Pompeii was snuffed out at a pivotal time in Roman history, when the old social hierarchies of the Republic had crumbled away, and radical new ideas were springing up in their place. Ordinary people could challenge the supremacy of Rome’s aristocratic elites and win. Women became entrepreneurs and public benefactors, while former slaves got rich. There was social mobility. When the eruption darkened the skies overhead with ash, Pompeiians were in the middle of a slow social revolution. On its streets, smeared with smutty graffiti, full of bars and bathhouses and brothels, we can see the footprint that these changes left behind.
Isis and the Pygmies
Pompeii’s history begins in the fourth century BCE.1 A bustling port city on the Bay of Naples, it was ruled by the Samnites, Rome’s uneasy allies. Its residents spoke Oscan and built temples to Samnite gods, farming the fertile volcanic soils on the slopes of nearby Mount Vesuvius. They fished in the bay and traded with cities across the Mediterranean. Economically rich and strategically located at the nexus of the sea and a large inland river network, Pompeii was an obvious target for Roman conquest. But for at least two centuries, Rome was content to treat Pompeii as an ally, as long as the town provided soldiers for its wars. Then, in 91 BCE, Pompeii and a few other southern Italian towns sparked the so-called Social War with Rome, partly in an attempt to gain more rights after centuries of serving as de facto client states.2 After a bitter struggle, a Roman army led by Lucius Cornelius Sulla crushed the Samnite resistance in 80 BCE. Pompeii became a fully Roman city, and Sulla forcibly settled thousands of retired Roman soldiers there. The new Romanized population converted Samnite temples to Roman ones,3 and Pompeii’s official language became Latin.
This colonial history set the tone for Pompeii’s polyglot culture. Though technically Roman, Pompeii still had a thriving Samnite community who openly worshipped Oscan deities like Mefitis, a multifaceted goddess often compared to Venus. People kept scribbling graffiti in Oscan on Pompeii’s walls right up until the day Vesuvius erupted. Immigrant cultures also thrived throughout the city, and one of the strongest non-Roman influences came from North African empires.
I arrived in Pompeii at the height of summer, stepping off the train from Rome along with a group of bored-looking schoolchildren who were clearly there for the same reason I was. The modern city of Pompei—spelled with one “i” instead of the ancient city’s two—caters largely to tourists interested in the ruins. Most visitors pause by the stalls hawking tinfoil Roman helmets and gelato, then make a beeline for the sumptuous villas overlooking the sea to the west. But I began my visit by wandering through its quieter southern neighborhoods, looking for the impact of North Africa. I was very close to the Forum, a formal downtown area where Pompeiians built administration offices and at least a dozen temples. Among these monumental buildings, I found the crumbling glory of the Temple of Isis, an Egyptian goddess, whose dais and once-colorful columns are now a uniform gray stone. All that remains of this luxurious retreat is a walled enclosure, whose generous dimensions hint at all the money poured into its shrines and dwellings for its priests. Its lavishly painted frescoes depicted Isis worshippers’ life along the Nile, and are now in the permanent collection at the Naples Archaeological Museum. In the first century, Isis worship was all the rage in Pompeii, and rich Roman women were especially keen on the imported African goddess.
Around the corner from the Temple of Isis is a street called Via Stabiana, a major artery that leads down a gentle slope to the Stabian Gate, one of the ancient city’s main entrances. Millennia ago, this street would have been flanked by two theaters, dozens of bars, and some villas. On holidays devoted to Isis, Via Stabiana would have been packed with costumed revelers led by the women who ran the temple. But today the gate was closed for an excavation, and the further I wandered, the less I could hear the rowdy tourists visiting the city’s more famous attractions. I sat on a curbstone, looking at an archway from the Stabian Gate. Behind me were the city’s ubiquitous brown brick walls crumbling into plots of dried weeds and hardy wildflowers. I imagined the place thick with pedestrians, mule-drawn carts, and merchants hawking their wares from storefronts built into the bottom levels of three-story homes above me. But now the street felt truly abandoned, devoid of life and context.
