8 ms·

Records of Pompeii's survivors have been found

168 points by Stratoscope 2y ago

spacecadet 2y ago
Nothing changes. A buddy always says nothing has actually changed in 20,000 years... Based on the description and other accounts of the bodies, sometimes found to be attached to the buildings... that the wealthy survived while abandoning anyone else not "worth it".
- b112 2y ago
  Not all the survivors of the eruption were wealthy or went on to find success in their new communities The guy lists 2 semi-wealthy survivors, then says the above. He also says: I took Roman names unique to Pompeii or Herculaneum – such as Numerius Popidius and Aulus Umbricius – and searched for people with those names who lived in surrounding communities in the period after the eruption. and found 200 survivors in 12 cities So he's only searching on unique names, which is an (understandable) bias, and only found 200 out of thousands of people, while saying there are way too few bodies. There's literally zero evidence to support the fact that the rich bugged out, and only the poor died. In fact, there's evidence to the contrary, with multiple poor people found, and lots of those that didn't do well, their wealth unknown prior to te event. Frankly how would the rich even do that? Lots of houses, rich and poor, left with belongings. How would the rich prevent escape? Walking away was likely sufficient.
  - spacecadet 2y ago
    Unless your owner chained you down... So no, walking away may not have been sufficient...
    - b112 2y ago
      That's a slave, not a poor person. Slaves were not cheap, in fact they were often expensive. They could also carry things, very helpful when trying to save your other valuables. Leaving a slave behind would be very strange I think. I didn't see this in the article. Did I miss it?
      - spacecadet 2y ago
        You seem to have been there... Im just making observations about humanity. So all you on the proof.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
csense 2y ago
Pretty neat. I'm a bit upset that, toward the end, the author puts politics in an article about history and archaeology, and does it poorly to boot. For their analogy of "How were the survivors treated today," they cite Border Patrol migrant camps and NYC tent cities. However, that's not really a good comparison. In both of those examples, the displaced people are foreigners fleeing political / economic disasters (or just seeking a better life). A closer comparison might be Hurricane Katrina, where the displaced people were (mostly) legal residents or citizens, fleeing a natural disaster.
- hnbad 2y ago
  > the author puts politics in an article about history and archaeology That's a very "end of history" level of understanding of history and archaelogy. History is inherently political because it's shaped by our own politics as much as it is a study of the politics of the past. Even if we don't do it explicitly, we look at history through the lens of our present with all the baggage that means. And it can help reflect on similar situations in the present to learn both how humans handled those situations in the past and how that worked out. > and does it poorly to boot That I'm willing to agree on. It does seem apropos of nothing and very hamfisted even if I may agree with the author's general message. I think the problem is actually greater than you say: even the concept of "foreigners" vs "citizens" doesn't translate well as Rome distinguished between foreigners, residents and citizens differently than we do today and "race" didn't exist as a meaningful distinction in the same way. Even the nuances of the differences between different foreign "nations" worked differently so the concept of refugees doesn't really translate all that well to begin with.
  - wslh 2y ago
    > That's a very "end of history" level of understanding of history and archaelogy. No, yours is a kind of fallacy and called Presentism [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presentism_(historical_analysis) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presentism_(historical_analysi...
    - hnbad 2y ago
saaaaaam 2y ago
It’s just incredible that there are still records that exist that can be used to tell this story.
- mdp2021 2y ago
  ? Organized societies leave records; the eruption happened in year 79, under the Flavians - the Colosseum will be inaugurated the next year. It is a mark of the so-called "middle ages" or "dark ages" to have periods in which reporting falls...
  - lostemptations5 2y ago
    And those records are usually destroyed over time by wars, earthquakes, fires, dégradations, just misplacing stuff, etc, etc. So yeah I'm amazed too -- this stuff survives.
