Pompeii history study. The death of Pompeii - a punishment or a tragic accident

Pompeii is an ancient Roman city in southern Italy near Naples. As you know, Pompeii was buried under a multi-meter layer of ash during the eruption in 79. Nowadays the city is a huge museum under open air, included in the List since 1997 World Heritage UNESCO.

The city was founded by the Osci in the 6th century. The name of the city comes from the Oscan pumpe - five, since the city was formed by the merger of five smaller settlements. In Roman times, the division into five electoral districts remained. Another version of the origin of the name is Greek, from the word pompe - triumphal procession.

According to this legend, the city was founded by Hercules, who, after defeating Geryon, solemnly walked through these places. IN different time the city was owned by the Greeks, Etruscans and Samnites. In 310 BC. Pompeii became an ally of the Roman Republic as an autonomous, self-governing city.

In 90-88 BC. the city takes part in the revolt against Rome.

In 89 BC. Consul Sula took the city, limited its autonomy and made it a colony of Rome. The city occupied an important place on the trade route between and Southern Italy. Many noble Romans had villas on the territory of Pompeii. A high-profile event was the massacre between the inhabitants of Pompeii and Nuceria in 59 during the gladiatorial games. An ordinary fight between fans turned into a bloodbath. As a result, games were banned in Pompeii for 3 years.

Tickets

Entrance ticket to the archaeological complex of Pompeii costs 15 euros. For visitors under 18 years of age, admission is free, but you must show a document confirming your age.

• We recommend buying tickets in advance online only at official ticket offices ticketone.it
  See registration on the website.

How to get from Naples on your own

You can get to Pompeii on your own from Naples, by bus or rented car. We recommend options with public transport (in the south of Italy it travels according to mood and not regularly), only to the most experienced travelers with time to spare and a great desire to save money. Let's look at all the methods in detail:

By rented car

If you are traveling through small towns in Italy on your own, then you can come to Pompeii by personal transport - Of the independent options, it is the most convenient. Parking near the archaeological zone will cost approximately 5 euros per hour. We recommend reading about the features of car rental in Italy and choosing the best option on our website

• You will need:

By train

In Naples, Napoli Porta Nolana and Napoli P. Garibaldi stations have direct trains Circumvesuviana (literally translated “Around Vesuvius”) - of the options, public transport is the only one we can recommend. Here is a link to the schedule. You need to get off at Pompei Scravi Villa dei Misteri station– it is located almost next to the ticket office. The drive is approximately 30 minutes.

Tickets can be purchased in advance online at the ticket office ots.eavsrl.it/web/public/ots/ticket/index

Choose the Napoli-Sorrento line and ticket to Villa Misteri, date and number of passengers. Click Avanti. Please note that the site is also available in English, the switch on the right is the British flag.

Electric trains depart in the morning from 09:06 and 11:36.

To visit Pompeii you need to allocate at least 2 hours. You can also take this line to . From Pompeii back to Naples the train leaves at 17:18, a round-trip ticket costs 11 euros, there are no discounts for children.

Trenitalia companies depart from Naples Central Station towards Pompei station approximately every 30 minutes. The ticket costs 2.80 euros one way. If the train arrives on schedule and there are no stops, the travel time will be 38 minutes. Be prepared for frequent stops, proximity to gypsies and various beggars.

The station is located about 3 kilometers from the entrance to the archaeological park, so it makes sense to wait for bus 004 (possibly N50) and take it 3 stops.

Google advises looking at the schedule on the website of the official carrier http://www.fsbusitaliacampania.it, but, for example, in the schedule of bus 4 I don’t see the Mazzini stop. Apparently it’s easier to ask the locals upon arrival, they should help. We will be grateful if someone shares their adventure experience in the comments.

By bus

According to information from Google, direct buses N5000 and N5020 from SITAsud go to the archaeological complex relatively regularly from Naples - I do not recommend this option, since there is no real schedule or prices on the carrier’s website. To complete the picture, let's consider this method.

The Via Ferraris Galileo bus stop in Naples is located about a kilometer from Napoli Centrale station.

