The exhibition will answer these and many other curiosities “Feeding the Empire. Power Stories from Rome and Pompeii” hosted by Ara Pacis Museum in Rome from the 2 July to the 15 November 2015 which will trace an overall picture of food in the Roman world thanks to rare and prestigious archaeological finds, models, multimedia equipment and reconstructions.
Following the Roman pax, around the Mediterranean basin what we would call today the first “globalization of consumption” took place with the relative “delocalization of production” of primary goods. In the imperial age the Romans drank large quantities of wines produced in Gaul, Crete and Cyprus, or, if rich, the expensive wines of Campania; they consumed oil that arrived by sea from today's Andalusia; they loved Greek honey and especially the garum, the condiment they brought from Africa, from the Mediterranean East, from distant Portugal, but also from nearby Pompeii. But, above all, the bread they ate every day was an imported product, made with grain transported by sea on large ships from Africa and Egypt.
The exhibition itinerary traces the solutions adopted by the Romans for the supply and distribution of food, with the means of transport by land and above all along the sea routes. Furthermore, the themes of "mass" distribution and food consumption in the various social classes are addressed in two places that are in many ways emblematic: Rome, the largest and most populous metropolis of antiquity, and the Vesuvian area, with particular regard in Pompeii, Herculaneum and Oplontis, flourishing towns in Campania.
The visitor is introduced to the theme of the movement of goods by a large map of the Mediterranean made with the cinematographic technique. Here the main food flows of long-life goods will come alive - wheat, oil, wine and garum - and the sea routes from the largest ports in the Mediterranean, Alexandria and Carthage, will be displayed.
In this first section the problem of the processing of primary foods, of their packaging in amphorae characteristic for each product, of the storage and distribution of food is also addressed.
In second section the goods arrive in Rome and Pompeii through the ports of Pozzuoli and Ostia. Here is the digital graphic reconstruction of the port of Trajan, with the unpublished results of the very recent excavations conducted by the Superintendency of Ostia and the University of Southampton for the reconstruction of the Roman port complex.
This part of the exhibition closes with the theme of the large-scale free distribution of the main livelihood goods to adult Roman citizens, the urban and Roman plebs to whom a unique privilege was recognized: that of sharing the goods of the conquest, at first only grain, but from the XNUMXrd century AD also oil, wine and meat.
La third section illustrates the consumption of goods and food products that could take place both in public places, such as popinae and thermopolia, the ancient "bars" or "hot tables" where Romans and Pompeians consumed "street food", both in the refined triclinia (dining rooms in which the diners ate while semi-reclining on typical banquet beds) of the wealthy class. Exhibitions of food remains from Herculaneum will help to understand the quality of consumption in a rich center in Campania.
Thanks to the scientific contribution and loans from Pompeii, Herculaneum and Oplontis, it will be possible to admire tableware from both extremely rich contexts - such as the so-called "Moregine treasure", a silver table set returning from five years of exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum in New York – both refined ceramic, glass and bronze furnishings, and finally the pottery used in more popular everyday contexts.
Two insights conclude the exhibition: one dedicated to the various foods consumed in Roman times with their diffusion and relative price (exemplified by the precious testimony of theEdictum de pretiis rerum venalium of the emperor Diocletian, the most famous of the "calmieri" of antiquity) and one dedicated to the "philosophy of the banquet", where the deep love for life and the food festival that celebrates it mixes with the melancholic awareness of the transience of every pleasure.
The exhibition, created on the occasion of EXPO 2015, is promoted by theDepartment of Culture and Tourism of Rome - Capitolina Superintendency for Cultural Heritage, byDepartment of Productive Rome and Metropolitan City and EXPO with scientific care Capitoline Superintendence for Cultural Heritage and Special Superintendency for Pompeii, Herculaneum and Stabiae, together again 25 years after the successful exhibition experience Rediscover Pompeii (1993). The conception and scientific coordination are by Claudio Parisi Presicce e Orietta Rossini. Multimedia reconstructions and catalog (with texts by C. Parisi Presicce, M. Osanna, E. Lo Cascio, F. Coarelli, P. Arnaud, C. Virlouvet, S. Keay, P. Braconi, C. Cerchiai, G. Stefani, M. Borgongino, MP Guidobaldi, A. Lagi) are edited by theHerm of Bretschneider.
