Pompeii

Summary

Podcast Title: Dan Snow's History Hit
Episode: Pompeii
Release Date: August 14, 2025
Host: Dan Snow
Guest: Dr. Kate Lister

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Introduction

In this compelling episode of Dan Snow's History Hit, host Dan Snow teams up with renowned historian Dr. Kate Lister to delve deep into the tragic and fascinating story of Pompeii. Released on August 14, 2025, the episode offers listeners an immersive journey through the ancient Roman city, exploring its vibrant life, catastrophic destruction, and remarkable archaeological rediscovery.

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The Eruption of Mount Vesuvius: A Day of Catastrophe ([02:35] - [06:38])

The episode opens with a vivid recounting of the fateful day in 79 AD when Mount Vesuvius erupted, engulfing Pompeii and its neighboring cities in a devastating pyroclastic flow. Dr. Kate Lister provides a descriptive narrative:

"The sky blackens as volcanic debris rains down on Pompeii, Herculaneum, and other surrounding settlements. Pliny later wrote, the daylight was now elsewhere in the world, but there, the darkness was darker and thicker than any night." ([02:57])

Dan Snow emphasizes the suddenness and severity of the disaster:

"It moves faster than any man can run. It is hotter than a furnace. It sweeps through the gates of Pompeii in an instant. Those who run die where they stand. In almost an instant, the city is gone." ([06:07] - [06:26])

This segment effectively sets the stage for understanding the scale and immediacy of the eruption's impact on the inhabitants.

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Rediscovery and Excavations of Pompeii ([06:38] - [08:03])

The discussion transitions to the rediscovery of Pompeii in the 16th century by architect Domenico Fontana, who stumbled upon the ruins while digging an underground channel. However, initial excavations were halted due to the discovery of erotic frescoes, leading to Pompeii remaining hidden for another century.

"Proper excavations began in the 1700s after the discovery of nearby Herculaneum in 1709. It wasn't until the following century that excavations became more careful and scientific." ([07:26] - [07:29])

Dr. Lister highlights the groundbreaking work of Giuseppe Fiorelli, who pioneered the creation of plaster casts to capture the voids left by decomposed bodies, providing hauntingly accurate representations of the victims.

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Exploring Pompeii: Personal Experiences ([08:03] - [19:14])

Dan Snow shares his personal visit to Pompeii with Dr. Kate Lister, offering listeners a firsthand account of walking through the ancient streets. The duo explores various zones of the city, including residential areas, marketplaces, temples, and the famed gladiator arena.

"It's such a surreal place to be because it's not like a museum. This is the city where they lived. You really do walk in their streets. This is their houses." ([09:22])

They discuss the stark wealth disparities evident in the city's layout, noting the proximity of palatial homes to humble dwellings and bustling marketplaces.

"There was a big thriving tourist industry... The wealth disparity was really stark." ([12:25] - [12:51])

Dan humorously advises future visitors:

"Don't go in the summer and wear walking shoes, because it is brutal." ([10:33])

Kate echoes this sentiment, recounting her own discomfort:

"I wore the stupidest shoes... They were very nice shoes, they were very nice shoes." ([10:58] - [11:12])

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Daily Life and Social Structures in Pompeii ([11:21] - [16:21])

The conversation delves into the daily life of Pompeii's inhabitants. They describe the bustling Forum as the epicenter of political and social activity, likening it to the modern-day equivalent of a city center filled with commerce, gossip, and communal interaction.

"The Forum was the place where the politicians and the local officials would meet and have discussions and thoughts and do business." ([15:49])

Dan and Kate explore the amphitheater, highlighting its significance as a major social hub:

"A big amphitheater... It was a big amphitheater. It was a big amphitheater." ([23:21] - [23:33])

Dr. Lister emphasizes the gladiators' celebrity status, adorned with graffiti that humanizes and adds depth to these historical figures.

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Attitudes Towards Sex and the Only Preserved Brothel ([16:21] - [28:43])

One of the most intriguing segments discusses the only known brothel in Pompeii. Dr. Lister elaborates on the complexity of classifying such establishments and the rich insights their discovery provides into the sexual norms of ancient Rome.

"It's the only surviving brothel that we have from the ancient world. And even more important than that, it's got graffiti on the walls that were written by the people that work there." ([24:34] - [24:35])

They explore the prevalent depiction of male genitalia throughout Pompeii, debating its purpose. Dr. Lister suggests these were likely good luck charms or cultural symbols rather than mere decorative elements.

"They were good luck charms. So they're warding off evil." ([28:43])

The episode also touches on the inclusivity and widespread nature of sexual activities, including homosexual relations, as evidenced by the graffiti and frescoes.

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The Plaster Casts: Preserved Memories of Pompeii's Victims ([31:09] - [32:42])

A poignant part of the episode focuses on the plaster casts of the victims, created by pouring plaster into the voids left by decomposed bodies. These casts provide a haunting glimpse into the final moments of Pompeii's residents.

"You just don't know who these people are. Your heart just breaks for them when you realize that that was their last moment." ([32:31] - [32:42])

Dan discusses the technical aspects of creating these casts, emphasizing their significance in bringing the human element of Pompeii's tragedy to life.

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Archaeological Significance and Modern Insights ([34:10] - [35:40])

The discussion highlights recent archaeological advancements, such as rendering wooden structures in plaster to preserve them. Dan recounts remarkable finds, including the only horses discovered in Pompeii, suggesting possible escape attempts during the eruption.

"It was fascinating... we saw the only horses they've recovered." ([34:10] - [34:36])

Dr. Lister and Dan also reflect on the broader implications of Pompeii's preservation, noting how technological and scientific progress continues to unveil new facets of this ancient city.

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Lessons from Pompeii and Final Reflections ([35:57] - [41:53])

As the episode nears its conclusion, Dan and Kate discuss the broader lessons learned from Pompeii's destruction. They touch upon the importance of heeding early warnings and the human propensity to underestimate impending disasters.

Dan humorously shares his own preparedness plans, juxtaposing ancient and modern responses to natural catastrophes.

"Your main lesson from history is at the slightest whiff of trouble... Get out." ([38:42] - [39:27])

The conversation wraps up with lighter anecdotes about daily life in Pompeii, including the unpleasant experience of trying historical Roman foods like garum (a fermented fish sauce).

