I know what you’re thinking: Herculaneum is pretty, but Pompeii is much more famous. Am I right?
No, don’t apologise! Pompeii is actually a very nice city. My grandparents and my uncle Aulus live there. My mother and I often go to their house on holiday.
Have you ever walked in the Forum? It’s a really stylish square, with white marble paving and surrounded by a two-storey portico. There are temples, offices, a market, the basilica… but, to tell you the truth, what I like most is the crowd.
In Herculaneum, we are not used to seeing so many people crammed together: priests, lawyers, merchants, aristocrats being carried, alongside the unemployed, foreign travellers, chatterering people and spectators of all ages…
This doesn’t only happen in Pompeii. The Forum is the true heart of every Roman city, where people go to get the latest news. When I was a child, every time I went to Pompeii, my uncle Aulus used to drag me into the Forum. He would lecture me about the famous people celebrated in the statues and then we would go to the basilica to watch the trials. I would always end up falling asleep standing against the wall. Then, at dinner time, Uncle Aulo always argued with my mum: ‘Young Marcus cannot spend his life with his hands in flour! He is a Roman citizen, not a slave!”.
I agreed with him about the flour, but after a long argument about a stolen goat, it didn’t seem much so interesting…