Pompeii (Roman)
Pompeii is a novel by Robert Harris set in the Roman city of Pompeii in AD 79 . The period of the events described covers four days before and during the eruption of Vesuvius . The English original edition was published in 2003 under the title Pompeii . The first German edition was published in 2004, translated by Wolfgang Müller. It was number 1 on the Spiegel bestseller list for 5 weeks in the same year .
action
In 79 AD, shortly after the reign of Emperor Titus , the young hydraulic engineer Attilius discovered a conspiracy in Pompeii, the richest city of the Roman Empire at the time. His assignment to replace his missing predecessor and to repair the Aqua Augusta , an aqueduct , is overshadowed by the approaching apocalypse .
Attilius is sent to Misenum , a city on the Gulf, because the local Aquarius Exomnius has disappeared and he is now supposed to take his place as Aquarius of Aqua Augusta. After a short stay in Misenum, a young woman - Corelia - called him to the villa of the rich Ampliatus because the water there was said to be poisoned. Attilius discovers traces of sulfur in the water and when he returns to the central water reservoir, the Piscina Mirabilis , it has run dry. In order to prevent a mass panic, the message is kept secret for the time being. Without permission, he shut off the water in Misenum so as not to use up the reserves. He immediately rushes to Pliny , the commander-in-chief of the Misenum fleet, and asks him for a ship that will take him and his workers (including his subordinate and adversary Corax) to Pompeii a few hours later, where he enters the tributary at the junction of the Augusta after Pompeii and after Misenum on the reverse at the foot of Vesuvius a defect in the pipes is suspected.
When he arrived in Pompeii, he went in search of the city's magistrates and he sent his people off: Two of his workers ride to Abellinum to seal off the section of the aqueduct with sliders so that repairs can be carried out. He sends two more of his workers, including Corax, to search for the damaged part of the Augusta. They should notify him as soon as they have determined the reason for the failure. Meanwhile, Attilius meets the magistrates, but they do not want to help him at first. Shortly afterwards, however, Ampliatus joins them and settles the matter generously in favor of Attilius. He orders that tools, materials and workers be supplied to him. On this occasion, Attilius meets Corelia again, who warns him not to get involved with her father on business.
Ampliatus now shows Attilius one of his baths under construction in Pompeii. While showing him around, he tries to get Attilius interested in a collaboration. However, the latter refuses Ampliatus' offers, whereupon Ampliatus classifies him as a danger (since Attilius cannot be bought like many other people). Then Attilius searches for the place of residence of his predecessor Exomnius, because he hopes to solve the mystery of his disappearance. He finds his room completely devastated in a brothel in Pompeii, where, according to a whore, he did not live often.
At the same time, Ampliatus meets a stranger who gives him a few papyri and with whom he plans to assassinate Attilius. Corelia overhears this conversation by chance. Attilius sets off with the material and the slaves provided by Ampliatus to find the Augusta leak.
Meanwhile in Misenum, the Commander-in-Chief Pliny has the Vulcanals / the festival for Vulcan called off due to the heat and the risk of fire. As he puts his wine glass on the table, he notices a barely noticeable earthquake. His nephew, Pliny the Younger , records the duration and strength of the tremors, recognizing that they are increasing rapidly in strength and duration. He orders that the now almost empty Piscina Mirabilis be completely emptied the next morning.
Corelia steals the papyri that the stranger brought to her father and rides after Attilius, while her father Ampliatus takes part in the Vulcanals. Attilius and his team follow the course of the aqueduct, which partly runs in a tunnel, getting closer and closer to Vesuvius. Again and again the earth shakes noticeably. The signs of an outbreak are increasing.
After a short time they come to a lake that was apparently created by the escaping water of the Augusta. There they meet Musa, who actually had the assignment to return to Pompeii; Corax has disappeared. Musa explains to Attilius that Corax insisted on riding to Pompeii himself and that he set off hours ago. To put the destroyed Aqua Augusta back in order, Attilius climbs into the tunnel and finds that the earth has risen over a length of about 20 feet. He decides to start repairs immediately. They dig out the rubble from the shattered tunnel wall. When water suddenly penetrates through a hole, the wall of rubble breaks open and the water pulls Attilius with it with tremendous pressure.
