Want to know something funny? When I was young, I used to tell everybody that my uncle was a Roman senator!
When I think about it now, it makes me laugh… Uncle Aulus, a senator from Rome! But I had my reasons for being confused. When we walked through the Forum of Pompeii, people stopped my uncle all the time, just to say hello or ask him about the next gladiator fights. He was like a celebrity, a really important person! And then at the end of the square, there was the silhouette of the Capitolium over the heads of the crowd…
There is a Capitolium in all Roman cities. It is the temple dedicated to the Capitoline triad, meaning the three gods worshipped on the Capitoline Hill in Rome: Jupiter, Juno and Minerva. The statues of the three gods are found in the cella, the inner room. The faithful are not allowed to enter the temple, but the door is always open and the statues can clearly be seen even from the Forum. A flight of steps leads up from the square to the temple, with the altar in full view, outside the entrance.
My proud uncle told me that our Capitolium is almost the same as the one in Rome, only smaller: the same paintings, the same statues, even the same floor!
At the time, I thought Pompeii was a true metropolis, like our capital Rome, Alexandria in Egypt or Antioch in Syria. I would really love to travel, to visit the Empire and go to the ends of the world…