Pompeii (novel)

Infobox Book
name = Pompeii


image_caption = Cover of the paperback edition
author = Robert Harris
illustrator =
cover_artist =
country = United Kingdom
language = English
genre = Novel
publisher = Random House
pub_date = 2003
media_type = Hardback, paperback
pages = 352
isbn = 0099282615
oclc =
preceded_by = Archangel
followed_by = Imperium

"Pompeii" is a novel by author and journalist Robert Harris published by Random House in 2003. It is a blend of fictional characters with the real-life eruption of Mount Vesuvius on August 24, 79 that overwhelmed Pompeii and its surrounding towns. "Pompeii" is especially notable for the author's references to various aspects of vulcanology and use of the Roman calendar. A film version of the book with a budget of US$150m is planned but currently on hold due to the threat of a strike by members of the Screen Actors Guild.

Plot summary

Marcus Attilius Primus arrives from Rome to take charge as "aquarius" (hydraulic engineer) of the Aqua Augusta, the aqueduct that supplies water to Pompeii and eight other towns along the Bay of Neapolis - the modern day Bay of Naples. Attilius' predecessor as "aquarius" has mysteriously disappeared as the springs that flow through the aqueduct begin to fail, lowering the supply of water available to the region's reservoir, the Piscina Mirabilis.

Then, dramatically, the flow of water stops entirely. Attilius concludes that the aqueduct must be blocked somewhere close to Mount Vesuvius. With the aid of Pliny the Elder whose fleet is docked at Misenum, Attilius assembles an expedition to travel to Pompeii and then on to the blocked section of the Aqua Augusta.

While Attilius' expedition is there, the "aquarius" himself becomes embroiled in the plot of former slave and land speculator Numerius Popidius Ampliatus to become the provider of low-cost water to Pompeii, which the previous "aquarius" helped him do while stealing from the imperial treasury.

Attilius' questions and studies make Ampliatus suspicious of what Pliny later discovers – thousands of Roman sesterces at the bottom of the reservoir that should have gone to Rome and which Attilius' predecessor had intended to retrieve once he'd emptied the reservoir. Ampliatus' daughter Corelia gets Attilius the proof he needs from her father's written records when he's at the foot of Mount Vesuvius.

As the eruption on August 24 overwhelms Pompeii and neighboring towns, Attilius risks his life and comes back to Pompeii to find Corelia. Attilius and Corelia dig their way through the aqueduct tunnel which the springs are beginning to fill--which carries a high risk of drowning. Ampliatus is killed when he refuses to evacuate the city, and Pliny dies when the sailing ships he tries to evacuate the citizens in are overwhelmed by the volcano.

At the end of the book you find out that Attilius and Coreilia enterred the aqueduct just as the waters were coming back to full flow. The last sentence of the novel reports a local legend that a man and woman emerged from the aqueduct after the eruption--implying that Attilius and Corelia survived the trip down the aqueduct.

Comparison with the US

The novel takes as its motto two parallel quotes, from Tom Wolfe's "Hooking Up" and from the "Natural History" of Pliny (who, as noted, is a central character in the book itself), with both writers speaking in nearly identical terms of the preeminence of, respectively, the present United States and the Roman Empire, over the rest of the world. The theme of comparing ancient Rome to the contemporary United States is repeated in various ways throughout the book, for example in the deliberate use of typically American terminology, as when Attilius regards Pompeii as "a hustling boomtown" while Ampliatus boasts "I am the man who runs this town" [John B. Dexter, "The invention of America", p. 127] . Attilius himself is very much of a "modern" character, a typical proponent of the problem solving approach - a pragmatic engineer, who has little use for religion or gods but an unbounded confidence in the ability of sound Roman engineering to solve problems - given a thorough knowledge of natural laws, good planning and a firm leadership, all of which he is fully capable of providing.

Ironic Prophecy

Faced with the eruption, which threatens to utterly destroy his hard-built fortune and power, Ampliatus clings to the prophecy which he heard from Pompeii's resident sybil. After sacrificing a snake to an ancient god, the sybil had prophesied that even after the passage of millennia, when the Roman Empire and its emperors have long since gone into the dust, the name of Pompeii will be known throughout the world and people of every tongue will wander its streets and enter its amphitheaters. It is this prophecy which encourages Ampliatus to stay in the embattled city and keep his family and household there - to the death of all of them but Corelia.

The reader, of course, knows (though Ampliatus cannot) that the sybil spoke the truth, but that Pompeii's enduring fame would not result from its being spared the eruption. On the contrary, precisely being engulfed and covered up for many centuries, only to be rediscovered and provide modern archaeologists with a uniquely preserved Roman city, would give Pompeii its enduring fame - far too late for its hapless First Century citizens to have any benefit.

No such prophecy is mentioned in any actual Roman text. However, the device of a true prophecy which is disastrously misunderstood and leading to wrong action is well-attested in the Classical World, for example the case of Croesus who was told that if he goes to war with Persia he would destroy a great kingdom - which turned out to refer to Croesus' own kingdom, conquered and annexed by Cyrus as a result of the war to which Croesus was encouraged by the prophecy.

Film adaptation

"Pompeii" is an announced movie that was to be directed by Roman Polanski, based on the novel of the same title. According to Screen Daily, however, the 74-year-old filmmaker was unable to commit to a postponed shooting date and has withdrawn from the project. As yet, a new director has not been announced. Polanski is due to direct another Robert Harris book "The Ghost" in 2009.

References

ee also

*Aqua Augusta (Naples)
*Piscina Mirabilis

External links

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