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This programme contains some strong language.

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In 79AD, this volcano exploded.

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Down below, around the bay of Naples, there were farms, houses,

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luxurious villas, Roman towns.

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The best known is Pompeii.

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The eruption which wiped this ancient town off the Roman map

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is one of the world's most famous disasters,

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but the tragedy has given historians a priceless legacy.

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The inhabitants were overwhelmed by gas, lethal gas, volcanic debris

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and we found their bodies exactly where they died.

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Many have been cast in plaster, frozen in time.

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They've tantalised the world with their last horrific moments of death.

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But they tell us little about their lives.

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Now, in a cellar just two miles outside Pompeii,

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are 54 well-preserved skeletons lying exactly where they died.

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They were hiding from the full force of the volcano.

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2,000 years later, they're about to give up their secrets.

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I'm wondering whether they can tell us something

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about the most interesting question in Pompeii,

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which is not how the people died, we know how they died,

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it's about how the people in Pompeii actually lived.

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For the 25 years I've taught classics at Cambridge

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I've been fascinated by what life was really like day to day in ancient Pompeii.

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I am hoping these skeletons will help take this understanding

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one step further and put my theories to the test.

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I'll explore the opulent and the ordinary.

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Don't have to be rich to wear jewellery.

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In a city of the refined and the rude.

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It looks to me as if the woman is on top of him but sucking his toes.

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I'll see the hardship endured, and the pleasures savoured.

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These guys don't look too pissed yet.

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I can't find where I left my glass.

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I want to see if we can probe a bit deeper and get beneath the skin of this ancient town.

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- You don't get closer to real Rome than being in a cesspit, do you?
- No.

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I am hoping that the people in the cellar will help me discover

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what life was like before Vesuvius forced them to flee.

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Pompeii is the most important archaeological site in the Roman world.

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Nowhere else do we come face to face with antiquity

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up close in quite this personal way.

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These perfectly preserved ruins

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bring millions of us here each year to see a snapshot of Roman life.

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But that's all we see, a snapshot.

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Of a society where it appears the rich enjoyed a life of luxury

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and everyone else, the poor and the slaves, lived lives of drudgery.

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That's always seemed too simple to me.

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It's much more interesting than that.

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I want to bust a few myths about the rich and the poor in Pompeii.

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This was the stretch of coastline where rich Romans,

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I mean really, really rich Romans from the capital,

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used to come for their holidays.

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It was supposed to be particularly popular with the fast set,

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they came here to gamble, to have fun, to have sex.

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Sort of a cross between Las Vegas and Brighton.

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And that's what makes Pompeii so remarkable.

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It was a town where ordinary people lived cheek by jowl

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with the hedonistic rich.

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It had all the essentials of a Roman town, with a forum at one end,

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and at the other an amphitheatre and training ground for gladiators.

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A market, temples, baths, even a brothel.

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Perhaps 12,000 people packed into less than a square mile.

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Pompeii lies between the Mediterranean and Vesuvius.

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It's 17 miles along the coast from Naples, not far from Herculaneum,

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and it's in a suburb of Pompeii,

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Oplontis, where the cellar of skeletons was unearthed.

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It must have seemed a sensible place to come.

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It's partly underground and that would have seemed safe,

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but it's got good access from the road outside.

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It's very hard not to be...

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moved by this site.

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They might be 2,000 years old

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but they're still victims of a terrible human tragedy.

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On the other hand, I can't help wondering

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what these bones might tell us about the life of these people.

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The first thing we can tell from the cellar

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is that these people appear to be divided into two groups.

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On one side they were carrying money and jewels.

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These bodies have been catalogued and tidied away into boxes.

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The others, left where they fell, were found with nothing.

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So how can we explain this divide?

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You could come up with all kinds of theories as to why it might be.

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But for my money the most likely thing is that we're dealing with a distinction in wealth.

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These skeletons are important

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because many of the bones found at Pompeii have simply been jumbled up.

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And the plaster casts, they're very poignant, but are much less useful

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for forensic science because the bones inside get contaminated.

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Remains preserved like those in the cellar

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exactly where the people died are rare.

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For the first time,

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these are going to be analysed by a forensic team, led by Fabian Kanz.

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So far we have found at least 54 individuals here, at least,

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and this gives us a broad cross section of the society

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of the Romans at that time.

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The point is we have a great opportunity here because we have a snapshot of the society.

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We might have slaves, we might have upper class people,

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and we can find out if there have been big differences.

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One of the most complete skeletons is that of a man of about 55.

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Apart from some dental cavities he seems in pretty good nick.

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If you look at the other bones, I noticed this.

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I don't know much about skeletons but that looks to me like

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something that's got a real big muscle attachment.

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Yes, it's the right upper arm,

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and it's the muscle attachment for the brachialis,

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and as you can see on the left side, it's nearly the same.

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And he must be a really strong man.

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He's my age, he's got about as good teeth as me, but he's much stronger.

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These are the rest of his bones, but why are his bones green?

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Yes, you're right. On the whole left side he's green.

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And green comes from metal objects, which means he was wealthy.

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There was some bronze or copper

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or brass objects buried with him.

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He had a considerable amount of metal wealth with him.

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Yes, the acid in the soil is reacting with the metal object

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and that makes him green.

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Nearly all of the so-called rich sample, have been at least one or two bones green.

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So they all have been buried close to something metal.

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Whereas what we call the poor, do any of them have this green?

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No, not at all.

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Carrying no possessions at all, the bones of the people on one side are unmarked.

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But, on the other side of the cellar, the people with green bones

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were discovered with a dazzling array of objects.

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These are now kept in a guarded vault

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at the archaeological museum in Naples.

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For the very first time I've been allowed to get really

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close to this amazing stuff, and actually get my hands on it.

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Look, this is really exciting for me.

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This is the first time I have even touched any jewellery from Pompeii.

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I am going got be very naughty, and put the bracelet on.

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However cynical you are, however much a boring old academic you are,

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it's still exciting to wear the bracelet worn 2,000 years ago.

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Nothing will ever stop me thinking that's exciting.

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I think this is very attractive, actually.

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You pick it up, you can feel instantly it's heavy. This is a solid bangle.

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But what strikes you about it, instantly, is that it's so big.

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It's not only women that wear bracelets,

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this could be man's jewellery, a big hunky man.

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This is really is a very, very delicate piece of jewellery.

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They told specifically that I'm not allowed to try this one on.

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The links are really tiny.

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It's very high-quality workmanship, very nicely done.

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It must've been, it would be very pricey now,

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it must have been pricey then, too.

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There was a vast treasure horde in the cellar.

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Close to the skeleton of the man with green bones,

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was a woman in her early twenties.

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She had with her

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one of the very, very biggest amounts of money found with anybody,

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anywhere in Pompeii.

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In Roman currency, it was 10,000 sesterces.

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What that means is it's about the equivalent

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of 10 year's pay for a legionary Roman soldier.

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These are some of the coins.

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Some were in silver, but a lot were in gold.

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And she had them with her in two separate containers.

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Instantly you can see

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the silver ones are very worn.

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These actually have been

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money in circulation. These are for actually buying things in the Pompeian market place.

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But the gold ones are in absolutely beautiful condition.

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I think what this tells us is these really have been somebody's savings.

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You can imagine very easily what must have happened, that the people were fleeing,

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they wanted to take their valuables with them, they get the purse,

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they stuff what's most important to them, these things.

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They stuff it inside the purse, put it in their pocket and off they go.

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This is what the people in the cellar chose to take with them

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as they tried to escape.

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They sought refuge from the eruption in what was probably an underground storeroom.

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They never made it further than this cellar in Oplontis.

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The building above the cellar appears, at first,

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like a two-storey, residential home.

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But, if you explore a little further,

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you see that much more was going on.

