Pompeii, Italy – Life Beneath the Shadow of Vesuvius

Providing a breathtaking illusion of antiquity, the ancient city of Pompeii lies near the Bay of Naples in the southern Italian region of Campania, still and forever shadowed by its tormentor, Mount Vesuvius.

Few archaeological sites bring the ancient world so vividly to life.

Pompeii has temples, theatres, and grand houses, but its fascination reaches far beyond monumental architecture. Streets still bear the marks of cartwheels. Political slogans survive on walls. Shops, bakeries and neighbourhood taverns remain recognisable, while frescoes reveal gardens, gods and stories from Greek mythology.

It is this remarkable survival of everyday life that makes Pompeii different.

Before history buried the city beneath volcanic debris, myth had already claimed its origins.

One ancient tradition associated Pompeii with the Greek hero Herakles, Hercules to the Romans, as he travelled through Italy after completing his tenth labour, the capture of the cattle belonging to the formidable Geryon. According to the legend, a triumphal procession was held in honour of the hero, and the city’s name was connected with the Greek pompē and Latin pompa, meaning a ceremonial procession.

The story was part of a broader mythical landscape around the Bay of Naples in which Herakles was believed to have travelled during his adventures. Nearby Herculaneum was even said to have been founded by him and carried his Roman name. The true origin of Pompeii’s name remains uncertain, and an Oscan derivation has also been proposed, but the Herakles tradition reveals how deeply Greek mythology became woven into the identity of ancient Campania.

The historical beginnings of Pompeii were considerably more complex.

Overlooking the River Sarno’s valley, the settlement was strategically on an ancient lava plateau, close to the sea. This gave Pompeii access both to the fertile Campanian hinterland and to maritime trade across the Bay of Naples.

During the seventh and sixth centuries BCE, the town underwent significant development. Greek colonies such as nearby Cumae exerted a powerful cultural influence, while Etruscan communities were also active throughout Campania. Sanctuaries were established, defensive walls appeared and the earliest form of the town began to emerge. The Sanctuary of Apollo and the sacred area around the later Triangular Forum preserve traces of these formative centuries.

Pompeii was therefore never purely Greek, Etruscan, Oscan or Roman.

Its character developed from the different peoples who competed for and settled around the fertile lands of Campania.

During the fifth century BCE, Samnite peoples descending from the Apennines became increasingly powerful in the region. By the following century Pompeii had developed into a thriving Samnite city, although Greek culture remained a powerful influence in its architecture, religion, and art.

Rome’s presence in the story developed.

The first surviving historical reference to Pompeii comes from 308 BCE, when communities of the Sarno Valley entered into an alliance with Rome. Pompeii became one of Rome’s allied Italian cities but initially retained its own language, institutions and considerable independence.

Far from diminishing under this arrangement, the city prospered.

The second century BCE became something of a golden age. Pompeian merchants participated in the expanding Mediterranean trade that followed Rome’s victories in the eastern Mediterranean. Contacts reached ports including Delos, Rhodes and Alexandria, while wealth flowing back into Campania financed an extraordinary programme of building.

The Forum was transformed into an impressive civic centre. The Temple of Apollo was rebuilt, the Basilica appeared, and new bath complexes were constructed. The theatre district expanded, and wealthy families created increasingly luxurious houses decorated according to the fashions of the Hellenistic world.

One of the greatest surviving examples is the House of the Faun.

Occupying an entire city block, the residence was among the grandest private residences in Pompeii. Its name comes from the famous bronze statue of a dancing faun found in one of its atriums, but its most celebrated discovery was the magnificent Alexander Mosaic, depicting the confrontation between Alexander the Great and the Persian king Darius III.

The original mosaic is now preserved in the National Archaeological Museum in Naples, but its subject captures something important about Pompeii. Even in an Italian city increasingly drawn into Rome’s orbit, the myths, heroes and artistic traditions of Greece remained everywhere.

Pompeii’s relationship with Rome changed dramatically during the Social War of 91-89 BCE.

The conflict erupted when many of Rome’s Italian allies rebelled after generations of military service without equal political rights. Pompeii joined the rebellion and was besieged by the Roman general Sulla in 89 BCE. Sections of the city walls still show scars from that attack, where projectiles struck the ancient fortifications.

Resistance failed.

Around 80 BCE, Pompeii became a Roman colony under Sulla and was formally known as Colonia Cornelia Veneria Pompeianorum. Latin increasingly became the language of public life and Roman political institutions were introduced.

But Pompeii did not lose its older identity overnight.

The Roman city grew from foundations that were Oscan, Samnite, and deeply Hellenised. Older sanctuaries continued to function; Greek myths covered the walls of Roman houses, and foreign gods found new worshippers.

By the early Imperial period, Pompeii was a prosperous provincial city.

The Forum formed its political and religious centre, surrounded by temples and administrative buildings. Nearby streets contained shops and workshops, while public baths provided places for relaxation and social contact. The theatres hosted performances, and the amphitheatre, constructed around 70 BCE and among the oldest surviving Roman amphitheatres, drew crowds for gladiatorial spectacles.

Life could become unruly.

In 59 CE, a violent confrontation erupted during games in the amphitheatre between Pompeians and visitors from neighbouring Nuceria. The fighting became so serious that the Roman Senate intervened and temporarily prohibited gladiatorial contests in Pompeii.

Yet much of what makes Pompeii extraordinary today is considerably more ordinary.

Along its streets stood bakeries with mills and ovens. Taverns and thermopolia served prepared food to people who had little or no cooking space at home. Shops opened directly onto busy roads. Public fountains supplied water, while raised stone pavements allowed pedestrians to cross streets without stepping into the traffic and drainage channels below.

Graffiti brings its people even closer.

