Geographical SettingGeographical setting is the aspect of defining the location of an area and the positioning of buildings and features that are in that environment and whom lived and interacted with those areas during that time.
Pompeii and Herculaneum are located on the Bay Of Naples in the fertile region of Campania in Rome (modern day Italy). Both areas were surrounded by numerous mountains, waters, cultures, resources and a volcano, Mt Vesuvius. According to legend, Herculaneum was found by the Greek Hero 'Hercules' and took its name from him. This belief suggested that Greek Traders first settled into the area (6th century BC). It is unknown to whom controlled the settlements (between early 5th-7th century BC); Ancient Writers, Strabo (Geography 5,4,8) and Pliny The Elder (Natural History 3.60.2) said that the population of the towns were a mixture of Greeks, Oscans, Etruscans, Pelagians. Etruscan presence is confirmed byartefacts dating from 7th-5th century BC. They were defeated by the Greeks at the Naval Battle of Cumae in 474BC and from then on Pompeii slowly declined as a trading port. |
Pompeii was a much larger urban area than Herculaneum. The area covers approximately 66 hectares that was surrounded by a 3.2 kilometre wall with several gates which tended as mostly as a defensive line of natural landscape, (Historian, Sisenna). But once the defence became less important, the gates became more complex and large amounts of wall were knocked down for houses and roads. The roads were all connected together. The Forum was located where the two roads, Via Marina and Via dell' Abbondanza, meet. The Forum stood at the heart of the public life in the Roman world, covering a large rectangular space (137m x 47m) that was where the townspeople came to conduct political, administrative, legal, commercial, markets, religious ceremonies, trading and business events. The dominating space of the Forum was focused on the Temple of Jupiter, Juno and Minerva at the north end, raised on a high podium. The building represented a unified, functional architectural whole, in which all elements combined to display the cultural strength, economic capacity and optimism of the town, in an area accessible to all citizens. Evidence is seen in a painted mural found in one of the houses of Pompeii showing what a busy place the Forum was.
Houses in Pompeii and Herculaneum were entered through a narrow passageway to an inner courtyard and were never known as a "standard home". They were built facing inwards opened directly onto the raised pavements of spacious streets around the towns with panoramic views on the sea. The main streets had taverns, cafes, public baths and 27 brothels. There was heavy traffic in the towns of Campania, but was controlled by zoning and allowance that was made for pedestrians. The houses had between eight to thirteen rooms, most with an integrated workshop, and most of the doors were made of wood and the red tiled roofs were usually flat or on a gentle slope. All public spaces in the house were designed and decorated to impress the visitors, these decorations were used to show the owner’s wealth and status. There was a sacred area, with shrines and baths, outside the walls, and the surroundings contained many unique villas, such as the magnificent Villa of the Papyri. Andrew Wallace-Hadrill describes the buildings as 'interlocking jigsaws of large, medium and small houses having its own particular feature'.
Romans living around the Bay Of Naples considered Vesuvius as just a fertile mountain. Vesuvius is part of the Campanian volcanic arc, a line of volcanoes that formed over a subduction zone created by the merging of the African and Eurasian plates. This subduction zone stretches the length of the Italian peninsula. The height of the Mountain was approximately 6500 feet high with a crate of 11 kilometres in circumference, dominating the Plain of Campania, dividing it into two regions; the larger side of the mountain by the Volturno River in the North-West and the lower/smaller side to the South by Sarno River. The Sarno River rises in two springs below Monte Torrenone, roaming through the wide fertile plain of Nola, flowing into the Tyrrhenian Sea in a low-lying area of the coastline between the Sorrento Peninsula. The lower slopes of Vesuvius are covered with vineyards, gardens, and citrus groves. There are villages on the slopes and on the plains at the foot of the mountain. Strabo (Geographer, AD19) describes Vesuvius as 'a mountain covered with fertile soil, which seems to have had its top cut off horizontally, forming an almost level plain which is completely sterile and ash-coloured' with 'caverns full of cracks made of blackened rock, as if subjected to fire'. This volcano has a hunchback shape and a very large cone that is encircled partially by the caldera, which has a very vertical summit and occurred when the older and higher structure of Monte Somma collapsed onto it. The grand cone was developed in the eruption of A.D. 79 and the volcano is often referred to as the 'Somma-Vesuvius'. This name is used to describe the volcano as having a summit caldera surrounded by a newer cone. (Ancient Writer) Strabo was the first to discover that Mt Vesuvius was a volcano, but incorrectly concluded that Mt Vesuvius was inactive.
Houses in Pompeii and Herculaneum were entered through a narrow passageway to an inner courtyard and were never known as a "standard home". They were built facing inwards opened directly onto the raised pavements of spacious streets around the towns with panoramic views on the sea. The main streets had taverns, cafes, public baths and 27 brothels. There was heavy traffic in the towns of Campania, but was controlled by zoning and allowance that was made for pedestrians. The houses had between eight to thirteen rooms, most with an integrated workshop, and most of the doors were made of wood and the red tiled roofs were usually flat or on a gentle slope. All public spaces in the house were designed and decorated to impress the visitors, these decorations were used to show the owner’s wealth and status. There was a sacred area, with shrines and baths, outside the walls, and the surroundings contained many unique villas, such as the magnificent Villa of the Papyri. Andrew Wallace-Hadrill describes the buildings as 'interlocking jigsaws of large, medium and small houses having its own particular feature'.
Romans living around the Bay Of Naples considered Vesuvius as just a fertile mountain. Vesuvius is part of the Campanian volcanic arc, a line of volcanoes that formed over a subduction zone created by the merging of the African and Eurasian plates. This subduction zone stretches the length of the Italian peninsula. The height of the Mountain was approximately 6500 feet high with a crate of 11 kilometres in circumference, dominating the Plain of Campania, dividing it into two regions; the larger side of the mountain by the Volturno River in the North-West and the lower/smaller side to the South by Sarno River. The Sarno River rises in two springs below Monte Torrenone, roaming through the wide fertile plain of Nola, flowing into the Tyrrhenian Sea in a low-lying area of the coastline between the Sorrento Peninsula. The lower slopes of Vesuvius are covered with vineyards, gardens, and citrus groves. There are villages on the slopes and on the plains at the foot of the mountain. Strabo (Geographer, AD19) describes Vesuvius as 'a mountain covered with fertile soil, which seems to have had its top cut off horizontally, forming an almost level plain which is completely sterile and ash-coloured' with 'caverns full of cracks made of blackened rock, as if subjected to fire'. This volcano has a hunchback shape and a very large cone that is encircled partially by the caldera, which has a very vertical summit and occurred when the older and higher structure of Monte Somma collapsed onto it. The grand cone was developed in the eruption of A.D. 79 and the volcano is often referred to as the 'Somma-Vesuvius'. This name is used to describe the volcano as having a summit caldera surrounded by a newer cone. (Ancient Writer) Strabo was the first to discover that Mt Vesuvius was a volcano, but incorrectly concluded that Mt Vesuvius was inactive.
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