News broke on Thursday of more stunningdiscoveries as a result of the current excavations in Pompeii’s Regio IX. Whilst the rest of the world is agog, and rightly so, over the stunning frescos that have been revealed (the colours! the details! the lack of panelling!), I am quite excited about the new electoral programmata that has been discovered.
I have written before about my interest in the way candidates wrote their names, and more to the point, that some were able to campaign using only their initials. I have always been intrigued not only by the ability to be known well enough by the population of Pompeii based on three letters, but also what implications this has for how Romans remembered names, and what they wrote on the ballot when it came time to vote. This interest is the basis for what has become a much larger project focussing on the process of campaigns and elections in antiquity that is the subject of a forthcoming monograph. I have identified thirty-nine individuals who have used their initials in electoral dipinti, and although the newest revelation does not add to this list, it does provide more evidence.
Prior to this morning, I was aware of one dipinto naming Aulus Rustius Verus that made use of initials – but only two. CIL IV 466 tells us that he is running for aedile:
A(ulum) R(ustium) aed(ilem). Aulus Rustius for aedile.
We know from several other programmata that this man was successful in his campagin for aedile. There are eleven additional dipinti that name Aulus Rustius Verus, two for the lower magistracy of aedile, four for the higher post of duovir, and five that do not identify the office. They all bear the standard format for this type of notice:
CIL IV 3581 A(ulum) Rustium Verum. Aulus Restius Verus.
CIL IV 2984 A(ulum) Rustium Verum / aed(ilem) o(ro) v(os) f(aciatis) d(ignum) r(ei) p(ublicae). Please vote for Aulus Rustius Verus, aedile. He is worthy of public office.
CIL IV 1731 Rustium Verum / duumvirum i(ure) d(icundo) / rogamus Aug(ustales). The Augustales ask you to elect Rustius Verus duovir with judicial power.
This last notice tells us that the Augustales, a civic and religious organisation primairly composed of wealthy freedmen supported his candidacy.
The new excavations have revealed a new dipinto naming Aulus Rustius Verus, but this one presents his name as three initials: A R V.
New electoral dipinto for Aulus Rustius Verus. (From the BBC video, featuring Dr. Sophie Hay)
The text is similar to some of those above, most notably CIL IV 2984 in which the man is also running for aedile and is described with the phrase d(ignum) r(ei) p(ublicae). This dipinto provides further evidence for the use of initials in campaigns, and allows me to verify that I had correctly identified the example above using two letters as the right person. This is one of the things I find so fascinating about this particular form of the epigraphic habit. I can only decipher who the initials belong to because there are further electoral programmata for the same individuals. I do have some examples where the dipinti could belong to multiple people who shared letters, and one I cannot identify at all as no other texts bearing those initials survive. The discovery of one more, though, gives me some bit of hope about what other texts may someday be found. Hopefully, before I finish writing my book.
For the first time in its three year history, I made a point to participate daily in #ClassicsTober. This initiative started by LE Jenks (otherwise known as Greek Myth Comix) and Cora Beth Fraser is intended to be a creative endeavour sharing artwork based on the daily prompts, but I don’t have quite the artistic ability to fill a month of days, and like many others, have shared objects and artwork from the ancient world. This year, I made the conscious decision to fulfil the brief entirely with things from Pompeii (and the Vesuvian region more broadly). My initial reasoning for doing this was to make a point: I have found that the absolute wealth of material and myriad of ways of engaging with the city can sometimes be dismissed or misunderstood (particularly by hiring committees). It isn’t just one place frozen in time. It is seven hundred years of multicultural interaction, and the archaeology, art, and epigraphy produced by the people who lived there. It is the development of various economies and technologies. It is life and death: theatre and entertainment and baths and tombs. It is all of these things and more, it is a way of finding Roman literary and historic evidence in a physical place, and through the lives of real, everyday people. It is this that brings me back to Pompeii over and over again, and why there is still so much to learn even after more than two hundred years of study. There is little of Mediterranean antiquity that can’t be found in the Vesuvian cities in some way, and I wanted to demonstrate that, in this instance, through Greek myth.
The result, however, has been a surprising new understanding of the art (and some objects) that decorate these sites. I admit that I do not consider myself an expert on wall painting generally. I understand the process of making it, and am aware of many of the issues about how the paintings have been treated, preserved, and lost since excavation. But I have never really paid much attention to the corpus of material as a whole – I have previously been far more interested in individual structures where painting appears – this house, or that tomb. I have never looked for patterns, or how individual myths or figures are depicted. This month of posting though, has made me see two things very clearly: how certain myths / figures are painted, and what texts influence what appears on the walls.
There are, I would argue unsurprisingly, many figures and stories that appear repeatedly. Many paintings show poor Ariadne abandoned by Theseus (day 12), or the man himself in association with the labyrinth and Minotaur. Perseus is also extremely popular, either rescuing Andromeda or killing Medusa (day 2). Hephaestus (day 24) is eternally busy making Achilles’ (day 9) armour, and his mother Thetis (day 26) watches over the blacksmithing god or transports the armour to her son. Odysseus (day 20) appears frequently, both in scenes of the Trojan War and during his exploits on his long journey home, including an interlude with Circe (day 16). In other words, the most frequent myths and figures originate in either the Homeric cycles of the Trojan War (drawn from both the Iliad and the Odyssey), or can be found in the Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Considering the style of painting that makes use of the central panel of a scene – imitating a painting on display as we would conceive of it in a modern context – develops in the so-called Third Style (from approximately the 20s BC), it is not inconceivable that this poem, from circa AD 8, would be an influence and source for this type of painting.
However, I ran into my first difficulty in finding material on day 11 (Pandora). Day 13 (Arachne) was also surprisingly absent, but by day 15 (Prometheus) I noticed something I found odd. The pre-Olympian gods, the Titans and the stories of early people aren’t here. By the time I got to day 19 (Sisyphus) I was positive this was not an anomaly, but for some reason known only by the Pompeians (or the painters), there was no interest placing in these gods and myths on their walls. These are stories that I associate primarily with Hesiod’s Theogony, and am now wondering if this poem was not read in the first century AD in Italy, or simply was not very popular.
