Book Review – Robert Harris’s “Pompeii”
Set in 79 AD and the deadly volcano eruption of Mount Vesuvius, Pompeii is a semi-thrilling doomsday story written by English author Robert Harris.
This is a historical fiction story that blends a fictitious story with real events and real people. The book also uses a tremendous amount of foreshadowing with volcanology notes preceding each chapter.
Pompeii begins on August 22 in the year 79 AD. Marcus Attilus Primus, the new aquarius (water engineer) of the Aqua Augusta aqueduct, has arrived in the Italian town of Misenum. The Aqua Augusta is a major aqueduct that services the Gulf of Naples along with the towns around Mount Vesuvius.
Marcus Attilus has been sent there from Rome as the area’s previous water engineer, Exomnius, had mysteriously vanished.
In the town of Misenum is the Villa Hortensia, a lavish residence and fishery owned by ex-slave and now millionaire Numerius Popidius Ampliatus. When some of Ampliatus’s prized moray eels quickly die in the fishery, and a slave is punished for the fish’s mistreatment, Ampliatus’s daughter, Corelia Ampliata, quickly goes into town and locates the aquarius. She wants to find Exomnius, but she takes Attilus when he explains that he’s now in charge of the Aqua Augusta.
Marcus Attilus is taken to Corelia’s home, and after meeting with Ampliatus, he discovers that there’s a strong smell of sulfur coming from the water supply. The sulfur is what killed the fish, not mistreatment by one of the slaves. The strong presence of sulfur is alarming and Attilus needs to verify if it’s also in the town’s water supply. This means a trip to Piscina Mirabilis, the water reservoir, an immense structure that, when filled, can hold several days’ worth of water for the town’s residents.
At the water reservoir, Attilus discovers that the water level is low, and the flow of water coming from the aqueduct is a mere trickle. Obviously the town is not receiving as much water as it should. At this rate the town’s water supply will be exhausted within a day or two. This is especially troubling at the end of a dry summer period.
Outside the water reservoir, a rider gives Attilus more troubling news. Other towns in the area are also running out of water, even as far away as Nola. The town of Nola is on the opposite side of Mount Vesuvius. If that town is running out of water, then that means that the rest of the towns on the Aqua Augusta, basically all of the Gulf of Naples, are ALL running out of water. It’s an area that has about 200,000 people.
When Attilus is passing a marina and spots a passenger ferry, he learns that the town of Pompeii still has its water supply. This is from a person who was in both Nola and Pompeii earlier that day. Attilus takes this report and figures that the Aqua August must have a block somewhere between Nola and Pompeii. All areas to the east have plenty of flowing water while those west of Pompeii have little to no water.
Marcus Attilus goes to Admiral Gaius Pilinius (Pliny), the most powerful man in Misenum, and seeks his assistance with the water emergency. Pliny is a man of science and agrees to help Attilus quickly reach the town of Pompeii. This means using one of his fastest ships to cross the Gulf of Naples and arrive at Pompeii, and then trek up to the aqueduct and search for the break. Although the aqueduct runs underground in that area, locating the break should be very easy as it’s going to flood the area and most likely form a shallow lake.
It’s here we learn that Pompeii was nearly destroyed by a strong earthquake about seventeen years ago. While no major tremors have been felt recently, Pliny has noticed that his glass of wine has been indicating faint vibrations from within the Earth. The admiral is easily sold on Attilus’s theory about the break in the aqueduct and where it’s most likely located, and he insists on going along on the expedition to Pompeii.
The expedition quickly gets underway, and in no time the Minerva arrives in the coastal town of Pompeii. Sure enough, the town’s water fountains are flowing strongly and there’s plenty of water for the residents. After securing some horses and oxen for his team, Attilus meets again with Numerius Popidius Ampliatus. The millionaire also owns property in Pompeii. Attilus would later learn that Ampliatus stole a lot of prestigious property when the town was heavily damaged in the major earthquake. When an appraiser from Rome arrived, Ampliatus bribed him and quickly took over several large homes. He repaired and quickly sold them, making a quick fortune.
Ampliatus seems to be suspiciously eager to help Attilus repair the Aqua Augusta as quickly as possible. He even offers to give Attilus free slaves, tools, equipment, and horses to complete the task. Of course, once everything is working again, Ampliatus is going to expect some favors in return from Attilus. It’s implied that the previous aquarius, Exomnius, had some sort of seedy deal with Ampliatus before he disappeared.
Before he leaves to repair the aqueduct, Marcus Attilus warns Ampliatus that the aqueduct is going to be temporarily shut off, and all of the water is going to be diverted to a different town while repairs are taking place. Pompeii’s residents are going to become angry when the town has to start rationing the water for the next day or two.
The expedition heads up the eastern side of Mount Vesuvius towards the Aqua Augusta. It’s not long before they discover a large and shallow lake. The proceed to an access point and descend into the underground water tunnel. Sure enough there’s a major blockage. It’s as if the aqueduct’s floor had been shoved up into the roof. Nobody had even seen that type of damage in all of their years of experience.
One of the teams had ridden to a different spot and managed to shut off the water. The aqueduct becomes dry and the repair team starts digging through and removing the stone and concrete blocking the flow of the water. They work feverishly at removing the debris and setting the new concrete. The team barely finishes the repairs before the advance team opens the valve at the predetermined time and sends water back down the aqueduct. Attilus is the last man in the aqueduct and is nearly swept away by the onslaught of water, but he survives and is helped back up to the surface.
