Pompeii and Herculaneum

There is a large exhibit of over 500 artifacts from Pompeii at the Field Museum in Chicago. It is apparently one of the largest (if not the largest) Pompeii exhibit ever. It was the cover story on last month's Smithsonian Magazine. I read the article carefully, and then read the first half of a book I had read years ago on Herculaneum, the other Roman town destroyed when Mt. Vesuvius erupted in 79 C.E.

I have never been to Herculaneum, but have been to Pompeii three times, first in 1962, then in the early 1970s, and finally, about ten years ago. I would go back tomorrow if I could.

In fact, not only would I want to go back to Pompeii, and go to Herculaneum for the first time, I would like to spend some time in Naples, where I have been twice, but which I have never given a fair shake. When I spent an evening in Napes about 35 years ago, I discovered a crowded, extremely noisy city, where the traffic never moved. I remember the car driving the semi-highway that skirts the Bay of Naples that aimed right at me as I tried to cross the street, changing lanes three times in order to drive me back on the sidewalk. I remember the wasted American teenagers lounging at a bar near the bay, whose fathers were in the American navy and who told me that this is what they did every night -- "this is Naples, man....." I remember the delicious seafood dinner at the neighborhood restaurant. I remember a late night (don't remember why) at one end of town, and a cab ride back at about 3 a.m., where the driver quoted us a price that was more than exhorbitant, and when I protested, told me he would stop the cab and let us out free where we were, no problem (except that we were in a neighborhood from which it looked like no one had ever escaped alive).

But I never have gone to the wonderful museums, or the opera house, and I want to.

It was not really known at the time, apparently, that Vesuvius was even a volcano, certainly no one thought it would erupt. Volcanologists say that he had not erupted for 3000 years!! But when it blew, it blew, the wind carrying the hot volcanic ash in one direction, where it buried Pompeii, and the lava-mud flowing down the stream beds in the other direction, where it buried Herculaneum.

Both were homes of the Roman elite, although Pompeii was more a full-scale town, and Herculaneum more a place for only the rich and famous, and of course the ruins (many of which perfectly preserved and today still with much more to be excavated) reflect this.

One of the points brought out by the Herculaneum book is that how little was written about the eruption of Vesuvius by contemporaries, even though Roman society did have a strong intellectual culture. Also, that this tragedy of Pompeii and Herculaneum came just 9 years after the Romans had celebrated the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem and the capture of the temple gold which was brought to, and displayed in, Rome under the newly built Arch of Titus on the forum. Finally, that at the same time the mountain was exploring, Saul of Tarsus was writing his epistles and the Christian gospels were being drafted.