ANCIENT POMPEII: TOMB OF A CIVILIZATION

The site of Pompeii, petrified memorial to Vesuvius's eruption on the morning of August 23, AD 79, is the largest, most accessible, and probably most famous of excavations anywhere.

A busy commercial center with a population of 10,000 -20,000 ancient Pompeii covered about 160 acres on the seaward end of the fertile Sarno Plain. Today Pompeii is choked with both the dust of 25 million visitors every year; only by escaping the hordes and lingering along its silent streets can you truly fall under the site's spell. On a quiet backstreet, all you need is a little imagination to sense the shadows palpabluy filling the dark corners, to hear the ancient pipe's falsetto and the tinny clash of cymbals, to envision a rain of rose petals gently covering a Roman senator's dinner guests. Come in the late afternoon when the site is nearly deserted and you will understand that the true pleasure of Pompeii is not in the seeing but in the feeling.

PUBLIC LIFE IN ANCIENT POMPEII

The city center.
As you enter the ruins at Porta Marina, make your way to the Foto (Forum), which served as Pompeii's culturale, political, and religious center. You can still see some of the two stories of colonnades that used to line the square. Like the ancient Agorà in Athens, the Forum was a busy shopping area, complete with public officials to apply proper standards of weights and measures. Fronted by an elegant three-column portico on the eastern side of the forum is the Macellum, the covered meat and fish market dating to Augustan times; here vendors sold goos from their reserved spots in the central market. It was also in the Forum that elections were held, politicians let rethoric fly, speeches and official announcements were made, and worshippers crowded the Tempio di Giove (Temple of Jupiter), at the northern end of the forum. On the southwestern corner is the Basilica, the city's law court and the economic center. These oblong buildings ending in a semicircular projection were the model for early Christian churches, which had a nave (central aisle) and two side aisles separated by rows of columns. Standing in the Basilica, you can recognize the continuity between Roman and Christian architecture.

The game.
The Anfiteatro (Amphitheater) was the ultimate in entertainment for local Pompeians and offered a gamut of experiences, but essentially this was for gladiators rather than wild animals. By Romand standards, Pompeii's amphitheater was quiete small (seating 20,000). Built in about 80 BC, it was oval and divided into three seating areas like a theater. There were two main entrances -at the north and south ends- and a narrow passage on the west called the Porta Libitinensis, through which the dead were most probably dragged out. A wall painting found in a house near the theater (now in the Naples Museum) depicts the riot in the amphitheater in AD 59 when several citizens from nearby town of Nucera were killed. After Nucerian appeals to Nero, shows in the amphitheater were suspended for 10 years.

Bath & Brothels.
In its day, Pompeii was celebrated as the Cote d'Azur, the seaside Brighton, the Fire Island of the ancient Roman empire. Evidence of a Sybaritic bent is everywhere - in the town's grandest villas, in its baths, and especially in its rowdiest Lupanaria (brothels), murals still reveal a worship of hedonism. Satyrs, bacchantes, hermaphrodites, and acrobatic couples are pictured indulging in hanky-panky.

The first buildings to the left after you've gone through the ticket turn-stiles are the Terme Suburbane (Suburban Baths), built - by all accounts without planning permission - right up against the city walls. The baths have eyebrow-raising frescoes in the apodyterium (changing room) that strongly suggest that more than just bathing and massaging went on here.

On the walls of Lupanare (brothel) are scenes of erotic games in which clients could engage. The Terme Stabiane (Stabian Baths) had underground furnaces, the heat from which circulated beneath the floor, rose through flues in the walls, and escaped through chimneys. The water temperature could be set for cold, lukewarm, or hot. Bathers took a lukewarm bath to prepare themselves for the hot room. A tepid bath came next, and then a plunge into cold water to tone up the skin. A vigorous massage with oil was followed by rest, reading, horseplay, and conversation.

GRAFFITI
Thanks to those deep layers of pyroclastic deposits from Vesuvius that protected the site from natural wear and tear over the centuries, graffiti found in Pompeii provide unique insights into the sort of things that the locals found important 2,000 years ago. A good many were personal and lend a human dimension to the disaster that not even the sights can equal.

At the baths: "What is the use of having a Venus if she's made of marble?"
At the entrance to the front lavatory at a private house: "May I always and everywhere be as potent with women as I was here"
On the Viale ai Teatri: "A copper pot went missing from my shop. Anyone who returns it to me will be given 65 bronze coins".
In the Basilica: "A small problem gets larger if you ignore it".