Unearthing the Lost Feminists of Pompeii
BBC’s Pompeii: The New Dig reveals more about a famous couple
Visiting Pompeii feels a bit like trespassing in a bustling resort town that was bombed and looted last week. Half the walls are still standing, roads appear freshly wheel-marked and colorful fast food franchises appear ready to dish out McMeals. Even charred loaves of bread have survived: peer into a brand-new-ancient industrial-sized oven, and you’d be forgiven for imagining they were baked yesterday.
I wasn’t prepared for how voyeuristic it felt to wander this abandoned city, buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD — or for how shockingly familiar. But I wasn’t alone. One sentence echoed throughout my guided tour group a few weeks back: They were just like us.
And the more we dig, the more similar we become.
BBC’s new series Pompeii: The New Dig explores previously un-excavated parts of the city and dives into the lives of Pompeians: a broad strata of aristocrats, merchants, soldiers and slaves. But it was a pair of bakers that hooked my attention, the same ones whose portrait featured in my middle school textbooks and helped spark my lifelong fascination with history. You probably recognize them, too.
The Power Couple
Their famous fresco has come to be known as “Portrait of Terentius Neo and wife” (previously misidentified Paquius Proculus). New Dig discusses unique attributes of the Portrait, namely how naturalistically it displays wrinkles, flaws and all — unique for an expensive commission by successful business owners. But in 2013, British Museum curator Paul Roberts commented on something even more peculiar to the Financial Times:
“We assume he is the bakery owner. He wears a white toga, which may mean he is a candidatus for political office. But his wife is the amazing one. She is the one with the reckoning tablet. They are equal, and they are shown equal, standing together, members of a confident, mercantile class. And this was the reality of life for a lot of Roman women. They wouldn’t have been little old ladies sitting at home. They were highly visible in society.”
Is this a portrait of Pompeian feminism?
Although there are very few celebrated examples of well-read women in the Roman world (shout out to Greek poet Sappho), they left proof of their literary all around the city. Head of the Ancient Graffiti Project, Dr. Rebecca Benefiel of Washington and Lee University in Virginia, commented on excavations in 2021:
“We discover unusual love inscriptions by women such as the one declaring: ‘I don’t want to sell my husband, not for all the gold in the world’, worried mothers inquiring: ‘my lusty son, with how many women have you had sexual relations?’ or strangely revealing ones, such as ‘Atimetus got me pregnant’ (oops).”
Officially, women’s representation was limited — the rights to vote, run for office and hold higher profile jobs were reserved for men. But as Roberts points out, that didn’t mean women weren’t participating. Simran Singh observes in her Hubpages article, “Who Were The Women of Pompeii and Herculaneum Before Mount Vesuvius Erupted?,” that freeborn females were laundresses, doctors, butchers, fish-mongers and stone-cutters. They co-ran businesses with their husbands and worked independently in their households. Their education might’ve even been seen as attractive.
Pompeii emerges as a patriarchy with a certain tolerance for female expression and empowerment — and in some cases, a celebration.
Which makes me think of my aunt Sue. She’s been the president of her paternally inherited construction business for decades, despite the fact that the company’s name is still flanked by “& Sons.” I hear you wondering — but if everyone knows who’s in charge, does it really matter? It’s a great question. In the 21st century AD, I worry we women still tolerate a lack of equality in exchange for “what matters.” I both saw and experienced this while working in Silicon Valley — the same salary but a lesser title, broader responsibilities but less executive face time, more opportunities but in more junior roles, and so on. Maybe our willingness to make tradeoffs results from years seeing what we deserve but growing weary with what it takes to get there. So eventually, we identify what’s most vitally important and settle on the rest. Are we selling ourselves short? Or is this just good prioritzation?
I’d love to share a bottle of vino with the wife of Terentius Neo and get her thoughts — after all, it’s his name that survives in stone.
But the Bakers’ Portrait is a clear profession of their equality, and certainly a husband’s supportive effort to advertise his wife’s authority. Presumably, male clients accepted her and enabled their business to grow to success — at least enough to afford a big bakery and fancy frescos. In fact, it would’ve been impossible for any Pompeian women, without a political foot to stand on, to become successful in society without significant support from the city’s male population. Is it possible that before the eruption, Pompeii was experiencing a wave of feminism?
