Pompeii

by Harris, Robert

  At the edge of the cemetery he drew on the reins and waited until he heard the creak of the wagons trundling over the stones. They were just crude farm carts – the axle turned with the wheels, which were no more than simple sections of tree-trunk, a foot thick. Their rumble could be heard a mile away. First the oxen passed him, heads down, each team led by a man with a stick, and then the lumbering carts, and finally the rest of the work gang. He counted them. They were all there, including Brebix. Beside the road, the marker-stones of the aqueduct, one every hundred paces, dwindled into the distance. Neatly spaced between them were the round stone inspection covers that provided access to the tunnel. The regularity and precision of it gave the engineer a fleeting sense of confidence. If nothing else, he knew how this worked.

  He spurred his horse.

  An hour later, with the afternoon sun dipping towards the bay, they were halfway across the plain – the parched and narrow fields and bone-dry ditches spread out all around them, the ochre-coloured walls and watchtowers of Pompeii dissolving into the dust at their backs, the line of the aqueduct leading them remorselessly onwards, towards the blue-grey pyramid of Vesuvius, looming ever more massively ahead.

  Hora Duodecima

  [18:47 hours]

  ‘While rocks are extremely strong in compression, they are weak in tension (strengths of about 1.5 x 107 bars). Thus, the strength of the rocks capping a cooling and vesiculating magma body is easily exceeded long before the magma is solid. Once this happens, an explosive eruption occurs.’

  Volcanoes: A Planetary Perspective

  Pliny had been monitoring the frequency of the trembling throughout the day – or, more accurately, his secretary, Alexion, had been doing it for him, seated at the table in the admiral’s library, with the water clock on one side and the wine bowl on the other.

  The fact that it was a public holiday had made no difference to the admiral’s routine. He worked whatever day it was. He had broken off from his reading and dictation only once, in the middle of the morning, to bid goodbye to his guests, and had insisted on accompanying them down to the harbour to see them aboard their boats. Lucius Pomponianus and Livia were bound for Stabiae, on the far side of the bay, and it had been arranged that they would take Rectina with them in their modest cruiser, as far as the Villa Calpurnia in Herculaneum. Pedius Cascus, without his wife, would take his own fully manned liburnian to Rome for a council meeting with the Emperor. Old, dear friends! He had embraced them warmly. Pomponianus could play the fool, it was true, but his father, the great Pomponianus Secundus, had been Pliny’s patron, and he felt a debt of honour to the family. And as for Pedius and Rectina – their generosity to him had been without limit. It would have been hard for him to finish the Natural History, living outside Rome, without the use of their library.

  Just before he boarded his ship, Pedius had taken him by the arm. ‘I didn’t like to mention it earlier, Pliny, but are you sure you’re quite well?’

  ‘Too fat,’ wheezed Pliny, ‘that’s all.’

  ‘What do your doctors say?’

  ‘Doctors? I won’t let those Greek tricksters anywhere near me. Only doctors can murder a man with impunity.’

  ‘But look at you, man – your heart –’

  ‘“In cardiac disease the one hope of relief lies undoubtedly in wine.” You should read my book. And that, my dear Pedius, is a medicine I can administer myself.’

  The senator looked at him, then said grimly, ‘The Emperor is concerned about you.’

  That gave Pliny a twinge in his heart, right enough. He was a member of the imperial council himself. Why had he not been invited to this meeting, to which Pedius was hurrying? ‘What are you implying? That he thinks I’m past it?’

  Pedius said nothing – a nothing that said everything. He suddenly opened his arms and Pliny leaned forwards and hugged him, patting the senator’s stiff back with his pudgy hand. ‘Take care, old friend.’

  ‘And you.’

  To his shame, when Pliny pulled back from the embrace, his cheek was wet. He stayed on the quayside, watching until the ships were out of sight. That was all he seemed to do these days: watch other people leave.

  The conversation with Pedius had stayed with him all day, as he shuffled back and forth on the terrace, periodically wandering into the library to check Alexion’s neat columns of figures. ‘The Emperor is concerned about you.’ Like the pain in his side, it would not go away.

