Historia de Grecia y Roma

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  • The Roman state helps the starving citizens with the “annona”

    The reality of Rome is much sadder than the topic of the gargantuan feast, which is the result of a literary creativity that always pays attention to the exceptional and anecdotal instead of the ordinary and prosaic: thousands of hungry citizens.

    In contrast to the exaggerated image of the “Dinner of Trimalchio” in the Satyricon by Petronius, or in contrast to the delicacies of the work by Apicius in his cookbook "De re coquinaria", the reality is a mass of citizens without sufficient purchasing power even to ensure their own subsistence. Food shortage crisis are common in Rome, especially when linked to poor harvests and constant civil wars.

    During the Republican era, the subsistence problems are solved only sporadically at first, and then, in a more institutionalized way with Caius Gracchus (123 BC), who proposes the distribution of subsidized grain to the citizens, trying to solve the problem of lack of wheat. But the conservative senatorial class did not support these subsidized deals defended by the popular leaders.

    In 57 B.C. there were serious riots in Rome and thanks to a Senate recommendation, Pompey received the “cura annonae”, the order to victual Rome, for a period of 5 years with a budget of 40 million sesterces; this is the precedent of what will later become the prefecture of the “annona”.

    In time of Augustus (the first written reference dates from 14 A.D.) the "praefectura annonae" is an administrative building and a centralized service responsible for import grain and other products to supply the capital, exploiting and stealing resources from the provinces. Therefore, the hunger and frequent disturbances were common in the city. Seneca tells us that when Caligula was assassinated in Rome, there were only wheat stocks for seven or eight days.


    We have to consider that in the year 270 B.C. Rome would have 180,000 people, 375,000 in 130 B.C. and a million or more in time of Augustus.

    In the year 73 a 5 “modioi” ration is established per person and month (Sallust, Hist., 3.48). In time of Augustus it was distributed wheat to 320,000 people heads of family, then Augustus himself reduced to 200,000. More than 600,000 people benefited in total. If each person received 5 “modioi” (modii) per month (about 36.6 liters per month, the amount to make one kilogram bread daily), 60 modii per person and year, it would be consumed about 12 million a year, about 80,000 tons at the expense of the state. The city needed a total of 200,000 tons to adequate food.

    Wheat came mainly from Sicily, Sardinia, North Africa and especially Egypt, which provided between 100,000 and 150,000 tons of wheat annually.

    The “annona” was therefore an important aid for daily survival and to maintain the social order. Without the "annona" and without the "circus" things could have been very different. (panem et circenses)

  • “Know thyself ( Know yourself)”, γνῶθι σεαυτόν (gnóthi seautón), Nosce te ipsum, Conócete a ti mismo, Connais-toi toi-même, Conosci te stesso, Erkenne dich selbst.

    This ancient Greek phrase, “know yourself” is the simplest invitation to reflect on oneself

    This phrase, which has a high ethical value and a religious value for some people, is a forceful and disturbing order, because it makes the men, curious beings, face the fact that we need to know, to understand and to accept ourselves; it also makes us face with the evidence of the lack of that self-knowledge and awareness of oneself.

    Once again are the ancient Greeks, who developed the rational knowledge of nature, who also focused their reflection in man and therefore in themselves.

    Pausanias, the famous tourist of the II century A.D., in his "Description of Greece", in Book X dedicated to Phocis, in chapter 24, paragraphs 1-2, tells us that in the courtyard of the temple of Apollo at Delphi there were registered (Pliny says that in gold letters) useful phrases for the life of men, which are in the mouth of all Greeks (Εν δέ τώ προνάω τά έν Δελφοίς γεγραμμένα, έστιν ώφελήματα άνθρώποις εἰς βίον = En de to pronao ta en Delfois gegrammena estín ofelémata anthropois eis bion), such as:

              "know thyself"  (Γνῶθι σαυτόν, gnóthi sautón),

              “nothing too much” (Μηδέν άγαν,medén ágan).

    According to the same Pausanias, these phrases, receiving those who consulted the oracle, were attributed to the Seven Sages (Cleobulus of Lindos, Solon of Athens, Sparta Quilon, Bias of Priene, Thales of Miletus, Pittacus of Mytilene, Periander of Corinth ).