"I had this idea that when you tasted it, it would actually be, oh, my God, that's a revelation. No, it's not. It was like cat food. It was awful." ([42:27] - [42:44])

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Conclusion and Takeaways

Dan Snow and Dr. Kate Lister provide a rich, multifaceted exploration of Pompeii, blending historical facts with personal experiences. The episode underscores Pompeii's enduring legacy as a window into ancient Roman life, societal norms, and the sheer unpredictability of natural disasters. Through vivid storytelling and expert analysis, listeners gain a comprehensive understanding of why Pompeii remains one of history's most captivating archaeological sites.

Key Takeaways:

• Pompeii's Daily Life: A bustling city with stark social contrasts and vibrant public spaces.
• Catastrophic Eruption: The sudden and devastating impact of Mount Vesuvius on Pompeii and its inhabitants.
• Archaeological Marvel: The unique preservation of Pompeii offers unparalleled insights into ancient Roman society.
• Cultural Insights: Exploration of Roman attitudes towards sex, social structures, and public life.
• Humanizing History: The plaster casts and preserved artifacts bring a personal touch to the historical narrative.

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Notable Quotes:

• "You really do walk in their streets. This is their houses. You can go into their homes. It is very eerie to be there." – Dr. Kate Lister ([09:22])
• "It is hotter than a furnace. It sweeps through the gates of Pompeii in an instant. Those who run die where they stand. In almost an instant, the city is gone." – Dan Snow ([06:07])
• "They clearly had very different attitudes to our own... They had quite a bawdy sense of humor, they have a lot of hang ups. Let's not pretend it was some kind of sexual utopia." – Dr. Kate Lister ([29:55])

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Further Exploration

For more insights and detailed explorations of historical events, listeners are encouraged to subscribe to Dan Snow's History Hit and check out Dr. Kate Lister's sister podcast, Betwixt the Sheets, which delves into the history of sex scandals in society.

Transcript

[Dan Snow]

Hello folks. Dan Snow here.

[Dr. Kate Lister]

I am throwing a party to celebrate 10 years of Dan Snow's history. I'd love for you to be there.

[Dan Snow]

Join me for a very special live recording of the podcast in London in.

[Dr. Kate Lister]

England on 12th September to celebrate the 10 years.

[Dan Snow]

You can find out more about it.

[Dr. Kate Lister]

Get tickets with the link in the show notes. Look forward to seeing you there.

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[Dan Snow]

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[Russell]

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[Dan Snow]

The stalls.

[Dr. Kate Lister]

In Pompeii's Market overflow with grapes, figs, dates, barley and olives. Men and women in their woollen linen togas peruse what else is on offer. Wine, herbs and honey.

[Dan Snow]

As they reach out to pick up the produce. The ground rumbles.

[Dr. Kate Lister]

The stalls sway. Olives fall to the ground.

[Dan Snow]

For days.

[Dr. Kate Lister]

Tremors have reverberated through the stone streets of this affluent Roman town on the Bay of Naples, but Most of its 18,000 inhabitants have ignored them, continuing to go about their leisure and work. The city is a retreat for Rome's rich and the people who serve them, a vibrant center for tourism, trade, food and fancy. There are dramatic gladiator fights in the amphitheatre. There are plays and performances. There are bath houses, sports grounds, shops and bars, places to eat, laundries and brothels. Mount Vesuvius looms over the city, rising about 4,000ft above Pompeii. On its mountainsides, farmers tend to crops and vineyards. On the day that Vesuvius erupted, the town bakers put bread into ovens, not realizing these loaves will stay here for nearly 2,000 years, to be discovered by archaeologists, strangely preserved. At 1pm that day, a young man by the name of Pliny the Younger looks across the Bay of naples from around 30 km away from Pompeii and see something extraordinary. A huge column shoots up from the volcano. Gas, stone, ash. The sky blackens as volcanic debris rains down on Pompeii, Herculaneum and other surrounding settlements. Pliny later wrote, the daylight was now elsewhere in the world, but there the darkness was darker and thicker than any night. It must have felt like the world was ending. And for Pompeii, it was. The inhabitants panicked, torn between escaping the danger of the raining debris and the terror of leaving everything behind them. People tied pillows to their heads to attempt to protect themselves, while others just cried in despair. Many flee to the ports or nearby towns, but thousands remain. The hail of pumice strikes the town like slingshots from the sky. Buildings struggle under the weight as it piles up and begins to bury people and things. Eventually, the pumice will form a layer roughly 3 meters deep. Then there is another boom. The giant column of gas and ash stretching up from the volcano suddenly collapses and forms an avalanche of superheated material that rampages down the slopes, destroying everything in its path. It tumbles down the mountainside, devouring vineyards, villas, fields and forests.

[Dan Snow]

It moves faster than any man can run.

[Dr. Kate Lister]

It is hotter than a furnace. It sweeps through the gates of Pompeii in an instant. Those who have hidden indoors suffocate where they lay. Those who run die where they stand. In almost an instant, the city is.

[Dan Snow]

Gone.

[Dr. Kate Lister]

Buried beneath meters of ash and stone, entombed to be uncovered centuries later.

[Dan Snow]

Pompeii was rediscovered at the end of.

[Dr. Kate Lister]

The 16th century by the architect Domenico Fontana, who was digging an underground channel to divert the Sarno River.

[Dan Snow]

During the project, he uncovered a series.

[Dr. Kate Lister]

Of ancient walls and frescoes and Inscriptions, the ruins of Pompeii.

[Dan Snow]

But he was horrified to realise the frescoes depicted rather erotic scenes.

[Dr. Kate Lister]

He quickly covered the site up and Pompeii remained hidden for another century. Proper excavations began in the 1700s after the discovery of nearby Herculaneum in 1709. Initially, the work was haphazard and focused on finding treasures for the royal collection of Charles III of Naples. It wasn't until the following century that excavations became more careful and scientific.

[Dan Snow]

Lead archaeologist Giuseppe Fiorelli came up with.

