Back in the past

Before I forget to mention it, the extraordinary room in the photo is the Hall of the Augustales in Herculaneum, another archaeological site to which we paid a memorable visit twenty-one years ago. Like Pompeii, it’s grown as a site, with more in the way of infrastructure and a new director all to itself; apparently previously there was one person in charge of both sites and all the money went to Pompeii. It is also much busier, so that today rather than our being in a party of four with a guide, we were with twenty other plugged-in visitors whose radios kept going off . Himself needed his changed twice …

The main thing for me in Herculaneum is the fact that so many roofs are still intact - because instead of pelting this city with ash and so on, the eruption filled it instead with a kind of mud. Now it’s buried beneath the modern city - apart from the bit we can see.

The most moving thing for me this time was seeing the boathouses on what used to be the beach, where people waited for the boats dispatched by Pliny the Elder to rescue them. Before the boats could arrive, they were hit by a blast of super-heated gases and died more or less instantly. I’m sure we couldn’t see the skeletons before, but their end was so dreadful and their remains so pitiful that I forgot all the people and the parties of schoolchildren and could hear only the rush of destruction all these centuries ago.

On the other hand, as it were, wall decorations were preserved for us to see and admire. I love the sudden delicate detail - and I’ve taken far too many pictures. We came home thinking of tea and a little something, and ended up going out again for another brief exploration. We found another church in the town that we liked - and one that had been repurposed as a gallery.

Writing this in the early evening I find myself drooping as it it were midnight. I think maybe forty winks before dinner might be a plan …