What did Romans eat? Food from Pompeii and Herculaneum

In 79 AD a deadly eruptions ended the history of small but wealthy Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Tons of falling debris filled the streets until nothing remained to be seen of the once thriving communities. At least one thousand casts made from impressions of bodies in the ash deposits had been recovered from this magnificent city of Pompeii. But what was a doom for Romans living, gave archaeologist an wonderful insight into the Roman world. 

We have found jeweler, mosaics, gladiator helmets, medical equipment. But one thing is even more amazing – food. Food carbonized and preserved for almost 2000 years. 

The most known example of Vesuvius eruption food (and also something that Romans used every day) was bread. In 79 AD some bakers left their loafs in the oven. They were left unattended when the volcano exploded. Round and plump, like a cake, and divided into eight wedges. Pompeians ate bread with most meals — with fruit at breakfast, at lunch and dinner dipped in olive oil or used to sop up sauces and stews. It was hard bread, made from coarse flour. The poor couldn’t afford raised, they ate unleavened bread, similar to pita bread. The one loaf of bread (top photo) was even more special than others – it has a stamp ‘Property of Celer, Slave of Q. Granius Verus’. We do not know if the slave survived the cataclysm, but we do know that he was a baker, a good one – with a quality stamp. [right photo: half-eaten bread found in Herculaneum]

Bakeries (one on the left) were very popular –  about 35 have been found in Pompeii, each supplying their local area: selling directly from the window or delivering. Dough was prepared in a different area. This was not always by hand. In the bakery of Popidius Priscus, an industrial scale bread making machine was discovered with the dough mixed with large paddles. Machinery was common in Roman baking. Special kneading machines existed. Dough was wound around a horizontal shaft in the bottom of a basin and then pressed between wooden slats in the basin’s sides. Only the  shaping and stamping with the mark of the bakery was done by hand. In one bakery, 85 loaves were found left  in an oven at the time of the eruption showing the demand for shop brought bread was high.

Generally people ate outside [remember that Romans invented hamburger: sicia omentata] – they didn’t usually eat at home. In most of the kitchens excavated at Pompeii (like the one on the left), the only permanent feature left is a masonry hearth with a tiled top and arched recesses at the bottom for storing fuel. Cooking was done on this open hearth, with pots set on iron tripods over burning charcoal or wood. Some houses also boasted a small oven, much like a modern woodfired pizza oven, at the corner of the bench, with a vent near the stove for the smoke to escape. The only other furnishings in the Pompeian kitchen were a basin to hold water for cooking and washing up, and sometimes supports for tables to prepare the food. Texts of the time use the word cacabus to mean pans in general, while the fretale or sartago seems to have been a bronze or iron frying pan. The pultarius was a saucepan, and the testa or clibanus a small portable oven for roasting or baking bread. Iron choppers, knives, cleavers and spoons, as well as strainers, ladles and mortars, were used to prepare the food, which was served on a large circular platter called a discus.

What else did they eat? Archaeologists discovered (food scraps found in the drains) remains of food that would have been widely available and inexpensive in ancient Italy, like grains, fruits (like this figs), olives, lentils, local fish, nuts and chicken eggs (real photo). They also uncovered evidence that really wealthy Pompeiians enjoyed a variety of exotic foods, some of which would have been imported from outside Italy, including sea urchins, flamingos and even the butchered leg joint of a giraffe. 

Famous fish sauce – garum helped establish the precise dating of Pompeii’s destruction. Garum, made from fermenting fish in saltwater, was basically the ketchup of the ancient Romans. It boasted a much appreciated sweet and sour taste, and was used on almost on every dish, often substituting expensive salt. The last Pompeian garum was made entirely with bogues (known as boops boops), a Mediterranean fish species. The eruption froze the sauce right at the moment when the fish was left to macerate. No batches of finished garum were found, since the liquid evaporated in the heat from the eruption. Since bogues abounded in July and early August and ancient Roman recipes recommend leaving the fish to macerate for no longer than a month, we can say that the eruption occurred in late August-early September, a date which is totally compatible with Pliny’s account. [left: broken amphora with almost finished garum found in factory in Pompeii]

What’s not surprising ancient romans (studies made on the victims of eruption) had perfect teeth’ thanks to healthy low-sugar diet. The inhabitants of Pompeii ate a lot of fruit and vegetables but very little sugar. They were strangers to toothbrushes or toothpaste, but their healthy diet meant that few of the Romans suffered from cavities. 

