ANDREW_WALLACE_HADRILL ELIZABETH_FENTRESS JOHN_DOBBINS LEGACY_HUNTER LEGACY_HUNTER_VO NARRATOR RAY_LAURENCE REGALES VOICE_OF_ANDREW_WALLACE_HADRILL VOICE_OF_ELIZABETH_FENTRESS VOICE_OF_JOHN_DOBBINS VOICE_OF_LEGACY_HUNTER VOICE_OF_RAY_LAURENCE LEGACY HUNTER VO The men and women of Pompeii, I have made it my business to watch their lives and wait for their deaths. I am a legacy hunter, you see. I worm my way first into their affections, then into their wills. What better guide could you have to this town? I stay in the shadows, invisible. I’ll share with you most of what I know. And trust me, there is no shortage of stories here in Pompeii. NARRATOR On Aug 27th 79 ad, the town of Pompeii was buried under lava and Ash when Mt. Vesuvius erupted. Thousands perished in the destruction. But the eruption also preserved Pompeii guaranteeing its immortality. And in the 250 years since it rediscovery people have flocked here, Seeking an experience of its extraordinary past. VOICE OF JOHN DOBBINS It's possible to connect with Pompeii in a way that you can't with any other ancient site. The streets are preserved, the buildings extend over one's head. You can walk on the sidewalks. You can seek the shady side when it's extremely hot and sunny. Pompeii is incredibly vivid. VOICE OF RAY LAURENCE This is a place which looks like a city to them. This is where… er, somewhere had their shop. This is the brothel where people went to. They go to see this very complete place. VOICE OF ELIZABETH FENTRESS There's nowhere else in the world that gives you the sense of being inside a Roman house like Pompeii VOICE OF ANDREW WALLACE HADRILL It gives a sort of virtual reality effect…. People want to travel in time. They want to get in a sort of time machine and get back into the past. And Pompeii creates the illusion that you can step back into the past, step back into the skins of people in the past and know what life was like. NARRATOR The story isn’t quite what we expect. Eruption wasn’t the first time, Pompeii suffered a terrible natural disaster. Seventeen years earlier, the town has been hit by a devastating earthquake. JOHN DOBBINS There was devastation throughout the city. One wants to compare it to modern disasters to get some kind of a handle on what it was like and frequently, I compare it to the great fire in London in 1666 which 0caused great damage but which provided opportunities and requirements to recover RAY LAURENCE The earthquake could be seen as a catalyst for something which we wouldn't normally see so we might see more of some of the tensions of the town. In a way an earthquake presents opportunity for social mobility. It's an opportunity for a town as much as a tragedy. Some people get richer some people are devastated by it. NARRATOR This is the story of Pompeii in its final years, of the dynamic and ruthless society that emerged in the wake of the earthquake. It's a society whose characters and voices we can conjure up by drawing on archaeological analysis and a variety of contemporary sources. Fragments of memoirs and court records survive as does as wealth of literature and satire from the time. Making careful use of what we can know for certain, we can start to imagine the Private lives of Pompeii. VOICE OF LEGACY HUNTER This is where I begin, with the earthquake that has changed everything. And with the Haruspex, the soothsayer who should have warned us. But he foresaw nothing in his livers. He’s got a nerve, continuing his prophesies after that. This is a boom time for charlatans. And a boom time for undertakers, with so many bodies to recover. And for my own kind the legacy hunters, with so many wills now to be read. I can't deny I’m doing well, but I won’t let that color the version of events you are about to hear. NARRATOR The story of Pompeii in these years exposes all the fault-lines of Roman society. The old order started to crumble. There was new money and power in town, a shake-up of the ruling class fortunes were rapidly won and lost. It was a world of uncertainty, subterfuge, scandal. REGALES These are strange days. The city fathers have either fled for the hills or they are gone for good like this fellow, on his farewell parade of the town, in customary dining pose. For the rest of us, it’s grab what you can and for once there’s nobody to kick you back down. Young men have become prostitutes and stalk The public baths. Opportunities for corruption abound. As if the shaking of the earth has released something in the minds of men. Some adapt better than others. Here’s a fine example; Scaurus Vettius. A former slave. He’s done well by his ex-master’s death. I was there when the will was read. So well it makes you wonder if it was the earthquake that killed the old man. There’s so much temptation about. Not everybody has been so fortunate. Our undertaker has been caught looting the corpses in his care. As he himself serves as town executioner, it has been left to his assistant to crucify him…Can you imagine? The fabric of our town is unravelling. NARRATOR In the social fabric of Pompeii there were three distinct levels: At the top was the aristocratic elite; and at the bottom were the slaves. But the most dynamic and ambitious people were the freedmen-former slaves set free to make their own way in the world. They did this brazenly and often with such success that they posed a threat to their superiors. ELIZABETH FENTRESS The wealthy freedman is a stock type but of course our best instance of this is the freedman in Petronius's satire, Tramalchio who is brilliantly displayed as vulgar, way over the top, arche-millionaire, showing off, and absolutely shameless. To what degree this kind of caricature shows that the people writing it are feeling threatened by vulgar, millionaire freedmen I don't know, but it's pretty obvious. LEGACY HUNTER Scaurus Vettius is cut from the same cloth as Trimalchio. Cut the charm, bolster the brutality, lower your expectations a few inches and you’ve got Scaurus. The spirit of the age incarnate. He likes to boast he is the original, the novelist’s own inspiration. Unaware of course that the joke is on him. He’s only been freed a few years and look at him, a natural. An entrepreneur with ideas above his station. Here he is being shown around his latest acquisition, another laundry house. Scaurus started in fish sauce. He was soon