BMCR 2009.06.48: Mattusch on Beard, The Fires of Vesuvius: Pompeii Lost and Found

Mary Beard, The Fires of Vesuvius: Pompeii Lost and Found.  Cambridge,
MA:  Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2008.  Pp. 360; 16 p.
of plates.  ISBN 9780674029767.  $26.95.

Reviewed by Carol C. Mattusch, George Mason University
([email protected])
Word count:  2104 words
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[Chapter titles are listed at the end of the review.]

Mary Beard's wonderfully engaging book about Pompeii is the answer to
what to read before one's first visit to the site or what to assign
one's students to interest them in the breadth of fields that pertain
to the study of antiquity. The "Introduction" is a fine survey of what
we know today about ancient Pompeii, and it is guaranteed to draw the
attention of general readers -- the imprint of a breast, burnt loaves
of bread in ovens, paint-pots and buckets of plaster left behind on a
scaffold, and a tethered guard dog that failed to escape. Skeletons
reveal infectious diseases, spinal disorders, and tartar on everyone's
teeth, a record of ubiquitous bad breath in ancient Pompeii. Beard
explains terms and the names of gates, streets, and houses, as well as
why numbers were eventually assigned to houses. She gives dates of
excavation, linking these to Pompeii's entry into the world of tourism
and popular culture, reminding the reader that the city has not always
been what it is now.[[1]]

Beard presents questions, and notes conflicting viewpoints about the
answers. For example:did Pompeii decline as a result of a social
revolution that occurred after the earthquake of 62? Why would the town
have been under repair for nearly 20 years? Did earthquakes continue
during that time? Didn't the coastline shift, as it did at Herculaneum?
She also points out how much we know about Pompeii from archaeological
and epigraphical evidence, and how much of that evidence has been lost
through 18th-century digging, tourism, the Allied bombing in 1943, and
general neglect.

In the first chapter, "Living in an Old City," Beard focuses on the
history of Pompeii, particularly in the phases preceding that of the AD
79 destruction. Campania had strong Etruscan and Greek undertones from
the 6th century BC onwards, and the region wasmulti-lingual , to judge
from evidence like a Latin message written in Greek letters (p. 11).
Pompeii and its neighbors were allies of Rome by the early 3rd century
BC. After Mummius defeated Corinth in 146 BC, he gave Pompeii some kind
of trophy, on whose base was an inscription in Oscan, the native
pre-Roman language of the region.[[2]] The oldest part of the walled
city is in the southwest, and eventually some grand houses were built
along the western wall, commanding fine views of the sea. An interior
house-wall incorporates an Etruscan column from a 6th-century-BC
sanctuary; elsewhere, 2nd-century Etruscan terracotta reliefs from a
sanctuary were reused as decoration in a garden wall. The
9,700-square-foot House of the Faun, at least 200 years old in AD 79,
had a mosaic floor showing a scene from Greek history: Alexander the
Great defeating Darius. Beard does not mention that at the bottom of
the tumultuous scene of fleeing and dying Persians were 3 charming
Nilotic scenes, rarely remarked upon because all the figured mosaics
from this house were removed from the floors and installed on walls in
the Naples Archaeological Museum.[[3]] And in the architecture and
decoration of its Forum and public buildings, Pompeii is clearly tied
to Rome.

In "Street Life" (ch. 2) Beard observes that beneath the romance of
rediscovered Pompeii lies a dirty city that produced some 6,500,000
kilos (14,300,000 pounds) of human feces and urine each year. One
graffito warned passersby to "keep it in till you've passed this spot"
(p. 56). Beard describes the streets, the shop signs (20 food and drink
outlets within 600 meters [650 yards]) of each other, ads, noises (all
night long), smells, public fountains (there were 40 of them, and few
lived more than 80 meters [260 feet] from a fountain). She even notes a
study of one-way streets in Pompeii. Beard brings alive the people, the
markets, the colors, and the "children at their lessons, beggars plying
for cash, traders and hucksters of all kinds, or local officials at
their business" (p. 77). "All those statues" get only half a dozen
lines of text (p. 77-8, 186), but these too deserve treatment equal to
that given in these pages to so many other aspects of ancient Pompeii.

