The Ark

Archaeologist Michael Birrell describes the mystery cults from the East, such as the cult of Isis, which have been found in the ruins of Pompeii.

Transcript

This transcript was typed from a recording of the program. The ABC cannot guarantee its complete accuracy because of the possibility of mishearing and occasional difficulty in identifying speakers.

THEME

Rachael Kohn: It blew on August 23rd in the year 79. The volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius caught the people of Pompeii by surprise, but in a twist of fate, it preserved the town for posterity.

Hello, this is The Ark on ABC Radio National, and I'm Rachael Kohn.

A visit to Pompeii in southern Italy is a must for anyone travelling to the Continent. Its murals, temples, shop fronts, and cobblestone streets are the signs of a thriving city of up to 2,000 people. Today, archaeologist Michael Birrell takes us behind the scenes to the religious culture of Pompeii, a town like no other.

Michael Birrell: It was established as a Roman colony back in 80BC. Some scholars have argued that it doesn't represent a typical town in a Roman sense, in that it reflects more the personality of a sort of retirement complex, one might almost say a luxury complex. The houses that make up Pompeii are lavish, they're large. It doesn't strike the historian as a typical provincial town. It was a wealthy town, but I think a lot of Roman wealthy residents had holiday villas in that part of Italy, so we have to think of it as a resort kind of location in some respects.

Rachael Kohn: It was a port town wasn't it?

Michael Birrell: That's right. It was a very wealthy port on the Bay of Naples; there were a number of major ports in that area, Pompeii was one of them. Naples is very close as well, was a very wealthy port city, Pompeii equally so, and we have lots of evidence of trade coming into that port, lots of foreign nationals living in Pompeii, and undertaking trade.

Rachael Kohn: Well for once I think it wasn't a British archaeologist who found Pompeii. Tell me about the discovery of this buried town?

Michael Birrell: Excavations took place in Pompeii before the introduction of scientific archaeology, and in the mid-1700s, excavation was taking place and even earlier, on the basis of finding marble artefacts, luxury objects that could be taken back to wealthy villas in Italy and elsewhere in Europe. So there was a history of ongoing looting of the site, right through the mid-1700s, and really we only get scientific investigation of the site starting later in the 1700s.

Rachael Kohn: One of the things that people see or associate with Pompeii's remains are these plaster casts of the actual victims of the eruption. How did they come about?

Michael Birrell: In the early excavations, the field archaeologists were clearing away the volcanic ash and debris, and they often hit upon these cavities in the deposit, and they had the very clever idea of filling these cavities, these spaces with plaster-of-paris, to see what eventuated. And what they actually discovered was the cavities were the spaces left by organic organisms which had deteriorated once the ash had hardened around them. And so by pouring liquid plaster into these cavities, you create the physical form of the organic life that existed there during the eruptions. So we have the remains of dogs, of course lots of animals as well, lots of humans of course.

Rachael Kohn: I think today the visitor of Pompeii is impressed by the dogs. There seems to have been a dog culture, a lot of people had pets in those days.

Michael Birrell: Absolutely. So I think when we see a favoured pet deceased as a result of the eruption, I think it strikes our conscience.

Rachael Kohn: Well I've read a geological description of what happened, and it was the full catastrophe: earth tremors, volcanic eruption, even a tsunami. Wasn't there an eye-witness account also?

Michael Birrell: There was. We're in the lucky situation that Pliny the Younger was an actual eye-witness to the eruption. His Uncle, Pliny the Elder, actually died in the eruption. He was a wealthy Roman scientist, he went to investigate the eruption, and actually was overcome by the fumes of the volcano, and Pliny goes on to describe what he saw. He was in the Bay of Naples and actually saw the eruption, so we have an eye witness account.

Rachael Kohn: I guess something like that would have happened over a couple of days?