    - mdp2021 2y ago
      Backups ;) Much is lost, some is retained... (The original poster wrote «records that exist that can be used to tell this story»: of all the documentation that can be lost, that produced during the first imperial Rome is probably some of the most secured. We still lost a lot: for example, the culmination of that period is probably under Trajan, and he wrote the Commentarii de bellis Dacicis - lost, contrary to its model, Julius Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico...)
      - lostemptations5 2y ago
        All true. But these backups must be available publicly-- especially after someone's death (an unfortunate event:/) Without that -- they become lost.
GeekyBear 2y ago
A surviving historical account of the eruption, for those interested: > This is an English translation of the two letters written by Pliny the Younger to the Roman historian Tacitus. The first letter describes the journey of his uncle Pliny the Elder during which he perished. The second one describes his own observations in a town across the bay. https://igppweb.ucsd.edu/~gabi/sio15/lectures/volcanoes/pliny.html https://igppweb.ucsd.edu/~gabi/sio15/lectures/volcanoes/plin...
- nhggfu 2y ago
  what an epic read (and wow @ what a great communicator Pliny the Younger was. ) thanks GeekyBear.
- karunamurti 2y ago
  Fortis Fortuna Adiuvat. I wonder if there's a clinical research of the long term respiration damage of the survivors.
- opminion 2y ago
  Podcast "The Rest is History" episode 355, I think.
WalterBright 2y ago
> Survivors were not isolated into camps, nor were they forced to live indefinitely in tent cities. There’s no evidence that they encountered discrimination in their new communities. I watched that documentary. There's no evidence for or against any of those theories.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
VagabundoP 2y ago
Wait, how did Rectina send the message that said she was trapped at the foot of the mountain, if she was… trapped at the foot of the mountain in her house? Why didn’t she escape with the messenger?
- netsharc 2y ago
  Messenger bird? At least this source says birds were used by the Romans, but I'm just speculating: https://www.birdful.org/were-birds-used-as-messengers/ https://www.birdful.org/were-birds-used-as-messengers/ Although the sentence says "... except by boat". Why she sent a messenger (presumably by boat) to ask Pliny the Elder to pick her up, instead of using that boat itself, is, curious.
  - dboreham 2y ago
    Heliograph?
  - cma256 2y ago
    The boat might not have been big enough to carry her family, attendants, and material wealth. All of which can be more important to people than immediate escape. Pliny writes that the cloud had not reached Stabiae. Its likely she was anxious and wanted to evacuate but was not under noticeable threat and did not understand the severity of her situation. Edit: https://igppweb.ucsd.edu/~gabi/sio15/lectures/volcanoes/pliny.html https://igppweb.ucsd.edu/~gabi/sio15/lectures/volcanoes/plin...
- IG_Semmelweiss 2y ago
  Its possible the only means of practical escape for her were by sea, and she did not know how to swim - but only someone from her entourage did (perhaps the slave that delivered the message).
casenmgreen 2y ago
> So I created a methodology to determine if survivors could be found. Methodology is the study of methods (just as sociology is the study of societies). It is not a method (any more than a sociology is a society).
- scoot 2y ago
  methodology /ˌmɛθəˈdɒlədʒi/ noun A system of methods used in a particular area of study or activity. E.g.: "a methodology for investigating the concept of focal points" OED
  - casenmgreen 2y ago
    Wikipedia FWIW, first sentence; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methodology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methodology "In its most common sense, methodology is the study of research methods." I may be wrong, but I think what's happened is that everyone likes saying "methodology", so they do, and so everyone uses it. It's just that it's wrong - but it's normal. Sociology -> study of societies. Psychology -> study of the mind and behaviour. Archaeology -> study of historical human activity (by a particular means). "ology" -> a branch of learning. We are not creating new branches of learning, when we are in fact creating a method to investigate a problem. Also, if we were to say methodology differs to all other uses of -ology, and in fact is a, or a few, methods used to investigate a problem, what word do we then use to describe the study of methods?
    - mdp2021 2y ago
