The headings of Mary Beard's notes give a taste of this astonishing book: Bad Breath, Intestinal Parasites, Performing Monkeys, One-way Streets, Kosher Food, Water Shortages. The Temple of Isis serves to bring in multiculturalism. The House of the Menander tells how a house worked. At the Suburban Baths we go from communal bathing to hygiene to erotica. 154 writing tablets from the House of Caecilius Jucundus detail the accounts of its owner. A fast-food joint on the Via dell' Abbondanza introduces food and drink and diets and street life. These are just a few of the strands that make up an extraordinary and involving portrait of an ancient town, its life and its continuing re-discovery, by Britain's leading classicist.
Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town
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Review
A brilliant portrait of "the life of a Roman town" ... [a] wonderful book. -- James McConnachie, Sunday Times
A vivid and engaging portrait of this enigmatic and historically important town.
-- Sunday Telegraph
A vivid demonstration that sceptical scholarship can provide as gripping a read as sensationalism ... a learned and fascinating book. -- Guardian
Beard's cheerful scepticism makes her Pompeii more intriguing, more believable, than any version I have read. -- Christian Tyler, FT
Such verve and such mesmerising detail ... A work of punctilious and scholarly devotion. -- Evening Standard
A vivid and engaging portrait of this enigmatic and historically important town.
-- Sunday Telegraph
A vivid demonstration that sceptical scholarship can provide as gripping a read as sensationalism ... a learned and fascinating book. -- Guardian
Beard's cheerful scepticism makes her Pompeii more intriguing, more believable, than any version I have read. -- Christian Tyler, FT
Such verve and such mesmerising detail ... A work of punctilious and scholarly devotion. -- Evening Standard
Review
Beard's cheerful scepticism makes her Pompeii more intriguing, more believable, than any version I have read.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
88 of 92 people found the following review helpful
By P. Mullan
Format:Hardcover
Professor Beard tells the tale of ancient Pompeii in a highly readable and authoritative way. Drawing from the work of historians and archaeologists present and past she transports the reader back to Pompeii's last days. Along the way assumptions are challenged about the number of brothels, or the date of the volcanic explosion which condemned the town into a memory. Wheel ruts and the rules of the road come alive. I suspect that a visit to Pompeii will never be the same again.
62 of 66 people found the following review helpful
By I. G. Lennox
Format:Hardcover
There has always been, since the first discovery, conflict over the meaning of the archeological findings. Some texts are more rigid than others, for example the splendidly illustrated 'Complete Pompeii' by Berry. This new volume has a more laid back approach and all, or at least most, of ones long set assumptions are questioned. So, this is not a guide to carry round the site but a superb contemplation of how life in the town might have been, Like the "Triumph', Prof. Beard shakes the established ideas and stimulates. I found it hard to put down.
34 of 36 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Robert Harris' best-selling novel 'Pompeii' convincingly put flesh on the bones of the town's inhabitants. Mary Beard's historical survey does the same for the town itself.
Beard is careful to avoid distortion through over-simplification. She takes pains to stress, for example, that the reality of Pompeii's story is not the clichéd one of a town 'frozen in time' but a more complex and fascinating one altogether. First, she explains that many inhabitants upped sticks well before the fateful day in August 79, taking their treasures with them. Secondly, townspeople and looters alike had plenty of opportunity to salvage/steal valuables after the eruption. And thirdly, much of what we see today is, in fact, reconstruction - almost all of the upper levels of Pompeian buildings for a start. All of these things, together with 'aggressive restoration', Allied bombing and erosion mean that what we see today is far from the sealed capsule that time-travellers hope for.
Beard's Pompeii is an up to the minute account drawing upon much fascinating research - on studies of wheel ruts gouged into the town's shiny black-bouldered streets, for example, which indicate complex one-way traffic systems. Or of plaster casts of plant roots which help to identify crops.
