Pompeii The Talking Walls (best pompeii documentary ever)

Some 2,000 years ago, on a summer day in 79 AD, a sudden disaster struck an unsuspecting city located near one of the major trading ports of the Roman Empire. As the largest volcano on the Italian peninsula erupted, the entire city was wiped out overnight, buried under volcanic ash. The city's name was Pompeii. When its excavation began almost 1,700 years later, what came to light astonished the world. Under the volcanic ash, the city had been beautifully preserved, a time capsule that revealed centuries later what town life had been like at the height of the Roman imperial rule. Not only were the city's buildings perfectly preserved, volcanic ash also sealed the bodies of its residents who failed to escape, and their anguished figures give today's viewers a very vivid picture of the disaster. There was another intriguing discovery. On this wall, there is a seven feet long graffiti. The writing was scratched into the wall by people who lived 2,000 years ago. Many graffiti can be found on Pompeii's walls. They give testimony to its inhabitants' thoughts and draw a vivid picture of their daily lives. Some messages are between lovers. Remember the dances we enjoyed together. What were the changes the Roman Empire brought to the ancient world? How did its unprecedented prosperity affect people's lives? In this program, the Roman Empire looks at the bright and dark side of Roman imperial rule as can be gleaned from the graffiti discovered in the ruins of Pompeii. This is the Via Appia, a highway that connects Rome to southern Italy. For three hours, the road runs through undulating green fields that stretch into the distance on both sides. Since ancient times, the region has been known as the Granary of Italy. It produces a wide variety of crops in great abundance. It is under this fertile land that ruins of an old city were discovered in the 18th century. The ruins of Pompeii, the ancient Roman city that vanished overnight in a volcanic eruption. The volcano, Mount Vesuvius, towers over Pompeii from the north. The circumference of the wall that surrounded the city was almost two miles long. Pompeii was home to as many as 20,000 people. It was a typical Roman provincial town. When Vesuvius erupted, it first showered Pompeii with an enormous amount of volcanic debris. Ash and pumice rained down for over 18 hours. After that, the town was struck by a sudden surge of deadly pyroclastic flow. The entire city, together with 2,000 of its inhabitants who didn't manage to escape, was buried under 10 feet of ash. As the excavation work gradually removed volcanic ash from two-thirds of the site, amazing details of ancient Roman town life came to light. At the center was the main square called Pompeii's Forum. Public buildings, such as temples, a government court, and markets surrounded the square. A network of streets of varying sizes led from the Forum to crisscross the city. Roman streets had raised pedestrian walkways on two sides and a carriageway in the center. Ruts left in the stone pavement suggest that Pompeii's streets were frequently used by heavily loaded carts. This is an ancient pedestrian crossing. Raised stepping stones placed at regular intervals made it easier for pedestrians to cross the carriageways whose surface was lower. Public water fountains, like this one, were installed all over the city to provide its residents with water 24 hours a day. There was a public water outlet at no more than a minute's walk distance from any home. The city was designed to allow all citizens to live in comfort. 250 years have passed since the ruins of Pompeii were first discovered, but excavation work still continues to this day. This is the latest excavation. The House of the Chase Lovers. Mules that were kept in this house were tied up and couldn't escape. They died where they lay, and that's how they were discovered. It's been 16 years since the excavation of this house started, and numerous artifacts found at the site provide a glimpse into the life of its residents. These are the things that we just found. The bones will be sent for expert analysis, but I guess that they belonged to a cow the family had just eaten for lunch. We also found a pot that was used for cooking. It was a large pot, and it was used on an open fire. You can still see the soot on the outside. Pompeii's greatest discovery, however, are the figures of people left just as they died 2,000 years ago. They are so detailed that you can even see the torment at the moment of death in their faces. Figures like these are strewn all over town. How could they have maintained their shape after all this time? The bodies of people who perished at Pompeii were buried in volcanic ash that hardened over time. After the bodies decayed, they left hollow spaces in the hardened ash. The cavities, in fact, became precise molds of the human figures that once occupied them. When archaeologists