Pompeii, Herculaneum & Stabia
Ok. I am simply not going to even be able to give you a taste of how rich these sites are. They really do need to be experienced first hand, so make your plans to head to Naples soon:)
As I mentioned in the blog on the British Museum, a number of the artifacts that would normally be in the Archeological Museum in Naples and at the Pompeii and Herculaneum sites are currently in London. That said, there is still more than enough to keep anyone entertained at the sites themselves.
The Archeological Museum in Naples has most of the frescoes from the two major ash covered sites. It seems that when the sites were unearthed the Bourbon rulers wanted to keep the artistic works for themselves and so they had them chiseled out of the walls, floors and ceiling and brought to their residences. Some of the pieces they left behind the pock-marked with stone carving tools destroying the works so that no one else could have them. Goes to show how greedy and petty some rulers can be….
Luckily they didn’t care too much about Stabia and the villas there have incredible original and sometimes Bourbon copies of original frescoes en situ. As photography was allowed (thank the museum gods!) in the photo gallery you can see some of the images both from the museum as well as from the sites themselves.
The Pompeii archeological site is quite large and requires a good day to really see and digest. The streets are typically provincial Roman, i.e., on a grid (Rome isn’t Roman in that way!), so it is easy to get around as long as you can walk on very uneven cobblestones. Wearing high heels on these paths would be the equivalent of skydiving. As so much is written about Pompeii, I’m just going to point out a few things that I have to confess my own ignorance to prior to going. First off is that there are four distinct (I’d thought there were three) styles of Pompeiian art. Quoting from the guide books:
Four Styles:
Style 1 – incrustation from 2nd C to middle of 1st C BCE. Imitation of Hellenistic marble surfacings, done mostly in glossy stucco and is the least seen.
Style II – perspective – architecture style, goes from the middle of the 1st C BCE to the early part of the 1st C CE and introduces elements of Roman taste, is characterized by the attempt to create an illusion of expanded walls through fake architecture. This features mythological, heroic or religious scenes, represented in vivid polychromy.
Style 3 – real-wall style, dateable to the first half of the 1st C CE is characterized by a fast, fresh technique called compendiaria. The architectural elements that are painted lose the illusionist of perspective character of Style II and take on an ornamental value, while the figures usually are shown against a black background.
Style 4 – architectural illusion or ornamental style characterizes the period of restoration following the earthquake in 62 CE until 79CE, the year of the eruption. Its perspective scenographic architecture take on a fantastic, unreal character, richly accentuating ornamental nature of Style III with sumptuous theatricality. (Pompeii Reconstructed 3)
And a bit about the history and layout of the site:
During the 8th C BC, some Oscans settled along the shore of the Tyrrhenian Sea founding a center which was situated on an elevated lavic spur formed by an ancient eruption of Vesuvius. Pompeii’s strategic position soon made it an object of great importance, first to the Etruscans. Then, in the 5th C BC, the Samnites arrived from the mountains of Irpinia, and put and end to the control the Greeks and Etruscans had over most of Campania. It was inevitable that Pompeii should come under the domination of Rome at the beginning of the Samnite Wars. It became a Roman colony in 80 BC and took the name of Colonia Venerai Cornelia Pompeii” so referring both to her conqueror and to the goddess Venus, of whom he was particularly attached. (How to Visit Pompeii: Guide to the Excavations with a General Plan, 5)
Up to now 4/5 of the city has been excavated (6)
Pompeii originally received its water supply from the River Sarno and from wells, but when the needs of the city increased, an aqueduct was built which carried water to all parts of the city. Large lead pipes ran under the pavements carrying running water to the houses of the richest inhabitants, to the public baths and to the public fountains where the poorer people obtained their water.
The city of Pompeii had a density of 8,00-10,000 inhabitants. About 60% consisted of free men and the remaining 40% were slaves. The slaves destined for the house came from the East. They were almost always well-educated, often more so than their owners. A small, prosperous family usually had tow or three slaves, a larger one had many more, including those who were doctors or teachers. A slave could hope for freedom if it was granted him by his owner or by paying a large sum of money, in which case he became a freedman.
Romans generally had three names, a praenomen, a name and a surname. Women used the feminine form of their father’s name. Slaves had a single name, generally Greek. A freeman could add a second name using that of his ex-master and having his slave name as a surname.
(The number of freedmen seems excessive to me, but the descriptions on the frescoes and artifacts in the museum in Naples as well as at the various sites, all seem to support it.)
The Urban Dwellings comprised three types:
1) The well off, consisting of local aristocrats and middle –class business men, bankers, etc. lived in luxurious houses of the “Italic” style, with the living rooms around the atrium. Later, In the 2nd C BC, this basic style was enlarged with additions inspired by eastern Hellenistic architecture, with Greek names for the various rooms: peristyle (covered colonnade surrounding the garden) triclinium (dining room), oecus (living area) etc.
2) The more modest were those of the freedmen, poorer traders and craftsmen, who lived in smaller houses without a true atrium, but with the rooms gathered around a covered atrium (atrium testudinatum), a corridor (this kind call a basilicale) or a xystysm a small court-yard with one, two or three porticos (a type of small peristyle) or a viridarium ( enclosed garden). The decorations on the walls and floors were less luxurious, but there are still some elegant examples.