Why one myth over another? On one hand, I think this is a confirmation (as if we needed one), of the enduring legacy of the Homeric epics, and the many figures who were involved in that twenty-year tale. The perceived connection between the Trojans, Aeneas, and what becoems Rome is one explanation for the ongoing interest in these tales. On the other, this exercise has also reinforced the idea that something like a sample book for paintings existed and was used in Pompeii and likely elsewhere. There are too many similarities not just in the repetition of certain stories, but in the exact moment of these stories that is depicted. Within the context of mythological figures, the variation of who is painted on the walls and how is far less than I had imagined. There is, of course as is always the case with the Vesuvian sites, an issue of preservation that necessitates a caveat with any conclusions. There were some days I relied on nineteenth century drawings (Prometheus day 15, Atalanta day 17, and Midas day 22) or a stereoview (Nemesis day 29). What has been lost or damaged beyond identification may have contained additional myths.
As a final note on the month long endeavour of #ClassicsTober, I would like to acknowledge that while some of the photos are my own, I would not have been able to post daily without two incredible resources on Pompeii: Pompeii in Pictures and the Pompeii Artistic Landscape Project. I didn’t have the space to provide photo credit in my posts, but I found many of the paintings using one or both of these sites. If you haven’t seen my posts you can find them here (on the platform formally known as Twitter) or in bluer skies here. More generally, look for the tag #ClassicsTober23 on whatever social media you use.
Last week the team at the University of Kentucky, who have been working on the carbonised papyri scrolls from Herculaneum, announced a new initiative to help decipher the texts. Professor Brent Seales, a computer scientist, has been working for a number of years developing methods for reading ancient texts that are otherwise, for whatever reason, unreadable. This approach, using X-ray tomography and computer vision to virtually unwrap the scrolls that are too fragile and brittle to physically unroll, has been applied with success to the Herculaneum scrolls. Now, Seales’ team has not only made the scans available for the public to analyse, but has created a competition around reading the scrolls.
Whilst the Vesuvius Challenge is not the first attempt to use crowdsourcing to decipher ancient texts (see for example, the Ancient Lives project) it is the first to monetise it. This has, understandably, garnered some attention from the press. I was contacted late last week by producers from the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 to discuss the importance of the scrolls, the potential success of the competition, and why the contents of the scrolls might be important for the study of the ancient world. You can listen to the discussion here (starting at about 45 minutes).
The scrolls themselves come from the library of the eponymously named Villa of Papyri, located on the ancient city of Herculaneum (modern Ercolano) which was destroyed by Vesuvius in AD 79. Herculaneum, unlike Pompeii, was victim to a number of pyroclastic flows during the first century eruption. These flows consisted of gases and other debris heated to extraordinary temperatures that rolled down the mountain and across the city, incinerating everything in their path. This is the primary reason why there is considerably more carbonised organic material surviving in Herculaneum than in Pompeii.
Once it was realised what the scrolls were and that they contained writing (early excavators tunnelling in the ruins allegedly used them as fire starters) numerous attempts have been made to find ways to unroll them physically or virtually. Many of the earliest attempts unfortunately resulted in the destruction of the scrolls. Modern technological advances, however, have made it more possible to read without physically damaging the material. A team at Brigham Young University under the direction of Professor Roger MacFarlane had some success doing this in the 1990s by using multispectral imaging. Of the 1800 or so scrolls that were recovered, those that have been deciphered have almost exclusively contained the writings of Philodemus, an Epicurian philosopher of the first century BC. The remainder of the scrolls, however, are the current focus of Seales’ work and the Vesuvian Challenge.
The success of the contest and the ability to decipher any of the scrolls is certainly something that has massive potential. Understanding and being able to use the technology is, I think, nearly as important as the ability to read ancient Greek or Latin here. I do wonder, based on my own work with the graffiti of Pompeii and Herculaneum, if there isn’t a benefit with not knowing the ancient languages. Matteo Della Corte, responsible for recording so much of the graffiti that was published in the middle of the 20th century was notorious for correcting the Latin, preferring to publish what he thought it should say rather than what it actually did. This makes me think that looking for individual letters rather than trying to read words or sentences may produce better results overall.
Regardless, the potential is what is really interesting. A large part of the fascination with these scrolls is simply the not knowing. Sure, there could be a lot more Philodemus, which, frankly, no one really needs (or I’d posit, wants). Likewise, I do not think to many people are eager to read the supposedly horrible poetry written by Cicero if any of that were to be found on a scroll. But the possibility of what else could be contained in these little lumps of carbon are endless and wonderful to imagine. Could we find the lost books of Livy that cover the turbulent second and first centuries BC? We know they existed because the epitomes survive. Maybe there will be a cache of personal correspondence. If the villa did belong to Lucius Calpurnius Piso could there be letters confirming this? What if there is an exchange of letters between Piso and his son in law Julius Caesar? Perhaps there is a poem of Sappho’s that isn’t a fragment, or maybe some portion of the Sibylline Books. Personally, I’d love a Greek architectural treatise that makes it easier to understand parts of Vitruvius’ de Architectura. I’m sure any Classicist or Ancient Historian you asked would have different items on their lost text wish list. For this reason, what the scrolls contain is the ultimate $250,000 question, and I do hope we get an answer.
When I first became aware that there was to be a fictional work (a triliogy no less!) based in the lupanar of Pompeii, my reaction was somewhat… disdainful. It is, I think anyone with considerable expertise would admit, incredibly difficult to consume popular culture that aims to accurately replicate your specialist subject. Anyone who has had the misfortune of watching Troy, Gladiator, or The Mummy with a Classicist knows exactly what I am talking about. Beyond the fact that I have spent the majority of the last twenty years focused on Pompeii, I have done extensive research on women and prostitution in the Roman world, including reviewing the definitive work on the brothel itself. Therefore, when a friend offered to lend me a copy of The Wolf Den by Elodie Harper, I was reluctant. I started reading fully expecting to hate it.
I didn’t.
