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[coughing] [child] Mom! [wind] Mom! -We all know the story of Pompeii, right? 2,000 years ago, a bustling Roman town on the shores of the Mediterranean was completely destroyed, buried beneath the volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius. [rumbling and eruptions] And it all happened so fast. The people didn't stand a chance. The story of Pompeii is a story of death.
[screams] But that isn't exactly true. Pompeii isn't buried alive instantly. It actually took a day to be entombed in ash. A single day. That are among the most harrowing anyone on this earth has ever experienced. [screaming] [Tom] Nonetheless, a day! A chance! So what if there's another story to tell here? A story of survival. So I'm gonna try and trace 3 real people.
Real Romans through this disaster, through that day, because maybe we don't know the story of Pompeii after all. So, let's try that again, shall we? [audio rewinding] [ticking clock] I remember visiting Pompeii for the first time. It was. truly.extraordinary. [♪ upbeat music playing "You Get What You Give"] It was the summer of 1998.
I took the train down through France to Italy. ♪ Don't let go ♪ My first trip away with no grown-ups. ♪ This world is gonna pull through ♪ ♪ Don't give up ♪ Just me and two friends. We stayed in youth hostels, swam in the Mediterranean. And inevitably ate lots of pizza. But it was our visit to Pompeii that changed everything. Because in Pompeii, you can time travel. A whole Roman town, buried for centuries, perfectly preserved. And all across the site, there were plaster casts of real Romans, real people, tragically frozen where they died, and every one of them left behind a story.
And those are the stories which inspired me. They inspired me to learn Latin, they inspired me to study the ancient world at university. To pursue acting. To bring people back. I'm 45 now, and those images of all those people who died there have never left me. So I've returned to Pompeii finally, to tell their stories. Because now new research is uncovering the names of real Romans who actually experienced the eruption, and some who even survived it. And right now. There is a powerful new technology, and it's right at the cutting edge of science.
It's been developed which can trace these names through the disaster. This has never been used before. It's never been seen before. And we are fortunate enough to have been granted exclusive access for the very first time to this groundbreaking new technology. Hang on a second, a spreadsheet is the radical new tech? -It sure is. I developed it myself. -Oh, wait. I haven't even introduced you to Professor Steven Tuck yet. Steven runs the Pompeii Survivors Project, which aims to trace the life stories of real people who experienced the eruption in A.D. 79.
-Pretty impressive, huh? Inscriptions from across the Roman world are all here in this database. [Tom] Um, Steven, it's great, but I think we can, uh. I think we can be a bit more cinematic than the spreadsheet no? -Very impressive, Hiddleston. -Meh, I've seen some Avengers movies. [Steven] So the Pompeii Survivors Project is, um, is designed to find matches in this database. The goal is to find the name of somebody who is in Pompeii just before the eruption, and then we find that same person later
in another community, then, bingo, we've found a survivor. [Steven] Oh, we have a match. I'll translate. -Oh, wait. Hang on. Um, let me have a go. "El Avianius Lucius, we would say, viam qua territorialum, Pompeianorum sua pecunia munierunt." So, Lucius Avianius paved this road with his own money? -Point taken. So what happened to this Lucius Avianius then? [Steven] Well, the plaque's date suggests that by the time of the eruption, this Lucius Avianius was probably long dead.
-Ah. [Steven].um, however, his descendants were still around. Including a boy, maybe a teenager. -Oh, so maybe a grandson. -Could well be. Um. .the second inscription is the Roman equivalent of a, of a payday loan. It shows that in the space of a single generation, the Avianius' went from being among the city's wealthy elite to being among Pompeii's poorest. And this third inscription right here suggests that Avianius was apprenticed to a local blacksmith family. -So, Avianius is part of a family that had been rich, where they've lost everything, and now he's working at an ordinary blacksmith.
I think I might have found myself my first real Roman, and he's just a boy. I want to bring him back from the past. He's more than just a footnote in history. More than a detail on a spreadsheet. He was a human being. Avianius.
So let's go back to that day in A.D. 79, because after all, in Pompeii, you can time travel. For Avianius, it's just another day. Maybe he is at his apprenticeship at the forge with no idea what Vesuvius is about to unleash. [Marcus] Okay, in this moment determines the very future. Right, it forges what this bronze will become. [Lucius] Whoa. That's deep.