swimming in it. Then at a stroke he sold up and went into fulleries; the laundry business. They said his wife had had enough of the smell of fish. It’s proved a wise move. With the town water supply broken in the earthquake, the fullers are selling up cheap. And Scaurus is there, waiting. His recent inheritance has positioned him well for some empire building He has new territory to mark. Scaurus is one to watch, I am telling you. VOICE OF RAY LAURENCE What we see in a lot of literature is a certain amount of anger about the free men. Within Petronius's work you actually see that these people are getting more money than the landed aristocracy as far as… they're going to take over everything They pay for dinners, They have a lot of money. It’s going to be their sons on the town council which is the other worry… LEGACY HUNTER VO This is the family Terentius; father and son. Their name has figured among Pompeii’s great and good for generations. But now the father presides over declining fortunes, and a useless son who seems intent on drinking away what is left. JOHN DOBBINS The elite members of society held stature. They had a status that was higher than other…..other people in town and freedmen and slaves certainly. And that was the key thing. They were known for their position. They were respected. Generally there was some connection between wealth and status but they were not really the same. One achieved status through family connections, through achievements in holding public office, in benefactions to the city, buildings, games in the amphitheatre. One achieved status by giving favours to clients. And of course money ties into all of this but status and money were not the same. LEGACY HUNTER VO Terentius the elder once sat on the town council with the deceased. So it’s time for last respects; with the upstart Scaurus now presiding. As some rise so others fall. Scaurus and the family Terentius are like the 2 sides of a coin. They are deeply aware and suspicious of one another. We will follow them and see who is best placed to survive and prosper, in the changed circumstances of our town. Here is Terrentius the elder, at daily exercise with his old cronies. His head slave reads them philosophy as they go. A nice touch don’t you think? In retirement, Terentius still likes to make a show of his position. He was once involved in running the town. One of the old guard. Now his sights have been lowered to his own household, he just can't give up those old authoritarian ways. NARRATOR The father was the powerful, dominant figure in Roman society. Just as the emperor was acclaimed and worshipped as the father of the Roman state, so every Pompeian household was ruled by its own little emperor. The paterfamilias. The father of the household. Legally his powers knew no bounds. ANDREW WALLACE HADRILL In theory, The Roman father had power of life and death over his children and his wife and his slaves and all members of his familia and actually familia really refers to the slaves. It doesn't mean family in the modern sense. So you can construct a picture of Roman paternal authority that is enormously strong. NARRATOR A patriarch’s authority was reinforced by everyday routines and rituals, and reflected. Clearly in his surroundings. The villas of Pompeii are like stage sets designed to display this power to anyone who ventured inside. They are subtle and complex little worlds. Ms Andrew Wallace hadrill enters into the space ANDREW WALLACE HADRILL Well, the house of the Menander is a private house but look at its scale……. It's an enormous grand statement of power. The man who lives here is really trying to impress people and say who he is, socially. This central room, The Atrium is a barn of a room going up two stories, occupying the heart of the house and it's meant to be like a public space. It's meant to pull people in, attract their admiration, their wonder. And then here's another room here, a side room with rich decoration, with rich mythological scenes. Here's the fall of Troy. This shows the culture of the owner. The rich red paint displaying his wealth and look at the architectual details. Two big columns mark the entrance to that grand room up there. But you haven't just got columns there. You've got columns in the decorations on the wall and you're evoking the world of public life, the world of great basilicas and portico's and so on. Why evoke that world? Because it's almost a public activity that's going on here. These visitors are coming to see the great man in his house. LEGACY HUNTER The weekly shows of strength at the house of Terentius seldom go according to plan. The thorn in the old man’s side is his son Gaius. His only son. Something of a rebel and drunk as usual. The pair of them carry on like a couple of fishwives. And the old man is determined to break him. VOICE OF ELIZABETH FENTRESS The interfering old man. It is a stock character In comedy and obviously in many families, the head of the family must have taken his role very seriously to the extent if micro-managing the activities of everyone else in the family. VOICE OF RAY LAURENCE Fathers in the Roman world had great power but that relationship with a grown-up son could be quite difficult because the grown up son had to be deferential, had to have piety towards their father VOICE OF LEGACY HUNTER Take it from me. Young Gaius Terentius needs to watch out. He still relies on his father’s money and his inheritance is far from secure. His father’s head slave is more than a go-between, you see. A more fitting heir than Gaius, perhaps, to what remains of the family fortune? Gaius can push his luck only so far. And he knows it. NARRATOR Within the hierarchy of Roman households slaves could be far more than they appeared. VOICE OF ANDREW WALLACE HADRILL What's very striking is the freedom with which slaves seem to act. Businesses ran on slaves. Who do you leave In charge of the shop? Whose looking after the Babies? A slave was a member of the family. NARRATOR There is a frustrating lack of evidence about individuals’ experiences of slavery. Even the houses are designed to make their slave inhabitants invisible. ANDREW WALLACE HADRILL The back of the House of the Menander, the Architecture is set up to distract our attention. We're not meant to look round the corner here because here is the invisible part of