Pompeii: Discoveries in the slave quarters: beans and fruit emerge, evidence of the slaves' diet.

In the slave quarters of the Civita Giuliana villa, just outside Pompeii, excavations funded by the 2024 Budget Law are shedding new light on the living conditions of enslaved workers. The discovery of amphorae filled with broad beans and a large basket of fruit—pears, apples, or rowanberries—on the upper floor of the building offers a surprising glimpse into their diet, revealing a paradox already hinted at in ancient sources: men, women, and children considered "talking instruments" could receive superior nutritional care compared to poorer free citizens.

According to the E-Journal of the Excavations of Pompeii, the foods found in one of the rooms on the first floor were valuable supplements to a grain-based diet. The small 16-square-meter cells, each with up to three beds, housed workers whose economic value could reach thousands of sesterces. To preserve their strength and ward off diseases related to malnutrition, the owners supplemented their diet with vitamins and proteins, thus ensuring the full efficiency of this essential agricultural workforce.

Storing produce on the upper floor likely served a dual purpose: to protect it from rodents, which were already numerous in the unfloored basement rooms, and to ensure strict rationing control. It's plausible that the master entrusted the pantry's management to his most trusted servants, an internal surveillance mechanism confirmed by previous analyses of the servants' quarters.

Estimates indicate that the villa's fifty workers consumed over 18 kilograms of grain annually, harvested from an area of ​​at least 25 hectares. Yet, despite being immersed in an inhumane system, some slaves in Pompeii's villas were better nourished than free citizens forced to rely on alms from the city's most influential figures.

Recent excavations have also brought to light significant casts: the door of a double door with iron studs, probably the one that led from the portico to the corridor of the shrine; an agricultural tool attributable to a shoulder plough or a tiller; and another large door, perhaps under repair, found near the carpenter's room.

"It's in cases like this that the absurdity of the ancient slave system becomes apparent," observes Gabriel Zuchtriegel, director of the Pompeii Archaeological Park. "Human beings are treated like tools, like machines, but humanity cannot be erased so easily. We breathe the same air, we eat the same things, sometimes slaves even eat better than the so-called free." Zuchtriegel also recalls the reflections of Seneca and St. Paul, recalling that "ultimately we are all slaves in one sense or another, but we can also all be free, at least in our souls." He adds that slavery, while changing forms and names, "is still a global reality," with estimates suggesting that over 30 million people were involved.

The Civita Giuliana villa has been the focus of complex investigations for years, launched in 2017 in collaboration with the Torre Annunziata Prosecutor's Office to combat the systematic looting of the area. The 2023–24 campaigns allowed for the first time to examine the space between the residential and service sectors, verifying the reliability of the information gathered during the judicial investigations.

The "Demolition, Excavation, and Redevelopment in Civita Giuliana" project is currently underway. It involves the demolition of two buildings in the servants' quarters and the expansion of archaeological investigations. The goal is to obtain a more complete picture of the villa's layout and develop new strategies for the conservation and enhancement of an area that, with each excavation, continues to reveal tangible and dramatic fragments of daily life in ancient Pompeii.