Yes, there are inaccuracies. But let’s be honest – a work of fiction written with the aim of a high degree of factual historic and archaeologic content would probably be a bit boring for most people. It is clear the author did research: chapters begin with appropriate quotes from Latin literature, much of the physical space of Pompeii is described with some level of accuracy, and various real names known from the epigraphic record are included within the story. Pliny the Elder stays in town for a bit, borrowing a residence from a friend that is clearly meant to be the House of the Faun. There is a duovir named Fuscus both in the novel and amongst the evidence from Pompeii (both placed in the last decade of the city’s life). CIL IV 3592 names a Lucius Laelius Fuscus who is running for that office. Evidence for this man also exists as a campaign notice for the office of aedile (CIL IV 102) and four times as a witness in the tablets of Iucundus (CIL IV 3340. 13, 15, 35, 103). A caupona, commonly referred to as The Elephant by archaeologists because of a wall painting of the animal and a graffito that says ‘Sittius restored the elephant’ (CIL IV 806) is frequented by characters of the book. This illustrates some attention to detail, as the inn, located at VII.i.44, is a few doors away from the brothel at VII.xii.18.
There are numerous references to real Pompeian graffiti, including an episode where the prostitutes themselves collectively carry out adding an inscription to the walls of the brothel (p. 36-7). They write about a rather odorific customer whom they dub ‘Mr. GarlicFarticus.’ This is an accurate translation of the name Scordopordonicus, a compound of two Greek words.
CIL IV 2188 Scordopordonicus hic bene / fu(tu)it quem voluit. ‘Scordopordonicus here fucks well who he wished.’
There are other uses of graffiti that are quite touching, such as the exchange of scratched messages between two slaves. As is well known, conversations greeting friends carried out on the walls of the city is one of the most prevalent types of graffiti. In the context of The Wolf Den this is conducted in Greek as the slaves, both of whom were born free and enslaved later in life, establish a degree of agency by communicating in their own language and using their original names. Giving a purchased slave a new name is not an uncommon occurrence, but there is no hard and fast rule when it comes to language. Latin and Greek names are both used, and more often than not the name is not a reflection of the ethnic origin of the individual.
Naming, however, is my one real issue with this book. The main character is an enslaved woman of Greek origin who, when purchased and made a prostitute, is given the name Amara. Harper explains the name as one reflective of the woman’s overall demeanour in the eyes of her owner/pimp. She is ‘halfway between love and bitterness’ (p. 245). There no halfway about it. The adjective amarus (a, um) means bitter, disagreeable, shrill. This is not a word one would use to describe someone who you want to have sex with, paying customer or not.
Whilst it is difficult to tease out the patterns of naming of slaves generally, there are some professions, largely amongst the infamia, where naming conventions are adhered to. Prostitution is one of them. The names (or stage names, if you will) assigned promote beauty, luck, or refer to some aspect of potential gratification. This can be taken beyond the lupanar as well, as there were also particular names used for high class courtesans, many of which were idealised through the repetition of the names of lovers used by elegists such as Propertius and Ovid. In her book on the brothel of Pompeii, Sarah Levin-Richardson explains (p. 61):
‘It is possible that Victoria was a stage name giving her an aura of “victory” in the brothel; that Fortuna and Fortunata might have been meant to feel “lucky” themselves or bring luck to others; and that Mola was a “grindstone” in bed.’
She lists ‘other potential stage names’ such as Panta (All: CIL IV 2178b), Helpis (Hope: CIL IV 2189), Felicla [= Felicula] (Happy: CIL IV 2199, 2200), Mola (Grindstone: CIL IV 2204, 2237), Victoria (Victory: CIL IV 2212), and Fortuna/ata (Fortune: CIL IV 2224, 2259, 2266, 2275). She concludes that ‘[t]hese names were probably given to the prostitutes by a master, pimp, or madam, though some prostitutes may have chosen these monikers themselves. Some names may not have been intended specifically as stage names – many are common names for female slaves – though they may have been interpreted as such by those in the brothel regardless’ (p. 118).
The names of the other prostitutes (female and male) used by Harper such as Victoria, Dido, and Paris fit into the general schematic of naming slaves involved in sex work. As much as it seems to have been chosen specifically to reflect the personality of the character, or more to the point, her reaction to the current circumstances of her life, I find it very difficult to reconcile a prostitute named Amara with what is known about names. The evidence we have suggests that prostitutes in the ancient world, much like today, were meant to entice, to appear available and eager, and fulfilled a function that was both sexual and emotionally gratifying. For the Romans, this meant assigning names that reflected these qualities.
Fundamentally then, a sex worker named Bitter is a major marketing problem, and for that reason alone would never exist.
As much as the name irks me, the story is good and I’m looking forward to the next book in the trilogy.
By now it seems the entire world is aware of the most recent discovery in Pompeii, a tomb located in the necropolis of the Porta Sarno to the east of the city. Having spent so many years investigating the funerary monuments of Pompeii myself, I am thrilled that new material is being excavated (even if it does make my book somewhat outdated. Hmm… second edition maybe?) I (along with others) have always known there were many, many more tombs to discover in the environs of the city. We should all do well to remember that modern Pompei sits atop most of ancient Pompeii’s dead.
There is, however, much excitement about this particular find, and rightfully so, because it contains a variety of evidence that is unique, and in some cases, previously unattested. Some of this new information comes from the inscription:
M(arcus) Venerius coloniae lib(ertus) Secundio, aedituus Veneris, Augustalis et min(ister) eorum. Hic solus ludos Graecos et Latinos quadriduo dedit.
‘Marcus Venerius Secundio, freedmen of the colony, guardian of the temple of Venus, Augustalis and minister of them. He, on his own, gave Greek and Latin games for four days.
Photo from Pompeii – Parco Archeologico.
One item that has ancient historians taking notice is the specific mention of Greek games – something that has been speculated about but was heretofore unconfirmed as taking place in the theatres of Pompeii. Georgy Kantor provides a brief exposition on the significance of this. A freedman of the city, Venerius Secundio’s involvement in the worship of Venus, the patron goddess of Pompeii, the evident wealth he obtained that allowed him to sponsor entertainments, and membership of the Augustales are all elements that serve to enhance our understanding of the civic and religious life of the city (and thus, other communities in the Roman world.)
Marcus Venerius Secundio appears in only one other text from Pompeii, one of the wax tablets of Caecilius Iucundus (CIL 4.3340.139). He is included here with two other well known men – Decimius Lucretius Valens and Marcus Stronnius Secundus, which provides a date of the mid AD 50s. The tomb, as it has been described, probably dates to the 60s or early 70s. There is, however, further epigraphic evidence from the monument as a columella was also found marking the burial of a beautiful glass urn, bearing the name of Novia Amabilis. This is a new name to add to the Pompeian prosopography, as no female members of this gens are otherwise attested. There is a single graffito naming a Novius (CIL X 10136), and one naming a Lucius Novius Priscus.
