The young man was found dead in a small room near the entrance to the Hall of the Augustales, a civic order of freedmen, a bit like a freemason lodge. Perhaps he was a security guard. He’s been nicknamed the Guardian for that reason. Alternatively, he might also have come from outside, running panicked through the city of Herculaneum as it was overtaken by black ash and poisonous fumes following the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE, with no idea where he was but seeking shelter in a place everyone else had evacuated, finally collapsing face down on the wooden bed.
The last mortal remains of his fellow residents of Herculaneum were found mostly where they fell, several hundred crowded onto the beach and in beach-front chambers, presumably in hopes of escaping the pyroclastic currents that soon engulfed them, preserving them and the details of their life 2,000 years ago: papyrus scrolls, bread, olives, bronze pitchers, furniture, fresh and dried fruit — all under an avalanche of volcanic deposits.
