Pompeii, Its Life and Art. August 1840-1909 Mau
freedmen; the four ministri, first appointed in 7 B.C., were slaves.
Apart from commerce, an important source of income for the Pompeians lay in the fertility of the soil. In antiquity, as now, grapes were cultivated extensively on the ridge projecting from the foot of Vesuvius toward the south. The evidence afforded by the great number of wine jars, amphorae (Fig. 5), that have been brought to light would warrant this conclusion; and lately wine presses also have been discovered near Boscoreale, above Pompeii. Pliny makes mention of the Pompeian wine, but remarks that indulgence in it brings a headache that will last till noon of the following day. The olive too was cultivated, but only to a limited extent; this we infer from the small capacity of the press and other appliances for making oil found in the same villa in which the wine presses were discovered. At the present time the making of oil is not carried on about Pompeii. In the plain below the city vegetables were raised, as at the present day; the cabbage and onions of Pompeii were highly prized.
The working up of the products of the fisheries formed an important industry. The fish sauces which so tickled the palate of ancient epicures, garum, liquamen, and muria, were produced here of the finest quality. The making of them seems to have been practically a monopoly in the hands of a certain Umbricius Scaurus; a great number of earthen jars have been found with the mark of his ownership (p. 506).
Fig. 5.—An amphora from Boscoreale.
The Pompeians turned to account, also, the volcanic products of Vesuvius. Pumice stone was an article of export. From the lava millstones were made for both grain mills and oil mills, which were apparently already in extensive use in the time of Cato the Elder; he twice mentions the oil mills of Pompeii. In Pompeii itself the millstones of the oldest period are of lava from Vesuvius; later it was found that the lava of Rocca Monfina was better adapted for the purpose, and millstones of that material were preferred. Small hand-mills of the lava from Vesuvius were in use at Pompeii down to 79; but the larger millstones of this material found in the bakeries had been put one side. In shape and finish the mills of local make were superior to the more carelessly worked stones from Rocca Monfina; the preference for the latter was due to the fact that they contained numerous crystals of leucite, which broke off as the mill wore away, and so kept the grinding surfaces always rough. Millstones from Rocca Monfina may be seen at different places in Rome, as in the Museum of the Baths of Diocletian.
To the sources of revenue which contributed to the prosperity of Pompeii we may add the presence of wealthy Romans, who, attracted by the delightful climate, built country seats in the vicinity. Among them was Cicero, who often speaks of his Pompeian villa (Pompeianum). That the imperial family also had a villa here is inferred from a curious accident. We read that Drusus, the young son of the Emperor Claudius, a few days after his betrothal to the daughter of Sejanus, was choked to death at Pompeii by a pear which he had thrown up into the air and caught in his mouth. These country seats, no doubt, lay on the high ground back of Pompeii, toward Vesuvius; they probably faced the sea. But the identification of a villa excavated in the last century, and then filled up again, as the villa of Cicero, is wholly without foundation.
Salve lucrum, 'Welcome, Gain!' Such is the inscription which a Pompeian placed in the mosaic floor of his house. Lucrum gaudium, 'Gain is pure joy,' we read on the threshold of another house. A thrifty Pompeian certainly did not lack opportunity to acquire wealth.
How large a population Pompeii possessed at the time of the destruction of the city it is impossible to determine. A painstaking examination of all the houses excavated would afford data for an approximate estimate; but the results thus far obtained by those who have given attention to the subject are unsatisfactory. Fiorelli assigned to Pompeii twelve thousand inhabitants, Nissen twenty thousand. Undoubtedly the second estimate is nearer the truth than the first; according to all indication the population may very likely have exceeded twenty thousand.
This population was by no means homogeneous. The original Oscan stock had not yet lost its identity; inscriptions in the Oscan dialect are found scratched on the plaster of walls decorated in the style prevalent after the earthquake of the year 63. From the time when the Roman colony was founded no doubt additions continued to be made to the population from various parts of Italy. The Greek element was particularly strong. This is proved by the number of Greek names in the accounts of Caecilius Jucundus, for example, and by the Greek inscriptions that have been found on walls and on amphorae. The Greeks may have come from the neighboring towns; most of them were probably freedmen. In a seaport we should expect to find also Greeks from trans-marine cities; and, in fact, an Alexandrian appears in one of the receipts of Jucundus. There were Orientals, too, as we shall see when we come to the temple of Isis.
Thus far there has come to hand no trustworthy evidence for the presence of Christians at Pompeii; but traces of Jewish influence are not lacking. The words Sodoma, Gomora, are scratched in large letters on the wall of a house in Region IX (IX. i. 26). They must have been written by a Jew, or possibly a Christian; they seem like a prophecy of the fate of the city.
Fig. 6.—The Judgment of Solomon. Wall painting.
Another interesting bit of evidence is a wall painting, which appears to have as its subject the Judgment of Solomon (Fig. 6). On a tribunal at the right sits the king with two advisers; the pavilion is well guarded with soldiers. In front of the tribunal a soldier is about to cut a child in two with a cleaver. Two women are represented, one of whom stands at the block and is already taking hold of the half of the child assigned to her, while the other casts herself on her knees as a suppliant before the judges. It is not certain that the reference here is to Solomon; such tales pass from one country to another, and a somewhat similar story is told of the Egyptian king Bocchoris. The balance of probability is in favor of the view that we have here the Jewish version of the story, because this is consistent with other facts that point to the existence of a Jewish colony at Pompeii.
The names Maria and Martha appear in wall inscriptions. The assertion that Maria here is not the Hebrew name, but the feminine form of the Roman name Marius, is far astray. It appears in a list of female slaves who were working in a weaver's establishment, Vitalis, Florentina, Amaryllis, Januaria, Heracla, Maria, Lalage, Damalis, Doris. The Marian family was represented at Pompeii, but the Roman name Maria could not have been given to a slave. That we have here a Jewish name seems certain since the discovery of the name Martha.
In inscriptions upon wine jars we find mention of a certain M. Valerius Abinnerichus, a name which is certainly Jewish or Syrian; but whether Abinnerich was a dealer, or the owner of the estate on which the wine was produced, cannot be determined. In this connection it is worth while to note that vessels have been found with the inscribed labels, gar[um] cast[um] or cast[imoniale], and mur[ia] cast[a]. As we learn from Pliny (N. H. XXXI. viii. 95), these fish sauces, prepared for fast days, were used especially by the Jews.
Some have thought that the word Christianos can be read in an inscription written with charcoal, and have fancied that they found a reference to the persecution of the Christians under Nero. But charcoal inscriptions, which will last for centuries when covered with earth, soon become illegible if exposed to the air; such an inscription, traced on a wall at the time of the persecutions under Nero, must have disappeared long before the destruction of the city. The inscription in question was indistinct when discovered, and has since entirely faded; the reading is quite uncertain. If it were proved that the word "Christians" appeared in it, we should be warranted only in the inference that Christians were known at Pompeii, not that they lived and worshipped there. According to Tertullian (Apol. 40) there were no Christians in Campania before 79.
CHAPTER III
THE CITY OVERWHELMED