ABSTRACT
The detailed evolution of Pompeii’s public landscape in the Roman period is fullof uncertainties. There are question-marks over the dates of several buildings; it is difficult to decide, indeed, whether some of them date to the period after the foundation of the colony or go back to Samnite times. Where the dates of buildings are known, it is often unclear what preceded them: the dearth of excavations beneath the levels of 79 prevents us, in most cases, from judging whether they were constructed on “virgin” sites, whether they replaced domestic or commercial buildings, or whether they were substitutes for previous public edifices. The following account will, therefore, be hedged with many “ifs”, “buts” and “maybes”.1
