Last supper in Pompeii celebrates the Roman love affair with food and drink. It takes us on a journey from fields and vineyards to markets and shops. We’ll learn how Romans sourced their food and drink and enter the heart of the bustling city. Inside fashionable homes we’ll recline in the dining room with exotic food and fine wine, surrounded by silver, mosaics and frescoes. All this against a backdrop of no refrigeration, no running water and questionable hygiene.
Dr Paul Roberts is the Sackler Keeper of Antiquities at the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, Oxford University. From 1994 to 2014 he was Roman Curator in the Department of Greece and Rome at the British Museum. He has excavated widely across Greece, Libya, Turkey and, in particular, Italy. His research focuses on the day-to-day lives of ordinary people in the Greek and Roman worlds. He has recently curated 'Last Supper in Pompeii', the exhibition upon which tonight’s lecture is based. It is running at The Ashmolean until January 2020.