Pliny's Warning

by Nicholson, Anne Maria

  He puts the paper down and picks up another. ‘This is a copy of a document in the British Museum which was found in Egypt. Again, Titus is described as Imperator Fourteen and here at the bottom, the date VI idus Septembres, six days before the ides of September, or in other words the eighth of September. There is no way the eruption could have occurred before this date, because this coin wouldn’t have existed.’

  He places the page back in the folder and pulls out a sheaf of papers. ‘And finally, some extracts from the Roman historian, Cassius Dio, writing about the events of 79 AD. He tells us Titus received the Imperator Fifteen—for his victory in Britannia—and that the eruption of Vesuvius occurred in autumn.’

  ‘So what you’re saying is that if the eruption happened later in the year, it puts a whole new light on predicting what could happen to people living around Vesuvius if it erupts again!’

  ‘Precisely, Frances. Precisely.’

  ‘But surely the date of the eruption must have been recorded. How could historians get it wrong for so long?’

  ‘The confusion stems back to the letters Pliny the Younger wrote describing the eruption. His was the only eyewitness account. Pliny wrote them on papyrus scrolls which disintegrated, so what we are left with is a handful of copies of the letters made by scholars many centuries later. In fact, the oldest in existence were done in the Middle Ages, fourteen hundred years after Pliny died. The problem is the manuscripts either have different dates for the eruption or no date at all. The most famous and the one that is generally accepted as most accurate is the codex Mediceus in the Laurentianus library in Florence, which puts the eruption at the date you mentioned, the 24th of August. I no longer believe that is the true date.’

  Marcello packs the documents back into the folder and turns to Frances with a playful look. ‘Are you up for a challenge?’

  ‘Always.’

  ‘I have a clue about the whereabouts of a manuscript which might hold the answer and back up the evidence of the coin. Do you think you could help me?’

  ‘Try to stop me. Where do we start?’

  ‘First you need to see where I found the coin in Pompeii. Then we’ll go hunting for the missing manuscript.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  Frances crouches and strokes one of the large grey stones of a Roman road that dissects the old city of Pompeii. It feels smooth and cold. She scrambles to her feet and steps from one stone to the next, counting them in her head like a child. Her boots clack on the hard surface and she can imagine the soldiers laying them in long, straight lines, more than two thousand years earlier.

  The way is hemmed in on either side by pocked and worn brick walls that once supported houses and shops. She peers through doorways leading into hollow buildings without roofs, turns into another street and ahead, through a large archway, sees Vesuvius. The thin morning layer of snow has melted and in the clear afternoon light she thinks how benign the volcano looks from a distance, just as it must have appeared to those who perished in the fury of its terrifying liquid avalanche.

  ‘Over here!’

  She hears Marcello calling her from somewhere beyond the arch.

  Before her, a patch of grass breaks up a deathly expanse of concrete dotted with broken columns, snapped off like pieces of candy stick. No matter how many times she sees it, the sight of this natural holocaust, with not a single survivor, still shocks her.

  Through the opening of another wall she finds Marcello sitting on a marble step in the ruins of a large rectangular building. ‘This was Pompeii’s seat of power. The Basilica,’ he tells her as she sits beside him. Tall columns line one side and, at the far end, the only surviving portion of roof is supported by six smaller ones. In the centre, just the stubs of a once mighty construction system remain.

  ‘All wiped out by the eruption?’ she asks.

  ‘Not all. There was a massive earthquake seventeen years earlier, in 62 AD, when much of the city was destroyed, including many of the major buildings. That’s when the roof of the Basilica collapsed. So at the time of the eruption, much of Pompeii was still being repaired, saving many lives, because people had moved away.’

  ‘It follows the pattern then. Sooner or later, an eruption follows a major earthquake.’

  ‘Sometimes, but look at what happened in Campi Flegrei with the earthquakes in the eighties. We’re still waiting for an eruption from those!’

  ‘I hope we’re not here to see it. The eruption that destroyed Pompeii must have been terrifying.’

