Becky (my wife) and I stayed at a B&B in Pompeii, Italy in June of 2023. While there, we visited and explored the ancient ruins.

A once-thriving commercial port of 20,000 people, Pompeii grew from Greek and Etruscan roots to become an important Roman city. Then, on August 24th, 79 A.D. at 1 P.M.; everything changed. Somma-Vesuvius erupted, sending a mushroom cloud of volcanic ash, dust, and rocks 19km into the air and began to bury the city under 10m of hot volcanic ash, (pyroclastic flow). It spewed for 18 hours straight, as like a heavy snow on Pompeii, its weight eventually collapsing roofs and floors, but leaving the walls intact.

The ancient citizens of Pompeii were unaware of the volcanic nature of the mountain that was famous for its luscious vineyards, and the eruption took everyone by surprise.

There had in fact been numerous warning signs of the catastrophe. In 62 A.D. a violent earthquake had caused grievous damage to the city an other quakes of lesser intensity had continued up to 79 A.D., but they had not been attributed to volcanic activity.

The hail of Volcanic pyroclastic-ash continued up to the following day and, along with the quakes that accompanied it, caused roofs of the houses to collapse. Those who tried to escape immediately, setting off in the in the opposite direction of Somma-Vesuvius, had some chance of surviving. Instead, those who sought refuge in their homes or stayed to protect their valuables, were doomed to death. And though most of Pompeii’s 20,000 residents fled that day, about 2,000 stayed behind.

For the archaeologists who excavated Pompeii centuries later, this was a shake-and bake waterfall, teaching them volumes about daily Roman life in the first century. Pompeii was accidentally rediscovered in 1599; excavations began in 1748.

Pictured above and below, scattered throughout the ruins of Pompeii, Becky and I saw casts of several victims of the eruption.

Pictured above and below, these casts show Pompeiians, eerily captured in their last moments, hands covering their mouths as they gasped for air. They were quickly suffocated by a superheated avalanche of gas and as, and their bodies were encased in volcanic debris.

Pictured above and below, while excavating, modern archaeologist detected hollow spaces underfoot, created when the victims’ bodies decomposed. By gently filling the holes with plaster, the archaeologists created molds of the Pompeiians who were caught in the disaster.

Becky and I entered the Pompeii Ruins from the southern Piazza Esedra Gate. Pompeii was a large city and we were only planning to see a few chosen sites. A proper exploration would take at least 3 days but we only paid entrance for 1 day.

Pictured below, this is a quadriporticus made up of 74 Doric columns bordering a spacious courtyard. In the last years of Pompeii it was the head-quarters of the organisation of gladiators that performed in the city.

Pictured above and below, numerous accoutrements, helmets and weapons typical of the gladiatorial contests were found here, although originally it was a space connected with the nearby theaters where the spectators could stroll during the intervals in the performance, or take shelter in the event of rain.

Pictured below, this small theater could accommodate about 1,500 spectators. It was built in the first half of the first century BC on the initiative of 2 duovirs, the same that were responsible for building the Amphitheater when Pompeii became a Roman colony.

Pictured above and below, the first seats in front of the orchestra hemicycle were reserved for the decurions whose seats stood on four tiers of broad tuff steps. On either side of the stage area, from which they could be reached, were the boxes for the guests-of-honor.

Pictured below, despite being the only theater in Pompeii, it was given the “Large Theater” name to distinguish it from the nearby Odeion. It was built in the second century BC on the Greek model with the tiered seats set up on the natural slope of the terrain and the orchestra arranged in a hors-shoe shape. The Large Theater could hold 5,000 people seated in 3 different sections. The first (called the ima cavea) in the orchestra was reserved for the decurions, while the first rows of the media cavea were for the representatives of the guilds.

Picture below, Becky standing in this broad area, which assumes a triangular form to adapt to the lava spur on which it stands, was occupied since the 6th century BC by a Doric Temple.

Pictured above, in the 2nd half of the 2nd century BC the area was embellished by the construction of a colonnade and comprised within a harmonious urban design in view of the presence of the nearby theaters. At the end of the sacred area stands the Doric Temple dedicated to Hercules and later also to Minerva.

Pictured above, this temple was built between the end of the second and the first decades of the 1st Century B.C.. After the damage caused by the earthquake of 62 A.D. it was reconstructed on the initiative of a former slave who, although he was now wealthy, could not be elected to the council of the decurions and decided to finance the works in the name of his 6 year old son. Isis was a goddess who consoled the suffering with the promise of salvation and happiness and her cult, imported from Egypt, had a great following in Pompeii. The little white stucco shrine with the modern plastic roof housed holy water from the Nile.

