Pompeii (17 page)
HORA SEXTA
[
hours]
As magma rises from depth, it undergoes a large pressure decrease. At a
10-meter depth, for example, pressures are about 300 megapascals (MPa), or 3,000 times the atmospheric pressure. Such a large pressure change has many consequences for the physical properties and flow of magma.
—
ENCYCLOPEDIA 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 toward the crossroads, maintaining the same fast pace as he had in the house. Attilius followed at his shoulder. It was
, 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; 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 tranquility—of space, and peace, and light. The high windows faced southwest 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 from
Rome
a thing or two.” He cupped his hands to his mouth and bellowed, “Januarius!”
From the other side of the yard came an answering shout, and a tall man appeared at the top of a flight of stairs. He recognized his master and ran down the steps and across the yard, wiping his hands on his tunic, bobbing his head in a series of bows as he came closer.
“Januarius—this is my friend, the aquarius of the
Augusta
. He works for the emperor!”
“Honored,” said Januarius, and gave Attilius another bow.
“Januarius is one of my foremen. Where are the lads?”
“In the barracks, sir.” He looked terrified, as if he had been caught idling. “It’s the holiday—”
“Forget the holiday! We need them here now. Ten, did you say you needed, aquarius? Better make it a dozen. Januarius, send for a dozen of the strongest men we have. Brebix’s gang. Tell them they’re to bring food and drink for a day. What else was it you needed?”
“Quicklime,” began Attilius, “puteolanum—”
“That’s it. All that stuff. Timber. Bricks. Torches—don’t forget torches. He’s to have everything he needs. And you’ll require transport, won’t you? A couple of teams of oxen?”
“I’ve already hired them.”
“But you’ll have mine—I insist.”
“No.” Ampliatus’s generosity was starting to make the engineer uneasy. First would come the gift, then the gift would turn out to be a loan, and then the loan would prove a debt impossible to pay back. That was no doubt how Popidius had ended up losing his house.
A hustler’s town.
He glanced at the sky. “It’s
. The oxen should be arriving down at the harbor by now. I have a slave waiting there with our tools.”
“Who did you hire from?”
“Baculus.”
“Baculus! That drunken thief! My oxen would be better. At least let me have a word with him. I’ll get you a fat discount.”
Attilius shrugged. “If you insist.”
“I do. Fetch the men from the barracks, Januarius, and send a boy to the docks to have the aquarius’s wagons brought here for loading. I’ll show you around while we’re waiting, aquarius.” And again his hand fell upon the engineer’s shoulder. “Come.”
Baths were not a luxury. Baths were the foundation of civilization. Baths were what raised even the meanest citizen of
Rome
above the level of the wealthiest hairy-assed barbarian. Baths instilled the triple disciplines of cleanliness, healthfulness, and strict routine. Was it not to feed the baths that the aqueducts had been invented in the first place? Had not the baths spread the Roman ethos across
Europe
,
Africa
, and
Asia
as effectively as the legions, so that in whatever town in this far-flung empire a man might find himself, he could at least be sure of finding this one precious piece of home?
Such was the essence of Ampliatus’s lecture as he conducted Attilius around the empty shell of his dream. The rooms were unfurnished and smelled strongly of fresh paint and stucco and their footsteps echoed as they passed through the cubicles and exercise rooms into the main part of the building. Here, the frescoes were already in place. Views of the green
Nile
, studded with basking crocodiles, flowed into scenes from the lives of the gods. Triton swam beside the Argonauts and led them back to safety.
Neptune
transformed his son into a swan. Perseus saved Andromeda from the sea monster sent to attack the Ethiopians. The pool in the caldarium was built to take twenty-eight paying customers at a time, and as the bathers lay on their backs they would gaze up at a sapphire ceiling, lit by five hundred lamps and swimming with every species of marine life, and believe themselves to be floating in an undersea grotto.
