A researcher from the United States told where the surviving residents of Pompeii went.
A significant part of the population of the ancient Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum survived the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 and moved to Naples, the American scientist Stephen Tuck proved. The Roman authorities did not react to the incident for a long time and only after the formation of a large community of refugees reluctantly allocated money for the construction of housing.
During the eruption of Vesuvius in 79, not the entire population of the ancient Roman cities of Pompeii, Herculaneum and Stabia died: many residents escaped, leaving the dangerous region in advance or after the cataclysm - evidence of this famous version is given in an article by archaeologist and historian Stephen Tuck from the University of Miami, Forbes reports. … The material, which will be published in the journal Analecta Romana, was compiled on the basis of a comparison of chronicles from the dead cities with records from other parts of Italy that were not affected by Vesuvius. The fruit of Taka's work was a unique database that included lists of the names of the ancient Romans.
The goal of the researcher was to determine the exact number of survivors, as well as to identify where they moved to new places of residence and why they chose them.
The main help to Taku was provided by inscriptions on buildings and tombstones: the ancient Roman chronicles reported only about damage to property from natural disasters, almost without citing information about the death of people. One of the rare sources, purposefully created by man, are letters to Tacitus from Pliny the Younger: the politician and writer talked about the eruption of Vesuvius, which he himself witnessed and which killed his famous uncle Pliny the Elder, who recklessly rushed to explore the outlandish phenomenon of nature.
At first, he went to the epicenter of the disaster with the squadron, which he then commanded, but then went ashore, where "from thick fumes he caught his breath and closed his windpipe", wrote the nephew of the largest encyclopedist of antiquity.
Pliny the Younger also described a huge cloud rising above a volcano's crater, a hail of ash and stones, and an earthquake that led to a tsunami.
Scientist Tak has developed his own method for identifying refugees based on the following criteria: names that are common in cities near Vesuvius and appear elsewhere in the Apennine Peninsula after 79; special inscriptions that indicate the origin of a person in Pompeii or inform that he was born in another place; artifacts or objects of worship typical of the lost cities and found in other parts of the Roman Empire after the eruption of Vesuvius; new infrastructure, built specifically to accommodate the large number of arrivals.
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“In Pompeii, I was looking for names that belonged to people who lived in the city in the last years of its existence, and the inscriptions in the alleged shelters of the survivors, applied immediately after 80,” said Tak. - For example, six representatives of the Caninius family were found in Naples: this dynasty appeared earlier in Herculaneum, but was not found anywhere else. Most likely, they moved just because of Vesuvius."
The most convincing, according to the researcher, is the story of one of the members of this family, Marcus Caninius Botrio, whose name is recorded in the chronicles of Herculaneum.
He moved to Naples as a refugee, where he died, which is confirmed by the inscription on his grave.
As another example, Tak cites the tombstone of a certain Cornelius Fusca, who was a citizen of Pompeii, later lived in Naples, and even later was sent to the Roman province of Dacia (which occupied the approximate territories of modern Romania and Serbia) as the commander of the Praetorians. The date of Fusk's death is engraved on the plate - 87. So it is assumed that this military man moved from Pompeii to Naples after the eruption.
The author of the study managed to find traces of women who fled from the disaster. At the end of the 1st century BC. e. the inconsolable widower installed a tombstone on the grave of his late wife Vettiya Sabina. The inscription contained a word written in a dialect typical of the Pompeian region. Other facts of the application of this word in Naples have not been established.
I am so convinced that most of the refugees settled compactly on the northern side of the Gulf of Naples and lived as a diaspora, entering into marriages.
“Probably, these people fled to the north at the first sign of the eruption, or were far from the epicenter, outside their cities at the time of the disaster,” Tak noted.
At the same time, the researcher complains that this method is effective only for identifying sufficiently wealthy citizens. It is not possible to find further traces of the poor, foreigners and slaves who fled from Vesuvius - there is simply no mention of them.
Among other things, Tak draws attention to the reaction of the Roman authorities to the volcanic eruption. If in the modern USA, he writes, in the event of a natural disaster, the president or governors immediately declare a state of emergency and come to the aid of the people, then 2000 years ago the emperor did not react to what happened until the refugees themselves resettled.
Only after that he allocated funds for the construction of housing in Naples and Pozzuoli.
“The presented evidence makes it possible to answer the questions whether anyone survived the eruption of Vesuvius and where these people moved,” Tak stressed. “However, we will never know the exact number of refugees. It is simply unrealistic to answer this question with any certainty."