After visiting the Temple of Isis, Becky and I walked north to visit the ruins along Via Stabiana, (one of the main streets of Pompeii). Lined with shops, bars, and restaurants, it was a lively, pedestrian-only zone. Pictured above, the three raised stones are traffic barriers that kept chariots out.

Every day, Pompeiians flooded the streets with gushing water to clean them. These stepping-stones, (pictured above), let pedestrians cross without getting their sandals wet. Chariots traveling in either direction could straddle the stones (all had standard-size axles). A single stepping-stone in a road means it was a one-way street, a pair indicates an ordinary two-way, and three (like the one above), signifies a major thoroughfare. The basalt stones are the original Roman pavement.

Pictured above, the sidewalks (elevated to hide the plumbing–we saw ancient plumbing revealed throughout the site), were paved with bits of broken pots (an ancient form of recycling) and studded with reflective bits of white marble. Each street seemed to be headed with a drinking-fountain that helped with the flooding during the nightly cleaning. (Note the exposed copper pipes that I found, pictured below)

Pictured below, water was critical for Pompeii of 20,000 people, and this arch was part of the city’s water-delivery system. Pictured above, a 161km long aqueduct carried fresh water down from the hillsides to a big reservoir perched at the highest point of the city wall. Since overall water pressure was disappointing, Pompeiians built arches like the brick one pictured below, (originally covered in marble) with hidden water tanks at the top.

Pictured above, located just below the altitude of the main tank, these smaller tanks on the arches were filled by gravity and provided each neighborhood with reliable pressure. Pictured above, I found 2,000-year-old pipes (made of lead and copper imported all the way from Cornwall, England) embedded deep in the brick.

Becky and I made our way to the popular Lupanare. For some reason, it had the biggest line to get in. All there was to see were rooms with a stone beds. Prostitutes were nicknamed lupe (she-wolves), alluding to the call they made when attracting business. The Lupanare was a simple place, with beds and pillows made of stone and then covered with mattresses. The ancient graffiti includes tallies and exotic names of the women, indicating the prostitutes came from all corners of the Mediterranean.

Pictured above, the faded frescoes above the cells may have been a kind of menu for services offered. Note the idealized women (white, which was considered beautiful; one wears an early bra) and the rougher men (dark, considered horny).

Our next visit from the Lupanare was the Bakery and Mill. Pictured above, the stubby stone towers are flour grinders. Grain was poured into the top and donkeys or slaves, treading in a circle, pushed wooden bars that turned the stones that ground the grain. The powdered grain dropped out the bottom as flour, (flavored with tiny bits of rock).

Pictured above, the thing that looks like a modern-day pizza oven was just a brick oven. Each neighborhood had a bakery just like this. After this location, Becky and I headed south to the Casa de Siricas, (pictured below).

Pictured above, the house owes it’s name to the discovery of a bronze seal bearing the name of Publius Vedius Siricus, a person who belonged to the political and merchant class of the city.

The Casa di Sirico resulted from the merging of two individual houses during the 1st century BC. Pictured above, after the earthquake of 62 AD the great hall was redecorated with marble slab flooring and frescoes depicting mythological subjects, (Hercules inebriated and Thetis in the workshop of Hephaestus and the Trojan War).

Pictured above, the casts that are at the Casa de Sirico are of a family group. [A man opening the way in a vain escape from death, (tall and strong with marked traits, clothes and sandals with an iron ring on a left hand finger), a woman clutching to her bosom a few precious things grasped befor the flight, and a young girl]. From here, Becky and I headed next door to the Stabiam Baths.

Pompeii had 6 public baths, each with a men’s and women’s section. The leafy courtyard at the entrance was the gymnasium, (pictured below). After working out, clients could relax with a hot bath (caldarium), warm bath (tepidarium), or cold plunge (frigidarium).

Pictured above, the first big, plain room we entered served as the dressing roo or apodyrerium. Holes on the walls were for pegs to hang clothing. The Stabian Baths are the oldest in the city. The tepidarium is ringed by mini statures, which divided the lockers. Clients would undress and warm up here, perhaps relaxing on one of the benches.

Pictured below, the frigdarium was circular in shape, with a large pool in the center and four niches at the corners; the water for the pool flowed from another niche in the north wall.

Pictured below, the tepidarium followed by the calidarium had a double floor that was heated from below, (note the grate across from where you entered to see the brick support towers). The double walls with brown terra-cotta tiles held the heat. Romans soaked in the big tub, which was filled with hot water. Opposite the big tub was a fountain, which spouted water onto the hot floor, creating steam.

From the Baths, Becky and I walked down the Via Addondanza (west) to the Forum. Pictured below, Pompeii’s commercial, religious, and political center stands at the intersection of the city’s two main streets. Visualize the Piazza surrounded by two-story buildings on all sides.

