Original subtitles

MONIKA: Do you see this relatively tiny opening?

It leads under the women’s bathing rooms.

MAURO: Okay, come on Mario!

NARRATOR: Beneath Pompeii’s oldest bathhouse,

cavers are venturing deep into a miraculously preserved space

(beeping)

that remained hidden for nearly 2,000 years.

MONIKA: I’m actually not sure how long they stay here.

We’ll see how long they survive.

MARIO: Oh look down there, there's a bat!

(beeping)

NARRATOR: They’re searching for clues to life and death in the Roman Empire.

MARIO (laughs): What do you think is written here?

MAURO: I think it’s a stamp.

(theme music)

(crumbling sound)

NARRATOR: Pompeii, an ancient city 130 miles south of Rome.

In AD 79, Mount Vesuvius, just six miles away, erupted explosively,

smothering the entire area beneath millions of tons of volcanic ash and rock.

17 centuries later, archaeologists rediscovered a city frozen in time.

But, even after almost 300 years of excavation,

a third of Pompeii’s streets remain unearthed.

Today archaeologists from across the world are digging through the debris,

uncovering surprising new evidence for what it was like

to live and die at the height of the Roman empire.

GRIMALDI: For an archaeologist, to study in Pompeii is a very special moment.

The possibility to touch the real life 2,000 years ago.

NARRATOR: Much of what we know of the Roman world

is through the lives of those at the top:

Emperors, senators and generals living in their vast villas and palaces.

But the great majority of those who lived in the Roman world weren’t rich at all.

What was Pompeii like lower down the social order, for the middle classes

or enslaved people?

We’re following a team of archaeologists excavating Pompeii in search of

the real stories of these hidden lives.

LLORENÇ: Every day we discover new things in Pompeii

and help to understand Roman culture in every part of the world.

(dramatic music)

NARRATOR: Buried up to 20 feet beneath volcanic debris,

archaeologists have unearthed a bustling metropolis,

homes for some 15,000 people, in a coastal hub of trade and culture.

In the east, archaeologists discover an arena for gladiator fights.

(crowd cheering) (metal clashing)

And in the west, they unearth two theaters.

They uncover temples dedicated to nine different gods and emperors,

and a forum, the heart of business and political affairs.

The excavation of perfectly preserved Pompeii reveals Roman life in the raw.

Today an international team of archaeologists is digging at

one of the most complete Roman bath houses in the world,

the Stabian baths.

MONIKA: Good morning! (speaking in Italian)

- Everything fine? - Yeah, yesterday we...

NARRATOR: German archaeologist,

Monika Trümper, first came to Pompeii aged 15 on a family holiday.

It sparked the fascination of a lifetime.

I always wanted to excavate here. This has been the dream site to excavate.

I really like digging in the Earth and cleaning things.

I do not like cleaning things at home,

but I like cleaning things on archaeological sites.

NARRATOR: Monika’s team is on a mission

to explore the hidden world of the Roman bathhouse.

And as always, we are running out of time, there's still so much to do.

NARRATOR: A visit to the baths was part of the Roman daily routine.

(dramatic music)

Bathers would first remove their clothing, then smear their skin with olive oil.

The bathing session began with exercise, to work up a healthy sweat.

Romans didn’t use soap.

Instead, they scraped off the oil, sweat, and dirt with a tool called a strigil.

Then bathed in rooms at different temperatures,

heated by a hypocaust, a marvel of Roman engineering.

Hot air from a furnace circulated under the floor and

between the walls to heat rooms up to a 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

Pompeii’s Stabian baths were in use for around 200 years before

Vesuvius’s eruption froze them in the state we see today.

The team is digging to solve a mystery:

how did a visit to the baths change over time?

We've been studying the Stabian bath because we are

interested in the development of bathing culture in Pompeii.

NARRATOR: Their quest begins behind the scenes.

- MONIKA: Visitor! - MARCO: Bongiorno.

MONIKA: Right now what you see is a service room.

You see all kinds of installations that serve for the bath.

I'm standing on a channel. You see another channel behind me.

So these are all installations belonging somehow

to particularly the water management and also the heating system.

It was a room that the bathers were not supposed to ever see or enter,

so it was only for the slaves.

