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(birds chirping)

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(bright music)

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(gentle dramatic music)

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ISABELLA ROSSELLINI
There is a place
where queens and gods made love.

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Where warriors
slew gruesome creatures.

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Where mortals could become legends.

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A place
where past and present still merge.

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Pompeii was a city driven
by violent passions.

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A city shaped by love,
revenge, sex, power,

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violence, lust, ambition,
sin and superstition.

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All still visible
in the mosaics and frescoes

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adorning its villas,
temples and brothels.

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(gentle dramatic music)

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The line between myth
and reality were often blurred

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and superstition reigned supreme.

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Even today,
while walking in the city,

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one can't help
being utterly overwhelmed

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by its myths and legends.

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This was a place where the
tales of heroes and heroines,

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gods and goddesses intertwined
with the lives of mortals,

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with all their desires
and divines aspirations.

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When we step into Pompeii,

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we're actually going
to something that truly is unique,

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kind of the queen
of all sites of antiquity.

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Because of that level
of preservation,

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we really feel that we're
walking back in time

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in the days of the Pompeiians.

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What you have to remember
about Pompeii

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is that Italy
is different from Greece.

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Italy doesn't belong to the
Greek mythological tradition.

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They take it from the Greeks.

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The mythology that we can
see on the walls of Pompeii

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comes really quite late to Pompeii.

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It comes under the Empire

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at the end of the first century BC.

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And it's a wonderful new fashion
that sweeps through the city.

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And they find,
because of this way,

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that you can use myths
to tell your story.

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Mythology gets back
to original concepts,

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gets back to the heart
of human beings,

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their ideals, their dreams,

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and really their relationship
with the immortal.

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(gentle dramatic music)

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Everyone can pick it up,

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vary it, give it a new twist,

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a new interpretation.

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That's what they did in antiquity,

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That seems to me
their wonderful richness,

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and it's why they can survive today.

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The mythological scenes
painted on the walls of Pompeii

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are the mirror of a pagan society.

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Far from being true,
but not entirely made up,

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they represented political struggles

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and unspeakable desires.

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They may seem sinful,
perverse, even sinister

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in their depiction of vengeful
gods, sex and bestiality.

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As is the case with one of the myths
most depicted in Pompeii,

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the story of 'Leda and the Swan'.

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A tale represented
countless times in Pompeii

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in a myriad of different ways,

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each giving a new interpretation

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of the ambiguous relationship

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between Zeus, King of the Gods,

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and Leda, Queen of Sparta,

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as testified by the most
recently discovered fresco.

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In this other image,

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the same myth, you get a
really different depiction.

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You get violence, you get Leda,

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she's throttling this swan
by the neck.

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This is not, passionate love-making.

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Sometimes she is even depicted
with something in her hand,

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that she's gonna smash
the swan in the head.

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So, it's curious to have
this well-known story,

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this well-known myth,

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this union being depicted
in two contrasting ways.

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"A sudden blow:
the great wings beating still

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"Above the staggering girl,
her thighs caressed

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"By the dark webs,
her nape caught in his bill,

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"He holds her helpless
breast upon his breast.

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"How can these terrified
vague fingers push

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"The feathered glory
from her loosening thighs?

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"And how can body,
laid in that white rush,

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"But feel the strange heart
beating where it lies?"

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This is how the poet Yeats

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describe one of Pompeii's

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most ambivalent and ambiguous myths,

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the story of Leda,
the Queen of Sparta,

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and the god Zeus disguised as a swan.

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Some sees the story as a
consenting sexual relationship,

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others instead read it as a rape.

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(gentle dramatic music)

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locked behind your head

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on my cheeks

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(dramatic music)

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(romantic music)

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(gentle dramatic music)
(birds chirping)

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I think violence, sex and power

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are very closely
intermingled in this myth.

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There are so many stories
about Zeus turning himself

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into different forms

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to have his way
with different human women.

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I think the way that the story

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in some versions
is a story of seduction,

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and others a story of violence...

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Because we know so
little about Leda,

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because Leda's voice
never gets heard

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in any of these stories,

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we end up in that
horrible central question

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around an act of sexual violence.

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Is it an act of sexual violence

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or was there willing consent
on the part of the victim?

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If you get the offer to make
love to the king of the gods,

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is that an offer you want to refuse?

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It's certainly not an offer
you can refuse

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because the king of the gods
is almighty.

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(birds chirping)

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(gentle dramatic music)

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Leda has four children.

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She has two sons, Castor and Pollux,

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but what I'm really interested in
is her two daughters,

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first of whom was Helen.

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This is Helen of Troy,

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one of the most important
people in Greek mythology.

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She's the one that led to the grand,
apocalyptic Trojan War.

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Helen, irrespective of the
fact that she marries

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the most powerful king
in the Peloponnese,

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she is seduced by a visitor,

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a visitor from the east,
a visitor from Troy,

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the handsome Paris,
who, of course,

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has to be
an exceptionally handsome man.

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The ordinary human seduction,
elopement, adultery

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creates the biggest war

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that Greece had ever experienced,
a 10-year war!

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Helen, who was held responsible

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for the greatest massacre
of men in all antiquity,

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may have been just
following Venus's orders.

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The fate of Leda's other daughter,
Clytemnestra, on the other hand

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leaves no room for interpretation.

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It's important, when looking
at the story of Leda,

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to consider that both her
daughters are both immortalised

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as unleashing
terrible revenge on men.

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Agamemnon comes back
from Troy triumphant

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expecting a great welcome home,

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and Clytemnestra is ready for him.

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But she's also plotting revenge,

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revenge because Agamemnon,

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in order to get a fair
wind to sail to Troy,

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sacrifices his daughter Iphigenia.

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We have a fresco that
actually depicts the very scene

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in which Agamemnon is sacrificing
his daughter Iphigenia.

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So the gods demanded a sacrifice,

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in order for there to be wind
for his ships to depart,

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to go on this great quest,
this war against the Trojans,

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he had to make
the ultimate sacrifice,

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he had to kill his daughter.

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And that's something
Clytemnestra does not forget.

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Clytemnestra has to be
the scariest woman you could imagine

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So, she doesn't murder him simply.

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She runs a lovely warm bath for him,

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and then she takes a great axe,

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a great two-headed axe
and slaughters him,

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beheads him in his own bath,

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so that the water turns to blood.

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(gentle dramatic music)

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The legends
of Leda and her daughters

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were marked by lust,
cruelty and deception,

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common traits of Pompeiian frescoes

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that bear witness to a
darker side of the city,

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some so graphic that they
are still censored today.

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(gentle dramatic music)

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Pompeiians were refined,
cultured people

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who enjoyed art and architecture

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just as much
as the pleasure of the flesh.

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Yet behind their sophistication,

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behind the magnificence
of their statues,

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their villa, their
spectacular amphitheatre

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hid a different city,

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one engulfed in debauchery,
transgression,

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eroticism and superstition.

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At the time of the discovery
of Pompeii...

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Gotta think about the context.

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So you have the Bourbon kingdom,
of course they're fervent Catholics.

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When you start to discover Pompeii,

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these incredibly, blatantly,

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graphic, erotic scenes,
what you do with it?

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You could destroy it.
There's some overpainting.

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But for the most part
you're taking them

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and you're putting them
away for safekeeping.

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They're not for public consumption.

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And they're putting them on
certain places

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like the Secret Cabinet,

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where you'd need special
permission to get access

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to look at these really
kind of raunchy scenes.

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Visiting the Secret Cabinet

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in Naples' National
Archaeological Museum wasn't easy.

