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Pompeii: A Novel
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Part 2, Chapters 10-13Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2: “Mercury”
Chapter 10 Summary: "HORA SEPTA"
At Ampliatus's banquet, Popidius believes there are "too many guests" (145). Despite his host's exorbitant wealth, Popidius is unimpressed by such "nouveau riche" (147) tastes. He is still unsure how Ampliatus has risen to power so quickly. Now, finding himself in debt to "his own ex-slave" (148), he worries that his mother will die of shame. However, the magistrates all toast the "magnificent feast" (149). The next course is a giant eel, served on a platter and encrusted with jewels. When Ampliatus offers the eel to Corelia, she looks at him with "undiluted hatred" (150) and runs from the room.
Attilius visits a brothel where Exomnius reportedly spent his time and money. He asks for the owner, Africanus, and is directed upstairs. When he enters the room, he rushes to stop Africanus from slipping out of a window. Attilius wrestles the man to the floor and then drags him out of the room.
Ampliatus cuts the eel and serves it to his guests. When eating, he is disappointed to find the meat of the eel to be "bland and leathery" (154-5). The thought of his aristocratic guests mocking him makes him angry. The feast is interrupted by the arrival of a message. Ampliatus reads the documents in private and then retires to his private villa to meet someone concerning "a problem" (157). Up above, Corelia tends to her pet finches. From her position on the balcony, she can overhear the courtyard where her father reads the documents. She hears the unidentified man say that the problem's name is Marcus Attilius.
Africanus insists that he is an "honest man" (158). He eventually accepts Attilius's demand to see inside the rooms Exomnius rented in the brothel. The rooms are disordered, filled with rotting food and knocked-over objects. Through questioning, Attilius learns that Exomnius rented the rooms for more than three years and paid his rent as recently as a month before. Attilius believes that Exomnius "had not planned to disappear" (161). The rooms have also been recently searched. Talking to Zmyrina, one of the brothel's aging prostitutes, Attilius learns that Exomnius had promised to "take care" (163) of the woman before his disappearance. She tells him that Exomnius was hiding his money somewhere safe, but she does not know where.
Attilius returns to the aqueduct facilities where Polites and the "rough-looking" (165) work crew are waiting. Much to Attilius's annoyance, the men have been drinking and bullying Tiro. Attilius shouts at one man and knocks his cup from his hand. Before the man can attack Attilius, he is saved by a former gladiator named Brebix who introduces himself as the "senior" (167) member of the crew. Attilius issues his orders. He does not trust the crew but has no choice. As they set out, Brebix mentions the crew is uneasy about spending the night on Mount Vesuvius. The men fear that giants wander the mountain, announcing themselves with voices like claps of thunder beneath the ground.
Chapter 11 Summary: "HORA DUODECIMA"
Pliny continues to monitor the tremors after bidding farewell to his guests. He reflects on a guest's comment about his potentially ill health. As the intervals between the tremors shrink, people in the city riot due to lack of access to water and now "armed gangs [are] hanging around the fountains" (174). Pliny has cancelled the religious festivities and imposes a curfew on Misenum. He takes Gaius, his nephew and heir, in a carriage to the reservoir. The water is low and "vibrating slightly" (178).
In Pompeii, the religious festivities continue. Corelia thinks about Attilius, knowing that her father is planning to kill him. She fakes an illness while her brother and mother plead with her to please her father by being present at the festivities. She refuses to attend the "stupid spectacle" (181).
Attilius and the work crew ride out of Pompeii to inspect the pipes of the aqueduct. They pass through fields where slaves harvest grapes and pause to rest. Attilius speaks to Brebix about his career as a gladiator. Brebix did not want to train other gladiators after winning his freedom as he had seen "enough killing" (183), so he decided to work for Ampliatus instead. Looking across the bay, Attilius sees the waves on the sea, but he feels no wind.
When her father is gone, Corelia frees her birds from their cage, then sneaks into her father's office and steals his documents. She takes a horse from the stables and sneaks out of the city on "the road to Vesuvius" (187).
Chapter 12 Summary: "VESPERA"
Attilius and his crew inspect a settling tank along the aqueduct. Before they can continue their journey, they must free their carts from the heavy mud around the tank. The tired men "grudgingly" (190) continue. They hear an "immense crash" (191) from Mount Vesuvius; the men see a flock of flamingos flying through the steam coming from the ground, mistaking them for giants. They recover and find Musa and Corvinus on the edge of a large artificial lake. Corax had been with them but, hours before, had set off for Pompeii to tell Attilius that the leak had been found. Attilius is angry that Corax did not find him. He suspects that Corax has "run away" (193). Attilius begins work on the pipe by locating a manhole and lowering himself inside the "three feet wide" (194) tunnel. Noting the lack of regular maintenance on the pipes, he is surprised that the floor of the tunnel seems to have been "driven upward" (195). Exiting the tunnel and inspecting the surrounding land, he decides that he may be able to fix the problem quickly. He urges the crew to set to work.
Corelia rides her horse along the road. The explosion on the mountain frightens her horse and it bolts, galloping uncontrollably through the fields until it hears the sound of nearby water and stops. She spots the crew's campfires.