Bus tickets should cost 10 euros and can be purchased at:

• BAR ETTORE, PIAZZA GARIBALDI 95
• Inside Napoli Centrale station look for EDICOLA NUMBER ONE HUDSON NEWS
• ARPANET, corso Arnaldo Lucci, 163
• BIGLIETTERIA NAPOLI CAPOLINEA, PIAZZALE IMMACOLATELLA VECCHIA 1
• BAR DEL PORTO, VIA C OLIVARES ANG. VIA CAMPO D'ISOLA 26
• BAR TIRAMISU’, Napoli – Corso Lucci

What to see

Here are the attractions of Pompeii that are recommended to be visited during the tour:

1. Temple of Apollo - one of the oldest temples ancient city dedicated Greek god Apollo. The first mention of the shrine dates back to the eighth century BC, which is also confirmed by archaeological excavations. Now we can only imagine and speculate, but most likely on the site of the current ruins there was first an altar, and only a hundred or two hundred years later (they were in no hurry to build before) the main building was built. Today, of the majestic colonnade containing 28 columns, only two have survived. Also, two millennia later, in the internal niches of the temple we can observe frescoes with scenes from the Trojan War.
2. Refugee Garden
3. Great Palaestra
4. Temple of Jupiter
5. Amphitheater
6. Street of Plenty
7. Thermal Baths
8. Venus's house in the shell
9. Thermopolis
10. Bolshoi and Maly Theater
11. Gladiator Barracks Triangular Forum
12. Lupanarium
13. Forum
14. Eumachia building
15. Temple of Vespasian
16. Market
17. House of the Faun
18. House of the Small Fountain
19. Basilica

Visiting architectural monuments with a good guide will allow you to temporarily immerse yourself in the ancient world and touch its secrets.

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Perhaps everyone knows about the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 and the destruction of the city of Pompeii. The layers of ash and magma that covered Pompeii preserved entire houses, not to mention trees, people, and animals. Now it is possible not only to see what the same city of Pompeii looked like 2000 years ago, but also to reconstruct the course of the 19-hour volcanic eruption. However, not everything is still known about what happened on that distant August day during the reign. Thanks to modern science scientists are putting forward more and more new versions about true reasons terrible tragedy.

The first harbinger of the disaster was the earthquake in 63. It turned the area around Vesuvius into a desert and destroyed part of Pompeii. Over time, passions subsided, fear passed, and the city was rebuilt again. No one could have imagined that an even more terrible fate awaited people.

Eruption of Mount Vesuvius

It all started at one o'clock in the afternoon on August 24th. With a terrible roar, the top of the volcano opened up, a column of smoke rose above it and clouds of ash flew, which could even reach the regions of Rome. A real downpour of stones and ash fell from the sky with noise and roar, eclipsing the sun. Frightened people fled from the city. Then streams of lava poured out of the volcano. The city of Herculaneum, closest to Vesuvius, was flooded by avalanches of mud formed from ash, water and lava. Rising, they filled the entire city, flowing into windows and doors. Almost no one managed to escape.

The neighboring city of Pompeii did not see any dirt. At first, clouds of ash fell on him, which seemed to be easy to shake off, but then pieces of porous lava and pumice, several kilograms each, began to fall. In the first hours, quite a lot of residents may have managed to leave the city. However, when most people realized what they were in danger of, it was already too late. Sulfur fumes descended on the city, making it difficult to breathe. The townspeople died either under the blows of falling lava, or simply suffocated.

48 hours later the sun shone again. However, the city of Pompeii had ceased to exist by that time. Everything within a radius of 80 km was destroyed. The lava solidified and turned into stone again. The ashes even carried to Africa, Syria, and Egypt. And above Vesuvius there was only a thin column of smoke.

Excavation results, description of the tragedy

Centuries later, when excavations were carried out at the site of Pompeii, many fossilized statues were recovered - victims of that eruption. Scientists managed to find out why they survived. It’s as if nature took care of future archaeologists. Immediately after the eruption, a powerful, hot downpour rained down on the vicinity of Vesuvius, turning the ash into mud, which reliably covered the bodies. Subsequently, this dirt turned into a kind of cement. The flesh that was drenched in it gradually decomposed, but the volume that it once occupied remained hollow inside the hardened substance.

1777 - for the first time, not just a skeleton was found at the Villa Diomede, but also an imprint of the body under it, but only in 1864 did the head of the excavations, Giuseppe Fiorolli, figure out how to restore the appearance of the deceased. Having tapped the surface and discovered the cavity that remained from the decomposed body, archaeologists made a small hole and poured liquid plaster into it. Filling the cavern, he created a cast that accurately conveyed the dying pose of the Pompeian.