While he was repairing the aqueduct, back in Pompeii, Corelia had overheard her father, Ampliatus, plotting with another man to kill Marcus Attilus. Apparently Attilus was too smart of a person and very capable of figuring out what Exomnius was really doing in his job of aquarius. Corelia manages to grab some important documents and flee her father’s home to seek Attilus. She manages to find him at his work site, and she shows him an alarming truth.
Corelia shows Attilus water expense reports for the town of Pompeii. It seems normal until they notice that Exomnius had forged the reports to report a significantly lower water rate for the town, and, thus, a smaller water bill for her father, Ampliatus. But Exomnius wasn’t just ripping off Rome. He had written a third expense report that was even lower than what Ampliatus had paid for water. This money that he was stealing from Ampliatus was being kept in Pompeii’s water reservoir. It was discovered when Pliny and his nephew were examining the reservoir when it ran dry while the aqueduct was being repaired.
Ampliatus is nearing the completion of building a massive bath house in Pompeii. As long as he could get his water for a cheap enough price, then he stands to make another fortune with this business. That’s where Exomnius, the corrupt water engineer came into play.
If Exomnius’s money was being kept in a bag at the bottom of the reservoir, how was he supposed to retrieve it? It’s mentioned that the reservoir has to be drained once every ten years for routine maintenance, and it was nearing the time for another temporary shutdown period. When the water level drained, Exomnius could easily grab his small fortune of money and skip town.
But where was Exomnius? There’s no indication of him anywhere in the area. It’s as if the water engineer had simply disappeared.
After the Aqua Augusta is repaired and the repair team, along with Corelia, are sent back to Pompeii, Marcus Attilus decides to head up Mount Vesuvius to further investigate the mountain along with the Earth tremors and presence of sulfur. On top of the mountain he discovers a dead body lying in a small crater. He knows that it’s Exomnius.
On top of the mountain he’s met by Corax, the overseer of the aqueduct workers. Corax has a knife and he’s there to kill Attilus, as ordered by Ampliatus. The two of them stay on opposite sides of the crater. Attilus keeps his distance and stays opposite of Corax. This frustrates the attacker, and Corax decides to go across the crater and cut the distance and finally kill Attilus. But as he runs along the bottom of the crater, suddenly Corax becomes deathly ill. He chokes and suddenly dies after inhaling the poisonous gas that had settled on the bottom of the crater. Attilus realizes that it’s also how Exomnius was killed.
As Marcus Attilus makes his way back to Misenum, Mount Vesuvius begins to erupt. There’s panic as an incredibly column of smoke flows out of the mountain and straight into the sky. People run and panic. They try to find shelter as small stones begin to rain upon the area.
After arriving back in Misenum, Attilus informs Pliny that his ships are needed to help save people as well as books in a library from destruction. Being the scholar that he is, Pliny insists on traveling back to Pompeii along with Attilus to observe the volcano and help save important documents. Attilus is going back to Pompeii to rescue Corelia after discovering that she was not at her father’s home in Misenum.
The ship bears fierce waves and the constant pounding of rocks. It nearly sinks before reaching shore a few miles away from town.
Marcus Attilus makes his way to Pompeii and finds Corelia along with her mother and father inside of Ampliatus’s new bath house. It’s one of the strongest structures in the town. But it’s not strong enough to survive what’s about to happen from the mountain. Attilus and Corelia flee from her father while being pursued by his slaves. They reach the water reservoir and manage to crawl into the aqueduct’s opening just as the brunt of Mount Vesuvius’s eruption reaches the town of Pompeii.
Pliny’s nephew survives but the rest of the characters in Pompeii are killed instantly by the volcanic eruption. It’s later implied that Marcus and Corelia had both survived after hiding underground in the aqueduct.
So is Robert Harris’s book, Pompeii, any good?
As a whole, Pompeii is a fairly interesting story involving the Aqua Augusta aqueduct and the Mount Vesuvius volcano. It’s clear that Robert Harris has researched his material though I do question some of the technology that’s used in the book.
The story between Marcus Attilus and Corelia Ampliata feels disorganized. It wants to be a love story between the two characters, but there’s really not much material there. These are two people who have only known each other for a couple of days, and they really don’t spend that much time together. But apparently Corelia is important enough to Marcus for him to travel back to Pompeii to rescue the girl from her father and the fury of Mother Nature.
I also would have liked to have read more about the everyday life for the people living in Pompeii. Each chapter has a brief note talking about Mount Vesuvius and how the volcano is about to erupt. As we already know from history, the town of Pompeii was crushed in the volcano’s eruption in 79 AD. Between that knowledge and the notes about the volcano as the pressure continues to build, there’s a tremendous amount of foreshadowing throughout the book.
But there’s very little information about the town itself. How are we supposed to care for the people when there’s this massive catastrophe looming right in their faces?
It’s like setting a story on the RMS Titanic. Everybody knows that the ship hits an iceberg and there’s a tremendous loss of life when it sinks in the icy waters of the northern Atlantic Ocean. To make the ending more dramatic, you really need to tell the readers more about the innocent victims that perish in the disaster.
It’s the same thing here. In Pompeii, there’s really no emotion when Mount Vesuvius erupts and kills a ton of residents in the area. The bad characters are expected to die in the volcano’s eruption (which they do), but there’s really no story about the innocent victims, the people who make this tragedy that much worse.
Pompeii is a good story, but it’s clearly not a great one. I’ll admit that the story has inspired me to learn more about the ancient Romans along with Mount Vesuvius’s eruption.