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| Street in Pompeii |
The streets of Pompeii are bleak. The ruinous nature
of the landscape the lack of second stories (for the most part) and in winter a
lack of tourists all add to this impression. Yes, it is the site of a
cataclysmic disaster and one would expect it to be a little solemn. With
all of the plaster and paint missing from the mounds and piles of bricks that
used to be shops, houses and places of worship even at ground level you are not
really seeing the city as Pompeian’s would have 2000 years ago. Six
quadrillion tons of hot ash will do that.
The sidewalks appear to be extraordinarily high off of the
surface of the road when compared with modern sidewalks (and ADA requirements). This is because there wasn’t a complex sewer
system for carrying away waste water, or just waste in general. Without a system like Rome's fantastic Cloaca Maxima waste flowed (on good days) in the streets much like Cleveland. Which
just adds a new perspective on how different modern Pompeii is from 2000 years
ago. It also makes it very clear why the great stepping stones were so
necessary at so many of the street intersections.
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| Stepping Stones with wagon ruts |
While walking around look for the little tiles set into the
ground. These were reflectors of moonlight, torch of candle light to aid
pedestrians of the night and stop them from falling into the street full of
doo-doo feces. Which would just be horribly unpleasant.
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