found the cavities in the course of their excavations and poured plaster into them, it was as if the dying moments of the long deceased came to life. The cast figures have enabled us to understand what happened to the people of Pompeii on the day of the volcanic eruption. Some families apparently chose to stay in their homes until the eruption subsided. Four figures were found huddled together in a small alcove. The mother held her children close until death overcame them. This child is believed to have been four years old. These two people seem to have been trying to protect each other as they died. They may have been lovers. A small lantern was found near their bodies. They appear to have been trying to escape, using the lantern to light their way through the darkness of the falling ash. Figures of many other citizens of Pompeii who lived 2,000 years ago have remained frozen in time. What was happening in the Roman Empire at the time of their death? How did it keep going? Rome was already a large city at the time. At the height of its power, ancient Rome had a population of one million. In 27 BC, Caesar's adopted son became the first Roman emperor under the title Augustus. Eighty years later, Pompeii was thriving. The Roman Empire was enjoying its golden age. The empire was founded on overwhelming military power. Roman armies had conquered surrounding areas in a series of battles, rapidly expanding its territory. Eventually, the Roman Empire extended throughout most of Europe and into North Africa. By securing control over the Mediterranean, the empire gained fabulous wealth and became the world's first superpower. This mosaic is a symbolic representation of ethnic diversity under Roman imperial rule. Many very different ethnic groups lived in the vast territories incorporated in the empire. They were all treated equally, without discrimination. All became citizens. In order to govern such a vast population effectively, Roman emperors established new state institutions. They devised a unique way to placate the masses by offering them benefits and entertainment. The system Bread and Circuses is also known as Bread and Games. This fresco is an illustration of this political strategy. It depicts the distribution of free bread to Roman citizens. The empire ensured against popular discontent by providing its subjects with enough food so they wouldn't starve. It also provided entertainment in the form of circus games to keep them amused. At amphitheaters like this one, gladiators fought each other and wild animals to entertain the spectators. The Bread and Games strategy won the hearts of the people whose well-being it assured and the empire used it to establish control over them. This system, made possible by the immense wealth built on the strength of a superior army, sustained the empire's lasting prosperity. The comforts of Bread and Games became available throughout the Roman Empire. Even citizens in remote provincial cities could enjoy an opulent lifestyle. The town of Pompeii was no exception. Well-built houses neatly lined its streets. Many were substantial stone mansions. Each was built around a spacious inner courtyard to allow plenty of light into the rooms. This is a bathroom. Romans considered taking long, relaxing baths one of the greatest pleasures in life. Their enjoyment of leisurely bathing was enhanced by beautiful mosaics with which they decorated bathroom floors. They also covered room walls with colorful frescoes. The security that came with the daily provision of free bread left people with a surplus of time and money. This led to the creation of many splendid works of art. Until the day their city perished under volcanic ash, the people of Pompeii lived amid this splendor. But what occupied their minds? What did they do in their day-to-day lives? There are actually some pretty good clues as to how to answer these questions. They can be found in the graffiti created 2,000 years ago. Since paper was not widely available at that time, people used steel pens and nails to scratch notes about their experiences and thoughts on walls. Dr. Antonio Varone is a leading expert on Pompeii's graffiti. Besides the graffiti of a personal nature, many announcements, advertisements and public notices remain etched into city walls. Dr. Varone has deciphered over 10,000 of the personal graffiti and public signs. One of the best things about doing research on graffiti is that they give us an immediate feel for the living environment and direct access into the daily lives of people. There's no need to look at old manuscripts or records. People's voices leap over 2,000 years of time and speak to us directly through the walls. Most of the personal graffiti were inscribed in entryways to homes. Here it is. In the hallway that leads to this beautiful house, it's a welcome message that everyone can see. Let's take a look at it. Accipe quos tedi tecum quorus It means, remember the dances