We should put that on a sign outside. Marcus Masurius, forging the future. [Marcus] Alright. [Tom] Wait. Pause. Steven, hang on, wait. Who's this Marcus Masuri guy? -Oh, well, there's a number of artifacts found. Um, most specifically, shovels that are stamped with the Masuri family name. So they're a local family of bronze-smiths. Um, they had a forge outside the city walls here in this area. [Tom] Right. Wow. But crucially, on the day of the eruption, Avianius is working at a blacksmith outside the city.
[Marcus] Here you go. You've got this. [Lucius] Okay. [Marcus] You're alright, alright. Oh my God. Oh God! What, what did I just say about being careful? Hours of work ruined. [Lucius] It was an earthquake. [Marcus] Avi, listen, you need to learn to take responsibility. You've got to grow up. You can start with an apology. Wait. Where do you think you're going? [Lucius] Why would I want to grow up to be like you and make shovels?
[Marcus] Alright son, don't throw a tantrum. [Lucius] You're not my dad. You're just some blacksmith. [Marcus] Hey. Come on. Don't be like that. Avianius, wait. Avi. [Marcus groans] [Tom] Avianius is a teenager. Just like I was when I first came to Pompeii.
But if I'm gonna tell the story of what happened to Avianius, then I need to combine the historical evidence with what I do as an actor. I need to imagine it. I'll follow in his footsteps. Walk alongside him. See these streets through his eyes. [overlapping chatter] To try and fill in the gaps in the archaeological record.
This is how I tell Avianius' story. An ordinary boy. on an extraordinary day. [distant rumbling] [loud knocking] [Lucius] Mom? Mom, why's the door jammed? [Claudia] Avi, ssh. Stop! Come inside. Come. [Lucius] Mom, what's going on? [Claudia] Well, the moneylenders have been back, but it's um, it's fine, everything's fine. [Tom] Wait, Steven. Hang on. Pause. It seems like they could have debts. So I'm guessing this family's really fallen on hard times.
[Steven] Oh, I think hard times is an understatement. I mean, if you think about how class and status-based the Roman world was, to have fallen from high political office to blacksmith apprentice in a single generation, I think they would have considered that a, a social fate worse than death. [Tom] Right, so they've lost status, lost money. I mean, maybe dad's not around. That's a lot for a young boy. [Claudia] Come on. What did you do? Tell me. [Lucius] I quit.
[Claudia] Sorry, you quit? You just walked out? [Lucius] We don't need his charity. [Claudia] Avi, it's not charity, it's a job. Avi, just, come on. Think about what your grandfather did. He built half the roads in this city. He worked hard. He, he applied himself. [Lucius] Mom, who cares? Not this again. [Claudia] Please, you have to stop. Avi, you have to go back. Get Marcus to give you another chance.
Give you your job back. Beg if you need to. -Beg? -Yes! -No way, no. -Yes. Avi. Apologize. I'm relying on you to-- -To what. pay your debts. -You need to learn to support yourself. [Lucius] Support you mean? -Avi, please, don't be like your father. Don't throw a good job away. -Well, maybe I am like Dad. He didn't want anything to do with you either. [Claudia] Avi, stop. [intense rumbling] [Tom] Wait, pause, Steven, hang on.
We need to talk about these earthquakes. Because they keep happening. They have to be connected to Vesuvius, right? -Oh, absolutely. -Okay, so if we're gonna try and unlock the choices that people of Pompeii, that Avianius make that day, we have to understand more precisely the volcanology, the phases of the eruption. What do you know about volcanoes? -Um, that they're scary and not my field of expertise. -Right. Better find a helpful geoscientist, then. -Good call, Hiddleston. [Tom] It's time we meet our story's villain. The volcano.
Being here on top of Mount Vesuvius, you can still feel its power. Even now, 2,000 years later, it's alive, a living mountain. -Do you know, I first came up here when I was 17. -Really? [Tom] Nothing's changed, obviously look exactly the same. And I remember feeling that this is the scene of a crime. -It kind of is, and like any scene of a crime, there are clues if you know where to look. [Tom] I guess I should also introduce you to our helpful geoscientist Professor Chris Jackson.
-And those clues help us build up a really detailed timeline of what happened, and that timeline, it begins with those earthquakes. -So the tremors are a part of it then? -Yeah, they are telling you about the unrest that's occurring within the volcano. And this is the first phase of the eruption, and on that day 2,000 years ago, magma, molten rock, is rising up, pushing against the rocks and fracturing them and causing those earthquakes.
[Chris] And it is ultimately the earthquakes that tell us that pressure is building and building and building until. -Explosion! -Well, eruption, actually. -This is why you're here. Okay? Okay. Phase one, earthquakes. Phase two, eruption. [Chris] That's right. And the eruption was incredibly powerful. It released more thermal energy than the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.
