From the 2nd century BC onward, the Roman world imported a new Hellenism, far more intellectualized, far more contemplative, and far more utilised for the Gods. The phenomenon was defined by the Romans themselves as “asiatica luxuria” (Asian luxury), the irresistible desire to exhibit private luxury, which possessed the upper class at the time of conquests in the East, in imitation of the living standards of the Hellenistic courts.(1)

For Roman men, changing the heavy and voluminous Italic “toga” into a graceful Greek mantle, “pallium” (i.e., the “himation”) was an extraordinary action which indicated luxuriant laxity and moral decadence. The men who dared to wear the “pallium” or the “chlamys” in public,  generally did so with specific intentions, such as the famous pro-Hellenic Scipio Africanus Major or the emperor Hadrian. The power of attire in the construction of identity was so strong, that the Romans defined themselves as the “gens togata” (“toga-wearing people”), and their theatrical art was named as a “fabula togata” to distinguish it from the Greek “palliata”.

If for men their image was strongly bi-polarized, oscillating between “toga” and “pallium”, for women, the situation was quite different. From the late Republic period until late antiquity, the attire of the upper-class Roman woman was practically the same as worn in  the eastern Greek Mediterranean. Only the names of the two main clothing items changed: the first, the long tunic, was quite similar to the Greek “chiton”,  the Roman tunic also being sewn along the sides; the second, the rectangular mantle around the upper part of the body, “palla” or “pallium”, was identical to the Greek “himation”.     Luxury accessories – such as a Greek-gold belt, “zona”, a cloth woven in silk from the Isle of Cos, a Greek sandal like the “diabathron” – stood out as exotic and deserved the comments of Roman writers. Just as perfumes and cosmetics, also the most luxurious items in transparent, coloured silk, were part of a global Mediterranean trade. The “mitre” is an interesting case of cultural fusion: originally a Middle Eastern turban, it was later adopted in the archaic age by Greek women as a headband tied around the hair. In Rome, the “mitre”  represented Greek refinement, but it could also be synonymous with prostitution. Even silk, the most luxurious of all fabrics, was further embellished with Greek expressions by the Romans, to denote the quality. While Chinese silk fabrics were called “sericae vestes”, the types produced in the Mediterranean by local insect species had the name of “vestes bombycinae” and, deriving from the place of production on the island of Cos, “Coes vestes”.

Likewise, the finest colors often kept the Greek name, such as the different shades of purple: the two-colored  “dibapha”, the “Tyrianthina” (from Tyro), as well as  “ianthina” and “amethystina”, or “thalassina”.The Pompeian woman, depending on her financial resources and social status, may have had a series of objects from the most distant corners of the empire in her jewelry and make-up case. In reality, however, only in a few houses in Pompeii, have archaeologists found large collections of ointments.

Although many of the luxuries and refinements coveted by the Roman women were of oriental origin – gems from India, silk from China (“sericae vestes”), pearls (“elenchi”, “stalagmi”) from the Red Sea, perfumes from Arabia (“diapasmata” and “hedysmata”) – most of their names and methods of use were adopted by way of the “filter” of the Greek world.(2)

 

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

  1. Gioacchino Francesco La Torre, Sicilia e Magna Grecia, Editori Laterza, 2011, pag. 234
  2. Ria Berg “Attrarre” in Massimo Osanna e Carlo Rescigno, “Pompei e i Greci”, Electa 2017, pp. 218

 

 
 

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The city of Poseidonia rose on a low, almost completely flat limestone plateau, close to the coastline, from which a sandy dune separated it, and from a swampy area to the north-west which led to its unusual bend in the line of the city walls. The limits of its “chora” were very well defined by the geography of the district, bordered to the north by the Sele river, which acted as a border with Campanian Etruria, to the east by the Alburni Mountains and to the south by the Agropoli promontory, which closed the Gulf of Salerno. (1)

In the absence of explicit literary traditions, its foundation is placed around 600 BC thanks to archaeological data from the urban area and from the grandiose extra-urban sanctuary to the mouth of the Sele river dedicated to Hera, the great divinity of the Achaeans.

