Another structure has collapsed today in Pompeii, raising new fears about the fate the ancient Roman town buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79.
The new collapse involved a 25-foot-long garden wall which surrounds one of Pompeii’s best-known houses, the so-called House of the Moralist.
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The 2,000-year-old building lies along Via dell’Abbondanza, some 65 feet from the ruins of the frescoed House of Gladiators, which crumbled into a pile of rubble earlier this month.
“The terraces behind the House of the Moralist have collapsed, bringing down the garden wall,” Pompeii superintendency said in an emailed statement, blaming the heavy rainfall for the smashup.
Pompeii officials remarked that the damage involves a less important structure.
"The wall was completely reconstructed after a World War II bombing destroyed the original structure,” the superintendency said.
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Luckly, no major damage seems to have occurred to the House of the Moralist.
Consisting of two connecting properties which belonged to wine-merchants Titus Arrius Polites and Marcus Epidius Hymenaeus, the building owes its name to three rules of etiquette inscribed on the walls of the triclinium, or dining-room. They read:
- Wash your feet, and a slave will dry them. A cloth covers your couch; keep it clean!
- Do not flirt with another man’s wife. Watch your language.
- Don’t fight or argue. Otherwise, go home.
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Right now, archaeologists and heritage experts are not exactly going home; the site is continuously monitored.
“We are living in a continuous state of emergency. Pompeii is a frail town; all walls without a covering are at risk if this heavy rains continues,” Jeannette Papadopoulos, Pompeii's recently appointed superintendent, told Naples’s daily Il Mattino.
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Earlier this month, following the collapse of the House of Gladiators, officials warned that almost three-quarters of Pompeii was in danger of collapse.
Photo: House of the Moralist: Collapsed garden wall. Courtesy of Comitato Cincinnato Pompei/Felice Bergamasco
Tags: Ancient Civilizations, Ancient Rome, Archaeology, Travel
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