Bulwer-Lytton's Last Days of Pompeii (1834), a reconstruction of the
House of the Tragic Poet, and recollections of the Satyrica by
Petronius vividly introduce "House and Home" (ch. 3), bringing to life
the entrance, the atrium,  the food, and the houses themselves. Beard
summarizes the evidence for the types of houses, which, like today's
houses, have "a certain predictability to their layout" (p. 88). She
includes rentals, dining, sleeping, and furniture, as well as images in
a lararium, lamps, gardens, water, toilets, bone and bronze fittings
for chests, and items that were in a chest at the time of the eruption.
But courtyard and garden de/cor, for which there is so much evidence at
Pompeii, is in need of greater emphasis.

In "Painting and Decorating" (ch. 4), Beard examines an unfinished room
in the so-called House of the Painters at Work, then the black, white,
blue, yellow, red, green, and orange paints found in the room, and the
wide range of styles, subjects, programs, and decorative designs and
patterns that have been found on the walls and columns of Pompeian
houses. Criticizing the imposition of chronological development in the
so-called Four Styles, Beard warns of the similarities among styles,
the few survivals of the First and Second Styles, and touches upon the
link between a room's use and its wall decoration. Some wall paintings
enhance our understanding of ancient mythology; others give the
illusion of a view; and still others are repeated enough times (some in
both painting and mosaic) that they must evoke "well-known and
'quotable' masterpieces" (p. 144). Beard intersperses her narrative
with remarks about modern impact and our incomplete perception of
paintings cut out of walls and framed in the 18th century.  She reminds
us that the excellent appearance of the paintings in the Villa of the
Mysteries are the result of "aggressive restoration" (p. 133) in 1909.

Beard humorously introduces "Earning a Living: Baker, Banker and Garum
Maker" (ch. 5) by explaining how the home of a garum producer is
identified by self-promoting mosaics in the atrium of his house. Beard
covers grapes, olives, cereal crops, production, storage, slaves,
farming, sheep, a cattle market, regulation of weights and measures,
and light industry, but not much about the local ports or about foreign
trade. There was, after all, a thriving trade in marble from Greece,
and the skills of Greek artisans around the Bay of Naples were in great
demand. To make her points, Beard enlists a wide range of
archaeological material, such as finds from the Villa Regina near
Boscoreale,[[4]] and the tools and illustrations of dozens of crafts
and trades found in the excavation of Pompeii. Her evidence ranges from
painted shop signs, advertisements, and graffiti to carved memorials
for a architect, a baker, and a pig-keeper. In the kitchen of a bakery
(known as the House of the Chaste Lovers), a bird and a boar were
cooking at the time of the eruption, a large decorated dining room
probably served as a restaurant, and a stable beside the kitchen housed
the delivery crew of five horses and donkeys that were fed oats and
broadbeans.

"Who Ran the City?" (ch. 6) Here Beard tells a fascinating tale of
election posters, precincts, and town council-members. There were
probably about 2500 male voters -- no slaves, women, or children. The
local government owned and rented out properties. Elected officials
decreed the erection of public statues, folowing the rules that"old
money always counted" (p. 204), and "public office of any sort entailed
public generosity" (p. 212). It is particularly interesting that the
so-called Building of Eumachia, which borrows many decorative details
from important buildings in Rome, was sponsored by a local priestess.

"The Pleasures of the Body: Food, Wine, Sex and Baths" (ch. 7) begins
with a description of a cage for a dormouse, but Beard gives no
citations for this subject, which fascinated a number of visitors to
the Royal Museum at Portici, including J. J. Winckelmann.[[5]]
Trimalchio's feast appears again, along with the silver service from
the House of the Menander, and the mechanics of an actual meal.
Pompeian grocery lists included bread, oil, wine, sausage, lard,
cheese, beets, cabbage, mustard, mint, salt, onions, leeks, whitebait,
pork, and maybe beef. Apparently there were 200 bars and restaurants in
Pompeii, some of which were perhaps grocery stores. Graffiti provide
good evidence for bars and brothels, but even so we cannot tell whether
there were one or 35 brothels in Pompeii, and whether some of them were
simply bars. Public baths too receive interesting archaeological and
literary coverage, including a remark by Celsus, who lived at the same
time as Tiberius, to the effect that baths were dangerously dirty for
people with infections (p. 247).

Noting in "Fun and Games" (ch. 8) that the two permanent theaters in
Pompeii seated 5,000 and 2,000, Beard asks whether the extensive
theatrical iconography in wall painting meant that "the theatre
provided a model for the whole spectacle of Pompeian wall-painting" (p.
255). Much entertainment in Pompeii had to do with the theater,
including mime and pantomime with male and female actors. There are two
portraits in the city of a famous actor, Caius Norbanus Sorex. 20,000
people might attend an event in the amphitheater, and the gladiatorial
regalia suggest magnificent processions of the short-lived combatants.

