The Fires of Vesuvius

 I'm writing this from my phone. I know I haven't fed this baby in a while but that's because I wasn't done with the books I was reading. I'm close to finishing my physical copy but I just got done with the Pompeii one.

Ever since I first heard about the City, I've always been fascinated by it. By the body casts, the way the whole city had been obliterated, and the fact they're still excavating to this day in 2026. I've always had so many questions on it.

This book has answered almost every single one of them. I learned a lot. I didn't know there was an earthquake 17 years ago before the eruption took place. The people of Pompeii were really dragging their feet to rebuild everything afterwards. It gave such a shift in perspective. Imagine having to dig up that rubble and try to make out if the ruins were either Volcano, or earthquake. That's gotta take some serious work.

I also learned about the political unrest just after Rome took over. Pompeii hadn't always been a roman city, they were an individual governing city. It was a cool deep dive and it was just so deeply fascinating. It was in the process of turning their culture when the eruption happened. So you also had "is this Pompeii or Rome?" As a reoccurring question. There was a huge mix of gods and the construction happening, and roman soldiers when Pompeii lost. I had a good time learning more about the culture through their political problems. Many people that I've seen, didn't talk about that. 

They talked about this grand house called, "The House of the Tragic Poet." As I listened, I didn't understand how great the house was until looking it up on Google and DAMN. That's a big ass house. Now I understood the appreciation of it. Their culture dug even deeper once the book talked about all the different paintings for each room. They were very peculiar about them and the way they decorated their houses. Each painting came from a story or myth about their gods. And it connected to a certain room. Like if it were fine dinning, it would naturally be in the kitchen. Not unlike the way we decorate our own houses today. Now unfortunately, I didn't quite catch the exact method of how the painters painted these walls but they did have an exact method which was incredibly interesting. They also had, I think, four different styles of paintings that almost everyone used. As a lover of art, these were one of the things I questioned about.

The wealthy and the poor were all together, just separated in terms of the grander house. They also had a lot of gods tied into the more governing officials. Like they had priests who's jobs also included dealing with the city itself. The book also got into a bit about the gladiators, and the sports. I think it hinted at the Olympics as well. Most of the gladiators were actually slaves which I didn't know about.

Pompeii wasn't this tiny town that I previously thought. It was a whole city. That had its own politics, it's bars, brothels, and it was becoming a huge trading place. Most of it was fish oil and olives and nobody mentioned the trades! They were starting to make a name for themselves!

So you had the culture taking a shift, population bloomed with the rome soldiers, four different styles of paintings, the rich and poor mingling, the trading posts, the rebuilding, the designing towards Rome culture -

And then the volcano happens! So now it's even more devastating when you learn about the background. This book was more than "here's what we found in the rubble" and more on "Here were their lives, here were the paintings that survived, and this is where they were before the eruption. We know this from rubble"

Like I said, many of my questions about this city were thoroughly answered and in such depth, it was incredible to listen to. I will never forget this book. I really want the physical copy! It has deserved a place on my non fiction shelf. I think it ruined other potential Pompeii books for me 😂. 

These were the parts that struck out to me the most. The book was definitely long. It was only ten chapters but wow, they were long chapters. The audiobook book was thirteen hours in total. I absolutely loved every single minute!

And now the blog survives! 

09/17/2026 0947