CIL IV 2155 C(aius) Cominius Pyrrichus et L(ucius) Novius Priscus et L(ucius) Campius Primigenius fanatici tres a pulvinar(i) Synethaei hic fuerunt cum Martiale sodale Actiani Anicetiani sinceri Salvio sodali feliciter.
Although there is some debate about how exactly this should be translated, the general consensus (which is not quite as cryptic as Franklin suggests) is that Novius Priscus and his friends Gaius Cominius Pyrrichus and Lucius Campius Primigenius, three rabid fans of Actius Anicetus, a well known pantomimist, greet some of their other mates. The idea of linking into the same family Novia Amabilis, buried in the tomb of a sponsor of Greek and Latin theatre spectacles and Lucius Novius Priscus, a devotee of a local star of the stage, is admittedly quite an attractive one.
Of course, the one thing I have not yet mentioned is the skeleton. Found in a small cell at the rear of the tomb, there is no doubt it is the best preserved set of human remains yet discovered in the ancient city. Hair! An Ear! Maybe DNA! Heady stuff, to be sure. But what I haven’t yet seen mentioned is what an anomaly it is to actually find a skeleton in a tomb in Pompeii. Prior to Roman colonisation in 80 BC, inhumation was the standard Samnite / Italic form of burial. Graves such as these have been discovered, but they weren’t monumental structures built (primarily) above ground. With the Romans came monumental tomb building and cremation. After all, there are two sets of remains found in the tomb of Marcus Venerius Secundio that are cremated, deposited in urns, including that of Novia Amabilis. What this means is a large above ground tomb from the Roman colonial period containing a skeleton is unheard of in Pompeii.
The simple fact of a skeleton existing in a Pompeian tomb (regardless of its state of preservation) is the most incredible thing about this latest find. I hope someone else notices that.
Edited to add: A new video has been released by the Parco Archeologico di Pompei that shows more clearly the small vaulted chamber that contains the skeleton, which was hermetically sealed when excavated. This shows that this is, in fact, an intentional inhumation and reveals a new type of burial, never seen before in Pompeii.
Earlier this week it was announced that the Italian Ministry of Culture is planning to build a floor in the Colosseum. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the reaction from archaeologists and historians is a bit mixed. There is an understandable concern about the mechanisms of the floor and the impact on the structure. How the floor is integrated into the existing architecture is one issue, but the potential harm of the footfalls of the annual influx of six million tourists across the floor, or future structural changes necessary to host cultural events or re-enactments is also a necessary consideration. The official statements about the floor have attested to a low-impact and sustainable plan, going so far to say that the floor could be removed in the future with no lasting effect on the ancient remains. Their aim is to not only provide the view from the centre of the arena floor that those engaged in ancient games would have had, but also to allow the amphitheatre to be used for modern stagings. This is hardly a new or innovative idea: the theatres in Pompeii and Verona have been renovated and used in this manner for years. In the most general terms, as far as it is possible to discern from the limited information, this seem like a very good thing.
What surprised me was that a fair bit of the negative reaction to the plan is that there should be a floor at all, as if this will somehow diminish the experience of the Colosseum as a whole. I found this to be at odds with the design, which seems to be comprised of wooden slats that can be rotated and retracted, thus allowing a view into the hypogeum below, as well as to open the subterranean galleries up entirely.
A full video of how this will work, from which the above images were taken, can be viewed here.
Late on the day of the announcement I was contacted by TimesRadio for an interview about this. I had a very (very!) brief conversation with John Pienaar (somewhere around the one hour mark) about the way the subterranean level of the amphitheatre was used by the Romans. (And yes, of course Gladiator was referenced, but not by me.) Not knowing what I was going to be asked, I had a quick review of Colosseum facts, and this only furthered my consternation about objections to the idea of a floor. The Flavian Amphitheatre, as it was designed in the first century AD, had a floor. In fact, the floor existed for centuries, and it wasn’t until the early twentieth century that hundreds of years of debris and accumulated detritus were finally removed from the ancient floor and subterranean space of the hypogeum. In other words, the Colosseum has had a floor for significantly longer than it hasn’t had one.
The Colosseum was used, as originally intended, for about 500 years. The floor and the hypogeum were integral to putting on the gladiator contests, hunts of wild animals, and sea battles that were held there. The subterranean structures were, as I said on the radio, akin to the backstage elements of a modern theatre: scenery and props held at the ready, places for the next performer to wait (whether man or beast), utilising a series of trapdoors, cages, pulleys and weights, and tunnels connected to the gladiator barracks of the Ludus Maximus across the street, as well as to the stables for the animals. As with any large, heavily used building, there were repairs and alterations made at many points, some the result of the changing needs of those using the structure, some as a result of disasters like earthquakes and fire. A lightning strike caused a fire in AD 217, according to Dio Cassius (78.25), destroying upper levels of wooden seating that was not fully repaired for decades. The last record of repairs were for damage caused by an earthquake in 484, when the consul Decius Marius Venantius Basilius erected an inscription to record this work (CIL VI 1716). Gladiator fights were banned in the late 4th century and again in the 5th, but wild animal hunts continued well into the 6th century, when the consulship of Anicius Maximus was celebrated with such an event.
After that…. ? The bare bones of the Colosseum survive, but it is re-used and abused for centuries. It is rumoured it became a dumping ground for the bodies of criminal elements in the Middle Ages. One end housed a religious order from the mid-14th until the 19th century. There were workshops and a Christian shrine, and at one point, a fortress housed by nobles. The building itself was stripped, the spolia of travertine and marble used to build elsewhere, or burned to make quicklime. The bronze clamps holding the stonework together were also stripped for use. Another earthquake brought down the southern side of the building in the 14th century. This is why the Colosseum appears as it does today – no longer a gleaming white façade, pockmarked and scarred. In the 16th century the Church got interested, and tried to use the building for new purposes. Pope Sixtus V wanted to turn it into a wool factory to employ the prostitutes of the city, which I think unsurprisingly, failed. In the 17th century a cardinal suggested holding bullfights, but this was an unpopular suggestion. It was in the 18th century that the Colosseum was endorsed as a sacred site for Christians, with Pope Benedict XIV forbidding its continued use as a quarry and consecrating the building and including it in the Stations of the Cross, a tradition that still continues today as part of the processions held on Good Friday.
