The Golden Age of Pompeii

Pompeii was a Mediterranean sea port, a melting pot of populations. 

Strabo describes it for us:

“Pompeii was held by the Oscans, then the Tyrrhenians and the Pelasgians, and after that the Samnites, who were also driven out of those places. Pompeii – near the River Sarno which receives and sends goods – is the port for Nola, Nuceria and Acerra, a town with the same name as one near Cremona. Mount Vesuvius stands above all these places.”

In the second century BC, so about a hundred years before the time of Strabo’s writings, the history of Pompeii began to cross paths with Rome, engaged in battles to conquer the East and Greece. Rome’s power and wealth grew. The city came into contact with Greek culture.

“Lucius mummis luci kusul”

In the temple of Apollo there is an Oscan inscription dedicated to the god by Lucius Mummius, the Roman consul who destroyed Corinth in 146 BC, plundering its riches and Greek artworks, which he then brought to Rome. 

There were men of Pompeii among the consul’s allies and their role in his victories was rewarded with some of the spoils of war.

The city became richer and renovations began, with the construction of new public buildings, streets, turreted walls, and luxurious houses. The Antiquarium display includes precisely the figured capitals showing the husband and wife, Dionysus and Ariadne, installed at the entrance to the homes of the Samnite ruling class. To understand this phase while visiting the Archaeological Park, be sure to visit the House of the Faun, the most famous in Pompeii. 

The second century BC was thus the golden age of Pompeii.

It was precisely after Rome’s wars of conquest that Campania’s mercatores – certainly also from Pompeii –  reached the main Mediterranean ports. The merchants of Pompeii were tied to Spain and, by order of Rome, to the Mediterranean free port of Delos, where the leading slave market was based. 

“Marcus Puupius Marci libertus
Sextus Luucius Sexti libertus
Marcus Prosius Marci libertus
Numerius Titius Luci libertus Numerianus
Caius Vereius Marci libertus
Antiochus Brutii servus”

These are the names of ten Campanian Magistri, freedmen who had originally been slaves, probably engaged in construction work in the Spanish port of Carthago Nova.