Discussion Questions 311 Neighborhood Viitanen Hartnett
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George Mason University *
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311
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Arts Humanities
Date
Dec 6, 2023
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Pompeii Neighborhood Discussion:
Viitanen et al. and Hartnett
1. What do Viitanen et al. see as the benefit of their ‘holistic’ study of
Pompeii compared to all of the studies that they cite (e.g. Hartnett on street-
side benches)? How does their study reshape scholars’ understanding of how
elite Pompeians interacted with their immediate neighborhood? Specifically,
how do they assess Laurence’s earlier work on “moral zoning”?
There looking at the whole city not just certain parts of it.
There was no bias and they incorporated a lot of evidence.
Recognize that information in Laurence is self-contradictory and argument
itself has no value.
2. What are five categories of evidence that Viitanen et al. use to establish
‘Active’ streets and nodes? How does each relate to the idea of street life?
Do these active areas include public spaces like the forum?
3. When discussing electoral ads and graffiti, Viitanen et al. use a
methodology that takes into account the density of these wall texts in a
given amount of space. Explain how this helps to understand ‘activity’ use in
that area.
4. What conclusions does the Viitanen et al. study come to regarding the
distribution of large (likely elite) homes across the whole of Pompeii? Does
their evidence support the idea that elites segregated themselves from areas
of “deviant” behavior? Which region is the most residential? Which region is
the least residential?
5. How does Hartnett use Juvenal as evidence? What information does
Juvenal give us about life in Rome? Why must we be careful how we use
Juvenal’s
Satires
as evidence for urban life?
6. What inscriptional and visual evidence does Hartnett use in this
introduction to his study of the Roman street? Be specific and be able to
provide examples of what he gains from these sources. Also consider: what
are the limitations of each of these sources?
7. When bringing these pieces of evidence together, how does Hartnett
summarize life on the streets of a Roman city? How does he see streets and
associated decoration as playing into status in the urban landscape?
8. Spinazzola was an archaeologist at Pompeii whose work is vital to
Hartnett, but what fault(s) does Hartnett find with Spinazzola’s work?
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