Pompeii and Circumstance Trivia Quiz

Answer: Misenum

Misenum is across the Bay of Naples from Pompeii.
Pliny the Younger was staying with his uncle, Pliny the Elder, who was a Roman administrator in charge of the Navy in the Bay of Naples. He watched as events unfolded, and later wrote detailed letters about all he saw. He also interviewed people who escaped, and his letters are our source for all we know. The letters were rediscovered in the 16th century.
Pliny the Elder realised the danger to the people of Pompeii, Herculaneum and Stabiae, and ordered the launch of the naval vessels to go to their rescue. We do not know how many people were saved because of his actions, but Pliny the Elder died, it is believed from inhaling the fumes from the eruption.

Answer: Herculaneum

Pompeii was overwhelmed by ash and lava, which buried it 20 feet deep.
Herculaneum was destroyed by the pyroclastic flow, which buried it much deeper than Pompeii. The flow preserved organic items such as wood and food as well as skeletons. Other smaller towns such as Stabiae were also destroyed.

Answer: Vesuvius

Archaeological evidence shows that Vesuvius had not erupted for hundreds years, and nobody understood what was happening. Apparently they didn't even have a name for 'volcano' until then, when they named it for Vulcan the God of Fire. There was an earthquake in 62AD, which caused a great deal of damage, and was probably a sign that the volcano was waking up. Vesuvius is regarded as very dangerous; it has erupted many times since 79AD, the last time being in 1944. It will do so again, but who knows when. It is the only active volcano on mainland Europe.

There are still many active volcanoes in Italy. Mount Etna looms over Taormina in Sicily and there is often ash in the air as the volcano grumbles away. Another active volcano is Stromboli which is on one of the Aeolian Islands in the Tyrrhenian Sea. Solfatara is near Pozzuoli, and emits steam and sulphurous fumes. It hasn't erupted since 1198.

Knowing how dangerous and destructive an active volcano can be, you might wonder why anybody would choose to live near one, but the fact is that the volcanic soil is very fertile and excellent for farming, so people continue to live in hope and take their chances.

Answer: Naples

All the three wrong answers are places in the Bay of Naples area, but Naples itself is the capital of the Campania region, and the third largest Italian city after Rome and Milan. It's about 6 miles from Vesuvius. Modern Naples is built on ancient foundations, which is probably true of almost anywhere in Italy, and can be traced back to the 6th century BC.

The Metropolitan City of Naples has a population exceeding 3 million, and we have to hope that it never becomes necessary to evacuate them if Vesuvius erupts again on the same scale as in 79AD.

Answer: Pornography

Pornographic wall paintings and objects of a sexual nature are found all over Pompeii, and indeed the Roman world. The Romans accepted them as normal, but to the people of the 16th century they were shocking and unacceptable. In 1748 men digging foundations for a palace rediscovered them, and this time they kept excavating. Some of the things they found were deemed too embarrassing to be exhibited, so they were kept under lock and key.

Sadly, many of the amazing wall paintings have suffered damage over the years since they were uncovered. Failure to protect them from weather and sunlight has caused irreparable damage, but modern archaeologists use better techniques to preserve what they find. Many artefacts from the excavations are kept in the museum in Naples, which is well worth visiting .

Answer: Flush toilets

The Romans had running water from aqueducts, but flush toilets had to wait until the 16th century to be invented. They did, however, have all the other amenities listed above and many more, and there are well preserved remains of all these buildings, as well as huge numbers of artefacts relating to them.

There are walls still standing, and you can walk around at will, imagining yourself to be 2000 years in the past.

Answer: Plaster casts

People digging in the ruins realised that there were, in the volcanic ash, the impressions of where people and animals were buried. In 1863 Giuseppe Fiorelli realised that he could preserve these forms by filling them with plaster, and in the museum you can see heartbreaking representations of people with their children, families and chained up animals, who did not manage to get away from the town.

The casts contain the skeletons of the victims, the flesh being long since gone. Sheltering inside buildings that could not save them, they must have been terrified.

It is thought that they died from the effects of the extreme heat, reaching up to 250c, rather than from being buried.

Answer: Edward Bulwer Lytton

This is a novel about the people who were living in Pompeii shortly before the volcano destroyed it. It was a tremendous success at time, though probably it's less interesting to modern taste, being a typical Victorian melodrama and, I think, rather hard going. The book has been made into a film a couple of times, and made into a TV mini series in 1984.

Answer: 2,000

Of course, nobody can be certain how many died. The city was a resort with a shifting population, which could have been anything up to 20,000; the accepted estimate for deaths seems to be about 2,000, based on the remains that have been found.

Answer: Large scale excavations stopped in the 1960s

The site covers about 160 acres, and the cost and difficulties of maintaining what is already on view is enormous. About a third of the site is still unexcavated, and looks likely to stay that way for some time. Conserving what has been exposed has always been a problem, with many of the wall paintings discovered in the early years now lost to us, apart from the records made at the time.

Italy has such an enormous wealth of ancient remains that there is never going to be enough money to take care of all of them, despite grants from the EU and many charitable bodies.

There is no point in exposing yet more of the city when existing buildings have been collapsing and succumbing to other damage.