  He took refuge, as always, in his observations. The number of harmonic episodes, as he had decided to call the tremors, had increased steadily. Five in the first hour, seven in the second, eight in the third, and so on. More striking still had been their lengthening duration. Too small to measure at the beginning of the day, as the afternoon went on, Alexion had been able to use the accuracy of the water clock to estimate them – first at one-tenth part of the hour, and then one-fifth, until finally, for the whole eleventh hour, he had recorded one tremor only. The vibration of the wine was continuous.

  ‘We must change our nomenclature,’ muttered Pliny, leaning over his shoulder. ‘To call such movements an episode will no longer suffice.’

  And increasing in proportion with the movement of the earth, as if Man and Nature were bound by some invisible link, came reports of agitation in the town – a fight at the public fountains when the first hour’s discharge had ended and not everyone had filled their pots; a riot outside the public baths when they had failed to open at the seventh hour; a woman stabbed to death for the sake of two amphorae of water – water! – by a drunk outside the Temple of Augustus; now it was said that armed gangs were hanging round the fountains, waiting for a fight.

  Pliny had never had any difficulty issuing orders. It was the essence of command. He decreed that the evening’s sacrifice to Vulcan should be cancelled and that the bonfire in the forum must be dismantled at once. A large public gathering at night was a recipe for trouble. It was unsafe, in any case, to light a fire of such a size in the centre of the town when the pipes and fountains were dry and the drought had rendered the houses as flammable as kindling.

  ‘The priests won’t like that,’ said Antius.

  The flagship captain had joined Pliny in the library. The admiral’s widowed sister, Julia, who kept house for him, was also in the room, holding a tray of oysters and a jug of wine for his supper.

  ‘Tell the priests that we have no choice. I’m sure Vulcan in his mountain forge will forgive us, just this once.’ Pliny massaged his arm irritably. It felt numb. ‘Have all the men, apart from the sentry patrols, confined to their barracks from dusk. In fact, I want a curfew imposed across the whole of Misenum from vespera until dawn. Anyone found on the streets is to be imprisoned and fined. Understood?’

  ‘Yes, admiral.’

  ‘Have we opened the sluices in the reservoir yet?’

  ‘It should be happening now, admiral.’

  Pliny brooded. They could not afford another such day. Everything depended on how long the water would last. He made up his mind. ‘I’m going to take a look.’

  Julia came towards him anxiously with the tray. ‘Is that wise, brother? You ought to eat and rest –’

  ‘Don’t nag, woman!’ Her face crumpled and he regretted his tone at once. Life had knocked her about enough as it was – humiliated by her wastrel husband and his ghastly mistress, then left widowed with a boy to bring up. That gave him an idea. ‘Gaius,’ he said, in a gentler voice. ‘Forgive me, Julia. I spoke too sharply. I’ll take Gaius with me, if that will make you happier.’

  On his way out, he called to his other secretary, Alcman, ‘Have we had a signal back yet from Rome?’

  ‘No, admiral.’

  ‘The Emperor is concerned about you . . .’

  He did not like this silence.

  Pliny had grown too fat for a litter. He travelled instead by carriage, a two-seater, with Gaius wedged in next to him. Beside his red and corpulent uncle he looked as pale and insubstantial as a wraith. The admiral squeeze
d his knee fondly. He had made the boy his heir and had fixed him up with the finest tutors in Rome – Quintilian for literature and history; the Smyrnan, Nicetes Sacerdos, for rhetoric. It was costing him a fortune but they told him the lad was brilliant. He would never make a soldier, though. It would be a lawyer’s life for him.

  An escort of helmeted marines trotted on foot on either side of the carriage, clearing a path for them through the narrow streets. A couple of people jeered. Someone spat.

  ‘What about our water, then?’

  ‘Look at that fat bastard! I bet you he’s not going thirsty!’

  Gaius said, ‘Shall I close the curtains, uncle?’

  ‘No, boy. Never let them see that you’re afraid.’

