VILLA OF DIOMEDES - POMPEII

This sumptuous villa was built just out-side the Porta Ercolano gate in sight of the town walls. An entrance on Via dei Sepolcri led straight into the 14-column peristyle around which the various rooms and living quarters of the house were situated. The house’s bath area was situated in a triangular space between the road and the peristyle while the triclinium/living room opposite commanded a view over the Gulf of Naples and the large garden below. In the centre of the garden was an open-air triclinium with a swimming pool surrounded by a covered gallery (cryptoporticus). Here the master of the house, with his ‘treasure’ of 1356 sesterces, and other 18 people, mainly heavily bejewelled woman, met their death as they tried to flee during the eruption. Their remains were found when the villa was excavated between 1771 and 1774

 

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On the eastern side of the Foro, there’s a majestic and elegant building with a marble frieze above the portal. Two inscriptions attribute this building to Eumachia, a priestess of Venus and owner of a flourishing business operating in the wool industry, which she had inherited from her husband. Indeed this is thought to be the seat of the Corporation of wool and cloth manufacturers, although another interpretation claim that the building was dedicated by the priestess to the Gens Iulia and was used for cult worship of the Emperor Augustus through the statues of his ancestor. The building itself dates from the Tiberian age and looks onto the Forum from a façade with tw ... continue

(Apic. 2, 2, 10) Ingredients:

• 200 gr. spelt
• 50 gr. pine-kernel
• 50 gr. peeled almond
• 50 gr. raisins
• 1/2 glass Passum (or passito wine)
• Ground pepper

Instructions:
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Soften spelt in water for a long while (12 hours). Then wash and coarsely shatter. Add pine-kernel and peeled almond and cook until spelt is soft. Add raisins and Passum and amalgamate all. Pour into individuals pans and spread with pepper. Serve cold.

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.