The destruction of Pompeii in 79 AD is famous for being caused by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, but it wasn’t just the volcano itself that wiped out the city. What really did the most damage were the intense clouds of hot gas and ash, called pyroclastic flows, that swept through the city. These flows moved incredibly fast, destroying everything in their path and suffocating people instantly. Many of Pompeii's residents had already evacuated when the eruption began, but others stayed behind and didn’t survive. Buildings were buried under tons of ash, which preserved the city for centuries. Today, Pompeii is a snapshot of Roman life frozen in time, but it's a reminder of the deadly power of nature.
00:00The story of Pompeii is complete chaos as is, but to add a little fuel to this fire, we dug up some groundbreaking facts, and I mean that quite literally.
00:10Hear me out. What if it wasn't the scorching sea of lava that destroyed the city of Pompeii, but rather an earthquake that happened during the volcano's eruption?
00:20Rewind to over 2,000 years ago. The year is 79 BCE. It was around 1 o'clock in the afternoon when Mount Vesuvius decided to erupt.
00:33Pompeians were going on with their normal daily routines when lava started taking over.
00:38The flow of lava was so quick that most people didn't have anywhere to run. The disaster took the lives of around 2,000 people.
00:46The lava covered most of the city, which then turned everything to ashes.
00:52Pompeii was only discovered during the 16th century of our common era, when an architect commended a dig to divert a river.
00:59It's a very well-studied site nowadays, but something unusual recently caught the researchers' attention.
01:07Scientists were excavating a site called the House of Painters at work.
01:12They were examining a couple of skeletons when they saw something weird.
01:16The skeletons probably belonged to two men around the age of 50.
01:21The analysis showed these men had survived the first surge of lava in the city.
01:26But they didn't make it out due to this second unexpected part, the earthquake.
01:33The men probably took shelter at the House of Painters at work, but the walls crumbled down when the earthquake hit.
01:39The men were found in a protective posture, like they were trying to shield themselves from something that was going to fall above their heads.
01:47Plus, these skeletons were not found under the layer of volcanic ash, but on top of it, proving that they really did survive Vesuvius' sea of lava.
01:56It turns out, this is not as rare as it seems.
02:00A volcanologist explained that the seismic activity during the eruption really made things worse in Pompeii.
02:07He said that this seismic chaos probably influenced the desperate choices of a lot of Pompeians in their final moments.
02:13This is not the first time the world heard of a possible earthquake in Pompeii.
02:19A guy named Pliny the Younger, who escaped the disaster and witnessed the whole thing, beat these scientists to it in his famous letters.
02:26Pliny the Younger was a lawyer and an important person back in ancient Rome.
02:31He was an eyewitness to the whole Pompeii disaster, and he wrote in one of his letters that the eruption was followed by a trembling of the Earth.
02:39Researchers do agree that something never added up.
02:43Pompeii is known to have really well-preserved skeletons, since the ashes kind of played an important role in preserving them.
02:50But the buildings were in horrible shape, making it hard to reconstruct the entire city as it once was.
02:57Pompeii was indeed one of a kind.
03:00It was one of the most vibrant and lively cities of the ancient Roman Empire.
03:04The city was huge.
03:05It could have been home to as many as 30,000 people in its heyday.
03:10The House of Fawn, for example, was a clear example of how rich Romans lived their lives in Pompeii.
03:16It was a huge house that even had two gardens inside, taking up the entire block.
03:21They looked like they were made of white marble, but it was actually painted stucco.
03:26It was clear to researchers that only aristocrats lived there.
03:30Then, there was this famous forum.
03:32This is where most of the administrative part of the city life happened.
03:37It was made up of a lot of different buildings, like the Basilica, a hotspot for political and civil meetings,
03:43the McKellum, which was a market, and several temples.
03:46If we were visiting this back in the day, we'd see a bunch of men dressed in tunics.
03:52A few select ones would wear togas, those heavy, white pieces of draped cloth that look like bedlin and wrapped over the body.
04:00Togas were mainly used on special occasions, since they were costly, hard to wash, and considered a traditional costume.
04:08Representatives running for office would use it during their campaign run so that commoners would identify them as candidates.
04:14One can't forget about the Villa of the Mysteries.
04:18Cool name, huh?
04:19It was called that way because of some mysterious frescoes found inside of it.
04:23Modern-day archaeologists still haven't figured out what the scenes painted are trying to depict.
04:29Probably some type of ritual or ceremony.
04:31By the way, a villa is simply a large suburban Roman-style house.
04:37It's not necessarily a super posh place where the rich and beautiful live.
04:41It's usually located on the outskirts of town, near the city's walls.
04:45The Villa of the Mysteries one, in particular, was found astoundingly well-preserved in modern archaeological excavations.
04:52It even had a manufacturing area inside of it, like its own little industry.
04:56It was common for richer Romans to own big farmlands, like Olive Gardens, for example.
05:02So they would also build a processing station inside their villas to extract the oil and package the whole thing.
05:09The amphitheater was where some of the richer men paid to put on gladiator fights for the rest of the town.
05:14It was built around 70 BCE, and it was one of the oldest amphitheaters of the world.
05:20It was even older than the Colosseum in Rome.
05:22This huge building could fit around 20,000 spectators at once.
05:27The seating was arranged by social class, so you could easily spot who was a member of the nobility.
05:33Ah, and in case you're wondering why it was shaped like a weird egg,
05:37it's because that was the shape that allowed for an unobstructive view wherever you were in the crowd.
05:43As every other Roman city, Pompeii also had some famous baths.
05:48Since not every house had access to plumbing back in the day, most people didn't shower in their homes.
05:54That's why so many Romans would use public baths, usually at the end of the day, to clean themselves.
06:00But make no mistake, this wasn't just a place for bathing.
06:03It was a cultural hotspot.
06:06The baths were made up of many different rooms.
06:09The first one was like a locker room, where people would keep their clothes and personal belongings.
06:13This is where the upper and lower classes mingled together.
06:17Someone's class could easily be identified by their clothes and jewelry.
06:22The amount of gold and silver worn back in those days is nothing compared to what most people wear today.
06:28Usually, the rich folks would leave someone to take care of their belongings while they went and took their bath.
06:33Because, yes, it could happen that stuff went missing while chilling and relaxing.
06:37The big focus on self-care nowadays was already a thing for ancient Romans.
06:43It was common that before taking a bath, olive oil was rubbed all over the skin.
06:48They would scrape off the dirty skin with a strigil.
06:52That may sound weird, but also extremely pleasing?
06:55The baths had rooms for massages.
06:58Some of them had reading rooms and even courtyards for some healthy exercise.
07:02Oh, there was even a natatio, or swimming pool if you're not fluent in Latin.
07:07After all, it was the Romans that said, a healthy body is a healthy mind.
07:13The bakeries
07:14Bread was one of the main components of Pompeian diet, so much so that there were around 30 bakeries in the city.
07:22Bread was freshly made from scratch every day.
07:25In a special area of the shop, the corn or wheat was ground, and mules would circle around to keep the mills going.
07:33The funny thing about Pompeians is that they liked to cover the exterior walls of buildings with paintings, much like graffiti nowadays.
07:41Their paintings, usually frescoes, used to depict what daily life was like in the city.
07:47Ancient Romans were very outdoorsy people, so coloring their walls seemed like a good option for them.
07:53A lot of houses had frescoes inside of them, too, to make up for the lack of windows.
07:59The paintings gave the house owners the illusion of more space if the painting was of, let's say, a garden, for example.
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