Pompeii developed on a volcanic plateau overlooking the Sarno River valley, close to its ancient mouth and the Bay of Naples. This strategic position connected the settlement with fertile agricultural land, inland Campania and the maritime routes of the Mediterranean.
The earliest history of Pompeii is still being investigated. Archaeological evidence currently places the first clearly recognisable phases of the town between the late 7th and the first half of the 6th century BC. At this time a first defensive wall made from local volcanic stone, known as pappamonte, enclosed an area roughly corresponding to the later city.
It is therefore better not to describe Pompeii simply as a town founded by the Oscans in the 9th or 8th century BC. The archaeological evidence reveals a much more complex cultural environment in which local Italic, Etruscan and Greek influences interacted.
Some of the clearest evidence for these early contacts comes from Pompeii's religious areas. The Temple of Apollo preserves evidence of an important sanctuary already in the archaic period, while the sacred area of the Triangular Forum reflects the strong connections between early Pompeii and the Greek and Etruscan communities of Campania.
During the 6th and 5th centuries BC, Pompeii occupied an important position within a region where Greeks, Etruscans and Italic peoples competed and interacted. These contacts influenced religion, architecture, trade and material culture.
Towards the end of the 5th century BC, Samnite-speaking populations expanded into the Campanian plain. Pompeii became part of this new political and cultural environment and experienced major urban development during the following centuries.
The Samnite period, particularly between the 4th and 2nd centuries BC, was one of the most important phases in the growth of the city. New fortifications were constructed, streets and public areas were reorganised, and increasingly monumental houses and public buildings appeared.
Many of Pompeii's great residences developed during this period. The Houses of Pompeii preserve important evidence of this long process, including large atrium houses that were repeatedly enlarged and transformed over several generations.
Greek and Hellenistic culture continued to exert a strong influence. Architecture, sculpture, mosaics and wall decoration reveal the cultural ambitions of Pompeii's wealthy families and their participation in the wider Mediterranean world.
Rome gradually extended its power over Campania during the Samnite Wars of the 4th and early 3rd centuries BC. Pompeii became an allied community within the Roman sphere while retaining a degree of local autonomy.
This relationship changed dramatically during the Social War of 91-89 BC, when many communities in Italy rebelled against Rome in an attempt to obtain equal political rights.
Pompeii joined the revolt and was besieged in 89 BC by the Roman general Lucius Cornelius Sulla. Evidence of the siege can still be seen on sections of the city walls, where marks produced by Roman projectiles have been identified.
After the war, Pompeii became fully integrated into the Roman state. In 80 BC, Sulla established a Roman colony there, traditionally known as the Colonia Cornelia Veneria Pompeianorum.
The foundation of the colony transformed the political and social organisation of the city. Roman veterans settled at Pompeii and new public buildings, monuments and private residences reflected the city's increasingly close relationship with Rome.
The following decades were a period of substantial prosperity. Pompeii benefited from the agricultural resources of the Sarno plain and the slopes of Mount Vesuvius, producing wine and other agricultural goods while participating in regional and Mediterranean trade.
Agriculture remained central to the economy. Vineyards, farms and rural villas surrounded the city, while the urban area contained workshops, bakeries, shops, inns and other commercial activities. For more information, see Pompeian Agriculture.
The transformation of Pompeii can also be seen in its great public monuments. The temples of Pompeii reflected both traditional cults and the increasingly important relationship between religion and Roman political power.
The Pompeii Amphitheatre, constructed around 70 BC, is among the earliest surviving permanent stone amphitheatres in the Roman world. It could accommodate thousands of spectators for gladiatorial games and other public spectacles.
The city's theatrical district also continued to develop. The theatres of Pompeii combined older traditions with Roman architectural and social practices.
Public bathing became another characteristic feature of urban life. Complexes such as the Stabian Baths and Forum Baths illustrate the development of Roman bathing culture, while the unfinished Central Baths show that major construction projects were still under way shortly before the destruction of the city. See Pompeii Thermal Baths.
Pompeii was not a socially uniform community. Its population included members of wealthy local families, freedmen, enslaved people, craftsmen, merchants, agricultural workers and many others whose lives are preserved to very different degrees in the archaeological record.
It is therefore misleading to describe the city's history simply as a struggle between an old aristocracy and a newly enriched “middle class”. Houses, inscriptions, electoral notices and commercial activities reveal a much more complex society in which wealth, legal status, family connections and political ambitions could interact in different ways.
