The eruption of Vesuvius, which raged from the afternoon of August 24th through to the 26th, were recorded, albeit a few years later, by Gaius Plinius Secundus, who in 79 A.D. was 17 years old and  staying with his uncle, an admiral in the imperial fleet and a keen naturalist. Thanks to these recordings, we are now able to study more accurately the ruins and exactly what occurred on those devastating days of August 79 A.D.
On a bed of prehistoric lava, Pompeii is founded in the second half of the VII century B.C. with an organization effort that presupposes objectives of lookout and defence connected to the nature of the relations between the Greeks and the natives.

The natives, peaceful when first colonized. Later matured notions of armed notion when the Chalcidenses, who held defensive posts along the sea-coast, threatened to cut off for ever the people of Campania from access to the sea. Despite the documented existence of a Doric temple dating from the second half  of the VIth century B.C. on the terrace of the triangular forum, and other indications that were held valid until only a few years ago, Pompeii was not a Greek city, even though it had been influenced by Greek culture ever since the archaic epoch. In the light of the results obtained from the stratigraphic researches carried out in the past few years, it appears that Pompeii, at the time of its foundation and its first development, was much more conditioned, politically, by the Etruscans than by the Greeks.

«back to itineraries