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In Which I Am In My Pomp-eii
May 31, 2008 by Mike
Pompeii
How lucky am I?
Yesterday I visited the ruins of Herculaneum and today I visited Pompeii. (I also ate the world's best pizza.. both days.. didn't get rained on.. didn't get squished by the local drivers.. and managed to sleep in such a way that my back didn't feel ripped in two when I woke up. I cherish these days.)
And I call this work.
--
Pompeii: you'll either be jealous that I was there, or bored.
(Carole: you're right, you'd love it here. It *isn't* too hot, especially if you chose the right time of day and remember to walk in the shadows when you can. To you and anyone else who has dreamt of coming here: Do It!)
But if you're thinking.. A bunch of ruins? No shops.. at least, nothing that's been fashionable in the last 2000 years.. no beach.. what's that all about?, fair enough.. but please move right along, there's nothing for you to see today. I'll shop again soon, I promise. Probably for shoes, knowing me.
If, on the other hand, you're jealous -- either because you have been here and know what I've seen, or because you haven't been here and can only dream.. what can I say? You're absolutely right. Little ol' Mike, from little ol' Norwich, and here I am in Pompeii. How lucky am I?
Luckier than the people of Pompeii, for a start. Unless they spent their lives desperately trying to make a name for themselves. Their names will live forever. Unlike them. The explosion of Vesuvius must have been the 9/11 of the first century: a cataclysmic event, out of nowhere, innocent victims dying in terrifying agony, (but not as many dead as at first suspected), and afterwards nothing will ever be quite the same again.
And for those of us who now walk amongst the dead: the whole place seems too great to take in at once, though you'd walk this far and more on a morning's shopping in Norwich. Somehow, the fact that everything is so low, much of it below head height, just serves to emphasise the overall area of the site. But then, up close and personal, I was also struck by how *small* things are: life-sized. Houses are house-sized. Roads and road-sized. Doors are, if anything, on the small side (as were the people of Pompeii, compared with us.) Again, like Herculaneum yesterday, the overwhelming sense is of familiarity. It's just like Anytown.. only it isn't. It's 2000 years old, it's a ruin, and.. it's *Pompeii*!
How lucky am I?
Pompeii as it would have appeared in AD79 (ie before colour photography)
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