This method allowed us to recover hundreds human bodies: in some cases, the hairstyles of the victims, the folds of their clothes and even facial expressions are clearly visible, thanks to which we can imagine in great detail last minutes life of an unhappy city. The casts captured all the horror and despair of that distant catastrophe, forever stopping the moment: to this day, a woman holds a baby in her arms, and two girls cling to the hems of her clothes. A young man and woman lie side by side, as if they had just fallen while running. And outside the northern walls of the city, some unfortunate person loses his balance, in vain tugging at the goat's leash.

Everywhere, death instantly overtook many people. In the house of a certain Quintus Poppaeus, 10 slaves fell dead while climbing the stairs to the upper chambers; the one going first held a bronze lamp. In the house of Publius Pacuvius Proculus, seven children were crushed when the second floor collapsed, unable to withstand the weight of the lava. In the building where the wine trade was carried out, 34 people took refuge under the vaulted ceiling, taking bread and fruit with them to wait out the eruption, but they could not get out. In one country estate, 18 adults and 2 children died in the cellar, and the owner of the estate, clutching a silver key in his hand, died outside the house at the garden gate overlooking the fields. Next to him was a manager who carried the owner’s money and other valuables.

In Menander's house, the owners fled, leaving the gatekeeper to guard the property. The old man lay down in his closet by the door and died, clutching his master's purse to his chest. At the Nukeria Gate a beggar begged for alms - they gave him small change and gave him brand new sandals, but he could no longer go anywhere in them. A tied dog was forgotten in the House of Vesonia Prima. The dog climbed up through the ash and pumice as long as the length of the chain allowed.

50 gladiators remained in the barracks forever, two were chained to the wall. But among them there was also someone from completely different social strata: she was a woman, apparently rich and noble. The bones that remained from her were decorated with pearls, rings and other jewelry. Was it a generous benefactor who took care of several fighters at once and was caught dead during a routine visit to her charges? Or was she visiting her lover that fateful night? We will never know anything about this mysterious story.

There are many touching facts about the Pompeians, frozen forever in 79, that can be told. Some of the bodies are on display for tourists in Pompeii’s “Garden of the Fugitives,” but most are kept in the storerooms of the museum there.

Why did the inhabitants of Pompeii die?

It was traditionally believed that the death of all Pompeians was long and painful: they inhaled ash, which turned into a kind of cement in their lungs, blocking their breathing. But relatively recently, a group of Naples volcanologists led by Giuseppe Mastrolorenzo questioned this theory. They concluded that the victims did not thrash about, did not suffocate or gasp for air - they were instantly killed by the pyroclastic flow.

According to volcanologists' calculations, Vesuvius ejected six such streams one after another. The first three stopped short of reaching the city, located 4.5 km from the base of the volcano. It was they who destroyed all life in neighboring Herculaneum, Stabiae and the seaside town of Oplontis, which had the misfortune of being located a little closer to Vesuvius (and which, alas, are rarely remembered as victims of that disaster). But the death of Pompeii came from the fourth wave 18 m high, rushing at a speed modern car(approximately 104 km/h) and covered the city with hot gas. Everything lasted no more than a minute, perhaps even less. But this was enough for hundreds of people to die instantly.

Scientists examined the remains of 650 Pompeians and compared them with 37 skeletons discovered at Oplontis and 78 from Herculaneum. Based on the color and structure of the bones, they calculated that the inhabitants of Herculaneum and Oplontis died from a pyroclastic flow with a temperature of 500–600 °C, and the Pompeians died from a flow that was colder: 250–300 °C. In the first case, people were instantly burned to the bones, but in the second, they were not. Therefore, in Herculaneum there was no intact human flesh left, which, being covered with ash, would then create a cavity, as happened with the Pompeians.

But what then explains the fact that most of the inhabitants of Pompeii, as can be seen in their plaster casts, have their mouths gaping wide? After all, this is what made it possible to attribute their death to suffocation in the first place. Volcanologists answer that this is cataleptic rigor. The unfortunate people froze in those positions in which they were unexpectedly overtaken by a wave of hot gas. And in fact, a sharp muscle spasm stopped many of them from moving, for example, in a running position, but a person who is short of breath cannot run. According to Mastrolorenzo, the victim's open mouth is a final cry of pain, not a desire to breathe; hands raised to the face are the result of a convulsive spasm, and not protection from the ash.