the activity of the house. We've got the slave quarters here and you're suddenly into a completely different world - the fine decoration falls away, we're into a narrow passage way. It's all very crude. The plaster is crude. Dark rooms on either side - complete contrast to the world of the other side. a set of amphoraie, of wine containers, that have actually been gathered from elsewhere in the house. Little dark rooms and then down this very narrow corridor you can see there are rooms up above too, little rooms down here which are either for some practical purpose or rooms in which the slaves can sleep. NARRATOR As long as the Roman Empire was expanding each new conquest could be relied upon to open up a fresh supply of slaves. At the time of Pompeii’s destruction there were between 2 and 3 million slaves in Italy. Their role may have been significant but they were completely without formal rights and status, entirely dependent on the whims of their masters. VOICE OF LEGACY HUNTER Rumours regularly emerge from the household of Scaurus Vettius. The usual abuses of freedmen whose power as masters has gone to their heads. The most recent are about a slave girl Venedia; Scaurus' ’s plaything. She is found to be with child and it emerges that Scaurus has a love rival. A slave no less. Scaurus is beside himself with anger. The couple have been summoned to hear the judgment of their master. He will certainly not countenance their dismissal. Their plan to marry is treated with cold scorn. They will stay, separated, under his authority, and suffer. And at birth the child will be sent to die of exposure. NARRATOR Slavery was not necessarily a permanent condition. There was always the chance of upward mobility even for the lowliest members of society. Some slaves at least had an expectation of gaining their freedom ceremonially. VOICE OF ELIZABETH FENTRESS The ceremony in which a slave was freed was very formal and was known as Manumission. The slave was slapped in the face. The slap showed that you were still in your master's power. In theory you could get up, walk out and never bee seen again. In practice your ties to society were still through your master so that as one of his freemen you're still his client - you're still part of the greater family and you're very likely to be acting as his agent. The talk of Pompeii at the moment is the scandal of another slave girl. Petronia Justa, who imagines herself free. RAY LAURENCE We know about a woman who calls herself Petronia Justa from an archive of documents found in one of the houses in Herculaneum. Petronia Justa is in dispute and it's a legal dispute which is heard in front of a senior magistrate of the town. VOICE OF LEGACY HUNTER Petronia Justa, we hear, is taking her master to court. To claim her freedom. She has lived in the house of her master and mistress all her life. But recently she has heard rumours that she never was a slave. And has convinced herself that she has been decieved. And from somewhere she’s dug up witnesses. ANDREW WALLACE HADRILL Her mother was certainly a slave once and was certainly given her freedom. The question is, whether she was born before or after the freedom was given. If before then she was born a slave and belonged to the Master or the Mistress. If after, then she was born free. And the argument is all about the relationship between her and the Master and Mistress. Had they not treated her like a daughter? "Yes they had" said the various witness but what does that prove? Does it prove that she was being treated as if she were free or as if she was a slave. LEGACY HUNTER Petronia’s master is distraught. On top of the shame of a court case is her betrayal. The case is an outrage. And the verdict? Only Petronia holds out any hope. Case dismissed. From here can there be any way but down? Her mistress has cast her out of the household forever. Rumour has it she has joined with the disreputable at the theatre. NARRATOR It was not just the home that was controlled by a father figure. The law courts and the world of politics reflected the same ideal. Magistrates were the fathers of the town. JOHN DOBBINS We're at the South end of the Forum in front of the civic buildings that were a magnet for daily political activities. The Elite who were magistrates and city councilors came to this area as did all those who had some dealing with the public institutions in the city. NARRATOR Pompei like other Roman towns was governed principally by two senior magistrates and two junior ones, alongside a town council of elite notables. There were annual elections for the magistrates and strict wealth and status requirements for holding office. VOICE OF JOHN DOBBINS They were individuals who were wealthy, who did not receive any pay for their work. On the contrary, it was a responsibility of leading magistrates to pay for repairs in the city, for new buildings, for giving of games in the amphitheatre and to spend their money in a kind of public largesse in order to beautify the city and entertain the individuals. So holding office was a status activity and it was one in which the office-holder was a kind of grander patron than just to ones clients but a patron to the entire city. LEGACY HUNTER We are to have an election. Our first since the earthquake. And not before time. At the house of Terentius the news has prompted a family ultimatum. The old man has pulled strings to get his son’s name on the list of candidates. As a junior magistrate. Gaius that great respecter of the law. His father has given him one last chance to save his inheritance. But only if he can win public office and restore the family name. You remember what Cicero said? You want farce. Look no further than the town council of Pompeii. NARRATOR If Pompeii was primarily a man’s world, there were opportunities for some women at least to attain status and establish an identity for themselves. We can put names to a few individual women in Pompeii. One of the most intriguing is Julia Felix. From the little we do know about her we can construct a picture of a surprisingly successful and apparently modern woman.. VOICE OF ELIZABETH FENTRESS This building is known as the property of Julia felix. We know this from an inscription that says Julia Felix is letting it out. What she seems to be letting out is a space where the person renting it for a night