The Last Girls of Pompeii

by Kathryn Lasky

  His nephew, Pliny the Younger, did not accompany him to Stabiae but continued to observe the eruption from Misenium. He later wrote two crucial letters recording what he and his uncle had seen from this vantage point, in addition to the news he later gathered of his uncle’s voyage to Pompeii and the final hours of his life, and of his own struggle for survival with his mother. These two letters, written almost two thousand years ago, form the backbone of the historical and scientific research of the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius and the destruction of Pompeii. Although it seems unbelievable, it is crucial to note that the people of Pompeii had no idea that they were living in the shadow of a volcano. In their history it had never been active. They had never even suspected that harbored deep beneath the gentle slopes of Mount Vesuvius on which they had planted vineyards was a smoldering cauldron of magma.

  There were, of course, many gaps in Pliny’s account, which did not begin to be filled in until the excavations started in 1709. Then, in 1863, a wealth of information was uncovered when Giuseppi Fiorelli, a professor of archeology, took over the excavations. Fiorelli is most famous for his discovery of a system enabling him to make plaster casts of the dead. His method preserved the entire shape of the body, not just the skeleton. The mixture of ash, pumice, and mud left after the eruption hardened and sealed the bodies in, encasing the dead in “coffins” of a sort that fitted perfectly. Over time the flesh and the clothing disintegrated, leaving only impressions. The positions of people and animals, their expressions, the most intimate details of their lives were perfectly preserved at the moment of their deaths. Fiorelli devised a way to make castings of these impressions of life caught in the moment of death by pumping plaster into the cavity left by the body.

  Of all the research I did and the things I saw on my visit to Pompeii, the most arresting images were those of the casts of life trapped in that moment of dying—those of a dog writhing in panic on his chain, his eyes rolled back in fear, or an older man seeming to sleep in a peaceful repose with the trace of smile—which I interpreted as resignation to the death. These nameless people, the ones whose casts I saw who were caught fleeing the gates of the city, falling and gasping for air, became the raw materials for my story. For example, there really was a lady found in the gladiators’ barracks, her skeleton bejeweled with the heavy necklaces of a wealthy woman. I was inspired by her to create the character Livia Octavia.

  My research covered an array of subjects from the cookery of that time to which fruits and flowers grew or were imported for cultivation in Pompeii in the year A.D. 79. Perhaps the most valuable material for my purposes and especially for the chapters covering the eruption was the work of scientists done in the last ten years. Geologists, chemical geologists, and vulcanologists have now established a very precise timeline, almost hour by hour, of the eruptive events that took place between August 24 and August 27, A.D. 79. This timeline not only documented the meter-by-meter buildup of ash and pumice but the first flow of gases that asphyxiated the people as they fled. I decided to put Julia and Sura well out of the range of these poisonous gases when they swept down upon the citizens of Pompeii in a superheated cloud. For this reason, it is believable that these two girls would have survived.

  For a writer, visiting Pompeii was an almost intoxicating experience. Through this strange alchemy of ash and mud and rock, history had been frozen in time, an intimate history. It was the mingling of the macabre with ordinary domesticity, of the beauty of life with the hideousness of violent death that I found so compelling. As I walked the streets of Pompeii more than a thousand years after the eruption, I felt that stories—whispered histories of lives cut off, of desires unfulfilled, of love and ambition—were pressing in upon me as insidiously as those ashes that searched their way into every crevice and cranny. Lives were waiting to be reanimated. That is the job of an archeologist. But where the archeologist leaves off, the storyteller’s task begins.

  Historical Note

  ROMAN NAMES

  The names of Roman citizens usually consisted of three parts: the praenomen (given name, which not everyone had), nomen gentile (family name), and cognomen, which was chosen by the family. Women’s names were the feminine form of their father’s nomen gentile, which menat that sisters had the same name. In the case of Julia Petreia’s family, since her father’s nomen gentile was Cornelia, Julia and her two sisters would actually all have been named Cornelia: Cornelia Prima, Cornelia Secunda, and Cornelia Teria. They would have had nicknames or pet names to differentiate between them. I took a creative liberty by giving Julia and her sisters Flavia and Cornelia three different names to prevent confusion.

  As long as a girl was unmarried, the second part of her name would be formed from her father’s cognomen. That’s why Julia is Julia Petreia—Petreia is the feminine form of Petreius. After marriage, she might change to a form of her husband’s cognomen. That is why Julia’s mother’s Herminia Petreia.

  STREET NAMES

  The standard names usually used for the streets of Pompeii are modern creations, which is why they are in Italian, not Latin. We don’t know what the Pompeiians actually called the streets.

  SIBYL OF SARNUS

  The sibyls, who were ancient and legendary figures by the time of this story, were visionary female prophets inspired by the gods. Their origins are lost in prehistory. Originally there may have been only one sibyl, but during Greek times, their number grew until there were nine, to which the Romans added a tenth. Each sibyl was located with a specific place from which she prophesied. The Sibyl of Sarnus is a fictional creation of the author’s, based on the pattern of the historical sibyls.

  CURSE OF VENUS

  We know very little for sure about the ancient Roman attitude to physical handicaps. Physical beauty and whole-ness were considered a sign of the favor of the gods, from which it follows that deformity could be seen as a sign of divine disfavor or even a punishment for the parents’ sins. I have taken some license in making Julia’s birth defect specifically a sign of Venus’s disfavor, although Venus was a symbol of physical perfection. Some defects, specifically blindness, seem to have been associated with heightened or mystical powers. Wealthy and powerful Romans often kept deformed or very ugly people as part of their household, and seem to have sometimes looked on them as a kind of good-luck charm touched by supernatural power, as well as a source of amusement.