Pompeii

should know better, after what I told you yesterday!' – then shouted across the pool – 'Celsia!' – and the mousy woman Attilius had noticed earlier jerked up in her chair. 'Get our daughter out of the pool! It's unseemly for her to show her tits in public!' He turned to Attilius. 'Look at them over there, like a lot of fat hens on their nests!' He flapped his arms at them, emitting a series of squawks – cluuuuck, cluck-cluck-cluck! – and the women raised their fans in distaste. 'They won't fly, though. Oh no. One thing I've learned about our Roman aristocrat – he'll go anywhere for a free meal. And his women are even worse.' He called out: 'I'll be back in an hour! Don't dish up without me!' And with a gesture to Attilius that he should fall in behind him, the new master of the House of the Popidii turned on his heel and strode towards the door.
    As they passed through the atrium, Attilius glanced back at the pool where Corelia was still submerged, as if she thought that by completely immersing herself she could wash away what was happening.

Hora sexta

    [12:00 hours]

'As magma rises from depth, it undergoes a large pressure decrease. At a 10-metre depth, for example, pressures are about 300 megapascals (MPa), or 3000 times the atmospheric pressure. Such a large pressure change has many consequences for the physical properties and flow of magma.'
Encyclopaedia of Volcanoes

    Ampliatus had a litter and eight slaves waiting outside on the pavement, dressed in the same crimson livery as the porter and steward. They scrambled to attention as their master appeared but he walked straight past them, just as he ignored the small crowd of petitioners squatting in the shade of the wall across the street, despite the public holiday, who called out his name in a ragged chorus.
    'We'll walk,' he said, and set off up the slope towards the crossroads, maintaining the same fast pace as he had in the house. Attilius followed at his shoulder. It was noon, the air scalding, the roads quiet. The few pedestrians who were about mostly hopped into the gutter as Ampliatus approached or drew back into the shop doorways. He hummed to himself as he walked, nodding an occasional greeting, and when the engineer looked back he saw that they were trailing a retinue that would have done credit to a senator – first, at a discreet distance, the slaves with the litter, and behind them the little straggle of supplicants: men with the dejected, exhausted look that came from dancing attendance on a great man since before dawn and knowing themselves doomed to disappointment.
    About halfway up the hill to the Vesuvius Gate – the engineer counted three city blocks – Ampliatus turned right, crossed the street, and opened a little wooden door set into a wall. He put his hand on Attilius's shoulder to usher him inside and Attilius felt his flesh recoil at the millionaire's touch.
    'Don't let him trap you, as he's trapped the rest of us.'
    He eased himself clear of the grasping fingers. Ampliatus closed the door behind them and he found himself standing in a big, deserted space, a building site, occupying the best part of the entire block. To the left was a brick wall surmounted by a sloping, red-tiled roof – the back of a row of shops – with a pair of high wooden gates set into the middle; to the right, a complex of new buildings, very nearly finished, with large modern windows looking out across the expanse of scrub and rubble. A rectangular tank was being excavated directly beneath the windows.
    Ampliatus had his hands on his hips and was studying the engineer's reaction. 'So then. What do you think I'm building? I'll give you one guess.'
    'Baths.'
    'That's it. What do you think?'
    'It's impressive,' said Attilius. And it was, he thought. At least as good as anything he had seen under construction in Rome in the past ten years. The brickwork and the columns were beautifully finished. There was a sense of tranquillity – of space, and peace, and light. The high windows faced south-west to take advantage of the afternoon sun, which was just beginning to flood into the interior. 'I congratulate you.'
    'We had to demolish almost the whole block to make way for it,' said Ampliatus, 'and that was unpopular. But it will be worth it. It will be the finest baths outside Rome. And more modern than anything you've got up there.' He looked around, proudly. 'We provincials, you know, when we put our minds to it, we can still show you big city men