Post-eruption salvaging stripped Pompeii's forum and buildings for decades. Emperor Titus sent two high-ranking commissioners to supervise relief efforts and ordered that the assets of those who perished be committed to the cause Funds were used to reconstruct buildings damaged by the eruption and preceding earthquakes in cities around the Bay of Naples Pompeii, buried less deeply than Herculaneum, was subject to extensive efforts to recover valuables and expensive building materials for years and decades after the eruption
Emperor Titus dispatched two commissioners and ordered assets of the dead go toward relief. But Pompeii itself was heavily looted for decades. Its forum lost its columns, lead tanks were pulled out, and marble facings stripped from baths and houses. In one heavily tunneled mansion, looters left a message reading "house opened."
Key Facts
- Emperor Titus sent two high-ranking commissioners to supervise relief efforts and ordered that the assets of those who perished be committed to the cause
- Funds were used to reconstruct buildings damaged by the eruption and preceding earthquakes in cities around the Bay of Naples
- Pompeii, buried less deeply than Herculaneum, was subject to extensive efforts to recover valuables and expensive building materials for years and decades after the eruption
- The forum was stripped of its columns, lead water tanks were removed, and marble facings were scavenged from suburban baths and houses
- Near the entrance of a heavily tunneled Pompeian mansion, archaeologists found a message reading "house opened," left by a party of looters
Related site: Pompeii — view location, images, and history on the Ancient Nerds map.
Source: Why Wasn't Pompeii Rebuilt After the Eruption? by toldinstone