Romans loved to eat outside, small taverns (called Thermopolium) where it was possible to purchase ready-to-eat food. A typical thermopolium would consist of a small room with a distinctive masonry counter in the front. Embedded in this counter were earthenware jars (called dolia) used to store dried food like nuts (hot food would have required the dolia to be cleaned out after use, and because they are embedded in the counter, it is believed that they were not used to store hot food, but rather dried food where cleaning wouldn’t be necessary). In Pompeii we have found 150 of them

In the months after Vesuvius’ eruption, a lot of Pompeiians came back to dig through the ash and see what they could recover. The Emperor Titus declared Pompeii an emergency zone and offered financial assistance for cleanup and recovery. But the buried towns were beyond salvaging. “When this wasteland regains its green,” wrote the Roman poet Statius not long after the eruption, “will men believe that cities and peoples lie beneath?” Eventually, the towns were dropped from local maps. Within a few centuries, settlers had repopulated the empty terrain, unconcerned with what lay below. They planted grapevines and olive trees in the fertile black soil.

Sale of bread at market stall, Roman fresco from Pompeii

Caligula’s Nemi ships – floating palaces containing quantities of marble, mosaic floors, heating, and plumbing.

This bronze Medusa fitting is one of the most important remains of Caligula Nemi ships – floating palaces made with exceptional richness: the ships were clearly ostentatious luxury vessels used as an expression of power. The larger ship was essentially an elaborate floating palace, which contained quantities of marble, mosaic floors and even baths.

Before finding the ships local fishermen had always been aware of the existence of the wrecks, and had explored them and removed small artifacts, often using grappling hooks to pull up pieces, which they sold to tourists. In 1446, Cardinal Prospero Colonna and Leon Battista Alberti followed up on the stories regarding the remains and discovered them lying at a depth of 18.3 meters (60 ft), which at that time was too deep for effective salvage. In 1895, with the support of the Ministry of Education, Eliseo Borghi began a systematic study of the wreck site and discovered the site contained two wrecks instead of the one expected. In 1927, the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini ordered Guido Ucelli to drain the lake and recover the ships. With the help of the navy, army, industry, and private individuals, an ancient Roman underground water conduit linking the lake to farms outside the crater was reactivated. The ships come to surface after 2000 years underwater. 

As one of his royal passions, Emperor Caligula ordered several large barges to be built to use on Lake Nemi. For centuries scholars and historians have debated Caligua’s reason for building the barges. Some contend that Caligula built the barges to show the rulers of Syracuse, Sicily, and the Ptolemaic rulers in Egypt that Rome could match any luxurious pleasure barges that they built. Caligula bragged that his ships were the most luxurious in the Hellenistic world. The discovery proved that the Romans were capable of building large ships. Before the recovery of the Nemi ships, scholars often ridiculed the idea that the Romans were capable of building a ship as big as some ancient sources reported the Roman grain carriers were.

Two vessels, which were designated in modern times as Prima Nave and Seconda Nave, (First Ship and Second Ship), had dimensions of 67m x 19m and 71m x 24m respectively.  Placed together, they would have taken up much of the area of a football pitch. It is generally agreed that one of the ships was designed to be a floating temple to Diana, or others of the many deities that were then in vogue, while the other vessel may have been used as a palace afloat for the Emperor and his court where he undoubtedly would have indulged in many of the depravities that are attributed to him.  It is apparent that both ships were originally built using the standard sea-going shipbuilding techniques and materials of the day and that they were fitted out to an extremely high standard of luxury and decoration. Nothing is known of the circumstances in which the ships sank.  There is speculation that they simply floated on the lake until they leaked and became waterlogged.  Other commentators have conjectured that Caligula’s successor, Claudius, a more benign and prudent ruler, may have had them sunk to help obliterate the memory of his decadent predecessor. 

