The historian is joined by Kate Lister to teach us about Roman traffic systems, the many uses of urine and brothels
The ancient city of Pompeii has witnessed many things in its time: Romans, slavery, volcanic devastation, and a 1972 Pink Floyd live album. But has it ever encountered a force of nature as terrifyingly enthusiastic as Dan Snow, presenter of Pompeii: Life in the City with Dan Snow?
Television historians used to be a fusty, professorial bunch. Typically, their idea of an exciting afternoon was to stand next to a castle while stoically explaining that there’s more to Henry VIII than you were taught at school.
Not any more. Nowadays, they are expected to go above and beyond demonstrating their eagerness. This is why Lucy Worsley can’t leave the house without donning a wimple or pretending to be locked in the Tower of London. And it’s why Snow – the avuncular boffin, author and podcaster – spends most of his screen time during this solid if unspectacular documentary talking at speed and waving his hands – and sometimes, just to mix it up, talking at speed, waving his hands and striding purposefully towards the camera. He’s a human exclamation mark.
Amid all the lively nattering, he has lots of interesting nuggets of information to impart. He talks about how ancient Pompeii probably had a one-way traffic system (cart-horses not having a reverse gear) and how urine was such a precious commodity (used to bleach dirty togas) that it was eventually taxed.
Yet the first of four episodes is notably coy about the 79 AD eruption of nearby Vesuvius and the subsequent destruction of the city. That great onslaught of fire and ash will presumably be covered later, but it feels strange that it is not more prominent in this scene-setting instalment. It’s like making a programme about the Titanic and neglecting to mention the iceberg.
Snow and his lack of an indoor voice undoubtedly blow the cobwebs away. However, the producers seem aware that his style is best in moderate doses. For that reason, they have teamed him up with the more understated historian (and The i Paper columnist) Kate Lister, who delves into the grittier side of life in ancient Pompeii.
She visits a recreation of a Roman villa in Somerset and reveals that the upper middle-class life in ancient Pompeii was built on the backs of slaves – a facet of classical society often overlooked. Then it’s off to an ancient brothel in Pompeii itself, with claustrophobic rooms, stone beds, and erotic engravings on the walls. There is also a lot of graffiti that the sex workers etched in their spare time, including a rude reference to a customer who smelled of garlic.
Such irreverence is charming, but these engravings also offer an important glimpse into the internal lives of downtrodden people from thousands of years ago, says Lister. “To find the voices of enslaved women is almost impossible,” she says. “Here on the walls of Pompeii, they are making jokes to one another.”
Back on the streets of Pompeii, Snow is talking to another historian, Hannah Platts, who explains that the concept of the weekend didn’t exist in Ancient Rome, but that there were numerous public holidays, so people did have the occasional chance for a lie-in. They also had unusual sleeping patterns by modern standards. They would go to bed at sundown, then wake around midnight, for some auxiliary pottering about before getting their head down again for 2 am.
All of this is reasonably interesting, but there is a sense that the historians are spinning the wheels before getting to the main event – Vesuvius and history’s most famous volcanic explosion. They are also saddled with some iffy CGI animation depicting ancient Pompeiians walking the streets of the city – a shoddy touch that detracts from an otherwise agreeable journey back through time.
‘Pompeii: Life in the City with Dan Snow’ continues next Tuesday at 9pm on 5