Attilius oversees the attempts to remove the blockage and repair the aqueduct. The work is hot, exhausting, and painful but the men work "as a team" (201). After excavating a great deal of debris, they reach a point where the water seeps through. Rather than remove any more and risk drowning the men in the tunnel, Attilius orders the men to evacuate. Attilius remains in the tunnel alone and, with a rope around his waist, tries to carefully remove the blockage. He fails and the dam collapses, "submerging him in darkness" (203) and water.
Chapter 13 Summary: "NOCTE CONCUBIA"
From the back of the crowd, Ampliatus observes a religious ceremony in which live fish are sacrificed on fires. As he slips away before the end of the ceremony, he thinks about his power over the city. He is "afraid of nothing" (208), even if he is not as rich as people assume him to be. While thinking about the honest Attilius and his attempts to repair the aqueduct, he thinks what "a pity" (209) it is that Attilius will soon be dead. Ampliatus returns to his private apartments, where the 60-year-old Taedia Secunda is waiting for him. She is Popidius's former wife, whom he was forced to divorce by Ampliatus as part of their business dealings. Ampliatus now keeps her as a slave for his own sexual satisfaction, as she had done with him when he had been a slave.
Attilius battles to free himself from the churning water. Eventually, the flow of water ceases as the sluice gates were closed further upstream 12 hours earlier. The water has flushed him far down the dark tunnel and, when the water clears, he begins to crawl upstream, deciding to "keep his suspicions to himself" (212) as to why Brebix let go of the rope. The men are impressed by his survival, but Attilius wants only to repair the aqueduct. They have only a few hours before the distant sluice gates are opened again. Strangely, the smell of sulfur seems to have disappeared.
When he exits the tunnel, the day has ended. Attilius is surprised to find that Corelia has brought him her father's documents. The documents contain an official map of the aqueduct, an accounting of the ways Ampliatus is cheating his water taxes, and a list of the bribes paid by Ampliatus to Exomnius to "keep his mouth shut" (218). The documents, Attilius suspects, were kept by Exomnius as a form of protection against Ampliatus. The final two documents discuss the fertility of the soil around Mount Etna (a volcano located in Sicily) and the earthquake in Pompeii. Corelia warns Attilius that her father "didn't want [him] to come back from this expedition alive" (221) then falls asleep beside him. Returning to the repair work, Attilius begins to wonder whether Exomnius had come to suspect that something terrible was about to happen in Pompeii. He suspects that Corax may have held similar suspicions. Talking to Musa, he learns that Exomnius was originally from Sicily.
Part 2, Chapters 10-13 Analysis
The portrayal of the magistrates in Pompeii is a critique of the social structure of Roman society. These rich, powerful magistrates rule over Pompeii in a corrupt manner. They are essentially elected to their office for life and have little constraint on their power, allowing them to embezzle whatever they please. They are the corrupt elite who rule over the poor people from behind the tall walls of their villas, feasting on huge meals while the people outside their property struggle for food and water. Despite their power, they are in thrall to an even richer man. Ampliatus is a former slave who—through cunning and criminality—has made himself the richest man in the region. He has embroiled the magistrates in his corrupt schemes, meaning that they are reliant on him to preserve their power and their reputation.
The magistrates resent Ampliatus not only because of the power he holds over them, but also because a former slave is viewing himself as equal to the ruling class. The rigid structure of Roman society shows little potential for social mobility. People are born into a social class—such as the working-class laborers—and they are stuck in that position until they die. Ampliatus defies this rigidity by breaking the rules. The magistrates do not care that he broke the laws; they care that he rose above his social position. Popidius is far more critical of Ampliatus's rise from slave to wealthy man than he is of Ampliatus's crimes. To the ruling magistrates, social mobility is a bigger insult than corruption and criminality.
Pliny stands apart from the majority of the ruling elite. Unlike the magistrates of Pompeii, who are only interested in self-enrichment and debauchery, he has a sincere fascination with the natural world. Pliny is demonstrably a smart man whose reputation as a military man, a scholar, and a scientist precedes him. Of all the characters in the novel, he is the first to detect the minute tremors which herald the imminent eruption of the volcano. Once he notices this phenomenon, he runs experiments. While issuing orders to maintain public safety in Misenum, he continues to monitor and document everything that is happening. While Pliny enjoys feasting and is past his physical best, his mind is noticeably sharper than the other members of the social elite. Pliny is distinguished by his uniqueness. He is the only aristocrat who seems to want to help people; that his sincere altruism and desire to learn are so unique is a further indictment of the decadent and decaying society he lives in.
In a structural sense, Pompeii is a mystery narrative. Attilius must uncover the truth about the missing water and restore it to the world, thereby saving the people of the Bay of Naples. At the same time, he must solve smaller contributing mysteries, such as the disappearance of Exomnius and the truth about Ampliatus's fortune. Attilius searches the world, finds clues, and then pieces them together to assemble an explanation for the strange occurrences. At the same time, however, Mount Vesuvius lurks in the background of nearly every scene. Each chapter is prefixed with detailed explanations of the geological phenomena that the classical characters have no way to understand. The looming volcano undermines the significance of each revelation uncovered by Attilius—the mysteries of the world are inconsequential if they are about to be washed away by the lava of Vesuvius. The characters do not know this, however, so they must do the best their best to achieve their objectives, as irrelevant as these objectives will soon be rendered.
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