Why did everyone always explain the poses of the unfortunate people as suffocation? Exclusively thanks to the convincing story of the Roman historian Pliny the Younger, who reported in letters to Tacitus about the death of his uncle, Pliny the Elder, during the eruption. At the time of the eruption, he and his family were in the port of the Gulf of Naples near Pompeii. Pliny the Elder, admiral of the Roman fleet, headed the squadron to the dying cities.

Soon he reached the nearest one - Stabius. However, as soon as the admiral and his team went ashore, a poisonous sulfur cloud enveloped the coast. Pliny the Younger wrote: “The uncle stood up, leaning on two slaves, and immediately fell... I think because the thick fumes took his breath away. When I returned daylight, his body was found completely intact, dressed as he was; he looked more like someone sleeping than someone dead.” The rescuers died of suffocation, and 2,000 refugees died with them. But the fact is that in Pompeii, archaeologists rarely find bodies in Pliny’s pose; most of those remaining in the city were actively engaged in something at the time of death.

Life and everyday life in the city of Pompeii before the disaster

It is noteworthy that in Pompeii, a month before the volcanic eruption, elections of local magistrates were held, and a variety of electoral appeals were preserved on the walls of houses. Among them, few express the wishes of individuals, but the vast majority look like this:

“Gaius Cuspius Pansa is proposed as an aedile by all master jewelers,” “Please, make Trebius an aedile, he is being nominated by confectioners,” “Marcus Golconius Prisca and Gaius Gaius Rufus are proposed by Phoebus as a duumvir with their regular customers.” The sign uniting the authors of the inscription could be the strangest: “Vatia is offered to the aedile, united, all lovers of sleep” or: “Gaia Julia Polybius - to the duumvirs. A lover of academic pursuits, and with him a baker.”

The artists were artisans who, interestingly, worked in a “team method”: some made the mortar and paints, others created the base for the fresco, and still others painted it. Experts today learned that the Pompeians mixed paints with water to create different shades on the wall, which was still damp from fresh plaster. After this, the painting was polished with stone rollers. Due to the fact that the frescoes have survived to this day, scientists have come to the conclusion that the Pompeians had 4 different styles of wall painting in their arsenal.

In the 3rd century BC. e. They applied plaster to the sandstone, which they then painted to create a colored background for the wall, and only after that they applied the design. If in 85-80 BC. e. portrayed real people, then in the 30s images already appeared on the walls literary heroes. A little later they switched to decor reminiscent of impressionist paintings. What’s interesting: after the volcanic eruption, similar frescoes were never repeated anywhere else.

The mosaics of the Pompeii are especially fascinating. It was made of glass or ceramics. Moreover, mosaics played not only an aesthetic, but also a functional role in homes. For example, “messages” were laid out on mosaic floors. If a figure of a dog was placed at the entrance, this could indicate the wealth of the owner of the house, and the “dog” was called upon to guard this wealth.

There were quite a lot of mosaics in the houses and baths of the city residents. 1831 - archaeologists found a mosaic panel made of one and a half million cubes! We are talking about a mosaic that depicts him leading a duel with the Persian king Darius. Alex Barbe believes that this panel was located in the villa of a very rich resident of Pompeii, since his bathhouse, also completely decorated with mosaics, was nearby. Fountains were also decorated in the same way - both in the city and in the gardens of the rich.

The salons for receiving guests were especially skillfully decorated. There could be several of them. The refectory was organized in the Greek style: there are three beds with pillows arranged in a semi-oval. They accepted treats while reclining. In such a dining room there were usually three doors, two of which were intended exclusively for servants.

The inhabitants of Pompeii were known in the ancient world as great food lovers. The mild Mediterranean climate made it possible to grow various vegetables and fruits, fish splashed nearby, and there was plenty of meat. Skilled slave cooks prepared delicacies that were famous far beyond the city. Various recipes The food served was strictly stored. Sometimes the owners set such slaves free in gratitude for their culinary skills, however, stipulating the conditions: their successor students must be the same masters in preparing dishes as they were.

First excavations of the city

However, several centuries passed, and the Italians forgot exactly where the lost cities were located. Legends conveyed echoes of ancient events to residents. But who died? Where and when? Peasants who dug wells on their estates often found traces of ancient buildings in the ground. Only at the end of the 16th century, while building an underground tunnel near the city of Torre Annunziata, builders stumbled upon the remains of an ancient wall. Another 100 years later, while constructing a well, workers discovered part of a building with the inscription: “Pompeii.”