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There's a large building with two floors of storerooms,

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piles of big containers and wheel ruts made by hundreds of carts.

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This was clearly more than somebody's house.

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This is an agricultural depot.

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It's ghostly now.

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In Roman times, it must have been an absolute hub of activity with people

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packing things up, carting things, wheeling them off,

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getting them ready for despatch.

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Whoever owned this place must have been pretty wealthy.

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But he wasn't anything like as wealthy as one of his neighbours,

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because just over there, few yards form this place,

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is one of the most luxurious villas

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ever found in all of the Roman world.

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The cellar is only a stone's throw from this stunning Roman mansion.

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100 rooms, decorated with sumptuous frescos, painted with pigments from

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the farthest corners of the Roman empire.

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And to top it all, an Olympic-size 200-foot-long swimming pool,

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where the guests could let their hair down.

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So, while the rich frolicked at their pool parties,

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what was life like on the streets of Pompeii?

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What I used to...

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Mattia Buondonno's family has lived in Pompeii for generations

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and he's one of the site's most experienced guides.

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He's got a local sense of how this place might once have been.

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What's your sense of what the ancient town was like, the basics, what was life like here?

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Smell!

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Smell of the people, smell of the activities of

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commerciality that was here, smell on everywhere,

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smelling on money.

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And the smell of the animals too, presumably.

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- Yes!
- And just think of the smell of the shit.

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- Yes!
- Awful!

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For them was normal life.

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To get an idea of Pompeii

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as the people in the cellar would have seen it, I've come to Naples.

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Though it's a modern city,

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there are some striking similarities with the ancient town nearby.

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- So, you could feel yourself in Pompeii.
- Here?
- Yes.
- Why?

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Because more or less, the atmosphere, the first floor,

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and the busy town...

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It's easy to forget that Pompeii was a two-storey town.

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People lived above their shops and bars and stairs opened

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right onto the streets, just as they do in Naples today.

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I think people often wonder where all the stuff was in a Pompeian shop or a bar.

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What this tells you is that you can actually hang it from the ceiling...

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Like they did 2,000 years ago, as this painting shows us.

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All around modern Naples are echoes of Pompeii's past.

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From the doors, just like the ones you see in Pompeian frescos.

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- There are things like this in Pompeii, are they?
- Oh yes, they had! They had!

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- Careful, because we don't want the owner to come.
- OK, we can get out.

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To the images they left on their walls.

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I think the graffiti is pretty Pompeian.

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The Pompeian graffiti were better than this.

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Yes, they were wittier. Wittier, I think.

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Ah! That's very Pompeian, is it?

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No, Pompeii was cleaner.

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- Pompeii was cleaner than that?
- Yeah.

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You really think so?

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Mattia, you don't, do you?

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So we can find all kinds of clues

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as to how ancient Pompeians lived in modern Naples.

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But what can the bones from the cellar

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add to the picture of their lives?

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This looks quite ordinary to me. This is the leg bone?

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This is the lower part of the leg bone and if you compare it to

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this bone, it's swollen and you can see all these little holes.

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- And what is that?
- This is an infection of the skin and the bone.

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A possible reason for this might be a cut, is one explanation for it.

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So, you get a cut, you haven't got any antiseptic...

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..you maybe you don't even know exactly what the relationship

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00:17:33,600 --> 00:17:36,440
is between dirt and infection,

243
00:17:36,440 --> 00:17:41,040
so the cut never properly heals and is a kind of

244
00:17:41,040 --> 00:17:43,400
lifetime infection really.

245
00:17:43,400 --> 00:17:45,000
Painful or not painful?

246
00:17:45,000 --> 00:17:47,720
Very painful, very painful.

247
00:17:49,240 --> 00:17:52,200
So where could this infection have come from?

248
00:17:52,200 --> 00:17:56,880
After all, we tend to think of Romans as a rather clean lot,

249
00:17:56,880 --> 00:17:58,680
regularly visiting the baths.

250
00:17:58,680 --> 00:18:02,000
It's true that bathing was an important part of life,

251
00:18:02,000 --> 00:18:05,280
as we can see at the baths near the forum in Pompeii.

252
00:18:05,280 --> 00:18:12,840
They give us a better picture than anywhere else in the world of how Roman bathing actually worked.

253
00:18:12,840 --> 00:18:17,440
This is where you took your clothes off.

254
00:18:17,440 --> 00:18:23,400
I think it must have been quite stunning to come in from the hot

255
00:18:23,400 --> 00:18:26,120
sweaty outside, through the narrow corridor

256
00:18:26,120 --> 00:18:28,520
into this beautifully decorated room.

257
00:18:28,520 --> 00:18:33,120
You have to imagine the baths as being a place where someone,

258
00:18:33,120 --> 00:18:37,680
who's life could be a little bit drab, could come to bright colours,

259
00:18:37,680 --> 00:18:42,760
twinkling lights, water splashing, everybody with their clothes off.

260
00:18:42,760 --> 00:18:45,600
The baths were the people's palace.

261
00:18:47,280 --> 00:18:49,800
Bathing was a great leveller.

262
00:18:49,800 --> 00:18:52,960
Almost everyone in ancient Rome, rich and poor, men and women

263
00:18:52,960 --> 00:18:55,000
would have gone to the baths,

264
00:18:55,000 --> 00:18:57,680
including the people from our cellar.

265
00:18:57,680 --> 00:19:00,120
These feats of engineering had under-floor heating,

266
00:19:00,120 --> 00:19:06,480
a series of hot and cold rooms and in Rome itself, they could even have a library attached.

267
00:19:06,480 --> 00:19:09,360
You get all sorts of things when you come into Roman Baths.

268
00:19:09,360 --> 00:19:15,160
You get hot and cool, you get rest, but it's also crucial to remember,

269
00:19:15,160 --> 00:19:18,560
you get wonderful things to look at, too,

270
00:19:18,560 --> 00:19:22,520
and the ceiling still has some traces of the kinds of

271
00:19:22,520 --> 00:19:28,640
over-the-top decoration that you expect in a really good Roman bath

272
00:19:28,640 --> 00:19:31,920
and everybody shares those things.

273
00:19:31,920 --> 00:19:37,000
We tend to think of these luxurious baths as pristine marble palaces,

274
00:19:37,000 --> 00:19:39,320
where people came to get clean.

275
00:19:39,320 --> 00:19:41,440
But is that really the case?

276
00:19:42,960 --> 00:19:46,200
Here is where I guess you'd have spend your time,

277
00:19:46,200 --> 00:19:48,120
in this lovely marble pool.

278
00:19:50,240 --> 00:19:54,200
It's a bit like a Jacuzzi, think California

279
00:19:54,200 --> 00:19:56,880
or perhaps think rugby club.

280
00:19:58,400 --> 00:20:02,000
You sit down, the warm water is around your feet,

281
00:20:02,000 --> 00:20:04,520
this is a great time to relax,

282
00:20:04,520 --> 00:20:08,840
to talk to your friends, in this lovely setting.

283
00:20:08,840 --> 00:20:12,480
There is however a nasty surprise in store.

284
00:20:12,480 --> 00:20:17,600
We can see ever so clearly where the water comes into this pool,

285
00:20:17,600 --> 00:20:22,040
there is a nice little spout here to bring the water in

286
00:20:22,040 --> 00:20:27,800
but you can look all around and there isn't a single place where it can go out.

287
00:20:27,800 --> 00:20:33,280
All this means is there's absolutely no circulation of water

288
00:20:33,280 --> 00:20:35,080
at all in this pool.

289
00:20:35,080 --> 00:20:39,480
All people who piss in here, their sweat,

290
00:20:39,480 --> 00:20:44,040
it all comes into a steaming hot, watery mess.

291
00:20:44,040 --> 00:20:46,160
Just how healthy is that?

