12. The Wolf of Via Vesuvio

06/11/24 • 28 min

Lucius Caecilius Iucundus kept the economic wheels of Pompeii well greased. He was a middle man doing very nicely- part money-lender, part auctioneer, part banker, all hustler.

Thanks to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and the preservation of the ruins of Pompeii, we can still visit his house, look at his bronze portrait, and read his account books. 150 tablets of receipts, carbonised in the destruction of Pompeii, lead us through the deals that keep the city’s economy moving. If you want to buy a Ferrari-level horse but only have the cash for a Fiesta then Iucundus is your man. It might look like dry stuff, but it's as revealing of real life as snooping on someone’s Paypal account or leafing through their credit card receipts might be now. Never mind imperial plunder and luxury lifestyles, it’s a glimpse of how the economy works in a regular town.

Mary Beard visits Iucundus's home and talks to the novelist Robert Harris about his fascination with the Pompeii moneylender.

Producer: Alasdair Cross

Expert Contributors: Sophie Hay, Parco Archeologico di Pompei; Matthew Nicholls, Oxford University

Special thanks to National Archaeological Museum, Naples and Parco Archeologico di Pompei

Lucius Caecilius Iucundus kept the economic wheels of Pompeii well greased. He was a middle man doing very nicely- part money-lender, part auctioneer, part banker, all hustler.

Mary Beard visits Iucundus's home and talks to the novelist Robert Harris about his fascination with the Pompeii moneylender.

Producer: Alasdair Cross

Expert Contributors: Sophie Hay, Parco Archeologico di Pompei; Matthew Nicholls, Oxford University

Special thanks to National Archaeological Museum, Naples and Parco Archeologico di Pompei

Previous Episode

11. Three Lovers and a Funeral

Allia Potestas is a woman remembered in one of the most intriguing and affecting funeral orations of the ancient world. Her lover remembers her diligent application to housework before praising to the skies her beauty and her erotic skills. But he didn’t have Allia to himself. She was shared in a ménage à trois with his male friend. It’s an unusual domestic arrangement and a surprising one to advertise on a tombstone. The lines themselves reveal an enormous amount about Roman morality and the sexual politics of the time, but the story between the lines is even more fascinating. Can we dig beneath the emotional turmoil of the man and guess what Allia herself thought about the arrangement? Mary Beard is joined in Rome by Allison Emmerson of Tulane University to examine this extraordinary funerary monument at the Baths of Diocletian.

Producer: Alasdair Cross

Expert contributors: Allison Emmerson, Tulane University; Helen King, Open University; Mairead McAuley, University College London

Cast: Tyler Cameron as Allius

Special thanks to Museo Nazionale Romano