{"id":271924,"date":"2025-06-04T03:45:36","date_gmt":"2025-06-04T03:45:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/aerospace\/what-was-daily-life-like-for-the-women-who-lived-in-ancient-pompeii-2000-years-ago\/"},"modified":"2025-06-04T03:45:36","modified_gmt":"2025-06-04T03:45:36","slug":"what-was-daily-life-like-for-the-women-who-lived-in-ancient-pompeii-2000-years-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=271924","title":{"rendered":"What Was Daily Life Like for the Women Who Lived in Ancient Pompeii 2,000 Years Ago?"},"content":{"rendered":"


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A new exhibition is spotlighting the women who have long been sidelined in histories of the Roman Empire\u2014from mothers and weavers to entrepreneurs and influential tavern owners<\/h2>\n
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Eli Wizevich<\/a><\/p>\n

– History Correspondent<\/span><\/p>\n

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Frescoes, statues, graffiti and other artifacts show the many roles and rituals of Roman womanhood.
\n Archaeological Park of Pompeii<\/span>
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Like all women of their time, Asellina and Zmyrina could not vote. But they found influence in their own ways.<\/p>\n

Asellina<\/a> owned a popular\u00a0thermopolium<\/a> on a bustling corner of\u00a0ancient Pompeii<\/a>, where her three assistants doled out food, drink and political endorsements to customers. A sign on the door above the tavern\u00a0weighed in<\/a> on an upcoming election for\u00a0aedile<\/em><\/a>, a type of city official in charge of public buildings: \u201cThe girls of Asellina urge you to vote for Gaius Lollius Fuscus as aedile. And Zmyrina is one of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Buried in debris from the\u00a0eruption<\/a> of Mount Vesuvius in 79 C.E., places like Asellina\u2019s thermopolium preserve Pompeii as it was just before tragedy struck. In these ancient Roman stories, however, women have long been relegated to secondary actors in the shadow of ambitious men like Gaius Lollius Fuscus.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing a Woman in Ancient Pompeii<\/a>,\u201d a new exhibition at the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, centers women of all ages and social classes in the story of the doomed city. To that end, the exhibition begins with women\u2019s names and faces, an attempt to humanize lives that began and ended in a past so distant it can feel mythical.<\/p>\n

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\u201cOne of the most significant aims of the show was to reconstruct the personalities and activities of the women who lived in the city,\u201d Francesca Ghedini<\/a>, an archaeologist at the University of Padua and a co-curator of the exhibition, tells\u00a0Artnet<\/em><\/a>\u2019s Jo Lawson-Tancred.<\/p>\n

After centuries of excavations, the exhibition\u2019s organizers have much to work with, ranging from ancient graffiti scrawled on the walls of private houses to the\u00a0two nearly life-size statues<\/a> of a man and woman that were discovered earlier this year, per a\u00a0statement<\/a>. Some experts think this woman may have been a priestess, who \u201cheld unusual levels of power for women\u201d in the Roman world, as Emily Hauser<\/a>, a classicist at the University of Exeter, writes in the Conversation<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

But for many women, life was constrained by social expectations starting at an early age. To prepare for marriage, Roman girls ended their schooling earlier than boys. Fathers began picking viable husbands when their daughters were as young as 12, according to the\u00a0exhibition guide<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The cycle of motherhood began again rapidly as women reentered the domestic sphere. In the Roman household, women were in charge of educating children, supervising\u00a0enslaved workers<\/a> and managing household finances. Frescoes illuminate women\u2019s daily rituals like hairstyling, while objects like a speculum, forceps and children\u2019s toys suggest the central role of motherhood.<\/p>\n

Despite these duties and constraints, women spent leisure time spinning and weaving, as an abundance of spindles, whorls and bobbins shows. Some managed to elevate themselves into positions of greater economic and social independence.<\/p>\n

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A sign painted on Julia Felix’s house advertises her baths and rooms available for paying customers.<\/p>\n

Archaeological Park of Pompeii<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Julia Felix<\/a>, for instance, inherited the large house\u2014and business instincts\u2014of her father, Spurius. When an earthquake shattered Pompeii\u2019s\u00a0Stabian Baths<\/a> in 62 C.E., Felix offered her private bathhouse and extra rooms to paying customers. Archaeologists know this due to a rental notice still intact on the outside of her house, which also featured wall-to-wall frescoes, lush gardens and a private water supply.<\/p>\n

Another daughter who forged her own path was\u00a0Eumachia<\/a>. Born to a prominent amphorae producer, Eumachia married a wealthy landowner whose flocks of sheep allowed her to begin an independent career as a wool processor. Accumulating her own fortunes, Eumachia became one of the few women to finance a major public building in central Pompeii.<\/p>\n

The exhibition also bears witness to the women who lived on the fringes of Roman society, including the city\u2019s nearly 100 sex workers, and women like Clodia Nigella, a pig-keeper who likely raised swine for sacrificial rituals.<\/p>\n

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Nearly life-size statues depicting a man and woman are among the newest finds in the exhibition.<\/p>\n

Archaeological Park of Pompeii<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Its focus then shifts to the more recent past, highlighting the role that women played in the excavation, documentation and preservation of Pompeii as an archaeological site.<\/p>\n

For instance, Caroline Bonaparte<\/a>, the sister of Napoleon<\/a>, first became enamored with Pompeii when she toured the site in 1808 as the new queen of Naples. She supported and funded the ambitious plans of Michele Arditi, the director of excavations, while also contributing her own ideas for Pompeii. She suggested using French army troops to excavate the boundaries of the ancient city, publish a monthly periodical and assign ordered street and building designations, an idea that was never adopted in her lifetime but received widespread archaeological acclaim when a later director embraced it.<\/p>\n

The exhibition also spotlights Olga Elia, born in 1902 in nearby Nocera Inferiore, who rose through the ranks as an archaeologist to become director of excavations in Pompeii in 1940.<\/p>\n

Taken together, the exhibition argues, these ancient and contemporary women don\u2019t just illuminate the story of Pompeii\u2014they are central to its story.<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/em>Being a Woman in Ancient Pompeii<\/em><\/a>\u201d is on view at the Archaeological Park of Pompeii through January 31, 2026.<\/em><\/p>\n

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