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THE GOLDEN AGE OF POMPEII

The second century B.C. is the “golden age” of Pompeii, a century in which profound transformations in urban planning, of the main places of worship and of the ways of living, were   recorded.

At this point in history, Puteoli became the main port of Rome and began to perform a function of “port-warehouse”, ie, of a large port with a multiplicity of piers and warehouses where the goods from all over the Mediterranean, especially the Eastern part , were unloaded and stored. From this great “port-warehouse”, redistribution took place on a regional scale, based on a hierarchically subordinate port system in which the “epineion” (emporium) of Pompeii played a central role. Through the course of the Sarno river, this dock redistributed the Mediterranean products to the more internal areas such as Nola, Nocera and Acerra. (1)

This progressive enrichment of Pompeii allowed important urban and architectural innovations in the Vesuvian city, innovations that linked Pompeii to the other allied cities of Rome. These breakthroughs were inspired by the new models of urbanization of “International Hellenism”, which Rome appropriated starting from the second century. B.C.

It is precisely in Samnite Pompeii that this phenomenon of progressive adaptation to the Hellenistic-Roman models developed, that is, in the period before Pompeii became a Sillan colony of 82 BC.

There are many monuments, both public and private, from the second century. B.C. that illustrate the development of the city of Pompeii and the adoption of the models of “International Hellenism”: monumentalization of the Forum, reorganization of the so-called  Triangular Forum, with the construction of the adjacent theater and campus/gymnasium, construction of the first thermal facilities, construction of large private houses with atrium and peristyle. The case of Pompeii is unique: a city timelessly preserved in its entirety, covered  with pumice stones and volcanic ash by the  Vesuvian eruption of 79 Ad.  The city clearly shows us how the process of enriching the urban landscape according to the canons of “International Hellenism” , already in practise in Sicily, also involved the Greek and Italic cities of Romanized Southern Italy. Naturally, in the peninsula the architectural models were filtered from Rome and adapted to both political-administrative and cultural needs of a society that was by now profoundly Romanized. Pompeii and the Campania region, in fact, reproduced some of the oldest examples of monumental building typologies that later, in the height of the imperial era, would be exported from Rome to the provinces, starting from Sicily: theaters, amphitheaters, baths, basilicas, aqueducts. (2)

In Pompeii, local patricians vied with those who came from Rome to practice the “otium” (SEE NOTE) in the maritime villas of Campania, in an “Asiatica luxuria” – this unbridled luxury that was inspired by the grandiose Macedonian courts – was made possible by the new riches of oriental origin. To this end, suburban villas, a new building type, arose, and the new architectural elements with  Greek names or in Greek style, such as the “peristyle”, “exedra”, “diaeta”, “triclinium” and “oecus”, were incorporated in the mansions in the city. .(3)

One of the most sumptuous examples of “domus” (House) built in Pompeii in the 2nd century AD. is the “House of the Faun” with its magnificent mosaic (more than one and a half million tesserae), which represents the decisive moment of the battle of Alexander the Great against Darius III of Persia at Issus, when the Persian king, in the moment of defeat, attempts to flee.

NOTE: This Latin term  had the idea of withdrawing from one’s daily business (negotium) or affairs to engage in activities that were considered to be artistically valuable or enlightening (i.e. speaking, writing, philosophy).

 

 

BIBLIOGRAFIA:

  1. Luana Toniolo  “Commerciare” –in Massimo Osanna e Carlo Rescigno, “Pompei e i Greci”, Electa 2017, pp. 231
  2.  Gioacchino Francesco La Torre – Sicilia e Magna Grecia – Editori Laterza 2011 – pag.243
  3. Eugenio La Rocca, Mariette e Arnold de Vos, Guida archeologica di Pompei, Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, 1976 pp. 33-34

 

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THE ETRUSCAN WOMAN

Women played a very important role in Etruscan society.

Both the practice of Matronymic (a social norm according to which children took their mother’s name) and the participation of women in banquets, unlike the Greek symposia, show how important the woman in Etruscan society was. It also appears that simply having an Etruscan mother was sufficient to ensure a child Etruscan citizenship.

Working with wool was the symbol of women just as working with weapons was that of men. Educating was the destiny of the Etruscan woman, spinning  her emblem.

Moreover, from the end of the 9th century BC, some women also presented a pair of equine bits among their funerary objects: in the necropolis of Veio (Tuscany), for example, there was no substantial numerical difference between the tombs of males and females indicated as wagon holders. Probably the bits in the male graves could indicate war or hunting wagons and those in the female graves could allude to a carriage.

Those women were undoubtedly at the top of the various Villanovan social groups, perhaps the companions of the warrior-chiefs: After all, marriage, at least from the end of the 9th century BC, when relations with different communities within and outside the individual cultural areas are more evident, began to be  considered a means of creating bonds of solidarity or of alliance. Women, much the same as raw or processed materials, or like livestock, could be included in the exchange of gifts or repayments. Female attire was also generally richer than that of males and starting from the second half of the 9th century BC, sumptuous parures characterized certain tombs: the woman adorned with precious goods was herself a valuable asset to be exhibited in order to manifest the “status” of the family group.

 

Excerpt from:   Gilda Bartoloni, “La Cultura Villanoviana. All’inizio della storia etrusca”, Carocci Editore, Roma pag.187
 

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VENUS ANADYOMENE IN POMPEII

 

 

In the ancient world, the ideal of female beauty derived from a Greek canon, from marble sculpted deities by artists who modeled the best  features of various women to create a virtual, ideal and absolute beauty. This ideal beauty, combined with the hairstyles and clothing of the classical tradition, has always been well represented artistically  in Pompeian painting and sculpture.

