Pompeii, Its Life and Art

by August Mau

There were also in Pompeii priests supported by the city, but only a few of them are mentioned in the inscriptions. References are found to augurs and pontifices, to a priest of Mars, and to priests (flamen, sacerdos) of Augustus while he was still living; Nero had a priest even before he ascended the throne. Mention is made of priestesses, too, a priestess of Ceres and Venus, priestesses of Ceres, and others, the divinities of whom are not named.

The suburbs could scarcely have had a separate administration; they remained within the jurisdiction of the magistrates of the city. In the case of the Pagus Augustus Felix mention is made of a magister, 'director,' ministri, 'attendants,' and pagani, 'pagus officials'; but apparently these were all appointed for religious functions only, in connection with the worship of the emperor. The magister and the pagani, in part at least, were freedmen; the four ministri, first appointed in 7 B.C., were slaves.

Apart from commerce, an important source of income for the Pompeians lay in the fertility of the soil. In antiquity, as now, grapes were cultivated extensively on the ridge projecting from the foot of Vesuvius toward the south. The evidence afforded by the great number of wine jars, amphorae ([Fig. 5]), that have been brought to light would warrant this conclusion; and lately wine presses also have been discovered near Boscoreale, above Pompeii. Pliny makes mention of the Pompeian wine, but remarks that indulgence in it brings a headache that will last till noon of the following day. The olive too was cultivated, but only to a limited extent; this we infer from the small capacity of the press and other appliances for making oil found in the same villa in which the wine presses were discovered. At the present time the making of oil is not carried on about Pompeii. In the plain below the city vegetables were raised, as at the present day; the cabbage and onions of Pompeii were highly prized.

The working up of the products of the fisheries formed an important industry. The fish sauces which so tickled the palate of ancient epicures, garum, liquamen, and muria, were produced here of the finest quality. The making of them seems to have been practically a monopoly in the hands of a certain Umbricius Scaurus; a great number of earthen jars have been found with the mark of his ownership [(p. 506]).

Fig. 5.—An amphora from Boscoreale.

The Pompeians turned to account, also, the volcanic products of Vesuvius. Pumice stone was an article of export. From the lava millstones were made for both grain mills and oil mills, which were apparently already in extensive use in the time of Cato the Elder; he twice mentions the oil mills of Pompeii. In Pompeii itself the millstones of the oldest period are of lava from Vesuvius; later it was found that the lava of Rocca Monfina was better adapted for the purpose, and millstones of that material were preferred. Small hand-mills of the lava from Vesuvius were in use at Pompeii down to 79; but the larger millstones of this material found in the bakeries had been put one side. In shape and finish the mills of local make were superior to the more carelessly worked stones from Rocca Monfina; the preference for the latter was due to the fact that they contained numerous crystals of leucite, which broke off as the mill wore away, and so kept the grinding surfaces always rough. Millstones from Rocca Monfina may be seen at different places in Rome, as in the Museum of the Baths of Diocletian.

To the sources of revenue which contributed to the prosperity of Pompeii we may add the presence of wealthy Romans, who, attracted by the delightful climate, built country seats in the vicinity. Among them was Cicero, who often speaks of his Pompeian villa (Pompeianum). That the imperial family also had a villa here is inferred from a curious accident. We read that Drusus, the young son of the Emperor Claudius, a few days after his betrothal to the daughter of Sejanus, was choked to death at Pompeii by a pear which he had thrown up into the air and caught in his mouth. These country seats, no doubt, lay on the high ground back of Pompeii, toward Vesuvius; they probably faced the sea. But the identification of a villa excavated in the last century, and then filled up again, as the villa of Cicero, is wholly without foundation.

Salve lucrum, 'Welcome, Gain!' Such is the inscription which a Pompeian placed in the mosaic floor of his house. Lucrum gaudium, 'Gain is pure joy,' we read on the threshold of another house. A thrifty Pompeian certainly did not lack opportunity to acquire wealth.