COMITIUM - POMPEII

In the corner where Via dell’Abbondanza enters the Forum we find a building that acted as a sort of polling station for municipal elections. The original building could be reached via five entrances in the northern wall and five in the eastern one, so that voters could enter from the Forum and go straight out into Via dell’Abbondanza. However, after the earthquake of 62 A.D. only three entrances were used: one in the north wall and two leading the Forum. On the southern side of the building we find a podium where the magistrates sat when presiding over the electoral proceedings, while the other two walls contained niches housing honorary statues.

 

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This luxurious residence houses an impressive collection of fresco decorations typical of the wall paintings in the houses of rich Pompeian traders. The excavation techniques used made it possible to preserve, in almost all the rooms in the complex, the fourth style figure paintings completed after the earthquake of 62 A.D.. The brothers Aulus Vettius Restitutus and Aulus Vettius Conviva commissioned their fresco decorations from one of the leading artists’ workshops so that their home would be not only a comfortable residence, but also a “status symbol”. The house is divided into two areas: firstly, the part in which the family lived, laid out around the main atriu ... continue

(Apic. 7, 3, 1) Ingredients:

• 6 grains pepper
• 6 grains lovage (or juniper berries)
• 1 tsp thyme
• Liquamen (3 tblsp soya sauce + 3 tsp anchovy paste)
• 3 tblsp dry wine (like dry Marsala)
• 3 tblsp oil

Instructions:
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Mesh pepper in grain, fresh thyme and lovage seed. Add Liquamen, wine and oil. Emulsionize. Pour the sauce on the liver and serve.

Love was a common topic of conversation in Pompeii. Feelings, passions, poetic love, sex, homosexuality, prostitution and so forth were all part of daily life and not a source of prejudice. The concept of “obscenity” seems to have been unknown. Love and sex were considered earthly practices of a man’s life that were encouraged by the benevolence of Venus. The thousands of examples of graffiti found on the town’s walls are unequivocal proof of what the people of Pompeii thought about love and sex.