Mike Bishop

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Holes in the Kerb

For somebody who had been interested in the Romans for as long as I had, but had never before been to Italy, that first trip to Pompeii was bound to be traumatic. If nothing else, my camera was bound to see some serious action. There comes a point where, frantically trying to take everything in whilst photographing what one portion of the brain has already earmarked as interesting, one starts taking pictures of one's feet with one hand whilst juggling with several empty film canisters in the other.

There were so many important, major things, to see/do/photograph that it felt like I was in a desperate hurry to get somewhere. At times like these, the last thing you need is the daemon Curiosity, which occasionally manifests itself when you are least expecting it. 'Look at the Great Vista!' demands Commom Sense, mentally drawing up photo logs of what he wants you to include; 'Hey, look at that!' blurts Curiosity, not the least bit interested in such mundane accounting affairs and homing in on a particularly juicy Roman latrine.

Thus it was that, instead of seeing Pompeii as the great untapped photographic resource (by me, at least), I started looking at holes in the kerb. Pompeii is famed for its sidewalks, raised high above street level and linked at intervals by stepping stones. I had read all about these, and seen the pictures, but nobody had ever mentioned holes in the kerbs. This struck me as odd, since there were so many of them. On the main streets, down the side streets: everywhere. Curiosity, squatting on my shoulder, let out an exultant 'Hah!', and we were away!

In their best, most pristine, condition, these holes were bored through the upper outer edge of the kerbstone at an angle of about 45 degrees. Not all were in this condition, however, as they seem to have suffered in the years up to AD79. Some survived only as gulleys or crevasses at the edge of the stone, evidently worn away. Of course, I wondered what they were for: some sort of drainage seemed out of the question, as did any obscure form of artistic expression on the part of the good burghers of Pompeii.

I do not now remember how I hit upon a solution, but it suddenly came to me standing next to one of the cauponae. They had to be the equivalent of hitching rails in westerns; how else would you park your donkey when you strolled into town on business? The more I thought about it, the more I liked it. Parking meters for ox carts! Repeated passing of halters through these holes could be the cause of the wear.

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