Most of Pompeii Survived. So Where Did They Go?

Dr. Jess Venner on Pompeii, the ordinary people history forgot, and why resilience is a better story than disaster.

Jess Venner grew up in Hainault on the end of the Central Line, at a school in special measures, having never heard of classics. She is now a research fellow at Oxford, and her book The Lost Voices of Pompeii reconstructs the final day of seven ordinary Pompeiians: a pub landlord, a female entrepreneur, a slave. Not emperors or generals, but the people the ancient world made deliberately invisible.

She got there by quitting her marketing job overnight, funding her own sabbatical from savings, and doing a master's on her lunch breaks in instalments. Her method is critical fabulation: take the material evidence as far as it will go, apply common sense, and stop the moment it runs out. This is one of the most enjoyable conversations the show has had, from how a book idea actually arrives, to a disaster porn argument that lands hard, to the Hampton Court visitors who said they never thought a place like that was for them.

Chapters (00:00) Cold open: resilience, and something she couldn't believe she'd found(01:00) Hainault, a marketing degree, the overnight resignation(03:00) The Devil Wears Prada, discovering Rome, a master's on lunch breaks(06:00) Access, classics, and the prejudice that perpetuates(07:00) Oxford, and The Lost Voices of Pompeii(09:00) Critical fabulation: reconstructing the invisible(11:00) Petronas the slave and the fish scales in the market(18:00) The forum, Vesuvius, and a calling(20:00) Nine visits in a year and the felt-tip map(22:00) Euxinus, the phoenix, and rebuilding after the earthquake(24:00) Julia Felix: female entrepreneur after the earthquake(26:00) An educational platform for people who weren't invited in(27:00) AI as a tool, not a replacement(29:00) Disaster porn and why we are trained to seek it(31:00) Humanising disaster: friends, family, dogs, and the refugees nobody mentions(34:00) Who painted the picture? Whose stories get told(35:00) Treasure hunting, smashed frescoes, and what got thrown away(37:00) The Leverhulme fellowship, and sitting on information like Smaug(40:00) Hampton Court: "I didn't think this place was for me"(42:00) Tactile memory, and why we never dream of our phones

About the Guest Dr. Jess Venner is an ancient historian and archaeologist, and a Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow at Oxford University. Her book The Lost Voices of Pompeii reconstructs the final day of seven ordinary Pompeiians using the method of critical fabulation. She studied at Birkbeck and the University of Birmingham, spent a year at the British School at Rome, and specialises in urban agriculture and ordinary life in Pompeii. Her channel Life In The Past Lane has amassed hundreds of thousands of followers across TikTok and Instagram.

Recorded at TYX Studios, King's Cross.

I wanted to tell a story of resilience and innovation in Pompeii, and show it differently.

Dr. Jess Venner