The Streets of Herculaneum


An amateur road nerd's impressions of Herculaneum's streets

 Jake Graham


Herculaneum was the next location that my class got to visit. I remember being eager to compare these streets with those of Pompeii right away. 


I noticed that there were no crossing stones that designated a place to cross in Herculaneum. If I recall correctly, our professor stated that those stones were more so for people to cross over the streams of waste that may have been washed down the street. I guess that would make sense with the fact that Pompeii had a larger population than Herculaneum. Scholarship sets the population of Pompeii around 15,000 prior to the eruption of Vesuvius (Miko Flohr, 54). Herculaneum is said to have been a town of roughly 5000 people (Luigi and Lorsenso Capasso, 1826). I wonder if the size difference of these ancient towns is the actual reason for this difference in road construction. I mean 5000 people can still produce a lot of excrement that needs flushing through the roadways which suggests that it was not from a lack of necessity that Herculaneum did not have crosswalk stones for people to avoid ruining their togas when crossing the street. Of course, a plausible reason that I did not find the crosswalk stones is because only one third of Herculaneum has been uncovered due to it being seated beneath a modern city. There is a chance that somewhere in the uncovered remnants of Herculaneum, there is a crosswalk stone waiting to be found.


A street in Herculaneum showing that there are no crossing stones. Photo by Jake Graham.


I noticed that this road was in comparatively good condition to the roads I encountered in Pompeii. I can't help but imagine this is due to the 23 meters of volcanic debris preserving the streets of Herculaneum (Guy De La Bedoyere, 96).

With that being said, I did find similarities. There were wheel ruts on some streets of Herculaneum just like in Pompeii. Although I did not notice as many ruts in Herculaneum than Pompeii, but again that was likely connected to this being a smaller site.

Wheel marks found in Herculaneum. Photo by Jake Graham.



Bibliography

Capasso, Luigi, Lorenso Capasso. “Mortality in Herculaneum before volcanic eruption in 79 AD.” Correspondence 354, no. 9192 (November 1999): 1826. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(05)70601-2

Flohr, Miko. The Economy of Pompeii. “Quantifying Pompeii: Population, inequality, and the Urban Economy.” Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2017.

La Bedoyere, Guy De. Cities of Roman Italy. London: Bristol Classical Press, 2010.












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