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Interesting Questions, Facts and Information
- There are a total of 35 general entries. We are selecting 30 for display.
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 Interesting Questions, Facts, and Information
 Pompeii
Latin. Note that many educated Romans spoke Greek as well as Latin.
f. A few other towns were also destroyed, most notably the town of Herculaneum.
Vesuvius. The inhabitants had been warned by small earthquakes for quite some time before the eruption.
Italy. It is about 80 miles south of Naples.
| What is the name for volcanic rock filled with air bubbles? What is the special name for this type of rock found at Mt. Vesuvius? | Pompeii: A Covered City
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pumice, tephrite. This rock is very light with air holes in it. Lava soap is made out of pumice. This soap is rough and used to get grease or other materials off the hands.
| How many ampitheaters (comparable to the Colosseum in Rome, but smaller) does Pompeii have? | Pompeii: A Covered City
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1. There are also two theatres (semi-circular), one larger than the other. All are accesible today to visitors who can sit on the stone benches/seats and stand in the stage area.
| What is the name for the deadly liquid 'rivers' of death made up of lava, mud, and debris that can move at about 100 miles per hour? | Pompeii: A Covered City
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Pyroclastic flows. The prefix pyro- means 'fire' or 'heat'. These flows can incinerate the body and can kill almost instantly.
Earthquake. The movement of magma up and into the magma chamber in the volcano and out the top causes the earth to tremble and shake. This is not the only reason for an earthquake, but it may be a warning sign of a volcanic eruption.
Herculaneum. This city was also buried in the 79 AD eruption, and many people were killed there, too.
t. The names Pliny the Younger and Pliny the Elder were not their complete names, but the names that they are most commonly known by. Pliny the Younger observed the 79 AD eruption from several miles away. His uncle, Pliny the Elder, was killed by the pyroclastic flows. Pliny the Younger wrote of the eruption many years later in two letters.
| In what year did the volcano erupt and burying the town several feet of lava and also killing many people? | Pompeii: A Covered City
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79 AD. This eruption was observed from several miles away by a young boy named Pliny the Younger.
Mt. Vesuvius. This volacno actually has two craters: one original crater and one crater created when the top of the mountain caved in during a previous eruption.
Roman. Pompeii was initially a Roman-Italic town, but gradually came under Roman rule.
Naples, Italy. Naples is a large city complete with a bay named after it and has several major museums, including one with artifacts from Pompeii and other ancient Roman cities. However, it's often said that the city itself is a vast open air museum .
| A considerable amount of gladiator's armor has been excavated from Pompeii. How is it different from other gladiator armor? | Civilization in Pompeii
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It was made primarily as artwork and was not functional.. The armor was not functional. One interesting piece is a helmet depicting the last night of Troy. The episodes are worked into high relief on all sides.
| The priestess, Eumachia, had a large buidling erected built at her own expense. What was its function? | Civilization in Pompeii
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The use of the building is unclear. As a sign of gratitude, a large statue was erected in her honor.
banking, judgments, and business. The building was destroyed by an earthquake in 62 AD and never rebuilt. If people in the surrounding areas had realized Mount Vesuvius was active, these earthquakes would have been an early warning.
It allowed pedestrians to keep their feet dry.. The roads of Pompeii sometimes did flood despite their drainage. There were raised pavers in the road spaced so that pedestrians could use them to cross the roads, but chariot wheels would still fit to each side of them.
| The House of Faun is one of the better known excavated homes. From where does the house's name derive? | Civilization in Pompeii
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It was named after a small statue.. The most common roof design in Pompeii was the atrium style. In the atrium roof there is an opening called a compluvium for rain water to fall through. Below this there is an impluvium. An impluvium is a basin in the ground for the collection of rain water. In this home there was a small Greek statue of a faun in the impluvium. It was not uncommon for these areas to be decorated or surrounded by small gardens.
| One type of art very popular in Pompeii involved painting murals and stories directly on to the walls. What is a more common name for this? | Civilization in Pompeii
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fresco. Mythical creatures, gods, goddesses, heroes, and historical recreations were all popular subject matter.
Minerva. This was Jupiter's temple, but Minerva and Juno were both also worshiped here. Apollo, Isis, Vespasian, and Lares all had their own temples within Pompeii.
