3
Accessing the First-Century World

As the first followers of Jesus Christ began to emerge from Judea and Galilee in the 30s, their numbers grew rather impressively. Roughly one thousand people may have self-identified as Jesus-followers by the year 40 (ten years or so after the death of Jesus), with that number growing to ten thousand by the year 100, to two hundred thousand by the year 200, and to perhaps as many as five million by the year 300. These estimates are largely guesswork, of course, but guesswork based on informed inference. At the same time that Christianity was gaining traction within the Roman world, other forms of devotion were also on the rise—including devotion to the Egyptian deities Isis and Osiris, devotion to the Roman emperor, and (especially in the second through fourth centuries, but already in the late first century) devotion to the Persian deity Mithras. Among this influx of devotional fervor was the reverence for Jesus Christ, inculcating various forms of expression across a spectrum of beliefs and practices.

Those who self-identified as Jesus-followers embedded themselves within urban centers dotted around the Mediterranean basin. Some Jesus-followers must also have inhabited rural areas. Nonetheless, the historical record shows us almost nothing of rural forms of Jesus-devotion in the earliest generations of the Jesus-movement; it is only in the second and third centuries that we catch significant glimpses of Christians in rural contexts. In the first century, our evidence of Jesus-followers coalesces around urban centers almost exclusively (which were themselves closely interlocked with rural contexts). Even though Jesus-followers must certainly have been resident in rural contexts as well, our sources deal predominately with situations in which Jesus-devotion was being negotiated within vibrant urban contexts of the Roman world.

Some small groups of Jesus-devotees were beginning to spring up in these urban centers—places like Rome (with an estimated population of 1,000,000), Alexandria (600,000), Antioch of Syria (500,000), Ephesus (400,000), Corinth (250,000), Smyrna (200,000), Thessalonica (200,000), and more. These urban centers were obviously large cities. The town of Pompeii (together with its sister town, Herculaneum) was relatively small by comparison, being neither a large city on the one hand nor a small village on the other. The population of Pompeii was probably ten thousand to twelve thousand (something of the size of Philippi, perhaps, where some Jesus-followers resided). Herculaneum had a much smaller number of residents, four thousand to five thousand.

It almost goes without saying that each urban center of the Roman world was different from others in ways that go beyond their differences in size. For instance,

The list of differences in urban profiling could go on. Contributing to the vibrancy of the Roman age was the conviction that an overarching imperial order could serve as the umbrella within which diverse forms of indigenous identities could thrive in a pact of peaceful coexistence. The strengths and weaknesses of this conviction might be debated, but it coincides with what we know to be true from the archaeological and literary records of the Roman world and from simple common sense: different places were different.

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Figure 3.1. An ancient access tunnel leading down into Pompeii’s amphitheater (a metaphor for our own access into the archaeological remains of the Vesuvian towns)

But despite the diversity of urban centers throughout the Mediterranean basin, certain features characterized life in Roman urban contexts in general—features that tended to transcend the particularities of distinct urban centers. The Romans seem to have prided themselves on ensuring that civic centers around the Mediterranean basin shared certain characteristics that reinforced the value system of the Roman imperial order. A person could travel from one urban center to another and, with only a few accommodations to the indigenous configuration of things, operate within that new setting with fluent familiarity. So while the Vesuvian towns were distinct from other urban centers of the time (even differing from each other in some important ways), they also shared many features of Roman life that were widespread throughout the first century. The chapters that follow touch on some of the areas where what was practiced in one urban center must have looked very much like what was practiced in another. Every place was different, but for many urban centers of the Roman world, many things were comparable.

Since this book allows readers to access the first-century world through the material remains of Pompeii and (to a lesser extent) Herculaneum, a few issues pertaining to those towns need to be mentioned at this point in order to enhance the process along the way. While we are at it, a few other preparatory matters about this book will also be registered in this chapter. With these issues in hand, we will then be able to set off to the first-century world by way of the historical probes undertaken in the following chapters.

