Ancient
Herculaneum
Herculaneum is the
name of an ancient
amazing resort
town situated on the slopes of the famous volcano Mount Vesuvius, in
the province of Naples, Campania region (Southern Italy). The town was
completely buried under a pyroclastic flow during the eruption of the
volcano, in the year 79 A. D. and it vanished. Nowadays it is an
outstanding archaeological site whose exceptional remains are
underneath the modern town of Ercolano.
According to the legend, Herculaneum was founded by Heracles (Hercules)
on his way back from Spain. Here he fell in love with the nymph Sebetis
(the beautiful daughter of the mythical Sebetis river) but,
unfortunately, she did not return his love and she preferred to be
transformed into a rock which Heracles decided to name Heraclea
(Herculaneum). Up on that rock, ejecting towards the sea and flanked by
two streams, an hamlet was built and it became the first nucleus of
“Hercules' city”.
Although the name of the town suggests a Greek foundation, and the city
presented the typical Greek town layout, probably due to the influence
of the Greek people living in the nearby Greek settlement of
Parthenope, most archaeologists, basing their theories on the current
archaeological findings, advocate that an hamlet was settled, during
the 6th century b. C., by the Oscan (Opician) people that inhabited the
Campania plain. It has been presumed that Etruscans and Samnites also
resided here, until the town came under the influence of Rome, after
the Samnites wars, during the 4th century b.C.. In effect, it became a
Roman municipium in the year 89 b.C. but, thanks to its ideal location
in the middle of the wonderful gulf of Naples, Herculaneum was soon
transformed into a purely upper-class Roman resort town and magnificent
dwellings were built along the coastline as the hamlet had been built
up on a bluff overlooking a small harbour by the sea. Several
illustrious Roman gentries had their own gorgeous villas built here and,
among those, the most remarkable one is the notorious Villa of the
Papyri, part of which was uncovered in 1752. It
belonged
to very
important families, surely the Pisoni gentry, and it was considered a
sort of cultural centre as an enormous library and several carbonised
papyri scrolls, placed in bookcases along the walls, were brought to
light from this dwelling. According to Seneca and other contemporary
malicious poets, like Lucian, it was a fashion to own a private
library, during the Roman Empire. In fact, they both considered the
owners of those libraries like simple uncultured “book clubs”. The
papyri
found at Herculaneum, however, prove that they were related to the
Epicurean philosophy and many scholars today think that the library is
so precious as it might give back missing books from the past.
The particular burial of the town under liquid hot pyroclastic
material, protected organic materials, like wooden objects and
furnitures, dried fruits, eggs and even clothes. The pyroclastic flow,
entering the houses of Herculaneum, preserved them for us to see
nowadays. Thermal bath establishments, homes, shops, thermopoliums, temples
and a gym (palestra) are all still in such good conditions that it is
possible to clearly immagine the life of two thousand years ago.
A
walk through the ruins of ancient Herculaneum will surely bring us back
in time. A description of an itinerary is available on my blogsite: https://drmariasannino.wordpress.com/. More information on the site here
For a qualified guided walking tour of the ancient town of Herculaneum, please contact
me at belsannino@gmail.