      "Methodology" is not overlappable to "Sociology", "Psychology", "Archaeology": a "methodology" can be a logic behind a method. It is a theoretical framework that is supposed to validate the methods you will use. To create a symmetry, you could pose a problem relevant to (say) Psychology, than develop a "psychology" as a theoretical framework valid in Psychology that justifies your further analysis. -- Specifically to the text, the researcher says he checked occurrences of typical names in inscriptions (etc.) and evidence of re-scaled infrastructure - that is the method. The methodology would be expressed in an accompanying study that justifies that method as valid.
teleforce 2y ago
Check this very interesting documentary on the details account of Pompeii daily life based on historical records [1]. Fun facts, they discovered evidence of syphilis disease from the remains of the dead and restaurants are familiar sights in ancient Pompeii. [1] What Was Everyday Life Like In Pompeii? | Pompeii with Mary Beard | Absolute History: https://youtu.be/LSw7eoBbM0U https://youtu.be/LSw7eoBbM0U
- BurningFrog 2y ago
  Syphilis was not observed in Europe until 1493, and it is believed to have been brought from the New World by members of the Columbus 1492 expedition.
  - boomboomsubban 2y ago
    The origin of syphilis is a contentious topic, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_syphilis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_syphilis
- peterfirefly 2y ago
  Mary Beard is not exactly a reliable source. She is on TV a lot, though, which doesn't make it better.
  - chomskyole 2y ago
    Why is she not a reliable source? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Beard_(classicist) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Beard_(classicist) "Dame Winifred Mary Beard, DBE, FSA, FBA, FRSL (born 1 January 1955)[1] is an English classicist specialising in Ancient Rome. She is a trustee of the British Museum and formerly held a personal professorship of classics at the University of Cambridge.[2] She is a fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge, and Royal Academy of Arts Professor of Ancient Literature."
memsom 2y ago
I visited Pompeii and Herculanium last year. The thing you don't get by reading books about Pompeii is just how absolutely massive it was. It is HUGE. You are talking a small city. I believe we were also told that something like 1/3 of it is still buried - if not 1/3, a large percentage. Herculanium is less impressive, but it is still a reasonable sized place.
- mullen 2y ago
  Two things I took away from visiting Pompeii that I did not know from reading books and watch History Channel videos. Like you said, Pompeii was pretty large and it was covered with a lot of pumice and ash. There are a couple of places where the pumice and ash is 30 - 40 feet above the houses and all of that fell within a couple of days.
gwbas1c 2y ago
Flagged due to politics, specifically: > This model for post-disaster recovery can be a lesson for today. The costs of funding the recovery never seems to have been debated. Survivors were not isolated into camps, nor were they forced to live indefinitely in tent cities. There’s no evidence that they encountered discrimination in their new communities. That's a very different situation than what we see today, and is a completely inappropriate analogy. The survivors of Pompeii moved to adjacent communities about a day's journey from Pompeii. They were not migrants. The best analogy is how we (in the US) have FEMA to handle disasters within American boarders; and how American residents regularly move to different towns / states.
- mdp2021 2y ago
  > Flagged If we had to flag submissions for occasional faults... For that matter, signs of grave intellectual deficiency are at the beginning already, at > shooting ... debris up to 20 miles (32.1 kilometers) in the air Where you are told that volcanic debris has 100 meters precision, starting from a figure that has 16 kilometers fault of precision (use of "precision" here imprecise). These people should not be allowed to leave the house, they fail verification of intellectual competence at the basics (use of "verification" here imprecise). Yet... Yet sometimes their effort does not lead to complete disaster. Be very wary as they are wearing flashing warning lights, but do not throw away the good if it miraculously is there. -- Edit: and it contains a chunk, «In episodes of the TV series “Doctor Who” and “Loki”». By coincidence, the next the eyes met came to be the shout of TheConversation: «Academic rigour, journalistic flair». What do we do, we throw away all of it? Probably not. It is a very imperfect world.