"A City Full of Gods" (ch. 9) promises more than it delivers, because
it contains little about the vast array of privately owned statuary in
Pompeii. Although the chapter begins with a reference to the archaizing
bronze statue of Apollo from the House of Julius Polybius, Beard does
not mention that the statue was not simply a work of art, but that it
held a tray.[[6]] Beard covers other categories -- gods shown in wall
paintings, statuettes from lararia, images of gods that were brought
home from abroad, and a colossal head of Jupiter from the Temple of
Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva in the Forum. Was the ivory figurine of
Lakshmi a souvenir brought home after a long journey? This chapter,
which could contain a far wider array of topics and evidence, seems
somehow undirected, though there is a very interesting section on the
Temple of Isis, in which Beard covers its probable function, its
rediscovery, and the Roman Isis-cult.

"Epilogue: City of the Dead" is too short, considering the extensive
cemetery outside the Herculaneum Gate, its wide range of inhabitants,
and the impact of that cemetery upon early tourists. "Making a Visit,"
a 3-page chapter, might have been eliminated, as first-time visitors
will be far better served by one of the guidebooks produced by the
Soprintendenza and available in the museum shop at the entrance to the
site.[[7]] Thorough explanations of terms and names that occur in the
text obviate the need for a glossary. Unfortunately, there is no
general bibliography, and readers who have been intrigued by a topic or
a monument mentioned in the text may be disappointed not to find
footnotes or endnotes, only a brief selection of Further Readings for
each chapter.

Beard suggests answers to the questions that students always ask and
that sometimes stymie their professors. What was the population of
Pompeii? Estimates range from 6,400 to 30,000. Beard suggests that it
was around 12,000, along with 24,000 additional inhabitants in the
area. How many people died? Maybe 2000, but only about 1100 of them
have been found, and some bones may have been misidentified early on as
animals rather than children (p. 10). When was Pompeii rediscovered? In
Antiquity it wasn't lost: former inhabitants and looters returned soon
after the eruption to see what they could salvage. How far was the city
from Rome? 240 km (144 mi.). Were Pompeians literate? More than 10,000
texts have been found in Pompeii, from loan agreements to wine labels,
in Latin, Greek, Oscan, and even Hebrew; thus many people had to be
able to read to do things like choose their wine and do their jobs.
What was money worth? Wine cost 1 to 4 asses (copper coins: per glass
or bottle isn't clear). Travelers and university students alike will
thoroughly enjoy the many approaches to ancient Pompeii that Mary Beard
presents here with clarity, enthusiasm, and humor.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Living in an Old City
Street Life
House and Home
Painting and Decorating
Earning a Living: Baker, Banker and Garum Maker
Who Ran the City?
Fun and Games
A City Full of Gods
Epilogue: City of the Dead
Making a Visit
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Notes:


1.   For a thorough history of the excavations and the impact of
Pompeii upon the modern world, see Alison E. Cooley, Pompeii, London:
Duckworth Archaeological Histories, 2003.

2.   For such dedications, see Margaret Miles, Art as Plunder: The
Ancient Origins of Debate about Art as Cultural Property, New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2008.

3.   See especially Stefano De Caro, I mosaici la casa del fauno,
Naples: Soprintendenza Archeologica di Napoli e Caserta, 2001. Studies
of mosaics and of the House of the Faun are not given in Further
Reading for ch. 1.

4.   The Antiquarium at Boscoreale, right beside the farm known as the
Villa Regina, provides excellent illustration of the locale and its
economy: see Grete Stefani, Uomo e ambiente nel territorio vesuviano:
Guida all'Antiquarium di Boscoreale, Pompeii: Edizioni Marius, (2003).

5.   Johann Joachim Winckelmann, Sendschreiben von den herculanischen
Entdeckungen, Dresden 1762, p. 57.

6.   For a photograph of the statue and its tray being excavated in
1977 in the triclinium of the House of Julius Polybius, and for
bibliography, see Carol C. Mattusch, Pompeii and the Roman Villa: Art
and Culture Around the Bay of Naples, Washington: National Gallery of
Art, 2008, pp. 141-143.

7.   See, for example, Pier Giovanni Guzzo and Antonio d'Ambrosio,
Pompeii, Naples: Electa and "L'Erma" di Bretschneider, 1998, and
Antonio d'Ambrosio, ed., Discovering Pompeii, Milan: Electa, 1998.