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The frescoes was considered
so scandalous

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that three different keys
were required

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00:20:03,840 --> 00:20:06,680
in order to open its doors.

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00:20:07,440 --> 00:20:12,240
The censorship of the Secret
Cabinet ended only in 1967,

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and today, even still today,

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if you wanna go inside you have
to be at least 14 years old.

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But in a city like Pompeii,

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not all representations of
nudity were considered erotic.

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Here, the human form was seen

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as a measure of perfection
and beauty,

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a hymn to life and happiness.

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In the entrance
of the House of Vettii

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there's a figure who would,
I think, strike any modern visitor,

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as really quite extraordinary.

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This is a figure of a man
with a really enormous phallus

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coming out from beneath his tunic

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which he's weighing
in a set of scales

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with bags money on the other side

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and there's also very
ample basket of fruit.

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In Pompeii, a sight of a phallus
is really very common.

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There are penises
everywhere you look really.

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There are amulets.
There are frescoes showing penises.

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There are enormous number
of signs

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00:21:59,280 --> 00:22:01,320
of prostitution in Pompeii.

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00:22:01,480 --> 00:22:04,760
Is it because Pompeii
was something special?

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00:22:04,920 --> 00:22:09,520
Was it because it was a port city,
visited by lots of sailors?

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A commercial city with lots
of people coming and going?

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00:22:12,480 --> 00:22:14,000
All these things are true.

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But prostitution was
extraordinarily common

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in the Roman world.

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Roman prostitutes
operated under the arches.

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Think of the arches of an aqueduct.

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They leave lots of spaces

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that are easily accessible
to the public.

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And the Latin
for an arch is 'fornix'.

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And that's how we have
the word fornication,

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these are the people who fornicate.

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There's been a lot of debate

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about exactly
which premises in Pompeii

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00:22:46,280 --> 00:22:48,080
might have been used
for prostitution.

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And how many brothels did
Pompeii have, for instance.

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00:22:50,800 --> 00:22:53,720
And some has suggested that
the property of Julia Felix

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00:22:53,880 --> 00:22:56,840
was used for that kind of activity.

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Included in Julia Felix's property
is this rather lovely set of baths

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00:23:02,960 --> 00:23:05,520
including a lovely
outside bath and a sauna.

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So they're quite luxurious.

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Julia Felix is taking
advantage of an opportunity

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to make money, the way
that many Pompeiian men

258
00:23:23,600 --> 00:23:25,280
will have done.

259
00:23:33,120 --> 00:23:35,080
There's nothing
unusual about her projects

260
00:23:35,240 --> 00:23:36,680
except that she's a woman

261
00:23:36,840 --> 00:23:40,440
and we know that it's a woman
who's responsible for it.

262
00:23:41,320 --> 00:23:43,880
(gentle dramatic music)

263
00:23:55,920 --> 00:23:58,040
In the Porta Marina suburban baths

264
00:23:58,200 --> 00:24:02,640
you actually have
a whole layer of frescoes

265
00:24:02,800 --> 00:24:04,440
that depict various sexual acts.

266
00:24:04,600 --> 00:24:06,880
So you could literally just
point to the Roman numeral

267
00:24:07,040 --> 00:24:08,120
for that sexual act,

268
00:24:08,280 --> 00:24:10,480
go up to the room and that
will be performed upon you.

269
00:24:13,440 --> 00:24:17,200
One thing that Pompeii gives us
is this extraordinary brothel,

270
00:24:17,360 --> 00:24:22,160
that is a brothel for a dozen people
operating at the same time.

271
00:24:22,320 --> 00:24:23,840
It's custom built.

272
00:24:24,000 --> 00:24:27,280
It could serve no other
purpose than a brothel

273
00:24:27,440 --> 00:24:31,680
because it's a series of cells
that are as wide as a bed.

274
00:24:31,840 --> 00:24:33,720
So you don't just go to the brothel,

275
00:24:33,880 --> 00:24:37,320
you don't just go
to the bath complex,

276
00:24:37,480 --> 00:24:39,640
but also even bars, 'thermopoliums'.

277
00:24:39,800 --> 00:24:41,640
One example we have

278
00:24:41,800 --> 00:24:45,160
is that it seems from
the artistic decoration

279
00:24:45,320 --> 00:24:47,240
that's in that particular bar,

280
00:24:47,400 --> 00:24:49,280
it seems that there's a back room

281
00:24:49,440 --> 00:24:52,600
where you can, again,
go to a prostitute.

282
00:25:07,960 --> 00:25:12,000
The idea is that there's no
cookie cutter kind of situation

283
00:25:12,200 --> 00:25:15,080
which you're engaging in sex,
you're engaging in prostitutes.

284
00:25:16,280 --> 00:25:19,360
Roman society is no paradise.

285
00:25:19,520 --> 00:25:24,120
Roman society is shot
through with violence,

286
00:25:24,320 --> 00:25:29,560
with sex, with greed,
with everything.

287
00:25:42,600 --> 00:25:45,760
Pompeiians loved carnal pleasures

288
00:25:45,920 --> 00:25:48,920
and sex in all its forms -

289
00:25:49,080 --> 00:25:54,240
mercenary, chaste,
homosexual and heterosexual.

290
00:25:59,120 --> 00:26:01,600
Not surprising then
that the Catholic church

291
00:26:01,800 --> 00:26:05,000
branded the city
as sinful and obscene,

292
00:26:05,160 --> 00:26:08,960
even though Pompeii
existed before the idea

293
00:26:09,200 --> 00:26:10,920
of Christian sin.

294
00:27:16,720 --> 00:27:18,720
One of the extraordinary things

295
00:27:18,880 --> 00:27:23,080
is that they actually
perform such relationships

296
00:27:23,240 --> 00:27:27,600
on the stage, on a very peculiar
stage of the amphitheatre.

297
00:27:27,760 --> 00:27:32,120
Pasiphae being raped
by a bull on stage,

298
00:27:32,280 --> 00:27:34,280
being raped to death.

299
00:27:34,440 --> 00:27:37,480
And this for the Romans
is a form of entertainment.

300
00:27:40,480 --> 00:27:43,280
In order to stage the unthinkable,

301
00:27:43,440 --> 00:27:46,960
Pompeiians built one of the
most beautiful amphitheatre's

302
00:27:47,120 --> 00:27:49,920
of southern Italy,

303
00:27:50,080 --> 00:27:54,680
where human lives were merely
used as theatrical props.

304
00:27:57,480 --> 00:28:02,120
Pompeiians were sophisticated people
with a voracious appetite for sex

305
00:28:02,280 --> 00:28:04,280
and an unquenchable thirst

306
00:28:04,440 --> 00:28:07,960
for bloody, violent
gladiatorial games.

307
00:28:08,120 --> 00:28:09,840
Graffiti and electoral posters

308
00:28:10,000 --> 00:28:12,280
demonstrate the importance
of the games

309
00:28:12,440 --> 00:28:15,680
were for the cultural life
of the city.

310
00:28:15,840 --> 00:28:18,680
As a society steeped
in superstition and myth,

311
00:28:18,840 --> 00:28:22,960
gladiators became
the real life heroes.

312
00:28:24,720 --> 00:28:26,600
Regarded as good omens,

313
00:28:26,760 --> 00:28:30,320
Pompeiians decorated their
homes with gladiatorial relief.

314
00:28:30,480 --> 00:28:32,240
And in 70 BC,

315
00:28:32,440 --> 00:28:36,120
two rich merchants built
a magnificent amphitheatre.