  ‘Absolutely, and it lasted for twenty-four hours.’ Marcello glances at his watch. ‘In fact, this is about the time of the first eruption. One o’clock, when people were getting ready for lunch. When it first blew, the debris was blown so far into the stratosphere it blocked out the sun, so it would have been dark here. And before anyone could work out what was going on, tons of pumice and ash starting falling. Going inside didn’t help because the roofs collapsed and they were buried.’

  ‘But a lot of people escaped, didn’t they?’

  ‘Yes, many ran away, but only temporarily. Most of them returned at night or in the early morning, when they thought the danger was over. But there were further eruptions and surges of hot gas and rocks, the pyroclastic flows that raced down from the mountain. That’s what killed the rest, burnt and suffocated them. The whole city was buried. And it stayed that way until it was discovered in the seventeen hundreds. It’s a veritable time bubble of an ancient Roman city.’

  ‘And we know it could all happen again any time.’

  ‘Come on, I want to show you where I found the coin.’ Marcello takes her hand and squeezes it and Frances relaxes her hand in his. The more time she spends with him, the more comfortable she feels.

  They wander through a maze of streets, dodging groups of tourists following guides with tiny flags. Dozens of accents combine to sound as if a modern-day tower of Babel has risen in their midst. A rangy black and white dog squatting on a busted pedestal outside the ruins of a house barks a warning at them as though it’s only a matter of time before its master will return.

  ‘Here’s our street…’ Marcello points to a sign on a brick wall, Insula Occidentalis. One minute later he stops outside a plain brick building, taller than those nearby. A metal gate blocks the doorway but views of the sea are clear through the shattered remains of the three-storey villa.

  ‘Welcome to the House of the Golden Bracelet.’ He removes some keys from his pocket, unlocks a padlock on the gate and ushers her inside. ‘Or as I’ve renamed it, the House of Clues. It’s closed to the public because we’re doing more digging and restoration work, but I can show you around.’

  Frances steps into what must have once been a grand foyer. Mosaics still decorate the floors and brightly coloured frescoes adorn the walls. But everything is cracked and broken, as if a cyclone has recently passed through.

  ‘Watch your step,’ Marcello cautions as she almost falls into a tiled square recess in the middle of the floor. ‘That was for collecting rainwater. There used to be a hole in the roof to funnel it down. That’s when there was a proper roof!’

  Frances looks up to makeshift steel roofing that extends throughout the villa. They reach a rough concrete staircase and walk down. The lower level is dusty with loose rubble in piles around half walls.

  ‘This is where I found the coin, with the bodies.’ He points to a spot on the bare earth at the bottom. ‘We were excavating and found the skeleton of a woman. She was wearing a beautiful gold bracelet around her wrist, which is how the house was named. It was in the shape of a double-headed serpent clasping a tiny portrait medallion, and she had a bag of coins around her waist. The coin with the head of Titus Fifteen was among them.’

  ‘Why do you think she was here?’

  ‘She must have been trying to escape with the family’s valuables but the building collapsed on her. She probably died after the first eruption because she was buried beneath piles of tiny pumice stones.’

  Frances shi
fts uncomfortably. Standing where this woman died so violently unsettles her. Although fresh air is blowing through the gaps in the walls, she feels as if she’s suffocating in a tomb. Turning away she moves through a series of rooms connected by archways, each more decorative than the last, the remnants of rich black and red frescoes splashed around the walls.

  ‘This was a dining room,’ Marcello says of a room more intact than the others. ‘Look at those pictures, it must have been their idea of paradise.’ Lush images of a beautiful garden bursting with fruit and flowers, exotic birds dipping their bills into fountains and wild animals roaming fill the room on all sides and extend into a curved ceiling. On the floor a large black mosaic is mostly intact with images of an array of fish, octopus, squid and lobsters swimming in an inky sea.

  ‘We found some of the food they were eating, probably for that day’s lunch.’

