endlessrarities | Digging Up People...

Before I start my mammoth tour of Ponpeii and Herculaneum, I have a confession to make.

I dislike the Romans. That's being too nice about it. I DETEST the Romans.

It wasn't always this way. When I was a kid, I was besotted with them. Thanks largely to the BBC, and their adaptation of The Eagle of The Ninth, which featured the lovely Anthony Higgins as Marcus.

My feelngs changed when I took up archaeology, and at first it was an artistic thing. I found Celtic art awe-inspiring, and would willing trade the flowing lines and the open-ended curve of the La Tene style for anything that ever came out of a Roman workshop. You can keep your marble sculpture and frescos: give me the Basse Yutz flagons or the Battersea shield any day.

The La Tene style was at its peak in the pre-Roman Iron Age, and its fate was to be unceremoniously swept aside by the relentless march of the Roman legions. Belgic pottery gave way to (bleaugh!) Samian Ware, roundhouses to villas, and eeyore-esque Stanwick horse masks (see user pic) to bog-standard statues of Mercury. How many treasures of the Celtic world were hauled back to Rome as war booty and melted down into coinage and trinkets for the masses??

Sigh.

I haven't even got around to mentioning the more unsavoury aspects of the Roman psyche. I get the distinct impression that they filched most of their ideas from the Greeks, and then transformed them into something nasty. The Greeks were insular and into establising colonies and trading with all and sundry: the Romans were incorrigible expansionists, sending their legions swarming out over the known world. The Greeks' idea of a fun sporting event was either a good pitched battle or the Olympic Games, all mass participation events in which everyone (okay, so long as they're male) could get involved. The Romans twisted Estruscan funeral fights into grim spectator sports which required the horrible slaughter of men and animals in every greater numbers and ever more exotic fashions. Their art reflects this. It's often violent, and sometimes it's downright perverse.

The Romans were probably the first mega-mass consumers. They were fashion conscious, and style conscious. But their ecomony relied on slavery: war won slaves, slaves did all the heavy labour, so the Roman citizens could swan about and have a good time, eating fast food and going shopping. They thrust their way into the so-called 'Barbarian' countries (which had problems of their own, admittedly) and they manipulated local politics to suit themselves. I think it's Tacitus who sums them up extremely nicely with his quote: 'They make a desert, and they call it peace.'

Their influence on our own modern world has been profound. The fact that so many of our political and judicial and munipical buildings are modelled on Roman originals is not conincidental. I think it's fair to say that if you stare too deep into the eyes of an Ancient Roman, you can find a reflection of yourself staring right back. And when you take all the bad things as well as the good things into consideration, the resulting picture is not very pretty.

So there you have it. By now, you're probably scratching your heads and wondering why I wanted to go to Pompeii in the first place. To gloat, perhaps. Because these darned pesky Romans had it coming to them. Why, not even the might of the Roman Empire could stand up to Vesuvius when it blew its top. Well, let me assure you that much as though I HATE the Romans, I don't think anyone deserves to be suffocated under tons of ash and pumice, nor seared and roasted in the midst of a pyroclastic flow. I didn't weep for these unfortunates, but I came damn well close, even though there was almost two thousand years between us.

I suppose I hoped I'd see something in Pompeii that changed my preconceptions. I didn't, but that didn't make the experience any less awe-inspiring. The idea of a city - an entire city - being preserved for posterity is just mind-boggling. Let alone three (we'll include Pompei, Herculaneum and Stabia in the total).

But before I embark upon my virtual tour, I want you all to spare a thought for those who died that day. Because they had names, and they had faces. They had everyday lives, they had families, they had aspirations. And it all got wiped out, due to circumstances completely outwith their control.

Some poignant images are preserved for posterity in the National Archaeological Museum in Naples:-

And so it's to them that I respectfully dedicate this forthcoming series of posts, because without their loss and their sacrifice, we'd still know next to nothing about their world. They've left us a powerful and evocative legacy, and that's something for which we should be truly grateful.

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Location: Living Room Sofa
Current Music: Respighi - The Pines of The Appian Way

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

heleninwales.livejournal.com

Thank you for explaining so clearly why I dislike the Romans. I never did much history at school so I was left with a strange split view of them: on the one hand we were told that the Romans had brought civilisation to a land of barbarians and on the other that they were hated invaders who trampled over the noble and romantic Celts who fought back hopelessly but valiantly. :)

From:

endlessrarities.livejournal.com

It's probably a Celtic thing, isn't it?

I couldn't bear to watch the series 'Rome' because I knew what was going to happen to the noble Vercingetorix...

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