Exhibition notes for A Day in Pompeii - Museum Victoria

http://museumvictoria.com.au/Pompeii
Exhibition Notes
Roman temples were designed to house cult statues of the god or goddess to which
they were dedicated; unlike most churches today, they were not usually entered by the
worshippers. Instead, priests venerated the gods with processions and sacrifices on the
altar, which stood in front of the temple. The Romans believed it was crucial to perform
these important rituals correctly, and the only way to know whether the god had been
appeased was by divination, which meant examining the livers of sacrificial animals and
the direction in which birds flew or how they ate in order to interpret the god’s mood and
intentions.
In addition to the public temples, most houses had a small shrine or lararium, where
daily ceremonials and rituals were performed to appease the lares and penates who
guarded the house. The lares (household gods) are usually depicted on these shrines
dressed in short tunics and carrying drinking horns and wine buckets.
As Rome’s empire spread, several new religions spread to Pompeii from overseas. The
Egyptian cult of Isis was popular in Pompeii before the Roman colony was established in
80 BC, and appealed especially to the poor and oppressed, thanks to its story of death
and resurrection and the promise of immortality. In the mythology, Osiris, the husband of
Isis, is killed, and the tears of his grieving wife cause the Nile to flood; however, her
magical skills enable her to bring Osiris back to life. When it was first discovered, the
Temple of Isis at Pompeii was in exceptionally fine condition, with most of the temple
vessels and fittings still in place. At the time of the eruption, the priests had tried to save
the treasures of the temple, and the body of one of them was found next to a bag of gold
near the Via dell’Abbondanza, (Street of Abundance).
The Bacchic cult also became highly popular in this vineyard-surrounded city, perhaps
because it advocated extensive drinking of wine, which was thought to induce religious
ecstasy. One famous room in the Villa of the Mysteries depicts the god Bacchus
initiating members into his secret society.
Even a brand-new religion called Christianity found its way to Pompeii, perhaps along
with the influx of Jewish slaves to Italy after Jerusalem was sacked in 70 AD. At least
some Bible stories seem to have been familiar to Pompeians; one inscription mentions
Sodom and Gomorrah, and a painting in the House of the Physician shows a parody of
the Judgment of Solomon with the characters depicted as dwarfs. A number of Semitic
names have also been found in other inscriptions at Pompeii, including Jeshua, Jonas,
‘Maria, a textile worker, and Martha, a slave’. Christianity was still young when Pompeii
was destroyed, but St Paul wrote during his voyage from Malta to Rome in 62 AD, “… on
the second day we came to Puteoli. There we found brethren, and were invited to stay
with them for seven days.” (Acts, 28:14). Puteoli is close to Pompeii, so it is possible that
some Pompeians had also converted to Christianity, but no proof of this has yet been
discovered.
BURIAL PRACTICES
The journey to eternity
The roads leading out of Pompeii are lined with tombs, not for any ominous reason, but
because burial within the city walls was not permitted. The best-known tombs line the
road to Herculaneum. Before the Roman colony was established, Pompeians buried
their dead in simple stone or brick cists (caskets or containers), but after 80 BC
cremation became the norm and wealthier Pompeians started to build more monumental
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