A University of Oxford investigation offers the first documentation of 35 agricultural plots either established or enlarged within Pompeii following the major earthquake, indicating a private sector strategy for economic adaptation unprompted by governmental action.
Pompeii didn’t vanish abruptly. Prior to Vesuvius burying it in 79 CE, the city had already weathered another disaster: the devastating earthquake of 62 CE, which toppled structures, fractured streets, and left entire blocks in ruins. A long-standing archaeological debate centers on whether the city fully recovered from this shock or remained in a state of decline until its final destruction.
New research, authored by Oxford scholar Jessica Wenner, presents an answer: Pompeii didn’t just recover; it transformed. This transformation was driven by a surge in commercial farming, championed by private landowners who perceived the crisis as a business opening.
The work pinpoints and examines 35 productive gardens that emerged or expanded during the city’s final 17 years. Of these, 24 are concentrated in Regions I and II, the southeastern section of Pompeii—an area heavily built-up before the quake, which reverted partially to its prior agricultural use after the tremors.
The notion that crops were cultivated within the walls of Pompeii is not entirely new. In the 1970s, archaeologist Wilhelmina Jashemski excavated the site known as the Garden of the Merchant House and found something remarkable: after the earthquake, the building was demolished, and a large garden flourished in its place, featuring young vines, trees, and likely vegetables. Also present were a new cistern, partially ruined walls, and frescoes that once adorned the interiors, now visible along the garden’s boundaries. Jashemski identified two other similar instances but did not conduct a systematic analysis of this trend.
Wenner takes up this thread, weaving it into a comprehensive map. Her methodology blends architectural scrutiny of blocked doorways, fractured walls, and new water management features with archaeobotanical evidence, such as root cavities, charred seeds, and pollen residues. The result is the first quantitative measure of what the author terms “opportunistic gardens”—spaces cultivated or reconstructed after 62 CE to maximize the economic yield from urban land.
These gardens arose not from state intervention but from private enterprise, playing a vital role in bolstering the city’s resilience and driving its socio-economic adjustment, Wenner asserts in the paper.
One of the study’s insights relates the kind of produce grown to street access. Gardens primarily dedicated to viticulture often feature direct entrances from the public thoroughfare, suggesting a deliberate strategy to attract customers or ease the work of growers. Conversely, plots focused on fruit trees, nuts, vegetables, or flowers—more valuable market goods—lacked direct street access, hinting at greater concern for security and control over the yield.
In estates where cultivation was combined with al fresco dining, stone triclinia (dining couches) were positioned for street visibility. This served as a stone advertisement: passersby, seeing a cool, vine-shaded space complete with tables and altars, understood that food and drink were available here.
For instance, Euxinus’s “Caupona” featured a bar, a shrine, interior dining areas, and a garden with a grape arbor where patrons dined beneath a leafy canopy. The owner, Euxinus, whose name appears on an election notice and a recovered amphora, planted 34 grapevines less than 15 years old—meaning they were planted post-earthquake.
Regions I and II, bordered by the Via Stabiana and Via dell’Abbondanza, were originally agricultural land before urbanization took hold between the 3rd and 2nd centuries BCE. The plot divisions resemble the hereditary parcels described by Varro: regular, passed-down family strips. With Sulla’s colonization in 80 BCE, this area filled with workshops, houses, and inns. However, the 62 CE earthquake partially reversed this trend.
Wenner records how entire city blocks were either demolished or reduced in size to accommodate larger gardens. In Insula I.13, located on a strategic corner near the Via dell’Abbondanza and Via di Nocera, at least seven structures were torn down or contracted to enlarge two gardens: the House of the Lararium of Isis and the House of Lesbius and Numicia Primigenia.
In both cases, garden entrances were blocked to prevent direct street access, suggesting the cultivation of higher-value crops. In insulae I.13.12-14, eight semi-buried dolia (large storage jars), similar to those found in shop gardens, were unearthed, likely used for water storage for the young plants.
The most striking example is the House of the Ship ‘Europa,’ where excavations revealed 416 root cavities. The garden, spanning nearly 1850 square meters, was created by leveling several earthquake-damaged buildings and combining two houses to form a processing area. During this work, the owners seized the opportunity to extract building material—an improvised quarry on site—and leveled the ground into two terraces.
The vines on the upper terrace were over 17 years old; those on the lower terrace were younger than two. In other words, the cultivation area was expanded shortly before the eruption. Adjacent to the vineyards grew 240 fruit trees and two vegetable plots capable of year-round harvests. Archaeobotanical analysis identified hazelnut, grape, date pit, a fragment of almond, and beans. Beans, moreover, were intercropped with vines to fix nitrogen in the soil—a polyculture method demonstrating advanced agricultural knowledge.
The irrigation system was equally sophisticated. Rainwater collected in the atrium was funneled into an external cistern, from which it was distributed via pipes that allowed flow to be opened or closed based on each sector’s needs. This specialized and diversified approach to garden management not only boosted profitability but also mitigated the risk of lost revenue, Wenner notes.
Not all gardens were dedicated to wine and food. The research uncovered at least two sites intended for non-food production. The House of the Garden of Hercules was built atop the ruins of four preceding homes destroyed post-earthquake. A large flower garden supplanted them, likely for producing garlands and perfumes. The garden featured a stone triclinium, an olive tree providing oil for unguents, and an irrigation system including apertures in the north wall to draw water from a source 150 meters away.
Barely two doorways away was the House of the Lararium of Flora, functioning as a nursery for trees and flowers. The space was divided into eight strips bordered by furrows, and the street entrance leading to the Great Palaestra was barricaded to protect the young plants. An election program painted in the atrium suggests this location might have served as a meeting point for a professional guild.
Indeed, Wenner documents the appearance of pomarii universi (“united gardeners”) in Pompeian election notices after 62 CE. Six painted inscriptions reference them as a cohesive group with shared funds and leaders, such as Helvius Vestalis. These are all characteristic features of a collegium, supporting the idea that organized gardening associations played a crucial role in shaping Pompeii’s agricultural economy, the author writes.
Why did property owners opt to create gardens instead of rebuilding their structures? The answer lies in Roman law. Two Senate decrees, the senatus consultum Hosidianum (45 CE) and the senatus consultum Volusianum (56 CE), prohibited the purchase of buildings solely for demolition and speculative resale of materials. However, there was an exception: if a property was in ruins or damaged, its demolition was lawful.
The 62 CE earthquake created precisely this scenario. Owners could tear down the remains of damaged homes, sell usable materials—in a context of construction scarcity—and utilize the plot for agricultural or commercial purposes that yielded immediate income with far less investment than erecting a new building.
Wenner draws a direct line between this legal logic and the proliferation of gardens. The most probable driver for demolishing structures to create gardens stems from the prevailing economic and cultural trends of the High Empire: the boom in wine trade, rising consumer demand, and the expansion of catering establishments, she explains.
The study applies the theoretical model of the Six Contradictions of Urban Resilience, developed by Meiro, Newell, and Stults, to analyze how contemporary cities navigate crises. The conclusion is clear: Pompeii was a resilient city, but this resilience was neither planned nor mandated by the state; rather, it was organic and privately driven.
Given this, I can state with confidence that post-62 CE Pompeii is a city whose resilience was forged by commercial opportunism,” Wenner concludes.
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