Tower I belonged to the defensive system of Pompeii’s city walls and is traditionally located in the southern sector of the city, near the end of the Triangular Forum and the Doric Temple. Its position commanded the edge of Pompeii’s plateau, naturally protected here by the steep slope down to the plain below.
The tower was one of the twelve defensive towers built along the walls during the major strengthening of the fortifications in the early 1st century BC. This work preceded the siege of Pompeii by the Roman troops of Lucius Cornelius Sulla in 89 BC, during the Social War, when reinforcing the defences became particularly urgent.
The towers of this phase were built mainly in opus incertum and integrated with the double curtain wall and the wall walk. They were not evenly distributed around the circuit: there were more in the northern and eastern sectors, where the terrain offered less natural protection, while on the southern side the steep shape of the plateau already contributed to the city’s defence.
Archaeological reconstructions of Pompeii’s towers show buildings arranged over three levels, with barrel-vaulted chambers linked by internal staircases. Side openings provided access to the wall walk, while arrow slits and other openings allowed the defenders to monitor the ground outside and take action along the walls.
Tower I, however, presents a particular problem of identification. Unlike most of the other towers in the circuit, its remains have not been identified with absolute certainty. The ancient numbering and the layout of the fortifications indicate that it must have stood between Tower II and the Marina Gate area; the generally accepted location places it at the southern tip of the Triangular Forum, near the Doric Temple.
This position also appears on modern maps produced by the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, which mark Tower I along the southern edge of Regio VIII. The point should, however, be understood as a conventional location based on a reconstruction of the defensive circuit, rather than as the position of a tower preserved and identifiable in the same way as Tower XI, known as the Tower of Mercury.
The proposed location would also have been particularly significant within the landscape. The tower would have occupied one of the plateau’s most conspicuous points, beside the ancient sacred area of the Triangular Forum and the Doric Temple, overlooking the plain and helping to make the city’s fortified skyline immediately recognisable.
Following the Roman conquest and the foundation of Sulla’s colony in 80 BC, the walls gradually lost their military function. Some stretches were altered, incorporated into houses or partly dismantled, while changes to the urban layout eventually made the earlier defensive system less apparent.
Tower I and the city walls therefore provide important evidence of fortified Pompeii in the Samnite age. Its identification remains partly hypothetical, but the traditionally reconstructed location near the Triangular Forum helps explain the relationship between the city’s defences, the natural shape of the plateau and one of Pompeii’s oldest monumental areas.
View this location on the Pompeii Buildings and Places map