  ‘That seems impossible after so long.’

  ‘Not with the DNA testing we have today. Just small dried up pieces but the same food the very first archaeologists who dug here nearly three hundred years ago found. There have been suspicions for some time that the date of the eruption was wrong, that it wasn’t in summer but later in the year, because all the food they found was from the autumn harvest—pomegranates, figs, chestnuts, walnuts and fresh olives. We’ve also found scraps of carpets and fireplaces that had been burning, and all the victims were wearing heavy clothes. The Romans lived with the seasons and they wouldn’t be burning fires in the height of summer. It’s the same way we Italians live today. Like clockwork, with the seasons.’

  In the next room, daylight floods through an opening in the wall. As Frances looks out to a clear view across the Bay of Naples, Marcello comes up behind her and places his hand on her shoulder. Without thinking, she puts her hand on his, welcoming his closeness.

  ‘We have the opposite view to the one Pliny the Younger had of the eruption. Right across there is Misenum. He was staying there with his uncle, Pliny the Elder, who was commander of the Roman navy. His uncle sailed off with a fleet to rescue survivors and never came back. His nephew recorded very accurately how the eruption unfolded. ‘And there,’ he says, pointing towards Naples to a densely built area that melds with the coastline, ‘you can see Herculaneum.’

  ‘It’s much closer to the mountain than here,’ Frances comments.

  ‘And much closer to Naples. Everyone there died in the first pyroclastic flow. You can imagine the devastation if the wind took a surge from Vesuvius into the centre of the city.’

  ‘Is that possible?’

  ‘Of course, and that’s why we need to understand how the wind patterns affect the impact of an eruption, so we can have the safest evacuation plans.’

  Frances looks down to a garden beneath the house. ‘Can we go down there?’

  ‘Yes, but I have to warn you, this is where we found more bodies. And we’ve made casts of them.’ He smiles at her. ‘I think you vulcanologists are a little more sensitive than we archaeologists. I’m so used to keeping company with the dead, it doesn’t bother me.’

  Frances takes a deep breath and follows Marcello down a dark narrower staircase. The clomping of their feet is the only sound.

  ‘Oh my God!’ Frances exclaims. On the bottom steps is a man’s body, sprawled face down with his head on the second step. His legs are spread and one arm is on the third step and the other resting by his side. ‘The last moment of his life?’

  ‘Yes, captured forever.’

  Just beyond she sees another. A naked woman curled on the ground in a foetal position, her hands holding her head. Next to her, a young boy, sitting hugging his knees, the terror of the instant of death imprinted permanently on his face. Closer up they look more like grey zombies, yet the graceful curves of their bodies define them as unmistakably human. She bends down next to the child’s cast and looks up at Marcello. ‘What a terrible way to die. What happened to them?’

  ‘We think this family returned to the house at night thinking the eruption was over and were caught by the second surge early the next morning. That’s when most of the people of Pompeii were killed. After they came back, thinking it was safe.’

  ‘How is it possible that the shape of their bodies is so intact?’

  ‘The gas was so hot it moulded the ash to their skin and clothes and then hardened, like a glove, over their bodies. The bodies were then buried beneath piles of ash and stones and eventually they decomposed. But the bones survived, and the cavities formed by the decomposing flesh. So when archaeologists found skeletons they realized what had happened and filled these cavities with plaster. When this set, they chipped away the volcanic debris on the outside and here you have it—perfect copies.’

  Marcello sees the look of horror on Frances’ face. ‘We always like to think they died instantly. But you can never be sure.’ His voice trails away as Frances leans closer to the child.

  The hands are clasped together against his forehead, his eyelids are clearly visible and he seems to be crying. Frances is deeply shocked. She touches the boy’s shoulder as if she could reach back through the millennia and offer comfort. The images of her own sister drowning in the volcanic lahar in New Zealand fill her mind, the helplessness of another innocent sucked up in nature’s fury. She looks at the casts of the two adults, probably the boy’s parents. An entire family extinguished in seconds. She feels the return of an almost unbearable sorrow that was once a constant travelling companion. ‘They knew…you can see their agony,’ she whispers. She feels dizzy and as she almost topples, Marcello pulls her to her feet.

