I Survived the Destruction of Pompeii, AD 79

by Lauren Tarshis

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Back in Time

  Questions and Answers About Pompeii and Mount Vesuvius

  For Further Reading and Learning

  About the Author

  Also Available

  Copyright

  Within hours, thousands of people would be dead.

  The entire city of Pompeii would vanish under more than thirty feet of fiery ash and stone.

  But first, it was a bright, sunny summer day. Shops bustled. Kids played ball in a grassy field. Gladiators readied for a bloody match.

  Nobody yet knew that the mountain Vesuvius, which loomed over the city, was actually a deadly volcano. The mountain had been silent for centuries, a giant green triangle covered with farms and meadows and forests.

  It was impossible to imagine what lurked under the ground — rivers of boiling magma, swirls of poisonous gases. Any moment, the mountain would erupt with devastating fury.

  Eleven-year-old Marcus was with his father, Tata. They shouldn’t have been anywhere near Pompeii. They were escaped slaves, running for their lives from evil men.

  But then:

  BOOM!

  BOOM!

  With two shattering explosions, Vesuvius erupted.

  Thousands of pairs of eyes turned toward the mountain, staring in shock and terror. Black, billowing smoke and ash gushed out of the mountain’s gaping mouth. Vesuvius roared like a furious beast, breathing smoke and flames into the sky. And then came an even bigger cloud, shooting out billions of hot, jagged rocks that rained down on Pompeii, filling fountains, crushing roofs, and pounding down on people as they tried to flee, screaming in panic.

  “The gods are punishing us!”

  “The world is ending!”

  Marcus and Tata knew they had to escape. Any minute a flaming wave of ash and gases would rush down the mountain, burning everything in its path. But there were too many people in the streets, too many rocks falling from the sky. It was hard to breathe, almost impossible to see. And then there was the strange whooshing sound that came from above.

  “Look out!” Tata shouted.

  Marcus looked up just in time to see a massive flaming boulder falling from the sky, a chunk of fiery rock from deep inside the mountain.

  It was heading right for them.

  Marcus walked along the dusty main street of Pompeii, carrying a smelly sack stuffed with his master’s dirty laundry. It was early afternoon, and the street was packed with people — shoppers sifting through bins of pomegranates and melons, weary slaves collecting water from the fountains, beggars holding out their grimy hands.

  A snake charmer dozed while his cobra peeked out of its basket, tasting the air with its flicking tongue.

  “Salve,” Marcus said, a friendly Latin hello for the deadly reptile. If only he had a basket to hide in right now. There were no good days for Marcus lately, but this day was sure to be more miserable than usual.

  It was broiling hot and his ragged tunic was soaked in sweat. Even worse, his master, Festus Julius, was expecting important guests from Rome this evening, friends of the emperor. This meant even more backbreaking work than usual for Marcus and the other slaves. For days they’d been scrubbing the villa so that the mosaic floors shined like diamonds, so that every silver bowl and goblet gleamed.

  The guests would arrive by chariot — men in flowing white togas, women in silk robes and with painted red lips, jewels flashing from every finger. Tonight there would be a great feast of roasted flamingo and wild boar, honey-baked mice stuffed with raisins and dates, and lobsters as big as cats. The guests would lounge on silken couches and gorge themselves until they threw up … and then, their stomachs empty, they would eat more.

  Tomorrow, Festus would take them all to the gladiator fight at Pompeii’s amphitheater. From front-row seats, they would cheer as the warriors tried to stab one another to death with swords, spears, and daggers.

  People were coming from all over to see the spectacle, which featured Pompeii’s champion fighter. He was a giant of a man, who had lost an eye in one of his early battles. The injury had earned him the fighting name of Cyclops, after the one-eyed monster from the old Greek tales. Like almost all gladiators, Cyclops was a slave who was forced to fight. But he was one of the lucky few — still alive after many battles.

  Just thinking about these brutal tournaments horrified Marcus.

  Suddenly his whole body was shaking.

  But wait, it wasn’t Marcus who was trembling.

  It was the earth beneath his feet!

  Marcus dropped his sack and braced himself against a stone fountain. A huge marble statue of the warrior Achilles looked down on him.

  Marcus wished he felt as brave as Achilles!

  But these tremors spooked him. For weeks they’d been shaking the city, putting cracks in the walls of Festus’s villa, sending his spoiled dogs into fits of howling.

  Usually the quakes were quick, ending in just a few seconds. Most people seemed to barely notice them.

  But this quake was more powerful than most.

  The ground shuddered and shook, harder and harder.

  Up and down the street, the sound of shattering glass and splintering wood and crumbling stone pounded Marcus’s ears.

  Crash!

  Crack!

  Bang!

  Vendors cursed as their baskets of fruit and vegetables toppled. A bamboo birdcage fell and burst open, scattering a flock of tiny white birds into the dusty air. Barrels rolled wildly through the streets, gushing wine as red as blood.

  Marcus held tight to the fountain as the water inside it sloshed, splashing over the rim and soaking his tunic.

  And then he heard it, a creaking just over his head. Marcus looked up just as the massive marble statue of Achilles came crashing down on top of him.

