison, ‘Placing individuals: Pompeian epigraphy in context’, Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 14 (2001), 53–74 (raising doubts on the ownership of the House of the Vettii). The state of the Bar of Amarantus in 79 CE is the subject of J. Berry, ‘The conditions of domestic life in Pompeii in AD 79: a case study of Houses 11 and 12, Insula 9, Region 1’, Papers of the British School at Rome 52 (1997), 103–25; the graffiti from the property is discussed by A. Wallace-Hadrill, ‘Scratching the surface: a case study of domestic graffiti at Pompeii’, in M. Corbier and J.-P. Guilhembet (ed.), L’écriture dans la maison romaine (Paris, forthcoming). Domestic fulleries are explored by M. Flohr, ‘The domestic fullonicae of Pompeii’, in M. Cole, M. Flohr and E. Poehler (ed.), Pompeii: cultural standards, practical needs (forthcoming). The door plaque of Lucius Satrius Rufus and its context is described in Notizie degli Scavi 1933, 322–3; the crimes of Ladicula and Atimetus are recorded at CIL IV, 4776 and 10231.

  Chapter 4

  The paintings of Pompeii have attracted scholarly attention since the moment of the town’s rediscovery. Still useful on all aspects, from technique to mythological images, is R. Ling, Roman Painting (Cambridge, 1991). Several books by J. R. Clarke have explored different themes of painting at Pompeii and elsewhere: Looking at Lovemaking: constructions of sexuality in Roman art, 100 BC – AD 250 (Berkeley etc., 1998); Art in the Lives of Ordinary Romans: visual representation and non-elite viewers in Italy, 100 BC – AD 315 (Berkeley, etc., 2003); Looking at Laughter: humor, power and transgression in Roman visual culture, 100 BC – AD 250 (Berkeley etc., 2008). A number of the paintings featured in this chapter (including the ‘Judgement of Solomon’, various paintings from the House of the Vettii and from the baths in the House of the Menander) are more fully discussed by Clarke.

  The paintings (and painters) of the House of the Painters at Work are the subject of a series of articles by its excavator, A. Varone, including a brief article in English, ‘New finds in Pompeii. The excavation of two buildings in Via dell’Abbondanza’, Apollo, July 1993, 8–12. See also ‘Scavo lungo via dell’Abbondanza’, RStP 3 (1989), 231–8; ‘Attività dell’Ufficio Scavi 1990’, RStP 4 (1990), 201–11; ‘L’organizzazione del lavoro di una bottega di decoratori: le evidenze dal recente scavo pompeiano lungo via dell’Abbondanza’, in E. M. Moormann (ed.), Mani di pittori e botteghe pittoriche nel mondo romano (Mededeel-ingen van het Nederlands Instituut te Rome 54 (1995), 124–36. The ‘painters’ workshop’ is discussed by M. Tuffreau-Libre, ‘Les pots à couleur de Pompéi: premiers résultats’, RStP 10 (1999), 63–70. The most determined (if not always convincing) attempt to identify different ‘hands’ is L. Richardson, A Catalog of Identifiable Figure Painters of Ancient Pompeii, Herculaneum and Stabiae (Baltimore, 2000). The entirely implausible identification of a South Italian artist at Fish-bourne is suggested by B.W. Cunliffe, Fishbourne: a Roman palace and its garden (London, 1971), 117.

  Zebra stripe pattern is fully documented by C. C. Goulet, ‘The “Zebra Stripe” design: an investigation of Roman wall-painting in the periphery’, RStP 12–13 (2001–2), 53–94. A complete compendium of the decoration in the House of the Menander is provided by R. Ling and L. Ling, The Insula of the Menander at Pompeii, Vol 2, The Decorations (Oxford, 2005). The conservation of the Villa of the Mysteries frieze, and its various modern interpretations, are the subject of B. Bergmann, ‘Seeing Women in the Villa of the Mysteries: a modern excavation of the Dionysiac murals’, in Coates and Seydl (ed.), Antiquity Recovered (above), 230–69.

  The classic formulation of the development of the Four Styles is A. Mau, Geschichte der decorativen Wandmalerei in Pompeji (Berlin, 1882). Problems with its rigid application are raised by Ling, Roman Painting 71 (the ‘eclectic’ Fourth Style) and Wallace-Hadrill, Houses and Society (above), 30 (on the difficulty of distinguishing Third and Fourth Styles). Vitruvius’ reactions are from his On Architecture VII, 5, 4.

  The influence of function on design is a major theme of Wallace-Hadrill, Houses and Society (see p. 28 for the remarks on perspective). Cicero’s views on unsuitable statuary can be found at Letters to Friends VII, 23. Information on the relative cost of pigments is given by Pliny, Natural History XXXIII, 118 and XXXV, 30. Vitruvius’ ‘scribe’ is mentioned at On Architecture VII, 9, 2.

