Archaeologically the best-known Roman city, this port and regional centre in the Sarnus (mod. Sarno) plain of south Campania in Italy, destroyed by the eruption of ad 79, is central to the study of Roman art and domestic life, but surprisingly hard to fit into general accounts of local politics, or economic and social history.
The oldest architecture (fragments from the Doric Temple and the Temple of Apollo) belongs in the Greek milieu around the Campanian apoikiai (colonies: see colonization, Greek) of the 6th cent. bc: scattered finds suggest links with the Etruscan cultures of the Archaic and Classical periods, and the wider Mediterranean world. Pompeii appears as a dependent port-settlement of Nuceria in 310 bc (Livy 9. 38. 2–3), and at no earlier point—either in the Greek, Etruscan, or early Samnite (Oscan-speaking) milieux of 6th, 5th, and 4th cents.—does there seem to have been a substantial urban nucleus or an autonomous political community. Even now there has been little stratigraphic excavation, but the early Pompeii appears at present as a village on the lava hill above the sheltered mouth of the river Sarno, with a couple of prominent sanctuaries and a likely role as an anchorage for coasting vessels and a local market.
There have been suggestions of a 6th-cent. enceinte on the line of the later substantial fortifications (enclosing some 63 ha. on the summit of the lava spur, and perhaps, if so early, a refuge-enclosure). Debate continues, but the walls are most probably to be linked with the introduction of new methods and aspirations in such architecture now widely attested among the indigenous populations of south Italy at the end of the 4th cent., and linked with a widespread urbanizing process. The layout of the greater part of the street-plan is probably also of 4th/3rd-cent. date (perhaps in two phases with rather different orientations), though the 9 ha. nucleus of somewhat irregular lanes and small blocks around the forum may reflect earlier circumstances.
The impetus for the impressive transformation involved in the creation of streets and walls escapes us: otherwise, the basics of Pompeii as we know it are 2nd cent. Campanians were prominent participants in late Hellenistic economic prosperity, and the Oscan culture of this period is of particular interest for its participation—alongside, and blending with, the similar contemporary experience of Rome—in the currents of fashion and display that were found in the eastern Mediterranean. The formation, out of earlier local prototypes, of the distinctive ‘Pompeian house’, belongs in this setting. Benefactors who could afford dwellings like the palatial House of the Faun equipped the city with the larger theatre, the earlier palaestra, and the temple of Isis, the first baths, the gymnasium around the Doric temple, the first systematization of the forum, and the paving of the main streets. This phase undoubtedly saw activity in the harbour district, of which little is still known.
On this flourishing community, Sulla imposed a colonia of Roman veterans, led by his nephew, as a penalty for siding with the enemy in the Social War of 91–89 bc (during which he had himself laid siege to Pompeii). Latin subsequently replaced Oscan (completing a process that had been at work for some time) in the town's inscriptions, and the meddix tuticus (an Oscan magistracy) was replaced by aediles. The new community continued the tradition of architectural benefaction with important monuments: the amphitheatre, the covered theatre, the temple of Jupiter which formed the main feature of the forum. Further important houses date from this period (like that of the Silver Wedding), as do the first monumental tombs of the inner suburbs and the first villas of the territory (Cicero was one proprietor).
Yet another phase of public building marked the city's response to the initiatives and ideologies of the new Augustan regime. Important monumental complexes like the Macellum or the Porticus of Eumachia (which echoes themes in contemporary architecture in the capital) were added to the forum; the Great Palaestra was built alongside the amphitheatre, and the larger theatre remodelled.
The sudden destruction crystallized a problematic moment: the damage of the earthquake of 62 was still being patchily repaired and the opulence and modishness of some private and public projects of the last phase (the temple of the town's patron Venus and the "central" baths were both ambitious in scale) contrast with chaos and squalor. The centre of gravity of Campania was shifting towards Puteoli (Pozzuoli), and servicing the luxury villas had perhaps become the town's principal activity. But the painted inscriptions of the walls attest vigorous political life, and the removal of decorative and documentary material from the easily identified public zones in the immediate aftermath of the eruption may have skewed the evidence towards the private sphere. Most important, earlier phases might have looked like this too, if they had been interrupted: the constant disruptions of rebuilding and social discontinuity, and the enormous complexity of the social history of a community like this, are among Pompeii's most important lessons.
Neither the composition by place of origin nor the total size of the population is easily established, though the inscriptions attest frequent links by family-name (implying blood-ties or manumission-relationships) with other cities of the area. Local contacts also included rivalry over spectacles (vividly illuminated by the slogans and notices painted on the walls), like that with Nuceria which caused a major riot in ad 59, untypically attracting attention from Rome (Tacitus Annales 14, 17), and the economic relations which stemmed from the city's important function as a port (for Nola, Nuceria, and Acerrae, Strabo 5. 4. 8). The city was the centre of a vigorous and varied cash-crop agriculture (an export wine of middling reputation was of some importance); excavation has revealed the intensiveness of cultivation on small garden-lots even within the walls. The territory had been centuriated at an uncertain date. The processing of agricultural produce is visible in many small commercial premises, but the extent and economic standing of activities such as textile-manufacture remain controversial. Any assessment of Roman Pompeii must take into account the wealth of Campania, its dense network of overseas contacts (which are reflected in many aspects of the life of the city, especially its religion), and the investment in the area that derived from its popularity as a resort.
The site (only haphazardly reoccupied in antiquity) was first rediscovered in 1748, rapidly acquiring a sensational fame. Systematic recording began in 1861; the new excavations of the 1950s set a new standard; contemporary work today concentrates more on recording, conservation, and analysis, since the discoveries of the first excavators have often decayed irreparably. Some four-fifths of the walled area have been disinterred.
Nicholas Purcell
From The Oxford Companion to Classical Civilization
