Discovering Herculaneum

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Herculaneum: Past and Future

Andrew Wallace-Hadrill

Andrew Wallace-Hadrill is head of the Herculaneum Conservation Project, and so has unrivalled knowledge about the less famous of the two Roman cities destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79AD. The difference in renown between Herculaneum and Pompeii is such that his preface opens with a frank assessment of Pompeii's popularity by comparison with the lack of attention given to Herculaneum. In numbers of books published, Herculaneum has lost out to Pompeii since its rediscovery in the early 18th century. The site itself has also suffered extraordinary and undeserved neglect.

Giving as his reason the lack of publications on Herculaneum, Wallace-Hadrill has set out to reveal as much of the city as he knows and as the space in this large format hardback allows, which is to say, a lot. His preface is an admirably condensed survey of what we can learn from Herculaneum, why that is different from what we have learned from Pompeii and why it is important.

Where the preface is tightly focused the chapters that follow expand into great detail on every aspect of the city. The account is based on the archaeological work that began in earnest under the Bourbon dynasty of Naples in the early 1700s and continues now under Wallace-Hadrill's direction. Starting with geology and ending with what the future means for Herculaneum, he covers the people of the city, their public and private activities and what the remains of these reveal about their living standards. He also touches on how Herculaneum related to Pompeii as a living Roman city and does so now as an archaeological site. Given its size and weight, this book could be a document of intimidating academic dryness. It is not, however, for two reasons.

The first is the multitude of illustrations. There is more than one colour illustration per page, mainly photographs of the site or of archaeological finds, but also plans, maps and pictures of the current and past work at the site. The numerous double-page fold-outs are a stand-out feature; there are several of these showing panoramic views of the city to best effect, plus a four-page map of the Roman city plan. The book would be a helpful guide and visual pleasure even without Wallace-Hadrill's text.

The second element that makes the book more than just a record of digging up the past is Wallace-Hadrill's style of writing. He is aware of the need to relate the ruined city to the lives of the Roman inhabitants as seen in the historic records (the various wooden legal documents preserved thanks to Vesuvius’ deposition of hot dust over Herculaneum, rather than the ash and pumice that incinerated Pompeii). Both ends of Roman society are brought to life: the tribune Marcus Nonius Balbus, governor of Crete and Cyrene, at the top, commemorated with a statue under the city walls, and at the bottom the freed slaves named in the surviving documents. Rather than leave these as solemn records of the past, Wallace-Hadrill uses them to paint Herculaneum as a close community with a large immigrant population. It was a face-to-face society combining wealthy retirees from Rome, ambitious middle classes and a more socially mobile slave class than elsewhere in the Empire. For an archaeological text his style is very accessible; his descriptions of the early 20th-century excavations of Amedeo Maiuri, in particular, have a tone that would make him an ideal guide to the site in person.

Combined with the exhaustive and beautifully presented illustrations the text makes Herculaneum the book without competition as a record of what the city was and what the Herculaneum Conservation Project is doing now for the future. Given the destruction visited on the city by Vesuvius, the reader could be forgiven for expecting numerous photographs of ruined buildings with columns. These are present, but are interesting records of the place despite looking similar to each other, and there are also plenty of images recording the fine art of Herculaneum. The mosaics in the House of Neptune and Amphitrite and the Basilican frescoes are impressive examples.

In his final chapter, Wallace-Hadrill is keen to stress that the city remains in a terrible state. As he says, ‘to stand under the shadow of Vesuvius and demand permanence and stability is evidently unreasonable’.  Nonetheless, he is hopeful that the conservation work and the attention it brings to the site will enable what remains of Herculaneum to be stabilized and co-exist successfully with the needs of research and modern tourism. This book is the ideal testament to that hope.

Herculaneum: Past and Future  by Andrew Wallace-Hadrill is published by Frances Lincoln, 2011. 352 pp. 360 colour illus. ISBN 0-7112-31429