Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town

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It's a timely concern for 2023, as stoicism is experiencing an unexpected bit of popularity in the years following the COVID-19 pandemic. A disheartening aspect of the book is the great number of paintings and painted signs, mentioned by Beard in passing throughout the text, that were recovered only to fade or vanish entirely, reminiscent of the subway-excavation scene in “Fellini’s Roma.

Destroyed by Vesuvius in 79 CE, the ruins of Pompeii offer the best evidence we have of life in the Roman Empire. This radical essay explores patriarchy and capitalism’s impact on beauty ideals, and inspires us to embrace our own disobedient bodies. Children, too, of Eve, forever building Edens – and kicking them apart in berserk fury because somehow it isn’t the same. TheNotebook by Roland Allen is a gorgeously illustrated cultural history of the humble notebook, from the bustling markets of medieval Florence to the quiet studies of our greatest thinkers. Those few slips should have been edited out and the cover does not relate to the drama of the story which is a shame as it may mislead and thus miss a wide readership.Her popular TLS blog has been collected in the books It’s a Don’s Life (2009) and All in a Don’s Day (2012).

Mary Beard's expertise shines through, as well as her common-sense dismissal of some of the more fanciful interpretations of archaeological evidence. Another book which helped me imagine the world Amara would have experienced in the 70s AD was Robert Knapp's Invisible Romans , especially his chapters on prostitution and slavery. Folio commissioned Hokyoung Kim for the artwork, while the late author’s wife, Wendy Benchley, provides a fascinating new introduction. The book contains chapters that include Street Life, Earning a Living: Baker, Banker and Garum Maker (who ran the city), and The Pleasure of the Body: Food, Wine, Sex and Baths. If you choose to stay elsewhere (such as in Sorrento or Naples), you can either drive to Pompeii and park (there are many parking lots across from the Porta Marina entrance for about 5 euros a day) or you can take the Circumvesuviana train.It is an anthology of essays that provide a range of topics and approaches to women who lived and worked in these small towns, now spectacularly preserved despite their sudden destruction by the eruption of Mt. Indeed, Pliny acts as the counterpoint to Attilius, who overthrows philosophy for the love of Corelia. In many ways, the best route into reimagining Pompeii or the Roman world in general is through Roman authors.

Aside from the melodramatic and misleading American title (there’s a minimum of volcanology or disaster drama; in Britain, the title is aptly “Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town”), this is a wonderful book, for the impressive depth of information it comfortably embraces, for its easygoing erudition and, not least, for its chatty, personable style. Pompeii is a great book that brings to life day-to-day ancient Roman life as we know it from what’s been uncovered from under the ashes of Mt.It provides a thorough introduction to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, the rediscovery of Pompeii, and the creation of the plaster casts. Many of Pompeii’s inhabitants were buried and the city has been largely preserved, thanks to a lack of air and moisture in the area. I have written a number of books about Roman political history and have also translated the biographer Suetonius and the historian Sallust. rotting vegetables and human excrement — which was, just to complete the picture, no doubt covered in flies”); looks into houses (those empty atriums with the misleadingly modernist aesthetic would have been hung with gaudy curtains and stuffed with wooden furniture, storage cupboards, looms and whatnot); saunters into the baths (despite their hygienic reputation, in the days before chlorination, they were filthy); steps up to the bar (the big, unglazed jars set into the counter were for dry foodstuffs, not for doling out the hot stew of our fantasies); and ventures into the brothel (there were probably far fewer than is often supposed, and the one clear example, whatever it was in 79, is a cramped, grim place today, Beard says: average tourist visit, three minutes).