And then, as if by magic, the eminent University of Cambridge archaeologist Andrew Wallace-Hadrill appeared. A dapper figure in a linen suit with a sweep of white hair combed back from his forehead, he emerged from a small residential alley choked with waist-high weeds. It was a fitting entrance: Wallace-Hadrill is famous among archaeologists for pioneering a new approach to exploring these ruins, focusing on domestic life in houses rather than elite political maneuvers in the Forum.4 Apparently he was in town for a conference, and had decided to check on some new excavations. Knowing his interest in Roman houses, I asked him how Africa had found its way into so many frescoes here. Though typically these paintings showcase Roman and Greek myths, Pompeii homes devote a lot of wall space to African scenes. Some of these images are worshipful, like the ones associated with Isis; others are the ancient Roman equivalent of racist Sambo caricatures, putting Africans in satirical or humiliating poses.
I was curious about a painting I’d seen at the museum in Naples, from the so-called House of the Physician. Curators described it as pygmies reenacting a classic scene from the Old Testament where King Solomon resolves a dispute over the maternity of a baby by threatening to cut it in half and give each woman an equal portion. The woman who responds by volunteering to give up the baby is revealed as the true mother. In the fresco, we see the scene with cartoonishly rendered African pygmies in all the roles. Solomon, wearing a gladiator’s helmet that dwarfs his head, holds a meat cleaver over a wriggling baby. Two women watch, the darker one with a venal grin, and the paler one looking mournfully away. It looked to me like racist humor of the ancient world.
Wallace-Hadrill agreed with my interpretation, but laughed out loud at the idea that it might be a scene from the Bible. “That’s what they like to call it, but it’s not described as the judgment of Solomon anywhere,” he explained. “It’s likely a myth about an Egyptian king, but we call it ‘Solomon’s Judgment’ because we know the Bible.” He said it was common for Romans to represent Egyptian culture using pygmies in frescoes. Some of these frescoes are basically dirty jokes: one shows pygmies floating in a penis-shaped boat propelled by a river of sperm. Others convey respect, conjuring gorgeous scenes of the Nile with realistic African figures at work or performing rituals. As the Temple to Isis attests, Egyptian gods were revered in this city. This mix of worshipful and hateful images across Pompeii speaks to an acute cultural awareness of Egyptian political power. Some embraced it, and others belittled it. But nobody could ignore it.
Wallace-Hadrill added that Africa also found its way into Pompeii from the Punic empire that was centered in the regions that are today northern Tunisia and Algeria. Carthage, a Punic city, was a major trade center and had often challenged Rome for control over the region during the war-torn Republican era. We know Pompeiians did a lot of business with the Punic world because, as Wallace-Hadrill put it, “Pompeii uses coins from Ebusus [modern-day Ebiza] in enormous quantities.” The island of Ebusus was a Punic territory positioned strategically between what are now Algeria and Spain, both of which fell into the clutches of the Roman Empire. Garum, a fermented fish sauce that was a Pompeii delicacy, also had its origins in the Punic world. And even Pompeii’s architecture was shaped by Punic styles. A popular method of bricklaying, in which large blocks are arranged into T-shaped patterns between smaller, thin bricks, was borrowed directly from the Punic world. Indeed, this kind of brick arrangement was referred to among Romans as “Africanum,” so people clearly knew its origins.
After Wallace-Hadrill said good-bye, I retraced my steps back up Via Stabiana to the Temple of Isis, looking for Africanum in the walls I passed. Suddenly it was obvious that I wasn’t in some pure, distilled version of ancient Rome, preserved for thousa
nds of years. I was in the ruins of a diverse urban community, whose population came from many places, and fused the traditions of North Africa and Rome into something that was uniquely Pompeii. And just as all New Yorkers are not the same, neither were all Pompeiians.
