Pompey, a timeless journey in the lost and periled city

Pompéi fascine. The Roman city attracts some 2 million visitors per year. Today, this classified site is in danger and could disappear for a second time. Return to the story of a prosperous city that was a victim of the wrath of the Vesuvian.

It is surely one of the most important and most famous natural disasters in the history of Humanity and especially in Roman history. Yet, what we really know about the eruption of the Vesuvius which engulfed the city of Pompei and many other cities around like Herculanum and Stabies?

In the year 79 of our era, on 24 August, the Vesuvian erupted and caused the death of more than 15,000 inhabitants in just 48 hours and forever modified the landscape. How to trace the incredible story of this cataclysm? How can we relate the last hours of the population before the terrible disaster? This is especially based on ♪ Letters de Pline le Jeune, senator and famous Roman lawyer, who told the events where his uncle, Pline l’Ancien, a great scientist of the time who went to Pompeii to see the eruption closer.

However, it was from the 19th century that archaeologists updated the first vestiges of the ancient Roman city.

Pompeii before eruption

The city of Pompeii has always been a city with a flourishing economy, since it enjoyed a very interesting geographical location, which made it a place of holiday very popular by the Romans. Pompeii was known to be a rather rich city.

If, at the political and cultural level, Pompei did not have the extent of Rome or Florence For example, the catastrophe that forever fixed the city under the tons of debris and ashes of the volcano made it an exceptional place, a kind of retrospective and a precious mine on the daily life of the Romans in the 1st century of our era.

The population of the city of Pompeii had nearly 12,000 souls and the city was built on one side at the foot of the volcano and, on the other hand, was bordered by the sea.

A volcano apparently turned off

For the inhabitants of Pompeii, they all knew that the volcano of the Vesuvian had never fallen asleep for good because there were frequently shakings that demonstrated the opposite. Writings tell us that the Vesuvian was the subject of various stories, but it was never a source of concern. But they were far from imagining the calamity that would fall on them, in the sense of their own as in the figurative sense.

A first alert, however, had taken place in the year 62, under the reign of Nero. An important earthquake had destroyed much of the buildings in Pompeii. But it was without counting on the rich notables of the city who had reconstructed magnificent houses decorated with frescoes, paintings, statues and mosaics or private fountains. Pompéi was quickly returned to a place where rest away from the turpitudes and noise of Rome.

An extraordinary and surprising eruption

According to the first commonly accepted sources, the eruption occurred in the afternoon of 24 August 79. In the space of 24 hours, the volcano began to spit columns of clouds of typical incandescent ash in the form of pine-parasol up to 30 kilometers from the ground.

By falling back, these tons of volcanic ashes covered the city of Pompeii and the cities of Herculanum and Stabies under 6 meters of mud and the port of Herculanum (which, nowadays, is found in the land because the beach has fallen because of the catastrophe) where the habitat was less cossued than in Pompeii, was crushed under a rock and lava casting.

The houses and other structures began to collapse due to ashes and volcanic debris and the inhabitants were trapped under the rubble in no time. Hundreds of other people were suffocated by the burning clouds (pyroclastic patch at its base and a pyroclastic cloud). For hours, the volcano cracha and liberated rocks and lava that dewed the slopes of the mountain to bury and destroy everything in front of them.

The phenomenon was so brutal and so rapid that the inhabitants did not manage to flee and many were burned, blocked and asphyxiated under the same notice.

In just over 48 hours, it will be almost 15,000 people who will die under this natural disaster of considerable magnitude and that altered the Neapolitan landscape and that of a whole region for centuries.

It was Pline the Youth who gave a detailed account of the disaster he attended and since then the vulcanologists gave the name “of Plinian eruption » to describe this type of volcanic eruption.

Pline le Jeune tells the story where his uncle, Pline l’Ancien, famous scientist and historian, died asphyxiated in Stabies after trying to help the unfortunate Pompeians.

immortal remains

Contrary to what one can believe, it is not the entire population of Pompeii that perishes during the volcanic eruption. Indeed, 10% of the inhabitants died in the disaster knocked down by the rocks, or the structures of the houses that flew in burst or burned alive by the boiling lava. The rest of the population wandered, between crying and cries of fear, in the surrounding countryside to call and search for the members of their families.

These were excavations made in 1872, which updated thousands of bodies (approximately 2000) fixed in the ashes. Most of the bodies remained frozen as they were at the time of the volcanic eruption. Indeed, the latter was so strong with a considerable number of debris and ashes that it covered the bodies and objects of everyday life, thus preserving them from natural oxidation.

This made it possible to discover how the population lived then, what was their daily activity, how people dressed up, how they fed.

Many skeletons were very well preserved naturally, some still had their dentition (their teeth were in good condition and as such, it is believed that they had a balanced and varied diet) while others still kept lambs or traces of their clothing (tuniques and dresses).

During the excavations, it was discovered that the furniture and bodies buried instantly under tons of ashes and various debris gave way to intact cavities.

This is the archaeologist Giuseppe Fiorelli who had the idea of injecting plaster in these cavities to restore the form to the inhabitants, hence the presence of the striking moldings, when on the scene, as “the seated man who hides his face” and the “come woman”.

Protecting Pompey to avoid forgetting

The excavations and excavations allowed to bring out the remains of particular houses, the theatre, amphitheatre, the gladiator barracks but also shops, temples, the forum, the vestige of the basilica, the "thermalpolium" which were the ancestors of the current "fast-food" etc...

Today, it is estimated that there are still many discoveries to be made in the basement of Pompeii.

Inscribed to UNESCO’s heritage since 1997, the site of Pompeii continues to be concerned: not only the causes of the various weathers that see the structures weaken and deteriorate, but also the mass tourism that damages structures and dwellings.

Although the last eruption of the Vesuvian (with a smaller scale) dates from the end of the 19th century, it is often said that the greatest risk that threatens the site today lies in the poor management of the resources and subsidies of the government and Europe. The country would have difficulty preserving this. UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1997 and since threatened to be listed on the world heritage at risk. Things have moved recently since the European Union warned last year that it is withdrawing from the financing of the Great Pompeii Project, a program for the conservation, maintenance and restoration of the site.

The Italian government has begun to pay funding, but despite this and even if the archaeologists and workers are at work to preserve what remains of Pompeii, the city is not immune to a second disaster, this time caused by time and man. A third of the city is still under ground, and this should remain so, sheltered. In the meantime, it is important to preserve the remaining two thirds as best as possible, to delay the inevitable collapse of the city.

The searches seem to have generated more questions than they probably answered. Looking at the city of Pompei today, looking at the great theatre, largely reconstructed and restored during the last century, it is difficult not to wonder if Pompei will disappear again, very soon.

Main photo credit: Flickr – Carlo Mirante