[Dr. Kate Lister]

The idea of making plaster casts of the voids that he believed had been left by the bodies of individuals who'd been buried in the ash during the eruption. Their bodies had been decomposed and left a cavity. These are the very haunting statues or casts that show us the very last second of the lives of the victims of Pompeii. During these historic excavations and even today, we have found perfectly preserved artifacts, human remains, food, buildings, artworks, all manner of ancient objects that reveal the story of life in Pompeii.

[Dan Snow]

Its ruins are the most extraordinary time.

[Dr. Kate Lister]

Capsule we have into the ancient Roman world.

[Dan Snow]

So, as fellow history lovers, I can imagine Pompeii is on your bucket list, which is why I've included it in my summer travel series, Dan Snow's Guide to you. I had the privilege of going to.

[Dr. Kate Lister]

Pompeii at the end of last year to film a TV show with the.

[Dan Snow]

Incredible historian Dr. Kate Lister, who is also the host of our sister podcast, Betwixt the Sheets. And it seemed like the perfect excuse to meet up with Kate again to reminisce on that trip and what we learned to give you the historic lowdown on what can be found at Pompeii, as well as our hot tips on.

[Dr. Kate Lister]

How to see it if you're lucky enough to visit. Now, it's worth saying here, there's a little bit of swearing and sex talk in this episode because Pompeii has the only preserved brothel from the ancient world and we couldn't not include it.

[Dan Snow]

Kate Lister, how are you doing?

[Kate]

I'm doing very well, thank you. Dazno, how are you doing?

[Dan Snow]

Good. We just come back from a great adventure in Pompeii. Was that your first time?

[Kate]

I went to Pompeii for the very first time when I was 17, but I think I a petulant teenager, like, things were being pointed out to me, like, you should appreciate this, just I.

[Dan Snow]

Went there as a teenager. You're like, what am I doing here?

[Kate]

Why am I doing here?

[Dan Snow]

But now that you're a sophisticated you know, academic and public historian and thought leader. Tell us, what do you think about it?

[Kate]

It's amazing. It's absolutely incredible. It's such a surreal place to be because it's not like a museum where a group of historians have got together and gone. I think this is what a Roman place would look like. It's actually the city where they lived. And you really do. You walk in their streets. This is their houses. You can go into their homes. It is very eerie to be there.

[Dan Snow]

I think people are drawn to the sort of box office bits, like the particular murals or frescoes or statues. For me, it's the whole thing. It's mind blowing. You're in a Roman city in a reasonable state, and you just get a sense from the streets and the buildings, the layout. And then, of course, so exciting. Cause something like a third of it hasn't been excavated yet.

[Kate]

I know loads of. It's still underground, isn't it? Any historian is studying in Pompeii, I guess, lives in fear, but also excitement of what they're gonna discover. You could like do this whole thesis on what you think people in Pompeii would be doing. And then some bastard with a trowel over here is gonna turn up and disprove everything.

[Dan Snow]

And what's great about it is that you and I were there. There's different zones, isn't there? There's residential, there's food and Bev, we.

[Kate]

Might call it now, worshipping places, bathing places, Place for politics. Lots of walking in Pompeii.

[Dan Snow]

Lots of walking.

[Kate]

Oh, there's so much walking in Pompeii to be done.

[Dan Snow]

That's actually a really good point. I always say to people, if you're gonna. Don't go in the summer and wear walking shoes, because it is brutal.

[Kate]

I wore the stupidest shoes.

[Dan Snow]

I don't want to say anything.

[Kate]

The stupid. You know what they weren't stupid for if you were just walking around London?

[Dan Snow]

They're lovely shoes.

[Kate]

They were very nice shoes.

[Dan Snow]

I just mean they weren't ideal for Pompeii.

[Kate]

They had a rather chunky platform wedge to the sandals. And they would have been fine for walking around any city. But Pompeii is a different beast altogether.

[Dan Snow]

Because you've got the volcanic. It's all made out of volcanic rock. It's the big sort of paving stones that are slightly uneven on the streets, aren't they? And you're always hopping down on the curbs are very high. Because as we learned, those streets would have been filled with shit.

[Dr. Kate Lister]

Imagine the Summer.

[Kate]

It would have been awful, wouldn't it? Just animal waste, human waste, food just all being chucked into the streets and free flowing.

[Dan Snow]

As a visitor today, you're always clambering up and down.

[Kate]

It's hot, it's dusty, there are midges there as well. So you've got to be quite hardy, I think.

[Dan Snow]

And all the time you've got that amazing vista in the background. You got Vesuvius with the central cone blown out in that enormous eruption. We'll probably talk about the one that would destroy Pompeii or preserve Pompeii, however you want to look at it. First of all, I guess. Let's talk about the kind of character of Pompeii. It was on the Bay of Naples. It was the Hamptons, it was like the sandbanks in Bournemouth off of the Roman elite. There were these villas all around the Bay of Naples. So Pompeii was a sort of holiday town.

[Kate]

It was. It's where the posh people went to kick their knees up and to have a good time and. Yeah, I mean, it's on the coast, it's very beautiful and it must have been where rich people would go. Maybe not for a day out, probably a bit longer than that. But yeah, it had a big thriving tourist industry.

[Dan Snow]

I guess that's not surprising because they obviously, the famous Amalfi coast is just around the corner. That's where everyone goes on the honeymoon stay. So it's still got that character. Someone said it was a bit like a cross between Vegas and Miami or something. Like it was a real holiday town. Did people let their hair down there as well?

[Kate]

Yes, yeah. And there was a lot for them to do as well. There were so many taverns and places to eat and it's really catering for people to go there and have a good time if you had money. That was one of the things that struck me about being there. There was. I never saw the middle bit. It's just like there was just palaces and palatial environments of people that had so much money it made your eyes water, or people living in hovels. The wealth disparity was really stark.

[Dan Snow]

You're right, because we went to a few of those places and what's interesting, sometimes it's all on the same block. So there'll be like a really rich house and it's sort of. It's grown organically. I suppose he or she have bought their neighbours out. But then there'll be like a blacksmith's, there'll be a smithy and Then like a tiny little dwelling right in amongst that same. So it must have been quite intense and noisy and to a certain extent confusing. You wouldn't necessarily know you were in a smart part of town or not.

[Kate]

All the rich houses had really high levels of security, didn't they, to keep the oypali out, obviously the windows were really high to stop people nicking all of this stuff.