What This Book Is and Is Not

The first thing to set in place is an understanding of what this book is and what it is not. It is neither a complete introduction to the material remains of the Vesuvian towns nor a complete introduction to early Christianity in the Roman world. It does not delve into every nook and cranny of the Vesuvian towns, nor does it lay out a history of the spread of Jesus-devotion throughout the Mediterranean basin. Instead, it selectively explores some points of the interface where the world of the Vesuvian towns intersects with themes and issues evident in New Testament texts. Through a series of “snapshots,” or close-up vignettes, it highlights illustrative and exemplary Vesuvian artifacts (inscriptions, graffiti, frescos, etc.), explores their relevance in a first-century context, and brings certain New Testament texts into conversation with those artifacts. The process is intended to add depth and focus to our understanding of those early Christian texts.

The selected issues presented in this book, then, are those that have strong footholds in both spheres of study. This book does not offer reflections on areas where there is little substantial overlap. For instance, the New Testament says things about widows that might provide some insight into early Christianity, but because the material remains of Pompeii do not lend themselves to much solid data regarding widows, there is very little in this book to introduce the readers to the issues early Christians faced regarding how to care for widows.

It goes without saying, then, that there is more to the study of both Vesuvian towns and early Christianity than the issues that fall within this interdisciplinary interface. Nonetheless, the interface of issues shared by Vesuvian material culture and New Testament texts takes us to the heart of many issues pertaining to the influx of Jesus-devotion within the Roman world, even if there is always more to learn beyond the interface. Readers of this book are invited to explore this correlation of Vesuvian material and New Testament texts where the two most fruitfully intersect.

This book is informed by much current scholarship on the Vesuvian towns and by much scholarship on early Jesus-devotion, but it is not an academic book. Its goal is not to propose a stimulatingly novel argument for academic scholars but, instead, to assemble a helpfully creative resource for interested learners (including scholars). In other books, I have presented academic arguments offering new interpretations of both Vesuvian materials and early Christian literature, but that is not my goal here. Instead, this book brings together two spheres of scholarship in order to allow the resonances between them to be audible, or, to change the imagery, to permit the two to lean into each other productively. In my teaching experience, explorations at this interface have proven exceedingly profitable for eager thinkers at any stage in their learning.

Chapter by Chapter

Although the following chapters of this book probe the interface of the Vesuvian towns and New Testament texts, they do not probe that interface with a single template. Readers will not find, for instance, a self-contained section on the Vesuvian realia that is then followed by a self-contained section on early Jesus-devotion, or vice versa. Because the Vesuvian towns and the New Testament offer different mixes of resources on any given issue, the format of each chapter will have its own internal structure. To best accommodate the relevant data on any given issue, I have avoided using a single organizational template in the chapters that follow.

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Figure 3.2. An eighteenth-century painting depicting the 1764 excavation of the temple of the deity Isis in Pompeii (painting by William Hamilton [1757–1804], now in the public domain; see credits)

It might appear from the chapter titles that individual sections of this book focus on relatively self-contained issues. While there may be some truth to that general impression, in reality any particular issue will merge with others in a number of ways. Aspects of ancient life were organically interrelated, rather than being demarcated into particular self-contained boxes. Take, for instance, gladiatorial competitions. These were athletic games, so perhaps they could be analyzed in terms of sport. But other cultural dimensions also pertained to them: death in the ancient world, slavery, power, status, drama, and (last but not least) the primacy of the Roman imperial order. There is, then, some artificiality in splitting things into separate chapters. But this is a necessary artificiality. A whole meal is not to be eaten in a single bite. Similarly, the issues pertaining to Christian engagement with the Greco-Roman world cannot be encountered in toto. Consequently, the reader will occasionally find that issues discussed in one chapter overlap with issues discussed in another chapter. This simply reflects the realities of Roman culture.

