Whose Town? The Rise of the Elite in Augustan Pompeii

During the Augustan period, Pompeii’s elite restructured city landmarks to augment their own power. This paper studies the intersection of class and urban geography in this key moment of Pompeii’s history, identifying how changing physical landmarks benefits or disadvantages multiple classes of Pompeian residents. Although the impact of the rise of Augustus on the city of Rome has been studied extensively, this paper supplements that research by studying physical changes within the south Italian setting of Pompeii. In the Augustan period, Pompeii’s urban environment increasingly emphasized major public spaces and elite-dominated monumental architecture over earlier neighborhood landmarks that gave prestige to multiple classes. Due to this shift, the power of Pompeii’s many non-elite classes decreased throughout the town while the elite capitalized on urban changes to increase their influence over Pompeii. Augustan Pompeii transitioned from a mixed-power to an elite-dominated city.