It wasn’t until the 19th century that interest in the Colosseum as an ancient artefact really took hold. It was then that the first works were undertaken to repair the structure, shoring up both the exterior walls and repairing the interior. This included the first attempts to clear the hypogeum, which had, in the intervening centuries, become well-documented for its abundance of different species of plants. From the first attempts to catalogue the flora, more than 600 types were identified. Eventually, this too was a concern, because of the destructive impact the vegetation had on the structure itself. And so, from the mid 1800s, any remaining bits of floor and the debris accumulated in the substructure were cleared. The project was finally completed in the 1930s during Mussolini’s push to reinvigorate Ancient Rome.
The Colosseum, as anyone has experienced it over the last century, is not what it was. Adding a floor is, in some ways, a small step towards repairing what is lost, and does offer a potential to use the space in a way it hasn’t been for centuries. Monuments are, as odd as it sounds, ever changing. I have been to the Colosseum enough times over the years to have been there when there was no flooring at all, when the hypogeum was closed to the public, and when the upper levels were forbidden. All of those things have changed since I first went to Rome in high school. More to the point, I keep comparing my memories of my visit down into the hypogeum (with the expert on the subject no less) to that of one to the other Flavian amphitheatre, the one in Pozzuoli. It has a floor. It has a similar substructure. Being in the enclosed space of that hypogeum, wandering in and out of the cells and cages, feeling a bit lost in the relative dark and small space, gave me a huge sense of what it was like to be down there two thousand years ago. I can’t help but think that experience is one worth replicating in Rome.
Like most of the world, it has been an unusually long time since I was last able to venture out to visit a museum. As everyone has come so much more reliant on the digital world in the last year, quite a few museums are making more effort to make their collections available online and open access. This is wonderful, whether you are looking for a specific object for the purposes of research, or just want a good browse. The potential then, to also have exhibits online, is increasing, and as such I thought it worth highlighting one currently available, not just for its content, but also in terms of navigability and ease of use.
Currently, the Uffizi Gallery is hosting an exhibit entitled: Imperatrici, matrone, liberte (Empresses, Matrons, Freedwomen: Portraits and Secrets of the Women of Ancient Rome) that offers a 360 degree virtual tour. (It does seem to have the ability to connect with a VR headset as well). It is relatively easy to navigate as a whole. Click on one of the circles on the floor of the room to move around, or on one of the markers next to the object for a link to its catalogue entry, as can be seen in this image (tip: at the top of the webpage is an option to change between Italian and English in the catalogue). The information boards are in Italian and English and it is possible to navigate closely so that they may be read. A short film running on the wall of the second room has a link to the video on YouTube.
The exhibit covers the first two centuries of Imperial rule and comprises three parts: negative examples of women who defy the expectation of the matron, the model of proper Roman womanhood as exemplified by women of the Imperial family and ordinary women emulating that ideal, and finally the public acts of euergetism, patronage, and service in a religious context that members of the ruling family undertook. The two rooms housing the exhibit are filled with portrait busts, tombstones, manuscripts, and drawings. Some of the items (particularly the manuscripts) are not linked to any further information, which is slightly frustrating as it is not entirely clear why they are included. As far as I can tell, the pages on display are drawings ranging from the 16th to 18th century of the objects themselves, both as studies of the artwork and as records of past displays in the museum. Drawings contained in the second room are plans and illustrations of many of the buildings commissioned by Imperial women.
I think my favourite thing about this small collection is that there are two acts of erasure on display, but for very different reasons. The first is a damnatio memoriae. I’ve written previously about this kind of erasure in terms of the condemnation of figures from the ancient and early modern past. In the first instance, the altar of a young Junia Procula contains this kind of alteration. The name of her mother has been removed from the third line of the dedicatory inscription (CIL VI 20905):
Dis Manibus / Iuniae M(arci) f(iliae) Proculae vix(it) ann(os) VIII m(enses) XI d(ies) V miseros / patrem et matrem in luctu reliqui<t> fecit M(arcus) Iuniu[s M(arci) l(ibertus)?] / Euphrosynus sibi et [- – -]e. Tu sine filiae et parent{i}um in u[no ossa] / requ(i)escant quidquid nobis feceris idem tibi speres mihi crede tu tibi testis [eris].
‘To the Manes of Junia Procula, daughter of Marcus, lived 8 years, 11 months and 5 days, leaving her ill-starred parents to mourn. Marcus Junius Euphrosinus, [freedman of Marcus?] made (this) for himself and [[for Junia Acte]]. May the bones of the daughter and of the parents rest together. May you hope that what you have done to us be done also unto you. Believe me, you yourself [will be] witness to this.’
On the reverse of the altar, there is a clue as to why the name of Junia’s mother was erased:
Hic stigmata aeterna Acte libertae scripta sunt vene/nariae et perfidae dolosae duri pectoris clav<o>m et restem / sparteam ut sibi collum alliget et picem candentem / pectus malum com<b>urat suum. Manumissa grati(i)s / secuta adulterum patronum circumscripsit et / ministros ancillam et puerum lecto iacenti / patrono abduxit ut animo desponderet solus / relictus spoliatus senex. E(t) Hymno {f}<e>ade(m) sti(g)m(a)ta / secutis / Zosimum.
‘Let what is written stand as an everlasting curse on freedwoman Atte, evil and heartless poisoner and deceiver: let nails and a cordgrass rope bind her neck and boiling pitch burn her wicked breast. She was released without payment, not against her will, and left with her lover; she tricked her master and while he lay in bed, ill, she took away his maid and the young slave who assisted him, causing such pain that the old man, left alone, abandoned and robbed, lost heart. Let the same curse also fall on Imno and on those who followed Zosimus.’
This is, for all intents and purposes, a defexio, which was not a common thing to appear on a tomb. More to the point, being able to be read by another negates the efficacy of the curse, so that displaying it in this way is more about a public condemnation than a private desire for revenge. I can think of only one other (though less explicit) example of a funerary curse in the secondary inscription on the tomb of Publius Vesonius Phileros in Pompeii.