    Already Plato had said in his dialogue Protagoras (343 b), that the Seven Sages showed his admiration for the Lacedaemonian know "when meeting in Delphi, they wanted to offer to Apollo, in his temple Delfico, the first fruits of their wisdom, and consecrated inscriptions  that everyone repeats: Know thyself and nothing in excess".

    Many of these statements have not ceased to be used and to encourage reflection of men from then until today.

    Probably the most successful of them is "know thyself", especially since Socrates himself used it many times, especially as stated in the Platonic dialogue "Alcibiades" when facing the ambitious young Athenian politician with his own ignorance. This is the reason why the phrase is wrongly attributed to Socrates.

    Naturally, the Romans, rulers of Greece but captured by their culture, immediately adopted the maxim in the form "nosce te ipsum" or less used “temet nosce”.

    If there are infinite thinkers and philosophers who take as their own "nosce te ipsum" or one of its variants, there are also infinite ways in which it was used.

    The phrase continues to be an enigma from the beginning. Does it mean just remember the men their vulnerability and deadly?, perhaps the meaning is to tell us that we need to know well ourselves, that we must know our intellectual and rational soul to guide our life right?, or maybe that the phrase owns itself the treasure of treasures, and who knows himself knows the universe and the gods?, as Hermes Trismegistus intended.

    The same idea is expressed by Saint Augustine, directing the judgment in the Christian sense, when he says "do not want to pour out; fall within yourself, because inside of man lies the truth" (From True Religion 39,72), thus inaugurating the so called "Socratic Christian" spoken by Gilson.

    In any case "knowing oneself" is a difficult task, the most difficult, as Thales of Miletus said, according to Diogenes Laertius (Lives and opinions of eminent philosophers, Book I, 12,15) or according to the dialogue of Plato Alcibiades, 130,:

     "I often thought, Socrates, that it was available to everyone, but in other times I also found it very difficult."

    For other authors the task is impossible and the man is doomed not to know "who he is, where he comes from and where it goes" or at least to have a meager knowledge of himself and a slight self-consciousness.

    Actually this "Delphic order" constitutes one of the pillars of philosophical reflection of all time, ethics and mysticism; infinite authors since antiquity, as we saw, through the Middle Ages of Peter Abelard (1079-1142 ), who used it as the title for his treatise "Ethica seu liber dictus: scito te ipsum", or Petrarch.

    Among others, our Spanish moralist Gracián (1601-1658) said in his book Faultfinder, part one, chap. IX entitled "Moral anatomy of man": "He who begins ignoring oneself, badly can learn other things. But what is the good in knowing everything while not knowing oneself? ".

    Closer to our time, the same idea is repeated by many:

    Hegel:"self-consciousness is the fount of truth".

    Fichte: "Look at yourself, shift your gaze from everything around you and direct it to your interior. This is the first request that philosophy makes to his apprentice. You are not going to talk about anything outside of you, but only of yourself ".

    Cassirer: "the autognosis is the supreme purpose of philosophical inquiry".

    Montaigne: "every man contains within himself the entire form of the human condition".

    There is no philosopher who is inspired by the inscription of the temple of Delphi.

    Even today in our hyperactive culture, little given to reflection and peace of mind, the highest Greek inspired numerous self-help books looking for the north in self acceptance or self-identity.

    Necessary books that are not always valuable. Also here the consumer society and the bestsellers found a good opportunity for business.

    I hope this short article is used for guide the reader, in the sense that he considers most appropriate, of course.

  • I hate and I love (odi et amo)

    It seems a contradiction and, however, it is possible to feel these two strong passions simultaneously. At least this is what Catullus and thousands of later lovers admit.

    Some poets sing the facts and glorious feats of men; others expose the most hidden and inner feelings of their hearts. Love, in its myriad forms and hues, is the preferred object of lyric poetry.


    Gaius Valerius Catullus is a young Latin poet who was born in Verona (Italy) between 87-84 BC and died in Rome between 57-54 B.C, when he was 30 years old. Often the extraordinary and divine skill of poetry is followed by a young and premature death.


    Son of a prominent family of provinces, Gaius went to study in Rome. There, he participated in the most well-known literary circle, pejoratively called “neoterics” (Greek νεωτερικοί neoterikoi; Latin “poetae novi”) "new poets" formed by refined Greek poetry lovers looking for concise and formal perfection.


    He fell in love, as so many impulsive young men, with a pretty and  licentious  lady of Roman society, Clodia, called Lesbia  in his poems. Their relationship was a long succession of agreements  and disagreements that embittered the young poet, but we will discuss them some other time.

