ABSTRACT
Let us leave Rome for the moment and visit two cities where archaeological excavations have given valuable information about ancient Roman town life that complements what we have learned from the capital city. Pompeii was a modest-sized farming city located near Naples. Developed during the Republic, it was destroyed in the early Empire by the eruption of the volcano Vesuvius. Ostia, Rome's port city, prospered from the Republic into the late Empire. Because of the extensive preservation of their ruins, these two towns count among the richest archaeological sites of Roman Italy.