[Dan Snow]

And we were lucky enough to see some new excavation that was really cool. I'll never forget seeing those handprints on the wall. Do you see those handprints on the wall that kids had drawn around their hands?

[Kate]

When did you see that?

[Dan Snow]

I think maybe you were at the bath that day. They've just uncovered them. And if you think about it, that means between the kids doing that and the eruption of Vesuvius, probably rained or anything. So it could have been days, weeks or hours. And there was also, next to those hands, there were some childlike graffiti of gladiators fighting as well.

[Kate]

There's lots of eerie things like that. Like the bread that they've got that was put into the ovens the morning of the eruption and that's been preserved. That's quite eerie. Like it was just. It was never eaten, it was never touched. It was obviously put in almost immediately before the thing happened.

[Dan Snow]

We were very lucky because we got shown to some of those back areas, the storage, because I think the buildings are special, but they're like skeletons, aren't they?

[Kate]

You forget that, don't you? That obviously when they've excavated it, they've taken a load of stuff out. What you're looking at when you're walking around is basically the shell of it. All of the treasures and the things that they found are kept in. It wasn't a museum, it was like a storehouse in the center, wasn't it? And we were lucky enough to go and have a look around it. And it's just shelves really close together, absolutely stuffed with these artifacts. I felt terrified being in there.

[Dan Snow]

Terrifying.

[Kate]

Terrified of being in there. Like, it's just wall to wall glass boxes, things that they found thousands of.

[Dan Snow]

Years old cooking utensils.

[Kate]

And, you know, one f, one stumble, one sneeze and I could smash this.

[Dan Snow]

There were sort of things that you would put as a centerpiece of a dining table. There was that earthenware jug that had all those eggs in it. The eggs had baked and the shells had crap, but they were all still there in that storeroom. There was the statue with the enormous.

[Kate]

Penis, the huge penis.

[Dan Snow]

The reason it was in the storeroom is. Someone had broken it off and tried to take it home.

[Kate]

See, that's why we can't have nice things.

[Dan Snow]

That really is. It was in someone's handbag leaving the site. I'll never forget that.

[Kate]

That was Dan who tried to steal that, by the way.

[Dan Snow]

No, it.

[Kate]

No, it wasn't.

[Dan Snow]

It was not. And. But I did do a little Instagram video of it. Now, let's try and talk people through Pompeii in case they want to visit there. You go in through this wonderful gate, an original gate in the defensive walls, which I'm like two miles long. There were several gates, but you go in through this wonderful gate and you go in there, like we were lucky enough to do before the crowds. The sun shines straight down that. It's a magical experience, entering, and it's quite magical. Then you get into the Forum, where there's temples and the basilica, so there's sort of the court area for local politics. And then around the Forum. What does one do if you're an.

[Dr. Kate Lister]

Ancient Roman in the Forum?

[Kate]

Well, ideally you'd be a man, because I did learn that looking round, is that most women were just supposed to stay at home and out of the way. But the Forum was the place where the politicians and the local officials would meet and have discussions and thoughts and do business. And all around, that would have been people trading, catering to them.

[Dan Snow]

A lot of gossip.

[Kate]

Yeah.

[Dan Snow]

It's a funny thing that people, men like to say, we don't gossip.

[Kate]

Oh, you gossip so much.

[Dan Snow]

You gossip so much, you gossip. The whole forum idea is based around the idea of gossiping.

[Kate]

There's so much gossiping that goes on.

[Dan Snow]

Then there's temples around that Forum. There is a slave market there. That was interesting.

[Kate]

Yeah, that was grim, wasn't it?

[Dan Snow]

That was very prominent. And now you got the Abundanza, which is called the Road of Abundance. That's a modern name for it, with lots of commercial properties, loads of shops, loads of stores and just bars, as you say, bars and taverns everywhere, because.

[Kate]

They would eat on the way home. That was something else that I learned from Rin Pompeii is that rich people would eat at home, they'd have people to cook for them. Poor people wouldn't have the facilities to do it because they would live in one roomed establishment, so they would be buying food on their way home.

[Dan Snow]

So I thought in terms of public spaces, I think the Forum's extraordinary. And the building around the Forum, and then you go down the Vihaan Danzo and look at the shops. But the baths are amazing. I didn't do much. You did a lot of time in the baths.

[Kate]

That's impressive when you go in there, because they've. Obviously, they're div. By sex. You've got men's baths and you've got the women's baths. And the men's baths is. He's got quite a. It's weird to say, like, a masculine vibe about it, but the images on the wall and the frescoes, there's sort of like nude men with big muscles and tiny penises all over the place. And when you go into the women's baths, the frescoes on the wall is. It's flowers and birds and nice things. And in the men's baths, they've got. It's like a big fire pit thing that they must have used to put water on to get the steam. And you can see the dedication on it. It was put there by somebody who was trying to get elected, so he was appealing to the men by just basically going, remember me? I'm like, I'm really rich, I'm really cool. I put that thing in the baths. Nothing like that in the women's baths. And when I asked Sophie, our guide, about that, she went, yeah, but they can't vote, so. Oh, yeah. So who cares?

[Dan Snow]

Amazing. One of the very useful things about Pompeii anyway is that, unlike ancient Egypt, the whole place is full of inscriptions of, this is who I am, this is the year, this. Who's the emperor? This is what I'm trying to achieve. I'd like to get elected this office. Please enjoy this nice drinking fountain. So for historians, archaeologists, they're like, well, it's quite useful.

[Kate]

And graffiti everywhere.

[Dan Snow]

Everywhere.

[Kate]

That was their version of social media, is they're scrolling on walls, on doors, on. There's so much graffiti around Pompeii.

[Dan Snow]

It was that fun one by the walls. I think it was on the north side. It was like, please stop doing a business outside my house. People just defecating on the street, obviously, outside this poor person's house. And they just scrolled this massive sign up on the wall. Fair enough, yeah. So the bars of all the Roman customs, I'd like to get involved in that.

[Kate]

Well, I thought that too. And when you're looking around, you're like, this actually feels quite familiar and quite modern because they've got a plunge pool and they've got a hot room and they've got another hotter room and, like, you move through them and it sounds all lovely until you realize they don't have any plumbing system in there. It's all the same water being recycled again and again and again. So it is. Yeah.