Although little remains of their building, I wondered whether anything else had been unearthed which might shed light on the bakers’ dynamic.
Indeed, there had. According to PompeiiinPictures.com, an independent research archive run by a UK-based couple, the Terentius Neo house and its adjoining commercial bakery were excavated multiple times in the 19th century, discovering a number of frescos between 1867–79. Like the Portrait, a few of them now reside in Naples museums — but others have since faded or “disappeared.” Fortunately, illustrations were made by Italian artist Nicola La Volpe during his 1868 visit to the excavation site. And what they reveal is intriguing . . .
The Portrait is flanked by goddesses.
Terentius Neo’s Goddesses
A now-lost panel once featured the Nike (Victoria) “standing on a shelf and carrying a trophy.” A unique blend of masculine and feminine, Nike mediated between gods and humans. She was the goddess of victory in war but Pompeians would’ve also summoned her to assist in their individual pursuits in the arts, athletics — and even business ventures. She was the embodiment of achievement and the ticket to emerging victorious.
Perhaps Nike is an homage to the wife of Terentius Neo — her successful, mortal equivalent.
Speaking of successful mortals; beside Nike, and painted directly above the Portrait, was a depiction of Cupid and Psyche. Psyche was a woman whose beauty was so threatening to Aphrodite (Venus) that she was condemned to fall in love with a monster — but this backfired when Aphrodite’s son Cupid instead fell for Psyche. By succeeding a series of impossible trials set forth by Aphrodite — with critical support from her immortal lover, Cupid — Psyche worked her way into their good graces and was ultimately christened the “goddess of the soul.” She was then reunited with her lover Cupid, a fellow god — as his equal.
This fresco reads like a bit of relationship propaganda: a famous example of a husband who respects his wife enough to pull her up with him and put her out front where she belongs.
With trademark Pompeian booty, of course.
What I find interesting about the Portrait and the goddesses is where they were all discovered. In mercantile Roman homes, the tablinum was a highly decorated room that occupied one side of the central atrium; it served as the main office, records room and reception — also the flashy receiving area where the heads of the house would receive and impress clients and guests. This was the control room shared by Terentius Neo and his wife.
Just imagine what it must’ve been like to be a client visiting their villa before Vesuvius buried it in 79 AD . . .
Follow your nose toward the fresh smell of bread — Pompeii’s finest — into Regio 7, Insula 2, 6. Look for the door with the political endorsement etched outside — the Pompeian equivalent of a lawn sign — signaling these people are educated and political. (You’ve probably heard rumors that Terentius Neo is running for office.) Pass through the foyer and enter the home’s central atrium. Its red and white walls are decorated with intricate rosettes, plants and scenes: Cupid with a bunch of grapes and a nude “female crowned figure” — maybe another Psyche. If you’re invited back for dinner in the triclinium, you’ll see additional paintings: portraits of prominent men and confident women featured side-by-side.
Back to business. You circle the atrium’s bath, which gathers water for the house and its adjoined bakery — in fact, don’t go left or you’ll wind up kneading dough. Turn right and enter the impressively decorated tablinum: the head office. You immediately face a fresco of powerful goddess Nike and, beside her, victorious Pysche with her lover. But your eyes ultimately land on the Portrait of your two hosts, and possibly even your hosts themselves: a man and his wife . . . or a wife and her husband? Maybe they don’t mind your phrasing. Because it’s clear both of them are running this ship together; in the paintings all around you, they’re making it clear.
I think this is why Pompeii feels so familiar. Not because it satisfies a kind of ancient voyeurism in its ability to come alive like it existed yesterday. But because its walls reveal a society still grappling with equality between the sexes, and sometimes harmonizing.
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Additional Sources:
- “Portrait of Terentius Neo: Roman Portraits Celebrating Literacy,” Jeremy Norman’s HistoryofInformation.com
- “VII.2.6 Pompeii. House of T. Terentius Neo. Excavated 1843, 1852, 1862 and 1868. (Strada Stabiana 32),” PompeiiInPictures.com
- Illustrated Guide to the National Museum in Naples, Edited by G. De Petra, et al., USArchive.org
- “Psyche,” World History Encyclopedia, Worldhistory.org
- “Rewriting Women’s History,” by VLCAMPBELL, Pompeiinetworks.wordpress.com
- Image: Floorplan of the house of Terentius Neo, Cambridge.org
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