Pompeii, the Best Preserved Tragedy

Pompeii

Pompeii is without a doubt the best preserved tragedy in Ancient times. With the help of it, we have knowledge on how the citizens of Pompeii once thrived because they left behind an abundance of art, important monuments, painting and structures.

Pompeii once on a plateau of the earliest lava near the Bay of Naples in Western Italy in the region Campania, almost 1.6 kilometers from the bottom of Mount Vesuvius. With the shore to the west and the Apennine Mountains in the East, Campania was a fertile plain, crossed by two major rivers and rich soil. (OI) In the beginning, Pompeii was not a remarkable city. Scholars haven’t been able to categorize Pompeii’s first dwellers. Judging by evidence, the first people to live in this area were most likely prehistoric fishes and hunters. (OI)

By the eight century B.C, an assembly of Italic people called the Oscans lived in this region; the Oscans are most likely to have established Pompeii, although the precise date of the origin is unidentified. “The root of the word Pompeii would appear to be the Oscan word for the number five, pompe, which suggests that either the community consisted of five hamlets or, perhaps, was settled by a family group (gens Pompeia)”(Kraus 7).

As time passes in the eighth century B.C, Etruscan and Greek colonization encouraged the growth of Pompeii as a city. Important trade routes became a place for trading near the inland. Until the middle of the 5th century B.C, the city was run politically by the Etruscans. In the course of the 6th century B.C, the influence of Greek culture is also accepted by terracottas, ceramics and architecture. A crowd of warriors from Samnium, Samnite, invaded the area somewhere in the 400’s B.C. Pompeii continued as a...

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.... Early on in the years of exploration, diggers were fascinated by the mural paintings in particular. Those about known myths and Greek Gods were especially favored. After being torn out of the wall, After being torn out of the wall, these masterpieces were transported the Naples Archeological Museum. Archeologists no longer continued this practice and gave each painting a serious thought. As the 19th century came to a close, August Mau, a German art historian, divided the paintings into four so-called Pompeian styles. (Berry, 168) Similar techniques used in these wall paintings were also popular in Renaissance murals.

The ancient city of Pompeii was well developed, influential to other areas, and ended in a horrific tragedy. Pompeii is without a doubt a precious treasure, lost in the past; however, Pompeii, and its exceptional artwork will never be forgotten.