could entertain his friends This quite splendid dining room with a fountain behind the diners decorated with scenes from the Nile with pygmies and that most important space in the Mediterranean world both, intellectually and spiritually, which was Alexandria, Egypt. Now this gets reinforced if we look this way, by the basin here with three bridges over it, filled with water which would probably bring to mind for them the Canopis, the great canal that linked Alexandria to the Nile. And then down at the bottom of this Canal you've got a room that was clearly decorated as a shrine to Isis, the female Goddess whose cult was terribly popular in Pompeii at that moment. And Julia's setting herself in the centre of this space. LEGACY HUNTER : Since the earthquake, Pompeii is full of opportunists of one kind or another. But Julia Felix is from a different mould. I’ve kept my eye on her situation with interest, for professional reasons. She’s a widow you see. Now in control of a lot of property. And she’s made a go of it, using the house to generate wealth in ways her husband never would have imagined. She’s canny. Take her devotion to Isis. Heartfelt I’m sure but it’s good for business. Creates an atmosphere, a whiff of the exotic which people will pay for. Rumour has it she’s on the look out for a new husband…. NARRATOR Religious cults like Isis could offer women identity, and for those who became priestesses, status. The Egyptian goddess, Isis was a new kind of deity among the Roman gods; human and merciful. In Pompeii the presence of Isis was strong. The city temple devoted to her was quickly rebuilt after the earthquake. Of course cults could appear threatening, and were portrayed in satire as secretive, licentious, depraved. Attitudes to sexual license have special meaning in Pompeii, where the public display of erotica appears so striking. VOICE OF ANDREW WALLACE HADRILL You find erotic paintings all around Pompeii and one Conclusion you're tempted to draw is that it's a sort of sexual free-for-all That they don't mind what you put up on the wall, where. in fact there are very strong conventions. Every type of painting has its proper position and erotic paintings belong in erotic contexts. ELIZABETH FENTRESS I think that the erotica in a elite housewold would not be seen as kinky or pornographic, I think that it would be seen as witty and charming and probably referring to another realm than the simply physical. VOICE OF ANDREW WALLACE HADRILL In the House of the Vetti we have a splendid figure whose weighing his phallus in a scales against a bag of money at to door and it's very important to remember that that isn't an erotic painting. A big phallus is a big good luck sign and there is no embarrassment about that. NARRATOR The abundance of these images has contributed to a popular picture of Pompeii as a den of depravity, teeming with brothels and vice. A Victorian myth arose that it was the climate of sexual immorality that led to the town's final destruction. But Pompeii was not a special case. As in other Roman towns sex was integral to society but it was not out of control Prostitution was part of the daily reality of the town, strongly identified with slavery. All prostitutes, female and male, were slaves. Brothel keepers and pimps were their masters. VOICE OF LEGACY HUNTER One of our night establishments is advertising a new attraction, a local celebrity. None other than Petronia Justa. The ungrateful girl who accused her master and family of denying her freedom, you remember? Among the clients she bores rigid or flaccid with her tales of injustice is a certain advocate at law who has agreed to champion her appeal and recount the sob story that has led her to the brothel. Interesting to hear of her career from one who knows of it first-hand. The judge is unmoved. Appeal dismissed. Her master has died in the interim. Of grief it’s said. The girl now vows to take her case to Rome. She’ll need to service a fair few clients to raise the funds. RAY LAURENCE We're in the middle of Pompeii, a short distance from the large brothel, in a parallel street. The streets are much narrower. They're much greater density of population and there are a number of very, very small cubicles for prostitution. Literally just a stone bed and a small doorway straight off the street, covered, according to literature, with just simply a curtain. It might be somewhere somebody was picked up and brought down, narrow, dark alleyways, up the street is the back of an aristocratic house. An interesting thing about this house is its relationship between the two small cells for the prostitutes and the main house itself. The house faces onto a major through route in the city, leading to the Forum. But it also seems to be involved in prostitution. And we can see this, quite characteristically, by this cut here where this wall has been put on at a later date so it's been extracted from the main part of this large atrium house and it suggests a relationship between a paterfamilias and the prostitutes here. That relationship might be one where he rents out the rooms to a prostitute or a pimp. That makes him involved in the sex trade. The other thing about this area is that we're very close to the Forum and we can se that many people such as the magistrates might not know that he owns this part at the back of his house as well as that rather grand front of his house. NARRATOR The stigma surrounding the sex trade was keenly felt by the prostitutes themselves, who existed as the lowest status group. But it did not tend to rub off on the clients who used them. VOICE OF LEGACY HUNTER And who else do we find making best use of the hours of darkness? None other than Gaius Terentius, our candidate for junior magistrate in the forthcoming town elections. VOICE OF ELIZABETH FENTRESS Men had much more license in their sexual behavior than women. So that whereas the woman really could not be sleeping with other people, a man could have a concubine, a boy… the slave family was presumably always available and Cicero actually points out, writing to a friend who was concerned about his wife's pregnancies that it would be better for him to go and sleep with prostitutes than to sleep with his wife and risk her getting pregnant again so there’s absolutely no stigma on men's sexual behavior. NARRATOR The wife of Scaurus