Pompeii is an irregular oval area of about
160 acres, planted on a small natural hill and girt with a stone wall
nearly two miles in circumference (fig. 13). On the west there was
originally access to the sea, and on this side the walls have
disappeared or have not been yet uncovered. Near this end of the town
is the Forum, with the principal temples and public buildings round
it. At the east end of the town, nearly 1200 yds. from the western
extremity, is the amphitheatre, and the town-walls appear to have been
drawn so as to include it. Two main streets, now called the Strada di
Nola and the Strada dell' Abbondanza, cross the town from SW. to NE.
The main streets from NW. to SE. are less distinct, but the Strada
Stabiana certainly ran from wall to wall. While there is some
appearance of symmetry in the streets generally, it does not go very
far; there is hardly a right angle, or any close approach to a right
angle, at any street corner.

It is generally held, as Mau has argued, that the whole town was laid
out at once, perhaps during the Etruscan period, on one plan of
streets crossing at right angles. Two principal streets, those now
styled the Strada di Mercurio and the Strada di Nola, are considered
to be the main streets of this earliest town-plan, and to give it its
general direction. A third main street, the Strada Stabiana, which
cuts obliquely across from the Vesuvian to the Stabian Gate and mars
the supposed symmetry of this town-plan, is ascribed to the influence
of a small natural depression along which it runs, while a small area
east of the Forum, which also breaks loose from the general scheme, is
thought to have been laid out abnormally in order to remedy the effect
of this obliquity.[48]

This theory is open to objections. In the first place the streets
(even apart from those just east of the Forum) do not really form one
symmetrical plan. Region VI fits very ill with Regions I and III. Both
indicate systematic planning. But Region VI is laid out in oblong
blocks 110 ft. wide and either 310 ft. or 480 ft. long, while Regions
I and III are made up of approximately square blocks about 200 ft.
each way. Moreover, the orientation of the blocks is different. Those
in Region VI follow the lines of the Strada di Mercurio; those of
Regions I and II, and perhaps also of Region V, are dominated by the
Strada Stabiana. Yet there is no obvious reason why this difference
should not have been avoided; it results,