Attilius is swept away a few hundred feet, but survives. When he returns to the exit hole, Corelia is waiting for him. She tells him about the stranger's encounter with her father and shows Attilius the papyri, which the latter identifies as Exomnius's invoices, with which he settled the water for Pompeii. Attilius realizes that Exomnius was bribed to get Pompeii cheap water. Two other papyri point to parallels between Vesuvius and the Sicilian volcano Etna .
The next morning, August 24, 1979 at 6 a.m., the repair work on the Augusta was completed. Attilius asks Corelia to ride back to Pompeii accompanied by Musa and to return the papyri unnoticed. Attilius himself rides off, but not after the workers, but on Mount Vesuvius to investigate Exomnius' suspicions.
In Pompeii, Ampliatus has since noticed the lack of his papyri. When Corelia comes home, Ampliatus locks her in her room after an argument. Suddenly there is a long, heavy tremor, so strong that the wine glasses fall from the table.
When Attilius reaches the top of the mountain, he notices craters and pits from which hot gases are leaking, and it looks like there was a fire here a short time ago. He finds the body of a man in a depression. Although he has never seen him, he knows immediately that it must be Exomnius. Born in Sicily, Exomnius had recognized the volcanic phenomena occurring on Mount Etna at Vesuvius and had died while researching them. When Attilius turns to go, Corax is waiting for him with a knife. But when Corax runs towards him through a depression, Corax loses consciousness due to the toxic gases in the middle of the crater and suffocates. Attilius leaves Vesuvius and rides as fast as possible in the direction of Misenum to report the events to Pliny.
Shortly afterwards, two mighty thunderbolts shake Pompeii, which lies in the wind direction of Vesuvius. A black-brown mass shoots skyward from the mountain top and spreads at great heights over Pompeii, where the material - initially light pumice stone that even floats - rains down as a hail of rock . Panic breaks out among the residents; everyone flees to the harbor in order to leave Pompeii as quickly as possible by boat. However, Ampliatus decides to stay in Pompeii with his family in order to benefit from the reconstruction again after the disaster.
At the time of the eruption, Attilius was hit by a hot pressure wave from behind, which almost threw him off his horse. When he reaches Herculaneum , he decides to look for Corelia in Pompeii. But after a short time he has to turn around because he rides into a hail of rock. In the Villa Calpurnia in Herculaneum he meets Rectina, the wife of Senator Pedius Cascus, who gives him a letter to Pliny with the request to send a fleet of boats to Herculaneum and to save the people and their library.
About two hours later, Attilius arrives in Misenum and hands the letter to Pliny. He acts immediately and has all his warships ready to go. Although now advanced in age and short of breath, Pliny, out of scientific interest, insists on taking part in the trip himself. Attilius accompanies him on his ship to Herculaneum, hoping to find Corelia later in Pompeii. Pliny records all events in writing. Around the eleventh hour (about three hours before sunset) the ship gets caught in a hail of stones. Due to the masses of pumice stone floating in the sea, it is no longer possible to steer the ships, and they are drifting further and further into the hail of rocks. They are driven close to a port, the ship is stranded and the crew disembark. At the harbor ( Stabiae ) Pliny meets an old friend whom he asks for shelter. In the meantime, heavier rock has followed the pumice stone .
After a while the hail of rocks subsides. Attilius sets off alone in the pitch-dark night through knee-deep rubble to Pompeii, after he has observed how "clouds of flame" ( pyroclastic currents ) racing down from the mountain have first devoured the sparsely inhabited mountain slopes and then Herculaneum. Completely at the end of his strength, he reached the city walls of the half-buried city. Attilius finally finds Corelia in the new baths, where Ampliatus keeps his family. Attilius frees Corelia and escapes with her into the water reservoir of Pompeii, while a wave of fire and gas rolls over the city and destroys all of Pompeii and buries the ruins with ash and pumice stone. Attilius and Corelia manage to escape through the Aqua Augusta water tunnel. Pliny dies on the beach at Stabiae. His nephew Pliny the Younger leaves the notes of his uncle for posterity.
chapter
The novel is very precisely divided into days and hours:
- Mars August 22nd - Two days before the eruption
- Mercury August 23rd - One day before the eruption
- Jupiter August 24th - First day of the eruption
- Venus August 25th - Second day of the eruption
Important persons
Attilius
Marcus Attilius Primus, a young Roman hydraulic engineer ( aquarius ), is sent to Misenum after the unexplained disappearance of his predecessor. There he has to find out that his knowledge is needed immediately because the Aqua Augusta, an important water supply line, has dried up. Attilius' wife died with the child while giving birth to his child. Attilius' family has provided famous hydraulic engineers for generations, which is why he is very proud of his profession. Young as he is, he still has to assert himself with his workers.
