Good morning, we are working on the ancient world in hopes of helping teachers prep for the next school year. This time I am looking at a documentary about Pompeii and the run time for this documentary is 52:39.
When Vesuvius exploded it buried the city of Pompeii. It was a shock to the Romans. How did the Romans react to this eruption? Would Pompeii be rebuilt? Pliny the Younger wrote about the eruption and his words came down to the present day. The sudden destruction of the city continues to intrigue people to the present day. Even today, there are discoveries and new stories are emerging about the destruction of Pompeii. Pompeii, with its location on the sea, drew people to the area. First the Greeks and then the Romans. Farmers could grow wonderful crops in rich soil. What they did not know was that they were building their city on a volcano. This volcano would preserve the city. Also preserved were the eyewitness accounts of the volcanic eruption. Pliny the Younger wrote out the experience of the eruption. This documentary looks at how the Roman government reacted to this disaster. Emperor Titus had just taken power and so he had to oversee the Roman reaction to what happened. A government commission was created and it came to the immediate conclusion that they could not rebuild the city. What could be salvaged was salvaged, marble could be reused and the bronzes melted down. Emperor Titus rose to the occasion. Nobody liked him when he came to power and they thought he was stupid. There were even rumors of an affair with a Jewish Princess, rekindling the story of Antony and Cleopatra. However, how Emperor Titus reacted to this disaster changed the people’s minds. He had the roads rebuilt, and other roads uncovered, and brought in supplies. Emperor Titus even made one of the biggest donations in the Roman Empire. He even visited the area months after the eruption. There were construction sites all over the area and many roads were rebuilt. However, lawlessness rose during this period and the Roman state stepped in to settle property disputes. Vesuvius wiped out the boundaries and blurred property lines. Lands were reallocated and people started to slowly come back. The Pompeii area was famous for its wine and it was shipped all over the empire. Pliny the Elder waxed eloquently about the wine that was produced in Pompeii. The wine was the drink of the elite. The wine was fundamental to social life. You told stories over wine. Wine made Pompeii rich and there were plenty of taverns and bars in Pompeii. In this section, there is a discussion of the Villa of the Mysteries. This villa was outside the city walls and had many frescos. It was host to many parties, its hosts providing wine that it had produced. There was a wine press discovered in this villa. There is a lovely and well-done virtual recreation of the villa in this section of this documentary. There is also a talk on how the Vesuvius eruption would have torn the heart out of wine growing in this region. There were also other products grown in the area. Fruits, cereals, and olive oil also brought wealth to Pompeii. Archeologists have discovered the remains of the products and these provide insights into the daily life of the people of Pompeii. Other products were discovered and these hint at the trading going on in the area as well. What other finds are being discovered in Pompeii? What can these find tell us about Pompeii? Have we gotten the date of the eruption wrong? Tune into the rest of this episode to find out more. Well, this documentary proves that there are always new discoveries made about Pompeii. I had never heard of how the Roman government reacted to this tragedy and did not know that the Emperor stepped in to help life come back to the area. I would have thought that the land was cursed and nobody came back. This documentary offers a very different perspective and goes into how the region recovered from Vesuvius. In conclusion, this would be a fantastic documentary to show to a history classroom because of the different perspectives and the talk about the new discoveries being made.
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The purpose of this blog is to share information on what can be used in a classroom, private school, or home school setting as well as serve as a portfolio of my personal and professional work. The reviews are my opinions and should be treated as such. I just want to provide a tool for teachers to select documentaries for their classrooms. |