Vettius has my admiration. She has endured the string of Scaurs's slave girls with dignity. And why shouldn’t she? It’s kept him off her back for years. But now the slave Venedia threatens the balance. Intent on reversing her fortunes, the girl now declares the child in her belly is her master’s own. It’s ingenious. She has nothing to lose and plenty to gain. The haruspex, our local fortune teller, has been called. If her claim that it’s a boy can be substantiated then the fortunes of the two women can quite easily be reversed. All the years of marriage count for little when all you to have to show is a string of miscarriages. VOICE OF ELIZABETH FENTRESS The most important thing that the woman could do was to produce children. In some quantity, and in fact I think that the mother is much more valued, especially the mother with many children than the virgin bride. You have much less idealization of the young bride than you do of the matron with lots of kids. NARRATOR Aside from giving birth and successfully rearing children, there was another element in the pattern of women’s lives that could alter significantly their status and their prospects. This was the death of a husband. VOICE OF ELIZABETH FENTRESS The only moment when a woman could be seen as really emancipated is when her husband dies. Up till then she always had a guardian, she was always controlled by some male figure. We can see women acting on their own and controlling their own property with far greater regularity when they're widowed than before. VOICE OF LEGACY HUNTER The mysterious Julia Felix has finally found her man so it appears. A source of disappointment to me but there you are. He is Marcus Petilius Obellius, newly retired from military service and recently arrived in Pompeii looking for a property in which to settle. Julia has taken him under her wing. Their feelings are clear. Despite the fruitful independence of her widowhood, she is ready to remarry. But Julia's new found love confronts her with a dilemma; in the person of her son. For all the friendliness Marcus extends to him, they are a threat to one another. The family of Julia’s dead husband reside in Rome. And they still have claim to her fortune, through the boy. She has no power to control her succession. Unless she changes her situation and remarries. But then she will lose the boy forever. So she has a decision to make - her son or Marcus. NARRATOR Despite the clear constraints, there were women in Pompeii who could hope to attain control over their lives. They were few, but the society was not relentlessly repressive. Women of vastly different fortunes could feel that change was possible and could expect that their lives or those of their children would see improvements. VOICE OF LEGACY HUNTER Julia Felix has not hesitated. She and Marcus are betrothed already. And her son has gone to Rome. To maintain control of her assets, she now needs another. It’s a risk. Julia is not getting any younger. She and Marcus are seen together in public now. Not that men and women are permitted to sit together in the theatre. Love is bound by custom, even in these days. Sound of sea gulls VOICE OF LEGACY HUNTER Down here by the port you get a very different picture of Pompeii. Among the wharves and the warehouses where the trade is unloaded from the ships in the harbor, and stored. Things are picking up since the early days after the earthquake, so I hear. Not that I venture into this part of town. But I used to. My career began in this very street, would you believe it. Long before I found my true vocation, profiting from information. VOICE OF RAY LAURENCE Pompeii is a river port. It's trading across the Mediterranean. We find wine coming in from both the East and the West. We have Garum, a sort of fish source which comes from Spain. We have lots of products coming into Pompeii and we can trace products going out. ANDREW WALLACE HADRILL What it means is that there is very big wealth around and our relatively low-level businesses and freed men in Pompeii are seizing the opportunity and making what they can on the spin off. NARRATOR Former slaves now set free were the most vital element in the daily commercial life of Pompeii. Business was their natural habitat. And after the earthquake, faced with the task of rebuilding the town’s economy, small-scale entrepreneurs were the quickest to respond and adapt. VOICE OF ANDREW WALLACE HADRILL One basic reason why the freedman is so involved in trade is that they have to take risks. But they are also prepared to take the risks. They haven't so much to lose and that, of course, creates an energy and a dynamism. RAY LAURENCE A freedmen has, in many cases, learnt a business as a slave. In many cases they are business managers. They might manage an estate or a farm. Or they might manage an inn or they might be the person who makes deals for a landed aristocrat who wants to distance himself from that rather sordid business of trade. VOICE OF ANDREW WALLACE HADRILL The ideal of the aristocracy certainly is against trade. Trade is unsuitable for The respectable people don't dirty themselves with certain activities. That, of course creates an opportunity for the people who aren't respectable. NARRATOR Historians once thought that the commercial life of Pompeii stagnated after the earthquake. That people left to take their business elsewhere. But the archaeological evidence now shows that at the time of the town’s final destruction there were more than 600 active businesses. VOICE OF ANDREW WALLACE HADRILL Well, our wide entrance here is typical of a shop-front and this is a wonderful example of the commercial life of the town which we find vigorous despite the earthquake and despite the continuous earthquakes that Pompeii was suffering. Here is the little back room where they kept their takings and they, they found a great bag of actually quite a lot of money taken that day. Then we come back and what we find is a fullery And this is very interesting. This, at first sight it looks like the rain-water basin of an atrium and in lots of ways it's an atrium. It's got nice decoration around But actually they're using this for washing cloth because this is a place for cloth processing. If you come back here, you can see the real activity of the house. Through here, we see a fullery at work and see evidence of the cloth