Resurrecting Pompeii (15 page)
Read Resurrecting Pompeii Online
Authors: Estelle Lazer
There is no reliable figure for the number of individuals who perished as a result of the
AD
79 eruption in Pompeii. Gell estimated that at the time of publication of the second edition of his work in 1832, about 160 skeletons had been uncovered. He calculated that, in relation to the proportion of the site that had been excavated, this constituted about one eighth of the number of victims that could be expected to be found and, therefore, put a figure of 1,300 for the number that died.
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It is notable that Bulwer-Lytton, who relied on Gell and Bonucci for information about the site, only two years later gave an estimate of 350 to 400 for the number of skeletons that had been discovered.
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This suggests that estimates based on the poorly documented skeletal finds were variable and that the conclusions drawn from them were of limited value.
By the latter part of the nineteenth century, the estimate of the number of victims had risen to 2,000. This figure was calculated by Fiorelli and was also based on an extrapolation of the ratio of the estimated number of bodies that had been found to the area of the site that had been uncovered.
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The figure of 2,000 as an approximation of the number of dead has never been revised and has been accepted virtually without question in the majority of publications on Pompeii.
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It should be noted that this number has also been used variously to describe the number of bodies that have been found.
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So powerful is the number 2,000 in the popular perception of the site that it has even been used for the number of survivors, rather than the number of deceased.
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Blong, who relied on sources that claimed that the number 2,000 referred to the number of individuals recovered, made a similar extrapolation to those made in the nineteenth century and calculated that, altogether, about 2,700 people were killed in the eruption. Russell also arrived at this figure, though he considered that the 2,000 skeletons thought to be in storage in Pompeii included several hundred from the region around Pompeii.
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Until recently,
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this number had never been subjected to the same scrutiny as the population estimates and virtually achieved the status of a magic number in Pompeii. The only exception to the use of this number can be seen in the estimate presented by Herbet and Bardossi. They claimed that the number of victims of the eruption totalled 16,000.
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No information was included as to how this figure was derived or whether it referred specifically to Pompeii or the entire region around Vesuvius.
There is no evidence to suggest that any estimate for the number of victims based on the extrapolation of the bodies found in a portion of the site would be reliable, because this assumes an even distribution of bodies across Pompeii.
As mentioned above, there was minimal documentation during the first century of excavation and estimates of the number of skeletons that were found during this period were not altogether reliable. The diaries of the excavations provide the key source of information for the period prior to 1860. The initiation of systematic recording by Fiorelli in the latter half of the nineteenth century could not compensate for the loss of information from the preceding generations of excavators. The skeletons that have been unearthed cannot be counted to provide an accurate total because of the postexcavation treatment of skeletal material, including reburial, poor storage and removal of some of the material to be stored in collections that are not easily accessible.
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Despite these problems, De Carolis and Patricelli
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undertook the gargantuan task of examining all the available literature in an attempt to determine the best approximation of the number of bodies that have been revealed by the excavations in Pompeii. They have been able to account for 1047 individuals, including three victims that were found in 2002. This figure is based on the official Pompeii diaries and excavation reports where exact numbers were provided. A number of reports only give a rough guess of the number of skeletons found in a group or merely indicate that several skeletons were revealed at a particular location without any attempt at quantification. De Carolis and Patricelli estimated that despite the lack of precision in reporting, probably no more than 1150 skeletons have been found during the course of excavations at Pompeii. They note that this number still falls somewhat short of the 2000 victims usually mentioned in the literature.
The information that has been presented regarding the size and composition of the Pompeian population prior to the eruption underlines the difficulty of interpreting a sample of bones that merely represent the victims of the eruption. To gain some appreciation of what sort of sample these victims may represent, it is necessary to examine issues that relate to the possibility of survival from this eruption, such as the form it took and its duration.
It has generally been assumed that the inhabitants of the region around Vesuvius were unprepared for the
AD
79 eruption.
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Ancient sources indicate that they were unaware that Mt Vesuvius was an active volcano. This is largely based on Strabo,
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who described Vesuvius as an extinct volcano and Pliny the Elder who considered Vesuvius to be a benign element in the Campanian landscape.
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The stratigraphic evidence, which reveals that the volcano was dormant for at least 700 years before the
AD
79 event, supports the notion that there was no historical memory of the mountain as a potential source of danger to the region.
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It has often been suggested that the Pompeians made no association between the earthquake of
AD
62 and renewed volcanic activity on Mt Vesuvius.
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The main ancient literary source for the eruption comes from two letters written by the Younger Pliny to Tacitus.
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The first deals with the events that lead to the death of his uncle, Pliny the Elder, as a direct result of the eruption. The second deals with his own experiences at Misenum, about 30 kilometres to the west of Mt Vesuvius. Though Pliny the Younger was an eyewitness to the events of
AD
79, the reliability of his account of Vesuvius’ eruption needs to be assessed. First, the letters were probably written some time between
AD
104 and 107, at least 25 years after the event. Second, Pliny’s perception of the eruption was of a less devastating event than that experienced by towns like Pompeii and Herculaneum, as he witnessed it from a significant distance in a region that suffered comparatively little damage.
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Third, despite the fact that Pliny the Younger’s description has been lauded as a well-observed, valuable volcanological account,
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it is apparent that this was not the principal agenda for the letters.