The business that Julia Felix built
The names of nearly all Pompeii’s residents are unknown, and excavators refer to buildings as “House of the Tragic Poet” or “House of the Surgeon,” in reference to art or other items found inside. Likewise, the city’s streets are known by modern names given to them by many different explorers over the years. One of the few buildings whose owner’s name survives is the House of Julia Felix. A sprawling property spanning an entire block on the far northeastern side of the city, it’s all the way across town from the Temple of Isis. Painted on its facade the day the volcano erupted was an advertisement for shops and apartments to rent within:
To let, in the estate of Julia Felix, daughter of Spurius: elegant baths for respectable people, shops with upper rooms, and apartments. From 13 August next to 13 August of the sixth year, for five continuous years. The lease will expire at the end of the five years.5
This is the only written record we have of Julia Felix. She must have been very wealthy to own an enormous estate off Via dell’Abbondanza, a major thoroughfare that cuts all the way through Pompeii from her house on the east side to the theater and temple districts near Via Stabiana. We also know that Julia’s estate changed a lot in the years leading up to 79 CE, expanding to merge with the estate next door and swallowing up an alley that had once separated the two residences. The property seems to have become more commercial, too, adding a large bathhouse and a dozen tabernas.
Though it may at one time have been a private villa—the Roman equivalent of a mansion—for Julia or a previous owner, the property was gradually modified to be more like a luxury club and spa. Bathhouses in ancient Rome weren’t for getting clean, though occasionally one might accidentally emerge slightly less dirty. Baths were essentially social clubs where people discussed business and news while taking a hot soak. At Julia’s bathhouse, they could read scrolls of scandalous new poetry next to a shady garden fountain, or take an afternoon nap on a couch nearby. And they could have a meal or two at one of the tabernas on her property.
Julia’s bathhouse faced the lively Via dell’Abbondanza, and was probably frequented by locals as well as visitors. As her rental notice hints, it was a great place to set up shop. The street was packed with foot traffic from tourists who came in through the nearby Sarno Gate to watch gladiators practice in a large, open-air gymnasium called the Paelestra, and to see games and other entertainment at the enormous amphitheater down the road from Julia’s property. The area was so notorious for rowdy behavior that it was declared a public menace by Emperor Nero in 59 CE, when a deadly riot broke out between the home team gladiator fans from Pompeii and visiting fans from the neighboring colony of Nocera. The carnage was so dramatic that Nero banned gladiator games for ten years at Pompeii.
To follow the footsteps of the rioters from 59, I entered the city from the southeast, right next to the amphitheater. The place is still used for concerts, and I had just missed my chance to see King Crimson perform where Nucerians and Pompeiians once slaughtered each other over a gladiatorial game. Walking north, I passed between the amphitheater and the columns ringing the gladiators’ practice field, and then ducked into an alley edged by a vineyard that would not have been out of place during the city’s heyday.
Imagining the rioters close behind me, I took a left onto the Via dell’Abbondanza and found myself on the doorstep of Julia Felix’s property. Broad stairs led right from the street to her door, allowing visitors to bypass the sidewalk and proceed straight into her gardens and bathhouse. I peered inside through a gate. Though the marble columns and landscaping were gone, along with her “for rent” sign, the stateliness of the place was still palpable. It’s an enormous L-shaped property, occupying an entire block of Via dell’Abbondanza and turning the corner to continue for another block on Vicolo di Giulia Felice, or Julia Felix’s Alley. Through the doorway I could see the atrium where she would have received visitors, and beyond it, a landscaped garden. To my left was a bar with marble-topped counters and a bathhouse. Around the corner were more bars and private rooms to let. Julia’s property is called an insula, meaning an entire square block, and over half of it was given over to a lush orchard and garden for guests.
Via dell’Abbondanza is narrow enough that I could imagine a riot would have engulfed anyone walking by, and I wondered what Julia’s renters were doing while it was happening. Perhaps looking out from the garden? Gulping wine and joining in? If Julia had rooms here, she would likely have been watching from upstairs, in the less public parts of the house where people typically lived. She might have seen sports fans beating each other, or looting her tabernas.
The riots of 59 were simply the most extreme version of the kind of drunken revelry that often filled the streets near Julia’s house. Many of her neighbors responded by bricking up entrances to their homes on the Via dell’Abbondanza. In 79, however, Julia had recently opened up several new entrances, making room for more tabernas to service passersby as well as bathhouse regulars. Her richly appointed complex must have been the perfect getaway for tired pedestrians with some coin to spend.