Seutonius, the Roman historian described the two biggest barges as being built of cedar wood adorned with jeweled prows, rich sculpture, vessels of gold and silver, sails of purple silk, and bathrooms of alabaster and bronze. The floors were paved with glass mosaic, the windows and door frames were made of bronze, and many of the decorations were priceless. The Romans made ball bearings out of lead and they probably used the ball bearings on the Nemi ships to make the statues of the gods rotate or to move the windlasses.

These floating palaces were attached to the shore by chains, and bridges were built across the water to link with the ships. According to some historical accounts, Caligula’s ships were the scenes of orgies, murder, cruelty, music, and sport and he supposedly spent much of his inheritance from his Uncle Tiberius to create his Nemi Ship retreat.

Many people concluded that the Nemi Ships were pleasure barges, but Pliny the Younger disagreed. He said that since Lake Nemi was sacred, Roman law prohibited ships from sailing on it. Pliny argued that Caligula had received a religious exemption for his ships.

Both ships had several hand operated bilge pumps that worked like a modern bucket dredge, the oldest example of this type of bilge pump ever found. The pumps were also operated by what may have been the oldest crank handles yet discovered; the reconstruction of the cranked pump which was assembled from fragments, including a wooden disk and an eccentric peg, has been dismissed as „archaeological fantasy”. Piston pumps supplied the two ships with hot and cold running water via lead pipes. The hot water supplied baths while the cold operated fountains and supplied drinking water. This plumbing technology was later lost and only re-discovered in the Middle Ages.

Each ship contained a rotating statue platform. One platform was mounted on caged bronze balls and is the earliest example of the thrust ball bearing previously believed to have been first envisioned by Leonardo da Vinci but only developed much later. Previous Roman ball bearing finds (used for water wheel axles in thermal baths) had a lenticular shape. The second platform was almost identical in design but used cylindrical bearings. Although consensus is that the platforms were meant for displaying statues, it has also been suggested that they may have been platforms for deck cranes used to load supplies

Unfortunately the ships were destroyed by fire in World War II on the night of May 31, 1944. Several US army shells hit the Museum around 8 pm, causing little damage but forcing the German artillery to leave the area. Around two hours later, smoke was seen coming from the Museum.

Teutoburg Forest – battle that stopped Roman Empire

Three Legions were marching thru German dark forest. 20 000 soldiers accompanied by 10 000 mostly women, but also traders, medicians, slaves. Roman General Varus as a representative of Romans hoped to expand Roman power, Roman law, and Roman culture on the north of Europe.

He felt safe and sure, as he trusted advises of his Germanic friend, Arminius. Arminius, born in 18 or 17 BC, was son of the Cheruscan chief Segimerus and trained as a Roman military commander. He had lived in Rome as a hostage in his youth, where he had received a military education, and obtained Roman citizenship as well as the status of equestrian (petty noble), he knew Latin.

The forest was dark, Roman convoy had to change it’s formation, The line of march was now stretched out perilously long – between 15 and 20 kilometers. The Germanic warriors waited in grim silence. Meanwhile, a violent rain and wind came up that separated them still further, while the ground, that had become slippery around the roots and logs, made walking very treacherous for them, and the tops of the trees kept breaking off and falling down, causing much confusion. While the Romans were in such difficulties, the barbarians suddenly surrounded them on all sides at once. At one moment 20 000 spears were in the air aiming at Romans. Arminius set an ambush.

Cache of silver dinarii discovered in 1987 on the site of the Battle of Teutoburg Forest

Marching units disintegrated into chaos. The attacked soldiers stopped walking, in order to try to defend themselves. Since they were marching in close formation and few could see much beyond the men immediately around them, those behind kept marching forward and crashed into their fellows. At first, soldiers farther back in the column were unaware of what was happening toward the front, and they kept pressing on.… Like a chain-reaction highway crash, men piled into one another.