NARRATOR: Monika and joint excavation leader Marco Giglio,

from the University of Naples L’Orientale,

are digging into dirt that predates the eruption of AD 79.

MARCO: We hope to find all sort of things. Not only beautiful objects,

but something useful for the chronology, for dating this space.

Dig member Satoshi Higuchi spots a glint of metal in the dirt.

- SATOSHI: Wow, wow! It's big. - WOMAN: Ooh.

SATOSHI: Yeah.

MONIKA: I can’t see it, what is it? Oh yeah, yeah, I see it now. Oh wow.

What do you think it might be?

SATOSHI: This could be some kind of hairpin?

MONIKA: Mm-hmm. I guess, yes, because it’s so thin.

SATOSHI: Yes.

MONIKA: The thin needle, something you would stick into your hair. Look at this.

- There’s more of it? - SATOSHI: Oh no, it’s a...

It's a fibula.

MONIKA: Yeah, and this is part of the fibula then.

So this is the lower part of the fibula. Wow.

They used to fix clothes. They used this to fix cloth.

And actually, if I remember correctly,

this is the first one we find here at all in the Stabian bath.

NARRATOR: The ornate clothespin is a direct connection

to a Pompeiian living 2,000 years ago.

SATOSHI: It’s really exciting and I’m really happy to have found it,

and I hope I can find more interesting things to understand this bath.

MARCO: It’s a very interesting find. Very, very interesting.

Now we'll continue to excavate this layer.

NARRATOR: All the evidence the team has found suggests

this was not always a service room, but was once a public walkway,

known as a porticus.

MONIKA: Our hypothesis is that originally it was a porticus,

and not a service room, and only later when, you know,

they improved or changed the bath that would have transformed

it into such a service room.

NARRATOR: When did the layout of the baths change and why?

To find out Monika will need to explore deep into an unseen world.

Just outside Pompeii’s city walls,

Spanish archaeologist, Llorenç Alapont is leading another pioneering excavation.

I think for all archaeologists digging in Pompeii is a dream.

NARRATOR: It's estimated 2,000 Pompeiians perished in the eruption.

Their tragic deaths have made Pompeii world-famous.

But the frozen figures reveal almost nothing of these people’s life stories.

For greater insight, today Llorenç is excavating the tombs

of Pompeiians who died before the eruption.

His team has removed tons of volcanic debris to reach new and uncharted tombs.

LLORENÇ: When we started work here, all this area was completely covered

with the pumice stones that covered completely the city.

NARRATOR: The size of each freshly unearthed tomb

gives a first clue to the occupants.

Here we are in this tomb, on the podium

and of course, it's a very rich person that builds this very big tomb.

NARRATOR: Inscriptions can reveal further fascinating information about the lives

of the tomb occupants.

But Llorenç's ultimate goal is to unearth what lies inside the tombs.

LLORENÇ: Our project is to try to find these remains, human remains

because we are studying the archaeology of death.

NARRATOR: It’s difficult to discover forensic detail of the Roman dead,

due to the standard funeral rites of the time.

(dramatic music)

When a Roman citizen died, relatives put a coin in the deceased’s mouth

to pay for safe passage to the underworld.

By law they had to lay the body to rest outside the city limits.

Rich families hired musicians

and professional mourners to lead the procession.

At the necropolis, they burned the body on a pyre

and stored the ashes and the coin in an urn, to keep in the family tomb.

Romans even cremated their emperors.

But they burned Julius Caesar’s pyre in public

inside Rome’s city limits.

The mourners' passions ran so hot they almost burnt down the forum.

Llorenç and his team are hunting for cremation urns.

But finding human ashes among tons of volcanic ashes is no easy task.

They’ve just unearthed this tomb, right next to the main gateway into Pompeii,

built in an eye-catching spot.

LLORENÇ: If you are rich, you choose the most important gate in the city.

And of course, you want to build your tomb in front of this gate.

So everyone who passes in front, they never forget this person.

What we found inside was really exciting.

NARRATOR: In the southern region of the city

is a residential area known today as Insula 17.

Now guys, today we’re starting in the two areas

to continue the excavation inside in the layers that we find in the last days.

Okay? Now we go.

