Ancient frescoes recently discovered at Pompeii depict mythological characters from the Trojan War.
The artwork adorns the walls of a dining hall recently excavated at the site of the Roman city covered by volcanic ash following the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D.
First discovered in the late 16th century, the ruins of Pompeii and adjoining archaeological sites near Naples in Italy's Campania region capture the moment when ash and pumice engulfed the homes of ancient Romans.
The bodies of families seeking to escape are preserved beneath the ash. Their home furnishings, dining areas and sexually explicit artwork also remain as they left them.
Along with the frescoes, the space features a mosaic floor of more than a million tiny white tiles, according to a statement from the Pompeii Archaeological Park, which continues excavations begun in the 18th century.
One fresco shows the first meeting of the Trojan prince Paris and Helen of Troy, another the Greek god Apollo encountering Cassandra, the daughter of the Trojan king Priam.
Paris's capture of Helen from her husband, the Spartan king Menelaus, started the 10-year war between the Greeks and Trojans in the 12th or 13th century BCE. Helen left willingly in some myths, and was kidnapped in others.
Apollo, who favored the Trojans in the war but was unable to prevent their defeat, gave Cassandra the gift of prophecy. But when she spurned his advances, he punished her by proclaiming that she wouldn't be believed. Her warnings to the Trojans not to trust the Greeks were ignored, leading to the Greek victory.
The frescoes have a black background, unusual for Roman art, which protected them from soot emitted by burning oil lamps in the dining hall, which measures 50 feet long and 20 feet wide and opens into a courtyard.
“People would meet to dine after sunset,” said Gabriel Zuchtriegel, director of the Pompeii Archaelogical Park. “The flickering light of the lamps had the effect of making the images appear to move, especially after a few glasses of good Campanian wine.”
Zuchriegel said the frescoes depict themes of personal decisions determining fate that Romans inherited from the Greek world.
Homer's "The Illiad" and "The Odyssey" and other epics about the Trojan War were already ancient when the Roman empire flourished. That fascination with the murderous conflict between Greek and Roman heroes continues today, as new translations of Homer's work keep appearing.
The Roman poet Virgil, later valorized by Dante in "The Divine Comedy," revisited the Trojan War in "The Aeneid," his epic about the founding of Rome by the Trojan prince Aeneas.
Pompeii's sudden, tragic end made real the inevitability of fate, the dominant theme of ancient literature.
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