Some inhabitants advertised candidates for election. Others scratched jokes, insults, declarations of love, or boastful comments onto walls. UNESCO notes that Pompeii’s surviving inscriptions offer an exceptional glimpse into both the political and private life of the city during its final years.

The walls of Pompeii also preserve an extraordinary gallery of Roman painting.

Mythology was everywhere.

Achilles, Herakles, Dionysus and Aphrodite appeared in private houses. Stories of gods and heroes decorated dining rooms and gardens, suggesting that Greek mythology remained part of the imagination of Pompeian society centuries after the city had come under Roman rule.

Nowhere is this sense of mystery stronger than at the Villa of the Mysteries, just beyond the city walls.

Its celebrated sequence of life-sized frescoes is generally associated with Dionysian ritual or initiation, although their precise meaning continues to be debated. Figures move across the deep red walls in one of the most remarkable painted interiors to survive from the ancient world.

Then came the first great catastrophe.

In 62 CE, a powerful earthquake struck Pompeii and the surrounding region, causing widespread destruction. The temples, homes, and public structures sustained significant damage.

With hindsight, the event appeared ominous.

For the Pompeians, however, earthquakes were part of life in Campania. They could not have known that the mountain dominating their landscape was preparing something infinitely more destructive.

Rebuilding efforts were undertaken in the city.

Indeed, when Vesuvius erupted seventeen years later, Pompeii was still filled with builders, plasterers and painters repairing buildings damaged by the earthquake. Some properties had been completely restored while others remained construction sites.

Then, in 79 CE, the world of Pompeii ended abruptly.

The eruption is traditionally dated to 24 August, based on manuscripts of letters written by Pliny the Younger, who witnessed the event from across the Bay of Naples. Archaeological evidence has led to continuing debate over whether the eruption may instead have occurred later in the year, although recent examination of the manuscript tradition has strengthened the case that 24 August was indeed the date recorded by Pliny.

Whatever the exact day, the sequence of events was devastating.

Vesuvius blasted a vast column of volcanic material into the atmosphere. Pumice and lapilli began raining onto Pompeii, accumulating on streets and rooftops. Some inhabitants fled immediately. Others sheltered indoors, perhaps believing the danger would pass.

As the volcanic material deepened, roofs began collapsing under its weight.

People who had remained now attempted to escape across streets already buried beneath metres of pumice.

Then came the final lethal phase.

A fast-moving surge of intensely hot ash and gas swept through Pompeii. Anyone who remained within the city had virtually no chance of survival. Archaeologists have discovered the remains of more than one thousand victims, although the total number of people who died is unknown. Many thousands may have successfully escaped during the earlier stages of the eruption.

When the eruption finally subsided, Pompeii had vanished beneath several metres of volcanic material.

Its destruction was terrible. Its preservation was extraordinary.

Walls survived with paintings still attached. Household objects remained where they had been left. Amphorae, lamps, and cooking vessels were sealed beneath the ash. Buildings that would normally have collapsed, been rebuilt or quarried over succeeding centuries remained entombed.

Even the victims left an unexpected archaeological legacy.

As bodies buried in the hardened ash decomposed, they left hollow spaces around their skeletal remains. In 1863, archaeologist Giuseppe Fiorelli perfected the technique of pouring plaster into these voids. When the surrounding volcanic material was removed, the forms of Pompeii’s victims appeared, sometimes preserving clothing, sandals, and even the final positions of their bodies.

Few archaeological discoveries have brought the human reality of an ancient disaster so powerfully into the present.

Pompeii itself was not entirely forgotten immediately after the eruption. Survivors returned to recover possessions, and the buried city was later quarried for marble, stone, and valuable materials. Over the centuries, however, knowledge of its precise location faded.

At the end of the sixteenth century, architect Domenico Fontana cut a canal through the buried site while working on a water scheme. Ancient walls, objects and inscriptions were encountered, but their significance was not fully recognised.

The great rediscovery began in 1748, when Bourbon excavations initiated under King Charles III turned towards the hill known as Civita after the earlier discovery of Herculaneum.

Early excavation often concentrated on retrieving statues, mosaics, and valuable objects rather than understanding the city as a complete archaeological landscape.

That changed dramatically during the nineteenth century.

Giuseppe Fiorelli, who became director of the excavations in 1860, introduced a far more systematic approach. Buildings were recorded according to regions and blocks; the remains were increasingly studied in context and his plaster-cast technique transformed the way the victims of the eruption could be understood.

Excavation and conservation have continued ever since.

Today Pompeii covers approximately 66 hectares, of which a little over two-thirds have been excavated. Around 44 hectares of ancient streets, houses and public buildings have been brought to light, while extensive areas deliberately remain beneath the volcanic material for future generations and future archaeological techniques.

New discoveries continue to emerge.

That is part of Pompeii’s enduring fascination: despite more than 275 years of excavation, the city has not finished telling its story.

Pompeii, together with Herculaneum and the Roman villas at Torre Annunziata, was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1997. UNESCO describes the Vesuvian sites as providing an unparalleled picture of Roman society and everyday life at a precise moment in the past.

Pompeii is vast, and it deserves time.

Even during the height of the summer tourist season, I found it possible to move beyond the busiest monuments and photograph quieter streets and buildings with few people nearby. To explore the site properly, you should ideally set aside a full day.

What makes Pompeii extraordinary is not simply the catastrophe that destroyed it.

It is the life that catastrophe preserved.

The temples and grand houses are impressive, but so too are the election notices, worn streets, and ordinary rooms of people who could never have imagined that their city would one day be examined by visitors from across the world.

Vesuvius destroyed Pompeii in 79 CE.

In a curious twist, it also allowed us to experience a remarkably close encounter with the daily routines of ancient Roman society.

View a selection of images of Pompeii..

All images, text, and content © Steven Sklifas.