-I mean, how do you survive that? So the tremors are like a countdown to the eruption itself. The countdown has already begun. And if Avianius recognizes these earthquakes as warning signs, if he doesn't ignore them, then there's still just enough time to escape Pompeii before all hell breaks loose. By now, he can't have more than an hour before Vesuvius erupts.
One single hour. [Steven] Wait, wait, Tom, I've found something. -I'm sorry, we don't have time for this, we've only got an hour. Um, uh, what, you know, why are we looking at, what is it, some sort of Roman advertisement? [Steven] Well, this is another potential survivor, and also an opportunity for you to test your Latin, Hiddleston. -Yes, professor.
Okay. Balneum venerium, the Venus baths, some sort of bathhouse. Et nongentum, is for respectable people. So this is a fancy bathhouse. This is hard to decipher this stuff, but it seems to have been owned by someone called Felix. Maybe that says Julius Felix. [Steven] Well, excavation records in the database suggest that this Felix's property had been evacuated. Um there's no horses, no carts, no treasures.
-An organized evacuation. So someone does heed the warnings. This is another clue. You're right, I should look in there. If this Felix recognizes the earthquakes for what they are and evacuates the entire property and that is a remarkable lead, that's another potential survivor. But who is this Julius Felix? I'm gonna pause Avianius' story for a moment to investigate the ruins of this Felix's home. Because, after all, he could be my second real Roman.
[Tom] This is bigger than I thought. You've got a swimming pool, bar, restaurant. It's a, huh, bathhouse. Beautiful garden with this long water feature. This isn't a private dwelling, this is an estate. So this place must be owned by an incredibly wealthy Roman businessman. [Amalthea] Um, well, the first thing Sir, the guests have ordered more wine but one of them's already vomited on Sylvia.
[Julius] If they've asked for more wine give them more wine. I like a man who knows how to drink. [burps] -Hold on, Tom. [Tom] Wait. What? -Well, this place wasn't owned by a businessman, she was a businesswoman. Not Julius, Felix, but Julia. [Tom] Ah! This is helpful and embarrassingly accurate, archaeologist and professor of classics, Caitie Barrett, fresh from her own excavation right here in Pompeii. So, Caitie, look, here's the thing. When I was at university,
I was taught that um Rome was a patriarchy and that women, by and large, couldn't own property, certainly not run a business this size. -And that's part of why Pompeii is such a crucial site, because it lets us see what Roman life was actually like, and not just what wealthy and usually male authors wanted to represent it. We've got evidence for women doing all kinds of work. Shop owners, account keepers, bakers, and laundry workers. The whole social spectrum, from enslaved to free and from rich to poor.
-But this woman, the woman who ran this place, she's not employed, she's the employer. I mean, this is her business, right? She's the boss. -Yeah, it would have been, as far as we know, really unusual for an independent woman to run an operation like this. As the head of the household, she would have also been responsible for people's religious well-being. Keeping her household safe in the eyes of the gods. [Tom] Mm, of course. [Caitie] And in fact, if we look right over there, there used to be a household shrine there dedicated to the Egyptian goddess Isis. And we can imagine Julia as the head of household,
presiding over religious rituals there. [Julia] Isis. Lady. [Caitie] Tom, is everything okay? [Tom] Sorry. Obviously, I took a bit of a wrong turn with the gender. So let's definitely try that again. [Amalthea] Well, the first thing is, Julia, the guests have ordered more wine, but one of them has already vomited on Silvia. [Julia] Give them the watered-down stuff we save for children. What else? -Well, Cassius, everyone's favorite guest, he's complained about the snails again.
Apparently, this time they were tepid and tasteless, and he still hasn't paid last month's bill. [Julia] Oh, politely remind him that he has until tonight to pay. [Amalthea] Politely? [Julia] Mm-hmm. [Amalthea] I'd kick him to the cobbles. [Julia] Mm, not yet. No, darling. Much better to add a free plate of honey. Sweeten him up, and he'll keep spending. [Amalthea] All right. But it's your honey. I'm sure somehow he'll find it tepid and tasteless.
[Julia] Amalthea, can you check my necklace? I think the clasp's come loose again. [Amalthea] There. [Julia] Ah, thank you. Keeps coming undone. Let's go to see those baths. [distant rumbling] [clock ticking] [Caitie] We might think of Roman baths like a fancy spa. So now we're in Julia Felix's bathhouse. -That really is a spa. I see what you mean.
