Pompeii Walking Tour: The Real History of the Ruins

The Pompeii Tour departs every day at 10.30 am from the InStazione help desk. After registering and registering your details, you will reach the entrance of Porta Anfiteatro together with the Guide. The guided tour includes a visit to the Teatro Grande and the Odeon, the latter dating back to the time of the deduction of the Samnite city in the colony of Rome, after which we will reach via Stabiana, a perfectly preserved cobbled street with sidewalks and pedestrian walkways, dotted with shops. and houses. The visit continues towards the Casa del Menandro, a richly decorated Hellenistic domus and then continues on the way of abundance. Here we will be able to visit one of the oldest thermal buildings in the city, with the male and female sectors perfectly preserved. From here the tour will continue towards the brothel on whose walls we can admire the famous erotic scenes and then reach the Civil Forum with the Temple of Jupiter, the Basilica and the granaries in which the casts are exposed.

The Teatro Grande is a Roman theater, buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 and found following the archaeological excavations of ancient Pompeii: inside it were represented comedies, mimes and pantomimes, as well as the atellane

The Casa del Menandro is a large urban domus of ancient Pompeii of almost 1800 m². It was excavated in the years 1926-1932 and is a good example of a wealthy family house from ancient Pompeii. It takes its name not from the owner of the house, but from the image of the Greek poet Menander, found there.

The name derives from a bas-relief that adorns a fountain located in the initial section, near the Forum, and is one of the most famous in Pompeii for the succession of public facilities, shops and residences, which allow you to relive the ancient fervor of activity. In the street the paintings of some shops have been restored, including the thermopolium of Asellina, a well-known inn, and some artisan workshops (“officinae”).

The Stabian Baths are a Roman bath complex, buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 and found following the archaeological excavations of ancient Pompeii: of its kind, it is the oldest building in the city.

The lupanari were, throughout the Roman era, the places dedicated to mercenary sexual pleasure, that is, real houses of tolerance. Some are still visible in the ruins of ancient Pompeii.

The Forum of Pompeii was built around the 4th century BC, in the Samnite era, near an important road junction, with roads that went towards Neapolis, Nola and Stabiae: it was a small open area around which numerous shops opened, built mostly in lava and tuff and cemented with clay. Following the conquest of Pompeii by the Romans, the Forum was completely rebuilt and enlarged, especially in the 2nd century BC: both the shops and a perimeter wall with the nearby temple of Apollo were demolished and, taking advantage of the low density housing in the area, political and religious buildings were built around the perimeter of the square

The temple of Jupiter overlooked the forum which later became the Capitolium and therefore dedicated to the three main divinities of the Eternal City: Jupiter, Juno and Minerva. In the basement of the temple, in addition to the sacred furnishings and the votive gifts of the faithful, the public treasure called erarium was also kept.

The imposing public building dating back to the second century. B.C. called basilica, it was basically a kind of indoor forum where most of the activities normally held in the forum took place when the weather conditions recommended the use of indoor places. On one side was the tribunal where the judge resided in an elevated position with respect to the parties. It should be noted that the place reserved for the judges was only reachable via a mobile wooden staircase to prevent the condemned from attacking the judges.

The cult of the god Apollo reached the Italic populations through the Greek world. In the period shortly before the eruption of 79 AD. this cult had lost followers as the importance of the time of Jupiter became capitolium grew. Currently the bronze statue of the god represented as an archer is clearly visible and in front of it it is possible to observe the statue of the goddess Diana

Currently the granaries area is a deposit of materials found during excavations but in the past it was the market for cereals and legumes. The fact that no traces of plaster were found there led to the belief that the structure was not yet finished at the time of the eruption. Very important is the ponderary table where the necessary tools were kept to guarantee the correctness of exchanges and above all to convert the different units of measurement of traders from different corners of the empire into the units of measurement valid in Pompeii.