TEMPLE OF APOLLO - POMPEII

We know for certain that this temple was consecrated to Apollo thanks to the dedication in Oscan by quaestor Oppius Campanus that was found in the cell. One enters the scared area from Via Marina through a tuff portal from the Samnite period. Interestingly, the view of this sacred building is blocked by the central column of the portico’s short side, which suggests that the main entrance was once directly from the Forum. This hypothesis is confirmed by the fact the main facade of the altar at the bottom of the temple steps faces the Forum. The sacred area is surrounded by a portico with 48 Doric columns, in the centre of which, on a podium in the Italic style, is the actual temple. The cell originally contained a statue of a divinity (not found) and a rock of carved tuff representing the world’s navel, modelled on the one located in the famous sanctuary of Apollo in Delphi. At the bottom of the temple is an altar in Greek Marble dedicated shortly after 80 A.C. by Marcus Portius, Lucius Sestilius, Cneus Cornelius and Aulus Cornelius, quattuorviri of Pompeii.

At the top of the Ionic column to the left of the stairway there once was a meridian (sun dial), which the duumviri Lucius Sepunius Sandilianus and Marcus Erennius Epidianus commissioned. The two bronze statues inside the sacred precincts (Apollo with Bow to the right and Diana to the left) are copies of the originals (now in the National Museum of Naples) and datable to the late Hellenistic period. The temple of Apollo was also being restored at the time of the eruption. It is one of the oldest temples in the city, Apollo being the main divinity in early Pompeii.

 

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This large house, built in the 2nd century B.C. and restructured during the Imperial age, opens onto Via di Nola and consists of a double Tuscan atrium and a peristyle with a double order of columns at the front. The house was given this name as it was discovered in 1879, the year of the eighteenth centenary of the eruption which completely buried Pompeii. It is divided into two sections: the main house, for the master’s family, and the servants’ quarters, with a separate entrance from a side street. In line with tradition it has a private bath-house and swimming pool. A particularly beautiful nymphaeum with a fountain is situated at the rear of the peristyle and a b ... continue

(Apic. 4, 2, 30) Ingredients:

• 500 g boiled fillet of small fishes or whole sardelles
• 150 g dried raisins (sultanas)
• 1/2 tblsp freshly ground pepper
• 1 tblsp privet
• 1 tblsp oregano
• 2 small diced onions
• 200 ml oil
• 50 ml Liquamen, or 1/2 tblsp salt
• wine
• cornstarch

Instructions:
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Mix raisins, pepper, privet, oregano, onion, wine, Liquamen and oil
together and put in a casserole. Cook until done. Then put small boiled
fish fillets or boiled small whole fishes into it. Thicke ... continue

Love was a common topic of conversation in Pompeii. Feelings, passions, poetic love, sex, homosexuality, prostitution and so forth were all part of daily life and not a source of prejudice. The concept of “obscenity” seems to have been unknown. Love and sex were considered earthly practices of a man’s life that were encouraged by the benevolence of Venus. The thousands of examples of graffiti found on the town’s walls are unequivocal proof of what the people of Pompeii thought about love and sex.