Pompeii comes back to life...

Press, 12 January 1977, Page 13

Pompeii comes back to life...

By

JACK GILLON,

, of Reuter, through

NZPA.

Feasting and theatregoing were part of the good life in A.D. 79. But another bawdier side of Pompeian life, roistering in bars and brothels, is scarcely touched in the London exhibition, which draws its treasures from the Musee Archeologico Nazionale in Naples, the Paris Louvre, and the British Museum. Over 100 bars and eroti-cally-decorated houses of pleasure have been uncovered since 1709 when peasants, digging a well, first struck costly marbles 30ft below ground level. The slow striptease began to reveal the buried city. But probably the biggest social event in Pompeii

was the local games. Advance notices were painted on street walls advertising the number of pairs of gladiators billed to fight. Usually the list would include a famous name and a gladiator who would fight animals. Eager Pompeians would rush along with their money to reserve a place in the shade. One poignant exhibit shows the kind of coins they W’ould have used; Two piles of silver dinarii survived the holocaust, fused together in the shape of the leather bags which contained them. The games produced violence of a kind well-

known in the twentieth century. History tells that in A.D. 59 a concerted attack was made by local hooligans on visitors from the neighbouring town of Nuceria, and the amphitheatre was strewn with corpses. Punishment fol-

lowed quickly. Orders from the Government in Rome forbade games at Pompeii for 10 years. At the bottom of the social scale were the gladiators, but even they had their moment of glory

as they stepped into the Pompeii games, armed normally with shields and short swords. A strangely chilling exhibit is a gladiator’s bronze helmet. Heavily armoured, it completely covers the head and protects the back of

the neck and part of the shoulders. Two simple holes allowed the wearer to see, and the whole effect, devoid of even the smallest decoration, is that of an avenging fury. That fear-

ful mask bearing down would be the last thing a defeated combatant would see of Pompeii before being put to the sword by the victorious gladiator. He would not have known that the rest of the city’s 20,000 inhabitants would soon face as stark a death. On August 24, 79 A.D. Vesuvius erupted. The prosperous provincial town of Pompeii on the Bay of Naples, its people, and its life, were completely buried. The inhabitants died before they could flee from the smothering torrents of molten lava, suffocated by fumes from ash, pumice, and cinders. Today, nearly 20 centuries later, an exhibition just opened in London gives a remarkable chance to spy on the private home life of a small but flourishing Italian town which was part of the Roman Empire. It was a clear, hot, summer morning when Vesuvius, dormant and apparently harmless for more than 500 years, blew its top without warning. The mountain, over 3000 m high, its slopes covered with trees, vineyards, and placidly grazing flocks, burst into action and blotted out the sun with a vast, dark cloud. The sight which confronted the horrified citizens of Pompeii is immediately brought home to visitors to the London exhibition by a gigantic colour photograph of Vesuvius erupting in all its scarlet menace. A few steps beyond the picture lies the body of a girl pulling her tunic over her head in a vain attempt to protect her mouth from the stifling ash which fell until nightfall, covering the highest buildings in Pompeii.

Close to the girl Is the body of a dog with a bronze studded collar, its jaws snapping and legs outstretched — it was left chained up to die as its owners fled in terror down the narrow streets. These two — probably the most emotive exhibits — are the shapes preserved in hardened ash when the clock stopped in Pompeii. But the exhibition is not only about the volcano and the death of Pompeii. It brings together a picture of how life was lived in those comfortable days. Oil paintings more than 2000 years old show a life of music, theatre, entertaining, and feasting on lobster and exotic fruits In the houses of middle class Pompeians, in place of wallpapers were skil-fully-painted and richly - coloured frescoes; in place of carpets were mosaics intricately constructed from thousands of tiny squares of stones. For six months of the year Pompeians lived outdoors in the balmy climate of Campania, which included the Bay of Naples region. Gardens were an important part of the house, complete with fountains, flowers and decorative statuary. Ironically, Pompeii was built on a fertile lava flow — the volcano which gave it such luxuriant life was finally responsible for its death. One of the most powerful impressions of the exhibition is how religion' or superstitious the people of Pompeii were. The walls of the houses were painted with religious scenes; hundreds of amu lets have been found; the streets were crowded with shrines and statues of gods: and the temples of the great Olympian deities presided over the town