Pompeii and Its Relation to The Modern World

Pompeii has many similarities with the modern world including Australia even though the small Italian town was destroyed thousands of years ago. Around 79AD before the volcanic explosion, Pompeii was a bustling municipality and leading trade centre for goods that arrived by sea to be transported to southern Italy and Rome. Pompeii can be considered as an ancient version of a shopping centre. Further, its fulltime residents were wealthy citizens, and travelling traders did not stay there for long periods of time. This is like the modern town of Monte Carlo, France, where only the rich live permanently and tourists just walk and look around. Pompeii was known for its fermented fish sauce which was enjoyed all over Italy and was mass produced there. Similarly, today Italy is known for manufacturing prestigious Ferrari’s which are exported all around the world.

During the early ADs Pompeii was one of the main trading centres in Italy and even the world. It can be considered as a contemporary shopping centre like Westfield Chatswood. Ancient trading centres like Pompeii were essential regional hubs where people traded items that they were producing for other items that they needed to survive and thrive. Instead of using money as we do in the modern age, they often used valuable items such as gems or other goods and services. They also used gold coins called Aureus which was the basic monetary unit of ancient Rome and the Roman world. In the modern world with the price of gold being over $1,000 dollars an ounce a coin from then would be worth over 300 dollars. In our modern world gold and money has even been replaced by cryptocurrency or bitcoins.

During the early roman times, there were a many of towns that attracted travellers rather than predominately local residents. Pompeii is an example of one of these town with the only people living there were extremely rich and others just walked through or traded with each other. This is like Monte Carlo where population is small and only the very rich people live with normal people just visiting. Some of the notable residents of modern Monte Carlo include the number one tennis player in the world Novak Djokovic, and legendary Beatles drummer Ringo Starr. In Pompeii, permanent residents totalled approximately 12,000 and included a lot of high-ranking politicians and well-known rich people. After the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius most of the residents either died or the lucky 1000 that did survive were forced to find alternative places to live. Most of the houses closer to the volcano were melted by the hot lava however most people died from smoke inhalation and not the magma.

In ancient Italy, Pompeii was known for its prestigious fermented fish sauce which was very much loved all over Italy at the time. In modern times Italy is very well known around the world for producing expensive and exotic cars. One of these cars is the Ferrari which is car produced in Maranello in Northern Italy. Like the fermented fish sauce, it is loved and desired. The fermented fish sauce called Garum was made from rotted, fermented fish guts and was arguably the Romans favourite condiment. Like Ferraris it was extremely expensive at 1000 gold sesterces coins per 12 pints. The main producer for Garum in Pompeii was believed to be a very wealthy man named Aulus Umbricius Scarus who’s excavated house was found with over 50 containers in it. It is believed that thirty percent of the fish sauce found in Campania came from one of his workshops which shows the size of his business. His business can be likened to Ferrari today which employs over 3,300 people and has assets totalling around 4 billion euros.

In conclusion, Pompeii is related to the modern world in many ways including being a trading town like a modern shopping complex, a haven for extremely rich residents with visitors just transiting through, and finally having successful businesses like the prestigious fermented fish sauce which is like the business the prestigious Ferrari Company today. These reasons are how Pompeii are related to the modern world.