Although every book of the New Testament is mentioned at some point within the following chapters, there is a noticeable lean toward the letters of Paul, which themselves constitute about a third of the New Testament. Of course, other parts of the New Testament have a strong foothold here too—not least the Gospels, Revelation, 1 Peter, the letter of James, and the Acts of the Apostles. (Even the often overlooked texts of Jude and 2 Peter get mentioned.) But if the Pauline letters often come to the fore, that is because they were written to Jesus-followers in the Roman urban society more evidently, more extensively, and more relevantly than most other New Testament texts. For instance, the audience of 1 Peter includes first-century urban residents, but that text is only five chapters long. The four canonical Gospels were written to Jesus-followers in urban society and were deemed relevant to that audience, but they do not offer sustained views of urban society in the Roman world. For reasons of this sort, this gentle lean toward the letters of Paul is virtually inevitable by the very nature of the subject matter.

If you want to probe New Testament texts further than the discussion within the following chapters, you may want to consult the questions raised in the appendix, “Questions to Consider.” Three questions per chapter are listed there for chapters 4 through 19. The questions take the contents of those chapters a step further by considering other texts and issues of some relevance.

Designations Frequently Used

We will make extensive use of inscriptions and graffiti from the Vesuvian towns. These inscriptions and graffiti have been collected by archaeologists in particular volumes of Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, or “the corpus of Latin inscriptions.” In particular, the fourth volume of this massive project (together at times with the tenth volume) contains the majority of graffiti, inscriptions, and other phenomena found in Pompeii and Herculaneum (which collectively comes to over eleven thousand entries). So when an inscription is mentioned and a reference appears next to it, such as “CIL 4.5112,” the reader knows that this inscription can be found in the fourth volume of Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (CIL), where it appears as inscription number 5112. (You have seen this convention used already in this book.)

Most of the Vesuvian artifacts that are housed in the National Archaeology Museum of Naples have been given inventory numbers by the museum’s curators. Wherever possible, those inventory numbers have been included in the discussions that follow. They are clearly referenced by the four letters “MANN,” which abbreviate the Italian name of the museum, Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli. For instance, the discussion in chapter 18 considers the artifact MANN 9987, whose number indicates that it resides in the museum and is identified by the inventory number 9987. This information will enable you to search several websites, as discussed below. Some artifacts discussed in this book are not currently accessible at internet sites—as is the case for the fresco displayed in figure 3.3, for instance, which was discovered in the temple of the deity Isis (whose excavations are depicted in figure 3.2).

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Figure 3.3. A Vesuvian fresco of a worship ceremony being conducted in the temple of the deity Isis (MANN 8919)

Other abbreviations will also appear in this book, although much less frequently; these are explained in the list of abbreviations at the back of the book. The glossary can be referenced if you find the need to clarify the meaning of a technical word (for instance, triclinium or columella—although such terms are often defined within the main text where they are first introduced).

It will frequently be helpful to discuss particular locations in the Vesuvian region, and several points arise in this regard.

  1. In the mid-nineteenth century, the famous archaeologist Giuseppe Fiorelli divided Pompeii into nine regions for ease of reference, and this categorization has stuck ever since. (A plan of these nine designated regions of Pompeii appears in figure 3.4.) Within those nine regions, Fiorelli assigned specific numbers to street blocks (or insulae, literally “islands,” the singular being insula); within those street blocks, the entryways into houses and businesses were enumerated as well. So, for instance, the large house that archaeologists named “The House of the Faun” is situated in Region 6 of Pompeii and in block number 12, with its main entrance being entryway number 2 within that block—meaning that the main entrance into the House of the Faun is located at 6.12.2 in Pompeii. On rare occasions, a letter may be included as part of the designator for a particular location—such as 5.4.a, which is Region 5, block number 4, entryway “a.”
  2. Sometimes residences have more than one entryway, so the third number in a location designation might include multiple entries (as in the case of the House of the Golden Cupids at 6.16.7/38).
  3. Usually Vesuvian villas (as opposed to residences of whatever size) do not have location designators but are referred to simply by their titles (for instance, the Villa of the Mysteries or the Villa of the Papyri).
  4. Tombs are designated by the town gates that they lie beyond, so the tomb of Mamia (seen in figure 7.6) is the fourth tomb beyond Pompeii’s Herculaneum Gate (HG) on the west side of the street (W) and is therefore designated HGW04 (HG, W, 04).
  5. Locations in Herculaneum have only two enumerators rather than Pompeii’s three (so, for instance, the location 5.6 designates one of Herculaneum’s wine shops).
  6. Occasionally whole insulas (or insulae) in Pompeii will be referred to using the location of the insula itself (such as the country club of Julia Felix at insula 2.4).