  He knew there would be a lot of angry people on the streets tonight. Not just here, but in Neapolis and Nola and all the other towns, especially on a public festival. Perhaps Mother Nature is punishing us, he thought, for our greed and selfishness. We torture her at all hours by iron and wood, fire and stone. We dig her up and dump her in the sea. We sink mineshafts into her and drag out her entrails – and all for a jewel to wear on a pretty finger. Who can blame her if she occasionally quivers with anger?

  They passed along the harbour front. An immense line of people had formed, queuing for the drinking-fountain. Each had been allowed to bring one receptacle only and it was obvious to Pliny that an hour was never going to be sufficient for them all to receive their measure. Those who had been at the head of the line already had their ration and were hurrying away, cradling their pots and pans as if they were carrying gold. ‘We shall have to extend the flow tonight,’ he said, ‘and trust to that young aquarius to carry out the repairs as he promised.’

  ‘And if he doesn’t, uncle?’

  ‘Then half this town will be on fire tomorrow.’

  Once they were free of the crowd and on to the causeway the carriage picked up speed. It rattled over the wooden bridge then slowed again as they climbed the hill towards the Piscina Mirabilis. Jolting around in the back Pliny felt sure he was about to faint and perhaps he did. At any rate, he nodded off, and the next thing he knew they were drawing into the courtyard of the reservoir, past the flushed faces of half a dozen marines. He returned their salute and descended, unsteadily, on Gaius’s arm. If the Emperor takes away my command, he thought, I shall die, as surely as if he orders one of his praetorian guard to strike my head from my shoulders. I shall never write another book. My life-force has gone. I am finished.

  ‘Are you all right, uncle?’

  ‘I am perfectly well, Gaius, thank you.’

  Foolish man! he reproached himself. Stupid, trembling, credulous old man! One sentence from Pedius Cascus, one routine meeting of the imperial council to which you are not invited, and you fall to pieces. He insisted on going down the steps into the reservoir unaided. The light was fading and a slave went on ahead with a torch. It was years since he had last been down here. Then, the pillars had been mostly submerged, and the crashing of the Augusta had drowned out any attempt at conversation. Now it echoed like a tomb. The size of it was astonishing. The level of the water had fallen so far beneath his feet he could barely make it out, until the slave held his torch over the mirrored surface, and then he saw his own face staring back at him – querulous, broken. The reservoir was also vibrating slightly, he realised, just like the wine.

  ‘How deep is it?’

  ‘Fifteen feet, admiral,’ said the slave.

  Pliny contemplated his reflection. ‘“There has never been anything more remarkable in the whole world,”’ he murmured.

  ‘What was that, uncle?’

  ‘“When we consider the abundant supplies of water in public buildings, baths, pools, open channels, private houses, gardens and country estates, and when we think of the distances traversed by the water before it arrives, the raising of arches, the tunnelling of mountains and the building of level routes across deep valleys, then we shall readily admit that there has never been anything more remarkable than our aqueducts in the whole world.” I quote myself, I fear. As usual.’ He pulled back his head. ‘Allow half the water to drain away tonight. We shall let the rest go in the morning.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘And then, my dear Gaius? And then we must hope for a better day tomorrow.’

  In Pompeii, the fire for Vulcan was to be lit as soon as it was dark. Before that, there was to be the usual entertainment in the forum, supposedly paid for by Popidius, but in reality funded by Ampliatus – a bullfight, three pairs of skirmishing gladiators, some boxers in the Greek style. Nothing too elaborate, just an hour or so of diversion for the voters while they waited for the night to arrive, the sort of spectacle an aedile was expected to lay on in return for the privilege of office.

  Corelia feigned sickness.

  She lay on her bed, watching the lines of light from the closed shutters creep slowly up the wall as the sun sank, thinking about the conversation she had overheard, and about the engineer, Attilius. She had noticed the way he looked at her, both in Misenum yesterday, and this morning, when she was bathing. Lover, avenger, rescuer, tragic victim – in her imagination she pictured him briefly in all these parts, but always the fantasy dissolved into the same brutal coupling of facts: she had brought him into the orbit of her father and now her father was planning to kill him. His death would be her fault.

