Collapse of "The House of Gladiators"

The “House of Gladiators,” a prominent ruin in Pompeii, collapsed Saturday (before the site was opened to the public), and politicians, archeologists, and the press are complaining about the lack of upkeep on the part of the Italian government of the 2000-year-old site. Those complaints may well be grounded, but I think they miss the point. Preservation is all well and good, and I’m certainly for it. I’ve been to Pompeii twice and came away both times (once on the wrong train) with a sense of awe and reflection (and a sunburn and immediate need for a cold Peroni). My Lonely Planet guidebook said to imagine all the hordes of people being the inhabitants of Pompeii, going about their business in the crowded port city back then. But I couldn’t do that. Perhaps it’s a personal defect in my imagination, but I couldn’t get past that these were ruins — crumbling red brick walls of buildings with no surviving roofs, furniture, utensils — not to mention that my interior evocation could not turn the roaming bands of mostly German and Japanese tour groups into a bustling mélange of togaed Romans.

The real problem with historical sites like Pompeii is the conflict between preservation and promotion. Some 2.5 million people trek to Pompeii each year, making it the most visited attraction in Italy. So the Italian government, which currently controls the site, is in the position of having to juggle the opposing concerns of maintenance and tourism. The second is anathema to the first, both in terms of the stomping around of the tourist throngs and the need to keep the site easily accessible to those throngs. If preservation was the sole goal, then Pompeii should never have been excavated in the first place, or at least excavated, catalogued, photographed, and then reburied, with no tourists allowed. A second option might be to keep the tourists on the sidelines of the ruins, perhaps on catwalks, with sunscreens shading the more vulnerable areas. But that would limit access, which in turn would decrease attendance, and hence money. And that is (as usual) the crux of this issue, as can be seen in the calls from the critics of the government’s management. An Italian business publication, Il Sole 24 Ore, has said that “the only solution for Pompeii was a private sponsor such as an insurance, beverage or car company which would be allowed to place its logos at the entrance.” Pompeii Disneyland?

At some point the past must be left to the past. There’s a reason these are called ruins. Buildings get old, they decay, they fall down, and they wash away. Or they are propped up, remolded, recast as what they once were. But when does preservation and restoration become plastic surgery? I certainly don’t want the ruins of Pompeii to become Phyllis Diller.