[Caitie] It's got everything. Here is the very swanky frigidarium. The cold plunge. -Ah, love a cold plunge. This is amazing. She really was a successful businesswoman. [Caitie] Absolutely. Before the discovery of this place, historians would have imagined somebody like Julia Felix to be impossible. -Impossible, Julia. [Julia] Oh, I see, the earthquakes, they have caused a leak. [Amalthea] Yes, well, the tremors are getting worse, and the guests are.
[Julia] Are what? [Amalthea] They're starting to wonder if it's a sign. [Julia] Oh, and they are concerned? [Amalthea] Some are. [Julia groans] [Julia] Okay. Well, they need to know that they are safe in my house. [Amalthea] Should I have everyone gathered by the shrine? [Julia] Yes. We'll make offerings. Oh, and that reminds me. Signs, how is my new sign coming? [Amalthea] Uh, well, I think it's safe to say it's not going unnoticed.
[Tom] And 2,000 years ago, the sign was right there. [Caitie] This is the spot, right there. And this sign actually has one more thing to tell us about Julia. Shall we take another look? [Tom] Okay. Elegant Venus Baths of one Julia Felix. Thank you. Um, Daughter of Spurius. Um, but that's the Latin for unknown, right? [Caitie] Yeah. So Julia is telling us that she, or maybe her father, was born out of wedlock. -Oh, I really did get this wrong.
Not only is she a woman, she's come from nothing, and she's built all this. And the sign was right there. [Julia] It's beautiful, isn't it? He's done an excellent job, hasn't he? -Did you really think it was a good idea to add that bit about your father, Spurius? -What do you think it should be bigger? I might get him to draw-- [close rumbling and tremors] [Lucius] I'm sorry. [Julia] Yes, I'm fine.
[Amalthea] You need to watch where you're going. You could hurt someone. -It's okay. He said he was sorry. Hey, what's wrong? Is everything all right? [Lucius] Yeah. Thank you. [Julia] Go on then. May the goddess protect and guide you. [Lucius] Thank you. [Tom] Okay, time is really running out now. The tremors, the warning signs, they're, they're getting worse and worse. Caitie, now, we've established that Julia is super smart, so when does she evacuate?
-Well, here we are, bumping up against the limits of the archaeological record. We just don't know. Archaeology can't get us inside people's heads. Sorry, Tom. [Tom scoffs] I don't know. I somehow thought the archaeologists and the historians would have all the answers. [Tom scoffs] Of course they don't. I mean, how can they see into the minds of people who lived 2,000 years ago? If I'm going to try and tell the stories of Avianius and Julia Felix, I have to change my approach.
I have to change my perspective. There has to be another way. Is there another way of looking at all this evidence? Is there another way of seeing the past? Is there another way of trying to understand, at the deepest level, their experience that day? When I was at university, we were taught that the Latin words for story and history were the same.
The Romans called it historia. That means evidence and imagination intermingled, they're the same thing. That's what I have to do. I have to go further still. Draw in evidence from disciplines beyond history, different ways to uncover what happened to Avianius and Julia. So I'm gonna start over. And then I lay it all out in pursuit of Julia and Avianius' story. Their own historia.
That's what I need to do. I do actually need to find a way of seeing inside their minds. So, you're a psychologist? -Yeah, I'm not just a psychologist, I'm a disaster psychologist. [Tom] So this is someone from a different discipline. Disaster psychologist Doctor Sarita Robinson. -Great. So, Sarita, how does disaster psychology differ from traditional psychology? -So in disaster psychology, what I'm looking at is people under extreme stress, like a, a natural disaster. -Mm-hmm. -I'm looking at how people respond, the choices they make, and why, because people are really predictable,
and if we can work out how people are going to behave. -Mm-hmm. -.then we can better train our first responders. And if we can do that, then we can ultimately save lives. -So, from all of your studies, can we apply these predictions to people from the past, do you think? -Yeah, I don't think people have changed very much in 2,000 years. -Great, I was really hoping you were going to say that. I want to tell you about these two Romans that I've been following.
The first is a woman, her name is Julia Felix. She's wealthy. She's intelligent. She's the leader of her household. The second is a boy called Avianius, and he's a teenager. He's a little bit headstrong, maybe. [Claudia] Avi, think about what your grandfather did. He built half the roads in this city, remember. [alarm] [Tom] Here's a thing, they're both running out of time. Surely, predictably, both of them recognize that something is seriously wrong, and they get out of there as fast as they can, as soon as they can?
