Pompeii: Public and Private Life

This guide to the ruins of the Italian city of Pompeii is refreshingly straightforward and rife with insight. Zanker, a professor at the University of Munich and director of Rome's German Archeological Institute, approaches Pompeii from a historical perspective, offering a plausible and interesting description of what life in Pompeii was probably like in A.D. 79. He also uses viewpoints deriving from the modern discipline of urban studies. For example, a discussion of the use of homes in the Roman era (when houses were divided into distinctly decorative and functional areas, as well as servants' quarters) compares the conventions of that time to today's ""`eat-in' kitchens, and bathrooms designed to be attractive as well as utilitarian."" Public spaces, too, reveal much about a society. Accordingly, Zanker writes about the statues that honored the sponsors who funded Pompeii's ""new"" marble theater, and he gives readers an illuminating tour of an extensive athletic training ground, or ""campus,"" which included a swimming pool. One of the most intriguing subjects is the town's complex water system: an aqueduct with pipes running to different neighborhoods, with many houses sporting running water. Anyone interested in how cultures continue to reinvent the wheel (the residents of Pompeii also had a sewer system) will delight in this book and in the exceptionally smooth, jargon-free translation. While a generous number of drawings, photographs and plans provide valuable visual cues for armchair travelers, this volume can also serve as an excellent guide during a visit to Pompeii. (Jan.)