292
00:20:46,160 --> 00:20:47,480
It's not at all healthy,

293
00:20:47,480 --> 00:20:50,520
even some Roman doctors realised it wasn't healthy.

294
00:20:50,520 --> 00:20:54,040
The great Roman doctor called Celsus, who says,

295
00:20:54,040 --> 00:20:58,160
"Make sure you don't go to the baths if you've got an open wound,

296
00:20:58,160 --> 00:21:01,520
"because you're likely to die of gangrene if you do."

297
00:21:03,680 --> 00:21:07,640
Whether the people in the cellar made that connection we don't know.

298
00:21:09,360 --> 00:21:14,440
But the bones offer an extraordinary revelation about another area

299
00:21:14,440 --> 00:21:16,640
of the population's health.

300
00:21:16,640 --> 00:21:21,360
- So these are two different people, are they?
- Yes, two different people.

301
00:21:21,360 --> 00:21:24,400
10 to 12-year-old children.

302
00:21:24,400 --> 00:21:30,680
They're both the same age and they both have the same abnormalities on their teeth.

303
00:21:30,680 --> 00:21:34,360
We think, most probably, they have been twins.

304
00:21:34,360 --> 00:21:35,960
Same age, same teeth.

305
00:21:35,960 --> 00:21:37,520
Yes and they had a problem.

306
00:21:37,520 --> 00:21:40,480
On closer examination of the twin's teeth,

307
00:21:40,480 --> 00:21:43,520
Fabian's colleague, Maciej Henneberg,

308
00:21:43,520 --> 00:21:48,120
discovered evidence of a horrible and unexpected disease.

309
00:21:48,120 --> 00:21:51,680
They must have had a massive illness.

310
00:21:53,200 --> 00:21:57,840
One possible explanation for it is

311
00:21:57,840 --> 00:22:01,120
congenital syphilis.

312
00:22:02,640 --> 00:22:06,560
I am not joking, but...

313
00:22:06,560 --> 00:22:11,480
I thought syphilis didn't come to Europe until much later than this.

314
00:22:11,480 --> 00:22:13,280
If this were the case,

315
00:22:13,280 --> 00:22:18,120
this would be our first Roman case of congenital syphilis.

316
00:22:18,120 --> 00:22:22,040
- Yes, of course.
- Well, that would be something to find in this cellar, wouldn't it?

317
00:22:24,120 --> 00:22:27,480
If this is true, it would overturn the idea

318
00:22:27,480 --> 00:22:31,920
that the disease first arrived in Europe with Columbus' sailors.

319
00:22:31,920 --> 00:22:38,440
This would be the first recorded case of syphilis by more than 1,400 years.

320
00:22:38,440 --> 00:22:40,280
But the twins in the cellar

321
00:22:40,280 --> 00:22:44,400
also tells us about another aspect of ancient Roman life.

322
00:22:46,040 --> 00:22:50,440
This must have been a really bad and serious illness.

323
00:22:50,440 --> 00:22:54,160
Somebody had to take care of them,

324
00:22:54,160 --> 00:22:58,040
very, a lot of care, a lot of healthcare,

325
00:22:58,040 --> 00:23:01,320
a lot of effort that they made it.

326
00:23:01,320 --> 00:23:06,600
What strikes me is that they were found in the so-called poor sample,

327
00:23:06,600 --> 00:23:10,840
but still must have received years of medical care.

328
00:23:10,840 --> 00:23:14,240
It is interesting because it's going from

329
00:23:14,240 --> 00:23:18,920
a really nice scientific observation, just to a glimpse of

330
00:23:18,920 --> 00:23:23,160
a family support network, parents looking after them,

331
00:23:23,160 --> 00:23:26,880
the very base of their survival is about human care.

332
00:23:30,760 --> 00:23:34,760
The possibility of a sexually transmitted disease

333
00:23:34,760 --> 00:23:39,000
might at first sight reinforce a view many people have

334
00:23:39,000 --> 00:23:43,880
of ancient Rome as a society of debauchery and sexual excess.

335
00:23:43,880 --> 00:23:46,800
There's willies, big willies everywhere.

336
00:23:46,800 --> 00:23:50,480
When one object was first first found in a Pompeian bar,

337
00:23:50,480 --> 00:23:54,600
it was deemed too shocking to be put on public display.

338
00:23:56,920 --> 00:24:01,720
It's a bronze lamp and all kinds of things dangle off it,

339
00:24:01,720 --> 00:24:04,760
bells and stuff, a kind of wind chimes for us,

340
00:24:04,760 --> 00:24:08,160
the Romans would've called it a "Tintinnabulum".

341
00:24:08,160 --> 00:24:12,760
But the centre of attention was to be this chap here,

342
00:24:12,760 --> 00:24:17,160
a bronze hunchback pygmy

343
00:24:17,160 --> 00:24:23,080
with a huge willy, which he is in the process of cutting off.

344
00:24:24,600 --> 00:24:27,400
I like to think that this shows greater anxiety

345
00:24:27,400 --> 00:24:31,200
on the part of the Romans about their masculinity, but who knows?

346
00:24:31,200 --> 00:24:34,560
Maybe it's a strange form of erotica,

347
00:24:34,560 --> 00:24:39,400
maybe it's a joke on the guys who came to drink in the bar,

348
00:24:39,400 --> 00:24:42,080
or is it in the end, just a lamp?

349
00:24:42,080 --> 00:24:45,560
Whatever its function, you only need to stroll around town

350
00:24:45,560 --> 00:24:49,320
to see the same phallic theme again and again.

351
00:24:49,320 --> 00:24:50,920
What do they mean?

352
00:24:50,920 --> 00:24:52,960
What were they for?

353
00:24:52,960 --> 00:24:56,760
Everybody's had a theory and there have been some pretty mad ones.

354
00:24:56,760 --> 00:25:00,040
Do they, for example, point to the nearest brothel?

355
00:25:00,040 --> 00:25:01,560
I'm afraid, not a hope!

356
00:25:01,560 --> 00:25:07,480
If this were the case, Pompeii would be littered with brothels.

357
00:25:07,480 --> 00:25:12,320
Some people think it is, but I'm not so sure, if you look carefully

358
00:25:12,320 --> 00:25:15,040
at this upmarket bath house,

359
00:25:15,040 --> 00:25:19,840
you see that displays of sex can be interpreted differently.

360
00:25:19,840 --> 00:25:22,680
The painting on the room you come into,

361
00:25:22,680 --> 00:25:27,600
features all kinds of sexual positions,

362
00:25:27,600 --> 00:25:32,320
from back, from the front, with the tongue, you name it, it's here.

363
00:25:32,320 --> 00:25:37,680
Not just that, each one is given a number.

364
00:25:37,680 --> 00:25:42,560
This has launched the theory that this bath establishment

365
00:25:42,560 --> 00:25:48,200
is not just a bath establishment but has, perhaps on the upper floor,

366
00:25:48,200 --> 00:25:50,000
a brothel attached.

367
00:25:50,000 --> 00:25:55,080
It's a kind of massage parlour with fringe activities.

368
00:25:56,640 --> 00:26:02,440
I am afraid the truth about these paintings is a bit more mundane.

369
00:26:02,440 --> 00:26:06,520
What we have really come into is the changing room.

370
00:26:08,040 --> 00:26:10,200
You can see along the walls,

371
00:26:10,200 --> 00:26:15,520
the place where the shelf to hold your clothes would have been put.

372
00:26:15,520 --> 00:26:19,080
What this paintings are, they are not

373
00:26:19,080 --> 00:26:24,560
adverts for the sex that might have been going on upstairs, "Please can I have three hours of number four,"

374
00:26:24,560 --> 00:26:27,200
I think they are a clever way

375
00:26:27,200 --> 00:26:33,360
of helping you remember where you left your tunic or your toga.

