Building of Eumachia, Pompei

The Building of Eumachia is found on the eastern side of the Forum. An elegant, well-preserved public complex, it can be identified by the ornate carved marble frieze around its main entrance. Two inscriptions found within the structure show that it was funded and dedicated by Eumachia, a prominent local priestess of Venus. Eumachia belonged to a wealthy family deeply tied to the city’s wool industry. It is widely believed that this building served as the grand headquarters or market for the powerful fullers’ guild. Others argue that, due to Eumachia’s status as a priestess, parts of it may also have served a religious purpose connected to the imperial family.

The building dates back to the late Augustan and Tiberian periods of Rome. Its façade has two large apses and four rectangular niches, which once housed statues. Structurally, it centres around a vast open-air public courtyard surrounded by a beautiful two-storey colonnade. At the rear of the complex, a hidden corridor housed a celebrated statue of Eumachia herself, dedicated to her by the fullers. Eumachia dedicated the entire building to Concordia Augusta — the divine personification of imperial harmony — and to Pietas, the Roman virtue of duty toward the gods, the country, and the family.

These figures, combined with the known history of Eumachia and the monumental building she commissioned, show the immense influence and civic power that elite women could achieve in the Roman era.