we enjoyed together. It's a message to someone with whom the writer danced. Something like a love note, a valentine. A man developed a passion for a woman and left a message in the hallway to her home to ask her if she would meet him. It's a charming custom. The woman then used the same wall to reply. It could be yes or no, but in most cases the answer was probably maybe. Besides exchanges between lovers, many other types of messages remain on the city's walls. Meeting appointments, missing person announcements, notices to neighbors. Walls seem to have provided ancient city dwellers with a good medium for communication. This is a portrait of a Pompeian couple that was painted on a house wall. Their contented expressions suggest that they were leading a life free of worries and stress. More graffiti can be found on the walls of shops that line city streets. This is a pub that served the ancient Roman equivalent of fast food. Customers could eat and drink casually around the counter. The sunken pottery vats were filled with wine and food. Paintings of the pub's customers decorate the walls of a small inner chamber. Above the picture, somebody has scribbled, Give me some cold water. It was probably a customer who'd had too much wine. This is a picture of a barmaid holding a cup and a jug of wine. The writing above the picture is a dialogue between her and two customers. People gathered in pubs to enjoy a good chat and play games. Judging by the graffiti, the atmosphere in Pompeii was bustling with activity. This is the excavation site where Dr. Varone currently works. A bakery. Some very interesting graffiti were left here on the wall above the counter. They're numbers that must have been noted by the owner of the bakery. Take a look at it. This row of numbers says 22, and then 6, and 8, and 3. In this row, there's 8, 5, 8 again, and 9, and 6. What do these numbers mean? The graffiti, though small, seemed to suggest a heartwarming daily scene. A boy comes to the bakery to buy bread and tells the owner that his father will pay for it tomorrow. The owner notes the debt on the wall to keep the account straight. He will add up the numbers later. Number notations are found on many shop walls. It's believed that they were kept for charge accounts. Pompeii seems to have enjoyed an abundant supply of all manner of goods. Its residents were able to obtain just about anything they desired. Let's take a walk along Pompeii's main street. The city stirs to life at the break of dawn. By noon, the people are out and about town, and the street is bustling with activity. Two wine shops stand side by side. Next to them is a fabric store. The wine shops are already crowded during the day. Fruit stores sell peaches that have been brought all the way from Persia. Over 400 stores have been excavated so far. The wine shops are still open after dark. They, in fact, remain open all night to serve customers around the clock. The people of Pompeii fully indulged in the comforts of their affluent lifestyle. At the height of prosperity, however, there are indications that changes were on the way. This grand mansion is located at the center of the city. It was the home of the mayor of Pompeii, who stood above all other citizens and governed the city. His name was Gaius Julius Polybius. Professor Masanori Aoyagi of the University of Tokyo has been studying this house for seven years. He found an inscription on one of its walls. Well, this is it. He wrote his initials here on the wall of his own house. G. Gaius Iulius P. Polybius. In the same manner as they appear in his election campaign slogans. And then wrote Dio Vieri next to it. It means that he became one of the two joint municipal magistrates. And he announced it proudly by writing it on his own house at the most conspicuous place on the wall in the inner courtyard. He seems to have been very happy about his appointment. This is the violent voice of a man thrilled with his electoral victory. 2,000 years ago, Pompeii already had elections. The name of Gaius Iulius Polybius appears on the city streets, too. Look, there they are. The letters G. I. P., the initials of Gaius Iulius Polybius, along with the word Dio Vieri, to announce his candidacy for the position of a joint city magistrate. This is an election campaign poster. Look, there are other names, too. One, two, three, four. There were at least five candidates. In Japan today, individual candidates arrange their campaign posters next to each other on plywood panels. This is basically the same system. Why were these city leaders so enthusiastic about the election? A speech of the fourth Roman emperor, Claudius, hints at a possible reason. It states that the residents of provinces can receive imperial government appointments in Rome for outstanding service to the empire. The Roman Empire was a pyramid-like society, with the emperor at its apex. Below the emperor were the senatorial class, the equestrian class, and