HSC Ancient History

Part I: Cities of Vesuvius -Pompeii and Herculaneum

7 Nature of Sources and Evidence:

Local Political Life

LBHS

Syllabus:

The nature of sources and evidenceThe evidence provided by the sources from

Pompeii and Herculaneum for:

social structure:

- Men

- Women

- Freedmen

- Slaves

Everyday life:

- Leisure activities

- Food and dining

- Clothes

Exercise

Draw up a page with three columns. The first two

about the width of a ruler.

Column A: Social Group

Column B: Example

Column C: Evidence

Complete the table as you go through this

presentation.

Local Political Life

According to Louise Zarmati, writing in Pompeii

and Herculaneum, ―many women took a strong

interest in the annual elections and showed their

support for candidates with slogans written in

big, red letters on the walls of shops and

houses‖. (Zarmati (2008), 109) This was despite

the fact that they were not allowed to vote.

Knowledge of Pompeii’s political organisation

comes from written sources, such as the election

slogans on the walls of private and public

buildings, as well as comparison with similar

towns throughout the Roman world.

Fragment of a wall painting containing an electoral inscription from the officina of Verecundus.

Depicts Mercury with caduceus and petasus emerging from a little Etruscan-Italic temple. Holds a purse of money in right hand.

Covering the wall are several inscriptions. One reads: ―I ask you to elect Holconius Priscus as duovir. He is worthy of holding office‖.

Public Office

DUUMVIRI – ―the two men‖. Co-mayors elected each spring. Only one year in office. Also in charge of justice.

AEDILES – elected annually. ―two men, for taking care of streets, buildings, temples and public buildings’.

HARUSPEX – Priest who advised on the correct course of action by inspection of animal entrails.

FASCES – an axehead projecting from a bundle of elm or birch rods tied together with a red strap.

Ancient Italian Decree: 'No Dumping'

Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2006/12/20/oldgarbage_arc.html

Dec. 20, 2006 — The mountains of garbage that

often fill the streets in the Italian city of Naples

and surrounding areas are not just a modern-day

problem, suggest ancient wall inscriptions.

Using infrared reflectography, a non-destructive technique commonly used to peek beneath the surface of paintings, Italian researchers have brought to light two inscriptions against garbage dumping in the ancient Roman town Herculaneum.

The modest town was destroyed, along with its more famous neighbor Pompeii, in the first-century eruption of Mount Vesuvius.

The finding shows that even before the eruption buried Herculaneum under 75 feet of ash, local authorities were already trying to reign in trash.

Luciano Rosario Maria Vicari, director of an applied optics laboratory at Naples University, and colleagues analyzed Herculaneum’s notice board, which was found on the eastern side of the city’s water tank.

The board for public notices consisted of a plastered rectangular area that housed the titulipicti — painted inscriptions used to communicate decrees and measures.

Painted in black, the inscriptions were carefully placed on straight parallel lines carved on the plaster.

A titulus pictus, a painted inscription used to

communicate decrees and measures in Herculaneum

―The plastered area worked as a blackboard — the previous inscriptions were wiped with a thin plaster layer to make space to a new inscription‖, Vicari told Discovery News.

The most recent inscription was found by inscriptions expert Matteo Della Corte in the mid-1900s. It contained a decree by the magistrate Alficius Paulus against the dumping of waste.

Della Corte realised there was a second inscription on the plaster layer underneath, and tried in vain to bring it to light. Painted inscriptions fade quicky in the sun and rain, once exposed.

―Indeed, the ink was almost gone and the plaster was

seriously damaged. But infrared reflectography has

succeed in recovering that lost inscription, showing

that we can apply this technology to other sites in

Herculaneum and Pompeii‖, Vicari said.

The inscription below was another decree against

garbage dumping in the area around the water tank.

It was issued by two joint magistrates, Rufellius

Romanus and Tetteius Severus.

―The authorities were very strict‖, said Vicari.

―Transgressors, if free citizens, would have had to

pay a fine. Lashes were reserved for slaves who

infringed the rule‖.