[Dan Snow]

That's not something.

[Kate]

That's not something, is it?

[Dan Snow]

I thought the idea of the community coming together, like, they do a bit of work in the morning and then you go and all meet up for a chat and a hangout, go and.

[Kate]

Have a shower with your mates.

[Dan Snow]

Yeah, I like that.

[Kate]

I quite like that, too. But they were. They were very important to them, the baths. It was where they would get a lot of business done and a lot of chatting and you just go and hang out.

[Dan Snow]

That does have a modern feel, because we've got leisure centers and spas and things today. I also felt the Palaestra, which. That huge, big square, colonnaded square where you and I spent quite a lot of time. And that was, I think, strangely, a lot of elite kids would go there and have schooling in amongst those colonnades with their clever Greek tutors and things. But also in the middle of that swimming pool. So it was a big athletics ground as well. And the swimming pool had, like, a shallow end and a deep end.

[Kate]

I like that.

[Dan Snow]

What about the nighttime with a night economy? Because it's quite a. Well, as you say, it was a place that attracted tourists. It's a place where that night economy seemed to be quite important.

[Kate]

One of the things that you really learn when you're walking around it, I think when you can actually do that, you learn a lot about history just by actually being there and physically experiencing it that you hadn't realized before, like, how dark it would have been. That was one of the things that, like, obviously, if you think about it, you do realize that. But we were there at night at one point, and it is pitch black. You can't see anything in front of you. And we had a few torches and a few lamps. I mean, it must have been terrifying to have gone out and walked about in Pompeii when it was that dark. And there are a lot of record about people getting robbed and that you wouldn't want to go out after dark.

[Dan Snow]

If you were wealthy, you'd be accompanied by someone.

[Kate]

If you were wealthy, you would be at home. You would be at home on your sofa or whatever the Romans had. Instead of a sofa, you might want.

[Dan Snow]

To sneak out at night because there's lots to do, isn't there? There's the theatres, which I was very struck by. The two theaters right next door to each other, two main ones, and clearly getting together and doing Things together is a big part of life for these Romans. Being in a town like that, you're training together, you're bathing together, you're in the theaters together. That's something that now feels quite alien to us.

[Kate]

There wasn't a lot of privacy in Pompeii. Everything was in on top of one another. I think that would get on my nerves after a while, to be completely honest. Like, you were never, ever alone. It seems like there wasn't any space for anyone. There's no introverts in Pompeii. Everybody has to be social with everybody else.

[Dan Snow]

You listen to dance to know's history. And this is my guide to Pompeii.

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[History Hits]

Land a Viking longship on island shores. Scramble over the dunes of ancient, ancient Egypt and avoid the poisoner's cup in Renaissance Florence. Each week on Echoes of History, we uncover the epic stories that inspire Assassin's Creed. We're stepping into feudal Japan in our special series Chasing Shadows, where samurai warlords and shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive, but to conquer. Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows or fascinated by history, history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hits. There are new episodes every week.

[Dan Snow]

I guess the other activity that you three find out would be the gladiator arena.

[Kate]

Yes.

[Dan Snow]

You went to. It's right on the other side of town from the Forum.

[Kate]

They loved a gladiator, didn't they?

[Dan Snow]

Yeah. And that is just one of the great gladiator arenas of the Roman world. Women weren't allowed to attend the games. They could if they sat right at the top.

[Kate]

I think they were allowed to go, but they had to sit in the back and they had to behave themselves.

[Dan Snow]

It fits something like 20,000 people in, so possibly more than the population upon poetry.

[Kate]

Was it a big deal there, the amphitheatre? Do you think so? Like a big. It was a big amphitheatre.

[Dan Snow]

I think it was a big draw. I think it was, wasn't it?

[Kate]

Yeah. And you get a lot of graffiti around the amphitheatre. That tells us how the gladiators were viewed and they have this kind of celebrity status, even a heartthrob status. There's one that says, cresken the net fighter will make the girl sigh.

[Dan Snow]

They obviously were the slave, but they also enslaved.

[Kate]

That's weird. Wasn't it? Trying to get your head around that, like, okay, so how does your system of slavery work then? Because you enslave a lot of people. I think some of the historians were saying up to a third of people were enslaved. But like also doctors, midwives, teachers. They were all slaves.

[Dan Snow]

White collar accountants.

[Kate]

Yeah, they could be slaves, gladiators, sex work. Like, trying to get your head around that. Right. So these are quite skilled jobs of people that live in your house, but they're also slaves and they don't have any rights. I found that really jarring to try and work out how this system of slavery works for them.

[Dan Snow]

Speaking of sex workers, that's something that feels quite present in Pompeii. There are these places that we think are brothels.

[Kate]

Yeah.

[Dan Snow]

You visited a lot of them. Were they out of the way places? Was it something that was kind of shameful? Was it kept a lid on or was it quite out there?

[Kate]

Well, there is one known brothel in Pompeii, and there's quite a lot of historical debate around how do you classify a brothel, not just in Pompeii or in Rome, but anytime throughout history. Like, what is the definition of it? And the definition they've come up with is it's a place that has to be used exclusively for the sale of sex. It's got more than one bed in it. It's got these kind of classifications because obviously you get other places, like taverns where someone might have been selling sex out the back. And there's a few of those in Pompeii where some of the graffiti suggests that might have been happening. The brothel is the only known establishment that. That's all it was doing. It was there to sell sex. And it's the most popular tourist destination in Pompeii. Everybody wants to see it, everybody wants to go. But from a historical point of view, it's a really, really important site, a really important find. It's the only surviving brothel that we have from the ancient world. And even more important than that, it's got graffiti on the walls that were written by the people that work there. So for the first time ever, you get a snapshot into lives that would have absolutely been lost to us had that not happened.

[Dan Snow]

Part of the attraction. People of the brothel are the Frescoes.

[Kate]

They're not actually that erotic when you look at them.

[Dan Snow]

It's kind of, I've seen worse.

[Kate]

I've seen there are worse in Pompeii. There are worse ones in Pompeii than what's on the brothel.