To attain the luxury he demanded, Ampliatus was employing the most modern techniques, the best materials, the most skillful craftsmen in
Italy
. There were Neapolitan glass windows in the dome of the laconicum—the sweating room—as thick as a man’s finger. The floors and the walls and the ceilings were hollow, the furnace that heated the cavities so powerful that even if snow lay on the ground, the air inside would be sweltering enough to melt a man’s flesh. It was built to withstand an earthquake. All the main fittings—pipes, drains, grilles, vents, taps, stopcocks, shower nozzles, even the handles to flush the latrines—were of brass. The lavatory seats were Phrygian marble, with elbow rests carved in the shape of dolphins and chimeras. Hot and cold running water throughout.
Civilization.
Attilius had to admire the vision of the man. Ampliatus took so much pride in showing him everything that it was almost as if he was soliciting an investment. And the truth was that if the engineer had had any money—if most of his salary had not already been sent back home to his mother and sister—he might well have given him every last coin, for he had never encountered a more persuasive salesman than Numerius Popidius Ampliatus.
“How soon before you’re finished?”
“I should say a month. I need to bring in the carpenters. I want some shelves, a few cupboards. I thought of putting down sprung wood floors in the changing room. I was considering pine.”
“No,” said Attilius. “Use alder.”
“Alder? Why?”
“It won’t rot in contact with water. I’d use pine—or perhaps cypress—for the shutters. But it would need to be something from the lowlands, where the sun shines. Don’t touch pine from the mountains. Not for a building of this quality.”
“Any other advice?”
“Always use timber cut in the autumn, not the spring. Trees are pregnant in the spring and the wood is weaker. For clamping, use olive wood, scorched—it will last for a century. But you probably know all that.”
“Not at all. I’ve built a lot, it’s true, but I’ve never understood much about wood and stone. It’s money I understand. And the great thing about money is that it doesn’t matter when you harvest it. It’s a year-round crop.” He laughed at his own joke and turned to look at the engineer. There was something unnerving about the intensity of his gaze, which was not steady, but which shifted, as if he were constantly measuring different aspects of whomever he addressed, and Attilius thought,
No, it’s not money you understand, it’s men—their strengths and their weaknesses; when to flatter, when to frighten.
“And you, aquarius?” Ampliatus said quietly, “What it is that you know?”
“Water.”
“Well, that’s an important thing to know. Water is at least as valuable as money.”
“Is it? Then why aren’t I a rich man?”
“Perhaps you could be.” He made the remark lightly, left it floating for a moment beneath the massive dome, and then went on, his voice echoing off the walls: “Do you ever stop to think how curiously the world is ordered, aquarius? When this place is open, I shall make another fortune. And then I shall use that fortune to make another, and another. But without your aqueduct, I could not build my baths. That’s a thought, is it not? Without Attilius, no Ampliatus.”
“Except that it’s not my aqueduct. I didn’t build it—the emperor did.”
“True. And at a cost of two million a mile! ‘The late lamented Augustus’—was ever a man more justly proclaimed a deity? Give me the Divine Augustus over Jupiter any time. I say my prayers to him every day.” He sniffed the air. “This wet paint makes my head ache. Let me show you my plans for the grounds.”
He led them back the way they had come. The sun was shining fully now through the large open windows. The gods on the opposite walls seemed alive with color. Yet there was something haunted about the empty rooms—the drowsy stillness, the dust floating in the shafts of light, the cooing of the pigeons in the builders’ yard. One bird must have flown into the laconicum and become trapped. The sudden flapping of its wings against the dome made the engineer’s heart jump.
Outside, the luminous air felt almost solid with the heat, like melted glass, but Ampliatus did not appear to feel it. He climbed the open staircase easily and stepped onto the small sundeck. From here he had a commanding view of his little kingdom. That would be the exercise yard, he said. He would plant plane trees around it for shade. He was experimenting with a method of heating the water in the outdoor pool. He patted the stone parapet. “This was the site of my first property. Seventeen years ago I bought it. If I told you how little I paid for it, you wouldn’t believe me. Mark you, there was not much left of it after the earthquake. No roof, just the walls. I was twenty-eight. Never been so happy, before or since. Repaired it, rented it out, bought another,
rented
that. Some of these big old houses from the time of the republic were huge. I split them up and fitted ten families into them. I’ve gone on doing it ever since. Here’s a piece of advice for you, my friend: there’s no safer investment than property in
Pompeii
.”