archaeology.org 35Grand Tour artists drew and sold scenes
of the villa. Paradoxically, though, explains
Dessales, while it has been one of the most
widely represented buildings in Pompeii for
more than 250 years, the Villa of Diomedes’
2 , 000 -year-plus history from its foundation
through a.d. 79 to the present has never
been comprehensively understood. For the
past seven years, Dessales has supervised
an international project that has taken
more than 25 , 000 new photographs and
used software to combine these modern
images with more than 350 archival ones
showing the villa at different times since
its discovery. They have created the first
highly detailed 3 -D model of a residential
property in Pompeii.THE ERUPTION’S AFTERMATH:
THE SURVIVORS
T
housands of people perished in the eruption of Mount
Vesuvius, but many Pompeians managed to flee the city
and the volcano’s blast zone. For 30 years, the question of
where these survivors went has intrigued archaeologist Steven
Tuck of Miami University of Ohio. One source of evidence
he has explored is the existence of massive building projects
undertaken by the emperor Domitian in the nearby cities of
Naples, Cumae, and Puteoli in the years after the eruption.
“Whole neighborhoods, suburbs, roads, aqueducts, water
systems, amphitheaters—all of the infrastructure for an urban
community—was poured into these communities on the Bay
of Naples by the imperial government,” Tuck says.
To trace the relocation of individual survivors to these andother towns in the area, Tuck scoured inscriptions from pre-
eruption Pompeii for distinct Roman family names. He then
identified these same names in inscriptions in communities
where refugees may have moved after a.d. 79. Tuck has con-
cluded that survivors seem to have resettled in cities where
they had social and economic opportunities, rather than where
their blood relatives lived. Still, many Pompeian survivors
maintained ties to their city in their new communities, par-
ticularly through marriage to other Pompeians. For example,
a late first-century a.d. inscription found in Naples reads:To the spirits of the dead
Farewell Vettia Sabina
you who lived ever so well.
Marcus Tullius Dionysius
to his dearest wife
who lived 24 years, 3 months, 22 daysTullius and Sabinus (the male version of Sabina) are both
well-known Pompeian family names. This inscription also
contains the only known example from Naples of have, a word
that in the Oscan language of Pompeii’s pre-Roman settlers
means both “greetings” and “farewell.” nBenjamin Leonard is a senior editor and Jarrett A. Lobell is editor
in chief at Archaeology.Entryway mosaic, House of the Faun, PompeiiA 3-D reconstruction of
the villaÕs courtyard