Pompeii

apprehension in his own stomach and he was an old soldier. It crossed his mind to order the boy to come – no Roman should ever succumb to fear: what had happened to the stern values of his youth? – but then he thought of Julia. Was it fair to expose her only son to needless danger? 'No, no,' he said, with forced cheerfulness. 'I won't insist. The sea looks rough. It will make you sick. You stay here and look after your mother.' He pinched his nephew's spotty cheek and ruffled his greasy hair. 'You'll make a good lawyer, Gaius Plinius. Perhaps a great one. I can see you in the Senate one day. You'll be my heir. My books will be yours. The name of Pliny will live through you –' He stopped. It was beginning to sound too much like a valedictory. He said gruffly, 'Return to your studies. Tell your mother I'll be back by nightfall.'
    Leaning on the arm of his secretary, and without a backward glance, the admiral shuffled out of his library.

    Attilius had ridden past the Piscina Mirabilis, over the causeway into the port, and was beginning his ascent of the steep road to the admiral's villa, when he saw a detachment of marines ahead clearing a path for Pliny's carriage. He just had time to dismount and step into the street before the procession reached him.
    'Admiral!'
    Pliny, staring fixedly ahead, turned vaguely in his direction. He saw a figure he did not recognise, covered in dust, his tunic torn, his face, arms and legs streaked with dried blood. The apparition spoke again. 'Admiral! It's Marcus Attilius!'
    'Engineer?' Pliny signalled for the carriage to stop. 'What's happened to you?'
    'It's a catastrophe, admiral. The mountain is exploding – raining rocks –' Attilius licked his cracked lips. 'Hundreds of people are fleeing east along the coastal road. Oplontis and Pompeii are being buried. I've ridden from Herculaneum. I have a message for you –' he searched in his pocket '– from the wife of Pedius Cascus.'
    'Rectina?' Pliny took the letter from his hands and broke the seal. He read it twice, his expression clouding, and suddenly he looked ill – ill and overwhelmed. He leaned over the side of the carriage and showed the hasty scrawl to Attilius: 'Pliny, my dearest friend, the library is in peril. I am alone. I beg you to come for us by sea – at once – if you still love these old books and your faithful old Rectina. '
    'This is really true?' he asked. 'The Villa Calpurnia is threatened?'
    'The entire coast is threatened, admiral.' What was wrong with the old man? Had drink and age entirely dulled his wits? Or did he think it was all just a show – some spectacular in the amphitheatre, laid on for his interest? 'The danger follows the wind. It swings like a weathervane. Even Misenum might not be safe.'
    'Even Misenum might not be safe,' repeated Pliny. 'And Rectina is alone.' His eyes were watering. He rolled up the letter and beckoned to his secretary who had been running with the marines beside the carriage. 'Where is Antius?'
    'At the quayside, admiral.'
    'We need to move quickly. Climb in next to me, Attilius.' He rapped his ring on the side of the carriage. 'Forward!' Attilius squeezed in beside him as the carriage lurched down the hill. 'Now tell me everything you've seen.'
    Attilius tried to order his thoughts, but it was hard to speak coherently. Still, he tried to convey the power of what he had witnessed when the roof of the mountain lifted off. And the blasting of the summit, he said, was merely the culmination of a host of other phenomena – the sulphur in the soil, the pools of noxious gas, the earth tremors, the swelling of the land which had severed the matrix of the aqueduct, the disappearance of the local springs. All these things were interconnected.
    'And none of us recognised it,' said Pliny, with a shake of his head. 'We were as blind as old Pomponianus, who thought it was the work of Jupiter.'
    'That's not quite true, admiral. One man recognised it – a native of the land near Etna: my predecessor, Exomnius.'
    'Exomnius?' said Pliny, sharply. 'Who hid a quarter of a million sesterces at the bottom of his own reservoir?' He noticed the bafflement on the engineer's face. 'It was discovered this morning when the last of the water had drained away. Why? Do you know how he came by it?'
    They were entering the docks. Attilius could see a familiar sight – the Minerva lying alongside the quay, her main mast raised and ready to sail – and he thought how odd it was, the chain of