The engineer sat apart, his hands clasped around his knees, his hat pulled low to shield his eyes, watching the coast slide by, searching the landscape for some clue as to what had happened on the Augusta.
Everything about this part of Italy was strange, he thought. Even the rust-red soil around Puteoli possessed some quality of magic, so that when it was mixed with lime and flung into the sea it turned to rock. This puteolanum, as they called it, in honour of its birthplace, was the discovery that had transformed Rome. And it had also given his family their profession, for what had once needed laborious construction in stone and brick could now be thrown up overnight. With shuttering and cement Agrippa had sunk the great wharves of Misenum, and had irrigated the Empire with aqueducts – the Augusta here in Campania, the Julia and the Virgo in Rome, the Nemausus in southern Gaul. The world had been remade.
But nowhere had this hydraulic cement been used to greater effect than in the land where it was discovered. Piers and jetties, terraces and embankments, breakwaters and fish-farms had transformed the Bay of Neapolis. Whole villas seemed to thrust themselves up from the waves and to float offshore. What had once been the realm of the super-rich – Caesar, Crassus, Pompey – had been flooded by a new class of millionaires, men like Ampliatus. Attilius wondered how many of the owners, relaxed and torpid as this sweltering August stretched and yawned and settled itself into its fourth week, would be aware by now of the failure of the aqueduct. Not many, he would guess. Water was something that was carried in by slaves, or which appeared miraculously from the nozzle of one of Sergius Orata’s shower-baths. But they would know soon enough. They would know once they had to start drinking their swimming pools.
The further east they rowed, the more Vesuvius dominated the bay. Her lower slopes were a mosaic of cultivated fields and villas, but from her halfway point rose dark green, virgin forest. A few wisps of cloud hung motionless around her tapering peak. Torquatus declared that the hunting up there was excellent – boar, deer, hare. He had been out many times with his dogs and net, and also with his bow. But one had to look out for the wolves. In winter, the top was snow-capped.
Squatting next to Attilius he took off his helmet and wiped his forehead. ‘Hard to imagine,’ he said, ‘snow in this heat.’
‘And is she easy to climb?’
‘Not too hard. Easier than she looks. The top’s fairly flat when you get up there. Spartacus made it the camp for his rebel army. Some natural fortress that must have been. No wonder the scum were able to hold off the legions for so long. When the skies are clear you can see for fifty miles.’
They had passed the city of Neapolis and were parallel with a smaller town which Torquatus said was Herculaneum, although the coast was such a continuous ribbon of development – ochre walls and red roofs, occasionally pierced by the dark green spear-thrusts of cypresses – that it was not always possible to tell where one town ended and another began. Herculaneum looked stately and well-pleased with herself at the foot of the luxuriant mountain, her windows facing out to sea. Brightly coloured pleasure-craft, some shaped like sea-creatures, bobbed in the shallows. There were parasols on the beaches, people casting fishing lines from the jetties. Music, and the shouts of children playing ball, wafted across the placid water.
‘Now that’s the greatest villa on the Bay,’ said Torquatus. He nodded towards an immense colonnaded property that sprawled along the shoreline and rose in terraces above the sea. ‘That’s the Villa Calpurnia. I had the honour to take the new Emperor there last month, on a visit to the former consul, Pedius Cascus.’
‘Cascus?’ Attilius pictured the lizard-like senator from the previous evening, swaddled in his purple-striped toga. ‘I had no idea he was so rich.’
‘Inherited through his wife, Rectina. She had some connection with the Piso clan. The admiral comes here often, to use the library. Do you see that group of figures, reading in the shade beside the pool? They are philosophers.’ Torquatus found this very funny. ‘Some men breed birds as a pastime, others have dogs. The senator keeps philosophers!’
‘And what species are these philosophers?’
‘Followers of Epicurus. According to Cascus, they hold that man is mortal, the gods are indifferent to his fate, and therefore the only thing to do in life is enjoy oneself.’
‘I could have told him that for nothing.’
Torquatus laughed again then put on his helmet and tightened the chin-strap. ‘Not long to Pompeii now, engineer. Another half-hour should do it.’
He walked back towards the stern.