NARRATOR: Archaeologist Mario Grimaldi

is part of a team from the University of Bologna

that is investigating the lives of middle-class people

at the height of the Roman empire.

The volcanic blanket over Pompeii preserved its public spaces,

its cemeteries, its baths and its grand buildings.

But it also preserved over 1,000 ordinary, private homes.

These rarely survive elsewhere,

so Pompeii offers a unique opportunity for archaeologists.

GRIMALDI: In Pompeii we have the possibility to understand

the real life, the people that were living in these houses,

with the material, the artifacts that these people had

in their hand before the eruption.

It’s important for us to understand that

this society, these people that lived in this area,

they like a middle-class people in the society.

NARRATOR: Beneath the street that runs alongside the houses,

the team makes a discovery.

We have a water pipe.

Now we’re cleaning this water pipe. It’s very interesting for us.

The water pipe is a connection from the aqueduct

to the water for the fresh water.

NARRATOR: Roman plumbing was the envy of the ancient world.

Networks of underground lead pipes channeled water

from aqueducts along city streets.

Most residents collected their water from roadside fountains.

But richer homeowners could go one step further.

If I want in my private house the fresh water,

I pay with my money the connection to the aqueduct.

If we are lucky, it’s possible that we find the stamp of the owner.

NARRATOR: But as the team searches,

something extraordinary begins to appear in the same trench

that could give an even bigger insight into these inhabitants' lives.

GRIMALDI: OK, what did you find?

- MAN: We actually find a skull. - GRIMALDI: Oh... Amazing!

NARRATOR: In their quest to investigate the occupant of this large tomb,

Llorenç’s team hits the jackpot.

LLORENÇ: In front of this tomb

we found the inscription that tells us the owner was Marco Venerius Secundio.

This tomb, this discovery, is one of the most important discoveries in my career.

NARRATOR: The size and location of Marcus Venerius Secundio’s tomb

shows that by his death he must have been a prominent figure in Pompeii.

But what Llorenç unearthed beside the plaque was a complete surprise.

The tomb was revealed to be a walled family enclosure.

In one corner, Llorenç found a small tombstone.

Beneath it, an urn containing the cremated ashes of a woman.

Then the team spotted a sealed door, leading to a burial chamber,

containing Marcus Venerius Secundio’s skeleton,

still sporting hair and part of his left ear.

He was buried, not burnt.

An unparalleled opportunity to discover more about an individual life,

and death, in Pompeii.

LLORENÇ: This is the best preserved body ever found in Pompeii.

We were very surprised when we found this body buried, and not cremated

because everyone, all bodies in Pompeii are cremated.

He's the only one buried in Pompeii.

NARRATOR: There are even hints Marcus may have been embalmed after death.

Scraps of textile found among the remains may be wrappings

to help preserve his body.

As soon as the remains were photographed, the team rushed them into cold storage.

Now the body is inside a fridge at three degrees

because we want to preserve all this organic material.

Now we can do genetic analysis of these remains.

NARRATOR: Wear on the teeth, alongside other signs of aging on the skeleton,

suggest Marcus lived to at least 60 years old.

Llorenç hopes further analysis will reveal more about his origins,

where he grew up and perhaps how he died.

But starting from the plaque on Marcus’s tomb,

Llorenç wants to piece together key parts of his life story.

LLORENÇ: Marco Venerius, coloniae libertus.

The inscription says he was first a slave of the city.

But after, he becomes a free man. Libertus -- so he got the freedom.

NARRATOR: The inscription and the tomb location

reveal that by the time of his death, Marcus was a prominent citizen in Pompeii.

Next Llorenç wants to find out how Marcus gained his freedom and his wealth,

and what his rise says about life in the Roman Empire.

(dramatic music)

At the Stabian baths,

Monika is following in the footsteps of bathers 2,000 years ago.

MONIKA: This is the final room of the women's suite.

It's the caldarium, the hot room.

NARRATOR: And the baths weren’t just somewhere for citizens to get clean.

MONIKA: We have ancient literary sources that,

you know, complain about the noises coming from baths.

It's not like one of our, you know,

luxury spas where you have quiet, you know, music and so on.

They must have been really, really, really noisy. Really loud.

NARRATOR: Archaeological evidence indicates

that the Stabian baths served multiple purposes.