168 points by Stratoscope 2y ago

Nothing changes. A buddy always says nothing has actually changed in 20,000 years... Based on the description and other accounts of the bodies, sometimes found to be attached to the buildings... that the wealthy survived while abandoning anyone else not "worth it".

b112 2y ago
Not all the survivors of the eruption were wealthy or went on to find success in their new communities The guy lists 2 semi-wealthy survivors, then says the above. He also says: I took Roman names unique to Pompeii or Herculaneum – such as Numerius Popidius and Aulus Umbricius – and searched for people with those names who lived in surrounding communities in the period after the eruption. and found 200 survivors in 12 cities So he's only searching on unique names, which is an (understandable) bias, and only found 200 out of thousands of people, while saying there are way too few bodies. There's literally zero evidence to support the fact that the rich bugged out, and only the poor died. In fact, there's evidence to the contrary, with multiple poor people found, and lots of those that didn't do well, their wealth unknown prior to te event. Frankly how would the rich even do that? Lots of houses, rich and poor, left with belongings. How would the rich prevent escape? Walking away was likely sufficient.
- spacecadet 2y ago
  Unless your owner chained you down... So no, walking away may not have been sufficient...
  - b112 2y ago
    That's a slave, not a poor person. Slaves were not cheap, in fact they were often expensive. They could also carry things, very helpful when trying to save your other valuables. Leaving a slave behind would be very strange I think. I didn't see this in the article. Did I miss it?
    - spacecadet 2y ago
      You seem to have been there... Im just making observations about humanity. So all you on the proof.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

csense 2y ago

Pretty neat. I'm a bit upset that, toward the end, the author puts politics in an article about history and archaeology, and does it poorly to boot. For their analogy of "How were the survivors treated today," they cite Border Patrol migrant camps and NYC tent cities. However, that's not really a good comparison. In both of those examples, the displaced people are foreigners fleeing political / economic disasters (or just seeking a better life). A closer comparison might be Hurricane Katrina, where the displaced people were (mostly) legal residents or citizens, fleeing a natural disaster.

hnbad 2y ago
> the author puts politics in an article about history and archaeology That's a very "end of history" level of understanding of history and archaelogy. History is inherently political because it's shaped by our own politics as much as it is a study of the politics of the past. Even if we don't do it explicitly, we look at history through the lens of our present with all the baggage that means. And it can help reflect on similar situations in the present to learn both how humans handled those situations in the past and how that worked out. > and does it poorly to boot That I'm willing to agree on. It does seem apropos of nothing and very hamfisted even if I may agree with the author's general message. I think the problem is actually greater than you say: even the concept of "foreigners" vs "citizens" doesn't translate well as Rome distinguished between foreigners, residents and citizens differently than we do today and "race" didn't exist as a meaningful distinction in the same way. Even the nuances of the differences between different foreign "nations" worked differently so the concept of refugees doesn't really translate all that well to begin with.
- wslh 2y ago
  > That's a very "end of history" level of understanding of history and archaelogy. No, yours is a kind of fallacy and called Presentism [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presentism_(historical_analysis) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presentism_(historical_analysi...
  - hnbad 2y ago

saaaaaam 2y ago

It’s just incredible that there are still records that exist that can be used to tell this story.

mdp2021 2y ago
? Organized societies leave records; the eruption happened in year 79, under the Flavians - the Colosseum will be inaugurated the next year. It is a mark of the so-called "middle ages" or "dark ages" to have periods in which reporting falls...
- lostemptations5 2y ago
  And those records are usually destroyed over time by wars, earthquakes, fires, dégradations, just misplacing stuff, etc, etc. So yeah I'm amazed too -- this stuff survives.
  - mdp2021 2y ago
    Backups ;) Much is lost, some is retained... (The original poster wrote «records that exist that can be used to tell this story»: of all the documentation that can be lost, that produced during the first imperial Rome is probably some of the most secured. We still lost a lot: for example, the culmination of that period is probably under Trajan, and he wrote the Commentarii de bellis Dacicis - lost, contrary to its model, Julius Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico...)
    - lostemptations5 2y ago
      All true. But these backups must be available publicly-- especially after someone's death (an unfortunate event:/) Without that -- they become lost.

