Historical note:

Excavation work has restarted on the famous Villa dei Papyri in Herculaneum after an eight-year gap. "It is impossible, absolutely impossible, to excavate this villa without finding fantastic things," said Andrew
Wallace-Hadrill, the director of the Herculaneum Conservation Project.   "We may find the lost scrolls of Aristotle, or we may find something even more exciting that we had not even thought of yet."  Of the 100 plays written by Sophocles, only seven have ever been found. Euripides also wrote 100 plays, the vast majority of which have
been lost.

The enormous villa, which lies just outside Herculaneum, belonged to Lucius Calpurnius Piso, Julius Caesar’s father-in-law.  Around 1,800 scrolls, of middling importance, have been recovered since the villa was found 250 years ago, but archaeologists have only recently discovered two extra floors to the building. Work on the site
halted in 1999 after a previous excavation because of fears about the conservation of the site. Because the site lies four metres below the waterline, it is constantly flooded. In addition, the previous dig unearthed an unexpected complex of buildings that needed urgent restoration. Meanwhile, the first work on the main site of Herculaneum
for almost 30 years could begin as early as next year, with the aim of unearthing a collection of public records that will reveal the daily life of the city.

Unlike Pompeii, Herculaneum was almost perfectly preserved after the eruption of Vesuvius, down to the tiniest detail. However, the site, which was only discovered by mistake during the 18th century, mostly lies underneath a modern-day suburb of Naples.

"The breakthrough was that two palazzi collapsed last year, which convinced the residents above that it was not safe," Mr Wallace-Hadrill  said. The new excavation work will be funded by a grant from the Packard
Humanities Institute and a  grant from the European Union and the Region of Campania.

"We know what is underneath because of tunnels dug in the 18th century, which brought up all sorts of statues and frescoes," said Mr Wallace-Hadrill. The Basilica, which would have served as a town meeting hall, should contain public records of life in Herculaneum that would be invaluable to classical historians and may include Epicurean writings. Last year, the first complete painted statue ever found, the bust of an Amazon warrior, was unearthed from near the Basilica.

The villa is always associated with the Epicureanism of its owners.  At the time of the eruption Epicureanism was very popular among Romans of all classes, but it was attacked and discriminated against by an unholy  alliance of its Greek philosophical competitors and the emerging Christians, whose own travails did nothing to stop them bullying Epicureans and destroying their literature.  It was all about power, not much about Jesus.  But at least Epicureans had the sense not to seek martyrdom in the arena.