Strabo (VI, C252) wrote that Poseidonia was a true subcolony of Sibari, without mentioning the oikistes (see Note). Moreover, the same Greek historian and geographer specifies that his foundation was preceded by a fortress on the sea (tèichos epithalàssios), probably Agropoli. This is the first Greek foundation along the Tyrrhenian coast between Cuma and the Strait of Messina, followed by other foundations and foundations during the first half of the 6th century BC (cnidia Lipàra, Medna and Hippònion subcolonie di Locri, the Laos and Scidro problems, attributed to Sibari, la focèa Velia).

The geographical position of Poseidonia had great advantages because it arose:

1. In the extremely fertile plain of the Sele, south of the river of the same name

2. In front of the rich and powerful Etruscan city of Pontecagnano, as an outpost at the north-western end of the vast “Sybarite empire”

3. Not far from the territory of the Enotri towards which it becomes privileged mediator. (2)

Since its foundation, the Achaean subcolonia has been carving out its large portion of very fertile territory, extended along the coast from the mouth of the Sele river, to the north, up to Agropoli, to the south, and inland for the entire flood plain. to the slopes of the hills to the east. The “chora” of Poseidonia is soon bordered by sanctuaries: first of all the great Heraion at the mouth of the Sele river, but then also the more modest places of worship of Albanella, Fonte di Roccaspide, Capaccio, Acqua che Bolle, up to the sanctuary of Agropoli, which some want to attribute to Poseidon Enìpeo. (3)

Since the first decades of life, Poseidonia shows an astonishing urban and architectural development, comparable only to the same time that occurs in Selinunte, also a frontier foundation (of Mègara Iblea), and in Syracuse. (4)

Since the foundation the vastness of the public spaces reserved for the gods and the meeting place of citizenship stands out: the whole central strip of the city, for a width of 300 m and a width of about 900 m, from the Porta Aurea to the north up to the Porta Giustizia to the south, it is destined for the agora square and the two great urban sanctuaries, soon monumentalized, such as the Heraion of the Sele river, through the construction of imposing sacred buildings. Poseidonia together with Metaponto, despite all the urbanistic and chronological uncertainties due to the successive phases of life that have erased most of the oldest settlement fabric, are the best known cases of archaic urban plants, the result of a careful planning of the spaces and their rational distribution. (5)

NOTE: The individual chosen by an ancient Greek polis (town) as the leader of any new colonization

 

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

  1. Giocacchino Francesco La Torre, Sicilia e Magna Grecia, Editori Laterza, 2011 pp 195-196
  2. Ibidem, 53-54
  3. Ibidem, 89
  4. Ibidem, 53-54
  5. Ibidem, 196

 
 

 

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3. The third and final phase, as can be seen today from the long stretch of walls between “Porta Ercolano” and “Porta Vesuvio”, has three walls containing two embankments  preserved in excellent condition. The flat topped layer of earth between the first two walls was used as a walkway, as was the top of the second embankment (also probably flat but raised higher than the previous one). The remaining part of the second embankment, which is lower towards the interior of the city, served mainly to strengthen the fortification. The third and last wall, in addition to containing the thrust of the second embankment, also delimited the route of a road that, at least in this area of ​​the city, skirted the city walls. Along the stretch of walls between “Porta Ercolano” and “Porta Vesuvio”, three of the original twelve rectangular towers (named clockwise, XII, XI and X) are well preserved, and near the “Porta Ercolano”,  the remains of a monumental staircase which served to reach the levels of the flat walkways, is found.

