Pompeii

What is there today

The walled town covered 64 to 67 hectares, and about two-thirds of it has been excavated (en.wikipedia), so this is a day out rather than a single monument: you walk the old streets from one block to the next. It is also the kind of place where some things are always shut. The houses open in rotation, and the park publishes the current list (pompeiisites.org/en/houses/).

The forum and the public buildings. The forum was the town’s main square and its political, economic and religious centre (it.wikipedia). At its north end is the Temple of Jupiter, built in the mid-2nd century BC and rededicated to the Capitoline triad after Sulla took the town (en.wikipedia; it.wikipedia). Within 80 m of the square (by the gazetteers’ points) are the Temple of Apollo, one of the town’s oldest cults, whose sanctuary took its present form in the 2nd century BC (Pleiades); the Basilica, built between about 120 and 78 BC and an early example of the type, where courts sat and business was done (Pleiades; it.wikipedia); the Macellum, the food market (en.wikipedia); and the Building of Eumachia, which a public priestess of Venus paid for (Pleiades). All of them are on the park’s list of open buildings (the operator).

Theatres and temples to the south. The Great Theatre was built into a natural slope in the 2nd century BC and held about 5,000 (hr.wikipedia); the smaller covered Odeon beside it was built between 80 and 75 BC (Pleiades) and can now be seen only from outside (the operator). Behind them, a colonnaded court that served as the theatres’ foyer was later turned into a barracks for gladiators (it.wikipedia). Nearby are the Triangular Forum, with a Doric temple that goes back to the town’s Greek period (Pleiades; en.wikipedia), and the small Temple of Isis, one of the first buildings found, in 1764; its paintings and statues are in the National Archaeological Museum in Naples (en.wikipedia), and the temple is not on the park’s list of open buildings (the operator).

Baths. The Stabian Baths, from about 125 BC, were the oldest and largest of the town’s five public baths (en.wikipedia), and stand at the crossing of its two main streets, Via Stabiana and Via dell’Abbondanza (Pleiades). The Forum Baths were built after 80 BC (Pleiades), and the Central Baths were begun only after the earthquake of AD 62 (en.wikipedia).

Houses, shops and bars. The House of the Faun, built about 180 BC, is the largest private house in the town at 2,940 m²; the Alexander Mosaic from its floor is in the Naples museum, with a copy in place (de.wikipedia). The House of the Vettii, which belonged to two freedmen, keeps almost all of its Fourth Style wall paintings and reopened in January 2023 after two decades of restoration (en.wikipedia). The small House of the Tragic Poet has the “cave canem” (beware of the dog) mosaic at its door (it.wikipedia); the House of Menander covers about 1,800 m² (en.wikipedia); and the House of Octavius Quartio is known for its paintings and large gardens (en.wikipedia). The town was full of food shops too: at least 31 bakeries and nearly 100 thermopolia, snack bars serving hot food (en.wikipedia), and the Lupanar, the brothel, is open to visitors (en.wikipedia; the operator).

The amphitheatre and the Large Palaestra. In the south-eastern corner of the walls (fr.wikipedia), the amphitheatre, built between 80 and 70 BC (Pleiades), is one of the oldest Roman amphitheatres to survive (en.wikipedia); Pleiades calls it the earliest known. In AD 59 a riot there between Pompeians and Nucerians led the Senate to ban events for ten years (en.wikipedia). Next to it, the Large Palaestra, an open square of about 140 by 140 m inside porticoes (Pleiades), now holds the park’s permanent exhibition of the casts and the organic finds (the operator). The casts are Giuseppe Fiorelli’s technique: after he took charge of the excavations in 1863, he had plaster poured into the hollows that bodies had left in the ash (en.wikipedia).

Outside the walls. Tombs line the road out of the Herculaneum Gate, in the best known of the town’s cemeteries, in use from the mid-1st century BC (Pleiades); there are more at the Nocera Gate. Some 300 to 350 m beyond the Herculaneum Gate is the Villa of the Mysteries (de.wikipedia; fr.wikipedia), whose room of paintings, usually read as the initiation of a bride into a mystery cult, is among the best known of the rare Roman paintings to survive from the 1st century BC (en.wikipedia). The Villa of Diomedes is on the same road (en.wikipedia). Both villas are on a separate route that costs extra (the operator). The Castellum Aquae, part of the aqueduct’s supply to the town, is well preserved and shows many details of the distribution network and its controls (en.wikipedia); it can be seen from outside (the operator).