376
00:26:33,360 --> 00:26:35,680
In fact, if you look rather carefully,

377
00:26:35,680 --> 00:26:43,360
at what the numbers are written on, they're written on wicker baskets, which I think is what we imagine,

378
00:26:43,360 --> 00:26:47,760
would be on the shelf below where you left your belongings.

379
00:26:47,760 --> 00:26:50,960
So the idea would be,

380
00:26:50,960 --> 00:26:53,440
"I left my toga near the fellatio."

381
00:26:53,440 --> 00:26:56,400
It's a kind of joke!

382
00:26:56,400 --> 00:26:59,840
But if you head across town there is one building

383
00:26:59,840 --> 00:27:03,720
where there is no debate about its intended function.

384
00:27:03,720 --> 00:27:09,400
As far as I'm concerned this is the town's one and only known brothel.

385
00:27:14,400 --> 00:27:18,000
This is where you can see that the whole wall

386
00:27:18,000 --> 00:27:22,600
is covered with the graffiti of the customers.

387
00:27:22,600 --> 00:27:26,400
They're an interesting multicultural bunch, there's a couple in Greek.

388
00:27:28,080 --> 00:27:32,600
They're very hard to read, Latin handwriting is absolutely dreadful,

389
00:27:32,600 --> 00:27:37,200
but this one here is clear and pretty typical.

390
00:27:37,200 --> 00:27:40,640
"I came along here and I had a good fuck"

391
00:27:40,640 --> 00:27:42,960
which is about as clear as you can get.

392
00:27:42,960 --> 00:27:48,320
It's a pretty gloomy place and my heart goes to the prostitutes

393
00:27:48,320 --> 00:27:51,080
who had to work here.

394
00:27:51,080 --> 00:27:54,680
The sex here still sells 2,000 years later

395
00:27:54,680 --> 00:28:00,640
because this is the most popular visitor attraction on the entire site.

396
00:28:03,120 --> 00:28:06,400
This place is always packed with people because we still have

397
00:28:06,400 --> 00:28:10,840
a glamorous view of Roman sex and Roman brothels.

398
00:28:10,840 --> 00:28:13,320
We are also get told a lot of rubbish about it.

399
00:28:13,320 --> 00:28:16,880
If you listen to what the tour guides are saying here,

400
00:28:16,880 --> 00:28:21,000
they look at these paintings up above the cubicles and they say

401
00:28:21,000 --> 00:28:24,160
these are the menu at the brothel,

402
00:28:24,160 --> 00:28:27,440
you might not be able to speak Latin very well

403
00:28:27,440 --> 00:28:30,280
but you could always ask like in a bar,

404
00:28:30,280 --> 00:28:33,000
"Can I have some of that one above that door."

405
00:28:33,000 --> 00:28:36,000
It's rubbish! It doesn't add up to me.

406
00:28:36,000 --> 00:28:41,240
I think they are fantasy images about sex.

407
00:28:41,240 --> 00:28:43,840
This place is bad enough.

408
00:28:43,840 --> 00:28:50,480
It's dark, it's dingy, the girls are working in prison cells effectively,

409
00:28:50,480 --> 00:28:54,640
and you don't have to make it worse by pretending you chose sex

410
00:28:54,640 --> 00:28:56,560
like the way you choose a hamburger.

411
00:28:56,560 --> 00:29:00,000
Between the frescoes, the phalluses and the brothel,

412
00:29:00,000 --> 00:29:05,640
you can see how we ended up with the image of Pompeii as a society obsessed with sex.

413
00:29:05,640 --> 00:29:09,760
But we need to think again about this ancient myth.

414
00:29:09,760 --> 00:29:13,440
My idea is pretty simple, honestly.

415
00:29:13,440 --> 00:29:18,760
I don't think that the Romans were more interested in sex than we are.

416
00:29:18,760 --> 00:29:21,880
I think it's much more to do with male power.

417
00:29:21,880 --> 00:29:27,120
It's to say, "This is a very masculine culture."

418
00:29:27,120 --> 00:29:29,960
Roman power is about male power,

419
00:29:29,960 --> 00:29:36,160
the phallus tells you that Roman power is built on its masculinity.

420
00:29:38,680 --> 00:29:42,320
We've been too keen to see sex in every corner of Pompeii

421
00:29:42,320 --> 00:29:45,720
and that may go for another image of Roman life too.

422
00:29:45,720 --> 00:29:50,040
We picture the rich gorging themselves in gluttonous feasts,

423
00:29:50,040 --> 00:29:54,080
whilst the poor and the slaves, who serve them, go hungry.

424
00:29:54,080 --> 00:30:01,080
I wonder if the skeletons in the cellar can give us a different view on that, too.

425
00:30:01,080 --> 00:30:04,440
Fabian, is there anything that you've been able to discover so far

426
00:30:04,440 --> 00:30:08,000
which might tell us about the diet of these people?

427
00:30:08,000 --> 00:30:15,760
From what we can see with the naked eye, we didn't find any signs of malnutrition or lack of minerals.

428
00:30:15,760 --> 00:30:19,120
There is no significant difference between the two groups.

429
00:30:19,120 --> 00:30:26,800
- So everybody here was getting enough of what they needed to keep alive and pretty healthy?
- Yes.

430
00:30:26,800 --> 00:30:29,640
This is remarkable.

431
00:30:29,640 --> 00:30:33,240
We might expect to see big differences between rich and poor,

432
00:30:33,240 --> 00:30:39,520
the poor perhaps smaller and showing signs of nutritional deficiency, but not here.

433
00:30:39,520 --> 00:30:45,120
So can we find out more about what these people had actually been eating?

434
00:30:45,120 --> 00:30:51,480
Fabian, I noticed when I was looking at some of the teeth, that they seem very worn,

435
00:30:51,480 --> 00:30:53,640
much more worn down than modern teeth.

436
00:30:53,640 --> 00:31:00,720
Because mainly the process of milling the grain is completely different

437
00:31:00,720 --> 00:31:06,040
and in this time there was a lot of stones in the flour.

438
00:31:06,040 --> 00:31:14,080
So when our Pompeians eat their nice Pompeian bread, they're also eating bits of the millstone and

439
00:31:14,080 --> 00:31:15,720
- it abrades the teeth.
- Yes.

440
00:31:19,000 --> 00:31:24,760
Bread was such a staple food that in Pompeii alone there are 30 bakeries.

441
00:31:24,760 --> 00:31:28,320
One of the biggest is on the town's high street and it gives us

442
00:31:28,320 --> 00:31:31,960
a vivid picture of how Pompeians baked their daily bread.

443
00:31:35,280 --> 00:31:42,480
One thing that we can be certain about all the people who ended up in our cellar, rich and poor alike,

444
00:31:42,480 --> 00:31:48,480
is that they would have eaten bread from the same sort of bakery, maybe even the same bakery.

445
00:31:48,480 --> 00:31:53,520
Now this is a really typical baking establishment of Pompeii.

446
00:31:53,520 --> 00:32:01,440
I'm standing now in the area where the corn was ground, mules would have driven these rotating mills,

447
00:32:01,440 --> 00:32:05,680
the main entrance to the bakery from the street was there

448
00:32:05,680 --> 00:32:10,760
and this is where the dough was prepared, probably by slaves.

449
00:32:10,760 --> 00:32:18,400
Flour was brought from this area, round to here, they formed it into loaves as yet unbaked,

450
00:32:18,400 --> 00:32:25,160
they put those loaves on the shelf here and they whooshed through

451
00:32:25,160 --> 00:32:29,560
to be picked up and put in the oven here.

452
00:32:31,960 --> 00:32:34,160
And we know exactly what it looked like.

453
00:32:34,160 --> 00:32:41,080
A painting from Pompeii shows us round loaves of bread, divided into eight portions.