More than simply being a place to get clean, they were a vital social hub,

the main place where Romans caught up with friends or discussed casual business.

Monika wants to identify the technology that was key to this social function.

MONIKA: So this is the immersion pool for the women.

It was heated from below by the floor heating.

It was heated from the back and the sides by the wall heating.

And then it has one additional really intriguing feature.

You really have to kneel down in order to appreciate this.

It's a half circular container made out of bronze,

and it's closed at the back and open here in the front.

And so the water constantly goes in there.

And this thing is right above the hottest part of the fireplace,

so right next to the fire, so to speak.

And so therefore, it always heats the cooling water and

then the hot water comes out again.

So this helps additionally to keep the water warm.

NARRATOR: The hot water container is called a testudo.

It’s named for its shape.

Testudo in Latin means tortoise.

MONIKA: They are unfortunately rarely preserved because

the metal is very precious and was usually robbed out

in antiquity or any time later.

So this example here is particularly intriguing because it's fully preserved.

It is so rare and is so, so exciting.

NARRATOR: This is clever Roman technology,

maintaining the bath water at a constant pleasurable temperature,

so up to half a dozen women could relax and socialize.

MONIKA: It's particularly important to get as much information as possible

of such a well-preserved example from all sides.

NARRATOR: Exploring the testudo in detail may also give insight

into how the baths served as a highly sociable space.

But there is a problem.

MONIKA: I can’t kind of crawl inside from the pool,

because the opening is very, very narrow and the channel is narrow.

NARRATOR: To examine the precious testudo properly,

Monika needs a different approach.

Just outside Pompeii’s city walls, another team is exploring underground.

Archaeologist Luana Toniolo has helped excavate 20 feet of volcanic rock and ash

to reach a small room, part of a much larger villa.

LUANA: This is our really latest discovery.

As you can see, we are still working a bit.

So for us, it's really exciting and every day there's something new.

Over there, you can see the window from where the volcanic ash entered and

covered the objects in this room and actually preserved it.

NARRATOR: Ever since excavations began in Pompeii nearly 300 years ago,

diggers have found skeletons entombed in the volcanic ash.

The flesh of the dead has long since decomposed,

leaving only a body-spaced shape surrounding the bones.

By pouring plaster into the cavity,

the archaeologists are able to recreate the original body shape.

LUANA: We are still using the same technique of more than one century ago

because it's really the best technique.

NARRATOR: This team is using plaster

to capture the original shape of other organic objects.

They wait for the plaster to set,

then very carefully scrape away the surrounding ash.

LUANA: We don't know what we are going to see when we pour the plaster in the holes

and what we found in this case is the bed.

NARRATOR: Not just one, but three beds,

complete with blankets, and an array of bedside furniture and storage containers.

We can see three beds made of wood. These beds are really simple.

You can see that they are made of vertical pieces of wood.

NARRATOR: Three people shared this small room.

The basic furniture, and the single small window,

suggest that they were among the poorest of Pompeii.

LUANA: It was used as a room where to sleep and relax.

But at the same time it’s a storage room,

because there you can see storage containers

that were used in the Roman times to trade food, wine, olive.

The other really important object that we can find in this room

is this particular object.

That is the part of the chariot that was used to link the chariot to the horses.

NARRATOR: Incredibly, the plaster cast here reveals a rope lashing.

MAN: The lacing is holding together.

Perhaps there had been a break in the wood, and it kept it tied up.

NARRATOR: The evidence has prompted Pompeii archaeologists

to call this, “The room of the slaves.”

It is the most complete example of such a room

ever discovered in the Roman Empire.

This room is very important for us,

for the archaeologists, for historians because we can

see actually how slaves and poor people lived.

NARRATOR: There would have been several hundred rooms like this

in and around Pompeii.

It’s exactly the sort of place where Marcus Venerius Secundio

may have started his life.

But as Marcus’s life shows,

enslavement wasn’t necessarily a life sentence in the Roman empire.

(dramatic music)

In Ancient Rome, enslaved people were a commodity, auctioned at a market.

Those that were unskilled could be worth the annual salaries of two foot-soldiers.

Some had tags attached to their necks, as proof of ownership in case they fled.

Those that were educated could be put to work as accountants or secretaries.

