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.