FORUM OLITORIUM - POMPEII

This building is situated along the west side of the Civic Forum to the north of the Temple of Apollo. An open portico, it faces on the Forum square and on the façade has eight large piers in brick which frame eight entrances. It was to house the warehouses and the grain market, but it had not yet been finished when the eruption of 79 A.D. struck. The internal walls are of rough masonry with no trace of intonaco and the roof had not yet been built. At present covered by a modern shed roof and closed by a gate, the portico is used as the storeroom for the archaeological finds. It contains a large quantity of amphoras and pottery of daily use, oil presses, capitals and architectural elements as well as casts of the victims of the eruption from the Antiquarium.

 

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The house may have belonged to one or the other of these two patrician personages whose names appears more than once in the election slogans painted on the facade. The house is Samnite in type and the tall entrance portal leads to a vestibule with a mosaic pavement in which the portal itself and a chained dog are depicted. Next come the atrium decorated with mosaic panels with figures of animals. This had already been damaged in the earthquake of 62 A.D., as had the style IV wall paintings, of which only two still life survive. At the centre of the pavement, an alabaster tondo is surrounded by a double guilloche motif, palmettes and animals in panels. After this co ... continue

(Apic. 6, 2, 1) Ingredients:

• 1 large duck
• 1 l water
• bunch of dill
• Olive oil (or 50 g butter)
• Liquamen (or, in this case, duck stock)
• 2 sprigs of oregano finely chopped
• bunch of coriander
• 100 ml defritum (or red wine boiled)
• large pinch of black peppercorns
• large pinch of lovage (or celery seed)
• large pinch of cumin
• large pinch of coriander seeds
• 1 laser root (or garlic)
• Sprig of rue (or rosemary)
• Caroenum (wine reduced of 1/3 plus honey)
• Honey ... 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.