an experiment

A lawsuit waiting to happen

I enjoyed this from today's column 8.

"My friend who worked on P&O ships in 1960 swears this is true,'' writes Jane Dymond, of Kiama. ''The Summer Olympics in Rome were close to starting. Standing outside the Colosseum an American woman turns to her friend and says 'It's going to be beautiful, but I don't think they'll have it ready for the Games.' I was in Pompeii recently. Staggering over the uneven, rocky ground came an American woman wearing shoes with towering stiletto heels. As she passed me she muttered, 'This place is a lawsuit waiting to happen. You'd think they would concrete it.' "

Pompeii in the news

Pompeii has been in the news twice in two days. Firstly this article which claims to give a new explanation of how the people in Pompeii actually died. I'm not an expert, but I didn't think the article contained anything new, and I'm not sure how accurate their conclusions are either.

Then there was some trouble with Tuesday's HSC Ancient History Exam, and a mix-up over some funerary inscriptions found near the Herculaneum Gate (which is located, somewhat confusingly, in Pompeii, not Herculaneum).

Pompeii

Classics Tour - Day 5: Pompeii

So much good stuff - here's just a few photos:

Naples

Classics Tour - Day 4: Naples

The Naples National Archaeological Museum has a huge collection of statues, many of them taken from the ruins of Pompeii, Herculaneum, Stabiae and the other towns in the area destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD.

Mt Vesuvius

Here are a couple of interesting animations related to the eruption of Mt Vesuvius:

• eruption of Vesuvius
• eruption of Vesuvius II
• What did the eruption look like
• nine minute eruption video
• growth of a stratovolcano

The cambridge website also has a whole bunch of links for you to explore.

ad thermas

Good Morning year 8! Today's exciting lesson involves, visiting the Cambridge course website, and doing the grammar and vocabulary exercises from stage 9. If you finish these quickly, explore some of the sites at the bottom of the page which give you some information about the Roman baths, as well as pictures from Roman ruins around the world. You can also visit this site for a more interactive experience of what a trip to the Roman baths would have been like, or you can use this map to help you locate the baths in Pompeii, using google earth.

How not to plan a career

Anyway. Here's how not to plan a career: (a) split up with girlfriend; (b) junk college; (c) go to work in record shop; (d) stay in record shops for rest of life. You see those pictures of people in Pompeii and you think, how weird: one quick game of dice after your tea and you're frozen, and that's how people remember you for the next few thousand years.

A Day in Pompeii

If anyone is going to be in Melbourne over the school holidays it will be well-worth visiting the Melbourne Museum, which is hosting an exhibition called A Day in Pompeii. Here's what their website says:

A Day in Pompeii takes visitors back in time to experience life and death in this cosmopolitan city. The exhibition features hundreds of exceptional objects that laid buried in Pompeii’s ruins for over 17 centuries. Included are room-size frescoes, marble and bronze sculptures, jewellery, gold coins and everyday household items – all of which evoke the richness and culture of daily life in the Roman Empire’s favourite vacation resort.

Most poignant and dramatic, however, are the body casts of the volcano’s victims, frozen in their last moments: a couple in their final embrace, a man clutching a cloth to his mouth, a fleeing slave with his ankle manacle still in place, a dog struggling on its chain.

There's also a short video on the website, which is worth watching.

The whole thing sounds great, but I don't think I'll be able to make it myself. If only it were coming to Sydney as well...

On this day...

gratias maximas to Ruth, who reminded me that today is the anniversary of the eruption of Mt Vesuvius in 79 A.D.

Here's an extract from Pliny the younger's famous description of the event, as he observed it from Misenum, across the bay from Pompeii:

iam cinis, adhuc tamen rarus. respicio: densa caligo tergis imminebat, quae nos torrentis modo infusa terrae sequebatur. ‘deflectamus’ inquam ‘dum videmus, ne in via strati comitantium turba in tenebris obteramur.’ vix consideramus, et nox - non qualis illunis aut nubila, sed qualis in locis clausis lumine exstincto.

audires ululatus feminarum, infantum quiritatus, clamores virorum; alii parentes alii liberos alii coniuges vocibus requirebant, vocibus noscitabant; hi suum casum, illi suorum miserabantur; erant qui metu mortis mortem precarentur; multi ad deos manus tollere, plures nusquam iam deos ullos aeternamque illam et novissimam noctem mundo interpretabantur. nec defuerunt qui fictis mentitisque terroribus vera pericula augerent... possem gloriari non gemitum mihi, non vocem parum fortem in tantis periculis excidisse, nisi me cum omnibus, omnia mecum perire misero, magno tamen mortalitatis solacio credidissem.

Ashes were already falling, not as yet very thickly. I looked round: a dense black cloud was coming up behind us, spreading over the earth like a flood. ‘Let us leave the road while we can still see, ‘I said, ‘or we shall be knocked down and trampled underfoot in the dark by the crowd behind.’ We had scarcely sat down to rest when darkness fell, not the dark of a moonless or cloudy night, but as if the lamp had been put out in a closed room.

You could hear the shrieks of women, the wailing of infants, and the shouting of men; some were calling their parents, others their children or their wives, trying to recognize them by their voices. People bewailed their own fate or that of their relatives, and there were some who prayed for death in their terror of dying. Many besought the aid of the gods, but still more imagined there were no gods left, and that the universe was plunged into eternal darkness for evermore… I could boast that not a groan or cry of fear escaped me in these perils, but I admit that I derived some poor consolation in my mortal lot from the belief that the whole world was dying with me and I with it.

Pliny the younger, Epistularum libri decem VI.20