Michael Birrell: It did. It took place over a few days, but it was really a sudden change in the nature of the mountain. I think the local inhabitants obviously lived in the shadow of Vesuvius, but they had no real inkling that it was an active volcano. When the earthquake started, (this whole area is prone to earthquakes) I think they probably thought it's another earthquake, if we just stay out of the way of falling debris we'll be OK. But then many thousands were caught by the sudden eruption of the volcano.

Rachael Kohn: I wonder if the Romans at that time, or the Pompeii inhabitants, associated the earth tremors with angry gods?

Michael Birrell: Absolutely. They were very familiar with active volcanoes in the Mediterranean, they were familiar with Mount Etna for instance, and they associated active volcanoes with the bad will of the gods, if you like, yes, definitely.

Rachael Kohn: Well visiting Pompeii today, one is struck by the amenities that one sees: the paved roads, the hot food stands, even the brothels upstairs, and of course the temples. There seem to be so many temples. Was the religious life of Pompeii as varied and sophisticated as the rest of life seems to have been?

Michael Birrell: Absolutely. With Pompeii we're in the lucky circumstances that we have preserved a snapshot of society which is quite multi-ethnic, quite diverse. We have Roman people from Rome itself, but we also have a lot of foreign people in Pompeii, and those foreigners have brought with them their own cults, cults of Demeter, Dionysus, and Isis, so we have this rich religious life preserved at Pompeii.

Rachael Kohn: Isis, from Egypt?

Michael Birrell: Isis from Egypt. Isis was one of the great mystery cults of the 1st century and 2nd century BC, and she had a lot of followers throughout the Mediterranean. She was mainly at Pompeii at this stage before the eruption in 79, attracting lower-class members of society to her cult, rather than upper-class Romans, provincials, mainly because of the things that she offered to initiates.

Rachael Kohn: And what did she offer?

Michael Birrell: One of the great selling points of the mystery cults was that they offered personal salvation, a notion that you went through an initiation, and because of Isis' association with Osiris, the King of the Dead, an initiate gained secret knowledge which provided personal salvation, and this was something new to the Roman world. The Romans were used to a concept of appeasing the Gods, ensuring the good of the society, but not generally having a personal relationship with the divine.

Rachael Kohn: Were these cults in any way secretive?

Michael Birrell: In the case of the Isis cult, it was a private cult. It was something that you had to be a member of. At Pompeii the Isis cult clearly was not a significant cult, it was not a large cult, because the cult place, the main temple, is quite small. It's not lavishly built either, it's fairly simple, and certainly we get the impression from inscriptions found in the Isis temple that followers come from a lower socioeconomic stratum.

Rachael Kohn: Well you've mentioned the Roman cults, and of course one thinks of the major temples there: the temple to Apollo and the temple to Jupiter. Can you give an idea of what they looked like?

Michael Birrell: Absolutely. The Temple to Apollo, at Pompeii, was originally in the Greek style, which means that it had a colonnade, or columns around the entire structure. It was peripteral.

Rachael Kohn: Peripteral, what does that mean?

Michael Birrell: Peripteral means surrounded by columns, and it was meant to be walked around and seen from every side. That's the Greek or Hellenistic style. By the time we get to 80 BC when we have the colony of Romans established in Pompeii, when Pompeii becomes a Roman city, we see the introduction of Roman-style architecture, which is all about presenting a grand front to the temple, and usually they're raised on a high platform reached by steps. So we have a pillared portico, reached by steps, and inside the cult place, a cult image of the deity.

Rachael Kohn: And who would be standing on that platform? Would it be the priests or would that be where the sacrifices are made?

Michael Birrell: Most sacrifices in the Roman world took place in front of the temple. The altar was actually outside the temple, in the space immediately in front of the temple, of it might be on that platform, it might actually be raised up above the court in which the temple is. Sacrifices were bloody and gruesome; you basically killed an animal and you didn't want the blood covering the temple floor, so it's something that took place immediately in front of the temple.

Rachael Kohn: And would that normally be an ox or could it be a number of different animals?

