The marble-clad surfaces of the numerous bars or shops (so-called thermopolia) of Pompeii and Herculaneum are a vast and hitherto untapped source of information about marble use beyond the confines of public building and élite houses. Four field seasons of survey work have documented 49 bars at Pompeii and eight at Herculaneum with over 8,000 pieces of stone, mainly marble. This paper discusses the results of this project: first, the types of stone used on these bars and how they were displayed; second, what their quantities and distribution, within these cities and on individual bars, reveal about the pervasiveness of the wider pan-Mediterranean marble trade; third, what we can say about where these materials came from and how they were acquired, and what this in turn reveals about the economics of reuse of architectural materials in the Vesuvian cities.I rivestimenti marmorei delle superfici di numerosi bar e negozi (cosiddetti thermopolia) di Pompei e Ercolano sono una vasta e finora inesplorata fonte di informazioni sull'uso dei marmi aldilà dei confini di un edificio pubblico e dalle case elitarie. Quattro stagioni di ricognizioni su queste città hanno permesso di documentare 49 bars a Pompeii e otto a Ercolano con oltre 8.000 pezzi di pietre, principalmente marmi. L'articolo discute i risultati di questo progetto: innanzitutto i tipi di pietra usati nei bars e il modo in cui venivano disposte; in secondo luogo, la quantità e distribuzione, all'interno di queste città e nei singoli bar, che rivelano la pervasività del più ampio panorama mediterraneo del commercio dei marmi; in terzo luogo, cosa si può dire sulla provenienza di questi materiali e come venivano acquistati e quindi cosa questo significhi circa le economie dei riusi dei materiali architettonici nelle città vesuviane.

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By the death of Augustus, imperial building projects in Rome were being supplied by marble from Africa (Chemtou), Asia (Docimium), Egypt (various alabaster sources), Aegean Greece (Chios, Euboea, and Paros), Attica (Pentelikon), and from Luna (Carrara) in N Italy. A vast network of quarries in Egypt's Eastern Desert was already under development, and their granites and porphyry began to be seen at Rome in the middle of the Julio-Claudian era. By the Antonines, marble from Scyros, Thasos, Proconnesos, and Iasos was also arriving in Rome.Quantities in this period reached several thousand blocks per year. Relative to demand, was this a lot or a little? The Roman marble trade has always attracted attention because of the facilities and the organizational feats that brought so much exotic stone to the capital and thence outward, but the real importance of the answer lies in the use of marble. Whether marble was easy or hard to come by and what distinguished the grades and colors — even whether all grades and colors were available to customers up and down the social ladder — are prerequisite questions for understanding the choices open to imperial and private architects, to sculptors with great or humble commissions, and even to wall-painters with faux architecture to apply to a wall.