  Marcus dove to the ground, his chin smacking the hard stone. He braced himself for the crushing blow of thousands of pounds of marble hitting him. He heard a terrible crash!

  But he felt nothing.

  He peeled open his eyes and peered around.

  To his amazement, the broken statue was just behind him. It must have sailed right over him. Marcus whispered a thank-you to the gods.

  Poor Achilles had lost his head, which was now rolling slowly in the street.

  Marcus could practically hear the warrior’s deathly cries.

  But Marcus himself was in one piece, and the earth had stopped shaking.

  Marcus pulled himself up. He put his hand to his chin, and it came away streaked with blood. Otherwise he was unhurt.

  A humpbacked street vendor came up to him. “Don’t even think about stealing those apples,” he barked, reaching down and snatching two apples that had escaped from his baskets.

  “I wouldn’t,” Marcus said, spotting a third hidden behind the fountain. He should give it to the man, he knew. But just the thought of the juicy apple made his stomach flip with joy. Festus fed his slaves nothing but watery gruel and old cheese. The fruit seller didn’t spot it, and Marcus said nothing.

  “That giant beast must be restless,” said the man, spitting on one of the apples and rubbing it against his rough tunic.

  “Giant?” Ma
rcus asked.

  “Everyone knows that’s why the earth is shaking,” the man replied, looking at Marcus as though he must be stupid not to know this. “There’s a great beast living under the mountain. Every few years it wakes up and the city shakes. Then it goes to sleep again.”

  Marcus thought of his father — Tata. Talk of monsters and magic always made Tata shake his head. Tata said it was only natural that people would make up stories or blame the gods for what they couldn’t understand — wild storms and killing fevers, dead crops and mad dogs. But science always held the answer, Tata believed, if you looked hard enough.

  Marcus didn’t say this now. It wasn’t right for a slave to correct the opinion of a free man, even if the man was just a poor fruit seller.

  What amazed Marcus was that people in Pompeii just accepted these tremors, shrugging them off as they would a rainstorm. Even now, shoppers were already back to haggling for bargains.

  The fruit seller turned away and Marcus grabbed the hidden apple, slipping it into his pocket. He picked up the heavy laundry sack and threw it onto his back with a sigh. Festus wouldn’t care if a monster really had come stomping through Pompeii. Marcus had better get back to his master’s villa soon, or he’d be greeted with a beating.

  He was turning to leave when he noticed an old woman sitting in the street, dazed. The shaking must have knocked her down. Passersby stepped around her as if she were a heap of trash. Marcus ignored the woman; there were beggars everywhere, after all.

  But she looked so miserable.

  With a sigh, he once again dropped the laundry sack. He went to the woman, crouching down next to her. She was a beggar, it seemed, her tunic stained and tattered, her bare feet crusted with sores.

  She scowled at him. “Scat, thief!”

  “I wasn’t going to steal anything,” Marcus said. He should have ignored the hag like everyone else did.

  But then the woman’s face softened. She studied Marcus with her catlike green eyes. She was very old, with sagging cheeks and deep wrinkles. But Marcus could imagine that a long time ago she might have been pretty.

  “What do you want, then?” she asked.

  Almost without thinking, he reached into his pocket and took out the apple. “Here,” he said. She looked hungrier than he was.

  The woman took the apple in one of her gnarled hands. “Help me up, please.”

  Marcus held her arms as she got to her feet, and stood with her as she steadied herself. And then she suddenly grabbed his hand, gripping it with surprising strength.

  “Be careful, kind boy,” she whispered. “I have seen the signs. Terrible doom is coming for the people of Pompeii.”

  She leaned so close that he smelled the strange spices on her breath.

  “When hope is lost, follow the hand of Mercury.” She stepped back. “Do you understand?”

  Marcus had no idea what she meant. All over Pompeii there were statues of the powerful messenger god, with his winged sandals and helmet. But what did that matter to him?

  “I understand,” he lied. Now he just wanted to get away from her.

  “The end is coming,” she said, finally letting go of his hand. “This world will burn!”

  Marcus had barely blinked and the woman was gone, swallowed by the crowd.

  He felt a stab of fear as he thought of what she had said.

  Was she a witch who could predict the future? A priestess who could hear the whispers of the gods?

  Marcus thought again of his father. Tata would know what was happening here.

  A wave of sadness crashed over him. If only Tata were with him now!

  He could picture his father so clearly — his gentle blue eyes glinting through a mop of golden hair.

  Tata was born in Germania, a kingdom just beyond the northern boundaries of this vast Roman Empire. When Tata was just ten years old, Roman soldiers had invaded his village. Marcus’s father was soon captured, sold to slave traders, and marched hundreds of miles in chains to the empire’s capital city of Rome.

  But Tata was lucky. He was bought by a kind man, a writer and scientist named Linus Selius. He taught Tata to read and write in Latin, the language of the empire. He took Tata on research trips to faraway lands, teaching him all he knew about the natural world. Soon, Tata was helping Linus research his books and coming up with theories of his own.

  The years passed. Tata married Marcus’s mother, who died when Marcus was just a baby. Marcus grew up helping Tata in Linus’s library, one of the finest in Rome.

