Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum at the British Museum

Without Mount Vesuvius, we would know far less about life in the Roman world than we do. What is good fortune for today’s archeologists, historians and scholars, though, was rather less lucky for the citizens of the two towns that lay at the base of the mountain.

It is a point that is made clearly at the British Museum’s major spring exhibition: Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum. 

The erruption of AD79 that brought with it disaster served also to preserve an intimate snapshot of Roman life, from election posters, to portraits, to a carbonised loaf of bread complete with the name of the slave who made it.

The exhibition has been laid out following the rough pattern of a Roman house with a road outside. Each room contains appropriate objects and has a colour scheme that provides a reminder of where you could be.

What is more striking is the insight into people’s lives that is available. Sociable, showy, sexual, the people of Pompeii and Herculaneum come alive before your very eyes.

One of the town’s bakers, Terentius Neo, is depicted with his wife. It seems a rather egalitarian relationship, she carries a pen and tablets to prove she can write, while he wears a white toga to imply perhaps that he is running for public office.

The modernity of Roman life is everywhere. Preserved amid metres of clay and ash, glassware, pots, ornaments, even a mould in the shape of a hare look as if they not only could have been made yesterday but that they could be on sale in a shop just around the corner.

Then there is humour, often pretty raunchy, which the people of the towns seemed to enjoy. A selection of drawings depict scenes from a tavern. In one image two drinkers squabble over who has ordered what, in another two gamblers argue over their dice and in a third a woman cuddles up to a man who says: ‘Nolo cum Murtal,’ ‘Not with Murtal’. What, ‘not’ refers to we will never know.

But however much the viewer warms to the people of Pompeii and Herculaneum, they know the story isn’t going to end well. The last room is dedicated to the day the towns were wiped out by Vesuvius’ erruption and the final, rapid, pyroclastic flow that turned tables and chairs to charcoal and killed all those in its path within seconds.

In the 19th century archeologists perfected a technique of pouring plaster into the void left by a decayed body entombed in ash. The resultant figures are shocking, people caught in their last moments, either in agony or despair.

One, the so-called muleteer because he was found near the remains of a mule, sits huddled up, his hands covering his mouth, as if is waiting for a storm to blow over. Others are more disturbing still, such as the family caught in their last seconds as the full force of the heat blast hit.

After that it is hard to leave into the busy rush of the British Museum shop. Best perhaps to retrace your steps for a moment, back to the areas of the show that are full of life, before venturing again past the agonised figures and into the hubbub of the present.

The show runs until 29 September.