Pompeii Awakened: A Story of Rediscovery by Judith Harris. London: I.B. Tauris, 2014

Pompeii Awakened is, indeed, an awakening for the reader and traveler. Judith Harris begins her study by describing first century Roman life in Pompeii’s “flourishing economy” and the life upper-class Romans enjoyed in the nearby fashionable resort town, Herculaneum.  

 

In the first century A.D. Pompeii had a thriving economy and an industrious merchant class with  nearly 2000 slaves. By day Herculaneum’s wealthy Roman denizens, escaping from Rome’s summer heat and malaria, basked in the sun and by night they attended the theater and feasted on cheese, flat bread, grapes, figs, and wine. Basing her research on modern scientific analysis and on Pliny’s eye-witness account of the 79 AD eruption of Mt. Vesuvius recorded in his letters,  Harris then describes the disastrous eruption that buried Pompeii and nearby Herculaneum. The eruption killed thousands and virtually wiped both towns off the map of Italy.

 

Harris then jumps nearly two thousand years to the eighteenth century where her engrossing study contextualizes the discovery of the lost and buried Pompeii and Herculaneum. For centuries, historians knew that both towns existed, but they did not know their exact locations until a farmer digging a well brought up to the surface samples of precious marble. A French prince, Emanuel d’Elboeuf, then expropriated the site on behalf of the then ruling Austrian government and began excavations in 1709. In 1748 another farmer digging a well accidently opened up a tunnel into Pompeii’s ruins. In what follows, Harris recounts the history and politics of both sites’ reckless excavation over two hundred years, including Mussolini’s exploitation of the sites.

 

As many Southern Californians well know, we all share a direct link to this ancient Roman site in J. P. Getty’s museum in Malibu, designed after Herculaneum’s famous Villa of the Papyri.  Harris reminds us that in the early 1970s when Getty opened his museum he was severely criticized for designing it in the Roman style. But Harris tells us that Getty’s learned taste in things Roman has been justified. In the decades following its completion, his villa has proved to be an important countervailing influence in the context of the post 1980s’ mania over postmodern architectural style. While Los Angeles’s Disney Hall is a seismic break from tradition and an expression of an individualistic view of ourselves and our society,  the Villa of the Papyri in Malibu reminds us of the origins of western culture, the rootstock of our laws, literature, culture, and social organization.

As Harris explains, Pompeii and Herculaneum became the buried treasure of all the colonizing forces that occupied Naples after their discovery, from the Austrians under the Hapsburgs and Spanish Bourbons to the nineteenth-century French invasion and occupation under Napoleon. After the discovery of both sites, over the next nearly one hundred and fifty years until Italian unification in 1870, there developed a mania throughout Europe for the Roman antiquities. There also developed throughout Europe a renewed interest in Roman civilization, both its cultural accomplishments and its decadence.

 

The sad part of Harris’ history of Pompeii recounts the pillaging and ransacking of the sites by the successive occupying forces, with no regard to the preservation of the artifacts found or their provenance. The excavators, slaves brought in to do the dangerous digging in the tunnels, were guided by unprofessional and greedy ruling class monarchs, aristocrats, and in some cases, so-called experts. They routinely directed the diggers to smash recklessly through walls without regard to what was on the other side, usually a priceless fresco.  They were interested mainly in large marbles they could ship north and use to adorn their palaces.

 

In the process, they destroyed thousands of valuable artifacts that would have given scholars a more accurate picture of Roman daily life. Furthermore, the provenance of discovered items was never recorded. Pompeii Awakened is a story of thieves and egocentric rulers who pillaged both sites for nearly a century until Garibaldi and his troops justifiably ran them out of Italy. 

 

Early on, some Italians, such as Roman artist, Camillo Paderni, did become involved in the excavations. Later Italian experts in Roman antiquities were also called upon to aid the excavations. But there was little that these frustrated Italians could do against the power of the ruling monarchs who took control of the sites. They shipped many of the discovered treasures north, where they now reside in European museums and palaces. As Paderni wrote in a letter to a friend, “When they meet with anything that seems valuable, they pick it out, and leave the rest.” When they were finished with a room, they merely threw the rubble back into the space, often destroying valuable artifacts. As Harris writes, “This was collection-driven archaeology at its most brutal.”  Roman marbles and mosaics became grist for “regime propaganda,” as succeeding rulers over the decades attempted to wrap themselves in the mantle of that imaginary Roman glory. 