316
00:28:36,280 --> 00:28:39,800
And it's there that the
Pompeiians thirst for violence

317
00:28:39,960 --> 00:28:42,840
would lead to one of
the most gruesome riots

318
00:28:43,000 --> 00:28:45,720
the ancient world had ever seen.

319
00:28:55,960 --> 00:28:59,000
These fearless fighters
became objects of desire

320
00:28:59,160 --> 00:29:01,120
with devoted fan clubs.

321
00:29:01,280 --> 00:29:05,600
Small wonder that the
Latin word 'gladius' or sword

322
00:29:05,800 --> 00:29:08,720
is the source of the word gladiator

323
00:29:08,920 --> 00:29:12,640
and also the slang for penis.

324
00:29:21,840 --> 00:29:24,960
Gladiators were real sex symbols
throughout the Roman world

325
00:29:25,120 --> 00:29:27,520
and we see evidence of
that strongly in Pompeii.

326
00:29:27,680 --> 00:29:30,160
There's graffiti, for
instance, in the barracks,

327
00:29:30,320 --> 00:29:31,480
in the gladiatorial barracks,

328
00:29:31,720 --> 00:29:33,480
where the gladiators
themselves stayed.

329
00:29:33,680 --> 00:29:36,760
"Celadus, the heartthrob
of all the girls."

330
00:29:36,960 --> 00:29:39,720
"Crescens and his enormous penis."

331
00:29:39,880 --> 00:29:43,760
There's very kind of unsubtle
association of gladiators

332
00:29:43,920 --> 00:29:46,240
with sexual potency.

333
00:30:02,880 --> 00:30:04,360
There are stories

334
00:30:04,520 --> 00:30:06,680
that people collected
the sweat of gladiators

335
00:30:06,840 --> 00:30:08,720
to serve as an aphrodisiac.

336
00:30:12,440 --> 00:30:16,200
A satire of Juvenal
that kind of mocks

337
00:30:16,360 --> 00:30:20,680
the great devotion of some
aristocratic women to gladiators.

338
00:30:20,840 --> 00:30:22,000
He talks about this woman Eppia.

339
00:30:22,160 --> 00:30:25,000
She's a senator's wife but she
runs off with the gladiator.

340
00:30:25,160 --> 00:30:27,720
Doesn't matter that he's
absolutely hideously ugly

341
00:30:27,880 --> 00:30:30,600
after all his kind of scars.

342
00:30:30,760 --> 00:30:32,920
But you know he's all sword.

343
00:30:33,080 --> 00:30:35,080
He's really sexy.

344
00:30:37,560 --> 00:30:43,000
In 59 you have a gladiatorial games
held in the amphitheatre of Pompeii.

345
00:30:43,160 --> 00:30:46,960
The people from nearby Nocera
came to participate as well.

346
00:30:47,120 --> 00:30:49,400
You can think of it
like a soccer match

347
00:30:49,600 --> 00:30:51,680
or football game
or something like that.

348
00:30:51,840 --> 00:30:54,360
But then literally
all hell broke loose.

349
00:30:58,760 --> 00:31:03,480
So violent was the fighting
that in an unprecedented move

350
00:31:03,680 --> 00:31:07,200
the Senate in Rome
imposed a 10-year ban

351
00:31:07,360 --> 00:31:10,160
on holding any further games
in Pompeii.

352
00:31:12,000 --> 00:31:15,240
What's preserved from
Pompeii and transmitted to us

353
00:31:15,400 --> 00:31:18,280
is lust, power, eroticism,

354
00:31:18,440 --> 00:31:20,920
and violence
in the gladiatorial arena.

355
00:31:21,120 --> 00:31:24,720
We're still fascinated
with this lust for violence

356
00:31:24,880 --> 00:31:26,400
that the Pompeiians actually had,

357
00:31:26,600 --> 00:31:28,840
in the arena
and throughout the city.

358
00:31:33,720 --> 00:31:35,600
Gladiators have captured
the imagination

359
00:31:35,800 --> 00:31:37,640
of every generation.

360
00:31:37,840 --> 00:31:40,480
Those iconic characters
made legendary

361
00:31:40,680 --> 00:31:42,520
by their courage and bravery

362
00:31:42,680 --> 00:31:47,680
exude the magnificent elegance
of mythological representations.

363
00:31:47,840 --> 00:31:50,720
They appeal
to our primordial fascination

364
00:31:50,880 --> 00:31:54,480
with watching violence
as a spectacle.

365
00:31:54,680 --> 00:31:57,000
Their magnetism is so strong

366
00:31:57,160 --> 00:32:02,000
that it was able to enthral
a genius 19 centuries later.

367
00:32:06,320 --> 00:32:09,120
(birds chirping)

368
00:32:12,880 --> 00:32:14,440
A little over 100 years ago,

369
00:32:14,640 --> 00:32:18,240
on 11 March 1917,

370
00:32:18,440 --> 00:32:22,120
Pablo Picasso
and Jean Cocteau came to Pompeii.

371
00:32:23,440 --> 00:32:25,520
I wish I was here with them.

372
00:32:26,800 --> 00:32:29,160
They were dressed in beautiful black
suit,

373
00:32:29,320 --> 00:32:30,600
a handsome pipe.

374
00:32:30,760 --> 00:32:33,680
They admired the beautiful
archaeological site.

375
00:32:33,840 --> 00:32:36,720
They must have looked at the
frescoes, the villas, the mosaics.

376
00:32:37,960 --> 00:32:40,440
The erotic art, of course.

377
00:32:45,840 --> 00:32:49,120
(gentle dramatic music)

378
00:33:12,800 --> 00:33:17,120
Picasso changed his style
completely after visiting Pompeii.

379
00:33:18,160 --> 00:33:21,760
Among the places that
mesmerised the father of Cubism

380
00:33:21,920 --> 00:33:28,680
is one of city's most famous
sites - the Villa of the Mysteries.

381
00:33:30,640 --> 00:33:33,920
(gentle dramatic music)

382
00:33:51,440 --> 00:33:53,800
The Greek word
for 'rite' means to grow up,

383
00:33:53,960 --> 00:33:57,040
and the breathtaking frescoes
in the Villa of the Mysteries

384
00:33:57,200 --> 00:34:00,680
allow us to witness the secret
initiation of a young woman

385
00:34:00,840 --> 00:34:04,920
to the mystery cult of
Bacchus, or Dionysus.

386
00:34:05,080 --> 00:34:08,000
He represents many dualities.

387
00:34:08,160 --> 00:34:11,320
He's effeminate in appearance
and yet he appeals to women.

388
00:34:12,240 --> 00:34:14,800
Most of his worshipers are women.

389
00:34:14,960 --> 00:34:16,960
He's the god of wine

390
00:34:17,160 --> 00:34:21,160
and therefore he's associated
both with fertility

391
00:34:21,360 --> 00:34:23,240
and with drunkenness.

392
00:34:23,400 --> 00:34:26,360
And he's also
the god of wild places.

393
00:34:26,600 --> 00:34:28,400
So when you worship Bacchus,

394
00:34:28,640 --> 00:34:31,200
you process in a ritual
way out of the city

395
00:34:31,360 --> 00:34:33,320
and then you go up
into the mountains.

396
00:34:33,480 --> 00:34:36,760
And so he's
the god of ecstatic ritual,

397
00:34:36,920 --> 00:34:40,080
ecstatic ritual, which is
the opposite of civic ritual.