Wounded, dying, and already dead men quickly covered the track, making movement increasingly difficult for the others. The scene was one of complete chaos — spears falling like hail, men collapsing and gasping, even those not yet wounded struggling to remain on their feet, and occasionally frenzied horses and mules crashing through the swarm of troops. Within minutes, thousands of Roman soldiers lay dead or dying, pierced by spears, while others struggled to stay on their feet and to use their shields for shelter.

Varus understood that there was no escape. Rather than face certain torture at the hands of the Germans, he chose suicide, falling on his sword as Roman tradition prescribed. Most of his commanders followed suit, leaving their troops leaderless in what had become a killing field. Of the 15,000-20,000 Roman soldiers, fewer than 1,000 survived. An army unexcelled in bravery, the first of Roman armies in discipline, in energy, and in experience in the field, through the negligence of its general, the perfidy of the enemy, and the unkindness of fortune was exterminated almost to a man by the very enemy whom it has always slaughtered like cattle. Tacitus wrote that many officers were sacrificed by the Germanic forces as part of their indigenous religious ceremonies, cooked in pots and their bones used for rituals. Others were ransomed, and some common soldiers appear to have been enslaved. Three Legions Legio XVII, Legio XVIII, and Legio XIX were wiped out. These legion numbers were never used again. 

When the news of the battle reached Rome, Emperor Augustus banged his head against the palace walls, shouting Quintili Vare, legions redde! (“Quintilius Varus, give me back my legions!”)

Six years would pass before a Roman army would return to the battle site. The scene the soldiers found was horrific. Heaped across the field at Kalkriese lay the whitening bones of dead men and animals, amid fragments of their shattered weapons. In nearby groves they found “barbarous altars” upon which the Germans had sacrificed the legionnaires who surrendered. Human heads were nailed everywhere to trees. The battle of Teutoborg forests ended Roman expansion in Northern Europe. 

For almost 2,000 years, the site of the battle was unidentified. Late-20th-century research and excavations found that a small village of Kalkriese. Archeologist firstly found a roman coin from the times of Augustus. More complex excavations found other artifacts like spears, sling projectiles, bones broken by the swords an finally, beautiful silver mask of Roman officer. 

Iron roman keys found in Kalkriese

Were ancient romans nanotechnology pioneers? Amazing Lycurgus Cup

The Lycurgus Cup, as it is known due to its depiction of a scene involving King Lycurgus of Thrace, is a 1,600-year-old jade green Roman chalice. Like many others.

But when you put a source of the light inside it it magically changes colour. It appears jade green when lit from the front but blood-red when lit from behind or inside.

It baffled scientists ever since the glass chalice was acquired by the British Museum in the 1950s.

Then in the 1990s they discovered tiny particles of silver and gold in the cup’s glass. When hit with light, electrons belonging to the metal flecks vibrate in ways that alter the color depending on the observer’s position.

But how did the romans dissolve silver and gold into the glass? 

Researchers speculate that the Romans simply ground the metal particles until it would take a thousand of them to match the size of single sand grain, then mixed them in with the hot liquid glass. But that wasn’t the end of the story: the Romans created a goblet such as the Lycurgus Cup, by carving it from a single block. That means they also understood that different thicknesses of the glass would exhibit different coloring as well. That’s a nanotechnology

The artisanship this required boggles the mind. The glass makers could not have added such minute amounts of gold and silver just to the glass the cup was going to made out of. These particles are 50 nanometers wide, less than one-thousandth the size of a grain of table salt.. You can’t even see them with an optical microscope, never mind the human eyeball; you need a transmission electron microscope at least. New research has suggested that the cup also changes colors when liquid is poured into it (although the researchers did not do so as it might have caused damage).

