Pompeii, Its Life and Art

by August Mau

How large a population Pompeii possessed at the time of the destruction of the city it is impossible to determine. A painstaking examination of all the houses excavated would afford data for an approximate estimate; but the results thus far obtained by those who have given attention to the subject are unsatisfactory. Fiorelli assigned to Pompeii twelve thousand inhabitants, Nissen twenty thousand. Undoubtedly the second estimate is nearer the truth than the first; according to all indication the population may very likely have exceeded twenty thousand.

This population was by no means homogeneous. The original Oscan stock had not yet lost its identity; inscriptions in the Oscan dialect are found scratched on the plaster of walls decorated in the style prevalent after the earthquake of the year 63. From the time when the Roman colony was founded no doubt additions continued to be made to the population from various parts of Italy. The Greek element was particularly strong. This is proved by the number of Greek names in the accounts of Caecilius Jucundus, for example, and by the Greek inscriptions that have been found on walls and on amphorae. The Greeks may have come from the neighboring towns; most of them were probably freedmen. In a seaport we should expect to find also Greeks from trans-marine cities; and, in fact, an Alexandrian appears in one of the receipts of Jucundus. There were Orientals, too, as we shall see when we come to the temple of Isis.

Thus far there has come to hand no trustworthy evidence for the presence of Christians at Pompeii; but traces of Jewish influence are not lacking. The words Sodoma, Gomora, are scratched in large letters on the wall of a house in Region IX (IX. i. 26). They must have been written by a Jew, or possibly a Christian; they seem like a prophecy of the fate of the city.

Fig. 6.—The Judgment of Solomon. Wall painting.

Another interesting bit of evidence is a wall painting, which appears to have as its subject the Judgment of Solomon ([Fig. 6]). On a tribunal at the right sits the king with two advisers; the pavilion is well guarded with soldiers. In front of the tribunal a soldier is about to cut a child in two with a cleaver. Two women are represented, one of whom stands at the block and is already taking hold of the half of the child assigned to her, while the other casts herself on her knees as a suppliant before the judges. It is not certain that the reference here is to Solomon; such tales pass from one country to another, and a somewhat similar story is told of the Egyptian king Bocchoris. The balance of probability is in favor of the view that we have here the Jewish version of the story, because this is consistent with other facts that point to the existence of a Jewish colony at Pompeii.

The names Maria and Martha appear in wall inscriptions. The assertion that Maria here is not the Hebrew name, but the feminine form of the Roman name Marius, is far astray. It appears in a list of female slaves who were working in a weaver's establishment, Vitalis, Florentina, Amaryllis, Januaria, Heracla, Maria, Lalage, Damalis, Doris. The Marian family was represented at Pompeii, but the Roman name Maria could not have been given to a slave. That we have here a Jewish name seems certain since the discovery of the name Martha.

In inscriptions upon wine jars we find mention of a certain M. Valerius Abinnerichus, a name which is certainly Jewish or Syrian; but whether Abinnerich was a dealer, or the owner of the estate on which the wine was produced, cannot be determined. In this connection it is worth while to note that vessels have been found with the inscribed labels, gar[um] cast[um] or cast[imoniale], and mur[ia] cast[a]. As we learn from Pliny (N. H. XXXI. viii. 95), these fish sauces, prepared for fast days, were used especially by the Jews.

Some have thought that the word Christianos can be read in an inscription written with charcoal, and have fancied that they found a reference to the persecution of the Christians under Nero. But charcoal inscriptions, which will last for centuries when covered with earth, soon become illegible if exposed to the air; such an inscription, traced on a wall at the time of the persecutions under Nero, must have disappeared long before the destruction of the city. The inscription in question was indistinct when discovered, and has since entirely faded; the reading is quite uncertain. If it were proved that the word "Christians" appeared in it, we should be warranted only in the inference that Christians were known at Pompeii, not that they lived and worshipped there. According to Tertullian (Apol. 40) there were no Christians in Campania before 79.