Pictured below, the pedestals that line the Piazza Square once held statues of VIPs and various gods. In Pompeii’s heyday, its citizens gathered here in the main square to shop, talk politics, and socialize. Business took place in the important buildings that lined the piazza. Since Pompeii was a pretty typical Roman city, it has the same layout and components that we would find in any Roman city. All power converges at the Forum: religious (the Temple), political (the Curia), judicial (the Basilica), the commercial (the Piazza).

Pictured below, the Forum was dominated by the Temple of Jupiter, at the far end (marked by a 6 ruined columns atop a stair-step base). Jupiter was the supreme god of the Roman pantheon.

The building just east of the Forum, (across from the Basilica) is the Building of Eumachia, (pictured below). This was the headquarters of the guild of wool and textile manufacturers, and it has a fine entrance portal with a marble frieze. In the interior courtyard, I could see the remains of a colonnade with two orders of columns and an apse that housed the statue of Concordia Augusta.

Heading north on the west side of the Forum is the Tempio de Vespasiano. The Temple of Vespasian was built after 62 AD in honor of the emperor. A central doorway leads into a space in front of the sacred area, bordered at the front by four columns.

Pictured below, set upon a podium that can be reached by 2 side staircases, stood the cella where the statue of the cult was located. A marble altar decorated in bas-relief is visible in the center of the sacred area.

The second building north of the Temple of Vespasion is the Macellum. This was a covered market used for the sale of meat and fish built in the Augustan age. At the rear of the courtyard, I could observe 3 chambers. The central one of which was used as a chapel dedicated to the imperial family. The chamber on the left was instead used for sacrificial banquets, while the area on the right, (with a counter in masonry running the entire length and a channel for water drainage), was used for the sale of fish.

Becky and I continued walking north from the Forum to explore the elaborate Roman Houses of Pompeii. Our first to explore was the House of the Wounded Bear. Pompeii, founded in 600 B.C., eventually became a booming Roman trading city. Not rich, not poor, it was middle class. Most streets would have been lined with stalls and jammed with customers from sun-up to sun-down. Chariots vied with shoppers for street space. There were no posh neighborhoods in Pompeii. Rich and poor mixed it up as elegant houses existed side by side with simple homes. It served an estimated 20,000 residents with more than 40 bakeries, 130 bars, restaurants, and hotels, and 30 brothels.

Pictured above, the House of the Wounded Bear, which dates back to the middle of the first century. A.D., owes its name to the beautiful mosaic with a wounded bear placed at the entrance. The house offers some of the finest examples of painting from the mid-1st century A.D.. Pictured above in the triclinium, the little squares in the fountain depicted Danae with the little Perseus and the myth of Narcissus.

Pictured above, the House of the Faun (Cas del Fauno) is Pompeii’s largest home, where Becky and I were greeted by the delightful small bronze statue of the “Dancing Faun” famed for its realistic movement and fine proportion. With 40 rooms and 27,000 square feet, the House of the Faun covers an entire city block.

The next floor mosaic, with an intricate diamond-like design, decorates the homeowner’s office. Beyond that, at the far end of the first garden, is the famous floor mosaic of the “Battle of Alexander”, (pictured above and below).

Imaged above, Alexander the Great beat Darius and the Persians in 333 BC at the Battle of Issus. Romans had great respect for Alexander, the first great emperor before Rome’s.

The House of the Faun’s back courtyard is lined with pillars rebuilt after the 62 AD earthquake. Note the brick, mortar, and fake-marble stucco veneer in the picture above.

Pictured above, at the end of the garden of “The of the Large Fountain” in Via di Mercurio we admired the beautiful large fountain decorated with polychrome mosaics and pieces of glass paste. The shells of molluscs are used to mark out the edges of the nymphaeum, while the original decoration is completed by two theatrical masks set into the base of the frame. Here in a fine central position is the bronze stature of a Cupid bearing a dolphin on his shoulders.

Pictured above, the House of the Vettii is Pompeii’s best-preserved home, retaining many of the its mosaics and frescoes. The House of the Vettii was the bachelor pad of two wealthy merchant brothers. In the entryway, it’s hard to miss the huge erection. This was not pornography. This was Priapus with his phallus on one pan of the scales and a bag of gold coins on the other. This is a clear representation of the powers of good augury, prosperity and warding off evil that were attributed to the phallus.

The owners were the Vettii, a family of freedmen that belonged to the up and coming class which, from the Age of Augustus on came to play an increasingly prominent role in the city. The house is divided into 2 areas: the residential quarters around the main atrium and the peristyle with its choreographic garden, and the service quarters on the right of the entrance centered around a small atrium with a lararium. Pictured above, the atrium is decorated with scenes depicting sacrifices, hunts and cupids.