[Dan Snow]

And is the suggestion that people can point and go, can I do that, please?

[Kate]

That is what the tour guides tell you, but that's not the case. No, it's not like it was a menu and people were just pointing out what they wanted. It's more to create an ambiance, a kind of an erotic setting. And when you're actually in there, like, the rooms are kind of sectioned off, but they would have had curtains perhaps, covering the doorway. So it would have all been very open and all very present. I mean, there's not much that you can conceal behind a curtain. Like perhaps you conceal your view. But everyone's aware of what's going on there. We know that when they excavated it, they found things like razor blades, things for cleaning yourselves. So perhaps the clients were being asked to have a wash before or maybe afterwards. It's two stories, but we don't know what the top floor was used for. Maybe the person who owned it or ran it lived up there. We just don't know. We've got a few names of the people that work there, men and women. Most of them were enslaved, so forced to do this. Some of them seem to have had freeborn names, so they might have just been people trying to make a bit of extra money. But nowhere else in the whole of history do we have the voices of someone who's enslaved and somebody who's a sex worker. That's the only place really that we have it. There was a guy who worked there called Isidoras, and one of the pieces says that he's a great cunt licker. So fair play, Isidoras. They're making fun of clients as well. There's one piece that calls one of the clients Mr. Garlic Farts.

[Dan Snow]

Ooh.

[Kate]

Which I know, I know, but that's also funny. That's a good joke from 2,000 years ago. There's also a piece of graffiti that says something to the effect of weep girls. My penis now will penetrate men's behinds. So we know that there was a lot of gay sex going on there. There was another person network there called Moeller. Her name appears a few times, but we don't know very much information about these people, but the fact that we know them at all is frankly amazing.

[Dan Snow]

And what should we make Then of the sexy murals that seem to be in private houses, were they just artistic fashion, or were they rooms in their private houses where these rich people were trying to create their own little mini brothels?

[Kate]

That is an argument that a lot of historians have made. There's one house, the House of the Vetti, it's called. There is one room that has got very, very erotic frescoes in it and what looks to be a price list. So there's some suggestion that that as a brothel, perhaps, or perhaps that was somebody that they were enslaved and made to do that we just don't know. But also, the thing is trying to understand what the Romans saw when they saw the things that they looked at. And what we see is it's so different. You must have noticed all around Pompeii, there are just penises everywhere. They're on the pavement, they're on the wall, they're in the frescoes.

[Dan Snow]

You're the expert on things like this. Why do people do that?

[Kate]

So another thing the tour guides might tell you is that they're pointing towards the brothel. That's not true. That's not true. Like, if you try to follow those and find a brothel, you would just get hopelessly lost for hours. It looks like they're good luck charms. So they're warding off evil. And there are other cultures and civilizations that do something similar. Egypt, for instance. So it just seems that they were good luck charms. And the other thing that you realize when you're walking around Pompeii, or indeed Rome, is how masculine it is, how macho it is. It's a really bros, bros, bros culture. They didn't think an awful lot of women and they had to stay home. Most of the time. You don't get vulvas around Pompeii. They've got this huge love of penises. Not one vulva to be found.

[Dan Snow]

Yeah, so that's men carving them for men, as it were. This is not women just going, oh, love a penis.

[Kate]

There are penises drawn on the women's baths, on the walls of women's baths. Really big penises as well. I like to think that a woman drew that.

[Dan Snow]

You know what? I'm seeing male artists there, I've got to be honest. What are the penises and the frescoes and the fact there is at least one brothel? What does that tell us about attitudes towards sex in the Roman world?

[Kate]

They clearly had very different attitudes to our own. And you can tell that by how shocked we are by Pompeii. The Victorians really freaked out when they started excavating it. They were absolutely horrified about all this smut and all the penises that they were finding. They'd locked it up in a secret room in the Museum of Naples. But even today, the fact that we're so fascinated by it, like, oh, my God, it's a penis. That statue's got a massive penis. It's a brothel. I don't think that it would have bothered any of the Romans at all. I don't think that it would have been a thought in their head. That's how normal it was to them. They had quite a bawdy sense of humor, they have quite a permissive attitude around sex. They have a lot of hang ups. Let's not pretend it was some kind of sexual utopia. But they obviously have a much more open dialogue around sex than perhaps we do today. Probably borne out by the fact that again, we're back to that issue of privacy. If you have your own bedroom and if you have your own space, that is a very modern phenomenon. That is a luxury that our ancestors could only have dreamt of. And if you are all living piled in on top of one another, naked bodies, sex, these kind of things are going to have a much more immediate presence than they do when we try and lock everything away. So obviously they're very, very different attitudes to sex than we have today.

[Dan Snow]

You mentioned the brothel and everyone see that. But everybody who visits Pompeii wants to see the plaster casts of the bodies. Yes, it's just that. So they're so striking.

[Dr. Kate Lister]

People just want to know where those.

[Dan Snow]

Bodies are and want to see them. And they are extraordinary, we should say how they were formed. Right. Because when they were excavating, they would find these hollows, wouldn't they?

[Kate]

Yeah. Where the ash and the pumice had rained down from the volcano and it had squished down and compacted and it had basically encased anything that was underneath it. And then over time, that material rots away and what you're left with is a shell of a body that was once there.

[Dan Snow]

So they were sort of breaking through the volcanic debris and they'd find sort of a cavity with some human bones in it or some animal bones. And they'd be like, what is this? And then they had the idea in the 9th century to fill that void with plaster. And what did they find? The shape of bodies.

[Kate]

It's really eerie, isn't it? Is to see them. To see it was one of the most jarring things about Pompeii. You can have so much Fun. Like walking around going, oh, there's a brothel, there's the baths, there's it. And you have such time and then you sort of face to face with one of these bodies and you're oh, oh, the terrible thing happened. I'd almost forgotten about the terrible thing happening. It is very moving when you see them because a lot of the time their bodies are convulsed in strange positions and they're holding things to their mouths. Or the really moving ones is where you've got people huddled together. I know. And little kids.

[Dan Snow]

I know. The mother and child. Or an adult and child certainly.

[Kate]

Yeah. And we just. You just don't know who these people are. Your heart just breaks for them when you realize that that was their last moment.