A work of art which can be considered a real cultural icon of Greek beauty is the famous “Venus  Anadyomene” (from Greek, “Venus Rising From the Sea”), the goddess of love, depicted in the act of rising from the sea and resting her hands on wet hair. Originally it was created by the famous Greek painter Apelles in the 4th century B.C. for the Asklepeion, the temple dedicated to Asclepius, on Cos,  a Greek island facing Turkey. According to the different versions of the story, either Phryne, the model used by the great artist was a very famous hetaera [ among the Greeks, a courtesan, normally a stranger, free or a slave, elegantly dressed and, in general, rather highly cultured], or Campaspe, lover of Alexander the Great.

The painting was later brought to Rome by Augustus, and placed in the Temple of Venus Genetrix, to evoke the mother of the “gens Iulia” (Strabo 14.2.19). However this masterpiece of Greek art was also very famous in the area of ​​Mount Vesuvius. This is confirmed by an inscription found in Pompeii where the scriptor, the writer, compared his beloved to the Venus of Apelles (CIL IV 6842 = CLE 2057): Si quis non vidi(t) Venerem quam pin[xit Apelles] | pupa mea aspiciat: tali set i[lla nitet].

The wide diffusion of this model is confirmed by the dozens of copies of the Venus  Anadyomene spread among all the social classes of the population, at various artistic levels, from marble and bronze statues, as well as wall frescoes (such as in Pompeii in the House del Prince of Naples – see photo), but it is above all in the decoration on small tools of instrumentum domesticus, in particular on hair pins, where she was represented. Sculpted in bone, they were relatively inexpensive and multi-purpose instruments, widespread even in modest-sized houses, ubiquitous in female beauty care: they served as sharp instruments for applying makeup and also for dividing and styling hair. The hair pins  could remain fixed in the hair to be within easy reach in case of need and were also portable amulets. Such a hair pin, together with an amulet pendant also in the shape of Anadyomene, was found in the house of L. Elvio Severo in Pompeii (1). In addition, the box for ointments and toiletry items in the Imperial house in Pompeii was secured by a bronze padlock in the shape of the same goddess. (2)

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

  1. Berg, “Donne medico a Pompei?”, in A.Buonopane, F. Cenerini (a cura di), “Donna e lavoro nella documentazione epigrafica” , Atti I seminario sulla condizione femminile nella documentazione epigrafica (Bologna, ottobre 2002), Faenza 2003, pp. 131-154
  2. Ria Berg  “Attrarre” – in Massimo Osanna e Carlo Rescigno, “Pompei e i Greci”, Electa 2017, pp. 213-214

 

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WINE IN POMPEII – First Part

 

Wine was the most widespread drink and certainly the most loved by the Romans in their daily diet and an important element of convivial moments. The Romans had compiled real classifications of the finest wines, among which Falerno excelled, but Surrentinum and  Vesbius or Vesuvinum also enjoyed a good reputation. Particularly appreciated wines were also those produced in Greece and in the Aegean islands, for example the lyttios, greatly appreciated by the Pompeians, as shown by the amphorae of particular shapes found and the inscriptions read on them. The wine was never drunk pure, but generally served with water, hot or cold depending on the season. Furthermore, liqueur wines such as mulsum -the best mulsum was obtained from the must -, passum and defrutum were produced. Defrutum was a condiment based on reduced must used by cooks of ancient Rome; together with garum it was one of the most used sauces in the preparation of all sorts of dishes. Poor drinks were lora, obtained from maceration in water of the pressed marc (vinacce) and  posca, a drink of water and vinegar.

From the wine sold in Pompeian thermopolia (wine bars) we also know the cost, reported by the inscription CIL IV 1679: “Hedoné proclaims: Here we drink for only one axis; with two you will drink better wine; with four you’ll drink Falerno ”. (1)

Most of the wine consumed in the cities was made locally. At least forty local farms and estates had cellae vinariae or wineries, some producing on an enormous scale. These estates are characterized by a large number of dolia (large earthenware vase), buried up to the rim (defossa), in which the wine was stored as it matured. “Villa Regina” at Boscoreale had eighteen of these. Some were for olives and grain, but the vast majority contained wine. Many of them were still capped with terracotta lids and sealed with mortar, showing they were full when the eruption happened. The wine remained in dolia until the following year, when it was sold or taken to the owner’s house in the city. The transportation of large quantities of wine required considerable effort, as each dolium could hold over twenty amphoras’ worth (about 120 gallons or 545 litres). In Pompeii, in front of the Forum Thermal Baths, we have also found a thermopolium where on one of its dolia (large jars), used for fermenting wine, the name “A Apulei Hilarionis” (“of A. Apuleius Hilarion”) was stamped.

Amphorae often carried a painted inscription. Some were basic, like those on the amphorae from Villa della Pisanella marked RUBR(um) = rubrum, the Latin for “red”. Others served as address labels. A fragment of an amphora from Pompeii bears the words, “For Albucia Tyche at Pompeii”, suggesting Albucia was a landlady. (2)

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

  1. Grete Stefani, Michele Borgongino, Cibus. L’alimentazione degli antichi romani. Le testimonianze dell’area vesuviana in AAVV Cibi e Sapori a Pompei e Dintorni , Soprintendenza Archeologica di Pompei, Edizioni Flavius,  2005, pp. 77-78
  2. Paul Roberts, Life and death in Pompeii and Herculaneum, The British Museum Press, 2013, pp. 66-68

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