For a long time it was believed that everyone present during the eruption in Herculaneum and Pompeii died, becoming hollow in the frozen stone. However, this claim is now being revised as scientists have found evidence of people who survived the explosion and lived their lives elsewhere.

The research, which shed light on what happens next, took nearly a decade and formed the basis of the new PBS documentary “Pompeii: New Excavations.”

How many people survived

Pompeii and Herculaneum were two wealthy cities on the Italian coast, south of Naples. About 30,000 people lived in Pompeii, there was a thriving industry and active political and financial networks. Herculaneum, with a population of about 5,000, had an active fishing fleet and several marble workshops. Both economies supported the villas of wealthy Romans in the surrounding countryside.

The explosion lasted more than 18 hours. Human remains found in each city represent only a small fraction of the populationand many objects that archaeologists expected to find preserved in the ashes were missing. Carriages and horses disappeared from the stables, ships disappeared from the docks, and safes were emptied of money and jewels. All this suggests that most of the city’s inhabitants could be saved if they escaped early enough.

University of Miami professor Stephen L. Tuke says he has created a methodology to determine whether survivors can be found.

I took Roman names specific to Pompeii or Herculaneum, such as Numerius Popidius and Aulus Umbricius, and looked for people with those names living in surrounding communities in the period after the eruption. I also looked for additional evidence, such as improving infrastructure to accommodate immigrants in neighboring communities.
– He is writing.

After eight years of researching databases of tens of thousands of Roman inscriptions on sites ranging from walls to tombstones, scientist finds evidence of survival of more than 200 people in 12 cities. These municipalities are mostly located in the Pompeii region. But as a rule, they were located north of Vesuvius, outside the zone of greatest destruction.

It appears that most of the survivors tried to stay as close to Pompeii as possible. They chose to settle with other survivors and relied on their social and economic ties to their hometown in resettlement.

What did the survivors do?

Some families went on to prosper in new communities.

• Rich Caltili family He settled in Ostia, then a large port city north of Pompeii, 18 miles from Rome. There they built a temple to the Egyptian god Serapis, who carried a basket of grain on his head, a symbol of the fertility of the earth. Members of the Kaltilii family intermarried with another family of the rescued, the Munatii.
• The second largest port city in Roman Italy, Puteoli (known today as Pozzuoli), also hosted survivors. moved there Family of Aulus Umbritiuswho sells garum, a popular fermented fish sauce. Reviving the family business, Aulus and his wife named their first child, born in the new city, Puteolan.

But not everyone is lucky. Some of the explosion survivors did not fare well in their new communities. Some were poor even before this, while others lost their fortunes during or after the boom.

• Fabia Secundina of Pompeii, named after her grandfather, a wealthy wine merchant, also found herself in Puteoli. There she married an Aquarius retiarian gladiator, who died at the age of 25, leaving her in financial difficulty.
• Three other very poor families from Pompeii (Aviani, Atili, and Mazuri) survived and settled in a small, poorer community called Nuceria, today called Nocera, located about 10 miles east of Pompeii. According to the surviving tombstone, the Masuri family adopted a boy named Avianius Felizio.
• Another woman from an unnamed family who survived the explosion continued the family tradition: when she settled in the new community of Beneventum, she built an altar to Venus on public land provided by the local city council.

How society reacts to resettlement

Interestingly, the government also played a role as the victims resettled and established lives in their new communities. Roman emperors invested heavily in the region, repairing areas damaged by the eruption and building new infrastructure for the displaced population, including roads, water systems, amphitheatres, and temples.

Survivors were not isolated in camps or forced to live in tent cities indefinitely. There is no evidence that they experienced discrimination in their new community.

On the contrary, everything indicates that communities welcomed the survivors, helped them, and even adopted children. Many opened their own businesses or served in local self-government bodies. The government provided new populations and communities with resources and infrastructure to rebuild their lives.