ABSTRACT
The public buildings in a Roman city were the most prominent features that would have been noted by a visitor to the city. For example, when Pausanias described Panopeus, he did not wish to describe the settlement as a polls, because it lacked public buildings (Pausanias 10.4). Therefore, public buildings were considered to be important: more than that, they created an identity for the inhabitants. Above all, they reflected the needs of the population with respect to the gods. Most public buildings were associated with a religious aspect, whether they were temples, theatres, amphitheatres, basilicas or macella (markets). However, there is also a secular dimension to these buildings. Their construction by an individual enhanced that person’s prestige and position in society (Veyne 1990:10-12). Their name was clearly displayed upon the structure. The public buildings, as monuments, offered each inhabitant of Pompeii an image of their position in relationship to the power of others, the state and the gods (Lefebvre 1991:220-2). For example, a temple would have exalted a god and the builder of the temple, and emphasised the social distance and divisions of the community (Lefebvre 1991:220; Scheid 1992). This makes monuments very different from domestic structures. They take on roles that express the power, the ideology and the identity of a society, and in doing so, they express values that are timeless and associated with tradition (Rossi 1982:22). In Pompeii, the construction of public buildings is an expression of the identity and the ideology of the inhabitants from the early colony until the city’s destruction in AD 79.