Serious excavations in the area of ​​the disaster began only in the second half of the 18th century. But archaeologists did not have enough experience to properly carry out work of this scale. Excavated buildings, after all the most interesting things were removed from them - usually jewelry and ancient statues - were filled up again. As a result, many priceless artifacts and everyday items of the townspeople were lost. However, already in late XVIII centuries, archaeologists grabbed their heads and brought order to the excavations.

And during the reign of Joachim Murat, a former Napoleonic marshal who eventually became the ruler of Naples, excavations began to be carried out in a completely civilized manner, according to all the rules of science. Now scientists paid attention to the arrangement of things, their environment, simple tools and household utensils. Until our time buried cities managed to excavate three quarters of it. But there's more to come big job, promising scientists new amazing discoveries.

Ancient city of Pompeii was formed back in the 6th century BC. If it were not for the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, which burned the entire city to the ground, covering it with a huge layer of volcanic ash, Pompeii would still exist not far from Naples. Now these are ruins that UNESCO has listed as a World Heritage Site.

The name Pompeii arose after the unification of five independent cities(pumpe - five). This is a more plausible version. There is a legend according to which Hercules defeated the giant Geryon in a tough battle, and after that he solemnly walked around the city, celebrating the victory. From the ancient Greek language pumpe is a solemn, triumphal procession.

In those days, people believed in God, and believed that the gods controlled earthly cataclysms. Despite the fact that on February 5, 62 AD. e. A strong earthquake occurred, which could possibly have been the impetus for a volcanic eruption, people still continued to live in the city, worshiping the gods, and believing that no misfortune would happen to them. Still, the volcano erupted. It happened August 24, 79 AD Not only the city of Pompeii suffered, but also nearby cities - Herculaneum, Stabiae. The eruption was so strong that the ash even reached neighboring countries - Egypt and Syria. About 20 thousand people lived in the city. Some managed to escape even before the disaster began, but many died. The exact number of victims is unknown, but the remains of bodies were found far outside the city.

The city remained under a layer of ash for many centuries until in 1592 by Dominico Fontana(a famous architect of that time) did not stumble upon the city wall while laying a canal from the Sarno River. No one betrayed this wall of great importance, and only about 100 years later in the ruins of Pompeii they found a tablet with the inscription “Pompeii” carved on it. Even after this incident, no one could have imagined that this was an ancient city that had disappeared from the face of the earth. They concluded that this was the old villa of Pompey the Great.

And so in 1748 the extraction of the ancient city began. Led the excavations Alcubierre, who was sure that this was the city of Stabia. Directly in Pompeii itself, only three excavations were carried out in different places. Alcubierre was a barbarian, and he sent all finds that, in his opinion, were of interest to the Naples Museum, and simply destroyed others. Many scientists protested, and the excavations stopped.

In 1760, new excavations began, led by F. Vega. They continued until 1804. Vega and his subordinates spent 44 years retrieving works of art. All finds were restored again and removed very carefully. At this time, tourists had already begun to come here, so many monuments were not immediately transferred to museums, but were left on display for visitors to the city of Pompeii, which had already become a museum.

In 1863, excavations continued. This time they were led Giuseppe Fiorelli. It was he who discovered a huge number of voids under layers of ash. These are nothing more than the bodies of the city's inhabitants. By filling these voids with plaster, scientists completely reproduced casts of human bodies, right down to facial expressions.

The word “Pompeii” is known even to those who have never been to Italy in their lives. It has long become a symbol of human helplessness before the elemental power of nature. The death of a rich and populous Roman city, buried under the ashes of Mount Vesuvius, is one of the most impressive disasters in human history. Thanks to the famous painting by Karl Bryullov “The Last Day of Pompeii”, it seems like a bright tragic action from the classical theater, where people are like statues, and the elements are inevitable, like fate. Having visited Pompeii, you can touch another dimension of this history - more earthly and concrete.

Pompeii dates back to the 6th century BC. Legend claims that their founder was Hercules himself. In the 5th century, the sprawling port city on the Gulf of Naples became part of the Roman Empire. He was loved by the Roman nobility, who built many holiday villas here, and prospered and grew rich. Geographical location the city seemed extremely successful: the Via Appia road, passing through Pompeii, connected Rome with southern part countries. But Vesuvius was nearby. August 24, 79 AD the volcano has awakened. The monstrous eruption destroyed Pompeii and two nearby cities - Herculaneum and Stabiae - in two days. More than two thousand inhabitants died in the rain of lava and ash in Pompeii alone.

