“Look!” our guide said, and he pointed to a frieze at the top of a nearby building. We looked. The figures were inscrutable at first, but then the guide explained: The building had been a shop belonging to a wine merchant. We ahhh’d, not so much at the fact that the shop had belonged to a wine merchant as at the utility of the sign. To anyone who was familiar with the sight of two men hoisting a wine bladder—as visitors from throughout the Mediterranean were, back when this establishment was a going concern—the identity of the shop would have been at-a-glance unmistakable.
“International symbol!” our guide said. “Two thousand years ago!”
We were standing at the corner of Via del Foro and Via degli Augustali, in Region VII of the ruins of Pompeii. That morning at breakfast, an American at our hotel had pulled me aside to say he’d heard that my wife and I as well as another couple would be spending the day in Pompeii. Speaking as a veteran of many visits to the Amalfi Coast, he said, he strongly urged us to hire a guide. The ruins are too vast, he said. You won’t be able to make sense of them on your own; you’ll miss the important details.
In the car on the drive from Positano to Pompeii, the four of us had debated whether to follow our American friend’s advice. Now, as we left behind the previously inscrutable men and their wine bladder to follow the guide to our next destination, the other husband whispered to me that we’d made the right choice, and I whispered back that I agreed.
“Look!” our guide said repeatedly that afternoon, sweeping one arm wide, as if he were a magician. Which, in a way, he was. He was conjuring ancient history out of the thin air of April 2014, and vice versa.
“Look!”: pointing to a metal pipe sticking out of the ground. We looked. He explained: “Indoor plumbing! Two thousand years ago!”
“Look!”: pointing to a vestibule floor where a mosaic read, “CAVE CANEM.” We looked. He explained: “’Beware of the dog’! Two thousand years ago!”
“Look!”: pointing to the interior of a building. We looked. This time he didn’t explain. “Many small rooms,” he said. We were still looking. “Private rooms,” he prompted. Still looking. He took a step back, into the street, and pointed to a frieze at the top of the building’s entrance.
“Look!”
We looked.
He said nothing about two thousand years ago.
* * *
TGIPF (Thank God It’s Penis Friday) is an occasional feature at LWON. Photos by the author, who promises to have more substantive thoughts about his visit to Pompeii in a future post or posts.
There’s just … so many unanswered questions. Like the direction its pointing for one. Pompeiinians must have been obsessed with distance peeing.