    Among other many poems, usually dedicated or referred to his Lesbia, Catullus wrote a famous couplet, (Greek δίστιχον , two lines verse or stanza) of two lines.  In this little poem, he masterfully expressed a love-hate feeling so seemingly contradictory and so frequent.


    I offer it in Latin and English, for everyone to enjoy it as possible.


                                Odi et amo. Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris.
                                Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.
                                                                        (Catullus, Poems, 85)


                                I hate and I love. Why I do this perhaps you ask.
                                I do not know, but I sense that it happens and I am tormented.

    Catullus knew how to express with all emotion the double feeling that made him suffer. Hundreds of poets have expressed a similar feeling in a thousand ways. Thousands, millions of lovers will never be able to express it poetically (poetry is a gift that the gods only give to a chosen few) but they will feel themselves identified with  these few verses, which put us so close to men and women of the first century BC and of the century XXI AC.

    Indeed Verona, Catullus's homeland, it is also the land of Romeo and Juliet. Will these lands in northern Italy, close to the Alpine border, be, as now, the climate and environment that fuels these romantic and impossible loves?

  • Mosquitoes preserved the temples of Paestum, Italy, a World Heritage Site

    Without any doubt, the biggest agent of destruction is man himself. A kind of Mosquito expelled the man from Paestum, and several Greek temples in the area have lasted until today in a remarkable state of preservation.

    The Greeks from Sybaris founded the city of Poseidonia at the mouth of the river Silarus, in Magna Graecia (Southern Italy) in the late seventh or early sixth century B.C. Parmenides and Zeno, among other philosophers, taught in Poseidonia. In 273 B.C. became a Roman colony called Paestum. Poseidonia or Paestum was famous for its roses.


    There are not many news during the Republican and Imperial Roman era, but we know that in the V century there was bishop, although its decline was evident.


    Perhaps a change in the level of the sea, very close, or the conditions of the mouth of the river, that area became a marshy swamp, a perfect habitat for insect Anopheles, whose females suck blood and transmit malaria.


    Precisely these unsanitary conditions forced the inhabitants to leave the place, and occupied by weeds and vegetation it remained hidden until the eighteenth century, when King Charles III of Spain, then king of Naples, built a road passing through the city.


    There were three Doric temples built in the sixth century B.C. dedicated to Hera, Apollo and Athena, although traditionally were considered dedicated to Poseidon or Neptune and Ceres. They are the best preserved Greek temples. The Romans built a forum or large square and other elements from Roman urbanism as the amphitheater.


    Unesco has declared the whole city World Heritage Site. Its extraordinary state of preservation makes visitors to thrill now, once eradicated the annoying mosquito. This time the poisoned wind preserved the wonder.

     

  • The water preserves wrecks, which are underwater archaeological sites

    The sea has invaded the coasts throughout the centuries and, on the sea bed, thousands of shipwrecks lie and can rescued now.

    If the ashes of the fire of Mount Vesuvius preserved Pompeii and the bad air full of malarial mosquitoes kept us the temples of Paestum, the other primal element, water, has preserved hundreds of archaeological sites.

    The "Mare Nostrum", (our sea), the Mediterranean Sea (in the middle of the Empire’s lands) has been crossed by military or commercial ships since the dawn of time, at least from the second millennium B.C. regularly. These ships were chartered by brave traders or run by valiant leaders, and they almost never lost sight of the coast (navigation from cape to cape).

    These ships were constantly exposed to the wrath of the gods or nature: Jupiter Almighty King of Heaven, Poseidon or Neptune god of the sea, Aeolus who guards the winds in his cave and rules them at will, and so many other divinities who led the ships to their predetermined destiny or projected the ships implacable to the bottom of the sea.

    Marine sediments have covered and therefore protected these wrecks (naufragium, navis frangere: to break or fracture a ship) for hundreds of years. Their study now provides us with interesting information about the movements of our ancestors in the Mediterranean, their trade, their tastes and whims, their expansive longings, their search for metals, the dissemination of their beliefs, their ideas, their knowledge, their culture. All this and much more we realize with wrecks, “pecios” in Spanish, a strange name for non-experts derived from Latin term "petius" related to "pittacium", or piece, fragments of vessels.

  • Tempus fugit – Time Flees

    The people had to try to measure the time very soon, perhaps with the false illusion of catching it.