454
00:32:41,080 --> 00:32:46,480
In fact, 81 carbonised loaves cooked and ready to be sold

455
00:32:46,480 --> 00:32:52,760
have been found perfectly preserved in one of the town's many ovens.

456
00:32:52,760 --> 00:32:54,440
That's not all.

457
00:32:54,440 --> 00:33:00,680
Archaeologists have found pomegranates, walnuts,

458
00:33:00,680 --> 00:33:03,720
even eggs preserved for 2,000 years.

459
00:33:08,960 --> 00:33:12,360
And now, an extraordinary piece of new research

460
00:33:12,360 --> 00:33:17,880
means we can prove that it wasn't just rich Romans who ate well.

461
00:33:17,880 --> 00:33:20,920
In Herculaneum, nine miles from Oplontis,

462
00:33:20,920 --> 00:33:24,800
historian Andrew Wallace-Hadrill is leading the excavation project.

463
00:33:24,800 --> 00:33:32,840
Herculaneum was buried under more than 50 feet of ash and volcanic debris during the eruption of 79.

464
00:33:32,840 --> 00:33:36,000
Above this street was an apartment block inhabited,

465
00:33:36,000 --> 00:33:39,840
not by Rome's super-rich, but by the ordinary people of the town.

466
00:33:39,840 --> 00:33:44,160
What went into their mouths came out, 15 feet below.

467
00:33:45,200 --> 00:33:48,560
Let's come down here, Mary, it's not so scary as it looks.

468
00:33:48,560 --> 00:33:53,680
Down here, the evidence of Roman diet has been perfectly preserved for two millennia.

469
00:33:53,680 --> 00:33:55,400
I am not great on ladders actually.

470
00:33:55,400 --> 00:34:00,480
You appear to be disappearing into the bowels of the Earth.

471
00:34:00,480 --> 00:34:04,160
You can see some very good down pipes here.

472
00:34:04,160 --> 00:34:08,280
This whole sewer is fed from above, the stuff coming down,

473
00:34:08,280 --> 00:34:12,880
smears down the wall, generations of stuff, leaves a trail

474
00:34:12,880 --> 00:34:17,000
and it's still brown - you can see very clearly how brown it is -

475
00:34:17,000 --> 00:34:19,280
it just leaves this trail of shit.

476
00:34:19,280 --> 00:34:23,960
It feels real! You don't get closer to real Rome than being in a cesspit, do you?

477
00:34:23,960 --> 00:34:30,240
- No!
- So, you've got a layer of shit on the floor and then volcanic material covering it.

478
00:34:30,240 --> 00:34:33,920
Exactly! Beautifully sealing the stuff on the floor.

479
00:34:33,920 --> 00:34:36,640
- So you take out the volcanic material and get to the shit.
- Yes.

480
00:34:36,640 --> 00:34:38,320
It's all gone now!

481
00:34:38,320 --> 00:34:40,120
It's all been removed.

482
00:34:40,120 --> 00:34:42,120
It was up to our knees roughly.

483
00:34:42,120 --> 00:34:44,760
It was really, really precious material.

484
00:34:44,760 --> 00:34:47,000
In archaeological terms, this is gold.

485
00:34:47,000 --> 00:34:53,360
It's precious because it literally was what had gone through these Roman lavatories.

486
00:34:53,360 --> 00:34:58,280
Down here was the story of Roman diet, just waiting to be found.

487
00:34:59,800 --> 00:35:06,360
This is the world's largest archaeological excavation of sewers.

488
00:35:06,360 --> 00:35:11,520
Over 700 bags of human waste were collected from the sewer floor

489
00:35:11,520 --> 00:35:16,920
and are being systematically analysed to tell us more about what Romans were eating.

490
00:35:16,920 --> 00:35:18,240
What have you learnt?

491
00:35:18,240 --> 00:35:24,240
In terms of diet, the amazing thing about the contents is the variety.

492
00:35:24,240 --> 00:35:27,560
You've got bones of all sorts, a lot of fish bones.

493
00:35:27,560 --> 00:35:34,320
We're right by the sea, they had a high fish diet but also chicken and eggs, we've got walnuts,

494
00:35:34,320 --> 00:35:39,480
a good variety of nuts, so you have a complete mixture between local stuff

495
00:35:39,480 --> 00:35:42,240
and imported stuff which is so typical of the Roman empire.

496
00:35:44,040 --> 00:35:47,280
They certainly lived healthy on this.

497
00:35:47,280 --> 00:35:53,000
What's important is to try and fix who the people were that were living

498
00:35:53,000 --> 00:35:57,960
above this cesspit and sending their cess into the sewer.

499
00:35:57,960 --> 00:36:01,480
Yes. There is a series of shops immediately above us,

500
00:36:01,480 --> 00:36:06,240
so some of them are shopkeepers. definitely and, then above them,

501
00:36:06,240 --> 00:36:10,080
are two more floors of flats.

502
00:36:10,080 --> 00:36:16,640
It's terribly tempting to think because they're flats, these must be absolutely dirt poor.

503
00:36:16,640 --> 00:36:21,920
They're neither dirt poor nor stinking rich, and this is the really hard thing.

504
00:36:21,920 --> 00:36:26,480
People often think of the Roman world as being these really posh people

505
00:36:26,480 --> 00:36:31,400
at the top and everyone else is ground down and miserable. No, sorry!

506
00:36:31,400 --> 00:36:35,520
It's much more complicated than that, these are not really posh people,

507
00:36:35,520 --> 00:36:41,440
they aren't rich enough to live a life of luxury, they're ordinary people.

508
00:36:41,440 --> 00:36:44,280
The excavation in the sewers

509
00:36:44,280 --> 00:36:50,120
supports what we found in the cellar, that rich and poor shared the same basic, healthy diet.

510
00:36:50,120 --> 00:36:53,920
But let's not kid ourselves, the rich took every chance

511
00:36:53,920 --> 00:36:59,040
to show off their wealth and where you ate was one way to do that.

512
00:37:00,560 --> 00:37:05,120
This is a top of the range Roman dining room.

513
00:37:05,120 --> 00:37:11,080
We might imagine that some of the richest of the skeletons in our cellar,

514
00:37:11,080 --> 00:37:18,760
even if they didn't own something like this, might once or twice have eaten somewhere like this.

515
00:37:18,760 --> 00:37:24,600
It's built around the idea of running, trickling, trinkling water.

516
00:37:24,600 --> 00:37:29,280
Water would rush down from that little niche at the back.

517
00:37:29,280 --> 00:37:33,520
It would then feed in to this pool here.

518
00:37:33,520 --> 00:37:36,920
It would feed out over the marble

519
00:37:36,920 --> 00:37:43,440
and it would end up in another pool with a fountain overlooking a garden beyond.

520
00:37:44,960 --> 00:37:48,840
The other thing that is quite interesting

521
00:37:48,840 --> 00:37:52,200
is that it reveals very sharply

522
00:37:52,200 --> 00:37:58,920
how dependent the rich would be for their display eating on slaves.

523
00:37:58,920 --> 00:38:04,480
You've got to get up there, to recline. How do you do it? And how would you do it in a toga?

524
00:38:04,480 --> 00:38:09,120
The answer must be that you were helped by your slaves.

525
00:38:09,120 --> 00:38:12,320
It's a very nice day-to-day indication

526
00:38:12,320 --> 00:38:17,280
of how the Roman elite relied on the servant class.

527
00:38:17,280 --> 00:38:20,640
Let me try and get up.

528
00:38:20,640 --> 00:38:22,240
It's not easy.

529
00:38:23,760 --> 00:38:25,280
Whoops!

