• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Ancient Roman Slave Quarters Show A Darker Side Of Pompeii

August 21, 2023 by Deborah Bloomfield

A short walk outside the city walls, archeologists have discovered an apartment for the slaves who used to serve the people of Pompeii. The rare discovery is a reminder that Roman life in the big city wasn’t all pizza, parties, and picturesque villas.

The room was found at the Civita Giuliana villa, some 600 meters (2,000 feet) north of the walls of Pompeii. It contained two beds, one without a mattress, two small cabinets, some tools, plus a number of ceramic jugs and vases.

Advertisement

One of these vessels was found under the bed and contained the body of an unfortunate rat, which the researchers say was most likely hiding from the violent wrath of the volcano. The remains of two mice were also discovered in the structure’s ruins.

The ancient Roman city of Pompeii was decimated in 79 CE when the volcano Mount Vesuvius erupted, killing thousands of people in the city and nearby settlements of Herculaneum, Oplontis, and Stabiae. 

The eruption showered Pompeii and the surrounding towns in over 6 meters (19 feet) of ash and other volcanic debris. Devastating as it was, it preserved the settlements for centuries, providing modern-day researchers with an unbelievably clear insight into the daily life of ancient Rome.

Another look of the slave quarter's room.

Another look of the slave quarter’s room.

Image credit: Pompeii Archeological Park.

Slavery played a significant role in the Roman world – and Pompeii was no exception. Some historians argue that 10 to 20 percent of the Roman Empire’s population was enslaved. Many would be working as manual laborers and household servants, but there is also evidence that some were highly autonomous and would manage other enslaved people, known as vicarii.

Advertisement

This latest discovery at the site is especially significant as the life of slaves is not often documented. Announcing the findings, Italy’s Ministry of Culture says that the rodent-ridden room shows how the enslaved people of Pompeii lived in meager and unhygienic conditions.

However, they added that they didn’t find any evidence of locks or chains to restrain the room’s inhabitants, suggesting this system of servitude was kept in place through social pressure and hierarchies, rather than physical restraints and violence.

“What presents itself here it is the social structure of the servitude that was supposed to prevent escapes […] because there are no traces of grates, padlocks, and shackles. It seems that the control took place mainly through the internal organization of the servitude, and not through barriers and physical constraints,” Gabriel Zuchtriegel, the director of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, explained in a statement.

“We know that the owners [of this house] had various privileges, including the possibility of forming a family, albeit without any legal protection, to bind some slaves more closely to the villa,” he added.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Paris ramps up security as jihadist attacks trial starts
  2. Cricket-‘Western bloc’ has let Pakistan down, board chief says
  3. Analysis-Diverse boards to pick the next Boston and Dallas Fed bank chiefs
  4. Ancient Bison Found In Permafrost Is So Well Preserved Scientists Want To Clone It

Source Link: Ancient Roman Slave Quarters Show A Darker Side Of Pompeii

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • Video: Is There An Ideal Sleeping Position?
  • If You Look Up At The Right Time Today, You Will See A Giant “X” On The Moon
  • We May Have Our Third Interstellar Visitor And It’s Nothing Like The Previous Two
  • Orcas Filmed Kissing (With Tongues) In The Wild For The First Time
  • How Easy Is It For A Country To Change Its Time Zone?
  • Earth’s First Commercial Space Station Set To Launch In 2026
  • Black Hole Moon: Rogue Planets With Weird Signatures Could Be A Sign Of Advanced Alien Life
  • World’s Largest Ephemeral Lake Set To Turn Iconic Peachy Pink After Extreme Flooding
  • Stunning New JWST Observations Give Further Evidence That Dark Matter Is A Real Substance
  • How Big Is This Spider? Study Explains Why You Might Overestimate Their Size
  • Orcas Sometimes Give Humans Presents Of Food And We Don’t Know Why
  • New Approach For Interstellar Navigation Was Tested On A Spacecraft 9 Billion Kilometers Away
  • For Only The Second Recorded Time, Two Novae Are Visible With The Naked Eye At Once
  • Long-Lost Ancient Egyptian City Ruled By Cobra Goddess Discovered In Nile Delta
  • Much Maligned Norwegian Lemming Is One Of The Newest Mammal Species On Earth
  • Where Are The Real Geographical Centers Of All The Continents?
  • New Species Of South African Rain Frog Discovered, And It’s Absolutely Fuming About It
  • Love Cheese But Hate Nightmares? Bad News, It Looks Like The Two Really Are Related
  • Project Hail Mary Trailer First Look: What Would Happen If The Sun Got Darker?
  • Newly Discovered Cell Structure Might Hold Key To Understanding Devastating Genetic Disorders
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version