Porta Ercolano and The City Walls, Pompeii Italy
(Taken From Official Guidebook)
Porta Ercolano and the City Walls
The gate is so named because it opened onto the road linking Pompeii to Herculaneum. It has three barrel arches, of which the side ones are smaller: the vault is partly collapsed. The gate was built after the city was conquered by the Roman general Silla in 89 BC. Inside, the walls adjacent to the gate date from the 3rd cent. BC. The staircase visible to the right of the gate allowed easy access to the patrol walkway. Outside the gate, on the left, there are still the walls build, with large blocks of tufa, approximately 7 m high. Along this section we can still see the marks left by the stone shots launched against the city during Silla’s siege. You can see a section of the walls by entering the gate on the left.