-Well, shall we find out? -What do you mean? Sarita? [fire alarm blares] Sarita, you can't, Sarita you can't just turn a fire alarm on. You actually can't do that. -Yeah but, but look. -What do you mean, look? -No. [Tom] There's nothing happening. [Sarita] Exactly. This is a classic example of alarm fatigue. People have learned that there's no danger, so they don't respond. In the studies I've run in my lab, we see this behavior all the time.
-Right, so what you're saying is, when these earthquakes start happening in Pompeii, they ignore it in the same way that we ignore a fire alarm? [Sarita] Yeah, exactly. [fire alarm] [distant rumbling] Now think about it, the people of Pompeii, they live next door to an active volcano, so earthquakes will be quite common, just as they are in modern Italy today.
People are used to living with them, they're likely to have learnt to just ignore tremors, just like we ignore fire alarms. [Tom] But isn't it slightly different, though, because the earthquakes they're getting increasingly worse. So would you ignore that? [Sarita] Hmm, I don't think you can underestimate the human capacity for inaction, and actually, I think there is something else that's stopping the people of Pompeii from evacuating.
[Tom] After you. [Sarita] Thank you. Mm. [Tom] Mm. [Sarita] So why did you just turn around? [Tom] Oh I, I turned around because you did. I didn't want to feel awkward, you know. [Sarita] Yeah. So what you demonstrated so beautifully is something called social conformity. We don't want to embarrass ourselves by doing something different. So in the context of a disaster, actually social conformity can mean that people
delay their evacuation. [Tom] I see. [Sarita] Or they might not even act at all. I mean, social conformity kills. -Yeah, I see that. So, in fact, because of social conformity, Avianius and Julia, in fact, the whole town, they'd just get on with their day, and they have no idea what's coming. [Julia] Friends, please remember this is my house. A house of the goddess Isis.
[Tom] Sarita's right, they're all still there, beneath the volcano. Getting on with their day. Ignoring the signs with a bomb about to go off. [Julia] You are safe here. We will give thanks to Isis, with offerings, and she'll protect us. [Cassius] Dates and honey. Turtledove or a piglet, that's a proper offering. This is just pathetic. [Amalthea] Any offerings, Cassius? [Cassius] Thank you so much. Thank you.
[Aurelia] Marcus. Remember, he's still a kid. [Julia] Isis the creator. [♪ intense music playing] [Marcus] Hi. I'm glad you came back. [Lucius] Hi. I shouldn't have said what I did. [Marcus] Well, it's alright. It wasn't my finest moment either. [Lucius] I'm sorry. [Marcus] You're alright, kid. [Lucius] You could say sorry, too. [Marcus] Alright, alright. [Aurelia] You could, you know.
[watch alarm beeping] -That's it. You're out of time. [watch alarm beeping] [wind] -Marcus? -Run! [explosion] [high frequency ringing] [muffled coughs] [Marcus] Avianius? You okay? [Julia] Amalthea. [Amalthea] Julia. [Julia] Are you okay? Amalthea, look at me, look at me. Are you okay? -I'm okay. -Okay.
Okay. We need to focus. Get them inside now! Inside everyone. Inside now! [Amalthea] Come with me! Come now, please! [horses neighing] [overlapping screams] [screaming] [eruption bellows] [Tom] So this is it, this is the moment. Avianius isn't gonna ignore this, right? He's gonna evacuate immediately, get to safety.
[Sarita] Well, maybe. -What! Maybe? Sarita, Vesuvius, that volcano has just erupted, and you're saying maybe. Surely now is the time that everybody evacuates, Avianius gets out of there, and he's not even in the city. [Aurelia] Avi. Please, come with us. It's not safe. -He'd get to safety as soon as he can. -Maybe. -What do you mean, maybe? -Well, what would you do? -I'd get out of there, 100%. [Sarita] Are you 100% sure? -I'm absolutely sure, yeah. -But what about your family?
-I, I can't. My mom. [Sarita] We know in emergencies, people don't leave because they want to be reunited with the people they love. They want to make sure that they're safe. -I, I've got to get to her. I'm sorry. -Avi. -I, I can't. Just can't. [Tom] Family! Of course, that's who you go to, that's who I'd go to. [Marcus] It's okay, Aurelia. Go, quick. You find her and find us.
Go! [Tom] Avianius goes back in. [scoffs] Of course he does. He goes back into Pompeii to get his mom. [♪ dramatic music playing] The final day has begun. Clock's ticking. Pompeii is almost out of time. [ticking clock]
