Records of survivors from Pompeii have been found

Steven L. Tuck: On August 24, AD 79, Mount Vesuvius erupted, shooting over 3 cubic miles of debris into the air up to 20 miles (32.1 km) high. When the ash and rocks fell to Earth, they buried the archaic cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum.

By most contemporary accounts, the story essentially ends there: both cities were destroyed and their inhabitants frozen in time.

The problem only gained momentum with the rediscovery of the cities and excavations that began in earnest in the 1740s.

However, recent research has changed the narrative. The story of Vesuvius' eruption is no longer one of destruction; it also includes the stories of those who survived the eruption and began to rebuild their lives.

The search for survivors and their stories has dominated the last decade of my archaeological fieldwork as I tried to figure out who might have avoided the eruption. Some of my discoveries were featured in an episode of the up-to-date PBS documentary “Pompeii: The New Dig.”

Make it out alive

Pompeii and Herculaneum were two wealthy cities on the Italian coast, south of Naples. Pompeii was a community of approximately 30,000 inhabitants with a flourishing industry and vigorous political and financial networks. Herculaneum, with a population of approximately 5,000, had an vigorous fishing fleet and a number of marble workshops. Both economies supported the villas of wealthy Romans in the surrounding countryside.

In popular culture, the eruption is usually presented as an apocalyptic event in which no one survived: in episodes of the series “Doctor Who” and “Loki”, everyone in Pompeii and Herculaneum dies.

However, there was always evidence that people could have escaped.

The eruption itself lasted over 18 hours. The human remains found in each city represent only a fraction of their population, and many objects that might have been expected to remain and be preserved in the ashes have disappeared: carts and horses have disappeared from stables, ships have disappeared from the docks, and treasury chests have been cleared without money. and jewelry.

All of this suggests that many – if not most – city dwellers could escape if they escaped early enough.

Some archaeologists have always assumed that some people escaped. But finding them was never a priority.

So I created a methodology to see if I could find any survivors. I took Roman names specific to Pompeii or Herculaneum – such as Numerius Popidius and Aulus Umbricius – and looked for people with these names who lived in the surrounding communes in the period after the eruption. I also looked for additional evidence, such as infrastructure improvements in neighboring communities to house migrants.

After eight years of searching databases containing tens of thousands of Roman inscriptions in places ranging from walls to tombstones, I found evidence that more than 200 people were killed in 12 cities. These communes are mainly located in the area of ​​Pompeii. However, they were usually located north of Vesuvius, outside the zone of greatest destruction.

Most survivors appear to have stayed as close to Pompeii as possible. They preferred to settle with other survivors, and relied on social and economic networks from their original cities during resettlement.

Some immigrants do well

Some of the families that fled apparently continued to thrive in their up-to-date communities.

The Caltilius family settled in Ostia, then the main port city north of Pompeii, 28 miles from Rome. There they founded a temple to the Egyptian deity Serapis. Serapis, who wore a basket of grain on his head to symbolize the wealth of the earth, was popular in port cities such as Ostia, dominated by the grain trade. In these cities, an impressive, high-priced complicated of tombs was also built, decorated with inscriptions and enormous portraits of family members.
Members of the Caltilius family married into another family of fugitives, the Munatiuse. Together they created a wealthy, successful extended family.

The second largest port city in Roman Italy, Puteoli – today known as Pozzuoli – also hosted survivors of Pompeii. The family of Aulus Umbricius, who was a trader of garum, a popular fermented fish sauce, settled there. After resuming the family garum business, Aulus and his wife named their first child born in their adopted city Puteolanus, or “Puteolanean”.

Others are going through complex times

Not all who survived the eruption were wealthy or successful in their up-to-date communities. Some were already needy to begin with. Others appeared to have lost family fortunes, perhaps in the eruption itself.

Fabia Secundina from Pompeii – apparently named after her grandfather, a wealthy wine merchant – also ended up in Puteoli. There she married the gladiator Aquarius Retiarius, who died at the age of 25, leaving her in grave financial difficulties.

Three other very needy families from Pompeii – the Aviania, Atilia and Masuri families – survived and settled in a petite, poorer community called Nuceria, which today runs alongside Nocera and is located about 10 miles (16.1 km) east of Pompeii.

According to the tombstone preserved to this day, the Mazur family adopted a boy named Avianius Felicio as their adoptive son. It is worth noting that during the 160 years of Roman Pompeii there was no evidence of the existence of foster children, and extended families usually took in orphaned children. Because of this, it is likely that Felicio had no surviving family members.

This petite example illustrates a broader pattern of generosity among migrants – even destitute ones – towards other survivors and their up-to-date communities. Not only did they care for each other; they also made donations to religious and civic institutions in their up-to-date homes.

For example, the Vibidia family lived in Herculaneum. Before it was destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius, they generously donated to aid finance various institutions, including a up-to-date temple to Venus, the Roman goddess of love, beauty and fertility.

One family member who survived the eruption appears to have continued the family tradition: after settling in her up-to-date community, Beneventum, she donated a very petite, poorly made altar to Venus on public land donated by the local city council.

How would survivors be treated today?

As survivors settled and built lives in their up-to-date communities, the government also played a role.

Roman emperors made significant investments in the region, rebuilding estates destroyed by the eruption and building up-to-date infrastructure for the displaced population, including roads, water systems, amphitheaters, and temples.

This disaster recovery model can be a lesson for today. The costs of financing the reconstruction seem to have never been discussed. Survivors were not isolated in camps or forced to live indefinitely in tent cities. There is no evidence that they faced discrimination in their up-to-date communities.

Instead, all indications are that communities have welcomed survivors. Many of them opened their own companies and held positions in local governments. The government responded by providing up-to-date populations and their communities with the resources and infrastructure necessary to rebuild their lives.

Steven L. Tuck, professor of classics at the University of Miami

This article has been republished from Conversation under Creative Commons license. Read original article.