Attilius shielded his eyes and contemplated the villa. He had never had much use for philosophy. Why one human being should inherit such a palace, and another be torn apart by eels, and a third break his back in the stifling darkness rowing a liburnian – a man could go mad trying to reason why the world was so arranged. Why had he had to watch his wife die in front of him when she was barely older than a girl? Show him the philosophers who could answer that and he would start to see the point of them.
She had always wanted to come on holiday to the Bay of Neapolis, and he had always put her off, saying he was too busy. And now it was too late. Grief at what he had lost and regret at what he had failed to do, his twin assailants, caught him unawares again, and hollowed him, as they always did. He felt a physical emptiness in the pit of his stomach. Looking at the coast he remembered the letter a friend had shown him on the day of Sabina’s funeral; he had learnt it off by heart. The jurist, Servius Sulpicus, more than a century earlier, had been sailing back from Asia to Rome, lost in grief, when he found himself contemplating the Mediterranean shore. Afterwards he described his feelings to Cicero, who had also just lost his daughter: ‘There behind me was Aegina, in front of me Megara, to the right Piraeus, to the left Corinth; once flourishing towns, now lying low in ruins before one’s eyes, and I began to think to myself: “How can we complain if one of us dies or is killed, ephemeral creatures as we are, when the corpses of so many towns lie abandoned in a single spot. Check yourself, Servius, and remember that you were born a mortal man. Can you be so greatly moved by the loss of one poor little woman’s frail spirit?”’
To which, for Attilius, the answer still remained, more than two years later: yes.
He let the warmth soak his body and face for a while, and despite himself he must have floated off to sleep, for when he next opened his eyes, the town had gone, and there was yet another huge villa slumbering beneath the shade of its giant umbrella pines, with slaves watering the lawn and scooping leaves from the surface of the swimming pool. He shook his head to clear his mind, and reached for the leather sack in which he carried what he needed – Pliny’s letter to the aediles of Pompeii, a small bag of gold coins and the map of the Augusta.
Work was always his consolation. He unrolled the plan, resting it against his knees, and felt a sudden stir of anxiety. The proportions of the sketch, he realised, were not at all accurate. It failed to convey the immensity of Vesuvius, which still they had not passed, and which must surely, now he looked at it, be seven or eight miles across. What had seemed a mere thumb’s-width on the map was in reality half a morning’s dusty trek in the boiling heat of the sun. He reproached himself for his naivety – boasting to a client, in the comfort of his library, of what could be done, without first checking the actual lie of the land. The rookie’s classic error.
He pushed himself to his feet and made his way over to the men, who were crouched in a circle, playing dice. Corax had his hand cupped over the beaker and was shaking it hard. He did not look up as Attilius’s shadow fell across him. ‘Come on, Fortuna, you old whore,’ he muttered and rolled the dice. He threw all aces – a dog – and groaned. Becco gave a cry of joy and scooped up the pile of copper coins.
‘My luck was good,’ said Corax, ‘until he appeared.’ He jabbed his finger at Attilius. ‘He’s worse than a raven, lads. You mark my words – he’ll lead us all to our deaths.’
‘Not like Exomnius,’ said the engineer,
squatting beside them. ‘I bet he always won.’ He picked up the dice. ‘Whose are these?’
‘Mine,’ said Musa.
‘I’ll tell you what. Let’s play a different game. When we get to Pompeii, Corax is going out first to the far side of Vesuvius, to find the break on the Augusta. Someone must go with him. Why don’t you throw for the privilege?’
‘Whoever wins goes with Corax!’ exclaimed Musa.
‘No,’ said Attilius. ‘Whoever loses.’
Everyone laughed, except Corax.
‘Whoever loses!’ repeated Becco. ‘That’s a good one!’
They took it in turns to roll the dice, each man clasping his hands around the cup as he shook it, each whispering his own particular prayer for luck.
Musa went last, and threw a dog. He looked crestfallen.
‘You lose!’ chanted Becco. ‘Musa the loser!’
‘All right,’ said Attilius, ‘the dice settle it. Corax and Musa will locate the fault.’
‘And what about the others?’ grumbled Musa.
‘Becco and Corvinus will ride to Abellinum and close the sluices.’
‘I don’t see why it takes two of them to go to Abellinum. And what’s Polites going to do?’
‘Polites stays with me in Pompeii and organises the tools and transport.’
‘Oh, that’s fair!’ said Musa, bitterly. ‘The free man sweats out his guts on the mountain, while the slave gets to screw the whores in Pompeii!’ He snatched up his dice and hurled them into the sea. ‘That’s what I think of my luck!’
