Photo Gallery

Photo 16.1

It is not uncommon to find a herm of householders within Vesuvian residences (as in photo 10.7). This herm captures the likeness of the householder of the residence that archaeologists now call the House of the Bronze Herm (for obvious reasons). It was a way of reinforcing the identity of the person around whom the whole of the life of the household was to orbit.

Photo 16.2

Some archaeological remains from the Vesuvian towns are poignantly illustrative of the bonds of solidarity within family units — especially when we see family members together being overcome by the eruption in death. This seems to have been the case for the group of four people shown in this photo (whose body cavities were among the first to be filled with plaster back in the nineteenth century, in a location now called “Skeleton’s Alley”; these plaster casts are currently on display in the House of Publius Vedius Siricus). The person on the right is the only male in the group, and his posture suggests to archaeologists that he was leading the way. At the back of the group was a female, seemingly the eldest of the three females who held something precious to her chest (perhaps jewelry or coins?). Between these two was a young girl (whose plaster cast was virtually destroyed in the Allied bombing of Pompeii in 1943) and a young adult woman (shown on the left of this photo). (Another family caught in the disaster is shown in photo 1.10.)

Photos 16.3 and 16.4

If families died together in the disaster, they were often buried together prior to the disaster. Photo 16.3 shows statues from a tomb in the necropolis at Pompeii’s Herculaneum Gate — the tomb of the Ceii household (HGE39 and HGE39A). We cannot be certain that these all derive from the same tomb, since we do not have accurate record of their find spots. But it has been argued that most or all of these statues originally belonged together in the family tomb, representing different members of the reputable family, both male and female, with men in Roman togas and women in fine garments. Less wealthy families often found less expensive ways of being buried together, as illustrated by photo 16.4. Here headstones (or columellae) serve as memorials of the dead for members of a household, who were buried near to each other as death took them successively over the years.

Class Activities

1. Have students devise speech bubbles to put into the mouth of the women depicted in figure 16.1 (and discussed on that page) — Penelope and Io. In what ways might the ancient expectation about their role as women be challenged today? Have students devise the speech bubbles to reflect those challenges.
2. Using the modern sitcom or dramatic television show, compare family dynamics in our twenty-first-century Western world with those of the ancient world, as presented in various places in chapter 16 of In Stone and Story. Have students reference modern presentations of “family” (however that may be defined) and compare them with Pompeian or New Testament depictions.

Discussion Questions

1. How are ideal families depicted in the frescos of Pompeii? Are there overarching themes or motifs representing deeply held views about the ideal family?
2. How are family relationships viewed in New Testament texts? What are the range of views, expressed especially by the Gospels and the letters of Paul?
3. How do New Testament views of the family appear to clash or resonate with modern views of the family? In what ways have New Testament views on the family have affected Western laws and customs involving the family?
4. How might “fictive kinship” be manifested today in your cultures? What are the ways in which kinship language has been adopted by certain groups?