GeekyBear 2y ago

A surviving historical account of the eruption, for those interested: > This is an English translation of the two letters written by Pliny the Younger to the Roman historian Tacitus. The first letter describes the journey of his uncle Pliny the Elder during which he perished. The second one describes his own observations in a town across the bay. https://igppweb.ucsd.edu/~gabi/sio15/lectures/volcanoes/pliny.html https://igppweb.ucsd.edu/~gabi/sio15/lectures/volcanoes/plin...

nhggfu 2y ago
what an epic read (and wow @ what a great communicator Pliny the Younger was. ) thanks GeekyBear.
karunamurti 2y ago
Fortis Fortuna Adiuvat. I wonder if there's a clinical research of the long term respiration damage of the survivors.
opminion 2y ago
Podcast "The Rest is History" episode 355, I think.

WalterBright 2y ago

> Survivors were not isolated into camps, nor were they forced to live indefinitely in tent cities. There’s no evidence that they encountered discrimination in their new communities. I watched that documentary. There's no evidence for or against any of those theories.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

VagabundoP 2y ago

Wait, how did Rectina send the message that said she was trapped at the foot of the mountain, if she was… trapped at the foot of the mountain in her house? Why didn’t she escape with the messenger?

netsharc 2y ago
Messenger bird? At least this source says birds were used by the Romans, but I'm just speculating: https://www.birdful.org/were-birds-used-as-messengers/ https://www.birdful.org/were-birds-used-as-messengers/ Although the sentence says "... except by boat". Why she sent a messenger (presumably by boat) to ask Pliny the Elder to pick her up, instead of using that boat itself, is, curious.
- dboreham 2y ago
  Heliograph?
- cma256 2y ago
  The boat might not have been big enough to carry her family, attendants, and material wealth. All of which can be more important to people than immediate escape. Pliny writes that the cloud had not reached Stabiae. Its likely she was anxious and wanted to evacuate but was not under noticeable threat and did not understand the severity of her situation. Edit: https://igppweb.ucsd.edu/~gabi/sio15/lectures/volcanoes/pliny.html https://igppweb.ucsd.edu/~gabi/sio15/lectures/volcanoes/plin...
IG_Semmelweiss 2y ago
Its possible the only means of practical escape for her were by sea, and she did not know how to swim - but only someone from her entourage did (perhaps the slave that delivered the message).

casenmgreen 2y ago

> So I created a methodology to determine if survivors could be found. Methodology is the study of methods (just as sociology is the study of societies). It is not a method (any more than a sociology is a society).

scoot 2y ago
methodology /ˌmɛθəˈdɒlədʒi/ noun A system of methods used in a particular area of study or activity. E.g.: "a methodology for investigating the concept of focal points" OED
- casenmgreen 2y ago
  Wikipedia FWIW, first sentence; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methodology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methodology "In its most common sense, methodology is the study of research methods." I may be wrong, but I think what's happened is that everyone likes saying "methodology", so they do, and so everyone uses it. It's just that it's wrong - but it's normal. Sociology -> study of societies. Psychology -> study of the mind and behaviour. Archaeology -> study of historical human activity (by a particular means). "ology" -> a branch of learning. We are not creating new branches of learning, when we are in fact creating a method to investigate a problem. Also, if we were to say methodology differs to all other uses of -ology, and in fact is a, or a few, methods used to investigate a problem, what word do we then use to describe the study of methods?
  - mdp2021 2y ago
    "Methodology" is not overlappable to "Sociology", "Psychology", "Archaeology": a "methodology" can be a logic behind a method. It is a theoretical framework that is supposed to validate the methods you will use. To create a symmetry, you could pose a problem relevant to (say) Psychology, than develop a "psychology" as a theoretical framework valid in Psychology that justifies your further analysis. -- Specifically to the text, the researcher says he checked occurrences of typical names in inscriptions (etc.) and evidence of re-scaled infrastructure - that is the method. The methodology would be expressed in an accompanying study that justifies that method as valid.