Ampliatus
Numerius Popidius Ampliatus is a wealthy large landowner and owner of many baths who owed his fortune to the great earthquake in AD 62. He is a born slave who obtained his freedom through a will after the death of his master. Shortly after the quake, when Pompeii was considered dangerous and therefore most of the people fled, he bought some land, which he rented out at a high price when the people in Pompeii felt safe again. He worked his way to the very top of the Pompeii hierarchy, from where he controls all magistrates and influential people. He even wants to make his former master's son his subject by intending to marry him off to his daughter. Ampliatus claims to be able to handle money, but "he can handle people much better because he knows their weaknesses and flaws". He also wants to make Attilius dependent on himself, but the latter has been warned and thus escapes Ampliatus' clutches.
Corelia
Corelia Ampliata, Ampliatus 'daughter, is to be married to Lucius Popidius, a magistrate of Pompeii and son of Ampliatus' late master, according to her father's will, but she refuses. She meets Attilius in Ampliatus' villa near Misenum when she asks him to help prevent Ampliatus from executing a slave. Later the two meet again in Pompeii, and it takes Attilius a great deal of self-control not to take pleasure in her, since otherwise he would have to deal with Ampliatus. Corelia is very pretty and headstrong and she likes Attilius very much, so she warns him about her father.
Corax
Superintendent of Aqua Augusta, helper of the missing Aquarius Exomnius, whose successor was Attilius. He hates Attilius and works against him whenever possible, which he cannot do in public because Attilius is his superior.
Pliny the Elder
Gaius Pliny Secundus (Pliny the Elder) is a historical figure. When Vesuvius erupted, he was the commander-in-chief of the naval forces that were in front of Misenum. He had a great passion for the natural sciences and wrote numerous textbooks on nature. Pliny helps Attilius by providing him with a boat and men for a crossing to Pompeii in order to enable the Aqua Augusta to be repaired quickly, and after Vesuvius erupts he starts a large rescue operation with the whole fleet, which of course fails.
Places of the event
Campania, Italy
Misenum
Misenum is a port city where the story begins. The end of the Aqua Augusta flows into the “ Piscina mirabilis ” - basin of miracles, a water reservoir. This is where the residence of Pliny and the Villa of Ampliatus are located. Attilius meets Corelia on a fish farm that belongs to Ampliatus Landsitz.
Pompeii
A city on a hill at the foot of Mount Vesuvius , which is considered extinct. Residence of many rich citizens and thus also a city with many baths and villas. There is a huge difference between rich and poor in Pompeii. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. At the port of Pompeii, many goods that are shipped to or from the Roman Empire are temporarily stored or sold. A branch of Aqua Augusta directs the water through the Vesuvius Gate to Pompeii.
Herculaneum
Villa Calpurnia is located in Herculaneum . It belongs to Pedius Cascus, an important senator. In the library of his villa there are irreplaceable books and writings, such as B. from Sophocles . The real model of the Villa Calpurnia is the Villa dei Papiri, discovered in 1750 .
filming
Pompeii was originally supposed to be made into a film by Roman Polański ; However, in view of the costs, this project was dropped in favor of a film adaptation of Robert Harris' novel The Ghostwriter . In the meantime it has been announced that Pompeii will be filmed as a TV series.
literature
- Robert Harris: Pompeji , Heyne 2009. ISBN 978-3-453-40695-7 .
- Pompeii, historical detective novel ; with a ZEIT crime analysis. Zeitverlag Gerd Bucerius , Hamburg 2010. ISBN 978-3-8419-0001-2 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Martin Wolf: Der Geisterfilm , DER SPIEGEL 6/2010, p. 125.
- ↑ Sigrid Eck: Policemen on the march , in: werben & verkauf No. 16/2010, p. 78.