    The cyclical succession of days and nights, the elapse of the light of a day itself, the perception of one's life and its end, the ephemeral existence of beings, prompted the man to measure, monitor, remember the passage of time.

    Some prehistoric megalithic monuments are certainly related to the solar cycle. The Egyptian obelisks seem to be the index of a large sundial. Ancient myths refer to human desire for immortality, for the denial of the destructive time.

    For measuring time, clocks were invented. Clock is a word derived from the Latin "horologium" and this, in turn, from the Greek "Horologion" (hora = hour and lego = I state). A clock is an instrument that uses a standard measurement unit.

    Indeed, as it is indicated by the division of the day and night into twelve hours (something that still remains), it should be the Sumerians who began dividing the duration of the day in that way. Certainly, this duodecimal system must be related to the appearance of twelve moons along the years. In any case, at the beginning of the second millennium BC the Egyptians already had instruments to divide the day and night in 24 periods.

    The Greeks called these periods "hora", then the word was taken by the Romans, and finally it  was passed on to those who speak a language derived from Latin, and to English as well (hour).
    The most basic clocks are solar clocks, in which the changing shadow of an index projected by the sun light on a surface indicates the intervals of the sun itself. This index, shaft or rod is called gnomon (γνώμων: 'connoisseur, guide,' and by extension 'squad, needle, sundial'). The Greeks called the water clock clepsydra (of κλέπτειν kleptein, 'steal'; ύδωρ hydor, 'water').

    Well, sundials were sometimes illustrated with a Latin phrase referring to the passage of time. This custom and those sentences were then fashioned from the Renaissance and have survived until today.
    Although the number of phrases that may illustrate a clock are endless, the most common ones are very few ones and I will address them because the reader may have noticed them in the current existing sundials, and even in the spheres of pendulum clocks, and even in common wrist or pocket clocks.
    The most common is definitely "Tempus fugit = time flees", with an explicit reference to the swift passage of time. It is a phrase taken from a verse of Virgil in his work Georgicae, III, 284 which says more accurately "Sed fugit interea fugit irreparabile tempus", “But flees meanwhile, the time flees irretrievably".

    In some cases the phrase has been expanded  "Tempus fugit, sicut nubes, quasi naves, velut umbra" "Time flies, like clouds, like ships, like the shadows". This is a mixture of several references to the Book of Job in the Old Testament: as the clouds (Job, 7, 9), as the ships (Job, 9, 26), as the shadows (Job, 14, 2); so this is not a phrase by a classical author.

    The ultimate meaning of the phrase tempus fugit is related to the phrase, also prevalent in some watches, "carpe diem" (seize the moment). This is one of the most famous phrases of Horace and of literature, drawn from his Odes (Odes, I, 11, 8). It is blindingly obvious that if “tempus fugit, carpe diem", if time escapes from us, take the opportunity.

    A Latin word that appears in certain modern Swiss watches is Festina, since it is their trademark. The word is the imperative of a verb that means "hurry up."

    Probably the reader knows the full phrase festina lente, oxymoron (combination of seemingly contradictory linguistic elements) that means "hurry up slowly". The Roman historian Suetonius attributes this phrase to Augustus (Suet.Aug.25.4). Incidentally, according to Suetonius, Augustus pronounced the phrase in Greek: "Speude bradeōs" (Σπευδε βραδεως). A newer version is our saying “Make haste slowly”, or as we say in Spain "Dress me slowly because  I have haste".

    Not infrequently occurs mainly in clocks of church towers the haunting phrase "Vulnerant omnes, ultima necat" (all wound, the last kills) referring to hours. Another version of same meaning is "Omnes feriunt, ultima necat" and another more is "Laedunt omnes, ultima necat".

    These are the most common phrases that illuminate clocks and watches, but the chances are very numerous, because it is not only used in Latin. But we must recognize that the expressive power and concision of the Romans tongue is unmatched, even by English, that also adorns the famous clock tower of Big Ben with a Latin phrase, but the phrase does not refer to the inexorable passage of time, but expresses best wishes for Queen Victoria.

    The sentence says “DOMINE SALVAM FAC REGINAM NOSTRAM VICTORIAM PRIMAM” (Lord, keep safe our Queen Victoria I), i.e., this is the Latin version of the famous English phrase "God Save The Queen ".