398
00:34:40,240 --> 00:34:42,120
It's a great mystery, I think,

399
00:34:42,280 --> 00:34:46,680
why most of Bacchus's
followers are female.

400
00:34:46,840 --> 00:34:51,480
One possibility is that in a
heavily male-dominated world,

401
00:34:51,680 --> 00:34:54,000
and what world is not
heavily male-dominated,

402
00:34:54,160 --> 00:34:56,840
it gave them a certain freedom.

403
00:35:00,680 --> 00:35:03,200
This female-led cult
became so popular

404
00:35:03,360 --> 00:35:05,120
that it threatened the Roman senate.

405
00:35:05,140 --> 00:35:08,080
The frescoes are the
only existing testimony

406
00:35:08,280 --> 00:35:10,120
of the initiation rituals

407
00:35:10,320 --> 00:35:12,960
often acted out as dramas,

408
00:35:13,160 --> 00:35:16,760
which served to prepare
girls for married life.

409
00:35:42,400 --> 00:35:45,720
Ariadne is an interesting figure
because her myth falls
into two halves

410
00:35:45,880 --> 00:35:48,480
and she appears as two
very different people.

411
00:35:48,640 --> 00:35:54,680
When she's a young woman,
that part of her myth,

412
00:35:54,840 --> 00:35:57,120
she's associated with Theseus.

413
00:35:57,280 --> 00:36:00,720
And she helps Theseus
slay the Minotaur.

414
00:36:00,880 --> 00:36:03,400
She helps him through
the Labyrinth in Crete.

415
00:36:03,560 --> 00:36:05,640
Theseus has this impossible task,

416
00:36:05,800 --> 00:36:09,280
not just to kill the Minotaur,
scary enough already,

417
00:36:09,480 --> 00:36:12,600
but to get out
of the Labyrinth again.

418
00:36:12,760 --> 00:36:15,000
And Ariadne has the answer.

419
00:36:15,160 --> 00:36:18,920
As we can see in the fresco,
Ariadne gives him the thread

420
00:36:19,080 --> 00:36:22,400
that he can follow
through the Labyrinth.

421
00:36:22,560 --> 00:36:25,680
And of course it is a very
typical women's thing.

422
00:36:25,840 --> 00:36:28,480
Women spin, women make thread.

423
00:36:28,640 --> 00:36:32,680
So it's a woman's answer
to a man's problem.

424
00:36:32,880 --> 00:36:36,320
And she goes off with him
into the blue.

425
00:36:36,520 --> 00:36:39,200
(dramatic music)

426
00:38:27,480 --> 00:38:28,840
One would think

427
00:38:29,000 --> 00:38:31,720
that a romance like that
would last for ever.

428
00:38:31,920 --> 00:38:34,480
But Theseus, who had just survived

429
00:38:34,640 --> 00:38:36,960
one of the scariest monsters
in the world,

430
00:38:37,120 --> 00:38:39,720
felt too afraid to commit
to someone else

431
00:38:39,880 --> 00:38:42,160
for the rest of his days

432
00:38:42,400 --> 00:38:45,240
and reacted like any coward would do.

433
00:38:47,080 --> 00:38:49,040
He fled.

434
00:39:14,560 --> 00:39:17,320
(dramatic music)

435
00:40:20,320 --> 00:40:22,760
Ariadne helped Theseus
defeat the Minotaur,

436
00:40:22,920 --> 00:40:25,360
got him out of the Labyrinth,

437
00:40:25,520 --> 00:40:27,960
they go sailing off together
to live happily ever after...

438
00:40:28,120 --> 00:40:30,120
Theseus dumps her on an island.

439
00:40:37,520 --> 00:40:40,840
(gentle ethereal music)

440
00:41:13,960 --> 00:41:17,040
And who better to
empower the rejected Ariadne

441
00:41:17,200 --> 00:41:20,720
then the god of wine
and pleasure himself...

442
00:41:22,960 --> 00:41:24,200
..Bacchus?

443
00:41:31,000 --> 00:41:33,320
It's love at first sight.

444
00:41:33,520 --> 00:41:37,640
Their story is one of pure,
unconditional passion.

445
00:41:42,760 --> 00:41:45,720
A relationship where he initiates her

446
00:41:45,920 --> 00:41:49,040
into the secret of ecstasy and wine,

447
00:41:50,400 --> 00:41:53,880
turning her from a girl into woman.

448
00:42:03,840 --> 00:42:07,000
(upbeat lively music)

449
00:42:48,160 --> 00:42:52,320
The story of Bacchus
and Ariadne of course

450
00:42:52,480 --> 00:42:54,800
has not just a happy ending,

451
00:42:54,960 --> 00:42:57,920
the happiest ending you
can possibly imagine.

452
00:42:58,080 --> 00:43:01,440
This is wonderfully represented
in the House of Fronto.

453
00:43:01,600 --> 00:43:02,880
In the tablinum,

454
00:43:03,080 --> 00:43:05,120
in the main reception room
of the house,

455
00:43:05,320 --> 00:43:08,480
an enormous beautiful painted wall

456
00:43:08,640 --> 00:43:12,960
showing the triumph
of Bacchus with Ariadne.

457
00:43:13,120 --> 00:43:16,160
Not a triumph over foreign enemies,

458
00:43:16,360 --> 00:43:20,000
no, a triumph that... the
liberation of getting out

459
00:43:20,160 --> 00:43:23,880
of human woes and Ariadne
is there with him.

460
00:43:24,040 --> 00:43:27,200
(upbeat lively music)

461
00:43:57,040 --> 00:44:01,080
Roman myths can seem
terribly misogynistic today.

462
00:44:01,240 --> 00:44:06,360
Yet among them is one of the
most adored divinities in Pompeii -

463
00:44:06,520 --> 00:44:07,800
a woman,

464
00:44:08,000 --> 00:44:12,480
a foreign goddess that came
from the land of the Nile...

465
00:44:12,640 --> 00:44:14,160
Isis.

466
00:44:22,680 --> 00:44:23,760
Above all by definition,

467
00:44:23,920 --> 00:44:26,320
was, for the Romans,
a foreign goddess.

468
00:44:26,480 --> 00:44:28,840
Isis is an Egyptian goddess.

469
00:44:29,000 --> 00:44:31,720
She's not part
of the Roman Pantheon.

470
00:44:31,920 --> 00:44:35,280
The cult of Isis was almost
by definition different.

471
00:44:35,440 --> 00:44:40,080
It was exotic. It wasn't
like normal Roman religion.

472
00:44:42,120 --> 00:44:45,400
Mozart, among many other
visitors, came to Pompeii,

473
00:44:45,600 --> 00:44:46,840
came to Herculaneum.

474
00:44:47,000 --> 00:44:50,120
He saw something
in its grandest form,

475
00:44:50,280 --> 00:44:52,880
and he saw
a complete vision, really,

476
00:44:53,040 --> 00:44:55,640
of the temple, and the decorations,

477
00:44:55,840 --> 00:44:58,120
and the pageantry, and the figures,

478
00:44:58,280 --> 00:44:59,640
all of the Temple of Isis.

479
00:44:59,800 --> 00:45:03,480
So it had recently been restored.
It was in great condition.

480
00:45:03,640 --> 00:45:05,720
I think he was
stepping back in time

481
00:45:05,880 --> 00:45:07,600
when he went through that doorway

482
00:45:07,760 --> 00:45:10,120
into the complex
of the Theatre of Isis.

483
00:45:10,280 --> 00:45:15,280
In 1770, while touring across
Italy, he came to Pompeii.

