March 31

This morning I took a warm shower – 7:00am is the start of the hot water; it’s official. Breakfast was at 7:30 and was the usual fired eggs, corn flakes, yogurt, and coffee. We grabbed our packed lunches and hopped on the bus at 8:30. Today was officially Pompeii Day.
The weather was not in the mood to celebrate today, however, and it put quite a damper on the trip. It rained on and off all day. That was annoying. I am glad I am going back to visit the site with Mom in a week or so. I am also looking forward to the audio guides provided by the site, as they made the difference between the Charlotte Discovery Museum’s exhibits so much better the second time (the first time I went to the exhibit sans guide, with my Roman Religions class – the second time I went with mom and bought the guide). Three guys on the trip actually took the seminar on Pompeii offered last semester, so Krentz divided our group into three and had each of them lead their group around the city.
I was with Rob. He did a good job, but I don’t know that his heart was really into leading a group all day. He also didn’t have a raincoat and got soaked. The best parts about the city, for me, was the House of the Faun and the Villa of Mysteries – two of the most famous buildings in Pompeii. The House of the Faun is a 26,000 square foot house and takes up an entire block. It has this mosaic (around 100 BCE) called the Alexander Mosaic, which is thought to be a replica of a painting that is now lost. Kyle did his presentation on the mosaic, and pointed out how pathetic (as in pathos) Darius the Persian looks. When you look at his face you can’t help but feel for the him – he is reaching out with a pained expression on his face and his is obviously about to lose the battle. And though this mosaic portrays a battle won by Alexander the Great and his Macedonians, more space is given to Darius and his Persian army. That this mosaic, which gives so much sympathy to the “barbarian” Persians, is found in a Roman house, it would seem that the family who lived here was not happy with Pompeii’s becoming a Roman colony in the early 1st century. So the family’s roots may have been against the Roman intrusion dating back to the Samnite wars against Rome in the 2nd century BCE.
We met up for lunch outside the walls of the ancient street where all the tombs line the road. We sat down on a stone bench in front of one of the funerary monuments, and this is actually what was intended by the monument’s designers. This was a place for travelers to the city to sit and rest, or for the family to come and sit beside the monument. These grave markers were much more ostentatious and were intended to be seen and the wealth and status of the deceased was on display for all to admire.
After lunch we visited the Villa of Mysteries. This house contains a beautiful fresco that covers every wall of one of the rear rooms. The image on the fresco is of the cult of Dionysis, a very popular mystery cult from this time period. There is little known from this mystery cult (they actually kept the secrets pretty well) and these images give us insight into the legends of the cult. This cult was run largely by females and was popular for the homes as Dionysus is the god of wine and merrymaking. After the Villa of Mysteries we split back up into our groups and walked around the city. The rain continued ot pour on and off, and my group sought shelter in various places including the Forum Baths – very cool with several rooms that would have been lavishly decorated –and a few houses and the entrance tunnel. The streets are all paved in stones and there even stepping stones where pedestrians would cross the street without having to step in the muck of the road. These stepping stones were fairly high, but, they were just short enough to left the carts pass over. We checked out the stadium, the brothels (yes, there are frescos on the walls which depict what happened here), fish market, the bakery, the plaster casts of the body cavities found during excavation, the older forum, the Temple of Jupiter, the barracks of the gladiators and the city walls. I am glad I am going back to Pompeii with Mom, because there are still houses that I didn’t get to see and I hope the weather will be better because it did affect how well we could enjoy the site.
We left Pompeii at 5:00 and headed back to the villa for more discussion on The Aeneid. Again, our discussion group went really well. Everyone had good things to say and it worked especially well because we don’t all agree, but no one is abrasive or condescending when expressing their opinions. We just happen to have the right mix of people in this group. I don’t think the other half of the group is going as well – I think it is a bit of a dud.
We had dinner at 7:30 when beckoned by the gong and dined on pesto penne, eggplant lasagna, mozzarella balls, cooked carrots, and cream puffs with chocolate sauce for dessert. I even had some of the wine made by the villa. They make a really good white wine, and if you finish off the bottle, you will see a bit settling to the bottom of the glass (including a bug or two – it’s just protein, right?).
After dinner, I hit the books and studied for a few hours. The tests are on Thursday and Friday and keep creeping closer and closer.