The well-preserved buildings of Pompeii and Herculaneum present textbook examples of a variety of standard Roman building techniques and types. Builders made extensive use of local stones, especially Sarno travertine and Nocera tufa, and in the oldest buildings the walls are sometimes made solely of carefully laid courses of blocks of these stones. Later, mortars and cements were employed, and walls could also be made with a stone or brick facing enclosing a rubble core. The stone blocks were often arrayed in a variety of geometric arrangements. For example, in a technique known as opus reticulatum, diamond-shaped blocks are arranged to form an attractive net pattern. Terra-cotta roof tiles covered the structures, and clay was also used to form other architectural elements such as drain spouts. Finally, in important public buildings or fancy private dwellings, the walls might be adorned with facings of imported colored marbles and decorative stones.
Just as it offers a range of typical building techniques, Pompeii (which has been more completely excavated than Herculaneum) also illustrates the standard assortment of public buildings that a self-respecting Roman town of any size would strive to possess. One way for provincial towns to
Figure 14.2 Forum of Pompeii with Mount Vesuvius in the background.
Enhance their status was to attempt to emulate {admittedly on a reduced scale) the magnificent public buildings that were found in the capital city, Rome. The three main categories of such public buildings were structures related to government and commerce, religion, and entertaimnent, and the Pompeians eventually acquired an impressive assortment representing all three areas.
The focal point for the governmental and commercial buildings was the Civil Forum, a large, rectangular, open plaza at the east end of town. Around this space were the principal civic buildings; the basilica, an imposing two-story set of rectangular, roofed colonnades that housed judicial affairs and was used for business and financial transactions; the curia, the assembly hall of the town magistrates; the tabularium, or records office; the macellum, which was the public marketplace and included special drains probably used to remove waste from the fish and meat stalls; and the comitium, an open structure perhaps used for elections or court trials.
Some significant religious buildings also clustered around the forum, including two temples to important gods: the Temple of Jupiter, which dominated the north side of the Forum, and the even larger Temple of Apollo. Rebuilt several times, the Temple of Apollo is one of the oldest structures in the city, dating back to the sixth century bc. It was the center of worship for centuries until the arrival of the Roman colonists led to the construction of the Temple of Jupiter. The Temple of Jupiter seems to have been self-consciously rebuilt to emulate the design of the great Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline hill in Rome. Emperor worship is reflected in a small temple to the posthumously deified emperor Augustus, which later was likely converted into a temple to the emperor Vespasian. Reflecting the diversity of worship typical of the Roman Empire, Pompeii also had a large temple dedicated to the cult of the Egyptian goddess Isis, along with dozens of smaller neighborhood shrines to an assortment of other gods.
Figure 14.3 Amphitheater at Pompeii. This is the earliest known stone amphitheater in Italy.
Finally, Pompeii boasted a full set of buildings devoted to entertaining the populace. Pompeii's amphitheater, the site of gladiatorial combats, is the oldest known stone amphitheater and could seat 20,000 spectators. The semicircular theater accommodated 5,000 people and would have hosted comic plays, Atellan farces (a type of comic theatrical entertainment), and pantomime shows. The yet smaller odeon, resembling a roofed-over theater, would have been the setting for various theatrical performances. The intensity of emotions that could be aroused by entertainments is exemplified by the famous riot of ad 59, which broke out among the audience at the amphitheater when the citizens of Pompeii began fighting with spectators from the nearby rival town of Nuceria. In the ensuing riot, a number of people were killed and injured, and the incident resulted in an imperial ban on gladiator games at Pompeii for 10 years.
Another central focus of Roman urban social life was the public baths. While the colossal bathing complexes of Rome are justifiably famous, the more modest baths of Pompeii and Herculaneum present a much more typical image of life in a Roman town. The well-preserved nature of the bath establishments in these towns has greatly aided archaeologists and historians in understanding the construction and operation of these specialized buildings. A full-fledged Roman bath contained a sequence of separate bathing rooms with pools of cold, warm, and hot water as well as areas for exercise, massages, relaxing, and dressing. The logistics of how this was achieved was revealed at Pompeii, where the furnace rooms sur-
Figure 14.4 Stabian Baths at Pompeii.
Vive, showing how hot - and warm-water tanks were heated. In addition, some of the rooms themselves were heated by resting on double floors separated by piles of bricks (known as a hypocaust system), through which hot air from the furnace was circulated. The largest bath complex at Pompeii, the Stabian baths, covered an area of over 8,000 square feet and included separate rooms for male and female bathers. However, the city also boasted a number of smaller bathing establishments.
Pompeii, like many Roman towns, was laid out on a general grid pattern, with streets intersecting at more or less regular intervals and at right angles to one another. The streets around the forum are somewhat less gridlike, although several major thoroughfares run straight from one side of the city to the other. While there is a concentration of public buildings near the forum in the southwest corner of the city, Pompeii is a typical Roman city in that residential and commercial areas are intermingled rather than being zoned into separate regions. Indeed, it is extremely common for the same building to contain a mixture of businesses and private dwellings, with shops lining the street front and apartments or a house behind them. The theater and odeon are located together near one city gate, and the amphitheater is at one extreme comer of the city near another gate. Businesses such as irms, bars, bakeries, and fullers were scattered throughout the city, although they tended to cluster along the major through streets. About the only type of business that seems to have been concentrated in one place was the brothels, most of which were tightly packed into several blocks just east of the Forum area.
Another important structural feature of these streets was the public fountains that were commonly found at intersections. If plotted onto a map of Pompeii, the city's fountains are nicely spaced out at nearly regular intervals so that most neighborhoods had ready access to water. Thus, the majority of Pompeii's inhabitants lived within 90 meters of a public fountain. The local fountain was undoubtedly an important site of social interaction, as residents of a neighborhood regularly encountered one another while fetching water. Originally the water was supplied by wells and cisterns, but at the same time that the fountain system was regularized in the early first century ad, an aqueduct was constructed to supply the city with water.
The main streets were covered with flagstones and had high, raised sidewalks adjoining them. At major intersections, a series of stepping-stones was often placed across the street so that pedestrians could traverse from one side to the other without venturing down into the street itself. This practice may reveal something about Roman sanitation, since it was common practice for Romans to dispose of their sewage by dumping their chamber pots onto the roadway. The streets themselves bear the marks of heavy traffic, and the stones of some roads are heavily rutted with grooves made by the passing of countless cart and wagon wheels.
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