530
00:38:26,920 --> 00:38:32,160
Now I suppose that what I do is recline like this

531
00:38:32,160 --> 00:38:35,880
but I hope to goodness they had some cushions

532
00:38:35,880 --> 00:38:39,360
because it really isn't very comfortable

533
00:38:39,360 --> 00:38:43,440
and I'm a bit far from where my wine might be in here.

534
00:38:43,440 --> 00:38:47,640
Certainly, it seems to me that this is ostentatious dining

535
00:38:47,640 --> 00:38:50,880
coming at the price of comfort.

536
00:38:51,640 --> 00:38:56,480
So unlike today when having money means you can eat out,

537
00:38:56,480 --> 00:39:02,320
if you were rich in Pompeii, you were dining at home, surrounded by opulence.

538
00:39:02,320 --> 00:39:08,200
But what about ordinary Pompeians who weren't living in luxury, where were they eating?

539
00:39:08,200 --> 00:39:14,400
Fast food joints are one of the commonest features of the Pompeian street scene.

540
00:39:14,400 --> 00:39:21,960
There's over 150 of them in the city, there's 20 of them in this section of street alone.

541
00:39:21,960 --> 00:39:26,000
There's so many of them that they can't possibly have been

542
00:39:26,000 --> 00:39:28,880
for the rich alone, they probably weren't for the rich at all!

543
00:39:28,880 --> 00:39:34,920
They were for people who didn't have places to eat at home, for people coming in from the countryside,

544
00:39:34,920 --> 00:39:38,880
or people coming in from the port who wanted to get a bite to eat.

545
00:39:42,720 --> 00:39:47,120
You've got two choices if you're a customer at this bar.

546
00:39:47,120 --> 00:39:50,400
Either you come to the street or to the counter,

547
00:39:50,400 --> 00:39:53,880
see what they've got on offer on the dishes here,

548
00:39:53,880 --> 00:39:57,000
choose what you want and take it away.

549
00:39:57,000 --> 00:40:01,800
Fast food. If you've got more time, and I guess more money,

550
00:40:01,800 --> 00:40:04,680
it was probably like modern Naples -

551
00:40:04,680 --> 00:40:07,480
you got charged more if you want to sit down.

552
00:40:07,480 --> 00:40:12,080
You go into the back room and spend time eating and drinking at a table.

553
00:40:13,800 --> 00:40:15,920
I imagine it was pretty crowded,

554
00:40:15,920 --> 00:40:21,960
perhaps six or eight tables with people sitting around and when you got down, at the table,

555
00:40:21,960 --> 00:40:28,240
sitting on the chairs, at your eye level, are these lovely little scenes of life in the bar.

556
00:40:32,640 --> 00:40:40,400
From the storerooms of the Naples museum, a fresco found in Pompeii has been brought out for me to see.

557
00:40:42,360 --> 00:40:48,840
It once decorated the walls of another bar and gives us an idea of a typical Pompeian night out.

558
00:40:48,840 --> 00:40:51,560
They're very clever, actually,

559
00:40:51,560 --> 00:40:57,720
because the paintings have got the ancient equivalent of speech bubbles attached to them,

560
00:40:57,720 --> 00:41:01,000
so a little dialogue, a little story develops.

561
00:41:02,080 --> 00:41:05,160
And the story is not entirely unfamiliar.

562
00:41:05,160 --> 00:41:11,440
After a good few drinks, two men get into an argument about a game of dice.

563
00:41:12,720 --> 00:41:20,360
The upshot of this we see in the sadly bashed-up last scene, but happily the writing still survives.

564
00:41:20,360 --> 00:41:24,320
One's saying, "You scumbag, I won!"

565
00:41:24,320 --> 00:41:30,120
And the other is saying, quite literally, "No, you didn't, you cock sucker."

566
00:41:30,120 --> 00:41:32,680
Just at the right-hand corner,

567
00:41:32,680 --> 00:41:37,080
it must be the landlord because his speech bubble is saying,

568
00:41:37,080 --> 00:41:40,680
"Look chaps, if you want to fight, get outside."

569
00:41:40,680 --> 00:41:46,320
I think it's nice ending this little series of scenes with the landlord

570
00:41:46,320 --> 00:41:53,440
because it reminds us that bars are not just places where people go and get drunk, gamble and flirt,

571
00:41:53,440 --> 00:41:56,520
they're actually somebody's business.

572
00:41:57,920 --> 00:42:03,120
So where rich and poor were eating and drinking was worlds apart,

573
00:42:03,120 --> 00:42:07,360
but what they ate was for the most part very similar.

574
00:42:07,360 --> 00:42:11,880
Everybody shared the benefit of food grown in this marvellously fertile region

575
00:42:11,880 --> 00:42:19,440
and sourced from the plentiful Mediterranean, which in those days was right on their doorstep.

576
00:42:23,200 --> 00:42:28,880
It's easy to forget that in Roman times, Pompeii was absolutely on the seashore.

577
00:42:28,880 --> 00:42:32,800
It's only the seismic activity that means it's now inland.

578
00:42:32,800 --> 00:42:39,320
Pompeii itself had a port and there are other little harbours up and down this coastline.

579
00:42:39,320 --> 00:42:45,360
Goods came in from abroad, and goods went out from this rich agricultural land.

580
00:42:48,880 --> 00:42:55,480
It might have looked like a small provincial Italian town by the sea but there is plenty of evidence,

581
00:42:55,480 --> 00:43:01,400
some of it from the skeletons in the cellar, of just how far Pompeii's international connections stretched.

582
00:43:03,400 --> 00:43:09,960
What we've got here is a gorgeous, gorgeous necklace.

583
00:43:09,960 --> 00:43:16,120
It was found near one of the skeletons, the likely candidate is a middle-aged woman.

584
00:43:18,800 --> 00:43:23,200
It is stunningly modern in its feel.

585
00:43:23,200 --> 00:43:26,200
It's quite a narrow neck it's going to go round,

586
00:43:26,200 --> 00:43:31,960
I think it might just go around me, but it's too big to be a bracelet.

587
00:43:31,960 --> 00:43:37,800
It must have been a choker, going tight around somebody's neck.

588
00:43:37,800 --> 00:43:40,720
One of the puzzles about these things always

589
00:43:40,720 --> 00:43:46,240
is where the raw material for them comes from.

590
00:43:46,240 --> 00:43:51,320
Emeralds aren't found naturally near Pompeii. The likelihood is that they come from Egypt.

591
00:43:51,320 --> 00:43:56,200
These roughly shaped emeralds belonging to one of the skeletons

592
00:43:56,200 --> 00:44:01,520
aren't the only evidence we have of Rome's two-way global traffic.

593
00:44:01,520 --> 00:44:08,720
This is one of the most extraordinary objects ever found in Pompeii.

594
00:44:08,720 --> 00:44:11,240
What it is...

595
00:44:11,240 --> 00:44:16,280
is an ivory statuette, and you only have to look at it

596
00:44:16,280 --> 00:44:19,880
to see this looks Indian and it is Indian,

597
00:44:19,880 --> 00:44:22,720
that's where it comes from.

598
00:44:22,720 --> 00:44:28,800
It brings it home to you in an instant that Pompeii and Pompeian inhabitants

599
00:44:28,800 --> 00:44:32,840
know about what happens in the outside world,

600
00:44:32,840 --> 00:44:37,680
or they have an awareness of Egypt and Africa and Asia

601
00:44:37,680 --> 00:44:43,560
and all the other places around the Mediterranean in a way that is quite different

602
00:44:43,560 --> 00:44:49,600
from what one imagines the global view of an English village might be in the 18th or 19th century.

603
00:44:53,160 --> 00:44:56,920
So Pompeii was a small town with a world view.

604
00:44:56,920 --> 00:45:00,080
But how far do our skeletons in the cellar reflect that?