  • The mythical origin of Rome

    The founding moment of many cities is lost in the mist of time, that is to say, it is unknown, although decorated “a posteriori” with beautiful myths; On the other hand, the founding moment of many other cities is very well known.

    Few cities are the result of a specific founding act, but of a long formation process. This is the case of Rome. However, according to the myth, the founders were a couple of twins, Romulus and Remus, sons of the god Mars and a priestess of Vesta and therefore virgin, left in the river Tiber and suckled by a she-wolf, who founded the city in 753 B.C. according to Varro, a historian in the first century B.C. Who does not have in mind the image of the she-wolf nursing the twins?

    Ilia or Rhea Silvia was the daughter of Numitor, king dethroned by his brother Amulius who made her enter the college of the vestals, priestesses who had to keep her virginity for thirty years under sentence of death by stoning or burial. When Rhea Silvia went to a water source, she was raped by the god Mars and became pregnant with twins, who survived the order of his uncle of being killed. Thrown into the river Tiber in a basket, they reached bank of the Palatine Hill, where a she-wolf heard them crying and nursed them until the pastor Faustulus picked them up, and his wife Acca Larentia raised them.

    The time passed and, when they knew their origin, they renominated their grandfather Numitor for the throne and decided to create a city where they were found by the wolf. Both of them claimed to be the founder. To resolve the issue they had to wait for a sign from the gods: Remus took the Aventine hill and saw six vultures, Romulus took the Palatine hill and saw twelve. Thus, Romulus founded the city according to the Etruscan ritual, tracing a furrow with the plow to define the urban space. Remus, circumventing the ban, armed jumped into his brother’s inviolable furrow, who killed him (Remus) during the fight.

    Plutarch in the Life of Romulus (2.4-8) offers a different version of the twins´ origin.

    The founding myth of Rome was drafted in the fourth century B.C., and though obviously has nothing to do with history, it is appreciated elements of ancient beliefs and myths: a state prior to the founding of the city, intervention of the god Mars, child of royal blood exposed  and fed by a wild animal, the fire, education by shepherds, wild country against city, initiation ritual.

    Myths involve great difficulties of interpretation, but they also contain information of times with little traces.

  • Knowing the date of an historical event is not so easy

    Men need to place events in time, need to give events a date; but the different cultures and peoples date based on several events, interesting to them, but irrelevant for other people.

    Man, a being with memory, moves and locates on two essential coordinates: space and time. To be effective, that memory has to place any fact, any event, any memory at one point in space and at one moment in time. Help comes from geography ("ge" in Greek means land) or the knowledge of the physical environment and from chronology ("chronos" in Greek means time) or the historical dating.

    An "age" (era) is a time period whose beginning coincides with a conventional event from which on we start counting years. As it is well known, we arrange facts and we date the facts from the birth of Christ, placing them before or after. That year is matched with 753, the year of the founding of Rome. But logically, this was neither always the case nor it was like this everywhere.

    In the beginning of ancient Greece, each year was recognized by the name of the most important magistrate, Archon, also known as "eponym" (Greek "epi" means "on" and "onoma" means name) . In the fourth century B.C. the historian Timaeus Tauromenium started dating with the first Olympiad, which was held in 776 B.C. Considering that the Olympics were held every four years, the third year of the second Olympiad corresponds to 766 B.C., and so on.

    In Rome, years were also given the name of the two most important annual magistrates, consuls, saying for example, "being consuls … and ….". Much later, historians dated from the founding of Rome, which was set in the fourth year of the sixth Olympiad, and used the statement "ab urbe conditia = since the founding of the city." Later on, in the sixth century, that year was made to coincide with the 753 B.C.

    The Christian era begins in the year 753 since the founding of Rome, i.e., in the first year of the Olympiad 195. This is year 1 of Christ, because it was set by the monk Dionysius Exiguus in the sixth century. But we have to know that Dionysius erred and Jesus Christ would have been born probably about four years earlier.

    Of course, no one has now any interest in correcting this error, an ancient error, whose remedy would only complicate everything and would create many problems.

    But there have been many other eras according to peoples and cultures: the "Spanish era" started the year 38 B.C. , without knowing the reason for it; the “Byzantine era” that set the creation of the world in 5508 B.C. and was used in Russia until 1700; the “era of Abraham” which begins on October 1, 2016 B.C.; the Hijra (al-Hiyra = هجرة) or “Muslim era” that begins on July 16th,  622, when Muhammad leaves Mecca to Medina; the “era of the French Revolution” which begins on the 22nd of September 1792. And there are many more, in other parts of the world.