It was also the first structure in the city to be uncovered when excavations began in the 18th century. Wesleyan University archaeologist Christopher Parslow has been researching Julia’s property for nearly four decades, and he said the building first came to light nearly 300 years ago when a farmer discovered the tops of marble columns sticking up out of his field. King Charles VII, a Bourbon royal from Spain who ruled the Bay of Naples at that time, had already funded excavations at two other ash-buried Roman cities, Herculaneum and Stabia. Known for his Enlightenment values, the king was fascinated by ancient history and dispatched Swiss engineer Karl Jakob Weber to examine the farmer’s discovery. Digging deeper, Weber revealed a row of gorgeous marble columns—the only marble columns found in Pompeii to date—as well as the impressive building surrounding them. We know from Julia’s advertising notice that the place once had extensive upper floors, but it’s likely that Weber’s pick-and-shovel excavation techniques ruined whatever remained of them after the eruption. Still, it was enough to convince the king that further excavations should be done. Though the House of Julia Felix was later reburied, only to be uncovered again in the 20th century, her property was what first brought the world’s attention to the ruins of Pompeii.
And yet we still know very little about the woman listed as the building’s owner on the sign outside. Parslow told me that for a long time, people believed she’d lived in the house until the day of the eruption. A skeleton with jewelry was found in the garden, and it was assumed to be Julia. “I don’t think she was the skeleton,” Parslow said wryly. “We don’t even know if [the skeleton] was female.” He’s not convinced she lived on the premises. “Her house has a design similar to private houses, but it’s much too public in terms of the interconnectedness of spaces inside. There’s not much privacy in what was supposed to be a private house.” If she did live in the house, “Where’s her bedroom?” he asked. “There is no place to put it because there’s so much traffic” from visitors. He speculates that Julia managed her substantial property from somewhere else, perhaps another estate in Pompeii. As for the House of Julia Felix? “I think it’s set up for entertainment,” he said. “It’s for people coming in for meals and to be entertained [at the baths].”
But Julia wouldn’t have wanted just anyone traipsing onto her property. “It had a level of elegance,” Parslow said. It wasn’t simply the marble columns; the entire property was artfully painted, and the garden boasted exquisite landscaping details like little bridges over its central fountain. He added that a public bathhouse like this would have charged a steep fee, underscoring its resemblance to an exclusive club. As her advertisement indicated,
Julia was making money partly by catering to “respectable people.”
Julia had to surmount many barriers to own this property. At the time she was alive, Roman law held that a woman had to manage property through a “guardian,” usually her father.6 However, it doesn’t appear Julia was in that position. The rental notice mentions her father’s name, but clearly stipulates that she owns the property and will negotiate with any would-be renters. One likely explanation for this comes from the so-called Julian Laws, created by Emperor Augustus in 17 BCE to govern the sexual and reproductive behavior of women. Under Julian Law, a freeborn woman like Julia could gain the right to manage her own property if she had three children. If Julia was a freedwoman, or former slave, she would have had to bear four children to achieve the same status.7 Assuming Julia came from the moneyed classes, she likely married as a young teenager and possibly had a couple of husbands by the time she was in her 20s. Wars frequently made young brides into widows, and divorce was also widely accepted for any number of reasons. So we’re left to guess that Julia probably bore three or more children, leaving her in a position to manage an inheritance from a dead husband.
The Julian Laws sound preposterous from a modern perspective, but Roman leaders took them very seriously. They would have cast a shadow over the fortunes of people like Julia. Augustus had styled himself a social reformer, attempting to curb the decadent habits of youth during the last days of the Republic. Along with incentivizing women to have as many babies as possible, the Julian Laws also meted out harsh punishment for women deemed “promiscuous.” Famously, Augustus exiled his own daughter in 2 CE when she refused to stop publicly engaging in the ancient world’s equivalent of free love. At the same time, an odd liberalization crept into the Roman world through these laws. To encourage marriage, Augustus allowed freeborn men to marry freedwomen for the first time, making their children legitimate. Now a woman born a slave might be freed to become the wife of a citizen, and her children would be freeborn.
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