'WHERE are the bodies? I want to see the dead people."
As I walked through the ancient streets of Pompeii on a hot August afternoon, a young boy's voice cut through the air, putting into words the same macabre thoughts in everyone's mind. After all, we had not come all this way to suffer under the fierce southern Italian sun, to climb perilous flights of old stone steps, past ancient temples and sweltering amphitheatres, without the reward of seeing at least one of those famously preserved corpses. "Bring on the dead bodies," I thought. I had somehow managed to thread my way through the busy streets of Naples to the main railway station.
The Italians are famously hot- headed behind the wheel and in Naples the traffic is so noisy and disorganised that you take your life into your hands simply crossing the road. Add to that the fact that the streets are being unearthed at every intersection to make way for a new subway system and you can imagine how this Dubliner felt very much at home. Perhaps I had stumbled on the final destination of the Luas - the Naples line? No wonder it was taking so long.
The first thing that struck me about the ancient city of Pompeii was its sheer size. The streets seem to go on for ever - wide, straight and flooded in sunlight as they lie on the southern side of that great volcano. It was on August 24, 79AD, that Vesuvius erupted and buried the thriving Roman city in ash and volcanic rock. Gradually, grass and vines covered the land where the city had once stood and it became the subject of folklore and mythological tales. As time passed, even its name was forgotten. It was only through painstaking archaeological enquiry and excavation - which continue to this day - that Pompeii was re-introduced to the world. Before you enter the site, you should buy a bottle of water. You wouldn't last long without one. The Romans were clever enough to realise that without an adequate and reliable supply of water, their sophisticated society couldn't function in this climate.
Water travelled 60 miles south along an aqueduct to reach Pompeii, where it was divided three ways: straight to the public fountains, then to the rich citizen's houses and finally to the public baths. Life here was very formally structured - the villas varied in size due to wealth and rank, the temples were designed to worship specific ancient gods and the amphitheatre was a huge monument to their disregard for human life. And since there were 10 brothels within the walls of the city, citizens of Pompeii never had to go very far for a bit of Gluteus Maximus.
On the return train journey to Naples, I had just enough time to stop off at the Roman seaside town of Herculaneum which, because of the nature of the volcanic eruption in this area, is even better preserved than its bigger neighbour. It managed to escape the initial avalanche of rocks that did so much damage to the buildings in Pompeii and instead was immediately engulfed in a fine layer of ash and pyroclastic gasses which preserved the town in a near perfect state. Unlike Pompeii, the upper floors of the buildings have remained intact, along with Roman furniture, fabrics, frescoes and terracotta roofs. The public baths, the very embodiment of Roman civilisation, are totally intact and more elaborate and luxurious than their counterpart in Pompeii. A huge circular pool is looked down on by a frescoed dome while the changing rooms remain unchanged, complete with individual lockers on the wall - presumably somewhere to put your toga while you went for a dip.
Among the outstanding buildings in Herculaneum is the Casa di Cervi, a stunning example of a well-to-do Roman town villa. Each of the interior walls is hand-painted, with not a single square inch left unembellished. Even the colours, all made from natural minerals, are still wonderfully vivid: Mediterranean reds and yellows, so intense that they hardly seem to have faded over the centuries. As you walk on mosaic tiles that were laid 2,000 years ago, into inner courtyards flanked by noble columns, one ornamental garden statue stands out. It is of a deer being savagely torn apart by dogs. It is a work of great beauty and fine craftsmanship, but nonetheless it reminds us of this society's passion for cruelty and torture. And if the Romans had one obsession, it was with social position. Assuming there were no Joneses in ancient Rome, their preoccupation with status and possessions amounted to a severe case of keeping up with the Caesars.
Finally, when it comes to stumbling across those infamous dead bodies, there is something you should know. Like most people, I had thought that many of the unfortunate inhabitants of Pompeii and Herculaneum had been preserved in some process similar to mummification in ancient Egypt. Not so. The truth is slightly more bizarre - but no less impressive for that. Those citizens who did not escape the volcanic eruption, or who chose to stay on in the city (for whatever reason) were killed by an incandescent sandstorm that raced down the mountain and incinerated anything that came in its path. A tide of fine ash immediately followed, flowing into every crevice, blocking out all oxygen and entombing the bodies in their contorted, terrified poses. In years to come, the bodies decayed and disappeared, but the imprint they left was captured in the surrounding stone. It was an ingenious archaeologist who thought to pour plaster of Paris into the cavities that the bodies had formed, thereby allowing them to reconstruct the victim in every detail, right down to the expression on their face.
So, although you may not be seeing an ancient Roman corpse, you are in fact looking at their spirit in physical form - a snapshot from that terrible moment in time 2,000 years ago. When it comes to the dead bodies, neither child nor adult will be disappointed.