[Dan Snow]

More Pompeii coming up after this.

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[Dan Snow]

I'm just helping this catch people's attention. This is a great deal.

[Boost Mobile]

Exactly. So it doesn't need all that.

[BetterHelp]

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[Boost Mobile]

Head to your nearest Boost mobile store right now.

[Dan Snow]

Visit your nearest Boost mobile store for full offer details. Apple Intelligence requires iOS 18.1 or later.

[Samantha]

Restrictions apply.

[BetterHelp]

BetterHelp Online Therapy bought this 30 second ad to remind you right now, wherever you are, to unclench your jaw, relax your shoulders, take a deep breath in and out. Feels better, right? That's 15 seconds of self care. Imagine what you could do with more. Visit betterhelp.com randompodcast for 10% off your first month of therapy. No pressure, just help. But for now just relax.

[Dan Snow]

And also they've started doing that with organic material as well. Some of the old wooden doors, they've now rendered those in plaster. And I went down to a big house. I think it was just outside the walls and in the slaves courts they got like enslaved people's beds. They got two beds in this tiny room. Little place for a candle, little bit of whitewash on the wall. Try and reflect the light of that candle. And now they've been able to preserve through this method. These beds are all sort of recreated in plaster.

[Dr. Kate Lister]

It's fascinating.

[Dan Snow]

Yeah. So the technology and the science and the archaeology is just coming on leaps and bounds. It's a very exciting place, isn't it? But in that house they have the only horses they've recovered. So Plato, Paris horses with their bridles on and stuff. So it's conceivable that they were Being ready to try and gallop out, try and escape if there was a gap in the volcanic debris. And there they found two bodies, two men, I think, one possibly a master and one an enslaved person. So they were together.

[Kate]

Wow.

[Dan Snow]

It was in a little corridor of this house. So fascinating stuff that really is, isn't it?

[Kate]

And just seeing them in their last moments. Yeah, it's powerful. It's powerful.

[Dan Snow]

I think equally powerful is the dog that was chained to the post near the Temple of Isis. And it's sort of. The dog's back is arched, its feet are straight out, its head's twisted away. Very rare in archaeology, isn't it, to sort of reach back, touch a nanosecond from nearly 2,000 years ago. But that feels like that that dog has just been hit by this wall of heat and volcanic debris.

[Kate]

A lot of the bodies are convulsing in strange positions. They're contort in strange positions. And that's because of the heat that hit them, causes the muscles to go into spasm. It was the heat of the pyroclastic flow that caused the body to contract.

[Dan Snow]

And we say people that don't know in August, although they just thinking now it could be later in the year of October in 79 AD, Mount Vesuvius, which towers over Pompeii and is part of a super volcano, by the way, everyone, new fear unlocked that will blow up one day and destroy most of Europe.

[Kate]

Is that what a super volcano is?

[Dan Snow]

No. Yeah, Vesuvius is part of it. The Phlegrian fields are all under Naples and all round that whole area of the Bay of Naples is a super volcano.

[Kate]

Who told you that?

[Dan Snow]

A volcanologist on the program.

[Kate]

All right, I'll believe that.

[Dan Snow]

Yeah. And he says he's got a car ready to go with stuff in the back for when his readings start getting off the scale. The super volcano is going to blow at some stage.

[Kate]

They didn't tell me that.

[Dan Snow]

Well, we didn't. We didn't tell you that before we took it.

[Kate]

I didn't know I was walking around a super volcano.

[Dan Snow]

No, well, you were. And you know what? We made it. We made it. And that's why if you go to Naples, you see lots of volcanic rock and lava and things. That whole area has been subject to repeated eruptions, but Vesuvius, the catastrophic, the enormous eruption that blew the top off was in 79 and it's the first volcanic eruption history for which we have a sort of scientific observation of, because Pliny the Younger was watching it, his uncle Pliny the Elder went to help and actually ended up dying in this eruption. He describes this huge column going up in the air, like pine tree, I think he said it was, and there's little fragments. And then Pompeii was subjected to a rain of pumice and ash.

[Kate]

Yeah.

[Dan Snow]

And some bombs. Remember those volcanic bombs, bigger, bigger rocks that are superheated and land like a mortar bomb on there.

[Kate]

It would have all been really bad news because when you pick the pumice up, it doesn't that heavy, does it? And you could be. You could be forgiven for a moment.

[Dan Snow]

Thinking, this will be all right, this.

[Kate]

Will be all right.

[Dan Snow]

Well, I think that's why lots of people stayed. Then there was a few hours when, you know, pumice was building up on roofs and they were collapsing and the streets were filling up. And I think people were making that. Some people, lots of people went down. We know in Herculanean, they went down to the water and made it.

[Kate]

Are you gonna risk it? Are you gonna go for it?

[Dan Snow]

But indeed, some ships in the Bay of Naples came to help people, but then they were sunk by these rocks landing on them. And pumice was floating on the surface of the day of Naples, they thought.

[Kate]

And it's. It's like, it's really thick, isn't it? It's like meters thick.

[Dan Snow]

So you could sort of in pumice and then volcanic ash falling. I think it's a little tsunami as well.

[Kate]

And then throw that in there.

[Dan Snow]

Quite a few hours later, there's this extraordinary superheated, so 3, 400 degrees centigrade pyroclastic, that enormous column collapses and rumbles down the side of Vesuvas like an avalanche and just smashes Pompeii. Super hot and hurt. Super hot, super heated. Immediately carbonizing all that wood and the bread that we saw, I saw that also grass. There was a lawn which they've preserved, and it's just blackened grass.

[Kate]

When the end actually came for these people, would it have been quite quick?

[Dan Snow]

Yes, it would have been very quick. When that pyroclastic surge hits, it's instantaneous.

[Kate]

Boom. That's it done.

[Dan Snow]

And you've got lots of skeletons and Herculaneum all puddling next to the port where we think they were trying to evacuate from there. But what's also really interesting is there's Roman settlements that survive the cloud sort of collapses. And this pyroclastic avalanche travels across the countryside because the wind was in a certain direction. Actually, if you're on the edge of it, you could survive so the hot take. What I've learned is sometimes you want to escape by heading towards the volcano.

[Kate]

That's terrible advice, Dan. Don't give people that kind of advice.