484
00:45:16,000 --> 00:45:19,400
It was here that he first
encountered the goddess Isis.

485
00:45:20,480 --> 00:45:22,720
21 years later his fascination

486
00:45:22,920 --> 00:45:25,880
with the mythology surrounding
this Egyptian goddess

487
00:45:26,080 --> 00:45:29,920
led him to the creation of
one of his most important operas...

488
00:45:30,080 --> 00:45:31,240
'The Magic Flute.'

489
00:45:42,400 --> 00:45:43,720
This was arguably

490
00:45:43,880 --> 00:45:46,120
the most significant foreign cult
in Pompeii

491
00:45:46,280 --> 00:45:49,000
and perhaps in the Roman world.

492
00:45:49,320 --> 00:45:53,680
Isis was considered by many
to be the feminine archetype,

493
00:45:53,840 --> 00:45:55,520
worshipped right in the centre

494
00:45:55,720 --> 00:45:57,840
of the most important part
of the city.

495
00:45:59,720 --> 00:46:04,040
It's very hard to tell
what exactly social-status-wise

496
00:46:04,200 --> 00:46:06,800
the worshipers of Isis were
in Pompeii.

497
00:46:06,960 --> 00:46:12,040
But you do find shrines
of Isis in very rich houses,

498
00:46:12,200 --> 00:46:14,120
people with a lot of money.

499
00:46:14,280 --> 00:46:18,600
One idea is that it's
connected with trade.

500
00:46:18,760 --> 00:46:22,480
So it's quite likely
that worshipers of Isis

501
00:46:22,680 --> 00:46:25,640
were tradesmen, sailors and so on.

502
00:46:25,800 --> 00:46:28,240
But I don't think
it's limited to that.

503
00:46:33,200 --> 00:46:36,600
You could be in an initiate
without being a wealthy person.

504
00:46:36,760 --> 00:46:40,000
You just had to commit
to the initiation ceremony

505
00:46:40,160 --> 00:46:44,640
and then commit to ongoing
service to the goddess.

506
00:46:44,800 --> 00:46:46,760
So it would have been very
attractive

507
00:46:46,920 --> 00:46:49,120
to a wide range of people.

508
00:46:49,320 --> 00:46:54,200
The cult of Isis
had its own distinctive rituals.

509
00:46:54,360 --> 00:46:56,120
Her followers sang and danced

510
00:46:56,280 --> 00:46:59,280
to the sound of the sistra
in her name,

511
00:46:59,440 --> 00:47:02,760
while a high priest
read the sacred texts

512
00:47:02,920 --> 00:47:05,240
during masked processions.

513
00:47:06,680 --> 00:47:10,000
(gentle ethereal music)

514
00:47:19,960 --> 00:47:24,480
The relationship between Isis,
the cult of Isis, and the Romans,

515
00:47:24,680 --> 00:47:27,880
the Roman senate,
was very, very complex.

516
00:47:28,040 --> 00:47:31,520
And many times
the actual government of Rome

517
00:47:31,680 --> 00:47:33,280
kicked out the cult of Isis,

518
00:47:33,440 --> 00:47:35,800
reducing her to,
outside the pomerium,

519
00:47:35,960 --> 00:47:38,440
the magic boundary line
around the city centre.

520
00:47:38,640 --> 00:47:41,200
So there's this push
and pull all the time,

521
00:47:41,400 --> 00:47:44,040
We don't really accept you.
You're not one of the Pantheon."

522
00:47:44,200 --> 00:47:47,160
Isis is the Egyptian goddess.

523
00:47:47,320 --> 00:47:50,600
She is from
the country of Cleopatra.

524
00:47:50,800 --> 00:47:55,320
Augustus' power is based
on the defeat of Cleopatra

525
00:47:55,480 --> 00:47:59,240
and the way that the poets
represent the victory of Augustus

526
00:47:59,400 --> 00:48:02,120
is the victory of the
traditional Roman gods

527
00:48:02,320 --> 00:48:07,360
against these awful Egyptian
gods that are like animals,

528
00:48:07,600 --> 00:48:11,200
barking Anubis,
the God with a dog's head.

529
00:48:11,360 --> 00:48:14,840
So Isis is,
in some senses, horrific.

530
00:48:15,000 --> 00:48:17,400
And yet
it's precisely under Augustus

531
00:48:17,600 --> 00:48:21,400
that it becomes extraordinarily
popular in the Roman empire.

532
00:48:21,560 --> 00:48:24,680
She's also the goddess of Fortune.

533
00:48:24,840 --> 00:48:29,520
She holds the cornucopia,
the sign of abundance.

534
00:48:29,720 --> 00:48:33,800
She holds the rudder
that steers the ship,

535
00:48:33,960 --> 00:48:36,080
that steers the world.

536
00:48:36,240 --> 00:48:38,160
And it brought luck.

537
00:48:38,320 --> 00:48:41,240
You worship Isis
because she will bring fortune

538
00:48:41,400 --> 00:48:43,000
to your household.

539
00:48:43,720 --> 00:48:47,440
The pagan heart of Pompeii
was filled with secret cults,

540
00:48:47,640 --> 00:48:49,840
many woman-centric.

541
00:48:50,200 --> 00:48:52,920
The Senate understood
the power of Isis,

542
00:48:53,080 --> 00:48:58,520
so they transformed her into
the Roman goddess of luck, Fortuna.

543
00:49:00,960 --> 00:49:04,120
In this particular manifestation
we see her as Isis and Fortuna,

544
00:49:04,280 --> 00:49:06,360
it's something that's going
to be acceptable to everybody.

545
00:49:06,520 --> 00:49:09,280
It won't be banned by the Senate
or something like this.

546
00:49:09,440 --> 00:49:12,480
It's part and parcel
of what a Roman citizen

547
00:49:12,680 --> 00:49:14,640
throughout the empire
is gonna be used to.

548
00:49:14,800 --> 00:49:17,760
It's acceptable and it's normalised.

549
00:49:25,520 --> 00:49:26,880
There was another divinity

550
00:49:27,040 --> 00:49:29,800
that traded her Greek name
for a Roman one

551
00:49:29,960 --> 00:49:33,920
and was worshipped in Pompeii
long before the Roman conquest,

552
00:49:34,080 --> 00:49:35,240
Venus,

553
00:49:35,400 --> 00:49:40,160
who brought her followers luck,
beauty and wealth, and above all,

554
00:49:40,320 --> 00:49:42,920
the friendship of the emperor.

555
00:49:53,400 --> 00:49:56,760
(gentle dramatic music)

556
00:50:20,200 --> 00:50:26,160
Small wonder that the patron deity
of the city filled with erotic art

557
00:50:26,320 --> 00:50:28,320
was the goddess of love, Venus.

558
00:50:28,480 --> 00:50:31,240
But seeing Venus
just as the love deity

559
00:50:31,400 --> 00:50:33,440
would be totally reductive.

560
00:50:33,640 --> 00:50:35,760
She was the founder
goddess of the City of Rome

561
00:50:35,920 --> 00:50:38,760
and the most prominent
deity of the Pantheon,

562
00:50:38,920 --> 00:50:42,240
associated with victory,
power and luck.

563
00:50:42,400 --> 00:50:46,440
A long list of generals,
politicians and emperors

564
00:50:46,640 --> 00:50:48,600
were associated with her cult,

565
00:50:48,760 --> 00:50:52,360
as well as some of the most
powerful women in Pompeii.

566
00:50:54,120 --> 00:50:57,400
Venus is a hugely
important goddess in Pompeii.

