I'm getting a little behind on these posts! Last Friday (June 24th), I visited Pompeii, where I've dreamed of going for many years. The site itself is huge, most of a city that had had thousands of inhabitants... too much to take in in the three or four hours that I had there. I didn't get to see the amphitheater where Pink Floyd filmed their concert, or the brothel, but I did see the site I was most interested in, the Villa of the Mystery, located in what had once been a suburb of the ancient Roman city.
When I got there, the Villa was nearly empty, just a handful of tourists, a caretaker, a friedly but scruffy-looking cat and a spotted dog. In fact, Pompeii is full of semi-wild dogs, ironic, since it also has the world's first "beware of the dog" sign (Caviet Canem, I think). However, this dog and the caretaker seemed to know each other, so I wasn’t too worried.
The Villa was one of the most intact buildings that I visited. Much of the roof and even many of the original wall paintings were still there. What I really wanted to see, though, was the fresco showing the rite of Dyonosis, probably the most famous artifact of Pompeii.
So I searched around and was about to give up when I finally saw a couple of tourists, Russian, I think, peering through a modern wooden shutter installed in one of the walls. I looked through as well, and there was the mural that I remember so well from Art History Class, The boy reading the ritual, the satyrs, Silenus pouring wine, the bride cowering in fear and then danciing in a frenzy, and finally transformed into a priestess. The god Dionysius presiding over it all. Most of the characters in this drama unchanged in the two thousand or so years since the fresco was painted. It amazed me that this of all the decoarations was not removed and mostly undamaged; one of the most valuable documents of the Roman mystery cults.
When I got there, the Villa was nearly empty, just a handful of tourists, a caretaker, a friedly but scruffy-looking cat and a spotted dog. In fact, Pompeii is full of semi-wild dogs, ironic, since it also has the world's first "beware of the dog" sign (Caviet Canem, I think). However, this dog and the caretaker seemed to know each other, so I wasn’t too worried.
The Villa was one of the most intact buildings that I visited. Much of the roof and even many of the original wall paintings were still there. What I really wanted to see, though, was the fresco showing the rite of Dyonosis, probably the most famous artifact of Pompeii.
So I searched around and was about to give up when I finally saw a couple of tourists, Russian, I think, peering through a modern wooden shutter installed in one of the walls. I looked through as well, and there was the mural that I remember so well from Art History Class, The boy reading the ritual, the satyrs, Silenus pouring wine, the bride cowering in fear and then danciing in a frenzy, and finally transformed into a priestess. The god Dionysius presiding over it all. Most of the characters in this drama unchanged in the two thousand or so years since the fresco was painted. It amazed me that this of all the decoarations was not removed and mostly undamaged; one of the most valuable documents of the Roman mystery cults.
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