Societas Via Romana - Discussion Archives

Avete Amici,

I've read in the newspaper that there is a special exhibition at the Field Museum in Chicago on Pompeii. Here's the link to the museum:

http://www.fieldmuseum.org/pompeii/about.asp

Have anyone of you there already?

Salve,

Atticus, Mus and myself have been to Pompeii last year. Really a special place. You can actually wander around and ask someone for directions to a certain house you want to visit

"The way to the house of the Faun ? (http://freestockphotos.com/POMPEII/HouseFaun.jpg) Oh no problem, just go straight ahead here, take the second street on your right and then the first on your left, it's right across the bakery shop"

How often can you do that instead of walking from chamber to chamber in a museum ? It's a big place, you can easily walk around there for hours, going from one place to another, thinking of how about 2000 years ago other people walked these same streets going from their house to the forum, the basilica, the temple of Apollo, the temple of Isis, the games, ...

Vale bene
Lupus

Just a few years ago, one had a lot more freedom to explore the city. Now a lot of it is fenced off. The last time I went (in 2000) I felt that I was being controlled, like a tourist in Disneyworld. By the way, the same is now true in the Forum. When I was a child, I used to love to run around and explore the ruins. Now one has to follow a fenced in path.

Avete Amici,

I myself have been to Pompeii, too in 2001 when I spent one week in Rome. Unfortunately I went there by an organized bus tour so we spent only two hours at the actual excavation site. It was really impressive what we've seen but it wasn't enough for me because we'd barely seen half of the accessible parts. I definitely have to go there again and then also pay the museum in Naples a visit where the smaller object are on display which they'd found in Pompeii and Herculaneum and Stabiae.

The National Museum in Naples is very definitely worth a trip, perhaps a trip to see it alone! It contains some of the most famous objects from the evacuations (the mosaic of Alexander and Darius at Issus and the "Faun" from Pompeii stick in my mind). And now the "Camera Segreta" containing flea-ridden objects has finally opened, albeit only at set times with a guide. Check out the Goat sculpture - it's hilarious and wonderful.

Tergestus