Crowds

A fictional travelogue; four minutes to read.

When Vesuvius erupted on the Italian peninsula in 79 A.D., volcanic mud and ashes smothered Pompeii preserving everything from bathrooms to bordellos. With a single temper tantrum, Vesuvius created a cemetery.

Today, except for the occasional lizard basking under a scorching sun and tourists marching like ants—some in lines, some swarming—the city is a crematorium. Nothing stirs.

It’s not hard for me to imagine Pompeii in the days before Vesuvius erupted. Along with other sightseers, I am reenacting the teeming, hustling, crowded tumult that was Pompeii.

A ratpack of noisy boys, escapees from their class field trip, slurp down sodas. Drips splatter the well-worn pavements. No one takes notice. Boys in ancient Pompeii, perhaps back from tending goats, quenched their thirst from a public fountain.

College girls cluster in a covey, burying their heads in cellphones. Two grizzled men glance at their nubile bodies displayed in miniskirts and crop tops. Once, the men of Pompeii did their girl-watching at the forum.

With a well-practiced pickup line, an Italian tour guide asks an American woman in a green tank top, “Would you like a pastry? You’re already sweet enough.” Sex in Pompeii was a well-regarded recreation. She smiles warmly but walks on. A libretto writing itself.

Life in Pompeii was impromptu street theatre. People eating at fast-food stands, surrounded by public art, drinking clean water, luxuriating at spas, writing papyrus notes, buying oils or perfumes, betting on chariot races. The Manhattan of its time.

In Pompeii, dining out was popular and necessary. Most lower-class homes did not have a cooking hearth and a third of the middle-class got by without kitchens. Snack bars served up hot and cold meals. Cheese, bread, veggies, soups, mutton, duck, goat, chicken, pig, fish, snails, wine. A better menu than I get at Applebee’s.

In nearby Naples, Pompeii’s foodie legacy lives on in pizza, creamy gelato, sweet pastries, anchovies on everything and rich, smooth, fall-in-love coffee. Naples pioneered coffeehouse culture and its bedrock beverage, espresso.

Naples claims the margherita pizza—named after Queen Margherita. Basil, mozzarella, tomato represent the green, white and red of the Italian flag. For ages, Napoli fishermen have nourished themselves on marinara pizza—from the word marine—a thin-crusted pizza smeared with nothing more than a thick tomato sauce, oil and basil leaves.

Naples is a fair approximation of life in ancient Pompeii. Frenetic and fun. The chaos of commerce and con artists, of entertainment, of aromatic foods and spices, of pleasure-packed public squares. Lost in the Spanish Quarter or lost in a Pompeii alley, same difference. Run over by a motorcycle or a donkey cart, same difference.

Pompeii was a paradise soon to be plagued by its future. Every building, the colonnades, the Roman arches, the statuary, the amphitheaters are tombstones. After hiking on gravesites all day, my muscles feel as if they are dying.

Back at my hotel, unwinding with a limoncello, I contemplate the sweep of the Bay of Naples. White caps dot the dark blue water, sailboats tack into the breeze, a cruise ship steams out to sea. A puffy cloud hangs in the sky. The crowds of Pompeii forgotten.

In the far distance Mount Vesuvius slumbers. Sudden death unthinkable.

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