Pompeii: Out of Time with Tom Hiddleston

Mom!

Mom!

-We all know the story of Pompeii, right?

2,000 years ago,

a bustling Roman town on the shores of the Mediterranean

was completely destroyed,

buried beneath the volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius.

And it all happened so fast.

The people didn't stand a chance.

The story of Pompeii is a story of death.

But that isn't exactly true.

Pompeii isn't buried alive instantly.

It actually took a day to be entombed in ash.

A single day.

That are among the most harrowing anyone on this earth

has ever experienced.

Nonetheless, a day!

A chance!

So what if there's another story to tell here?

A story of survival.

So I'm gonna try and trace 3 real people.

Real Romans through this disaster,

through that day,

because maybe we don't know the story of

Pompeii after all.

So, let's try that again, shall we?

I remember visiting Pompeii for the first time.

It was... truly...

...extraordinary.

It was the summer of 1998.

I took the train down through France to Italy.

My first trip away with no grown-ups.

Just me and two friends.

We stayed in youth hostels, swam in the Mediterranean.

And inevitably ate lots of pizza.

But it was our visit to Pompeii that changed everything.

Because in Pompeii, you can time travel.

A whole Roman town, buried for centuries,

perfectly preserved.

And all across the site,

there were plaster casts of real Romans, real people,

tragically frozen where they died,

and every one of them left behind a story.

And those are the stories which inspired me.

They inspired me to learn Latin,

they inspired me to study the ancient world at university.

To pursue acting.

To bring people back.

I'm 45 now, and those images of all those people who died

there have never left me.

So I've returned to Pompeii finally, to tell their stories.

Because now new research is uncovering the names of

real Romans who actually experienced the eruption,

and some who even survived it.

And right now.

There is a powerful new technology,

and it's right at the cutting edge of science.

It's been developed which can trace these names

through the disaster.

This has never been used before. It's never been seen before.

And we are fortunate enough to have been granted exclusive

access for the very first time to this

groundbreaking new technology.

Hang on a second,

a spreadsheet is the radical new tech?

-It sure is. I developed it myself.

Oh, wait.

I haven't even introduced you to Professor Steven Tuck yet.

Steven runs the Pompeii Survivors Project,

which aims to trace the life stories of real people

who experienced the eruption in A.D. 79.

Pretty impressive, huh?

Inscriptions from across the Roman world are all here

in this database.

Um, Steven, it's great, but I think we can, uh.

I think we can be a bit more cinematic than

the spreadsheet no?

Very impressive, Hiddleston.

-Meh, I've seen some Avengers movies.

So the Pompeii Survivors Project is, um,

is designed to find matches in this database.

The goal is to find the name of somebody who is in Pompeii

just before the eruption,

and then we find that same person later

in another community, then, bingo, we’ve found a survivor.

Oh, we have a match.

I'll translate.

-Oh, wait. Hang on. Um, let me have a go.

"El Avianius Lucius,

we would say, viam qua territorialum,

Pompeianorum sua pecunia munierunt."

So, Lucius Avianius paved this road with his own money?

Point taken.

So what happened to this Lucius Avianius then?

Well, the plaque's date suggests that by the time

of the eruption,

this Lucius Avianius was probably long dead...

Ah.

...um, however, his descendants were still around.

Including a boy, maybe a teenager.

-Oh, so maybe a grandson. -Could well be. Um...

...the second inscription is the Roman equivalent of a,

of a payday loan.

It shows that in the space of a single generation,

the Avianius’ went from being among the city's wealthy elite

to being among Pompeii’s poorest.

And this third inscription right here suggests that Avianius was

apprenticed to a local blacksmith family.

-So, Avianius is part of a family that had been rich,

where they've lost everything,

and now he's working at an ordinary blacksmith.

I think I might have found myself my first real Roman,

and he's just a boy.

I want to bring him back from the past.

He's more than just a footnote in history.

More than a detail on a spreadsheet.

He was a human being.

Avianius.

So let's go back to that day in A.D. 79,

because after all, in Pompeii, you can time travel.

For Avianius, it's just another day.

Maybe he is at his apprenticeship at the forge

with no idea what Vesuvius is about to unleash.

Okay, in this moment determines the very future.

Right, it forges what this bronze will become.

Whoa. That's deep.

We should put that on a sign outside.

Marcus Masurius, forging the future.

Alright. Alright.

Wait. Pause. Steven, hang on, wait.

Who's this Marcus Masuri guy?

-Oh, well, there's a number of artifacts found.

Um, most specifically,

shovels that are stamped with the Masuri family name.

So they're a local family of bronze-smiths.

Um, they had a forge outside the city walls here

in this area.

Right. Wow.

But crucially, on the day of the eruption,

Avianius is working at a blacksmith outside the city.

Here you go. Here you go. You’ve got this.

Okay.

You’re alright, alright.

Oh my God.

Oh God!

What, what did I just say about being careful?

Hours of work ruined.

It was an earthquake.

Avi, listen, you need to learn to take responsibility.

You've got to grow up.

You can start with an apology.

Wait. Where do you think you're going?

Why would I want to grow up to be like you

and make shovels?

Alright son, don’t throw a tantrum.

You're not my dad.

You're just some blacksmith.

Hey. Come on. Come on. Don't be like that.

Avianius, wait.

Avi.

Avianius is a teenager.

Just like I was when I first came to Pompeii.

But if I'm gonna tell the story of what happened to Avianius,

then I need to combine the historical evidence with what

I do as an actor.

I need to imagine it.

I'll follow in his footsteps.

Walk alongside him.

See these streets through his eyes.

To try and fill in the gaps in the archaeological record.

This is how I tell Avianius' story.

An ordinary boy... on an extraordinary day.

Mom? Mom, why’s the door jammed?

Avi, ssh. Stop!

Come inside. Come.

Mom, what's going on?

Well, the moneylenders have been back,

but it’s um, it's fine, everything's fine.

Wait, Steven. Hang on. Pause.

It seems like they could have debts.

So I'm guessing this family’s really fallen on hard times.

Oh, I think hard times is an understatement.

I mean, if you think about how class and status-based the

Roman world was, to have fallen from high

political office to blacksmith apprentice in

a single generation,

I think they would have considered that a,

a social fate worse than death.

Right, so they’ve lost status, lost money.

I mean, maybe dad’s not around.

That’s a lot for a young boy.

Come on. What did you do? Tell me.

I quit.

Sorry, you quit? You just walked out?

We don't need his charity.

Avi, it's not charity, it's a job.

Avi, just, come on.

Think about what your grandfather did.

He built half the roads in this city.

He worked hard.