The cup may have been used in Bacchic rituals which were still in practice in fourth century Rome. In addition to the story the cup tells, the color shift from green to red parallels the maturation of the grape. Historians have also posited that it might be a political reference to Constantine’s defeat of Licinius in 324 A.D. It was certainly a specific commission and a hugely expensive one at that, with everything from glass color to theme to decoration being top of the line and one of a kind. The cup is also a very rare example of a complete Roman cage-cup, or diatretum, where the glass has been painstakingly cut and ground back to leave only a decorative „cage” at the original surface-level. Many parts of the cage have been completely undercut. The cup was made probably in Alexandria or Rome in about 290-325 AD, and measures 16.5 x 13.2 cm.

Dogs of Pompeii

Those that did not flee the city of Pompeii in August of 79 AD were doomed. Buried for 1700 years under 30 feet of mud and ash and reduced by the centuries to skeletons, they remained entombed until excavations in the early 1800s. The death of the city gave historians a great insight in daily life of ancient romans. One of the aspect were animals.

Just like the Romans, Pompeians leaned toward the extravagant. Exotic animals and plants were imported, therefore, contributing to the spread of the species throughout provinces of the Roman Empire. Cats were imported from Africa and peacocks came from the Near East. Dogs served in hunting, security and as household pets. Donkeys were used in pulling carts or grindstones in mills. Remains of animals discovered at the dig were cattle, hog, goat and sheep. Proof of animal husbandry, raising poultry, doves and dormice, also were found. 

One of the most amazing traces of roman love of animals is a mosaic depicting a dog with CAVE CANEM sign below. He is one of the world’s most famous dogs, the snarling, black-and-white mosaic canine and protector of the Pompeii archaeological site. Indeed, with his black hair, curled form, and bared teeth, the ancient canine has stood ready for almost 2,000 years to discourage intruders from setting foot in the Domus of the Tragic Poet, supported by the famous inscription ‚Cave Canem’ or ‚Beware of the Dog’. Different mosaic was a warning intended to prevent visitors from stepping upon small, delicate dogs of the Italian greyhound type.

There is also one special artifacts associated with Pompeii animals: plaster cast of guard dog. He was left chained to a post to guard the House of Orpheus when the occupants fled. The bronze studs around its neck are all that remains of a collar. As the pumice fall-out deepened, the dog climbed higher — until eventually it ran out of chain and was suffocated. He died there immediately like almost thousand pompeians.

Roman scutum shield. This is the only known surviving example of this kind of shields.

This is the only known surviving example of the semicylindrical shield known as a scutum, used by Roman legionaries and known from literary sources. Found flattened, in thirteen pieces, and missing its umbo (central boss). The painted decoration reflects Roman iconography of victory, including an eagle with a laurel wreath, winged Victories, and a lion.

Scutum was famous for the Testudo (tortoise) formation, used commonly by the Roman Legions during battles, particularly sieges.

In the testudo formation, the men would align their shields to form a packed formation covered with shields on the front and top. The first row of men, possibly excluding the men on the flanks, would hold their shields from about the height of their shins to their eyes, so as to cover the formation’s front. The shields would be held in such a way that they presented a shield wall to all sides.

The scutum was a 10-kilogram (22 lb) large rectangle curved shield made from three sheets of wood glued together and covered with canvas and leather, usually with a spindle shaped boss along the vertical length of the shield. The only surviving example, from Dura-Europos in Syria, was 105.5 centimetres (41.5 in) high, 41 centimetres (16 in) across, and 30 centimetres (12 in) deep (due to its semicylindrical nature), with an unknown thickness. It was well made and extremely sturdy.

Speaking of Roman Legionaries there is also a very rare artifact: remains of their famous armour called lorica segmentata. The plates of lorica segmentata armour were soft iron inside and (some at least) were mild steel on the outside, making the plates hardened against damage without becoming brittle. This was a deliberate act, called case hardening, and is carried out by enriching the surface iron with carbon from organic materials packed tightly around the piece which is then heated in a forge. The strips were arranged horizontally on the body, overlapping downwards, and they surrounded the torso in two halves, being fastened at the front and back. The upper body and shoulders were protected by additional strips („shoulder guards”) and breast- and backplates. The form of the armour allowed it to be stored very compactly, since it was possible to separate it into four sections each of which would collapse on itself into a compact mass. The fitments that closed the various plate sections together (buckles, lobate hinges, hinged straps, tie-hooks, tie-rings, etc.) were made of brass. In later variants dating from around 75–80 A.D., the fastenings of the armour were simplified. Bronze hinges were removed in favour of simple rivets, belt fastenings utilised small hooks, and the lowest two girdle plates were replaced by one broad plate.

