Daily public life in Pompeii, like that in all civilizations, can be divided into the political, religious, commercial and recreational spheres. As the city developed and grew in prominence. magnificent structures and public spaces were created in order to fulfil the corresponding functions of each of these areas of life. Even in Roman times Pompeii was a very old city, wich its roots in Samnite, Oscan and Greek cultures. It had grown slowly from a small agrarian community which was located along routes across the southwestern quarter of the city. Pompeii's urban and architectural development passed through five stages: pre-Roman, colonial Roman, imperial Roman and post-earthquake/pre-eruption. It has been difficult for architectural historians and archaelogists to gain a clear picture of what Pompeii may have looked like before the devastating earthquake of AD 62 because so much of Pompeii was redesigned and rebuilt. However. part of Pompeii's significance is due to the fact that it was a result of gradual urban growth. Many other large-scale urban areas of the late Roman empire that remain in the Middle East and North Africa were products of the castrum plan used for the design of military camps and later colonial cities. Pompeii's eventual form reflected the work and ambitions of its people, not primarily the imposition of rules laid down by a town planner.

At the time of its destruction, the Forum was still the heart of the city. The main political organizations, religious festivals, civic and legal administrative bodies as well as entertainments and markets were all based in and around the Forum. In the Praedia of Julia Feliz there was originally a 100-foot frieze depicting everyday life in the Forum. Only 33 feet of this survives, but it is a crucial archaelogical document showing crowds of shopkeepers under the colonnades, men reading the latest news written on panels, a student being publicly flogged by his teacher and a woman and a little girl giving alms to an old man. The Forum was the basic urban unit around which the city eventually grew connecting the two great religious complexes of early Pompeii, the Temple of Apollo and the Triangular Forum with its doric Temple. At the time that the Forum was laid out there was probably little city to speak of, yes it was carefully placed parallel to the Temple of Apollo, with a screen wall to separate them. This was in accordance with a Greek tradition in which the sacred and secular were kept separate, yet always visible to each other. The Forum was longer and narrower than prescribed by vitruvius, the father of Roman architecture and planning. His law was based on the notion that the FOrum would be used for games as well as ceremonies.

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