The disaster served Pompeii in a strange way, destroying a thriving city while simultaneously preserving it for eternity. An 8-meter layer of ash “preserved” Pompeii for many centuries, so that at some point the city would appear in the very form in which it met its death. During archaeological excavations that began in the 18th century, streets and houses, household artifacts and objects of art were resurrected from oblivion. A story was emerging both about the horror of the ancient tragedy and about Everyday life, which once seethed here. The fate of Pompeii shocked the imagination of Europeans: in dead city real pilgrimages of scientists, artists, and poets were organized.

This is not surprising: a trip to Pompeii is a real journey back in time. Here you can see all the attributes of an exemplary Roman city: cobblestone streets, streets with gutters, the remains of a forum, porticoes with columns, the Big and Small theaters, three municipal buildings, numerous baths and, of course, temples dedicated to various gods - from Jupiter to Isis. But perhaps the most strong impression they produce residential buildings with “telling” names: the House of the Surgeon with the medical instruments found in it, the House of the Perfumer, the House of the Tragic Poet, the House of the Faun, the Villa of Mysteries. It’s as if their owners left them yesterday. However, people and animals did not disappear without a trace: casts of their bodies made by scientists can be seen in those places where death overtook the unfortunate ones. There is also an archaeological museum, which houses objects found as a result of excavations.

Today, Pompeii is visited annually by more than 2.5 million tourists. Here, like nowhere else, you can feel the juxtaposition of eternity and decay, beauty and decay. The gentle sophistication of the frescoes on the walls of the houses (they are compared to paintings by Botticelli) is adjacent to the distorted poses of frozen bodies. And the silence of eternity reigns over everything, not disturbed even by the voices of visitors. And the silhouette of Vesuvius still rises above the city, as if recalling the fragility of this silence.

Excavations of ancient Pompeii are the only place, where you can see what the ancient Roman city really looked like. There are many ruins of settlements from the Roman period in the world, for example, but it was thanks to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius that the city of Pompeii was preserved in its original form.

We were not very lucky during our visit to Pompeii, as there was pouring rain. This page has many photos from the archaeological site. Many of them may seem faded to you, but we never edit photos, relying on relevance even at the expense of beauty.

By the time of the eruption of Vesuvius, the city's population consisted of half the indigenous inhabitants, and the other half consisted of the Romans who moved here. At excavations, ceramics or simply drawings with Greek inscriptions are constantly found, evidence that Greek culture in Pompeii was still widespread.

The architecture of Pompeii has almost completely become Roman; you can be sure that you will visit a Roman city and see how the people of the great conquerors who conquered the entire Mediterranean lived.

17 years after the earthquake in 79, a terrible catastrophe occurred, the Vesuvius volcano began its most powerful eruption. A huge amount of volcanic ash was thrown into the air, covering the nearby area with a layer about 6 meters high. The entire city was buried, only parts of the columns and walls of the tallest buildings remained above the surface.

When excavations began in 1748, engineers discovered that the city of Pompeii had been preserved in its original form and now you can visit it and see with your own eyes how the Romans lived two thousand years ago. Currently, archaeological work is still ongoing; another 25% of the city has not been excavated.

Where are and how to get to the excavations of the city of Pompeii.

Attention! On Italian The city of Naples is called “Napoli”. Don't forget this when you're looking for the train or bus you need.

There are two routes that will suit you:

First: Train Naples - Sorrento (Napoli - Sorrento). In this case, you need to get off at “Pombei Scavi” station.

Second: Train Naples - Scafati. In this case, you need to get off at Pompei station.

These trains have slightly different routes and stops near the excavations are different.

Both trains can be boarded at several locations. Stations are located near the metro: Porta Nolana (lines 3 and 4), Piazza Garibaldi (lines 3 and 4), Via Gianturco (line 4), San Giovanni a Teduccio (line 4), Barra (line 4), San Giorgio a Cremano ( 3 line). Please note that metro lines 3 and 4 are not underground, they are funiculars.

The most interesting thing you can see is the excavations of Pompeii.

The first thing you should pay attention to is the roads. The pride of the Roman state, some of them, laid two thousand years ago, still serve in Italy. The streets in the city are paved with hewn large stones.