567
00:50:57,600 --> 00:51:00,680
More than one temple
to Venus we know of,

568
00:51:00,840 --> 00:51:03,040
and we can imagine
that Venus as the goddess

569
00:51:03,200 --> 00:51:06,320
of beauty and fertility
perhaps attracts,

570
00:51:06,480 --> 00:51:08,480
has a particular value
for female citizens.

571
00:51:08,720 --> 00:51:10,840
Venus is always present
in Pompeii...

572
00:51:11,000 --> 00:51:14,440
..Oscan Pompeii, Greek
Pompeii, Roman Pompeii.

573
00:51:14,640 --> 00:51:17,320
And you're gonna see over time
different manifestations of her,

574
00:51:17,480 --> 00:51:19,360
but I'd say it
picks up tempo,

575
00:51:19,520 --> 00:51:22,040
and she becomes more prominent
with the passing of time.

576
00:51:22,240 --> 00:51:24,000
For example,
you can see her prominently

577
00:51:24,160 --> 00:51:25,520
along the 'decumanus',

578
00:51:25,720 --> 00:51:28,680
represented as a goddess
being drawn in her chariot,

579
00:51:28,840 --> 00:51:30,280
pulled by elephants.

580
00:51:30,440 --> 00:51:34,240
I mean, she is a protagonist
throughout the daily lives

581
00:51:34,400 --> 00:51:35,760
of the Pompeiians.

582
00:51:35,920 --> 00:51:38,160
They see her.
They depend upon her.

583
00:51:38,800 --> 00:51:41,880
(gentle piano music)

584
00:51:55,600 --> 00:51:57,760
Julius Cesar takes it up a notch.

585
00:51:57,920 --> 00:52:00,240
He says his family, like
many noble families,

586
00:52:00,400 --> 00:52:02,160
he was descended from a deity.

587
00:52:02,320 --> 00:52:05,880
Which deity?
Venus, through Aeneas.

588
00:52:06,040 --> 00:52:08,120
And Octavian, or Augustus,

589
00:52:08,280 --> 00:52:13,200
maintained that same story
pushing the agenda of his family,

590
00:52:13,360 --> 00:52:19,360
so that it eventually becomes
the entire national religious idea

591
00:52:19,520 --> 00:52:20,800
that Venus favours

592
00:52:21,040 --> 00:52:24,000
not just the family of
Julius Cesar and Augustus,

593
00:52:24,200 --> 00:52:25,480
but of all the Romans.

594
00:52:25,640 --> 00:52:29,160
Roman society
has a range of divinities

595
00:52:29,360 --> 00:52:32,480
and Venus
is important amongst them

596
00:52:32,640 --> 00:52:35,680
partly because of her association
with the imperial family.

597
00:52:35,840 --> 00:52:38,680
And I think we can also
see that as reflecting

598
00:52:38,840 --> 00:52:41,360
the power of women in Roman society.

599
00:52:41,520 --> 00:52:44,040
It looks as though the
cult of Venus in Pompeii

600
00:52:44,200 --> 00:52:47,720
was associated particularly
with more influential women,

601
00:52:47,880 --> 00:52:51,240
wealthier women
of political influence.

602
00:52:51,400 --> 00:52:55,800
Eumachia is an extraordinary
example of a powerful woman.

603
00:52:56,000 --> 00:52:59,680
The biggest building
in the forum on Pompeii,

604
00:52:59,840 --> 00:53:04,560
the Eumachia building,
is built by a woman.

605
00:53:04,720 --> 00:53:07,000
It's clear that her father...

606
00:53:07,160 --> 00:53:12,320
We know quite a lot about her
father, he produced tiles for roofs.

607
00:53:12,480 --> 00:53:14,880
So, Eumachia,
however the wealth comes,

608
00:53:15,080 --> 00:53:17,080
she has a lot,
because you don't build

609
00:53:17,280 --> 00:53:22,360
a major public building without
enormous financial resource.

610
00:53:52,520 --> 00:53:54,840
So she's manifesting
her wealth, her greatness.

611
00:53:55,040 --> 00:53:58,360
She does a great,
beautiful building,

612
00:53:58,520 --> 00:54:00,440
that ultimately is so large

613
00:54:00,600 --> 00:54:02,400
we can't really quite
put our finger on

614
00:54:02,560 --> 00:54:04,120
exactly what was going on here.

615
00:54:04,280 --> 00:54:06,480
There are many theories
but the main thing is

616
00:54:06,640 --> 00:54:09,000
it's pretty much the largest
building in the forum area,

617
00:54:09,160 --> 00:54:10,960
and this is done by a woman.

618
00:54:11,120 --> 00:54:14,280
To me that underlines
how much power and prominence

619
00:54:14,440 --> 00:54:16,360
that women can have in society.

620
00:54:16,520 --> 00:54:20,080
In a sense, anyone who
pays for a public building,

621
00:54:20,240 --> 00:54:25,400
who gives their money to the
public is expecting a return.

622
00:54:25,560 --> 00:54:27,960
It's what we call euergetism,

623
00:54:28,160 --> 00:54:31,960
that is to say
the benefactor gives

624
00:54:32,120 --> 00:54:37,200
and in exchange
the benefactor expects social status

625
00:54:37,400 --> 00:54:38,880
Not only a brilliant entrepreneur

626
00:54:39,080 --> 00:54:41,360
and a generous benefactor,

627
00:54:41,520 --> 00:54:44,360
Eumachia was an astute
political manipulator

628
00:54:44,520 --> 00:54:47,360
able to use the strategic importance

629
00:54:47,520 --> 00:54:50,880
of the cult of Venus
to her advantage.

630
00:54:53,440 --> 00:54:57,560
One of the ways in which
female power can be expressed

631
00:54:57,720 --> 00:54:59,960
is through priesthood,

632
00:55:00,120 --> 00:55:02,760
just as the elite,

633
00:55:02,960 --> 00:55:06,400
the male elite, they
become priests of the gods,

634
00:55:06,560 --> 00:55:09,960
the female elite
become priestesses of the gods.

635
00:55:10,120 --> 00:55:14,560
And Eumachia, we know,
was a priestess of Venus.

636
00:55:14,720 --> 00:55:19,040
The full title of Pompeii
is the 'Colonia Veneriana',

637
00:55:19,240 --> 00:55:21,320
the Venus colony.

638
00:55:21,480 --> 00:55:25,440
Venus is the ancestress
of the Julii.

639
00:55:25,600 --> 00:55:28,960
She is thus very important
for Augustus.

640
00:55:29,120 --> 00:55:34,120
Eumachia can plug in
to all that imperial power.

641
00:55:34,960 --> 00:55:37,480
(gentle music)

642
00:55:45,520 --> 00:55:49,560
Eumachia was also involved
in the economic life of the city,

643
00:55:49,720 --> 00:55:52,080
being the patron of the 'fullones'.

644
00:55:53,600 --> 00:55:55,320
The fullers are people
who are engaged

645
00:55:55,480 --> 00:55:57,120
in the processing of wool.

646
00:55:57,280 --> 00:56:02,400
This is a messy industry that
uses large quantities of urine

647
00:56:02,560 --> 00:56:06,680
in order to produce
those lovely shiny white togas.

648
00:56:06,840 --> 00:56:08,480
I should imagine
that the 'fullones',

649
00:56:08,640 --> 00:56:12,600
perhaps not the highest
rank in Pompeiian society,

650
00:56:12,760 --> 00:56:15,360
would see an advantage
in having support

651
00:56:15,520 --> 00:56:18,280
from a wealthy and influential
woman like Eumachia.

