A poem by Ummidia Quadratilla, on learning that the family’s seaside villa in Pompeii (now known as the Villa of the Mysteries) has been destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD, Translated by Freddie Omm:
Sweet home, bodies loved
Before the ash and pumice storm:
Thoughts, loves, lives, buried
*
Words too crushed to speak
My loss through lasting love now
Silence covers all—
*
Busts, scrolls in libraries,
(Like grapes left liquid in the press)
Some burned, crushed, some saved:
*
We can only wait
For the centuries to come
To uncover us
*
**
*
I have visited Pompeii, and this poem captures the sense you get there, of lives and existences uncovered that were covered and that you now stumble on afresh. This feeling is harder when it is crowded there, however I have always found it possible to have moments or minutes alone in certain corners.
I do not know Ummidia Quadratilla (marvellous name!) but I assume she writes of the villa as a home she has lost.
The paintings are enigmatic. They seem to show some sexual rites in progress. I wonder if Ummidia herself participated in them. Did she leave further writings about that, or about her life?
The paintings are enigmatic, yes, and as far as I know, no agreed interpretation yet exists of what they depict.
Ummidia Quadratilla lost her daughter, husband and son-in-law in the Pompeian holocaust of 79 AD. A traumatic experience from which she sought solace in poetry, food, drink and merriment—and her famous troupe of actors and acrobats. Pliny mentions her, her performers, and her heirs in Book 7, letter 24. Pliny, being somewhat prim and prissy, mildly deprecates her habits.
She is an important figure in the “Meditations” as a Messager of what later becomes the Tabernacle of Gaia and it is possible that the rites shown in the paintings are those of the early Gaians.
It is possible that they portray the Tabernacle of Gaia’s rites, yes, albeit that the rites are highly private and personal mysteries, and any portrayal at Ummidia Quadratilla’s home apt to be more symbolic than literal.