The second is a change in name, visible on the fragmentary dedication of a temple in Terracina. Originally put up by Livia and her son Tiberius sometime during the years between his ascension to the principate (AD 14) and her death (AD 29), the temple was rededicated and the inscription altered during the reign of Claudius. At this time, having been deified by her grandson, Livia was erased, and Diva Augusta carved in its place. As the Uffizi holds only a cast, it is much more clear in the original inscription (CIL 10.6309), held by the Museo Archeologico Nazionale Firenze.
Ironically, there is also an erasure/addition in the epitaph of Publius Vesonius Phileros, who added a new title as well, in his case he became an Augustalis.
Small though it is, this exhibit does encapsulate an impressive and varied collection of materials that present a brief glimpse into the many ways women were presented in the early years of the Imperial period. As an online tour, it works quite well, and I would be happy to see more of this type of thing in the future, not only because of ongoing lockdowns and travel bans, but because of the opportunity to visit, even virtually, many more exhibits around the world.
When I wrote a post last month about approaches to women’s history, I included as an image a wall painting from Pompeii that depicts an all female dinner party. I chose it simply for the lack of men present, but I wanted to return to it briefly, as there is much about it that intrigues me. It’s possible I have encountered this particular painting in past visits to the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, but it didn’t grab my attention until I saw it in 2019 as part of the Ashmolean’s Last Supper in Pompeiiexhibit.
From 1.13.18, MANN inv. 9016.
The depiction of a convivium – a Roman dinner party – in wall paintings is hardly unusual. There are many versions of this from across Pompeii, Herculaneum, and elsewhere. Archaeologists and historians have picked many of these images apart, looking at textiles, drinking vessels, postures, the arrangement of bodies, and the composition of the dinner party. I suspect that mixed company is the standard, as is seen in this fresco, not coincidentally found in the same building as the one above.
From 1.13.18, MANN inv. 9015.
Here we have two couples reclining on triclinia, the standard expectation for Roman dining. Evidence from literary sources leaves some debate about the position women took – either sitting upright (Valerius Maximus 2.1.2) or reclined as men (Cic. Att. 5.1), with some suggestion that those reclining were of lower social or legal status. This does not seem to be the case in the painting of only women, where figures are sitting, standing, and at least two are reclining, seen to the left and slightly behind the woman playing an aulos.
The richness of silver vessels, the fabrics and soft furnishings throughout the room, the clothing and hair accessories, and the overall ambiance cannot be denied. This very clearly depicts women at leisure, engaged in the same kind of otium that was very much part of the elite aristocratic male norm. The wealth of the women shown here is also evident in the pair of slaves, watching the scene from behind a curtain.
They may seem ambiguous at a quick glance, simply another pair of women who are at this party. However, their matching dresses, hairtsyles, headbands, and bracelets are more akin to a kind of uniform, indicating these women are most likely slaves of the household. I find this detail extraordinary: there are often attendants or observers in the background of wall paintings, but I cannot think of another example that is this clear in ascribing servile status to those depicted.
Finally, what I find even more intriguing about both these dining scenes, is their location in what has been identified as the Fullonica of Sestius Venustus, (I.3.15-16, 18) on the Vicolo del Menandro. Originally excavated in phases in the mid 19th century, this is a series of small interconnected workshops that were likely some combination of fullers and dyers. Two of the structures contain evidence for large hearths/furnaces, and tubs built atop podiums that could have been used in the process of cleaning or dying clothing. There is, of course, some issue with the designation of the name of the shop – Matteo Della Corte originially claimed CIL IV 1082 was a dipinto naming Sestius Venustus, which has subsequently been re-edited as Segius Venustus Ofnoedn. Regardless of who, the what does seem fairly clear, as the archaeological remains do seem indicative of textile work, and this is a neighbourhood littered with small workshops and shops. Furthermore, whilst it is not unusual by any means to find a workshop or fullery with a detailed decorative scheme (see, for example, the Fullonica of Stephanus), it does seem a little odd to find depictions of what appear to be quite lavish convivia in what is an otherwise rather plain space. Apart from some block colouring in a niche, likely a lararium, in the adjacent structure (doorway 15), no other decoration or finds are recorded. They seem out of place somehow. The choice of images could be indicative of certain aspirations for a non-working life, where the owner was engaged in more otium than laundry. Perhaps the buildings have been mis-identified and were involved with food production rather than fullery. Or maybe, the commissioner simply got stuck in the dining section of the painter’s selection book. In any case, the choice of an all female dining party remains unusual, and that in and of itself makes this notable.
Addendum: As was pointed out to me on Twitter, this painting could also refer to Menander’s Synaristosai, which is often translated alternately as ‘Women lunching together’ or ‘Women at breakfast,’ and has been depicted in mosaics, one of which was found in the so-called villa of Cicero in Pompeii.
Women at a dinner party from the Fullonica of Sestius Venustus, I.3.18.
On this, the last day of Women’s History Month, it seems an opportune time to consider something about how we approach women in ancient history and archaeology. I am hardly one who would normally consider myself an expert on gender studies, nor am I well versed in the appropriate theory. But that certainly doesn’t prevent women from appearing in my research, sometimes quite prominently, and when they do, I often find myself disappointed, if not a bit enraged by the results. I have often said there are certain areas of study where logic seems to fly out the window and this is certainly one of them – assumptions are made (not exclusively by male scholars I should add) – about how women would have behaved, their importance or influence in ancient life, and their ability to have agency. In my work on Pompeii, I have encountered this time and again in regards to funerary commemoration, the epigraphic record, especially in regards to the ability or to read and write graffiti, and in political engagement to name just a few areas.
Take, for example, Naevoleia Tyche, a woman I wrote about extensively in my first book. She and her husband have two separate tombs on opposite sides of the city. The conclusion has always been that he died first, and she, being the stereotypical nouveau riche freedwoman, wasn’t happy with the fairly humble structure and built her own more lavish tomb. Except if you crawl around the back (careful – brambles!) of the monument built by her husband, you discover that it was built as a single structure with the neighbouring tomb, its twin in design, that belongs to a fellow member of the Augustales. Add in the award of a civic honour to the husband, and the interpretation changes entirely. She is not a dissatisfied upwardly mobile bitch: her husband probably honoured an agreement with his friend in building the first tomb, and then the other was built to include his new honours and establish a more substantial (and yes, status grabbing) monument for their heirs. As the tombs were built in the same decade, it is just as likely he was involved as he wasn’t. It is impossible to know, but the assumption, which is more likely than not based on more modern ideas about women and wealth, remains nonetheless. And this irks me.