Pompeii in Pictures

Residents of the Vesuvian towns loved beauty. Artistic scenes and ornamental decorations were usually painted directly onto the walls of residences, shops, and workshops. Although we might think of these as “paintings,” they are actually frescos and will be referred to in that way throughout this book. A fresco is created by embedding the paint into the plaster just after the plaster is set on the wall and while it is still wet. In that way, the paint becomes embedded within the plaster itself, rather than sitting on the surface of the plaster. This technique has ensured the relative longevity of so many beautiful pieces of Vesuvian artwork.

The fantastic thing is that anyone can access many of these frescos and the majority of the Vesuvian material structures (residences, workshops, temples, tombs, public baths, etc.) simply through the convenience of the internet. Of course, visiting the physical sites is the best thing, but accessing it through the internet is not a shabby second best. So, whenever a location is referred to in this book, the reader can check that location and explore it further at the tremendous online resource called “Pompeii in Pictures.”

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Figure 3.4. Pompeii divided into nine regions (blank areas within Regions 1, 3, 4, 5, and 9 are areas that have not yet been excavated)

Let’s say, for instance, that you read something that intrigues you about “the House of the Faun” at 6.12.2 and want to know more about that residence and take a look inside it. In that case, simply go to the “Pompeii in Pictures” website, scroll down to the map of Pompeii and click on section 6, then insula 12, then entryway 2, and the website opens up pages of photos that take you into every sector of that magnificent residence. Similarly, if you want to explore the Temple of Isis further, go to the website, scroll down to the map of Pompeii and click on “Temples in Pompeii” and then “Temple of Isis,” at which point photos of the temple are available in a series of web pages. Or perhaps you are intrigued by the agony displayed in the contorted corpse of the dog chained near the entrance of a Pompeian residence (see figure 3.5), in which case you can explore the magnificent residence in the web pages dedicated to the House of Vesonius Primus at 6.14.20. The first of those web pages provides photos of the bust of Vesonius Primus that was centrally displayed within the house, so we can even see what this dog’s owner might have looked like.

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Figure 3.5. The contorted body of a dog who died in the eruption is captured by this nineteenth-century plaster in-fill of the cavity left by the dog’s body years after the eruption, after it had decomposed (from 6.14.20).

This convenient way of accessing the Pompeian material allows readers of this book to amplify their reading experience with further investigations. That might involve checking to see what frescos were displayed on a residence’s walls, what interior shrines a residence enjoyed, or what graffiti were scratched or painted onto the exterior walls of a residence—the kind of things that give further glimpses into the experiences of the people whose lives we are observing. In this way, the website “Pompeii in Pictures” can act as a rich and rewarding supplement to your reading and learning experience.

