Pompeii: The Living City [Hardcover]

The scene is set with the accession of the Emperor Nero in Rome. Nero had ties to Pompeii, not the least of which was that it was the native city of his mistress, and later wife, Poppaea. Pompeii, of course, had many natural advantages. Sitting below Vesuvius, which hadn't erupted in historical memory, granted it a productive environs. Volcanic soil is rich, the authors remind us. As a port city, Pompeii had an edge even on Rome. Luxury goods flowed in as farm produce and other goods went abroad or inland. Pompeii was noted for "garum", a fish paste produced in enormous quantities and many quality levels. However it smelled, and the authors cite opinions from several observers, it brought money to the city. Production and trade in this and other goods made Pompeii a lively place. Not the least of the dynamic was the role of freed slaves.... Many of these captives might be manumitted solely to bring profit to aristocrats who didn't want their image tarnished by trading activities. Sponsoring a freed slave didn't remove their thrall, but bound them in new ways. The result was not only active trade, but also tumultuous politics, as the groups loyal to one sponsor clashed with that of another. Lawrence and Butterworth use a wealth of wall graffiti to depict the lively contests the city endured.

The buildup to the eruption is long and well detailed. Pompeii, though perched on the bay far south of Rome, wasn't isolated from either the capital's politics or social values. Nero's profligate lifestyle and the expanding of the Empire didn't leave the doomed city untouched. Nero's personal example might have been followed by some of the elite of the city, but it remained fairly provincial in social outlook. Sexual mores, always a titillating subject for those who first excavated and revealed the wall paintings in rich homes, was less of an issue among the hoi polloi. The rigours of Christianity's social norms had yet to take over, and Vesuvius interdicted that transformation.

There's risks in producing a book of this style. The addition of "speculative" segments, even based on detailed evidence, is likely to put off the professional historians and archaeologists. The "solid" evidence, on the other hand, is limited in scope, both chronologically and in geographic extent. Although there are accounts of background military and resulting political events, this is hardly a definitive work of the Roman Empire, even for a specific period. These apparent shortcomings, however, do not erode the value of what these authors set out to achieve. Their subtitle, "The Living City" declares their intention, and they have succeeded admirably in that task. This is an excellent account and serves as an excellent example of how to portray an ancient past and the people who lived in it. If there seems to be information lacking, the authors' excellent Bibliography provides the reader with sufficient resources to probe and examine the many and varied events that swirled about this scene of natural disaster. Perhaps the only thing truly missing is some account of the natural forces that destroyed Pompeii and its environs. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada] Read more ›