trade, an enormously important part of the ancient economy that we don't see normally archaeologically but here we see it very physically, We see the whole series of basins in which cloth was processed, washed in a series of different substances including human urine. And fullers were not very popular characters in town because they went around collecting the urine which they used to process cloth. These are the areas that only ex-slaves will touch and yet there is big money to be made from it. VOICE OF LEGACY HUNTER It appears that young Gaius Terentius has been unable to get out of standing for office in the forthcoming elections. His father, you will remember, will disinherit him unless he is successfully elected a junior magistrate. This is no easy task, especially for someone of Gaius’s limitations. It means finding significant funds. And quickly. So here is Gaius, in a situation he can scarcely believe and barely stomach. There’s a chance of a sponsor you see. It's none other than Scaurus Vettius. The irony is worth savouring! The noble Gaius Terentius summoned to a stinking fullery. But with a man like Scaurus, there's always a price to pay for even the merest sniff of financial support.. What interests him is the city’s water supply; not properly repaired since the earthquake. If the water were to be restored in a way that favors Scaurus’s own businesses at the expense of his rivals then he might just be persuaded to back Gaius’s campaign. NARRATOR It now appears that commercialism was gathering pace in the years after the earthquake. Business empires were growing, commerce was encroaching into new places. There is evidence that even domestic villas were now being adapted for commercial usage. VOICE OF ELIZABETH FENTRESS What's unusual about Julia Felix's property is the elaborate nature of her commercial space. Unlike the very high culture garden which was perhaps reserved for her and her friends, this space is much more accessible. It’s a hot food shop. It’s a sort of pub. You've got the space for selling the food to the people on the streets and then they can come in. They can use this much simpler dining room here. They can sit down with their friends and have a lunch. They could go out into this garden which actually had a swimming pool and they could take their lunch out here on fine days. Though they're in bad shape now, these baths are very charming. They were smaller than the great public baths of Pompeii but much larger than private baths. You had the sweet courtyard outside and then A series of cold rooms and hot rooms that have wonderful little features like this cold plunge bath with a window behind that you can look through into the garden from. This rental property was very carefully thought out. Her role is very much the owner of the property and not the manager but she still - because of the really quite substantial investment I think we're seeing here, making money out of her property. VOICE OF LEGACY HUNTER Julia Felix’s business fortunes go from strength to strength. She is one of our city’s success stories. Her new husband, Marcus is wise enough not to try and impose his will on the situation. He has even now joined her in her Isis devotions. But in one respect luck has deserted the couple. There’s no sign of the pregnancy that would confirm their bond and their succession. They have committed their fate into the hands of the goddess, imploring her intervention with offerings. NARRATOR There were some seriously wealthy individuals in Pompeii. They are not easy to trace. But there is one place to find successful freedmen and clear clues to their outlook and aspirations. VOICE OF RAY LAURENCE The Necroplis is an excellent place to see social change after the earthquake of ad 62. We find a lot of very large tombs set up by freedmen to commemorate themselves. For instance, we see here Calventius Quitus. The tomb itself emulates the earlier phase when the aristocracy had tombs like this. But in the last phase we find it almost that the freedmen had these sort of tombs and the aristocracy just put their urns into the earth, virtually. Interestingly we see underneath the inscription is a double seat. It's a double seat from the front of the theatre. And because of his benefits to the town he is walking and talking given this privelege of sitting at the front of the theatre in a double seat so we see a man who has become very powerful whose an ex-slave. The next tomb is set up by a woman and it's set up for her dead husband, a Gaius Menatius to make sure that he is honored in a way which emulates the aristocracy. Her face is on it. She's quite a powerful woman. Maybe as a widow, she has an identity. But round the side is a scene of a ship - a scene of a ship which links us in to where this guy gets his money from. He could be trading from Pompeii with Rome. NARRATOR The local economy appears to have been so bouyant that it was beginning to attract outside interest. Big business wanting to invest and buy into a piece of the action. RAY LAURENCE We know that there is some investment into Pompeii from outsiders. In particular, there's a series of tablets which were found when the motorway was being built, south of Pompeii which are called the Sulpicci archive. These are about the association of freedmen who are people involved in business and they are from outside Pompeii. VOICE OF ELIZABETH FENTRESS The Sulpicci tablets give us a picture of people who are dealing in all kinds of things; real property, slaves, other forms of random sales.It's…. It shows really the non-specialization of Roman Commercial wheelers and dealers. VOICE OF RAY LAURENCE They've got deals going on in terms of business with Rome and there's a great suspicion among members of the local elite. They actually can control an awful lot of Finance VOICE OF LEGACY HUNTER The day has arrived when our candidate Gaius Terentius is to learn whether he has found a patron and a backer for his campaign in the shape of Scaurus Vettius. He has been summoned to Scaurus’s early morning reception. Can you imagine his displeasure on finding a roomful of Scaurus’s clients and retainers. The realization that he will have to wait in line to receive news of his patron’s decision. They are like a pair from a stage comedy. The master and slave who have exchanged roles. The world turned upside down. Scaurus