| Casa Degli Amorini Dorati |
|  | Some History... The history of the town of Pompei is well known in all the world. I give you just a short introduction about it.
According to the recent discovery, the site of the town of Pompeii (in Italian, Pompei) was inhabited since the 7th century BC by the Osci and it was an important crossroad between Cumae, Nola and Stabiae. It was captured by the Etruscans in the 6th centiry BC and by the Greek colony of Cumae between 525 and 474 BC. In the 5th century BC it was conquered the Samnites and after the Samnite Wars (4th century), Pompeii was forced to accept the status of socium of Rome, maintaining however linguistic and administrative autonomy. After the Campanian war again Rome in 80 BC it became a Roman colony with the name of Colonia Cornelia Veneria Pompeianorum becoming very important. In this time the town grew very fast and were built many houses and monuments which you can still see nowdays like the amphitheatre, Palaestra and an aqueduct.
In the town you can see famtasti well-preserved frescoes showing the everyday life and have been a major advance in art history of the ancient world, with the innovation of the Pompeian Styles. You can see in the whole town a large collection of erotic votive objects and frescoes. At the time of the eruption, the town could have had some 20,000 inhabitants, and was located in an area in which Romans had their holiday villas. On 5th February 62 there was a terrible heartquake that destroyed part of the town. In the time between 62 and the eruption in 79, some rebuilding was done, but some of the damage had still not been repaired in 79 and many people left the town in these years. On 79 AD a big eruption damage and cover by ash the whole town. It actually found in 1599 by Domenico Fontana, who was digging a new course for the river Sarno, but it took more than 150 years before a serious campaign was started to unearth them. During the years many parts of the original town were discovered but great part of it is still under the rock.
Nowday Pompei is one the most important Italian attractions and it is now part of a larger Vesuvius National Park and was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1997. |
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