In the back of my mind somewhere there is, therefore, this sort of constant niggling thought about how to do better when it comes to presenting the women of antiquity, and I admit I have struggled at times to do it as I would like, both in my research and my teaching. Occasionally though, there are moments in research where you have a half formed idea about a theory or an approach, and then you come across something that helps it all fall into place. It is revelatory – a moment of clarity – allowing you to not only move forward with your research, but also changing your thinking in a significant way. For me, this happened last year with the nearly simultaneous reading of two books on Roman women: Anise K. Strong’s Prostitutes and Matrons in the Roman World (2016) and Sarah Levin-Richardson’s The Brothel of Pompeii (2019), the latter of which I read in part for a review in the Journal of Roman Studies.
It might seem obvious to suggest these two books intersect significantly. After all, they are both fundamentally concerned with prostitution in the Roman world. But it is not necessarily the subject that is important here, but rather the method by which the topic is approached. Both scholars are logical. They approach the evidence as evidence, and evaluate it for what it is. I realise that sounds like what we, as researchers are supposed to do, but it doesn’t always happen that way, especially when it comes to women. For example, there are a large number of women whose names appear in the electoral dipintiof Pompeii. Henrik Mouritsen has dismissed them repeatedly as insignificant. Women can’t vote, so have no role to play in politics. He doesn’t really provide a decent explanation for why women would be involved in the programmata, and does not appear to think they are even worth mentioning in an attempt to understand the political life of Pompeii. He all but erases them. In his effort to document the graffiti of the city, Matteo Della Corte decided that if a woman’s name appeared in a graffito, she was most likely a prostitute. If her name appeared more than once (even though, due to the nature of graffiti, it might not actually be the same individual) she was definitely a whore. Never mind the fact that women did inscribe graffiti themselves, and could have signed her own name in the same way countless men did.
Logic, therefore, hasn’t always been applied.
For both Strong and Levin-Richardson, however, logic is the rule. This is not only a hugely refreshing change in scholarship, but to my mind, is the way forward. Strip back the ideas that have been formed over the last two hundred years, and start from the beginning. Look at the evidence as evidence, not as evidence for women or prostitutes or whatever category it may be. Go where that leads.
The brothel in Pompeii is, without doubt, one of the most popular buildings for tourists to visit in the city. It is presented by guides as a dark and narrow space, with small, uncomfortable masonry beds, erotic graffiti scratched into the walls by bored men waiting their turn, and titillating paintings of sex acts, a menu of sorts, providing options over each doorway. (And if you doubt this is still the case, my dad got into an argument with a guide we overheard relaying such nonsense.) One could argue this is for tourists alone, but many scholars have repeated similar claims. The brothel has been described as dark and seedy, the paintings as obscene, the beds as small and indicative of the lowest kind of establishment. Levin-Richardson has shown quite the opposite by evaluating the evidence for what it is, not where it is. Removed from the context of a place selling sex, the masonry couches are bigger than the average found in houses in Pompeii and elsewhere in the Greek and Roman world. They are bigger, indeed, than many dining couches meant to hold three reclining adults. The majority of the graffiti does not contain any sexual or erotic content. The frescoes are heteronormative, male-female pairs engaged in genital to genital (no oral or anal) sex, with the women’s breasts obscured by linens or breast bands. The material finds of razors and basins and cups suggest drinking, possible food consumption, and grooming. This isn’t a den of inequity. It is, in Levin-Richardson’s words a ‘carefully curated sexual universe’ that was more about selling a sexual experience than sex. It was, she concludes, likely a failed business model and probably the reason that this structure, although held as the exemplum of a Roman brothel, is the only one of its kind.
Strong takes a larger view of women and sex – not just focusing on paid sex workers, but on the relationship Romans had with sex and sexuality both in and out of the home. This a wide ranging approach, considering moral and legal standpoints in addition to the material remains. She too is logical, approaching the evidence in a manner that allows her to (I think quite successfully) dismantle some long held scholarly interpretations of the ancient evidence. The seemingly ubiquitousness of sexual activity in wall paintings – whether in a brothel, bath house, or private home – have staunchly been viewed as depicting prostitutes rather than husbands and wives or any other possible pairing in what she refers to as ‘an unfortunate legacy of nineteenth-century prudishness.’ Consider that there are no known images of prostitutes that survive: there was no clear visual distinctions between prostitutes and matrons for Romans, it was a moral one. Therefore, the standard view that any paintings of fully clothed women are wives and any semi-nude or naked are whores, regardless of context or location cannot hold true. Strong also does a comprehensive job of dispelling ideas about sexual behaviours and moral zoning. She details the many ways ancient literature informs us that matrons and prostitutes did interact. Livy’s account of the Bacchanalian affair, for example, includes the prostitute Hispala Faecenia being housed in the house of Sulpicia whilst the cult is investigated. That upper-class Roman women were sheltered or somehow removed from sex outside of the marriage bed is also problematic. Ovid, for example, claims he wrote Ara Amatoria for meretrices (1.31-4), but that cannot be meant literally. (As Strong says: ‘‘He cannot be alleging that his audience consists of impoverished illiterate streetwalkers.’) The elegists wrote of extra-marital affairs with proper Roman matrons, which goes against everything modern scholars assume about this category of women. This is why Strong says that ‘[e]ven if the women themselves are imaginary characters, the invention of an entire fictional category of women for poets to make socially acceptable love with seems implausible.’ That this type of poetry existed suggests that Romans were more fluid in their understanding and tolerance of sexual relationships than we allow them to be.