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Figure 3.6. The large forum of Pompeii, as seen from its southern side looking north (northwest) with Mount Vesuvius in the background (from a nineteenth-century photo, now in the public domain; see credits)

The same site can be used to check on artifacts that are not graphically displayed in this book. For instance, in chapter 10 you will read about an election campaign fresco that has the designation CIL 4.9885. Although that artifact is not depicted in this book, if you type “9885” into the “Pompeii in Pictures” search engine, you will be shown the web page where that election notice can be seen. You will not be able to do this for every fresco, election notice, or graffito, since there has been no attempt to make “Pompeii in Pictures” a depository for photos of all the Vesuvian realia (and many of them are no longer visible anyway). Nonetheless, a search of this kind is worth a try, and sometimes you will get lucky. Usually the inscription is also cited in its original language (usually Latin). (Also, when using the “Pompeii in Pictures” search tool, search for the CIL inscription number that appears after the volume number—so, “9885” rather than “4.9885”; alternatively, since that website uses the standard form of citing CIL volumes by Roman numerals, you could also search for “IV 9885.”)

There is also a “Herculaneum in Pictures” website, which can be usefully consulted along the same lines. The “Catalogue of the Museo Archeologico di Napoli” on Wikimedia Commons gives online access to many of the artifacts held in the Naples archaeological museum.

Terminology

In this book, we will use “the Common Era” as our temporal reference point. Traditionally, the abbreviations “BC” (“before Christ”) and AD (“Anno Domini,” or “in the year of the Lord”) have been used for this purpose. So, for instance, the emperor Augustus was born in the year 63 BC and died in AD 14. Rewritten with reference to “the Common Era,” we would say that the emperor Augustus was born in the year 63 BCE (“sixty-three years before the Common Era”) and died in 14 CE (“in the fourteenth year of the Common Era”). At times no temporal designation is required in the chapters that follow, and in those instances the designation “CE” is implied and left unstated.

Another terminological convention pertains to words that refer to the gods and goddesses of the Roman world. In this book, these “gods” will be referred to as “deities,” and the same word will be used when referring to the “God” of Judeo-Christian theology (as in the phrase “the deity proclaimed by the early Jesus-followers”). This terminology avoids an inbuilt distinction between the Roman “gods” and the Judeo-Christian “God”—with the traditional capital G reflecting a theological commitment that does not suit the conceptual framework of most people in the first century of the Common Era. (So too, the authors of first-century Christian texts did not have the luxury of capitalizing the word in some instances and not in others, since all letters were written in capital formation—as was the convention of the day.) Of course, one of the leading contributions of early Christian theological discourse was the attempt to make devotion to the deity of Jesus-followers exclusive—which, in a sense, was equivalent to capitalizing the G in discourse about the divine reality (although even here there were some precedents within Greco-Roman philosophical discourse). Distinguishing “God” from “the gods” was precisely the terrain where the first Jesus-followers did some of the most creative and engaging spadework in their theological discourse. Their efforts may eventually have been rewarded, with the establishment of the Christian empire under the auspices of emperor Constantine in the early fourth century. But in the first century, there seemed to be no guarantee that the Christian movement would succeed (except for theological convictions about the eventual triumph of the Judeo-Christian deity). Historically speaking, the Christian voice could just as easily have died out, just as so many other voices of that day eventually did. The simple avoidance of the term “God” within this book will go some way in helping us to replicate that first-century situation, allowing us to hear voices of early Jesus-followers in their original context without predetermining the inevitable legitimacy of their contributions. The word “God” with a capital G does appear at times in subsequent chapters of this book but only in English translations of the Greek New Testament, where it is in keeping with the convictions (although not the conventions) of those first-century authors.

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Figure 3.7. Excavation of Vesuvian sites continues to this day, as at this site near Pompeii, a villa (Oplontis Villa B) is currently being uncovered below ground level.