Pliny the Younger ’s first letter was written in reply to Tacitus’ request for information about the death of his uncle, who was well known both as an encyclopaedist and the commander of the Roman fleet in Misenum. Pliny the Elder’s initial aim was to inspect and record the eruption from close quarters. This was altered in response to a request for help from his friend, Rectina, whose only means of escape from her villa at the base of the mountain was by sea. Not only did he fail in his rescue attempt but he also did not manage to return with a first-hand account of the event. His mission was an unmitigated failure and ultimately led to his demise. It is generally presumed that Pliny the Elder died of respiratory complications at Stabiae. Eco
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argued that the first letter of Pliny the Younger was primarily written to vindicate the actions of his uncle. The Younger Pliny obviously desired his uncle to be remembered as a hero who was martyred to the cause of science rather than an incompetent rescuer.
Another concern about the accuracy of Pliny ’s description of the event is that stylistic similarities have been observed between his letters to Tacitus and the so-called Etna poem. The latter is an anonymous work, which describes an eruption of the famous Sicilian volcano in
AD
40. It has been suggested that Pliny the Younger based his letters on the poem, which may have exerted some influence on his account.
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Dio Cassius
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also wrote of the
AD
79 eruption. His account postdated the volcanic event by about 150 years and is rather more fanciful than that of the Younger Pliny. He claimed that prior to the eruption, numerous huge men were observed wandering over the earth and flying through the air, and that their shapes could be seen in the smoke emanating from Mt Vesuvius. All this was apparently accompanied by the sound of trumpets. Suetonius gave a passing mention to the eruption, in terms of the aid Titus proposed to give to the survivors.
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While there has been some discussion of the year in which Mt Vesuvius erupted, most scholars accept that it occurred in
AD
79.
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Establishing the actual date of the event is more controversial. Despite the fact that the majority of authors writing on Pompeii confidently ascribe a date of 24 August for the eruption,
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the evidence is not conclusive. This issue is worthy of consideration for a study of the human remains from the site as knowledge of the season in which the eruption occurred could provide some insight into the composition of the population of Pompeii at the time of its destruction.
It has been generally assumed that villas owned by wealthy Roman citizens were mostly used as summer resorts. This assertion is probably based on the knowledge that a number of these coastal properties were, at various times, owned by citizens who were obviously based in Rome, like the dictator Sulla, who had a villa near Cumae, and the Emperor Augustus, who had a retreat on Capri.
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Strabo stated that the whole Bay of Naples appeared like a continuous town as a result of the number of villas that lined the coastline.
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Many of these villas were owned by Romans. For example, the Younger Pliny had six villas, Cicero three, and it is thought, on the basis of evidence from inscriptions, that the Villa of Oplontis near Pompeii may have at one time belonged to Nero’s wife, Poppaea. Chance finds that included inscriptions have also been employed as evidence to suggest that the family of the latter, the Poppaei, were the owners of the so-called
Casa degli Amorini dorati
(VI, xvi, 7) and
Casa del Menandro
(I, x, 4) in Pompeii, though it must be noted that these attributions are problematic as they tend to be based on spurious evidence.
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If it were possible to establish the exact time of the year when Mt Vesuvius erupted, we could infer whether or not there was likely to have been a significant presence of Roman residents among the victims who would only have been living there in the summer months.
The various versions of the letters of Pliny the Younger that have survived suggest dates of either 3, 23 November or 24 August. It has been claimed that the August date came from a more reliable version of Pliny’s text.
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Dio Cassius
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mentioned autumn as the season of the eruption, but one must bear in mind that he wrote a considerable time after the event. Also, there is no consensus with respect to the length of this season in the ancient world. Opinion varies and suggestions have been made that autumn ranged from mid-August to mid-December or from mid-September to midNovember. Contradictory archaeological finds of seasonal fruit and other plant remains, evidence of wine-making activities, carpets and braziers, have been used to support claims for both summer and late autumn. The venerable scholar Mau,
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supported 24 August as the first day of the eruption and despite the lack of any definitive evidence, this date gained acceptance. The bombing of Pompeii on 24 August 1943 may have given further weight to the choice of this date as a result of a superstitious belief that there was some significance associated with this coincidence.
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The debate was reopened in the 1990s by Pappalardo, who argued for the November date. In addition to the traditional arguments for an autumn eruption, he claimed that the impressions of clothing on casts of the bodies of Pompeians suggested the use of heavy materials, more consistent with cooler weather than that generally encountered in August. This argument was supported by the discovery of a skeleton in 1984 at Herculaneum with traces of a fur beret.
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Apart from the problems associated with interpretations of clothing on casts (see Chapter 10), there may be another explanation for such discoveries. It is possible that the inhabitants may have donned heavier clothing as protection against falling debris. Pliny the Younger’s first letter to Tacitus
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mentioned that people tied pillows to their heads for this purpose. Similarly, the bodies in the garden of the
Casa del Criptoportico
(I, vi, 2) were discovered with roof tiles covering their heads.
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This contentious issue may well have been resolved by the recent publication of a silver denarius by Grete Stefani.
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It was found in a context that could be securely dated to the
AD
79 eruption level below the
Casa del Bracciale d
’
Oro
in the
Insula Occidentalis
(VI, xvii, 42). This coin was found in 1974, along with 179 other silver and 40 gold coins, a gemstone and a ring, which were carried by victims in flight. The coin in question is a denarius of Titus and the inscription refers to his 15th imperatorial acclamation, which, according to Dio Cassius, occurred as a result of Agricola’s conquests in Britain. Stefani cites epigraphic evidence with 7 and 8 September dates, which only attribute 14 acclamations to Titus. She convincingly argues for the versions of Pliny the Younger’s letters that indicate an autumn date as the coin must have been minted after 8 September in
AD
79. The eruption sequence