2,000-year-old roman face cream with visible, ancient fingermarks

The six-centimetre-wide canister, currently on display in the Museum of London, was discovered in July 2003 by Pre-Construct Archaeology at the site of a Roman temple complex dedicated to the god Mars Camulus. It dates from approximately 150 AD.


The contents were so well preserved (you can still see finger marks in the cream) that the team was able to recreate the product from fresh ingredients. The main constituent of the cream was animal fat mixed with starch and tin oxide.

This rare find was then chemically analyzed by University of Bristol’s Richard Evershed, who has a quirky research niche: Figuring out the composition of ancient medical, food and cosmetic concoctions, usually by studying residues leftover on old pottery. (He made news last December by reporting that the fatty deposits on pieces of ancient Polish pottery are Northern Europe’s oldest evidence of cheese-making.)

So what precisely was in the creamy white ointment?

In a 2004 Nature paper, Evershed’s team announced that “the Londinium cream” was primarily made up of animal fat, probably from cattle or sheep. They also detected starch, which was likely isolated by boiling roots and grains in water. In addition, the cream contained a tin dioxide mineral called cassiterite with the chemical formula SnO2.

This cream had a pleasant texture when rubbed into the skin. Although it felt greasy initially, owing to the fat melting as a result of body heat, this was quickly overtaken by the smooth, powdery texture created by the starch. Remarkably, starch is still used for this purpose in modern cosmetics. The addition of SnO2 to the starch/fat base confers a white opacity, which is consistent with the cream being a cosmetic. Fashionable Roman women aspired to a fair complexion, and the Londinium cream may have served as a foundation layer

Roman ivory doll with real gold jewellery, found in the sarcophagus of young roman girl. 1st century AD.

She’s the most perfect doll specimen to survive from the Roman world. She looks as if she’s made of wood, but in fact she’s ivory.

She’s a woman with very cleverly jointed limbs, she’s got a rather posh, fashionable hairdo, and on her hand she’s got a little gold ring. found in a big stone coffin of a woman called Creperia Tryphaena.

To judge from the skeleton, Creperia was about 20. So the burying a doll with a 20 years old girl is rather unusual in the roman world.

Roman women were made for marriage and for breeding children. And in fact, some Roman writers tell us that just before they do get married, Roman girls would go along to a temple and they would leave their dolls in the temple.

The young girl must have belonged to a very wealthy family, all of the jewellery of a doll was made of real gold. The early death must have been a shock for the family, so leaving the doll with her was some kind of farewell ceremony.

Spintrii, ancient tokens used to enter Roman brothels

The rare Roman erotic tokens dating back to the 1st century AD called Spintriae were originally struck from an alloy of brass/bronze. One side of the token depicts the sexual act – always a man with a woman while the other side bears a Roman numeral within a wreath. The numbers I to XVI are known with numbers exceeding XIII being very rare. We do not know today why the tokens were made. Some experts claim that the main function was to gain admission to brothels and ´draw the service´ depicted on the token. It is thought that the depiction of the service was to overcome the language barrier between the peoples of the Roman Empire. 

For example a Syrian sailor who just arrived in Rome without knowing a word in Latin would know exactly what to expect based on the illustration. Some theorise they were special gaming tokens similar to contemporary erotic cards or numerical tokens used in some board games. These erotic tokens had a parallel in the Roman tokens serving as admission tickets to the circus and the then ´meal vouchers´. The latter mostly bore the portrait of the emperor on one side. Yet it was unthinkable to depict the emperor on a token with erotic motifs and the reverse side of the Spintriae therefore bears a numerical designation perhaps the value of the token. According to the currently prevailing opinion they were indeed tokens for sexual services which were distributed for free although not as extensively as the tokens for bread and circuses.