From the pilot at the front of the ship came a warning shout – ‘Pompeii ahead!’ – and six heads turned as one to face her.
She came into view slowly from behind a headland, and she was not at all what the engineer had expected – no sprawling resort like Baiae or Neapolis, strung out along the coastline of the bay, but a fortress-city, built to withstand a siege, set back a quarter of a mile from the sea, on higher ground, her port spread out beneath her.
It was only as they drew closer that Attilius saw that her walls were no longer continuous – that the long years of the Roman peace had persuaded the city fathers to drop their guard. Houses had been allowed to emerge above the ramparts, and to spill, in widening, palm-shaded terraces, down towards the docks. Dominating the line of flat roofs was a temple, looking out to sea. Gleaming marble pillars were surmounted by what at first appeared to be a frieze of ebony figures. But the frieze, he realised, was alive. Craftsmen, almost naked and blackened by the sun, were moving back and forth against the white stone – working, even though it was a public holiday. The ring of chisels on stone and the rasp of saws carried clear in the warm air.
Activity everywhere. People walking along the top of the wall and working in the gardens that looked out to sea. People swarming along the road in front of the town – on foot, on horseback, in chariots and on the backs of wagons – throwing up a haze of dust and clogging the steep paths that led up from the port to the two big city gates. As the Minerva turned in to the narrow entrance of the harbour the din of the crowd grew louder – a holiday crowd, by the look of it, coming into town from the countryside to celebrate the festival of Vulcan. Attilius scanned the dockside for fountains but could see none.
The men were all silent, standing in line, each with his own thoughts.
He turned to Corax. ‘Where does the water come into the town?’
‘On the other side of the city,’ said Corax, staring intently at the town. ‘Beside the Vesuvius Gate. If –’ he gave heavy emphasis to the word ‘– it’s still flowing.’
That would be a joke, thought Attilius, if it turned out the water was not running after all and he had brought them all this way merely on the word of some old fool of an augur.
‘Who works there?’
‘Just some town slave. You won’t find him much help.’
‘Why not?’
Corax grinned and shook his head. He would not say. A private joke.
‘All right. Then the Vesuvius Gate is where we’ll start from.’ Attilius clapped his hands. ‘Come on, lads. You’ve seen a town before. The cruise is over.’
They were inside the harbour now. Warehouses and cranes crowded against the water’s edge. Beyond them was a river – the Sarnus, according to Attilius’s map – choked with barges waiting to be unloaded. Torquatus, shouting orders, strode down the length of the ship. The drumbeats slowed and ceased. The oars were shipped. The helmsman turned the rudder slightly and they glided alongside the wharf at walking-pace, no more than a foot of clear water between the deck and the quay. Two groups of sailors carrying mooring cables jumped ashore and wound them quickly around the stone posts. A moment later the ropes snapped taut and, with a jerk that almost knocked Attilius off his feet, the Minerva came to rest.
He saw it as he was recovering his balance. A big, plain stone plinth with a head of Neptune gushing water from his mouth into a bowl that was shaped like an oyster-shell, and the bowl overflowing – this was what he would never forget – cascading down to rinse the cobbles, and wash, unregarded, into the sea. Nobody was queuing to drink. Nobody was paying it any attention. Why should they? It was just an ordinary miracle. He vaulted over the low side of the warship and swayed towards it, feeling the strange solidity of the ground after the voyage across the bay. He dropped his sack and put his hands into the clear arc of water, cupped them, raised them to his lips. It tasted sweet and pure and he almost laughed aloud with pleasure and relief, then plunged his head beneath the pipe, and let the water run everywhere – into his mouth and nostrils, his ears, down the back of his neck – heedless of the people staring at him as if he had gone insane.
Hora Quarta
[09:48 hours]
‘Isotope studies of Neapolitan volcanic magma show signs of significant mixing with the surrounding rock, suggesting that the reservoir isn’t one continuous molten body. Instead, the reservoir might look more like a sponge, with the magma seeping through numerous fractures in the rock. The massive magma layer may feed into several smaller reservoirs that are closer to the surface and too small to identify with seismic techniques . . .’