Pictured above, fixed to a masonry block is a safe which, in view of the unusual location, are probably intended to underscore the wealth of the family.

Pictured above, in the residential section of the House of Vettii, the peristyle surrounds an elegant garden that has been reconstructed following the original layout. Pictured below, we found a lavish decorative apparatus consisting of statues of cupids and cherubs in marble and bronze, columns decorated with herms, table and fountains, (even another depiction of Priapus in marble that appeared to be a remnant of a fountain).

The reception rooms facing onto the peristyle are most evocative, with a wealth of Paintings on mythological subjects set inside painted aediculae. The living room on the left just beyond the atrium has walls with a yellow ground painted with frescoes depicting, on the left the child Hercules strangling the serpents sent by Juno (pictured below), and in the center is the scene of the torture of Pentheus, stoned by the Bacchantes, (pictured below). On right is the punishment of Dirce bound by her sons Amphion and Zetus to the horns of a raging bull (also pictured below).

Pictured below, on the opposite side is a magnificent reception room with three large paintings. On the left is Daedalu presenting Pasiphae with the wooden cow in which she was to conceal herself since she had become enamored of a bull, with which she was to give birth to the Minotaur. Also pictured below, the central painting shows the punishment inflicted on Ixion who is tied to a wheel built by Hephaestus and mad to turn for all eternity, in the presence of Hera sitting on the throne, and Hermes. On the right with Bacchus watching Ariadne as she sleeps upon a tiger’s skin, (additionally pictured below).

Pictured below, in the center of the north side of the colonnade is the large triclinium that has preserved an unusual miniaturized decoration above the dado, showing cupids and their female equivalents (psyches) engaged in a number of different activities.

After exploring The House of the Vettii, Becky and I walked west along Via Fortuna when came across remnants of a Fast-Food Joint, marked by a series of rectangular marble counters (pictured below). Most ancient Romans didn’t cook for themselves in their tiny apartments, so to-go places like this were commonplace. The holes in the counters held the pots for food. Each container was like a thermos, with wooden lid to keep the soup hot, the wine cool, and so on.

Further west on the Via Fortuna, Becky and I crossed the entry-way of the the House of the Tragic Poet. This house is a typical Roman style. However, the entry-way is the famous “Beware of Dog” (Cave Canem) mosaic, (pictured below).

Becky and I returned south to the Forum. We continued west from the Forum, through the Basilica. Pompeii’s Basilica was the first-century palace of justice. Pictured below, this ancient law court has the same floor plan later adopted by many Christian churches (which are also called basilicas). The big central hall (or nave) is flanked by rows of columns marking off narrower side aisles. Along the side walls are traces of the original stucco imitating marble.

Pictured above and below, the columns, (now stumps all about the same height), wee not ruined by the volcano. Rather, they were left unfinished when Vesuvius blew. Pompeii had been devastated by an earthquake in 62 AD, and was just in the process of rebuilding the Basilica when Vesuvius erupted, 17 years later. The half-built columns show off the technology of the day. Uniform bricks were stacked around a cylindrical core. Once finished, they would have been coated with marble dust stucco to simulate marble columns, (an economical construction method found throughout Pompeii (and the Roman Empire).

Just north of the Basilica and west of the Forum, is the Temple of Apollo.

Pictured above, the cult of Apollo was transmitted to the Italic peoples by the Greeks. His temple in Pompeii was present from the very foundation of the city. During the second century BC it was rebuilt in its present form. The temple was surrounded by Corinthian columns and featured a travertine altar at the top of a high flight of steps and a solar clock on one side.

Pictured above and below, set along the colonnade were a number of statues of deities that are now replaced by copies. On the right, the bronze statue of Apollo the archer and sun god, and on the opposite side the bust of Diana, Apollo’s sister and emblem of the opposing polarity, that of the moon.

Just south of the Temple of Apollo is the Temple of Venus. Venus was the protective deity of the city and declared it a Roman colony Sulla dedicated it to Venus, his favorite deity, so that poompeii assumed the title “Colonia Cornelia Veneria Pompeii-anorum”. Pictured below, the temple was built entirely of marble, clearly visible even from the sea.

Becky and I finished our 1-day exploration of Pompeii by leaving through the Porta Marina Gate.

Pictured above and below, this was the entrance to Pompeii for those approaching from the sea, hence its name. This entrance was fairly difficult to negotiated in view of the steep slope, although useful for linking the harbor emporium to the Forum.

Before Vesuvius blew and filled in the harbor, the sea come nearly to here, (pictured above).