652
00:56:18,480 --> 00:56:21,880
And that might well be why
they chose to club together

653
00:56:22,080 --> 00:56:25,960
to pay for the statue of her
that adorns the building.

654
00:56:28,120 --> 00:56:29,560
The fullers, the 'fullones',

655
00:56:29,720 --> 00:56:33,320
I'm sure, they would've been
an important source of votes

656
00:56:33,480 --> 00:56:37,520
for Eumachia's son Fronto
in his election campaign.

657
00:56:48,680 --> 00:56:51,840
(upbeat violin music)

658
00:57:11,400 --> 00:57:14,320
(melancholy music)

659
00:57:23,320 --> 00:57:26,040
(birds chirping)

660
00:57:45,840 --> 00:57:48,640
Although subjected
to male political power,

661
00:57:48,800 --> 00:57:51,000
often women, regardless of class,

662
00:57:51,200 --> 00:57:54,160
were able to become
financially independent

663
00:57:54,360 --> 00:57:57,000
and influential in their own right.

664
00:57:57,160 --> 00:58:01,040
Something that would not occur again
until the 20th century.

665
00:58:01,200 --> 00:58:05,160
But in Pompeii not all
powerful women were virtuous.

666
00:58:05,320 --> 00:58:08,360
After all this was the city of sin.

667
00:58:10,040 --> 00:58:15,000
(birds chirping)
(gentle music)

668
00:58:25,560 --> 00:58:28,720
"There was in the city
a woman called Poppaea Sabina,

669
00:58:28,880 --> 00:58:31,160
"and this woman possessed
every quality

670
00:58:31,320 --> 00:58:33,800
"except an honest soul.

671
00:58:34,240 --> 00:58:38,280
"She had affable ways
and a lively intelligence,

672
00:58:38,440 --> 00:58:42,360
"and paraded her modesty
while practising lust.

673
00:58:43,400 --> 00:58:45,600
"She was never a slave
to any sentiment,

674
00:58:45,760 --> 00:58:48,200
"neither her own nor of others;

675
00:58:48,360 --> 00:58:52,240
"where she saw profit,
there she took her lust."

676
00:58:52,400 --> 00:58:55,600
This is how the historian
Tacitus described Poppaea.

677
00:58:55,800 --> 00:58:58,080
A Machiavellian, lustful woman,

678
00:58:58,240 --> 00:59:01,640
adored by her lovers
and detested by all others.

679
00:59:01,800 --> 00:59:05,800
Poppaea is a model of how
seduction gives you power.

680
00:59:06,000 --> 00:59:08,120
Sex is power.

681
00:59:08,280 --> 00:59:10,120
And "Sex is power"
is a message

682
00:59:10,320 --> 00:59:14,560
in a hell of a lot
of the frescoes in Pompeii.

683
00:59:14,720 --> 00:59:20,040
One way of thinking of Poppaea is,
you know, is local girl made good.

684
00:59:20,200 --> 00:59:21,600
She is a local girl.

685
00:59:21,800 --> 00:59:24,560
It's pretty certain
that the name Poppaea

686
00:59:24,720 --> 00:59:27,320
is a typical Campanian name.

687
00:59:27,800 --> 00:59:30,120
Beautiful and cruel.

688
00:59:30,280 --> 00:59:32,560
Calculating and passionate.

689
00:59:32,720 --> 00:59:35,320
When talking about Poppaea Sabina,

690
00:59:35,480 --> 00:59:38,680
the line between the truth
and legend is blurred.

691
00:59:38,840 --> 00:59:42,880
Hers is a story
of sex, power,

692
00:59:43,040 --> 00:59:45,400
hedonism and tragedy.

693
00:59:45,720 --> 00:59:49,680
She wanted to be remembered
and become immortal.

694
00:59:51,160 --> 00:59:55,320
Poppaea Sabina, who
was very much attracted

695
00:59:55,480 --> 00:59:58,160
to the Emperor Nero,
or so the story goes.

696
00:59:58,360 --> 00:59:59,960
And he was very attracted to her.

697
01:00:00,120 --> 01:00:03,320
Unfortunately, he was at
that time married to Octavia,

698
01:00:03,520 --> 01:00:06,560
who was the daughter of the
previous emperor, Claudius.

699
01:00:06,720 --> 01:00:09,920
Now nevertheless he embarked
on an affair with Poppaea

700
01:00:10,080 --> 01:00:12,640
and sent her husband away

701
01:00:12,840 --> 01:00:14,600
to be Governor of the
Province of Lusitania,

702
01:00:14,760 --> 01:00:17,840
which is very... So he was
conveniently disposed of.

703
01:00:18,080 --> 01:00:21,080
And Nero and Poppaea
conducted this affair.

704
01:00:21,240 --> 01:00:25,640
And Tacitus reports
that Poppaea persuaded Nero

705
01:00:25,800 --> 01:00:28,920
to get rid of his own mother
because Poppaea thought

706
01:00:29,080 --> 01:00:31,120
that Agrippina would be an
impediment

707
01:00:31,280 --> 01:00:33,560
to her actually getting married
to Nero.

708
01:00:33,760 --> 01:00:39,200
So allegedly prompted by Poppaea,
Nero has his own mother murdered.

709
01:00:40,400 --> 01:00:43,200
(brooding music)

710
01:01:05,320 --> 01:01:09,320
The attraction to being
the wife of an emperor

711
01:01:09,480 --> 01:01:13,440
is that the women
of the imperial circle

712
01:01:13,600 --> 01:01:16,640
would be themselves
patrons of many people.

713
01:01:16,800 --> 01:01:20,760
They themselves could be
priestesses in the imperial cult.

714
01:01:20,960 --> 01:01:22,960
And quite frequently
the imperial women

715
01:01:23,120 --> 01:01:26,000
were priestesses in the cult
of the Emperor Augustus,

716
01:01:26,160 --> 01:01:30,040
who was at this point
established as a god.

717
01:01:30,200 --> 01:01:33,800
So that was the sort of
life that Poppaea Sabina

718
01:01:34,000 --> 01:01:38,040
was aiming at, and that she
achieved to a certain degree.

719
01:01:38,240 --> 01:01:41,200
She did successfully get transferred

720
01:01:41,400 --> 01:01:44,520
from her existing husband
to the Emperor Nero,

721
01:01:44,680 --> 01:01:48,480
and she had a child with him
who didn't last very long.

722
01:01:48,640 --> 01:01:52,920
The child died and was immediately
deified, turned into god.

723
01:01:53,080 --> 01:01:57,640
And this provides the
sense of what Poppaea

724
01:01:57,800 --> 01:01:59,640
was aiming to achieve.

725
01:01:59,800 --> 01:02:02,480
The frescoes
adorning the villas in Pompeii

726
01:02:02,640 --> 01:02:06,080
give us unique insight
into their owners.

727
01:02:06,240 --> 01:02:09,520
Poppaea's luxurious villa of Oplontis

728
01:02:09,680 --> 01:02:13,040
is the apotheosis of her
desire for magnificence.

729
01:02:13,200 --> 01:02:15,240
The clearest sign of her ambition

730
01:02:15,400 --> 01:02:18,200
is in a fresco that tells
the story of a hero,

731
01:02:18,360 --> 01:02:21,560
seeking immortality just like her.