American Association for the Advancement of Science, news bulletin, ‘Massive Magma Layer feeds Mt. Vesuvius’, November 16 2001
A man could buy anything he needed in the harbour of Pompeii. Indian parrots, Nubian slaves, nitrum salt from the pools near Cairo, Chinese cinnamon, African monkeys, Oriental slave-girls famed for their sexual tricks . . . Horses were as easy to come by as flies. Half a dozen dealers hung around outside the customs shed. The nearest sat on a stool beneath a crudely drawn sign of the winged Pegasus, bearing the slogan ‘Baculus: Horses Swift Enough for the Gods’.
‘I need five,’ Attilius told the dealer. ‘And none of your clapped-out nags. I want good, strong beasts, capable of working all day. And I need them now.’
‘That’s no problem, citizen.’ Baculus was a small, bald man, with the brick-red face and glassy eyes of a heavy drinker. He wore an iron ring too large for his finger, which he twisted nervously, round and round. ‘Nothing’s a problem in Pompeii, provided you’ve the money. Mind you, I’ll require a deposit. One of my horses was stolen the other week.’
‘And I also want oxen. Two teams and two wagons.’
‘On a public holiday?’ He clicked his tongue. ‘That, I think, will take longer.’
‘How long?’
‘Let me see.’ Baculus squinted at the sun. The more difficult he made it sound, the more he could charge. ‘Two hours. Maybe three.’
‘Agreed.’
They haggled over the price, the dealer demanding an outrageous sum which Attilius immediately divided by ten. Even so, when eventually they shook hands, he was sure he had been swindled and it irritated him, as any kind of waste always did. But he had no time to seek out a better bargain. He told the dealer to bring round four of the horses immediately to the Vesuvius Gate and then pushed his way back through the traders towards the Minerva.
By now the crew had been allowed up on deck. Most had peeled off their sodden tunics and the stench of sweat from the sprawled bodies was strong enough to compete with the stink of the nearby fish-sauce factory, where liquefying offal was decomposing in vats in the sunshine. Corvinus and Becco were picking their way between the oarsmen, carrying the tools, throwing them over the side to Musa and Polites. Corax stood with his back to the boat, peering towards the town, occasionally rising on tiptoe to see over the heads of the crowd.
He noticed Attilius and stopped. ‘So the water runs,’ he said, and folded his arms. There was something almost heroic about his stubbornness, his unwillingness to concede he had been wrong. It was then that Attilius knew, beyond question, that once all this was over he would have to get rid of him.
‘Yes, she runs,’ he agreed. He waved to the others to stop what they were doing and to gather round. It was agreed that they would leave Polites to finish the unloading and to guard the tools on the dockside; Attilius would send word to him about where to meet up later. Then the remaining five set off towards the nearest gate, Corax trailing behind, and whenever Attilius looked back it seemed that he was searching for someone, his head craning from side to side.
The engineer led them up the ramp from the harbour towards the city wall, beneath the half-finished temple of Venus and into the dark tunnel of the gate. A customs official gave them a cursory glance to check they were not carrying anything they might sell, then nodded them into the town.
The street beyond the gate was not as steep as the ramp outside, or as slippery, but it was narrower, so that they were almost crushed by the weight of bodies surging into Pompeii. Attilius found himself borne along past shops and another big temple – this one dedicated to Apollo – and into the blinding open space and swarming activity of the forum.
It was imposing for a provincial town: basilica, covered market, more temples, a public library – all brilliantly coloured and shimmering in the sunlight; three or four dozen statues of emperors and local worthies high up on their pedestals. Not all of it was finished. A webwork of wooden scaffolding covered some of the large buildings. The high walls acted to trap the noise of the crowd and reflect it back at them – the flutes and drums of the buskers, the cries of the beggars and hawkers, the sizzle of cooking food. Fruitsellers were offering green figs and pink slices of melon. Wine merchants crouched beside rows of red amphorae propped in nests of yellow straw. At the foot of a nearby statue a snake-charmer sat cross-legged, playing a pipe, a grey serpent rising groggily from the mat in front of him, another draped round his neck. Small pieces of fish were frying on an open range. Slaves, bowed under the weight of bundles of wood, were hurrying in relays to pile them on to the big bonfire being built in the centre of the forum for the evening sacrifice to Vulcan. A barber advertised himself as an expert in pulling teeth and had a foot-high pile of grey and black stumps to prove it.
Pompeii Page 9