605
00:45:02,480 --> 00:45:06,160
We know Pompeii is in some ways

606
00:45:06,160 --> 00:45:10,600
a surprisingly multicultural little place.

607
00:45:10,600 --> 00:45:17,200
There are foreign objects, foreign imports, it's got a port, it's looking towards the outside world.

608
00:45:17,200 --> 00:45:24,840
What's always been trickier to pin down is just how far the population was multicultural.

609
00:45:24,840 --> 00:45:31,920
Have we got any evidence from these skeletons about the make-up of Pompeian society?

610
00:45:31,920 --> 00:45:34,520
I mean the ethnic or racial make-up?

611
00:45:34,520 --> 00:45:40,080
We found two skeletons where we are quite sure they are of African ancestry.

612
00:45:40,080 --> 00:45:42,480
This is from the so-called rich group

613
00:45:42,480 --> 00:45:48,560
and there is another one, it's a female lying on her belly there, she is of African origin.

614
00:45:48,560 --> 00:45:51,600
Tell me how you know it's of African origin.

615
00:45:51,600 --> 00:45:54,400
It's just the shape of the face.

616
00:45:54,400 --> 00:45:58,760
Are you talking about sub-Saharan African, not North African.

617
00:45:58,760 --> 00:46:00,400
- Yes, black.
- Black African.

618
00:46:00,400 --> 00:46:05,520
What you're seeming to suggest, and I think it's a really important point,

619
00:46:05,520 --> 00:46:09,160
is that there are people living here

620
00:46:09,160 --> 00:46:14,280
who have an origin really on the other side of the Roman empire.

621
00:46:15,800 --> 00:46:19,480
That's not the only thing interesting about the African skeleton.

622
00:46:19,480 --> 00:46:24,000
His skull is green, stained by metal objects

623
00:46:24,000 --> 00:46:26,800
and he's in the group found with treasure.

624
00:46:26,800 --> 00:46:34,320
It's possible he was the slave of someone rich, but he might also have been rich himself.

625
00:46:34,320 --> 00:46:38,400
We can't assume all Africans were slaves.

626
00:46:38,400 --> 00:46:43,920
Brutal and degrading as Roman slavery could be, it wasn't as straightforward as that.

627
00:46:46,600 --> 00:46:52,720
In one ancient cemetery outside Pompeii is a tomb that paints a much more complex picture of slavery.

628
00:46:54,240 --> 00:46:56,320
What you've got here

629
00:46:56,320 --> 00:47:00,840
is a tomb that holds the ashes of three people.

630
00:47:00,840 --> 00:47:02,880
And they tell you who they are.

631
00:47:02,880 --> 00:47:10,000
There is man called Publius Vesonius who is an ex-slave, he tells you he's an ex-slave.

632
00:47:10,000 --> 00:47:13,960
There is a woman called Vesonia who had actually owned him

633
00:47:13,960 --> 00:47:20,320
and then freed him, and my guess is they probably then got married.

634
00:47:20,320 --> 00:47:25,200
And he's also putting it up for the guy on the right, a friend of his.

635
00:47:25,200 --> 00:47:32,040
The first text says Vesonius put this up for this trio.

636
00:47:32,040 --> 00:47:34,160
But the text underneath...

637
00:47:34,160 --> 00:47:38,520
tells the sequel, which isn't so happy.

638
00:47:38,520 --> 00:47:40,480
"Stop and read this," he says,

639
00:47:40,480 --> 00:47:44,400
"because that guy on the right who I thought was my friend

640
00:47:44,400 --> 00:47:51,360
"turned out to be false. In fact," says Vesonius, "he took me to court. We quarrelled

641
00:47:51,360 --> 00:47:57,080
"and he took me to court, but luckily my innocence and the gods above saved me.

642
00:47:57,080 --> 00:47:59,480
"But he was a complete bastard."

643
00:47:59,480 --> 00:48:04,240
We don't know why this man didn't just remove his ex-friend's statue.

644
00:48:04,240 --> 00:48:10,880
It's what I would have done. But luckily he didn't as this monument tells a fascinating story.

645
00:48:10,880 --> 00:48:15,560
Here was an ex-slave rich enough to put up this big tomb for three

646
00:48:15,560 --> 00:48:19,640
and then to go to court to settle a dispute with his former friend.

647
00:48:19,640 --> 00:48:26,680
The point about Roman slavery is that it isn't always a lifetime sentence.

648
00:48:26,680 --> 00:48:30,520
Slaves get freed by the people who owned them

649
00:48:30,520 --> 00:48:34,080
and they sometimes go on to do very well.

650
00:48:34,080 --> 00:48:39,080
In fact, my guess is the majority of the Pompeian population,

651
00:48:39,080 --> 00:48:45,880
certainly some of the people in our cellar, would have had slaves somewhere in their ancestry.

652
00:48:45,880 --> 00:48:52,280
It's been calculated that more than half the population of Herculaneum were descended from slaves.

653
00:48:52,280 --> 00:48:56,880
Slaves certainly sometimes did what we think of as high status jobs.

654
00:48:56,880 --> 00:49:00,920
There's evidence for that in a very surpising place.

655
00:49:00,920 --> 00:49:06,200
Here you have the bog, probably one seat here and then ...

656
00:49:06,200 --> 00:49:08,280
Yes, you can come and sit by me.

657
00:49:10,120 --> 00:49:14,800
What's brilliant about this is that the last person to use this loo

658
00:49:14,800 --> 00:49:19,320
before the eruption happened has left his name.

659
00:49:19,320 --> 00:49:21,120
It starts with an A.

660
00:49:21,120 --> 00:49:28,120
- That's right.
- And what he's saying is it's his name... "Apollinaris...

661
00:49:28,120 --> 00:49:33,840
"Medicus T...T.imp..."

662
00:49:33,840 --> 00:49:38,560
So "Apollinaris, the doctor of the emperor Titus..."

663
00:49:39,200 --> 00:49:43,400
Then you can't read this any longer because it's got too faded.

664
00:49:43,400 --> 00:49:47,240
Hic bene cacavit. He had a good shit here!

665
00:49:47,240 --> 00:49:53,680
This name Apollinaris - we can't be certain, but is very likely a slave name.

666
00:49:53,680 --> 00:49:56,720
So the emperor's doctor is a slave.

667
00:49:56,720 --> 00:50:02,600
We tend to think the slave jobs as being very drudge manual labour,

668
00:50:02,600 --> 00:50:08,840
some certainly were, but slaves also did, in our terms,

669
00:50:08,840 --> 00:50:13,520
high-status professional jobs like being doctors.

670
00:50:13,520 --> 00:50:16,800
That's another reason why slavery is more complicated.

671
00:50:16,800 --> 00:50:21,440
Also, to be a slave of the Emperor is to be someone quite important.

672
00:50:21,440 --> 00:50:25,360
In some ways it's better to be the slave of an emperor

673
00:50:25,360 --> 00:50:29,840
than an ordinary freeborn person with a tiny little shop in Herculaneum.

674
00:50:29,840 --> 00:50:32,720
I'd much rather be the Emperor Titus's slave doctor

675
00:50:32,720 --> 00:50:35,760
- than a flower seller in the streets of Pompeii.
- He was on the way up.

676
00:50:37,440 --> 00:50:40,600
So slavery was a fact of life in Pompeii.

677
00:50:43,560 --> 00:50:47,440
Almost certainly some of the people in our cellar were slaves,

678
00:50:47,440 --> 00:50:51,080
they died right next to their masters, as they would have lived.

679
00:50:51,080 --> 00:50:55,400
At the house of a baker on the main street of Pompeii,

680
00:50:55,400 --> 00:51:00,600
we find a nice illustration of that closeness in a painting on the dining room wall.

