Lecture 4 - Civic Life Interrupted: Nightmare and Destiny on August 24, A.D. 79
Overview
Professor Kleiner explores the civic, commercial, and religious buildings of Pompeii, an overview made possible only because of an historical happenstance--the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79, which buried the city at the height of its development. While the lecture features the resort town's public architecture--its forum, basilica, temples, amphitheater, theater, and bath complexes--Professor Kleiner also describes such fixtures of daily life as a bakery and a fast food restaurant. The lecture culminates with a brief overview of tomb architecture in Pompeii and a moving account of what happened to the inhabitants of the city of Pompeii when disaster struck.