One of the best-known episodes in Pompeii's final decades occurred in AD 59, when violence broke out between spectators from Pompeii and nearby Nuceria during gladiatorial games in the Amphitheatre. Tacitus records that the Roman Senate responded by imposing sanctions on the city.
Only a few years later Pompeii suffered another major disaster. A severe earthquake in AD 62 caused extensive damage to houses, temples and public buildings.
A major programme of repair and reconstruction followed. Archaeology shows that this process was still continuing seventeen years later. Some buildings had already been restored, others were being redecorated, while several construction sites were still active when the final eruption occurred.
The city was therefore not simply an abandoned or declining settlement awaiting destruction. Recent excavations demonstrate intense building, commercial and domestic activity during Pompeii's final years.
In AD 79, Mount Vesuvius erupted catastrophically. The exact calendar date continues to be debated. The traditional date of 24 August, transmitted by some manuscripts of Pliny the Younger's letters, has been questioned by archaeological discoveries that may point instead to an autumn eruption. The Archaeological Park therefore treats the precise date with appropriate caution.
During the first phase of the eruption, enormous quantities of pumice and volcanic material fell on Pompeii. Roofs collapsed under the accumulating weight and inhabitants attempted to escape or shelter inside buildings.
The eruption later produced devastating pyroclastic currents composed of hot gas, ash and volcanic particles. These swept through the city and were fatal to those who had remained.
Pompeii was not buried by a flow of lava. The layers that preserved the city consist principally of pumice, ash and other volcanic deposits.
Thousands of inhabitants probably succeeded in leaving the city before the most destructive phases of the eruption, while others died in houses, streets and open spaces. The exact population of Pompeii in AD 79 is not known, and estimates vary considerably; for this reason, it is preferable not to present the often repeated figure of 20,000 inhabitants as an established fact.
The eruption covered buildings, streets and objects under metres of volcanic material. Paradoxically, the catastrophe that destroyed Pompeii also created the exceptional conditions that preserved much of the ancient city.
Over the following centuries the location was never entirely forgotten, but the Roman city gradually disappeared beneath the deposits and later activity.
Systematic excavations began in 1748, under the Bourbon monarchy. Early investigations concentrated heavily on recovering valuable objects, paintings, mosaics and sculptures, many of which entered the royal collections and are now preserved in the National Archaeological Museum of Naples.
Archaeological methods gradually changed. During the 19th century, particularly under Giuseppe Fiorelli, excavation became increasingly systematic. Fiorelli reorganised the city into regiones and insulae and developed the famous technique of making plaster casts from the voids left by decomposed bodies and organic materials.
The casts of Pompeii remain among the most powerful archaeological testimonies of the eruption, although today they are studied not simply as dramatic images but also as human remains and scientific evidence.
Modern archaeology at Pompeii is very different from the excavations of the 18th and 19th centuries. Research now combines stratigraphic excavation with archaeobotany, anthropology, archaeozoology, digital mapping, architectural analysis and scientific investigation of materials.
New excavations continue to change our understanding of the city. Rather than simply uncovering more buildings, archaeologists increasingly investigate how Pompeii developed, how its inhabitants lived and worked, and how the urban landscape changed over many centuries.
Pompeii today covers an ancient urban area of approximately 66 hectares, only part of which has been fully excavated. The unexcavated areas are themselves an important archaeological resource for future generations and are not simply spaces waiting to be uncovered.
The archaeological city should therefore not be imagined as a single frozen moment. Its streets and buildings preserve a history stretching from the formation of the early settlement through the Samnite and Roman periods, the Social War, the establishment of the colony, the earthquake of AD 62 and finally the eruption of AD 79.
Walking through Pompeii today means moving through centuries of transformations, preserved together by an extraordinary archaeological event.
For practical information and to locate the main monuments mentioned in this article, see the Pompeii Map.
Essential sources and bibliography
Archaeological Park of Pompeii, Guide to the Excavations, “A Brief History of the Ancient City and the Excavations”.
Archaeological Park of Pompeii, Pompeii Antiquarium – Timeline.
Coarelli F. (ed.), Pompei, Rome-Bari.
Zanker P., Pompeii: Public and Private Life, Harvard University Press.
Beard M., Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town, London.