Even so it is a little town.

The unenthusiastic references to it in ancient literature are, after all, truthful.

Apart from the great villa outside it--possibly an imperial residence--it hardly deserved, or to-day deserves, to be excavated at the extraordinary cost which its excavation would involve.
The date of its planning is as doubtful as the extent of its area.

One recent writer, Nissen, has suggested that it was reconstructed after an earthquake in A.D.63 and was hardly completed before the eruption of 79.

The earthquake is well attested.