 

Harris explains that the Villa of the Papyri was so named because it contained a library, the only known library that has ever been discovered. It ranks as one of the greatest archeological finds in the world.  Based on what they have been able to read so far, scholars have concluded that it was a carefully selected collection of books, not merely a personal library. Scholars have speculated that the villa must have served as some sort of a cultural center.  Virgil is known to have attended lectures at the villa.  It contained a trove of papyri, only a portion of which has been opened successively and translated. What we know is that it is a library of Greek philosophy, mainly the works of the philosopher and Epicurean, Philodemus.  In one paragraph that would make any reader cringe, initially, workers found large rolls of what appeared to them to be charcoal. Before they knew what they were, they burned dozens of them to keep warm. Only later did observers realize that the workers were burning ancient books.  

 

The story that Harris tells of scholars’ efforts over the decades to open and to read them is a fascinating subject in itself. While Philodemus is not a major philosopher, the papyri have opened a new window into yet another aspect of Roman life. The careful, now scientific opening of the nearly 2000 papyri discovered continues today in a variety of locations in Europe, where the papyri had been shipped by the various occupying regimes over the decades before 1870. 

 

Any book on Pompeii would not be complete without a discussion of Pompeii’s infamous erotica. Upon the discovery of the extensive role that sex seemed to play in the life of Pompeii’s inhabitants, puritanical Anglo-Saxon observers were offended. The mantle of Roman glory began to fade, and they began to see Romans as decadent. However, Harris points out that even today we are not sure entirely of the role sex played in Roman life. Certainly, the pornographic images had an erotic function, but she also argues that the ubiquitous presence of phalluses and sexual images suggest that they served as good luck charms. For example, at one point when excavators found a phallus on a wall, they assumed that they had found a brothel. But with further digging, to their surprise it turned out to be a bakery.

 

By the mid-nineteenth century, the romanticized reproductions of Pompeii’s paintings overcame the decadent image of Roman life. Exploiting the growing interest in Roman life was British novelist Edward Bulwer Lytton’s 1834 historical romance, The Last Days of Pompeii. It became an instant bestseller, selling thousands of copies. It remains the “second-best selling novel in history.” It has a long publication history, not to mention its various cinematic versions in the twentieth century.

 

When unification ended foreign domination of Italy and the newly formed Italian state took control of the sites, the foreign looting ended. 

 

But unification only led to another  unfortunate chapter in the history of Pompeii and Herculaneum.  Like all previous monarchs, Mussolini as well wished to wrap himself in the mantle of Roman glory and power.  Harris points out that Mussolini came to power with only “one-tenth of parliament behind him.” In his quest for legitimacy, he turned to the Roman past. to burnish his image in his aspiration for domestic authority, colonial power, and status in the world. As Harris writes, he “Wanted to be Caesar.”   But he was as disrespectful of antiquities as were all previous foreign rulers. To make room for his display parades, he destroyed approximately nineteen churches, as well as medieval and Renaissance neighborhoods, in the center of Rome. 

 

To ensure that the politically correct version of the Italian past was presented to Italians, he tightly controlled all positions handed out to professors of archeology and museum directors. Competent and otherwise valuable antiquities specialists who refused to sign allegiance to his fascist regime were exiled.

As a result, incompetent, state-approved archeologists lost records of Pompeii’s excavations and publications were delayed for years. Harris tells us that “Intellectual loss aggravated the effects of Fascism upon the physical site.” Also, publications were compromised by “Fascist-tainted scholarship” that continued for years after Mussolini’s ignominious fall. Harris writes that his compromise of archeological scholarship and ruinous rebuilding of Roma’s central neighborhood did more damage to the antiquities field than all previous foreign rulers. 

 

But all is not lost. As Harris explains in her closing chapters, more than one-third of Herculaneum and portions of the Villa of Papyri remain unexcavated. How many more manuscripts lay yet undiscovered to be added to Latin literature? How many more Roman marbles are yet to be discovered, all now protected by Italy’s aggressively enforced national monuments law? Furthermore, scholars know that the corridor between Herculaneum and Sorrento was lined with Roman villas before the eruption. Though many of these villas have been found and excavated, there is still no telling how many more lie under that preserving layer of ash. 

 

As the exhibition title of Pompeii currently running in Exposition Park tells us, “What nature destroyed, it also preserved.” With over 150 artifacts on display, Pompeii is an excellent opportunity to see firsthand a selection of the antiquities that are the subject of Harris’s history. A visit to the museum would be an excellent supplement to Harris’s engrossing Pompeii Awakened.”