  Tata was always trying to get Marcus interested in studying nature, reading him his latest theories and dragging him on long walks through the hills above Rome.

  But it was the ancient Greek stories written centuries before that Marcus loved most, especially the tales of the great heroes like Odysseus and Hercules.

  How Marcus had loved his happy life with Tata!

  But then, two months ago, Linus Selius had died in a fever that swept through Rome. In a blink, Marcus’s entire world crumbled. Marcus and Tata became the property of Linus’s nephew, the brutal Festus Julius. Linus himself had always despised Festus, and the nephew wasted no time destroying his uncle’s happy home. Within two days, Tata was sold. Marcus was loaded onto a donkey cart and brought here to Pompeii, a two-day trip from Rome. He was now one of ten slaves working endless days in Festus’s enormous villa, one of the grandest homes in Pompeii.

  Where was Tata? He could be anywhere in the vast Roman Empire by now, from the rocky cliffs of Britannia to the deserts of Africa.

  His thoughts carried Marcus far away, until a blaring trumpet yanked him back.

  “It’s the gladiator parade!” an old man cried out with excitement. “It’s the fighters who will appear tomorrow!”

  People jammed the sidewalks, so Marcus could not get through. Now he had no choice but to put down the laundry sack and wait.

  Two men on white horses led the parade, their riders waving bright flags. A band of horn players followed, and then acrobats and jugglers, and finally, a stout man with a leering smile. He was the lanista — the owner of these gladiators.

  The lanista waved at the crowd, proud as an emperor. Owning gladiators was a dirty business; no respectable person would do it. But the lanista had grown rich on the blood of his gladiators, and he held his head high.

  And then there was Cyclops, led by two young women in bright robes who were throwing rose petals.

  “There he is!” a woman in the crowd shrieked, pointing at the muscled brute.

  The champion wore a gleaming bronze helmet. His massive shield matched the armor strapped to his bulging legs and arms. A leather patch hid his blind eye. Scars covered his face. Marcus had heard terrifying stories about this man — that he had jaws like a tiger’s, that his battle cry was like a panther’s scream, that he could snap a man’s neck with one hand.

  The crowd cheered and hooted as Cyclops passed.

  But people stood silently as the next four men walked by. These were the wretched souls who would be thrown into the arena with Cyclops tomorrow. None of them had a chance against Cyclops. By tomorrow afternoon, they’d all be dead.

  Marcus couldn’t bear to watch them. But then he caught sight of the last man in line.

  Marcus froze, staring.

  The man was tall, with golden hair streaming out of his bronze helmet. He walked slowly, with dignity. A guard followed him, jabbing him in the back with a spear to move him along.

  The man turned his head, and the sun lit up his proud face and glinting blue eyes.

  Could it be?

  The pounding in Marcus’s heart told the answer.

  And suddenly Marcus was running wildly into the street.

  “Tata!” Marcus screamed.

  Tata froze and looked up, searching the crowd frantically with his eyes.

  The guard screamed at him, “Move! Move now!”

  At last Tata spotted Marcus. He dropped his shield and ran toward him. Seconds later, Marcus was in Tata’
s arms.

  “It’s not possible!” Tata whispered, hugging him so tightly that Marcus could hardly breathe. “How did you get here?”

  “Festus brought me here after you were sold,” Marcus said, barely able to choke out the words. “But Tata! How … why …”

  Not even in Marcus’s nightmares could he have imagined anything worse than this: Festus had sold Tata to the gladiators.

  Marcus buried his face in Tata’s chest, breathing in his familiar smell. Every day — every hour — Marcus had wished for this moment. And for a few seconds he let himself believe that they were really back together, that his prayers had been answered.

  But, of course, the opposite was true.

  Two guards grabbed Tata’s arms, tearing him away from Marcus.

  And then the lanista appeared.

  “What’s this!” he spat. “How dare you stop my parade!”

  The musicians were silent, the jugglers and acrobats still. All eyes were on Tata and Marcus.

  “Have mercy!” Tata said, struggling in the guards’ grip. “This is my son!”

  The lanista stared at Marcus, his cold, fishy eyes looking him up and down.

  “Maybe you’d like to join your father in the arena?” he sneered.

  Then the lanista looked to the crowd. “What do you think?” he bellowed. “A father and son against Cyclops!”

  A few people shouted.

  “Bring him!”

  “Yes!”

  “What a show it will be!”

  “Or maybe you should fight each other?” the lanista said, rubbing his hands together.

  “Run from here, Marcus!” his father cried. “Go!”

  But instead, Marcus grabbed the lanista’s arm. “I beg you! Please let my father go!”

  The man ripped his arm away and snatched a spear from one of the guards. He pointed the blade at Marcus’s eye. “Ever wondered how Cyclops lost his eye?” he taunted, lunging at Marcus.

  “No!” Tata shouted.

  Marcus staggered back. He lost his balance and fell, smacking his head on the stone curb. His head exploded in pain. He struggled to sit up, and through the blur he could see Tata being dragged away, the guards jabbing him with spears. The lanista’s wicked cackle rose up over the merry music.