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The Insula of the Menander at Pompeii: Interim Report

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2011

Roger Ling
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Summary

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A British team has been working since 1978 upon a programme of documentation and analysis in the Insula of the Menander at Pompeii, one of the irregular city-blocks situated immediately to the west of the old part of the city in an area which was developed from the early fourth century B.C onwards. Study of the structural techniques, of wall-abutments, and of anomalies in plan can be used in conjunction with the evidence of painted wall-plaster to identify five main phases in the building-history: Phase I (fourth-third centuries B.C), Phase 2 (second and early first centuries B.C), Phase 3 (c. 80-c. 15 B.C), Phase 4 (c. 15 B.C.-C. A.D. 50), Phase 5 (c. A.D. 50-79). These illustrate a complex pattern of changing property-boundaries, but underline the general trend towards increasing commercialization and greater pressure upon living-space in this area of the city. There is also interesting evidence of the economic basis of life in the individual houses during the years immediately before 79.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 63 , Issue 1 , March 1983 , pp. 34 - 57
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1983

References

Notes

1 Cronache pompeiane, v (1979), 191 f.; Pompei 1748–1980, pp. 94 f.Google Scholar

2 On insula I 10 and the other irregular insulae between the Altstadt and the eastern quarter, see Eschebach, H., Die städtebauliche Entwicklung des antiken Pompeji (Heidelberg, 1970), pp. 52, 59Google Scholar; Ward-Perkins, J. B., in Zevi, F. (ed.), Pompei 79. Raccolta di studi per il decimonono centenario dell’ eruzione vesuviana (Naples, 1979), pp. 35, 37.Google Scholar Eschebach dates the eastern quarter to the time of the Roman colony (op. cit., pp. 56 f., 60), but such a late date is excluded by the presence of First Style decorations.

3 Maiuri 1933; the architectural phases summarized on pp. 22–5. More thorough is the analysis by Beyen 1960, pp. 120–37 (though confused and in some details defective).

4 Elia.

5 Journal of Roman Studies, xxiii (1933), 125–38Google Scholar; cf. La Rocca and De Vos, pp. 26–8, 31 ff.; T. and J.-P. Adam, ‘Le tecniche costruttive a Pompei: una documentazione a cura del C.N.R.S.’, in Pompei 1748–1980, pp. 96–104.

6 I use this term rather than opus mixtum to avoid confusion with opus mixtum of brick and reticulate.

7 See especially Beyen 1938, 1960; Bastet, F. L. and Vos, M. De, Proposta per una classificazione del terzo stile pompeiano (The Hague, 1979).Google Scholar

8 I am grateful to Paul Arthur, Chris Going and David Williams for identifications, and to the latter for fabric analysis of the sigillata fragment.

9 Birmingham Ph.D. dissertation, 1980.

10 It is too shallow ever to have served a cistern. On its decoration see De Vos 1979, p. 172.

11 It is dated to the First Style by Bragantini et al., p. III; cf. Pernice, E., Pavimente und figürliche Mosaiken (Die hellenistische Kunst in Pompeji, vi) (Berlin, 1938).Google Scholar

12 N. Fadda, in Andreae and Kyrieleis, pp. 161, 165.

13 See, e.g., H. Lauter, in Andreae and Kyrieleis, pp. 148 f.

14 Cf. the discussion by Beyen (1960, pp. 130–4 and fig. 57).

15 See Fabbricotti, E. in Cronache pompeiane, ii (1976), 106 f.; cf. 63 f., 65 f., 77 f., figs. 26, 28, 33.Google Scholar On the Stabian Baths, Eschebach, H., ‘…“laconicum et destrictarium faciund … locarunt. …” Untersuchungen in den Stabianer Thermen zu Pompeji’, Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts. Römische Abteilung, lxxx (1973), 235–42.Google Scholar On the Suburban Baths, Maiuri, A., Ercolano, i nuovi scavi (Rome, 1958), pp. 168 f., figs. 114, 122Google Scholar (a later and smaller example). At the centre of the Menandro laconicum is a cylindrical cavity which perhaps served as a receptacle for a brazier; the absence of a plunge-bath precludes the possible alternative identification as a frigidarium, like those in the Forum Baths at Pompeii, the City Baths at Herculaneum or (after conversion) the Stabian Baths at Pompeii (cf. Ginouv`s, R., Balaneutike (Paris, 1962), pp. 202 f., n. 5).Google Scholar

16 The decoration is indicated as Third Style on the colour-coded plan of wall-paintings in Pompei 1748–1980, but Beyen describes it as early Fourth Style (1960, p. 124, n. 5). Close examination is now impossible, because the room is inaccessible

17 E.g. La Rocca and De Vos, p. 25. Cf. Eschebach, H. in Cronache pompeiane, v (1979), 29–32Google Scholar; but, with arguments for a piped water-supply as early as the second century B.C., ibid., 56.

18 De Vos 1979, p. 172.

19 As Beyen supposed: 1960, p. 134.

20 Bragantini et al., p. 121.

21 I defer here to the judgement of Dr. W. Erhardt, who has kindly discussed the Third Style decorations of the insula with me. Cf. Bragantini et al., pp. 116 f.

22 Maiuri 1933, pp. 227 f., n. 20; De Vos 1977. pp. 38, 45. n. 59.

23 Corte, M. Delia in Notizie degli Scavi (1933), p. 290, n. 136; De Vos 1977, p. 39Google Scholar (quoting the wrong year).

24 Maiuri 1933, pp. 121–4.

25 Later than Beyen, e.g., thought: 1960, pp. 124–6.

26 Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, iv (1871), nos. 138 (cf. Addenda, p. 193), 1136Google Scholar; cf. Mau, A., Pompeji in Leben und Kunst, 2nd edn. (Leipzig, 1908), pp. 507 f.Google Scholar; La Rocca and De Vos, pp. 244. 325 f.

27 Maiuri 1933, pp. 17–22; Della Corte 1965, pp. 293–5.

28 Maiuri 1933, pp. 20, 201 f.; cf. Della Corte 1965, pp. 294, 297.

29 Elia, pp. 292 (n. 1), 317; Della Corte 1965, pp. 300, 301; La Rocca and De Vos, p. 172.

30 Elia, p. 276; Della Corte 1965, p. 299.

31 Della Corte 1965, p. 299; La Rocca and De Vos, pp. 174 f.

* In addition to those thanked in the text and notes I am grateful to the following, who have visited the site and discussed its problems: Drs. Alix Barbet, Irene Bragantini and Mariette De Vos, Herr R. Meyergraft, Dr. F. Seiler, and Professor V. M. Strocka. I have also benefited from continuous discussions with Sheila Gibson, Lesley Ling and Diana Mitchell, and from the preliminary work done by Henry Hurst in 1978.