  ‘I’m sorry if this is upsetting. I forget…’

  ‘Forgive me, I must look like a wimp, but my only sister died when she was just eighteen months old, before I was born. But I still feel the loss, even though I didn’t know her. Seeing these poor people…’

  He strokes her head and she feels his strength calming her. ‘That’s what it means to be human. We’d all be reduced to plaster casts if we didn’t feel pain and love and joy.’

  ‘But this brings it home, doesn’t it? Dust to dust, ashes to ashes—is that what we’re all reduced to in the end?’

  ‘Maybe our bodies, but not our souls.’

  Frances looks deeply into the eyes of this man who handled skeletons as comfortably as a baker tossed around loaves of bread. He returns her gaze, more intimately than she’d seen before. It takes her by surprise and she feels uncertain. She brushes his cheek with her fingers. ‘You seem so sure. You really do care about these people.’

  ‘You mean for a scientist who usually demands evidence,’ he laughs. ‘But you feel it too. Why else would you be so moved by this? And your sister? I think she is with you still, in some way.’

  It had been a long time since Frances had stood by the river where Valerie had been drowned in the train wreck, another victim of a volcano that would not be tamed. She had finally found the courage with Tori to let go of her sister, so her spirit could be free and the living could go on living.

  He smiles at her. ‘Enough of this sadness. I have some surprises for you.’

  The gloom of the house dissolves as Frances follows him outside and blinks in the glare. Despite being buried under metres of ash for centuries, the garden still possesses a charm and beauty. New plantings replicate the trees and shrubs of old. In one corner of the courtyard a tall and graceful pomegranate tree spreads its branches, rays of sunshine spotlighting the plump ruby fruit.

  Marcello goes to the tree and picks one of the pomegranates. ‘For you, melograno, the fruit of abundance.’ He places it in her hand. ‘It’s late autumn and you can see the tree is at its peak. This is the time of year I believe the eruption occurred.’

  Frances smells the apple sweetness of the pomegranate. The skin is shiny and variegated in shades from deep red to pale pink.

  ‘Would you like to try it?’ She nods and Marcello takes a pen knife from his pocket and, setting the fruit on the top of a stone fence, he scores the skin and pul
ls it apart. Clusters of bright red seeds burst out from the creamy white pulp.

  ‘It looks like a heart that’s been broken,’ she murmers.

  ‘Or one that’s bursting with life and passion!’ he laughs, passing one half to her and crunching into the other. Frances bites into the fruit, wincing when her teeth break several seeds at once. ‘Bitter!’

  ‘Keep eating,’ Marcello laughs. ‘You’ll get used to it.’

  She eats another mouthful. The seeds explode in her mouth, releasing a watery liquid, sometimes sour, sometimes sweet. ‘Enough. That’s enough passion and abundance for me.’ She hands him back the fruit and wipes her chin.

  ‘Mm. I hope not.’ His eyes are shining and Frances feels her face redden. But he looks away before she can reply and casually tosses the remains of the fruit under the tree. ‘Not quite ripe.’ He smiles. ‘Maybe a few more weeks.’

  The lower level of the villa features a row of outdoor rooms supported by high brick archways. Dozens of ancient amphoras are stacked inside one room, the elongated pottery wine vessels forlorn relics of bygone feasting. Vivid paintings decorate another. A giant mural of a verdant garden is studded with miniature painted masks of men and women with strangely haunted expressions, as if possessed by the secrets of some sinister underworld.

  ‘We have to cross to another street.’ Marcello unlocks the garden gate leading to a side alley. Frances is compelled to glance back at the mural. Were they the faces of the dead lying inside? Did they eat and drink in this alfresco dining room, blissfully unaware of what was to come?