The street had a roadway (in the center in the photo) and sidewalks for pedestrians. Pay attention to the large stones - this is a very interesting Roman invention. The stones were used for pedestrians to cross the street in rainy weather. We appreciated such a system personally; it was raining just at the time of our visit to Pompeii.

In turn, the carts drove freely along the street, the wheels passing between the stones. Big photo For roads in the city, see the small photo gallery below.

Not all buildings in Pompeii are in good condition. Some of them will not arouse serious interest among the average tourist. We will talk about the most interesting places in the city.

The most luxurious house in Pompeii belonged to Lucius Cornelius Sulla and his nephew (although this is more guesswork than fact). It is called the house of the faun. At the entrance to the house there is a swimming pool with a bronze statuette of a faun in the center, hence the name. The statue is quite small in size, about the knee length of an adult. Faun is not quite ordinary. Most often this deity is depicted with goat legs and hooves. This sculpture has human legs, but the features and facial expression, hairstyle and pose are exactly the same as what is customary to depict this particular deity. The house had a huge size of 110 by 40 meters. Such a house was a sign of the highest status of the owner, given that it was located within the city walls. Outside the walls it was possible to build an even larger structure, the land there was cheap and there was plenty of it. Only the richest citizen of the city could afford such a mansion inside the walls.

During excavations in the faun's house, a huge amount of gold and silver jewelry was found, the most valuable find of precious metals there was a gold bracelet in the shape of a snake wrapped around the wearer's hand.

But even more valuable finds were mosaics, of which several dozen were found. All of them were removed and replaced with copies. The originals can be viewed in the Naples Museum. The most valuable mosaic is called “The Battle of Issus”. It shows an important battle between Alexander the Great and the Persians led by King Darius. You can see a photo of the original from the Naples Museum below.

Unfortunately, part of the mosaic was lost forever. The painting itself dates back to 100 BC, that is, it was created more than 200 years after the death of Alexander the Great. Presumably this is a copy of an even more ancient Greek mosaic.

In Pompeii, in the House of the Faun, you can see a copy installed here in 2005. A team of nine craftsmen from the city of Ravenna worked on this copy for two years, led by Severo Bignami. It is impossible to photograph it from above and in its entirety; you will find photos of sections in the small photo gallery below.

On the territory of the house there was a central building with a pool for collecting rainwater, separate buildings for slaves, a kitchen, a large garden and several others. outbuildings. You will find a photo from the faun's house in the small gallery below; the garden, of course, was completely destroyed by the eruption; in the photo you will see a reconstruction of the garden.

In Pompeii, several bakeries with millstones for grinding flour and ovens for baking bread have been preserved. The Romans did not bake bread at home, but bought it right next to the bakeries, which worked almost around the clock. In most houses and apartments of ordinary citizens there were no cooking facilities at all. hot food. You will find photos of the bakery in the small gallery below.

The following building in Pompeii falls under the category (18+), so we prohibit those readers who are under 18 years old from reading this part of the article. It is clear that this will not stop anyone, but it was worth a try.

This is a perfectly preserved brothel, which was located on the second floor of the building. Such establishments in Roman cities were not luxurious. Typically, a brothel consisted of several rooms without windows or even ventilation.

The bunks were very small size and were covered with straw and skin on top. Customers and service staff (we know how to choose decent synonyms) were in a sitting position rather than a lying position. The only decoration of the rooms were frescoes and images of clearly erotic content. See photos in the gallery below.

The large amphitheater was poorly preserved; its steps were made of wood and were completely destroyed by the eruption. It was used mainly for gladiator fights and similar bloody performances for the crowd.

The Maly Theater is better preserved; its benches were made of stone. The small theater most often hosted theatrical performances, debates, or public speaking performances.

The central place of the city was the square, which in Roman cities was called the forum; it served both as a market and a meeting place for citizens on political issues.

Some historians claim that the forum could accommodate all the inhabitants of the city, which is doubtful. The population of Pompeii at its height was more than 20,000 people. In the photo below you see the figures of people, we think that 20,000 people simply won’t fit in the square.

During the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and the destruction of the city, according to various estimates, from 2 to 16 thousand people died. About 1000 bodies were found during excavations, but in very in an interesting way. People were covered with ashes right in the positions in which they died. Voids have formed in the ashes and are filled with plaster to create a cast.