the commoners. However, even a commoner from far-flung provinces could be elevated to privileged status and become an equestrian or a senator on the basis of distinguished accomplishment. The easiest way for a distinguished denizen of the provinces to draw the central government's attention to his achievements was by becoming a municipal magistrate. To this end, leading members of provincial society engaged in vigorous election campaigns. Gaius Iulius Polybius seems to have used various tactics to win the election. One inscription says, Gaius Iulius Polybius offered bread to the citizenry for his own honor. One might ask, wasn't this dishonest? We would consider such action bribery today. But it wasn't like that in ancient Rome. In those days, every candidate eagerly sought to buy voters. Each one of them invited all the citizens of Pompeii to gladiatorial shows. They all distributed bread and held many parties. There were no regulations against bribery. Candidates hoped to gain votes by impressing upon their fellow citizens that they were wealthy enough to afford such lavish treatment and that they would thus be able to make a great contribution to the city. To win elections and achieve higher position in imperial government, candidates had to gain public support. So they competed with each other, offering food and entertainment to the citizens at their own expense. As a result, the provincial versions of bread and circuses became ever more extravagant. Rome, the imperial capital. In 54 AD, a young man ascended to the throne. His name was Nero and he would become known as the tyrant. He was only 17 when he became emperor. During his reign, the practice of bread and circuses escalated dramatically. Given the immense wealth of the empire, Nero indulged in every luxury. He built a magnificent palace in the center of Rome. It was so immense that it could contain the entire city of Pompeii. According to the ancient Roman biographer Suetonius, entire walls of Nero's palace were covered in gold leaf. Nero held lavish banquets every night where he treated his guests to sumptuous meals and wine. He also put himself into organizing shows of gladiatorial combat. He built a colossal arena where bloody shows were staged on more than a hundred days a year. The shows became increasingly cruel to satisfy the spectator's seemingly insatiable craving for ever greater thrills. Among the artifacts from this period, there's a silver goblet unearthed near Pompeii that suggests the Roman view of life. It's engraved with skeletons and a verse. There is no greater treasure than pleasure. Tomorrow being uncertain, enjoy your life as if there were no tomorrow. Life in Pompeii was beginning to change, too. This is a summer dining room where dinner parties and banquets were held at night. Scholars have labeled the house where it's located the House of the Moralists because its owner thought it advisable to write the rules of proper conduct on the walls of the dining room to curb bad manners and indecency at his feasts. The rules are simple. Do not bully other guests. Do not make lecherous passes at another man's wife. Do not utter vulgarities. Refrain from soiling your underwear. These rules were intended to restrain the uninhibited behavior of his guests because they often went overboard and committed improprieties during banquets. People were becoming excessively indulgent in their pleasures. An uncovered mosaic illustrates this tendency quite well. Here we have a very beautiful mosaic. It covered the dining room floor in a luxurious house owned by wealthy proprietors. The mosaic is called the Unswept House. The mosaic depicts some pretty odd things. This is a bone with some meat still left on it. Three grapes left on the vine. There are crab legs, a half-eaten sea urchin. These are all leftovers of a lavish meal. The design of this mosaic is very functional. It depicts the things that were actually found on the dining room floors in Roman houses. The Romans did not use knives and forks. They ate with their hands and threw the leftovers on the floor. These depictions are very skillful. Even shadows were added so that they look real. Leftovers were swept from dining room floors by family slaves. But in this house, even if some waste remained unswept, the floor mosaic concealed it. This fresco is a pictorial rendition of a banquet in Pompeii. A man is vomiting right next to other guests. Retching was quite common at ancient Roman banquets where diners are known to have used bird feathers to tickle their throats and induce vomiting so that they could continue consuming the scrumptious food. A graffiti has been scratched into the fresco. It proclaims, I drink. People's desire for even more luxury and pleasure seemed to have no end. At the same time, the society of Pompeii was undergoing a serious transformation. These two Australian anthropologists, Dr. Mathieu Henneberg and his wife, Dr. Renata Henneberg, from