Perhaps Beard's greatest gift is a no-nonsense directness that often cuts through academic over-speculation. For instance, following a discussion of what anthropologists call 'zoning' (in which sectors of a town are associated with particular functions or degrees of affluence), she concludes: 'the simple truth is that Pompeii was without the zoning we have come to expect.'
As ever, Beard's style is highly readable and her book is therefore as valuable to the general reader as to the student. Pompeii is exhilarating and unique. It has found the book it deserves.
Beard is careful to avoid distortion through over-simplification. She takes pains to stress, for example, that the reality of Pompeii's story is not the clichéd one of a town 'frozen in time' but a more complex and fascinating one altogether. First, she explains that many inhabitants upped sticks well before the fateful day in August 79, taking their treasures with them. Secondly, townspeople and looters alike had plenty of opportunity to salvage/steal valuables after the eruption. And thirdly, much of what we see today is, in fact, reconstruction - almost all of the upper levels of Pompeian buildings for a start. All of these things, together with 'aggressive restoration', Allied bombing and erosion mean that what we see today is far from the sealed capsule that time-travellers hope for.
Beard's Pompeii is an up to the minute account drawing upon much fascinating research - on studies of wheel ruts gouged into the town's shiny black-bouldered streets, for example, which indicate complex one-way traffic systems. Or of plaster casts of plant roots which help to identify crops.
Perhaps Beard's greatest gift is a no-nonsense directness that often cuts through academic over-speculation. For instance, following a discussion of what anthropologists call 'zoning' (in which sectors of a town are associated with particular functions or degrees of affluence), she concludes: 'the simple truth is that Pompeii was without the zoning we have come to expect.'
As ever, Beard's style is highly readable and her book is therefore as valuable to the general reader as to the student. Pompeii is exhilarating and unique. It has found the book it deserves.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Informative and easy to read
Well written interesting makes me want to go to Pompeii.
Illustrations do not work well on a Kindle, which is a shame
Illustrations do not work well on a Kindle, which is a shame
Published 7 days ago by Worldwidetraveller01
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent book
I bought this for my Kindle when it was on offer because I had watched the TV series. I enjoy Mary Beard's writing, she has an engaging style that makes the book enjoyable for... Read more
Published 13 days ago by Tracey 1
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great insight into life in Pompeii
Well written and generally a very good read. Needs to be used in conjunction with a good Pompeii guide if you are visiting Pompeii
Published 18 days ago by Geoff
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant!
Going to read this again on the train to Pompei...., and on the way back. Wish we had it last time
Published 1 month ago by Hoxton
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great introduction to current BM exhibition
Homely,common sense style, good read even for the non accademic.
Poor picture qualitydoes not spoil Mary Beard's lively readable prose.
Poor picture qualitydoes not spoil Mary Beard's lively readable prose.
Published 1 month ago by IRVINE CREME RETIRED MEDICAL PRACTIONER
5.0 out of 5 stars
Outstanding
Ms Beard is a very capable descriptive author. Her English is impeccable and a pleasure to read and her detailed descriptions of Pompeii, its history and the lives of its... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Colin F. King
3.0 out of 5 stars
as above
Could have been more interesting if the writer had not been so busy climbing up her own bum.jerjfvhjv kkrnf kvk jkhvkf kfvfk
Published 1 month ago by LyndaGripton
5.0 out of 5 stars
Pompeii
Mary Beard's excellent book on Pompeii. Anyone new to Pompeii this is the book to buy and be fascinated by Roman life.
Published 2 months ago by Edwin Underhill
5.0 out of 5 stars
Pompeii, the Life of a Roman Town
Having visited Pompeii on two occasions in the past, I found it most enlightening and only wish I could have had it with me or better still, Mary Beard herself!
Published 2 months ago by Mike Pagett
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great book
This book is an excellent read. Easy for non historian to understand. Full of quirky information about theeveryday life of Pompeii
Published 2 months ago by Anon
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