Living with Vesuvius: Volcanic Riskscapes of Sixth-Century Campania

An early sixth-century fresco in the Catacomb of San Gennaro outside Naples depicts Januarius, patron saint of the city, in front of an erupting Vesuvius. A contemporaneous letter written by Cassiodorus, Roman senator and secretary to the Ostrogothic king, Theoderic, responds to a petition by Campanian landowners for remission of taxes by directing that the local magistrate “so manage the enquiry that those who have really suffered damage shall be relieved, while no room is left for fraud.” Together, the fresco and the letter reveal complex dynamics of power, economic self-interest, and manipulation in relations between Ostrogoths and Romans, governing elites and locals, Christian leaders and the inhabitants of the Campanian plain. They also demonstrate how Vesuvius, a recognizable hazard in the local landscape, was enlisted in those interactions. This poster explores these processes using the concept of the “riskscape”. It argues that multiple perceptions and experiences of risk always coexist in local contexts, simultaneously impeding effective responses to hazard and presenting opportunities to exploit uncertainty for gain. The example of sixth-century Campania will illustrate these principles.

In critiquing the descriptive, systemic tendencies of current constructions of societal vulnerability and resilience vis-à-vis risk, recent scholarship has advanced the concept of the “riskscape”: the collection of hazards and opportunities that constitute everyday lived experience, perceptions and constructions of those hazards and opportunities, and actions taken in response which might meet, mitigate, or exacerbate them. This concept underpins the arguments that inform this poster, and it will be represented graphically as a collection of phenomena acting dialectically upon one another. The poster then explores the reverberations of these principles over time and space.

First, time: the precise date of the eruption to which the fresco and the letter refer remains open to debate. After a long silence, the volcano spectacularly erupted in November, 472, with subsequent low-level activity attested in 505, 512, and 536. The fresco, included on the poster, was likely crafted by regional artisans. It explicitly evokes local memories and perceptions of risk, and expresses the actions of the saint in accord with those constructions. This presentation contrasts with later “official” textual celebrations of the saint, which seem deliberately to efface any relationship between Januarius and Vesuvius. These two versions of localized power and authority coexisted uneasily with one another over the long term.

Next, space: it is clear that Campania was crucial to Theoderic’s rule. Ceramic evidence, presented on the poster, reveals that in this period, Campania supplied the bulk of the city of Rome’s grain. Moreover, significant numbers of senatorial aristocrats possessed holdings there. Cassiodorus’ letter reveals local landowners exploiting the multidimensional risk that Campania presented, as both a source of wealth and food and the location of a newly-threatening volcano. They thereby linked Campanian "riskscapes" directly to the "riskscapes" of the king and his realm. In sum, the poster employs the “riskscape” to explore local communities resisting and manipulating claims to power over both time and space, using vocabularies drawn from their everyday lived experiences.