Terminology pertaining to “the Jews” needs to be explained briefly, since the default within this book will be to replace that term with “the Judeans.” In the ancient world, forms of what we call “religion” were often embedded within larger ethnic contexts—that is, many deities were associated with particular ethnic identities. In this frame of reference, the Greek term Ioudaios (usually translated “Jew”; the plural is Ioudaioi) referenced forms of identity that were traceable (or claimed to be traceable) to Judea and the ethnic people whose corporate origins derived from there. The temple of the deity of the Ioudaioi was based in Judea (specifically, in the Jerusalem temple), and it was there that the presence of that deity was, in one sense, most densely concentrated (specifically, in the temple’s innermost sanctuary, “the holy of holies”—although qualifications were sometimes applied to this conviction). Any “religious” practices that came with the claim to be a Ioudaios were practices derived from within a broader ethnic framework of relationality—both relationality between people of that ethnic group and relationality between that ethnic group and the deity attached to that ethnic group. If a person decided to become a Ioudaios, for instance, he/she would not have been seen as simply adopting a new form of “religion”; instead, he/she would have been seen as embedding himself/herself within a particular ethnic group—with its own cultural heritage, its Judean homeland, and its ethnically distinctive forms of devotion to an ethnic deity, whose primary residence was in Judea. Because of this, at times it will serve us better to translate the term Ioudaios as “Judean” rather than “Jew,” in an effort to perceive situations in accordance with the perceptions of people in the Roman world. The weakness of the term “Judean,” of course, is that it does not permit easy differentiations between “Judeans” who lived in Judea itself and “Judeans” who lived beyond that geographical territory throughout the Mediterranean basin. In a sense, however, for many Ioudaioi of the ancient world, that was precisely the point.

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Figure 3.8. The west side of the Eumachia building (to the left of the photo, facing onto Pompeii’s forum) was demolished in the earthquake of 62 and was rebuilt after the earthquake using red brick rather than the original brick (plaster would have covered the wall and kept these differences from being visible).

The word “pagan” will be used at points in the following chapters. This word, however, is not completely “fit for purpose” for two reasons. First, it suggests a kind of monochrome sameness to the Roman setting, rather than inviting us to expect and explore the rich diversity of devotional systems. Second, pejorative connotations and derogatory baggage are often imported into the term, especially when judged from a perspective of monotheistic convictions. Nonetheless, no one has yet found a better term to replace “pagan.” In this book, I tend to write in ways that allow the word “pagan” to be avoided, but at times I found the need to resort to it, for lack of a better word.

With reference to the Pauline letters themselves, I will use different terminology to refer to the author of various Pauline texts. This is because the authorship of some of Paul’s letters is not wholly clear. There is no dispute that Paul wrote at least seven letters that have survived and are part of the New Testament—these include (in their order within the New Testament) Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon. Other Pauline texts are less clear with regard to authorship. It is possible that some of them were written by disciples of Paul who sought to extend Paul’s voice and address situations that transpired after his death in a way they imagined Paul would have done. These are thorny issues whose complexities need not detain us here. In my view, 1 Timothy and Titus derive from the last two decades of the first century, when a disciple of Paul thought it necessary to extend facets of Paul’s theology in order to address some pressing needs of that day; 2 Timothy might be similar in this regard, although it might also derive from one of Paul’s own letters. The letter to the Ephesians probably slots into place somewhere in the 70s or 80s, and perhaps Colossians (itself something of a template for Ephesians) is best placed there as well. I err on the side of thinking that 2 Thessalonians was written by Paul. Not much hangs on these issues for the most part, except at three points:

Other than these three points, the proposed dates of these texts do not affect the presentation very much. But I mention the issue in order to explain the terminological distinction between “Paul” (the name used when discussing the undisputed letters) and “the author of . . .” (the phrase used when discussing the disputed letters, as in “the author of 1 Timothy”).

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Figure 3.9. The large marble paving slabs in Pompeii’s forum include damage marks from a bomb explosion during an Allied air raid in 1943.

Miscellaneous Things

A few other points can be made quickly here.

