I from Treasure Hunting to Archaeological Dig. History of the Excavations of Herculaneum and Pompeii
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I From Treasure Hunting to Archaeological Dig. History of the Excavations of Herculaneum and Pompeii In Antiquity, the region at the foot of Vesuvius was renowned for its healthy climate, fertility and beauty. There were good ports in ancient Herculaneum and Pompeii, and navigable rivers flanked Pompeii. The area was rather densely inhabited by people living in farmsteads, villages and small cities. Pompeii, Herculaneum and Stabiae, lying around Vesuvius, were to be singled out in history because of their unhappy fortune in A.D. 79, not thanks to specific features that placed the towns above other average settlements in the Roman world. Undoubtedly, many eruptions had happened before – some of them are also known from stratigraphic excavations – but Vesuvius seemed dead, or had been sleeping for ages, when it exploded in 79.3 This eruption was so powerful that the fill of the wide caldara – which looked like a plain top next to the ridge of Monte Somma – was blown up, crumbled by the heat and the gases coming from inside the earth. Thanks to a long description of the event in two letters by the younger Pliny, seventeen years old at the time, written some twenty years later to his friend, the historian Tacitus, volcanologists are able to reconstruct the event. Many people were able to save themselves, but a great number died on this day of hell.4 The small towns had no particular importance within the Roman Empire. They are barely mentioned in the written sources we possess,5 and many questions remain open: when were they founded and who were their first inhabitants? How did they develop? Herculaneum was said to have been founded by Hercules; the other places do not have a foundation myth, but the same Hercules would also be the founder of Pompeii. No famous men are reported in the sources as originating in these towns. Cicero possessed a villa on the outskirts of Pompeii called Pompeianum, and another nobleman, Calpurnius Piso had a villa near Herculaneum. Many think that the Villa of the Papyri must have been his property.6 In the time of Augustus there were other rich people with fancy villas nearby, e.g. M. Vipsanius Agrippa, married to Augustus’ daughter Julia. Their last son, M. Agrippa Postumus, so called because of his birth after his father’s death in 12 B.C., is associated with a villa unearthed and destroyed around 1900 at Boscotrecase. The family of Nero’s second wife, Poppaea, originated in this region and possessed some houses and villas; she herself has been associated with ‘Villa A’ at Torre Annunziata, ancient Oplontis. The main event mentioned in the written sources – and verified during the excavations – was a very strong earthquake on February 5 A.D. 62. Writing in the early second century, Tacitus describes this occurrence in his Annals (15.22) under that year, whereas the philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca, in an essay on the origin of earthquakes, gives the names of the two consuls of the year 63, Regulus and Virginius. Although Seneca’s treatise came out only a few years after the event, most scholars think that this mention is an interpolation of a later date and that we should follow Tacitus.7 Like Pliny the Younger at around A.D. 100, Dio Cassius described the eruption of 79 a hundred years later. According to him, the inhabitants of Pompeii were sitting in the theater at midday when disaster struck. The cataclysm would have been so enormous that rescue was barely possible.8 People returned afterwards to Pompeii, where the ashes and lapilli were easier to remove, but the epigram written some ten years later by Martial only speaks about a former time (see Chapter IX, note 1442). A disaster of this kind was also described in the Antonine or later Oracula Sibyllina. The Jewish prophecy is about a pseudo-Nero, who will come from the East to the West:9 But when from a crevice in the Italian earth A fire will escape and reach wide heaven, And will burn many towns and kill men, And when many glowing ashes will fill the large heaven And drops will fall out of heaven like blood, Then know that it is the scorn of God in heaven, Since they will ruin the people of pious guiltless. This vaticinium eventu can be compared to Seneca’s rationale of the description of the earthquake of 62:10 It will also be profitable to keep in mind that the gods do nothing like that, and that neither heaven nor earth are shaken by the ire of deities: these thing have their own causes and do not rage upon order but, exactly as our bodies are disturbed by certain vices they are disturbed, and then, when they seem to do damage, they suffer it. As to the exact day of the eruption, most generally August 24, around midday, has been assumed. New research, however, seems to indicate a date in the fall, e.g. October 24. For our topic, this is not so relevant, but I think that the latter date seems to correspond with various facts, like the victims’ clothing, fruit harvested, and the discovery of a coin dated September 79.11 What Happened Before 1738 Copyright @ 2015. De Gruyter. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law. InEBSCO some : medievaleBook Collection and Renaissance (EBSCOhost) Italian - printed texts onPompeii 1/12/2018 is mentioned9:10 AM via as UNIVERSITEIT an example LEIDEN of a lost culture.12 To my knowledge, the oldest AN: 984256 ; Moormann, Eric, TotalBoox, TBX.; Pompeii’s Ashes : The Reception of the Cities Buried by Vesuvius in Literature, Music, and Drama 11 Account: s2985883.main.ehost In some medieval and Renaissance Italian texts Pompeii is mentioned as an example of a lost culture.12 To my knowledge, the oldest mention in prose in which the buried cities are evoked is Giovanni Boccaccio’s Comedia delle Ninfe fiorentine from 1341-1342.13 Ameto listens to stories told by nymphs. In one of them, the nymph Lia recounts her trip as a bride from Sicily to Rome to meet her groom. On her way north the vessel passes Capri, Sorrento, the cliffs of Stabiae, Pompeii and Vesuvius, imitator of Etna.14 Then she sees Pozzuoli, Cumae and Baiae. This list of names adds an exotic touch to the Nymph’s tale, and does not focus on the fatal events. Quite extensively Flavio Biondo discusses the location of Herculaneum and Pompeii in his Italia Illustrata in the middle of the fifteenth century: the first should be near Torre del Greco, the latter in the surroundings of Castellammare di Stabia, but nothing is extant. Pliny died during the study of the eruption.15 Niccolò Perotti’s dictionary of the mid-fifteenth century highlights Herculaneum among five towns called Heraclea:16 The fifth Heraclea is in Campania, Italy, and is also named Herculaneum. It lies by the sea near Pompeii and has a promontory that enjoys marvellous breezes from winds they call Etesiae, which is why it is true that the air is very healthy over there. This town used to be the domain of the Oscans, as well as Pompeii that is irrigated by the river Sarnus. Then it was held by the Thusci and Pelasgi, followed by the Samnites. It was also the market town of Nola and Nuceria, not far from Mount Vesuvius that is cultivated with excellent fields except for its peak. It is largely covered by a plain, but this is barren and abounds with ashes, having in front of it hollow caves full of burnt stones. So, it is easy to conjecture that these places were once ablaze with fire, but that the flames were extinguished when their fuel ran out. This long silence upon Campania and its buried cities remained almost undisturbed until the beginning of the eighteenth century. One of the few post-79 activities at Pompeii known formed works for the construction of irrigation canals in the years 1594-1600, when Domenico Fontana hit ancient houses; a memorial slab in the street between insulae I 6 and I 7 marks this fact.17 Some inscriptions came to light18 and the toponym Civita in the area of Pompeii recorded the earlier presence of a civitas, a city, as stated by Lucas Holstenius.19 But apart from some brief notices like Holstenius’ and that in Neapolitana Historia by Giulio Cesare Capaccio nothing happened until 1689.20 This and other publications did not try to link fortuitous finds with the ancient towns hidden under the feet of modern people. Instead, they convey a greater perspicacity about the topography of ancient Campania than the first generation of excavators at Pompeii, who would not know its name before 1756, when inscriptions were found recording the name Pompeii (see note 76). A late example of this kind of antiquarian scholarship before the first explorations is that of the learned priest Niccolò Partenio Giannettasio SJ. In 1704 he published Ver Herculanum, a history of Campania. He mentioned the ancient cities destroyed by Vesuvius, but did not hint at explorations or even fortuitous finds. The book is a clear example of research relying on written sources only, both ancient and later texts.21 One of the first stratigraphic soundings in archaeology was carried out in the area of Vesuvius, as early as 1689.22 The astronomer Francesco Bianchini described a small dig by the Neapolitan architect Francesco Picchetti next to the volcano.