They had higher status, and so were paid for their duties.

Enslaved people could use their money to buy their freedom,

acquiring Roman citizenship in a formal ceremony.

As a symbol of their liberty, they wore a felt cap called a pileus.

Marcus’s tomb and inscription reveals he became a wealthy man.

Llorenç wants to know how he bought his way out of enslavement.

(dramatic music)

At the Stabian baths, Monika is venturing deeper

into the incredible unseen Roman world preserved at Pompeii.

MONIKA: This is kind of the heart of the bath.

This is the service section and the heating system.

But what exactly this heating system looked like,

we do not know and we really want to explore.

It’s quite narrow to get into, it’s quite dangerous.

NARRATOR: Monika works with a team of speleologists,

specialist cavers, to venture where she can’t.

MONICA: Bongiorno! Mauro, Mario. - Hello.

NARRATOR: Monika hopes the cavers can find evidence of how

and when the baths were modified.

MONIKA: We do not know whether the whole heating system was remodeled,

or belongs to an older period.

So I’m really excited and looking forward to pictures.

NARRATOR: Mauro traces the route the scorching hot air would have taken

into the heating system 2,000 years ago.

He’s one of few to venture into this dangerous void

since Pompeii was buried in volcanic rock.

(scraping)

MONIKA: I’m actually not sure how long they stay there.

We’ll see how long they survive.

NARRATOR: Llorenç’s investigation into the life of Marcus Venerius Secundio

has brought him to the western edge of Pompeii.

Marcus’s tomb inscription states he worked as a custodian,

looking after the Temple of Venus.

LLORENÇ: This is what I'm looking for.

This is the original floor of the Temple of Venus.

NARRATOR: Romans worshipped many gods and had many temples in their honor

but Venus was the chief deity and protector of Pompeii.

Natural disasters have sadly reduced Pompeii’s largest sacred site to rubble.

Llorenç hunts for any remains of the temple’s inner sanctum

that would have contained the statue of Venus.

LLORENÇ: Here in the temple, we preserve the gate system.

Here was Marcus, who was opening these massive doors in the Temple of Venus.

NARRATOR: Only the stones beneath the doorway remain,

but Llorenç suspects Marcus would have guarded this inner sanctum.

LLORENÇ: The temple was not always open.

So when the temple was closed, people come here and leave their offerings.

And probably Marco Venerius came to collect them to bring them to the Temple.

NARRATOR: Working in Pompeii’s most hallowed temple

would allow Marcus to mingle among Pompeii’s elite.

He was likely to have been rewarded for his work,

perhaps through tips or donations.

LLORENÇ: Of course, the custodian of this Temple was very popular.

and has a very good reputation in Pompeii.

NARRATOR: The wealth and high status that Marcus gained at the temple

may have allowed him to buy his freedom.

Once he’d escaped enslavement, Marcus’s life took on a truly dramatic twist.

Pompeii’s latest discoveries are opening up a new window

into everyday life in the Roman empire.

Pompeii is much more than a city divided into wealthy elites

and their downtrodden servants.

This was a society where you could rise out of enslavement,

and citizens of all classes relaxed in communal baths.

At Insula 17, Mario’s team has found a buried skull.

MAN: We don’t know which animal it is.

NARRATOR: What’s intriguing is the skull’s location,

just beneath the street level and close to an underground water pipe.

For us it’s very interesting, this find of this skull,

because we are in front of a real time

and a real life in this area before the eruption of 79.

NARRATOR: The team is trying to find other clues

that could shed light on their discovery.

MAN: Yeah, yeah.

GRIMALDI: You find also, other bones around?

- WOMAN: Yeah. Here. - GRIMALDI: Yeah? Okay.

NARRATOR: A tantalizing possibility is this is the skull of an animal,

killed as a sacrificial offering to the gods.

But Mario needs more evidence.

The team hunts for tell-tale ceramic cups

that would once contain other offerings.

MAN: There are other parts of the skeleton there.

GRIMALDI: Yeah. But you don’t find the cups?

- MAN: No, no ceramics. - WOMAN: No.

GRIMALDI: Okay, now we continue to clean.

We remove the skull, and to understand if there are

other parts of the bones, of the skull, of the animal.