One final word before the explorations begin. Although each of the following chapters deals with a particular slice of the pie of Roman urban life in relation to New Testament features, it might be good to keep in mind one other question that keeps trying to nuzzle in: Why might someone have been attracted to a form of Jesus-devotion in the Roman world? We cannot address that question in any depth here, since it requires the accumulation of much fuller resources in order to give it the necessary consideration. But it is ultimately the question that stands over many of the discussions in subsequent chapters, and it teases and taunts us to think further at each and every point.

Timeline of Events, People, and Texts of Pertinence to the Rise of Early Christianity

Note that the dates given here are only approximations, based on what seems to be the most plausible interpretation of a variety of data.

30 The death of Jesus
32 Paul encountered one whom he subsequently called “our Lord Jesus Christ”
50 Paul wrote 1 Thessalonians, probably his earliest extant letter
   Paul wrote 2 Thessalonians soon after 1 Thessalonians (although this letter may have been written after his death by one of his disciples)
50/51 Paul wrote Galatians
54/55 Paul wrote 1 Corinthians
55/56 Paul wrote 2 Corinthians
57 Paul wrote Romans
60–62 Paul wrote Philippians and Philemon (although both could have been written in the mid-50s, especially Philemon)
70–75 The Gospel of Mark began to circulate among Jesus-groups
   The letter to the Hebrews began to circulate among Jesus-groups
80s Colossians seems to be dated to a point within this decade, written by a disciple of Paul
   Ephesians seems to be dated to a point within this decade, written by a disciple of Paul
   The Gospel of Matthew began to circulate among Jesus-groups
80s–90s The Gospel of Luke began to circulate among Jesus-groups
   The letter of James seems to be dated to some point within these decades
   The Pastoral letters (1–2 Timothy, Titus) were written by a disciple of Paul (although 2 Timothy, or parts of it, may have been written by Paul)
   First Peter seems to be dated to some point within these decades
90s The Gospel of John began to circulate in its final form among Jesus-groups
   The Johannine letters (1–3 John) were written soon after (or perhaps just before) the circulation of the Johannine Gospel
   John the Seer wrote Revelation (the Johannine Apocalypse)
   The author of the Gospel of Luke wrote the Acts of the Apostles in this decade or soon afterward
110–130 Jude and 2 Peter seem to be dated to some point within these decades

Timeline of Prominent Events and People in the Vesuvian Context

509 BCE The founding of the Roman republic
91–89 BCE The “Social War,” in which many Italian towns and cities allied in a federation that fought to gain privileges of closer alignment with Rome (ironically); the Italian alliance was defeated by Rome and forced to capitulate to its overarching rule, ironically (again) opening up closer alignment with Rome as a consequence
80 BCE The founding of Pompeii as a Roman colony
27 BCE–14 CE Augustus (formerly Octavius; 63 BCE–14 CE) ruled as emperor of the Roman empire
14–37 Tiberius (42 BCE–37 CE) ruled as emperor of the Roman empire
37–41 Caligula (12–41) ruled as emperor of the Roman empire
41–54 Claudius (10 BCE–54 CE) ruled as emperor of the Roman empire
54–68 Nero (37–68) ruled as emperor of the Roman empire
59 A riot occurred in Pompeii’s amphitheater
62/63 A massive earthquake destroyed many structures within the Vesuvian towns (the precise year is impossible to know, but 62 is perhaps slightly preferable and will be used throughout the remainder of this book; see figure 3.8)
69–79 Vespasian (9–79 CE) ruled as emperor of the Roman empire (until June 23, 79)
79–81 Titus (39–81 CE) ruled as emperor of the Roman empire (from June 23, 79, just prior to the eruption of Vesuvius)
79 The eruption of Mount Vesuvius (traditionally dated to August 24–25, but better evidence supports a date later in the autumn, perhaps October 24)
1700s Excavations of Herculaneum and Pompeii begin sporadically, gaining strong momentum by the end of the eighteenth century
1943 Allied bombers dropped more than 150 bombs on Pompeii, suspecting supporters of Mussolini were hiding in its ruins