On the cover of this book there is a portrait from the wall of one of the Pompeian houses. We don't know anything about the fate of the people depicted on it. Perhaps, during the eruption of Vesuvius, they, like everyone else, tried to escape by climbing in pitch darkness over piles of stones that fell from the sky, and then, exhausted and desperate, died under a hot ash rain. In just a few hours, Pompeii disappeared from the face of the earth, and it took fifteen centuries for them to emerge from oblivion. When systematic excavations began two hundred years later, streets and squares, temples and markets, theaters and arenas where gladiators fought, baths and palaestras, furnished residential buildings and public toilets were discovered under a multi-meter layer of pumice and ash - in short, everything that made up the city. The historian of antiquity, Doctor of Historical Sciences Maria Sergeenko tells about how Pompeii died, how they looked before the disaster, what were the occupations, life and entertainment of the citizens, how the city was found and excavated, and what is happening here today.