To understand why the walls were completely rebuilt several times in Pompeii , we must refer to Poliorcetics, which is the art of besieging and conquering fortified cities. Military technology and technology (in general)  changed over the centuries. While the city walls in “pappamonte” stone initially offered effective defense to the city, from the end of the IV and the beginning of the third century BC, a new fortification was built. This was necessary due to change in the strategies of attack and defense of the cities. In the Archaic age in the Greek world, the technique of the siege of the city was adopted with the aim of isolating it from its territory and forcing it to surrender due to lack of food resources or due to the exhaustion of the war arsenal. The only alternative to break the pressure of the enemy siege was to leave the (refuge of the ) city walls and face an open battle. To defend itself from the besiegers a particularly powerful fortification was not necessary since  the function of the city walls was to separate and to protect the population from the besiegers. In the IV century C., with the development of war strategies supported by scientific research and the publication of treatises dedicated to machines and the methods of attack and defense of cities, the old fortifications became obsolete. Thanks to the use of increasingly efficient war machines (as catapults), the new Poliorcetics allowed besiegers to assault and conquer cities by destroying walls and gates. The fortifications thus acquired ever greater importance, not only because defensive measures suitable to frustrate the destructive potential of hostile weapons of war were needed, but also because they had to be set up in such a way as to accommodate  throwing weapons of various types, to counterattack  pressure from the besiegers.

 

 

Excerpt from:  Marco Fabbri, Difendersi, in Massimo Osanna e Carlo Rescigno, Pompei e i Greci, Electa, 2017, pp. 268-271

 

 

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Until a few decades ago, it was thought that the first urban nucleus of Pompeii was much more limited than what is seen today. It was believed that the walls developed around the “Vicolo del Lupanare”, “Vicolo degli Augustali” and ” Vicolo dei Soprastanti ”, that is the area closest to the current Forum. This theory was also reinforced by the presence, in the aforementioned area, of a road network oriented in a different manner from the rest of the city. It was then thought that, later, around the fifth century BC, the city had developed towards the East and North. In other words, it was believed that, after an initial urbanistic phase where Pompeii developed over just 9.3 hectares,  it later spread to over 63.5 hectares. (SEE NOTE)

During his directorship of the excavations of Pompeii from 1982 to 1984, Stefano De Caro started a series of archaeological digs in the Vesuvian city, both in the northern sector of the fortification, near the Tower XI, and in the southern, in the section between Porta Nocera and the Tower IV.

Today, based on the archaeological results coming from those important excavation campaigns, it is believed that three different generations of city walls  were superimposed in the Vesuvian city over the centuries:

 

1. The first, and oldest, is in local tufa stone, the so-called “pappamonte”, and dates back to at least the 6th century. b.C. In this first phase the walls cover already roughly the same way as the current one, except for the north-eastern corner (where Porta di Nola would be built), where the path seems to have moved slightly towards the west. Their structure was very simple and consisted of a few rows of square blocks in “pappamonte”  or tender lava stone, above which an embankment (on the outer wall) no more than 3 meters high was set. A “pomoerium” lane ran along the inner edge of the city walls.

 

2. The second wall circuit consisted of two curtains of “Calcare del Sarno” (Limestone) and an inner core of ground wrought  with flakes of stone. The walls were in orthostates, ie, slabs placed vertically, but to allow better interlocking of the walls with the filling soil, rows of limestone blocks were arranged horizontally at regular distances, in order to be able to penetrate  the ground. These “pre-sannitic” walls of Pompeii reflect the typical characteristics of  Greek construction method, defined by archaeologists as “emplekton”, borrowing the term from Vitruvius who used it to define the inner core of the double curtain walls. This type of city walls, already extensively attested in the Greek “pòleis” (cities) of the Gulf of Naples (“Neapolis” and Cuma), seems to date back to the 4th century AD.

 

 

NOTE  = Eugenio La Rocca, Mariette e Arnold de Vos, Guida archeologica di Pompei, Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, 1976, pp. 12-13

 

Excerpt from:  Marco Fabbri, Difendersi, in Massimo Osanna e Carlo Rescigno, Pompei e i Greci, Electa, 2017, pp. 268-271
 

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