is going to relish every moment of the spectacle. And who can blame him? VOICE OF ANDREW WALLACE HADRILL From the point of view of the owner of the house, the patron, the early morning salutation, the reception that takes place in this space is the moment when his social credibility is put to the test. Whose waiting for him out there? Have they been waiting for him from dawn? A great crowd of people eager to see him. Or is it just two or three sad old retainers. So he wants to know because in that crowd of people - the clients who come to see him is the sign of his social standing. And he's got to stage this. It's a big performance. He's framed himself in these columns, in this grand room and he's going to appear at hisfinest to the waiting crowd so all the architecture conspires to make the patron, the grand man. NARRATOR The issue facing successful freedmen was just how to translate their wealth into the kind of power and dignity that society respected and their freeborn counterparts enjoyed. They could imitate the values and lifestyles of their social superiors but real status and power was denied them. But for a society in flux like Pompeii, there were always ways and means…. VOICE OF LEGACY HUNTER Scaurus can play the grand patron with the best of them But despite appearances he needs Gaius as much as Gaius needs him. The forthcoming election is the focus of both their aspirations and Scaurus has the sense to see what benefit his sponsorship of Gaius will bring. The deal is done. What a force for good they will make in the town! ANDREW WALLACE HADRILL Because the freedmen is exluded from overt political life. Other structures are found by which his power and dignity can be expressed he can buy it for his children and the Temple of Isis is built by a rich freedman who gets his son onto the Town council at the age of six. VOICE OF ELIZABETH FENTRESS You don't have six year old decurians so clearly the son is standing in for his father and his father's bought this terrific piece of prestige for his family by paying for this expensive restoration. VOICE OF LEGACY HUNTER A mysterious casket has been delivered to the house of Terentius. A gift it would seem for the young candidate, from some well-wishers. A strange sounding bunch; the Sulpicii associates, from out of town. They are keen to meet with Gaius it appears. They have a certain proposition to discuss. NARRATOR If commerce was the habitat of the freed slave, the public, civic life of Pompeii was controlled by the aristocratic elite. Public space in Roman towns was designed to reflect the hierarchies of power and serve as a daily reminder to everyone of their place RAY LAURENCE The hierarchy of Pompeii can be seen classically in the theatre because the seating reflects status so the people who are the Town councilors sit at the front and at the back you will have the women and slaves. You have a microcosm of the whole idea of Pompeiian society very "you know your place". If you're at the back you know you're nobody. If you're at the front you know you've made it. VOICE OF LEGACY HUNTER I am witness to an outrage that has been committed in Pompeii. A genuine injustice. The story of an honest freedman destroyed for an infringement of status. At the public theatre. The man’s crime, a minor infraction. Catching sight of his former master, he decided to join him before the performance, for old time’s sake, to share with the fellow the spirit of his good fortune. But that’s not how it was taken. For this misdemeanor, the man has been sent in front of the senior magistrate. And an unbelievable verdict delivered: Stripped of his toga, the man is sentenced to exile, far outside the region, with no right of appeal. His property becomes the property of the town council. Can you believe that? But the magistrate is thick with the master, you see. Talk about the pulling of strings. JOHN DOBBINS In the modern world we talk about a glass ceiling. For the ancients the ceiling was much more a cement ceiling. There were.. you couldn't even see through it. The freedmen knew that he had a limit. The aspiration was that the next generation might go beyond that but the… the main…one of the main goals of the system was to maintain the status quo so that those with status would keep it and be very cautious about who was admitted into that level. NARRATOR With all the opportunities for mobility and advance in the years after the earthquake to what extent did the traditional elite cling to power in Pompeii? The town councilors were clearly experiencing some difficulties with their authority and the rule of law. We know of land ownership disputes, and the looting of public buildings. And there is evidence that an outsider was drafted in from Rome to assist them. VOICE OF ELIZABETH FENTRESS He's the first of a very long line of what were called Curatores or officials in charge of sorting out the finances of a town that, in one way or another, was in a mess. VOICE OF RAY LAURENCE He's a big man. This guy has come to Pompeii, to sort out problems. He's there to support the aristocracy of the town or the elite. He's there to sort out the division between private and public property. People have been taking away public property from the town and make…using it for their own use. ELIZABETH FENTRESS Now we don't know the exact circumstances that led to his appointment but it's pretty clear that Pompeii must still have been in a mess of some sort that much longer after the earthquake. NARRATOR The man of the moment Gaius Terentius has come to the suburban baths. Looking for representatives from the Sulpicci associates, wealthy investors and possible rival patrons for his election campaign. But Gaius’s reputation precedes him and before the investors identify themselves a test of probity has been arranged, with a prostitute from the baths. …Remarkably it appears that Gaius has passed. How the man has grown in stature of late! NARRATOR With the wealth and investment opportunities in the town, there is a final puzzle about Pompeii’s recovery after the earthquake. The state of repair that can be seen in villas and other building complexes is in sharp contrast with the ruined civic buildings of the public forum that were the stronghold of the city elite. VOICE OF JOHN DOBBINS As is the case in any Roman city, the Forum was the most important