[Dan Snow]

No, but if you're downwind, don't listen to me. If you run that way, it's gonna fall on you. If you actually go around the edge of the volcano and go upwind, you might be all right.

[Kate]

We know people escaped. How many bodies have they found?

[Dan Snow]

I don't know.

[Dr. Kate Lister]

I don't know the answer.

[Kate]

It's not. Well, we know that there were thousands of people living it there, and they haven't found thousands of bodies, so clearly people did.

[Dan Snow]

Many people escaped. And we got accounts of a town nearby which had a huge influx of refugees through town.

[Kate]

Would you have gone? Would you have run?

[Dan Snow]

I think so. Do you know why I would.

[Kate]

Tell me.

[Dan Snow]

Because like you, I'm historian. I've studied a lot of the disasters in the past of people getting it wrong and not right. I'd run quick. My main lesson from history is at the slightest whiff of trouble, political, geological. Get out. My kids. We got a rendezvous point.

[Kate]

Oh, dear. Where's your rendezvous point in case a volcano goes up?

[Dan Snow]

No. Yes. We have different. In fact, we have different rendezvous points for different crises. Tsunami.

[Kate]

Is this true?

[Dan Snow]

Yes. I told my kids we go to the highest point in the New Forest, where I got the ordinance survey map out. It's not very high. And we're gonna go and stand there if there's a tsunami?

[Kate]

What if there's an earthquake?

[Dan Snow]

Well, I don't have a plan for that.

[Kate]

Did they know it was a volcano?

[Dan Snow]

They knew it was a geologically active area because there's a Flegrian Fields earthquake. In fact, there's been an earthquake right before.

[Kate]

Yeah. They were still repairing from that, weren't they?

[Dan Snow]

They were repairing.

[Kate]

Fuming.

[Dan Snow]

They must have been fuming because there's a big, almost imperial, sort of royal villa palace quite near Pompeii that was also covered. And they think that might not have been used at the time because they could have been repairing it from the earthquake. So, yeah, some of the rich people may have stayed away, but. Yeah, so I guess they knew it was an area of. But they. They didn't know about plate tectonics. They know about geological time.

[Kate]

No, no.

[Dan Snow]

As someone who visited for the first time as an adult, what was that one thing you take away?

[Kate]

Wear sensible shoes. Don't be wearing silly fashion shoes. If you're gonna go, go later in the day, I think, because everybody Tr. But by five, six, it's actually cleared out quite a lot. If it's what I learned about the Romans when we were putting on togas. When the toga experts came along to put togas on us, I hadn't realized how much balance was involved in that. Because it's not pinned. It's like it's all draped over you.

[Dan Snow]

That's true. You have to stand in a way that keeps it all together.

[Kate]

You have to be like, you know, have a good core muscle, and you can't be messing around and trying to walk wearing that. I learned that bakeries were horrible places to work on.

[Dan Snow]

Horrible places to work.

[Kate]

Hadn't realized that. Yeah, I thought that would be quite lovely.

[Dan Snow]

Yeah. Fresh bread. Artisanl bakery.

[Kate]

Yeah. But it was. It was awful. The air was thick with flour as you were pushing that millstone thing round. I learned that there are diseases that you can get when you're inside a volcano. I learned that. And the name of the disease, if I can get this right, pneumonio. Ultramicroscopic silico volcanoconiosis.

[Dan Snow]

Where did that come from? That was amazing. Is that a lung?

[Kate]

That's a lung illness that you get from volcanoes.

[Dan Snow]

See, I went into the crater and no one mentioned that.

[Kate]

Well, no one mentioned that it's an ultra volcano to me either.

[Dan Snow]

So we both lied to. In the same way that you went to the bakery, I went to the laundry, and I learned about how the enslaved people had to use urine to clean things.

[Kate]

They were really minging, weren't they?

[Dan Snow]

Really disgusting places. And hot and enclosed. And in the back, you know, there'd be these huge big tubs, and you got in there with your feet and had to stamp them down for hours and hours on end.

[Kate]

The garum the Romans go on and on and on and on about, which is effectively a rotted fish sauce. And I was given the opportunity to try it, and I had it in my head that it can't be as disgusting as it sounds, because the Romans were nuts for this stuff. And Pompeii made loads of it. They exported it. So I had this idea that when you tasted it, it would actually be, oh, my God, that's a revelation. No, it's not. No, it's not. It was like cat food. It was awful.

[Dan Snow]

Italian food, folks, before tomatoes, potatoes, before the Americas. Italian food. Not great.

[Kate]

It really wasn't great. Nice desserts, though. The desserts were good. There was that cheesecake thing that we tried. That was all right, but my whole mouth tasted a rotten fish by that point. So everything was horrible.

[Dan Snow]

Anyway, Kate, thanks for sharing that with us and people should go to your podcast to find out more.

[Kate]

Yes, that would be very nice. We would love to see them. There it is. Betwixt the Sheets, A history of Sex Scandal in society.

[Dan Snow]

Wherever you get your pods, go and check it out. If you're listening to this and you're in the UK and you want to.

[Dr. Kate Lister]

See the TV show Kate and I.

[Dan Snow]

Made, you can watch [e-mail] it's called.

[Dr. Kate Lister]

Pompeii Life in the City. If you're outside the uk, well, we have got plenty of Pompeii content on our digital history channel history. So go and check it out. You can also of course get more of Kate on her history podcast, Betwixt the Sheets.

[Dan Snow]

Join me for my next installment of.

[Dr. Kate Lister]

My guide to Europe on Monday, where.

[Dan Snow]

I'll be walking the streets of Napoleonic Paris to discover how that great French emperor transformed the city into what he dreamed would become the capital of the universe and discover how Paris in turn shaped him.

[Dr. Kate Lister]

A young ambitious military school student determined.

[Dan Snow]

To make an for himself. Do you know the reason you get.

[Dr. Kate Lister]

Bread with a meal at restaurants in Europe is all because of Napoleon. Bet you didn't know that.

[Dan Snow]

So keep an eye out for that episode on Monday because it's full of fascinating little bits like that we should use to impress your friends. See you next time folks.

[Dr. Kate Lister]

Bye bye.

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[Dan Snow]

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