Her take on the concept of identifying brothels is also… well… logical. What do brothels need? Not the masonry beds, sexual images, and erotic graffiti that Andrew Wallace Hadrill and others have used to identify brothels. Brothels need to be centrally located to attract clientele, preferably with multiple access points, and a reliable source of water. The brothel in Pompeii certainly fits this model – Levin-Richardson even identifies nearby public fountains and imagines the collection of water as a way for the prostitutes to drum up business or take a break – as do a number of other sites Strong identifies. She points out that both Cicero and Frontinus complain about public water being siphoned off by brothels (Cic. Cael. 34; Frontinus de Aqua. 76.1-2), and illustrates through other literary sources that brothels were central, and generally not shame inducing for male clients to use. The former characteristics used for identification are rightly dismissed as unnecessary. A bed isn’t a pre-requisite for sex. Water for washing afterwards is. Logic.
There is, of course, much more that could be said about the content of these books. Ultimately though, they represent so much more than the sum of their research. The manner in which Levin-Richardson and Strong evaluate evidence, removed from the burden of nineteenth and twentieth century interpretations, and see it for the sake of itself, is startling in its approach. It shouldn’t be, but it is. I think that this is why I found reading the books together transformative, because they simultaneously reinforced just how badly the study of women in antiquity has ofttimes been done, and at the same time, present a way forward. I, for one, will happily follow in their footsteps.
News broke over the weekend of an exciting and unique new find in Pompeii, an intact chariot of a type that has no parallels in the known remains of Roman Italy. The vehicle was discovered in conjunction with the ongoing excavations in the villa di Civita Giuliana. Located to the north of the city walls, this villa was partially excavated at the beginning of the twentieth century, but has only recently become the subject of more detailed recovery work. This is the result of an ongoing joint project which was conceived as a reaction to illegal tunnels dug through the property by antiquities black marketeers – indeed, it is sheer luck that one of the looter’s tunnels only just misses the latest discovery. There have been numerous finds coming out of these excavations, including the skeletons of three horses complete with harnesses (2018) in a stable block, and more recently, the remains of two male victims of the eruption (2020).
Late last year archaeologists discovered a double porticoed room leading into an open courtyard adjacent to the stable where the remains of the horses were previously found. An oak beamed ceiling, carbonised and preserved by the eruption, was found in the same room as the chariot. The preservation is stunning: mineralised wood (identified as beech), imprints of organic material (created by injecting plaster into cavities), iron wheels, metal arm and back rests, and decorative elements of tin and bronze. This is an incredibly rich object with red and black painted wood panels that alternate along the sides of the structure with engraved bronze sheets, which are further enhanced by tin medallions depicting figures. Organic material reveal traces of cushions, ropes that would have held garlands of flowers, and two sheafs of wheat imprinted in the ash on the seat of the carriage.
Aspects of the decoration, the design of the chariot, and the traces of organic material are currently fueling the scholarly debate as to how these should be interpreted, and the exact purpose of the vehicle. It has been identified as a pilentum, a specific kind of four wheeled carriage used by women. Livy (5.25.7) refers to the use of pilenta by women for festivals and games, whereas the standard two wheeled carpenta was for use on holy and work days. No other remains of a pilentum have been attested in archaeological contexts in Italy, but some comparison may be drawn to other artefacts such as this statuette of the goddess Cybele. The wheatsheafs, along with the use of this type of vehicle for festivals, has led to some speculation that it may have been used by a priestess in processions related to the worship of Ceres or Venus. As the resident patron deity of the city, Venus did have her own public priestesses, and her celebration would have been foremost in the local religious calendar. Ceres is another popular goddess in Pompeii, with numerous priestesses attested epigraphically who were dedicated to her cult. The presence of stalks of wheat in the chariot at the time it was buried in volcanic debris could indicate a link to Ceres, as she was the goddess of fertility and all things agricultural. What a festival for her might look like, and more to the point, where a procession might lead in the city is more difficult to assess. Ceres is one of many of the gods who are present in the written record of Pompeii, but for whom no temple has ever been ascribed.
The erotic images – visible on two of the three large medallions – have created further debate as to interpretation. In comparison to other known images (from Pompeii and elsewhere), there are what appears to be two pairs of lovers: one male-male and one male-female. These have also been refered to as typical of depictions of satyrs and maenads, particularly in reference to other works of art where the maenad is attempting to escape the embrace of a satyr. The smaller medallions on the chariot are described as cupids engaged in various activities, again something seen frequently in Pompeii, especially in dividing registers in wall paintings. It may never be clear which of these two interpretations is correct, but we can hope that restoration work as yet to be carried out may offer some clarity, particularly if the third image can be recreated. Regardless, the inclusion of erotic images in the decorative scheme (what Anise K. Strong referred to as akin to ‘pornographic bumper stickers’) has led to the idea that the chariot was of a type used not in a religious procession, but in a matrimonial one.
The most recognisable and most important event of a Roman wedding ceremony was in all likelihood the procession of the bride from her home to that of the groom, the domum deductio. The procession served as a public demonstration of the wedding, with the bride serving as the key participant, since the groom did not necessarily have to be present. Elements of the wedding took place primarily in the home, first the bride’s, then culminating with her acceptance into the home of the groom, and as such were not wholly subject to public display. The procession, however, was, and for those who were able to afford it, could include the use of a chariot such as this one. The combination of erotic images, ropes for garlands of flowers, the symbolism of fertility inherent in the wheatsheafs, and the richness of the vehicle overall does lend some credence to the idea of the chariot used in a wedding procession.
There will undoubtedly be a slew of new information still to come as work continues on the chariot. Iconography aside, it is an important discovery for better understanding the technology of ancient Roman vehicles and how they worked, and is currently the only known example of a pilentum from Roman Italy. Excavation work in this villa over the last several years has revealed a significant number of new finds, which are not only expanding our knowledge of the volcanic event, but also provide insight into numerous aspects of life in Pompeii and the broader Roman world.
My first thought upon reading the news was, perhaps predictably, not of the uniqueness of the chariot, but of a particular graffito:
CIL IV 5092 Amoris ignes sentires mulio magi(s) properares ut videres Venerem diligo puerum venustum rogo punge iamus bibisti iamus prende lora et excute Pompeios defer ubi dulcis est amor / meus es. ‘Driver, if only you could feel the fires of love, you would hurry more to enjoy the pleasures of Venus. I love a young charmer; please, spur on the horses, let’s get on! You’ve had your drink, let’s go, take the reins and crack the whip, take me to Pompeii, where my sweet love lives.’
I’d like to imagine the eager writer of this text arriving at their lover’s door in such a chariot.
Pompeian Connections 