size makes them seem monumental and therefore sturdy, but they were easily damaged by both the constant seismic activity in Italy as well as by the vicissitudes of daily life. If other, similar murals were to be discovered in the future, they might help explain the meanings of these four panels at Pompeii - or they might (as Guzzo, p. 41, suggests) merely deepen the mystery.
The murals are what is known as megalographic works, showing human figures as life-sized . The panels are generally considered by scholars to depict a single event: They are designed to be read as a sort of visual narrative; it is what events are being narrated that is subject to debate. One "reading" of thes
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