3) When the house and shop etc. were in the same space, the dwelling consisted of rooms behind the shop or a mezzanine above the shop. The walls were rough or covered in coarse stuccowork, and the floors simply beaten or coered in ‘cocciopesto.”
In the Samnite Age (4th C CE), the house had a single atrium with no impluvium with other rooms surrounding it. The next period before the Social Wars (2nd C BC, second Samnite Age) was very important. It was during this time that the Samnites were influenced by the arrival of a new influx of Hellenes at the nearby port of Pozzuoli and they began to build really elegant and imposing private houses. (How to Visit Pompeii: Guide to the Excavations with a General Plan, 12)
Herculaneum is much smaller than Pompeii and has a lot fewer tourists – high heels, however, are still a no-no. This is the site on the coast that got toasted within seconds; baking people, animals, foods and household objects to a crisp that amazingly has preserved them for millennia. One of the aspects of this site that I found most interesting was the “Sacred Area” which was right off the old port. It is now enclosed by a wall as the whole region’s geography has changed since the 79 CE eruption. What is nice about this section is that it once again demonstrates how the various cults to the gods played well with each other. It is clear that there were a number of temples in a very small section, maybe 100 ft long x 50 ft. wide, each with their own deity and sharing walkways and it appears perhaps even sacrificial altars.
For me, though, Stabia was the most amazing of the three places. There are two villas that are open to the public Villa Arianna and Villa San Marco. Notes from the guide pamphlets from the two villas are:
Villa Arianna was erected in the 2nd C BC. Located in the westernmost point of the Varano hill, it was explored by the Bourbons between 1757 and 1762, and later reburied. A new excavation began in Feb. 1950 and has not yet been completed.
Villa Arianna is connected to the surrounding area by a network of ramps and tunnels, which were recently excavated. All rooms located on the Verano hill are open to visitors. The famous fresco of Flora or Spring in Stabia, one of the most renowned and highly valued work of classical antiquity, came from these rooms.
Some of the rooms are decorated with painted candelabras, human figures, and birds. In no. 3 triclinium (dining room) there is the fresco “Ariadne abandoned by Theseus on the island of Naxos.” This painting gives the name to the villa. Next door there is another house known as Villa Arianna-Second Complex.
Villa San Marco stands on the easternmost point of the Varano hill. This villa also was excavated by the Bourbons in 1749 to be covered again when excavations ceased in 1754. It was rediscovered by Libero d’Orsi, headmaster of the local high school, in Nov. 1950.
A modern stairway leads from the path to the prothyrum entrance to atrium 44, upon which open the lararium and a series of cubicula (bedrooms). From the far left corner of the atrium states a windowed corridor whence, just on the left, the kitchen is accessed. At the end of the corridor, on the right, stands the thermal quarter and, on the left, the great lower peristyle. Belong to the thermal area: the frigidarium, the tepidarium and the calidarium, i.e, areas for cold, tepid and hot baths.
In the middle of the great peristyle, there is a wide pool meansureing 38m by 6 m. surrounded by a garden. The pool was enclosed at one end with cryptoporticus with niches stucco and paint. The fountain that provided the water for the natatia (pool) is probably still buried.the casts in the garden remind the ancient plane trees which flanked the colonnades and the poo. The panoramic rooms open towards west on the edge of the hill. The second perisytle of the villa can be reached through ramp 4. This peristyle is called “spiral”, for the special stucco decoration of tits twisted columns.
There are a couple of things to pay attention to from these descriptions. 1) the intense use of mythology as the basis for painting that occurs in most of the frescoes and sculptures in the Vesuvian sites, and 2) that even the houses had their own Roman baths. The baths at Villa San Marco were certainly not typical as this was the house of a wealthy businessman who must have been as wealthy as our Hollywood stars are today. From the pictures it is hard to tell, but the swimming pool, a real lap pool, was at least 35 ft. long. The head of the pool faced the mountain while the end faced the sea. Those views would help a lot of people get their exercise swimming back and forth. There were two changing rooms on either side of the pool area, one for summer and one for winter depending on the direction of the sun. The yard came with it’s own sundial. Inside the house beyond the typical living areas, kitchen, servant quarters etc., was the entire bathhouse set for hot, medium, and cold baths. And the hot bath was the size of a small in-ground swimming pool.
In Villa Arianna there was a rather large fish tank, which must have been 6x6 ft. right by the kitchen. The freshly caught fish from the sea would land in the tank to be fried in the kitchen next to the tank. It was a highly efficient system.
Both villas used to border the cliffs to the sea, but now, as with Baia, they are considerably inland.
There are other villas on the hillside that have yet to be restored for the public and given the state of Italy’s economy they probably won’t be anytime soon.
One last comment about the villas at Stabia. The people who watch over these sites do it out of a sense of love for the site rather than as a job. This was very clear through the enthusiasm both women showed me, and especially the keeper of the Villa San Marco. She was so thrilled to have people interested in ‘her villa’ and just wanted to share stories of the site itself and the history of its discovery with my Agerola host, Marianna, and me.
& as is the case in so many places, Marianna had never been to Stabia, which is just down the mountain from Agerola, or to Vesuvius, until I asked her to join me for my explorations. How often do we miss that which is literally at our footsteps?