The Civic Forum. This is where Pompeians met for business, religious, and political events. They also spent much of their casual time here. The temple of Jupiter was at the end of the square.
| Pliny the Elder, who was then head of the Roman navy, was stationed at its base of Misenum at the time of the eruption, and was therefore well placed to observe the volcanic activity. He set sail to attempt a rescue operation, but died in the attempt. His death - and the only first-hand account of the eruption of Vesuvius - was narrated by Pliny the Younger. What was their relationship? | Vesuvius, Pompeii and Beyond
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uncle/nephew. Pliny the Elder was the uncle of Pliny the Younger, who was only 17 at the time he witnessed the horrors of the eruption and suffered the loss of his uncle, to whom he was close. Pliny the Elder died at Stabiae, but the cause of his death was apparently not due to inhalation of toxic fumes, as might be supposed, since the men he had brought over with him survived; his death was theorised to be from a heart attack or possible attack of asthma. Pliny the Younger wrote to his friend Tacitus, an historian of the time, with his account of the tragic events. He was so descriptive in his writing that such eruptions are now called Plinian eruptions after him.
| Many of the artefacts which were excavated from the ruins of the area are displayed in a major archaeological museum in an Italian city. Which one? | Vesuvius, Pompeii and Beyond
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Naples. The Naples National Archaeological Museum at Piazza Museo is home to many stunning artefacts from the area, including a large collection of mosaics which were found during the excavation process. It also houses many other collections including one of the largest collections of marbles in Italy, gladiatorial exhibits and Egyptian antiquities. Among the Pompeiian exhibits are the original statue of the famous Dancing Faun from the House of the Faun and the original Alexander Mosaic (the ones displayed in Pompeii are excellent copies, commissioned when the originals were relocated to the Museum).
| The Villa di Poppaea at Oplontis, in the present-day town of Torre Annunziata, had been home to the second wife of which emperor? | Vesuvius, Pompeii and Beyond
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Nero. Poppaea Sabina was Nero's second wife and he was her third (and last) husband. Otho had been her second husband, whom she had divorced in AD 58; he became emperor himself briefly, during the Year of the Four Emperors, after the death of Nero in AD 68. Poppaea Sabina died in AD 65, possibly as a result of Nero kicking her in her abdomen while she was pregnant, but this remains uncertain. The Villa Poppaea is large and one of the best-preserved of the area.
| Pompeii and Herculaneum are the two largest and best-known cities destroyed by the eruption. Two other sites from this period have also been excavated and are popular tourist attractions, Oplontis, at Torre Annunziata, being one. Can you name the other? | Vesuvius, Pompeii and Beyond
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Stabiae. Stabiae was a small port and resort town overlooking the Bay of Naples, near the present-day town of Castellammare di Stabia. It was also wiped out by the eruption of Vesuvius, being covered in ash to a two-metre depth. It is one of the less frequented archaelogical sites of the area, but well worth a visit are the Villa Arianna and the Villa San Marco, both of which are large and very interesting. They are reached via a very long uphill walk from the nearest station at Castellamare di Stabia, but taxis are easily available and the walk back down is peaceful and scenic.
| The excavations give a great understanding of how life in Pompeii and Herculaneum would have been lived before the eruption, from temples, businesses and the justice system to shops and houses. What is the modern-day equivalent of the business believed to have been carried out in a thermopolium? | Vesuvius, Pompeii and Beyond
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food and drink sales. Thermopolia were the fast food outlets and bars of their day. They consisted of a long bar counter with space for sunken earthenware food containers known as dolia, into which the cooked food was placed to keep warm. They also sold wine. There were several of them in Pompeii and Herculaneum, of various sizes and styles from the lavish to the more basic. In the larger ones there were seating areas at the rear. Wine was kept in amphorae which were long, two-handled vessels with pointed bases, made from earthenware or terracotta. These amphorae were also used to carry other liquids such as olive oil, fish pickle etc. An amphora of this type would be large, and heavy to carry when full.
| Pompeii and Herculaneum were the two largest cities to be destroyed by the eruption of 79 AD; however, their destruction took very different forms. Pompeii was buried under the pumice and ash that rained down from the volcano, but Herculaneum suffered a different fate. What was this? | Vesuvius, Pompeii and Beyond
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pyroclastic flow. When Herculaneum was covered in ash and mud from the volcano this effectively formed a seal when it solidified, with the result that the city was found to be in a better state of preservation than Pompeii when it was excavated. This hardened mud was lighter and easier to excavate than Pompeii, which had been buried under rock fragments, pumice dust and ash, which had caused more damage to the buildings.
Titus. Titus had only recently succeeded his father Vespasian (both named Titus Flavius Vespasianus) as emperor when Vesuvius erupted. He visited Pompeii and arranged for a relief effort to be organised to give assistance to the volcano's victims, himself donating generous funds of money from the treasury. Titus only reigned as emperor for a little over two years; the building of the Flavian Amphitheatre (Colosseum), which had been started by his father, was completed during his reign.
LXXIX. L = 50, X = 10, IX = 9. Therefore, 50 + 10 +10 +9 = 79. LXXX is 80, XCIX is 99 and CXXI is 121.
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