Excavations Shed Light on the Everyday Life of Pompeii's Middle Class

Smithsonian Magazine ^ | August 10, 2022 | Ellen Wexler

[SunkenCiv]

An ornate courtyard found in an otherwise humble home may have reflected the owners' aspirational vision of the future.

Discoveries in Pompeii—from elaborate frescoes to garden shrines—have taught researchers a lot about the city's wealthiest residents. Until recent years, however, the lives of the lower and middle classes have garnered less interest.

But now, archaeologists have excavated several rooms in a middle-class home partially destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 C.E. Frozen in time, the rooms provide a snapshot into the lives of everyday people in the ancient Roman city, according to a statement from the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, which announced the find on Saturday...

A nearby storage room, also on the lower level, was perhaps the simplest room in the home. Archaeologists found only an earthen floor; it was also the home's only room without plastered walls...

When archaeologists first found the structure in 2018, they called it the "Larario house," after a shrine in the home dedicated to the household gods, or Lares, per Reuters' Valentina Za. They also unearthed a courtyard filled with ornate decorations, which contrasted the humbler appearance of the newly excavated rooms.

[Albion Wilde]

LOL! Well before the terremoto, right?

[SunkenCiv]

Yeah, when the eruption happened that was years in the past, and the reconstruction for the quake damage was still underway here and there.

In a gymnasium (I think in Herculaneum), some Romans were getting ready to play a common Roman game, used small wood balls (each about the size of a softball) if memory serves, and these were stacked up and ready to go. When the eruption started the athletes bailed and presumably ran for their lives. Kinda hope they made it, but hey, ya gotta die of something. The gym and the equipment was buried by the volcano and in modern times was found right where they'd left it.