Michael Birrell: The prime offering would be an ox. If it was a male deity, you generally sacrificed a male animal, and a female deity, a female animal. It could be a goat, it could be other animals as well. But the ox was the preferred offering.

Rachael Kohn: The Roman pantheon is of course based on the Greek pantheon, but one gets the impression that the Roman gods had more of a political function; is that a correct assumption?

Michael Birrell: I think that's true. Certainly it was the case that the worship that took place was State business. The priests were not a class of professionals, they were elected, usually magistrates. So we would have to have the equivalent of ministers of our parliament being elected to priestly boards, and they would undertake priestly activities on behalf of the State, because the cult that's taking place is on behalf of the State. It's not a personal devotion, you didn't go to the temple to worship the God as an individual.

Rachael Kohn: Is there any evidence in the archaeological remains that Roman religion is in any way on the back foot, or is being infiltrated by other cults? You've mentioned the mystery cults; are they sort of gaining ground?

Michael Birrell: I think by the time of the eruption in 79, we do see the introduction of mystery cults, and certainly they are growing.

The mystery cult of Christianity had obviously been introduced into Italy in the early 1st century AD, and was gaining adherents amongst the lower stratum generally of society, for the same reasons that the Isis cult and other mystery cults were popular, because it offered a personal kind of relationship with the divine. The State cults were really generally impersonal to most citizens I think. Activities took place there to which they didn't have a great deal of personal connection.

Mystery cults certainly appealed because you went through initiations, there were secret rites. You were members of a secret organisational group if you like, that's undertaking private activities, ritual activities. In the case of the Isis cult, you've got mysterious activities taking place, so evoking the Nile, they actually had a well inside the court of the Isis Temple. You would be bathed in the water, but this mystical Nile water that came from the well.

Rachael Kohn: Holy water?

Michael Birrell: Holy water.

Rachael Kohn: Well, any indication that Christians were nearby or even in Pompeii?

Michael Birrell: It's been a much debated issue because obviously by 79, Christianity had until very recently, been a banned religion, and would still experience persecution by the State. So any Christians at the site would have had to have been very circumspect in their worship practices. Some graffiti do suggest that Christians were present at the site. One of the best-known and most discussed graffiti is the representation of a crucified donkey or ass, and it's seen as parodying the crucifixion of Christ as a sort of parody, This is your God that you are worshipping.

Rachael Kohn: Goodness. Speaking of parody, finally what sort of modern uses has Pompeii been put to? I think I've heard that Pink Floyd did a concert in the amphitheatre?

Michael Birrell: There have been a number of concerts in the amphitheatre. I think it's a perfect venue certainly, for cultural activities, it's a fantastic site.

Rachael Kohn: Michael Birrell is an archaeologist who takes tours to some of his favourite places in the Mediterranean.

Next week on The Ark, proof that ancient epics are hot property in the publishing market. Stephen Mitchell's new translation of the Epic of Gilgamesh is turning heads; he shows us why next week on The Ark, with me, Rachael Kohn.

Guests

Dr Michael Birrell
is a PhD graduate from Macquarie University in the field of Egyptology with a special interest in ancient cults and government. He has worked as an archaeologist in Egypt and Israel for the past 20 years. He teaches classes at the WEA and Sydney University Summer School and is a tutor at Macquarie University. He also runs historical study tours to the ancient world with his company, BC Archaelogy.
mailto:info@bcarchaeology.com

Further Information

Pompeii - The Last Day
Trace the final hours of the Pompeiians, or view art depicting their daily lives on this BBC website.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/programmes/pompeii/

Roman Religion Gallery
Explore the religious practices and beliefs within the Roman empire.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/romans/roman_religion_gallery.shtml

Soprintendenza Archeologica de Pompei
Official website for the excavated ruins at Pompeii.
http://www.pompeiisites.org/database/pompei/pompei2.nsf?OpenDatabase