681
00:51:00,600 --> 00:51:07,080
These guys don't look too pissed yet, although we can imagine what might have happened next,

682
00:51:07,080 --> 00:51:13,880
but the give-away scene is in the background where that lady is clearly about to keel over

683
00:51:13,880 --> 00:51:17,280
and she is being propped up by the slave behind her.

684
00:51:17,280 --> 00:51:20,680
I guess the slaves came pretty handy for this kind of job.

685
00:51:22,200 --> 00:51:26,480
But it wasn't just slaves and masters living on top of each other.

686
00:51:26,480 --> 00:51:29,880
Here in the baker's house, right next to the smart dining room,

687
00:51:29,880 --> 00:51:34,720
there's a stable, and in it, the bones of the animals,

688
00:51:34,720 --> 00:51:42,720
the ones he used to turn the mills which ground the grain, and no doubt delivered the bread around town too.

689
00:51:42,720 --> 00:51:46,680
Here we've got the finest room in the baker's residential quarters

690
00:51:46,680 --> 00:51:51,080
right up next to where the mules lived.

691
00:51:51,080 --> 00:51:56,880
Just a few yards away is the back end of a really rich house in Pompeii

692
00:51:56,880 --> 00:52:02,840
that was being given a complete make over at the time of the eruption.

693
00:52:02,840 --> 00:52:09,840
So the rich are living right next door, right up against the working bakery.

694
00:52:09,840 --> 00:52:15,400
The baker has his poshest room right next door to his animals.

695
00:52:15,400 --> 00:52:18,600
That's how Pompeians lived - cheek by jowl.

696
00:52:18,600 --> 00:52:22,040
And that's how we find the people in the cellar -

697
00:52:22,040 --> 00:52:26,560
rich and poor, male and female, old and young,

698
00:52:26,560 --> 00:52:30,680
lying close to each other in death as they would have been in life.

699
00:52:35,000 --> 00:52:38,000
But in 79AD, that life came to an end.

700
00:52:39,040 --> 00:52:44,200
Neither they, nor the others in this town, had any idea they lived in the shadow of a volcano.

701
00:52:44,200 --> 00:52:49,000
The last major eruption had been 1,500 years before.

702
00:52:58,480 --> 00:53:04,000
Nothing could prepare the population for what happened when Vesuvius exploded.

703
00:53:14,080 --> 00:53:20,800
The people in the cellar had one choice - to try and escape, or stay and find shelter.

704
00:53:24,640 --> 00:53:28,560
From out at sea, you get a very good impression

705
00:53:28,560 --> 00:53:33,200
of how Vesuvius really lours over the whole area.

706
00:53:33,200 --> 00:53:37,320
But also, you get this slightly uncomfortable sense

707
00:53:37,320 --> 00:53:44,720
of how very close the volcano is. It makes you realise how difficult it would have been to escape from it.

708
00:53:44,720 --> 00:53:48,000
Especially if you left it a little bit too late.

709
00:53:51,200 --> 00:53:55,360
While friends and neighbours fled, our 54 people looked for cover,

710
00:53:55,360 --> 00:53:58,800
and many took their most precious belongings with them.

711
00:54:03,800 --> 00:54:11,040
Why most of them stayed put, we can only guess, but in one case, there's a strong clue.

712
00:54:12,760 --> 00:54:17,640
Fabian, tell me about the remains of this person laid out here.

713
00:54:17,640 --> 00:54:23,640
This is maybe one of the most dramatic and tragic persons

714
00:54:23,640 --> 00:54:27,560
we found in this whole sample,

715
00:54:27,560 --> 00:54:34,520
because these are the bones of a young female and we found with the skeleton this small bone.

716
00:54:34,520 --> 00:54:37,560
The pelvic bone of a foetus.

717
00:54:39,080 --> 00:54:41,120
She must have been pregnant.

718
00:54:42,640 --> 00:54:45,400
If you measure it, you can determine

719
00:54:45,400 --> 00:54:51,320
it was in the last month of pregnancy and it's quite traumatic.

720
00:54:51,320 --> 00:54:58,360
The thought of being 8.5 months pregnant and trying to flee for your life from the erupting volcano,

721
00:54:58,360 --> 00:55:01,440
it's just dreadful.

722
00:55:10,080 --> 00:55:15,440
Amazingly, an eyewitness account of the eruption survives.

723
00:55:15,440 --> 00:55:21,800
It describes how on that fateful day you could hear the shrieks of women, the squalling of infants

724
00:55:21,800 --> 00:55:26,280
and the shouting of men, some calling out for their parents,

725
00:55:26,280 --> 00:55:28,600
others for their children or wives.

726
00:55:28,600 --> 00:55:32,560
It was so dark, they could only recognise them by their voices.

727
00:55:32,560 --> 00:55:35,560
Many pleaded for the help of the gods,

728
00:55:35,560 --> 00:55:42,720
but more thought that the gods had disappeared, and that the world had been plunged into eternal darkness.

729
00:55:49,120 --> 00:55:55,280
It must have been pitch black when the volcanic debris started to fall and our people tried to escape.

730
00:55:55,280 --> 00:55:59,280
Several of them certainly had brought lamps with them.

731
00:55:59,280 --> 00:56:04,520
This one is quite nice because the centre, just where the oil goes in,

732
00:56:04,520 --> 00:56:09,240
has got a lovely picture here of the goddess of Rome herself.

733
00:56:09,240 --> 00:56:15,360
She is sadly broken in half but she is quite recognisable with her helmet on.

734
00:56:17,800 --> 00:56:20,440
The people in the cellar were sheltering there

735
00:56:20,440 --> 00:56:25,640
as the eruption intensified outside, plunging them further into darkness.

736
00:56:28,720 --> 00:56:35,960
Heaven knows how you could have found your way through the streets at night using just one of these.

737
00:56:35,960 --> 00:56:41,800
It makes me realise how vulnerable the people in this cellar must have felt.

738
00:56:41,800 --> 00:56:48,840
They fled through the darkness, all trace of the sun has been obliterated by the volcanic debris,

739
00:56:48,840 --> 00:56:54,360
they've come in here, they're huddled together for shelter and support

740
00:56:54,360 --> 00:56:58,760
and the only protection against the dark they've got is half a dozen little lamps like this.

741
00:57:01,720 --> 00:57:08,240
Of course, in the end these people couldn't protect themselves from the same fate as the others in Pompeii.

742
00:57:08,240 --> 00:57:14,000
But the Romans in the cellar didn't just leave us with evidence of their tragic death

743
00:57:14,000 --> 00:57:16,280
but of the lives they lived too.

744
00:57:16,280 --> 00:57:22,680
It may have been a male-dominated world where the rich dined in luxury and exploited the poor,

745
00:57:22,680 --> 00:57:28,360
but Pompeii was also a place where slaves could earn their freedom, where women could own wealth,

746
00:57:28,360 --> 00:57:32,520
and the ordinary Roman could eat and drink well.

747
00:57:32,520 --> 00:57:38,440
It was a place where even the poorest knew something of the world outside.

748
00:57:45,040 --> 00:57:50,240
The people who died in this cellar helped us to understand that Roman society

749
00:57:50,240 --> 00:57:55,520
wasn't quite as black and white as we often imagine it to be.

750
00:57:55,520 --> 00:58:00,320
Sure, these people would had vastly different lifestyles,

751
00:58:00,320 --> 00:58:04,320
but they lived cheek by jowl and they shared a lot too.

752
00:58:04,320 --> 00:58:07,600
The smells, the dark, and the dirt.

753
00:58:07,600 --> 00:58:12,600
Not to mention the wine, the sex, the food and the fun.

754
00:58:12,600 --> 00:58:19,840
And in the end, of course, they shared the same fate, in the same cellar 2,000 years ago.

755
00:58:30,160 --> 00:58:33,200
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

756
00:58:33,200 --> 00:58:36,240
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