the University of Adelaide, discovered great disparities in the healing of fractures among human bone samples of this time. And here, finally, is a femur of a man who, when you look at it quickly, does not actually differ much from a healthy, unbroken bone. When we look at the back, we can notice that this bone is a bit unusual in this region, so there is some sign of healing. Here is a femur. That is the upper part. This is the lower part. The bone was broken in the middle, and the leg eventually naturally healed, but shortened by about that much, about five centimeters, and therefore this person, for the rest of her life, walked with a severe limp that caused the asymmetry to the pelvis and bent to her back, and so on and so on could have had a number of other consequences. Despite equal public services, disparities among Roman citizens were evident. Modern approach, orthopedic surgery here, but obviously it wasn't applied to everyone, so like today, some people could afford better medical care than others. It just depended on the money. The differences between Pompeii's rich and poor had, in fact, become quite large. This is sometimes attributed to the bread and games. Thanks to the government-supplied bread, people could live without worries about food. As a result, they had plenty of leisure time, but many didn't quite know what to do with it. Some people got busy making their life more comfortable and affluent. Others were content with their present status and merely wasted their time living for the pleasure of the moment. The income gap gradually widened, creating a significant disparity between the rich and the poor. Bread and games had been devised to guarantee general well-being and provide everyone with equal benefits. Instead, it ended up causing disparities among equals. On the outer wall of a residence that faces the main street in Pompeii, there is a written announcement. House to let. Elegant bathroom. Shop with attached sleeping quarters. Available from August 1st. The circumstances of some of the city residents apparently became strained enough to force them to rent out parts of their houses. The gap between the privileged and the destitute was widening irreversibly. At the time when the dominance of the Roman Empire was at a zenith, corruption and depravity were thriving in the shadow of its opulence. Signs of discontent and belligerence are etched into the city walls. Woe betide you. May your dirty, wound-discharging pus reopen and fester even more. 59 AD. There was a horrific incident. It took place at the amphitheater built on the outskirts of Pompeii. This fresco depicts what happened. A violent clash took place between the people of Pompeii and neighboring Nutheria. It shows men fighting both within and outside the arena. According to the Roman historian Tacitus, the excitement during a show featuring gladiator fights turned to violence when spectators from the two cities began throwing rocks. Before long, they were drawing swords and killing each other. It all ended in terrible bloodshed. The gory incident occurred some 100 years after the founding of the Roman Empire during its most active era. A graffiti from around this time still remains on a wall in the vicinity of the amphitheater. This inscription is almost impossible to read. I can make out only a few words. Fecchistis cretaria, fecchistis salsamentaria. In its entirety, it's more than 7 feet long. It's a hard-hearted look at one's own reduced circumstances. It says, you have failed 8 times, but you could have failed 16 times. You've drifted from job to job. Innkeeper, baker, farmer, bookbinder, potseller, junk dealer. You've done it all. Now, you're a potmaker's hand. Where are you headed? While full of self-scorn, the inscription also exposes the grim conditions at the lower end of the social scale. People are struck by misfortune and reduced to poverty back then, just as they are today. The writing on the walls of Pompeii make this quite clear. August 24th, 79 A.D. According to records, it was a sunny morning. As on any other typical day in Pompeii, the city was teeming with activity. The streets were crowded with people. Horse-drawn carts loaded with cargo from all over the empire were passing through. Then, at 1 o'clock in the afternoon, on the counter of a fast food pub, a few coins remain exactly where someone had put them down. Perhaps, a customer had quickly paid the bill and rushed out to escape. The posh room in a grand mansion is empty. A man, who may be the owner, had collapsed on the staircase adjoining the dining room. The figure of this frail woman was found in the dark servant's quarters of a house on the outskirts of the city, where she had run out of strength. Similarly, many of Pompeii's other residents died, asphyxiated by volcanic ash. And the city of Pompeii, the ancient city that reflected both the dazzling and the grim facets of the Roman Empire, remains frozen in time as well.