Pompeii: The Plaster Casts, the Brothel, and the Stories Nobody Tells You

Most visitors to Pompeii come for the spectacle: the frozen city, the ruined forum, the plaster casts of the dead. And the spectacle is real and extraordinary. But what strikes many people most forcefully, once they slow down and look carefully, is not the drama of the destruction but the humanity of the life that preceded it. A bakery with carbonised loaves still in the oven. An electoral campaign slogan painted in red on a street wall: 'Vote for Marcus Epidius Sabinus — his neighbours recommend him'. A fast-food counter with 80 dolia (ceramic containers) still set in their terracotta niches. A child's toy. A dog's footprint in a roof tile, made when the tile was wet. Pompeii is not just a ruin — it is an X-ray of Roman daily life.

The eruption of Vesuvius on 24 August 79 AD (or possibly 24 October — a recently discovered inscription suggests a later date) buried Pompeii under four to six metres of volcanic ash and pumice. The speed of the burial — most of the killing happened within hours — preserved everything: buildings, furniture, food, graffiti, and, most hauntingly, human bodies. When the bodies decomposed over the centuries inside the compacted ash, they left perfect voids. In the 1860s, the archaeologist Giuseppe Fiorelli had the brilliant idea of pouring plaster of Paris into these voids. The result was a series of exact casts of people and animals in their final moments — a man covering his face with his cloak, a woman leaning against a wall, a dog twisting in agony on its chain.

The graffiti of Pompeii deserve their own chapter. Over 11,000 inscriptions have been found on the city's walls — everything from political endorsements and business advertisements to love declarations, insults, obscene jokes, and what can only be described as Pompeian social media. 'Successus the weaver loves the innkeeper's slave girl named Iris. She, however, does not love him. But he begs her to take pity. Written by his rival. Goodbye.' This was found on a wall in the Via dell'Abbondanza. Another wall has: 'Traveller, you have read six lines. Now wash your hands.' The Lupanare (brothel), with its numbered cells, its explicit painted menus above each doorway, and its graffiti of client comments, is one of the most visited buildings in the city — and one of the most honest records of ancient Roman life.