    The computation of time and age dating, that might seem so simple, are in fact quite complicated, especially when someone is determined to raise as a great moment for himself an event that for other men in other places do not have any meaning.

  • Christ was born at least four years before Christ

    The monk who, in the sixth century, set the birth of Christ to the year 753, year of the foundation of Rom, made a miscalculation. However nobody proposes to correct that historical mistake nowadays.

    One of the many needs of man is to list, order and date past significant happenings and events. But such a task requires a benchmark, or starting point to begin the counting.

    For Christians, and therefore the entire Western World, this point is the date when Christ was born. That moment, of course, could not be established in the early days of Christianity, when it was barely known or spread. Actually it took longer to set that date. By the early sixth century, Christianity had spread throughout the whole former Roman Empire. At that time the political structures of the Empire had disappeared and the reference to the founding of Rome had less meaning than before.

    Dionysius Exiguus (“exiguus” means small), a monk and astronomer born in Scythia, a region in southwest of present-day Russia, endeavoured thought to enhance and successfully did so the figure of Jesus by attempting to calculate the year of  Christ’s birth and later setting that date as a reference. For Dionysius, this reference date became the “year zero” or the starting point of history. As such, the date had the effect of setting the beginning of the "Christian era". Ultimately, Dionysius concluded that Jesus was born the year 753 after the founding of Rome. In sum, there is the success of the Christian calendar, which is now almost universally accepted.

    But now there is little doubt that Dionysius Exiguus is primarily responsible for erred in calculating Christ’s birth by approximately four years. At present, this mistake has still yet to be corrected. In support of this conclusion using other dates we also know that Jesus was born during the reign of Herod.  However Herod died in the year 750 of Rome, therefore Jesus must have been born before such date. The resulting error miscalculates Christ’s birth day by approximately four years, an error that had yet to be changed to reflect its inaccuracy.

    Currently, few people are interested in correcting the mistake, partly due to disadvantages and problems caused by the passage of time. For instance, can anyone imagine the billions of documents that would needed to be updated?

    Yet, celebrating Christ’s birthday on December 25th is another mistake. At first it was held on January 6th and it actually continues to be commemorated on that date in the Eastern Church. What happened was that, as in many other occasions, a prior celebration was Christianized: "the day of the unconquered sun" which was celebrated on December 25 the winter solstice, when the sun, as newborn, begins to lengthen the day and decrease the night.

    Such a date is noteworthy each year because the winter solstice is the precise date when the newborn sun arises and days begin to lengthen as a result of increasing sunlight.

  • The fire, air and water not only didn’t destroy, but retained the greatest archaeological sites

    The forces of nature are powerful, uncontrollable and destructive, but sometimes produce unexpected results

    Fire, air, water and earth are the four essential elements that make up the universe to the ancients. For us they are rather forces of nature with enormous destructive power. But it is paradoxical that precisely these destructive elements have preserved extraordinary many archaeological sites.

    Thus the soil piled on layers covers and protects most of the archaeological sites; the fire of Mount Vesuvius preserved for posterity the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum; the infested air of the Paestum marshes protected the collection of Doric temples best preserved; the sea water has prevented the looting of thousands of remains scattered throughout the Mediterranean. In fact the only unstoppable destructive agent is man, as evidenced every day.

    The ashes of Mount Vesuvius preserved the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum almost intact.


    On August 24th 79 A.D., during the reign of Emperor Titus, the ashes of Vesuvius, near Naples, covered with a layer of several meters the city of Pompeii. An avalanche of mud and lava also covered the nearby and coastal city of Herculaneum. Toxic fumes poisoned and killed their inhabitants.


    Both cities were destroyed, but also preserved under the ashes. This giant sarcophagus remained so for almost 1700 years, until in 1748 a farmer came upon the ruins of Pompeii while trying to dig a well. At that time the king of Naples was Charles of Bourbon, later Carlos III of Spain, who was the one who initiated the excavations.


    This unique city is discovered in all its complexity: its streets, sidewalks, public buildings, fountains, houses with their kitchens, courtyards and gardens, its shops, taverns, theaters, brothels, temples, workshops, … even human bodies in desperate attitudes of those who failed to escape in time.


    The fire, so powerful and often destructive, indirectly preserved us this time a city nearly completely paralyzed and fossilized in time.