732
01:02:21,720 --> 01:02:24,160
Traditionally this fresco
is seen as representing

733
01:02:24,320 --> 01:02:26,480
the 11th Labour of Hercules

734
01:02:27,960 --> 01:02:31,080
when he is given the
task of getting hold of

735
01:02:31,240 --> 01:02:33,360
the golden apples of the Hesperides

736
01:02:33,560 --> 01:02:36,920
from this garden in the
far, far distant region

737
01:02:37,080 --> 01:02:40,800
and bringing them back and this
was a very difficult labour.

738
01:02:41,000 --> 01:02:44,800
The tree was guarded by
this fearsome snake Ladon

739
01:02:44,960 --> 01:02:48,040
and so it was thought
to be impossible

740
01:02:48,200 --> 01:02:50,360
to get these apples but
Hercules managed to do it

741
01:02:50,520 --> 01:02:51,840
and bring them back.

742
01:02:52,000 --> 01:02:54,520
Hercules is very deliberately
placed in there to show us

743
01:02:54,680 --> 01:02:56,760
that it is a mythical landscape

744
01:02:56,960 --> 01:02:58,520
and that it is
the landscape associated

745
01:02:58,680 --> 01:03:01,160
with a very specific labour,

746
01:03:01,320 --> 01:03:04,960
and that labour is very specifically
associated with immortality.

747
01:03:05,120 --> 01:03:08,120
Although Hercules and Poppaea
may seem like two characters

748
01:03:08,280 --> 01:03:13,360
so different, the way in
which they are situated

749
01:03:13,520 --> 01:03:17,360
in different relations to
different kinds of immortality

750
01:03:17,520 --> 01:03:18,760
would certainly be something

751
01:03:18,960 --> 01:03:22,320
that people would be reflecting
on and thinking about.

752
01:03:22,520 --> 01:03:23,920
The kind of immortality

753
01:03:24,080 --> 01:03:26,680
that we see people like Poppaea
achieving,

754
01:03:26,840 --> 01:03:28,400
and it is the one we can achieve,

755
01:03:28,560 --> 01:03:31,840
is to propagate your name.

756
01:03:36,640 --> 01:03:39,560
It seems that
Poppaea has achieved her goal

757
01:03:39,720 --> 01:03:42,760
to become the most important
woman in the empire.

758
01:03:44,360 --> 01:03:47,760
She gives her emperor a daughter,
Claudia.

759
01:03:47,960 --> 01:03:51,280
But as in any good
mythological tragedy,

760
01:03:51,440 --> 01:03:55,160
it only takes a moment
for everything to unravel.

761
01:03:55,320 --> 01:03:58,280
Claudia dies at four months of age

762
01:03:58,440 --> 01:04:03,080
and her second child will
meet an even worse fate.

763
01:04:04,240 --> 01:04:09,400
She becomes pregnant by Nero
and Nero kills her.

764
01:04:09,560 --> 01:04:12,640
He actually jumps on
her when she's pregnant,

765
01:04:12,800 --> 01:04:17,520
causing not only miscarriage
but her death.

766
01:04:17,720 --> 01:04:21,160
So, Poppaea comes to
a pretty gruesome end.

767
01:04:21,320 --> 01:04:24,680
But the moral of the story is

768
01:04:25,560 --> 01:04:28,640
you don't want to get too
close to imperial power.

769
01:04:28,800 --> 01:04:31,000
It's very, very destructive.

770
01:04:31,200 --> 01:04:34,520
For every woman who is successful,
there is always going to be

771
01:04:34,680 --> 01:04:37,640
somebody who feels that it
was done at their expense

772
01:04:37,800 --> 01:04:39,640
and resents it in some way.

773
01:04:39,800 --> 01:04:44,720
With Poppaea, we've been given
mostly the negative press

774
01:04:44,880 --> 01:04:50,160
because of Tacitus's
very damning portrait of her.

775
01:05:18,640 --> 01:05:22,640
In 79 AD Vesuvius erupts,

776
01:05:22,800 --> 01:05:27,000
bringing down a cloud of death
and ash on the city.

777
01:05:27,160 --> 01:05:30,560
In one day, countless lives are lost.

778
01:05:30,720 --> 01:05:34,280
It is one of the greatest
tragedies in ancient history.

779
01:06:04,600 --> 01:06:07,960
Some may describe
it as a window into the past,

780
01:06:08,160 --> 01:06:09,800
but Pompeii is so much more.

781
01:06:10,000 --> 01:06:11,840
A living, breathing representation

782
01:06:12,040 --> 01:06:15,400
of a long-lost world
and its inhabitants,

783
01:06:15,560 --> 01:06:20,360
the thousands of men,
women, children and animals

784
01:06:20,560 --> 01:06:22,800
killed by a merciless volcano,

785
01:06:23,000 --> 01:06:26,560
entrapped in the hardening magma.

786
01:06:26,720 --> 01:06:28,760
Their bodies have been burned away,

787
01:06:29,000 --> 01:06:32,200
but the voids they have
left inside the lava

788
01:06:32,360 --> 01:06:37,000
give us a stunning testimony
of the moment of the eruption.

789
01:06:37,200 --> 01:06:40,480
So at a certain point
the idea was

790
01:06:40,640 --> 01:06:43,280
why don't we pour in
plaster into this voids

791
01:06:43,480 --> 01:06:46,360
versus just digging up,
you know, empty space,

792
01:06:46,560 --> 01:06:49,760
and see what shape
we can get out of them.

793
01:06:49,920 --> 01:06:52,120
And ultimately what turned
out was these are the remains,

794
01:06:52,280 --> 01:06:55,720
the imprints left
from the deceased Pompeiians,

795
01:06:55,960 --> 01:06:59,280
men, women, children, pets,

796
01:06:59,440 --> 01:07:04,440
oftentimes in very
dramatic painful poses.

797
01:07:06,120 --> 01:07:07,640
When tourists come to Pompeii

798
01:07:07,800 --> 01:07:10,560
and they see these casts
of Pompeiians they think,

799
01:07:10,720 --> 01:07:14,360
"Oh, those are the people
that got carbonised right on site."

800
01:07:14,520 --> 01:07:17,040
But actually, it's the opposite.

801
01:07:31,800 --> 01:07:34,400
(sombre music)

802
01:08:48,240 --> 01:08:51,000
(birds chirping)

803
01:08:54,840 --> 01:08:57,400
(bright music)

804
01:09:25,280 --> 01:09:27,720
(dog barking)

805
01:12:01,760 --> 01:12:05,120
(gentle dramatic music)

806
01:12:42,560 --> 01:12:45,720
(gentle serene music)

807
01:12:49,240 --> 01:12:54,200
This magnificent city
may have thrived on lust,

808
01:12:54,360 --> 01:12:57,040
violence and superstition,

809
01:12:58,320 --> 01:13:03,280
but at its heart lived a
sophisticated civilisation

810
01:13:03,440 --> 01:13:05,280
inspired by beauty.

811
01:13:06,240 --> 01:13:09,120
A civilisation that flourished,

812
01:13:09,280 --> 01:13:13,040
balancing on the thin, invisible line

813
01:13:13,200 --> 01:13:16,480
separating fact from fiction.

814
01:13:21,800 --> 01:13:25,880
Pompeii was a city that had
to die in the flame and ashes

815
01:13:26,080 --> 01:13:32,160
of a ruthless volcano
in order to reach immortality.

816
01:13:33,240 --> 01:13:36,400
(gentle serene music)

817
01:14:51,000 --> 01:14:53,520
(bright music)

818
01:20:55,640 --> 01:20:59,600
Captions (c) SBS Australia 2021