Discovery of Pompeii slaves’ room sheds rare light on real Roman life

Cramped room contains beds, chamber pot and other items used in slave family's precarious' existence

A perfectly intact room that was lived in by slaves has been discovered in a suburb of the ancient Roman city of Pompeii. Three wooden beds, a chamber pot and a wooden chest containing metal and fabric items were among the objects found in the cramped living quarters of what was a sprawling villa in Civita Giuliana, about 700 metres north-west of Pompeii's city walls.

The discovery comes almost a year after the remains of two victims of the AD79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius, believed to have been a master and his slave, were found in the same villa.