NARRATOR: The team must carefully extract all the compacted soil

before they attempt the delicate task of removing the skull.

The cavers are crawling ever deeper into the underfloor heating system.

MAURO: Okay, come on Mario!

NARRATOR: They must document every detail of the subterranean world.

No one knows what could lurk in this space.

MARIO: Oh look, down there, there's a bat.

(beeping)

MARIO: So the spaces over there are lower.

MAURO: What?

- MARIO: The spaces over there are lower. - MAURO: Yeah, it’s around 15 centimeters.

NARRATOR: The invention of the hypocaust system revolutionized bath-houses,

allowing bathers to linger longer in pleasantly warm water

before stepping onto a heated floor.

But comfort above ground creates a highly hazardous, cramped space below.

MAURO (in Italian): Height 82 centimeters.

I hear some voices, so they must be working. But I can’t see them anymore.

NARRATOR: Under the women’s hot immersion pool...

MAURO (in Italian): There’s the testudo above here.

NARRATOR: The cavers find and photograph one of the best preserved testudos

in the Roman world.

Built to be both fire-resistant and watertight,

the tank’s sloping underside had been carefully engineered

so that the heat from the furnace that was once nearby

created a circulating supply of hot water.

Beneath the floor of the women’s caldarium

the cavers spot something else that could help Monika’s investigation.

(laughs)

- MARIO: What do you think is written here? - I think it’s a stamp.

(swelling music)

NARRATOR: At the Insula 17 housing block, the dig’s chief archaeologist,

Antonella Coralini, is overseeing the delicate retrieval of the animal skull.

ANTONELLA (in Italian): You should lift it from underneath.

WOMAN: Slowly, slowly!

NARRATOR: If they don’t release all the compacted soil

around the 2,000 year old skull, it could shatter.

(conversing in Italian)

- Oh beautiful. - Mm-hmm.

This is the head.

GRIMALDI: This is not the skull of a sheep, it’s the skull of a bull.

It's very interesting now.

NARRATOR: It’s a fascinating find. The skull of a bull.

Very big, with the points for the horns.

It’s interesting because it’s very strange that we find a skull of a bull.

NARRATOR: A bull’s skull is a rare find in Pompeii.

In ancient Rome, bulls were highly prized and expensive animals.

Generally, it was leaved for the gods, for the ritual sacrifice.

(dramatic music)

Romans believed animal sacrifices could offer insights into the will of the gods.

Bulls were among the largest and most prestigious animals killed in this way.

An animal that showed no fear before its death was a good omen.

A sign of approval from the gods.

The animal’s internal organs were inspected by a priest called an augur.

If they looked diseased or damaged,

the sacrifice had to be repeated with a new animal.

If the organs were healthy, the Romans offered a portion to the gods,

by burning them on the altar and then feasted on the rest of the animal.

The team carefully cleans the skull, ready for future expert investigation.

Marks left by axe or hammer blows

might confirm Mario’s suspicion the bull was killed in a sacrificial ritual.

GRIMALDI: For us now it’s important to understand why this bull,

was leaved in this area in front of this wall.

It’s a possibility for us that we have a ritual

time in this area before the eruption of 79.

NARRATOR: The team suspects that it’s no coincidence the skull was found here,

right alongside the freshwater pipe.

Perhaps the bull was sacrificed to commemorate

these homes making their connection to the public water supply.

Llorenç’s investigation into the life of Marcus Venerius Secundio

has brought him to one of Pompeii’s most spectacular sights.

LLORENÇ: Wow, this is so beautiful.

(dramatic music)

This is the Odeon of Pompeii. A very important place.

NARRATOR: The Odeon was one of two theaters in Pompeii.

LLORENÇ: Its acoustic is really special, really particular.

You can hear how the sound is surrounding you.

The Odeon was just for music and music performances

and for musical opera.

They built one particular place, just for this kind of shows.

NARRATOR: The inscription discovered on Marcus’s tomb

reveals that after he gained his freedom he became a priest

and paid for a four-day festival of games, plays and music.

LLORENÇ: To pay for all these performances, all these musical shows,

of course, he must be very, very rich.

In that moment, for sure

Marco Venerius was very important, one of the most important persons in Pompeii.

NARRATOR: Marcus’s festival could also reveal why he was buried and not burnt.

