Pompeii – the Life of a Roman Town

The headings of Mary Beards notes give a taste of this astonishing book: Bad Breath Intestinal Parasites Performing Monkeys One-way Streets Kosher Food Water Shortages. The Temple of Isis serves to bring in multiculturalism. The House of the Menander tells how a house worked. At the Suburban Baths we go from communal bathing to hygiene to erotica. 154 writing tablets from the House of Caecilius Jucundus detail the accounts of its owner. A fast-food joint on the Via dell Abbondanza introduces food and drink and diets and street life. These are just a few of the strands that make up an extraordinary and involving portrait of an ancient town its life and its continuing re-discovery by Britains leading classicist.