Ancient History and Archaeology.com

Its been a long time since my last post, I know. But not without good reason.

I now have two more Pompeii guides out on RAMA: ‘Civic Pompeii ‘and ‘Pompeii’s Last Days’.

As with the first tour ‘Discovering Pompeii’, the guides aim to tell a story about the life of the ancient city. Each landmark or ‘waypoint’ acts as a focal point to illustrate an episode from that story.

‘Civic Pompeii’ takes the visitor on a journey through the history of Pompeii, focusing on its temples, theatres and forums. It begins and ends with the intriguing triangular forum. This spur of volcanic rock overlooks the central area of Pompeii. In itself, it represents the changing fortunes-and character of a city that began Oscan and ended Roman. It was the city’s earliest sacred centre, before becoming the focal point of the town’s ‘entertainment zone’. By the end of Pompeii’s, life it was the equivalent of a public park.

Thanks to Jeffrey Jacobson of the ‘Pompeii VRL project’ for his permission to use the excellent 3D reconstructions of the triangular forum.

 Additional thanks to William Gunn Glennhouse for allowing me to use his image of a replica Roman basilica.

‘Pompeii’s last Days speaks for itself. The tour takes the visitor through the destruction of Pompeii, using waypoints which represent key stages in the eruption of Vesuvius-and the effect they had on the city.

This tour was a real challenge to write because I had to find waypoints which ran sequentially and fitted into the narrative of the eruption, which I constructed using the latest theories on the 79AD eruption of Vesuvius. There was so much material to choose from; I had to be really selective.

‘Pompeii’s last Days’ was probably my favorite of the Pompeii tours to write. I think this is because I was using the archaeology to tell the story of what is ultimately a human tragedy. At times, it felt quite emotional. This is largely due to so much of the narrative being focused on the human remains from Pompeii.

I’ve written about the plaster casts of Vesuvius’s Roman victims before in my article ‘Human Remains in Pompeii’. The way they preserve a semblance of the people of Pompeii-even in some cases down to details of their clothing and facial expressions- is one of the miracles of the eruption. But it also reminds us that these aren’t simple artifacts-they are people like us. The one that touched me the most is in the child in the picture below. This little boy or girl died suddenly in the early hours of their last day, along with their parents as they tried to escape the building they had been sheltering in.

I suppose ultimately, ‘Pompeii’s Last Days’ reminded me that the city isn’t just a remarkable and fascinating window into the ancient world. It’s the site of a natural disaster.

Currently, RAMA tours are only available on Ipad or IPod. But RAMA is extending the App into android this February. It’s also going to be tweaked so that it can be read offline. This means that the tours can be enjoyed as an interactive themed guide for the many towns and cities they cover and as a historical e-resource.

I certainly hope that as well as providing compelling guides to the city, readers of my Pompeii guides will find them useful historical/archaeological resources for this fascinating city. As well as good stories too.

Many people compare the ancient mania for gladiators with the sports and athletics stars of today. Why not reality TV?

Whilst it may seem a little trivial to compare the life and death struggles of the arena with the pointless posturing of groups of wannabees in the jungle or a house, there are some similarities between the two. At least from the point of view of the spectators.

Gladiatorial games may have begun their life in Rome as memorial events for the patrician dead but they became wildly popular with the general populace-in much the same way as certain reality shows today. They were even paid for by politicians to win over the voters.

Like reality TV, they had their detractors. The orator Cicero hated them, questioning the pleasure of watching an animal or human being slaughtered. Seneca felt very much the same. Like many of today’s viewers who bewail the proliferation of tacky, shows which exploit the worst kinds of human weakness on our screens, these roman intellectuals objected on the grounds of good taste and the gratuitous enjoyment of the crowd of the sufferings of others.

This, however, is perhaps where the similarities stop. For gladiators may have been regarded as the lowest of the low- social outcasts tainted by their association with death, but they were not the attention seeking, greedy and often needy participants of today’s reality TV.

They were heroes to some. Cicero and Seneca may have hated the spectacles but they viewed the examples of the fighters as instructive. To them, gladiators encapsulated many valued Roman virtues-bravery, honour and martial skill. And, if the evidence of Pompeii is to be believed, they were heroes of a different kind to many women and girls. And whilst, like in today’s reality shows, some free Romans and women were attracted to the arena by the prospect of fame and money; most gladiators were slaves and criminals. They had no choice and although they may have achieved fame, a fortune wasn’t likely. The major prize for them at the end of the day was their lives.

Analysis of bones from bodies in a potential gladiator’s graveyard in York shows that gladiator’s often led harsh, even cruel lives with the lowest sort being chained in cells. But unlike reality show contestants, gladiators weren’t so readily discarded. A lanista invested a great deal of time and money in the training of his gladiators. Perhaps that’s why, in Pompeii at least, it was more common for losers to be reprieved rather than killed in the arena.

And whilst gladiators may have been social outcasts, they were at least part of a close community which ensured that their passing was marked respectfully and they had a decent burial. Better than the average reality contestant who can only hope to have salacious stories sold to the tabloids by their supposed friends.

But even gladiators can be victims of the over imaginative modern press. Consider the case of a large female in a roman graveyard near Hereford, UK. Despite being buried with no weapons or significant grave goods, the woman’s size alone was enough to incite the press into proclaiming her a female gladiator.

Which goes to prove you shouldn’t always believe what you read in the papers,