place and that's certainly the situation here in Pompeii. This the vibrant centre of the town. The Forum was the centre of political life, religious activity and commercial activities and you can see directly behind me the major temple of the city, the Temple of Jupiter that is a market building where people would have come to purchase all the goods needed for the day while in the very southern end of the Forum there are the civic building where the magistrates would come. Trials took place in the basilica at the Southwest corner and then we have the colonnade coming up along the West-side once again beyond that colonnade is the sanctuary of Appollo, one of the oldest sanctuaries in the city. The Forum looks like a ruin and this has led scholars for generations to conclude that the Forum was never rebuilt after the earthquake. The Forum is the place where the elites build, so this leads people to think that the elite were in a desperare state. They couldn't rebuild their city centre and or that their will was not there to rebuild. NARRATOR The work of John Dobbins and his colleagues here has revealed that a grand programme of works had begun in the great public square. JOHN DOBBINS Indeed the Forum had been repaired - not just in a slap-dash way to get it back into operation - but there is enough information to recover a kind of master plan according to which the city was monumentalized. And the earthquake was a kind of opportunity to rebuild in a manner, and on a scale, that they may never have undertaken if disaster hadn't struck The Forum looks like a ruin the because it was systematically salvaged and possibly looted in the years after the eruption of Vesuvius the rebuilding of the Forum certainly appears to be a re-affirmation of elite values in Pompeii in which the city centre is turned into an even grander show-case for the elite and for the activities that they performed there. NARRATOR The work was not complete at the time of the city’s destruction in 79 ad but the complex of buildings on the eastern side already had their marble facades. ANDREW WALLACE HADRILL It's very exciting that the new picture emerging of the Forum is of….of…of.. considerable building activity in the period after the earthquake in the last phase of the city which shows an enormous public investment of resources in the image of the town. The first thing in a town is a sort of self-respect. The public monuments create self-respect. VOICE OF LEGACY HUNTER With Gaius's reputation tested and approved the Sulpicii associates lay out their proposition. Their interest is in the forum. They want to see new buildings constructed to the glory of the emperor and the state. With local investment. There are lucrative building contracts still to be won, you see. Which the Sulpicii are well placed to exploit. They will sponsor Gaius to donate a public building, and he must persuade other prominent Pompeians to follow suit. These are their terms. So, Scaurus or the Sulpicii Gaius must make his decision carefully. And quickly. The civic elections are nearly upon us. NARRATOR The election of magistrates was traditionally at the centre of a Roman city’s political life. In Pompei we know that elections were suspended after the earthquake. Once resumed, their importance is recorded in the graffiti found around the town. VOICE OF ELIZABETH FENTRESS Pompeii's covered in Grafitti which tells us a lot about the fact that most of the people in Pompeii could read them. The principal grafitti that we see on the main street are grafitti are electoral propoganda VOICE OF ANDREW WALLACE HADRILL That points to a pretty vigorous local political Life and there's every reason for the local shopkeepers and tradesmen and so on to be interested in who their magistrates were because they'll be doing business with them or rather being… having their trials held by them. NARRATOR Popular interest in the electoral system itself may appear modern and democratic in some respects, but in others it was an exercise in successful control and management by the elite. Only free males voted, and there were a limited number of candidates who were from elite families and who often stood for office uncontested. VOICE OF LEGACY HUNTER So finally its election time, and our man Gaius Terentius coasts home into office. He now has significant backers you see, in the Sulpicii. And until now Scaurus has no inkling that he’s Been double-crossed, left high and dry. Instead of trifling with water supplies Gaius will deal with loftier concerns. NARRATOR The earthquake had transformed the shape and character of Pompei. It was harder and hungrier than before. Pompei was like a hothouse. And out of that intensity came a will to recover. ANDREW WALLACE HADRILL There's incredible energy And determination ; things rise and fall, people are making money, jostling for position. And they don't simply give up and sit down in the ruins of the past. Life picks up again. VOICE OF LEGACY HUNTER That's the way I’ll always remember the city of Pompeii; my home, where fortunes continued to rise and fall... until the end. But we had turned the corner. Pulled through the disaster of the earthquake and there was such a spirit of hope. The only dissonant note was to be heard from the idiot haruspex who kept bleating about the volcano. As for Scaurus, I heard he lost his dream of controlling the fullery trade. The water supply never flowed in the way he needed it to. And he lost his male heir. Venedia gave birth to a girl. Scaurus's wife arranged the child’s death by exposure. Gaius Terentius duly took office as his father had wished and preserved the family name. But by then the old man had given in to dementia, and lived the rest of his days a hopeless dependant with no idea of his son’s achievement. The issue of inheritance remained open for Julia Felix and Marcus. There was no son but they were happy. They recovered a baby girl from the exposure site and her smiling face was enough for them. And as for me, I was the freedman persecuted at the theatre. Perhaps you had guessed. My punishment of exile turned out to be my salvation. I was the only one who survived the final catastrophe of Vesuvius. And before my departure. I wrote this testimony about my town. To be delivered to the Roman investigator Suedius Clemens as my farewell to Pompeii. And now you have heard it all.