teleforce 2y ago

Check this very interesting documentary on the details account of Pompeii daily life based on historical records [1]. Fun facts, they discovered evidence of syphilis disease from the remains of the dead and restaurants are familiar sights in ancient Pompeii. [1] What Was Everyday Life Like In Pompeii? | Pompeii with Mary Beard | Absolute History: https://youtu.be/LSw7eoBbM0U https://youtu.be/LSw7eoBbM0U

BurningFrog 2y ago
Syphilis was not observed in Europe until 1493, and it is believed to have been brought from the New World by members of the Columbus 1492 expedition.
- boomboomsubban 2y ago
  The origin of syphilis is a contentious topic, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_syphilis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_syphilis
peterfirefly 2y ago
Mary Beard is not exactly a reliable source. She is on TV a lot, though, which doesn't make it better.
- chomskyole 2y ago
  Why is she not a reliable source? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Beard_(classicist) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Beard_(classicist) "Dame Winifred Mary Beard, DBE, FSA, FBA, FRSL (born 1 January 1955)[1] is an English classicist specialising in Ancient Rome. She is a trustee of the British Museum and formerly held a personal professorship of classics at the University of Cambridge.[2] She is a fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge, and Royal Academy of Arts Professor of Ancient Literature."

memsom 2y ago

I visited Pompeii and Herculanium last year. The thing you don't get by reading books about Pompeii is just how absolutely massive it was. It is HUGE. You are talking a small city. I believe we were also told that something like 1/3 of it is still buried - if not 1/3, a large percentage. Herculanium is less impressive, but it is still a reasonable sized place.

mullen 2y ago
Two things I took away from visiting Pompeii that I did not know from reading books and watch History Channel videos. Like you said, Pompeii was pretty large and it was covered with a lot of pumice and ash. There are a couple of places where the pumice and ash is 30 - 40 feet above the houses and all of that fell within a couple of days.

gwbas1c 2y ago

Flagged due to politics, specifically: > This model for post-disaster recovery can be a lesson for today. The costs of funding the recovery never seems to have been debated. Survivors were not isolated into camps, nor were they forced to live indefinitely in tent cities. There’s no evidence that they encountered discrimination in their new communities. That's a very different situation than what we see today, and is a completely inappropriate analogy. The survivors of Pompeii moved to adjacent communities about a day's journey from Pompeii. They were not migrants. The best analogy is how we (in the US) have FEMA to handle disasters within American boarders; and how American residents regularly move to different towns / states.

mdp2021 2y ago
> Flagged If we had to flag submissions for occasional faults... For that matter, signs of grave intellectual deficiency are at the beginning already, at > shooting ... debris up to 20 miles (32.1 kilometers) in the air Where you are told that volcanic debris has 100 meters precision, starting from a figure that has 16 kilometers fault of precision (use of "precision" here imprecise). These people should not be allowed to leave the house, they fail verification of intellectual competence at the basics (use of "verification" here imprecise). Yet... Yet sometimes their effort does not lead to complete disaster. Be very wary as they are wearing flashing warning lights, but do not throw away the good if it miraculously is there. -- Edit: and it contains a chunk, «In episodes of the TV series “Doctor Who” and “Loki”». By coincidence, the next the eyes met came to be the shout of TheConversation: «Academic rigour, journalistic flair». What do we do, we throw away all of it? Probably not. It is a very imperfect world.