  The significance of particular myths on the walls of Pompeii is usefully discussed by B. Bergmann, ‘The Roman House as Memory Theater: the House of the Tragic Poet in Pompeii’, Art Bulletin 76 (1994), 225–56 and ‘The Pregnant Moment: tragic wives in the Roman interior’, in N. B. Kampen (ed.), Sexuality in Ancient Art: near East, Egypt, Greece and, Italy (New York and Cambridge, 1996), 199–218; and by V. Platt, ‘Viewing, Desiring, Believing: confronting the divine in a Pompeian house’, Art History 25 (2002), 87–112 (on the House of Octavius Quartio).

  B. Bergmann, ‘Greek masterpieces and Roman recreative fictions’, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 97 (1995), 79–120 is a good discussion of the relationship between Greek ‘originals’ and Roman recreations. The inscription from the façade of the House of Marcus Lucretius Fronto (V.4.a) can be found at CIL IV, 6626. ‘Amazement’ at the painting of the old man and his daughter is recorded by Valerius Maximus, Memorable Deeds and Sayings V, 4, ext. 1. Timanthes’ Iphigeneia features at Pliny, Natural History XXXV, 74 and Cicero, Orator 74; Achilles on Skyros at Pliny, Natural History XXXV, 134. The story of the Roman lady’s reaction to the painting of Hector is told by Plutarch, Life of Brutus 23. The graffito referring to the painting of Dirce is noted by E. W. Leach, ‘The Punishment of Dirce: a newly discovered painting in the Casa di Giulio Polibio and its significance within the visual tradition’, Römische Mitteilungen 93 (1986), 157–82. The fifth-century BCE jug is discussed by F. Zevi and M. L. Lazzarini, ‘Necrocorinthia a Pompei: un’idria bronzea per le gare di Argo’, Prospettiva 53–6 (1988–9). 33–49.

  Chapter 5

  An up-to-date starting point for debates on the ancient economy is W. Scheidel, I. Morris and R. Saller (ed.), The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World (Cambridge, 2007) – with references to the evidence from the Greenland icecap. A very ‘primitive’ model of the Pompeian economy itself can be found in W. Jongman, The Economy and Society of Pompeii (Amsterdam, 1988), with a powerful critique by N. Purce
ll, in Classical Review 40 (1990), 111–16.

  The estate of the Lucretii Valentes is the subject of M. De’ Spagnolis Conti-cello, ‘Sul rinvenimento della villa e del monumento funerario dei Lucretii Valentes’, RStP 6 (1993–4), 147–66. The Villa of the Mosaic Columns is discussed by V. Kockel and B. F. Weber, ‘Die Villa delle Colonne a Mosaico in Pompeji’, Römische Mitteilungen 90 (1983), 51–89 (with Notizie degli Scavi 1923, 277 for the fourteen person leg iron). S. de Caro, La villa rustica in località Villa Regina a Boscoreale (Rome, 1994) is the major publication of the small holding near Boscoreale (fully reviewed by R. Ling, ‘Villae Rusticae at Boscoreale’, JRA 9 (1996), 344–50). Estimates of surplus production in the territory of Pompeii (plus the reference to ‘the old story’) are given by Purcell, in Classical Review 1990. Pompeii’s wine trade is discussed by A. Tchernia, ‘Il vino: produzione e commercio’, in F. Zevi (ed.) Pompei 79: raccolta di studi per il decimonono cente-nario dell’eruzione vesuviana (Naples, 1979), 87–96 and relevant material from the House of the Menander is illustrated in Stefani (ed.), Menander (above), 210–23. The amphorae in the House of Amarantus are documented in Berry, ‘The conditions of domestic life’ (above). The cargo of pottery table ware is the subject of D. Atkinson, ‘A hoard of Samian Ware from Pompeii’, Journal of Roman Studies 4 (1914), 27–64. The vineyard near the Amphitheatre is documented by Jashem-ski, Gardens of Pompeii (Vol. 2) (above), 89–90; commercial cultivation more generally within the town itself is discussed in the first volume of Gardens of Pompeii (New York, 1979), especially 201–88. Commercial flower growing is documented by M. Robinson, ‘Evidence for garden cultivation and the use of bedding-out plants in the peristyle garden of the House of the Greek Epigrams (V. I. 18i) at Pompeii’, Opuscula Romana 31–2 (2006–7), 155–9. Pompeian cabbages and onions are mentioned by Pliny, Natural History XIX, 139–41; Columella, On Agriculture X, 135; XII, 10, 1. The problem of metal working is briefly addressed by W. V. Harris, in Scheidel, Morris and Saller (ed.), Cambridge Economic History, 532; and in greater detail, and more optimistically, by B. Gralfs, Metalverarbeitende Produktionsstätten in Pompeji (Oxford, 1988)