  She listened to the sounds of the others preparing to leave. She heard her mother calling for her, and then her footsteps on the stairs. Quickly she felt for the feather she had hidden under her pillow. She opened her mouth and tickled the back of her throat, vomited noisily, and when Celsia appeared she wiped her lips and gestured weakly to the contents of the bowl.

  Her mother sat on the edge of the mattress and put her hand on Corelia’s brow. ‘Oh my poor child. You feel hot. I should send for the doctor.’

  ‘No, don’t trouble him.’ A visit from Pumponius Magonianus, with his potions and purges, was enough to make anyone ill. ‘Sleep is all I need. It was that endless, awful meal. I ate too much.’

  ‘But my dear, you hardly ate a thing!’

  ‘That’s not true –’

  ‘Hush!’ Her mother held up a warning finger. Someone else was mounting the steps, with a heavier tread, and Corelia braced herself for a confrontation with her father. He would not be so easy to fool. But it was only her brother, in his long white robes as a priest of Isis. She could smell the incense on him.

  ‘Hurry up, Corelia. He’s shouting for us.’

  No need to say who he was.

  ‘She’s ill.’

  ‘Is she? Even so, she must still come. He won’t be happy.’

  Ampliatus bellowed from downstairs and they both jumped. They glanced towards the door.

  ‘Yes, can’t you make an effort, Corelia?’ said her mother. ‘For his sake?’

  Once, the three of them had formed an alliance: had laughed about him behind his back – his moods, his rages, his obsessions. But lately that had stopped. Their domestic triumvirate had broken apart under his relentless fury. Individual strategies for survival had been adopted. Corelia had observed her mother become the perfect Roman matron, with a shrine to Livia in her dressing room, while her brother had subsumed himself in his Egyptian cult. And she? What was she supposed to do? Marry Popidius and take a second master? Become more of a slave in the household than Ampliatus had ever been?

  She was too much her father’s daughter not to fight.

  ‘Run along, both of you,’ she said bitterly. ‘Take my bowl of vomit and show it to him, if you like. But I’m not going to his stupid spectacle.’ She rolled on to her side and faced the wall. Another roar came from below.

  Her mother breathed her martyr’s sigh. ‘Oh, very well. I’ll tell him.’

  It was exactly as the engineer had suspected. Having led them almost directly north towards the summit for a couple of miles, the aqueduct spur suddenly swung eastwards, just as the ground began to rise towards Vesuvivus. Th
e road turned with it and for the first time they had their backs to the sea and were pointing inland, towards the distant foothills of the Appenninus.

  The Pompeii spur wandered away from the road more often now, hugging the line of the terrain, weaving back and forth across their path. Attilius relished this subtlety of aqueducts. The great Roman roads went crashing through Nature in a straight line, brooking no opposition. But the aqueducts, which had to drop the width of a finger every hundred yards – any more and the flow would rupture the walls; any less and the water would lie stagnant – they were obliged to follow the contours of the ground. Their greatest glories, such as the triple-tiered bridge in southern Gaul, the highest in the world, that carried the aqueduct of Nemausus, were frequently far from human view. Sometimes it was only the eagles, soaring in the hot air above some lonely mountainscape, who could appreciate the true majesty of what men had wrought.

  They had passed through the gridwork of centuriated fields and were entering into the wine-growing country, owned by the big estates. The ramshackle huts of the smallholders on the plain, with their tethered goats and their half-dozen ragged hens pecking in the dust, had given way to handsome farmhouses with red-tile roofs that dotted the lower slopes of the mountain.

  Surveying the vineyards from his horse, Attilius felt almost dazed by the vision of such abundance, such astonishing fertility, even in the midst of a drought. He was in the wrong business. He should give up water and go into wine. The vines had escaped from ordinary cultivation and had fastened themselves on to every available wall and tree, reaching to the top of the tallest branches, enveloping them in luxuriant cascades of green and purple. Small white faces of Bacchus, made of marble to ward off evil, with perforated eyes and mouths, hung motionless in the still air, peering from the foliage like ambushers ready to strike. It was harvest-time and the fields were full of slaves – slaves on ladders, slaves bent halfway to the ground by the weight of the baskets of grapes on their backs. But how, he wondered, could they possibly manage to gather it all in before it rotted?