The inscription specifies performances in both Roman Latin, and also Greek.

This was a complete surprise.

LLORENÇ: Is he Greek or very close to the Greek culture?

And we know that Greeks in Greece,

they have inhumation, they have burials at that moment.

NARRATOR: Greek plays, and the Greek-style burial,

suggest either Marcus had Greek ancestors, or he was a great fan of Greek culture.

The DNA analysis might resolve the mystery.

Llorenç’s discoveries allow him to piece together the rags to riches story

of the best-preserved body ever found in Pompeii.

(dramatic music)

Marcus Venerius Secundio was enslaved by the city of Pompeii,

a subject of not one, but of all the citizens.

They chose him to guard a temple dedicated to Venus, the patron goddess of Pompeii.

When Marcus was freed from enslavement, he joined the Augustales,

an elite order of priests devoted to the cult of the Emperor.

Like his fellow priests, he became a rich benefactor

and funded a festival of plays, music and games.

His wealth and high status afforded him a monumental tomb,

among the most prominent in Pompeii.

LLORENÇ: It's like a dream. It's something very impressive, very, very amazing.

Marco Venerius was a slave of the city, and he ends

becoming one of the most important persons in Pompeii.

(dramatic music)

NARRATOR: Under the Stabian baths,

cavers Mauro and Mario discover a rare stamped inscription.

MARIO: M, A.

MARIO: ...M, A.

MARIO: I wonder if there’s more?

NARRATOR: It’s crucial to take a clear photograph,

to get the best possible evidence for Monika.

MONIKA: Are you done? Oh perfect. Can I see what you’ve found?

- MARIO: Yes. - What is that?

MAURO: This is testudo.

(Monika speaks in Italian)

MONIKA: Wow, perfect. Oh, yeah, you can kind of see.

- Yeah. - Incredible.

NARRATOR: The photos reveal that, from the underside,

the bronze plates of the immersion pool hot water tank

are joined with two neat rows of rivets.

The overlapping plates look like an armored animal shell.

Another compelling reason why the Romans used testudo,

the Latin word for tortoise, for the tank.

MARIO: Two rows, everywhere the two sheets overlap.

MONIKA: I think this is one of the best preserved ever,

and you can also really see it from below and from above,

and fully study how it worked. And this makes it really exciting.

NARRATOR: The discovery of the stamp could help solve the biggest mystery.

How did the layout of the baths change over time?

MARIO: Right over here is where we found the stamp, so we have an “M.”

- MONIKA: M, R? - Yeah, yeah.

- MONIKA: O or Q. - MAURO: Mm-hmm.

MONIKA: Maybe an R. An M again.

- MAURO: M again. - MONIKA: And this looks like a P.

And this could be an F.

NARRATOR: The stamp is a mark that identifies the tile-maker.

It’s a totally unexpected find.

MONIKA: Oh wow, perfect.

This is like the first complete stamp I know of in the Stabian bath.

And, wow, this is really exciting.

NARRATOR: Matching the stamp to others in Pompeii

could give an exact time period for the floor’s installation.

Whether this stamp is known in Pompeii, because it’s really, really important.

It might potentially give us a date for the hypocaust system.

So this is really exciting, if it’s really a late stamp

we would have a proof that they had to remodel it.

NARRATOR: Further analysis reveals the tile stamp is

one of several in Pompeii that appear to date to after AD 62.

In that year a major earthquake rocked the city and damaged many buildings.

The people of Pompeii took the opportunity to modernize the building,

fitting a brand-new floor above an upgraded heating system.

But the citizens had only a few years to enjoy their majestic new bath house,

before Vesuvius’s cataclysmic eruption in AD 79.

MONIKA: Everything we excavate, that we reveal,

I think, adds to the picture of history of Roman Pompeii in a significant way.

So excavation really has a purpose to help us reconstruct history.

NARRATOR: Pompeii is slowly giving up its secrets,

revealing the everyday lives of its people.

Bathers enjoying the public baths;

worshippers making offerings to their gods;

and enslaved people rising to great wealth.

As archaeologists continue to excavate

this extraordinary 2,000-year-old city frozen in time,

their discoveries will shed fresh insights into life and

death at the height of the Roman empire.