On 24 August 79 AD, Mount Vesuvius
erupted explosively, burying Pompeii under a crust of volcanic ash. For
the next seventeen centuries, the city would remain lost, forgotten and
preserved, sealed in a time capsule. Since excavations began in 1748,
Pompeii was gradually revealed – street by street, building by building,
room by room – providing an unparalleled record of life in the Roman
Empire.
Explore this site to find out more about how the people of Pompeii
lived and their culture and society. From social bathing to religious
practices, businesses to public entertainment, the themes (listed in
the menu) will provide the background to the objects you will see in
Fight club: the importance of the amphitheatre
Aside from the daily bathing ritual, the spectacles of the
amphitheatre were the most popular form of entertainment in Pompeii.
Pompeii’s amphitheatre was built sometime after 80 BC, making it the
oldest known example of its kind in the Roman world. The contests
Pompeians enjoyed were ultra-violent even by today’s standards, ranging
from gladiator versus gladiator combat to fights that pitted men
against various dangerous animals.
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- The theatre
- Source: © Museum Victoria
Spectacles took place in the arena of the amphitheatre and
often lasted two or three days. They were highly publicised and well
attended, not only by the citizens of Pompeii but also by people from
neighbouring towns, and sometimes became just as rowdy as modern
sporting events. In 59 AD a riot broke out in the amphitheatre between
Pompeian fans and the people of nearby Nuceria, and as a result the
amphitheatre was closed for ten years – a hefty penalty for the crime.
The riot is celebrated in a
graffito found on the facade of the
House of the Dioscuri, which portrays a triumphant gladiator carrying a
palm of victory and saying, "Campanians, you perished with the
Nucerians in our victory." (The region surrounding Mount Vesuvius was
called Campania). Other Pompeian
graffiti have been found
depicting gladiatorial contests and listing the victories of favourite
gladiators. These gladiators were often foreign slaves, and both men and
women idolised them; one
graffito reads: "Celadus the Thracian makes all the girls sigh."
Theatrical performances were another, gentler form of popular
entertainment. Pompeii’s theatre was an old one, built in the second
century BC in the Greek style and then enlarged and modernised in the
Augustan period to make it more like a Roman theatre. Comedies and
rustic farces were performed there, as well as mimed re-enactments of
mythological scenes. The dramas of ancient Greece must also have been
popular, judging from the wall paintings depicting the famous Greek
playwright Menander. A small roofed
odeum, or concert hall, was built next to the theatre in about 75 BC to provide an additional venue for musical entertainment.
High fashion and heavenly adornment, Roman-style
Pompeii was a hub of trade and travel, and its wealthier residents
were knowledgeable about all the latest fashion and beauty trends from
Rome and beyond. The standard garment for women throughout the Roman
Empire was the
stola, a long pleated dress that was draped around the body and pinned together with brooches (
fibulae).
The style of this garment was traditional and didn’t vary much, which
made make-up and hairstyling even more important as a way to express a
woman’s beauty and individuality.
The Roman beauty ideal was a white face, bright red lips and very
dark eyes. To achieve this look, women used foundation creams and face
powder made from white lead or powdered chalk and animal fat. Lipstick
was made from ochre or molluscs, and eyeliner from soot or antimony
powder. Fashionable women washed in water perfumed with cinnamon and
balsam, and often used ass’s milk on the skin to prevent wrinkles. Other
oil-based scents were derived from spices and herbs like cardamom,
saffron, lavender, rose and orange, and were stored in small,
tightly-stoppered glass bottles. Mirrors made from highly polished
bronze or silver were, of course, essential items in the wealthy woman’s
beauty kit.
The blond hair of Celtic women (usually slaves) was particularly
prized for making wigs, but when this was not available, many women dyed
their hair blonde and used hairnets of fine gold thread and hairpins of
bone to hold their often elaborate hairstyles in place. Fashions in
hairdressing changed rapidly, much as they do today. In Pompeii’s early
years, women favoured simple chignons or buns at the back of the head,
or plaits tied back in a band, but in the last years of Pompeii built-up
hairstyles became popular. These were very complex and often required
several slaves working at the same time, manipulating hairpieces and
false curls to produce a towering head of hair.
A moveable feast: Pompeian kitchens and dining
In today’s houses, the kitchen tends to be a central feature, often
used for eating and gathering with friends as well as cooking. In
contrast, Roman kitchens were small, poorly lit rooms, usually tucked
away at the back of the house. In most of the kitchens excavated at
Pompeii, the only permanent feature left is a masonry hearth with a
tiled top and arched recesses at the bottom for storing fuel. Cooking
was done on this open hearth, with pots set on iron tripods over burning
charcoal or wood. Some houses also boasted a small oven, much like a
modern woodfired pizza oven, at the corner of the bench, with a vent
near the stove for the smoke to escape. The only other furnishings in
the Pompeian kitchen were a basin to hold water for cooking and washing
up, and sometimes supports for tables to prepare the food.
Roman kitchen implements were simple, but practical and functional. Texts of the time use the word
cacabus to mean pans in general, while the
fretale or
sartago seems to have been a bronze or iron frying pan. The
pultarius was a saucepan, and the
testa or
clibanus
a small portable oven for roasting or baking bread. Iron choppers,
knives, cleavers and spoons, as well as strainers, ladles and mortars,
were used to prepare the food, which was served on a large circular
platter called a
discus. Portable hearths of bronze or ceramic could be used in apartments or for a summer meal in the garden, and a
craticula was a special grid used for barbecues.
Roman cuisine was also decidedly simple: food of all sorts was
usually boiled, smoked, fried or baked and either seasoned with fish
sauce (
garum) or wine reduced to a thick syrup (
defrutum) and thickened with starch (
amulum).
Lunch (
prandium), taken at midday, was a light meal
consisting of meat or fish and fruit with perhaps some wine. Guests were
not usually invited to
prandium. During the hot Pompeian summer, this was followed by a siesta (
meridiatio).
The afternoon was the time for bathing, and after the baths (which
might take several hours), the Pompeians ate their main meal (
cena). As in any modern town, it was always possible to eat out at an inn (
taberna). The menu (
tabula lusoria)
was displayed outside to entice passersby, and in one well-preserved
instance, offered an impressive choice of chicken, fish and ham.
http://museum.wa.gov.au/pompeii/daily-life/lifestyle
