54 pages • 1 hour read
Robert HarrisPompeii: A Novel
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2003A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 4: “Venus”
Chapter 19 Summary: "INCLINATIO"
Pliny continues to dictate his observations about the volcano, which he refers to as the "manifestation" (321). Whole towns in the distance seem to have gone dark. When the storm seems to weaken, Attilius makes a decision. He tells Pliny that he is "leaving" (323), much to Pliny's outrage. Despite his protests, Attilius leaves the camp and sets out toward Pompeii.
The road to Pompeii is difficult. A normal journey might take an hour, but Attilius spends many more hours wandering through the falling pumice and the thick clouds. He passes dead bodies and abandoned carts. He hears a child calling in the dark and then fall silent. With the journey becoming impossible, he feels as though he can "accept" (326) death. He drifts off to sleep for a moment and then is awoken by the smell of burning. During his brief nap, he has been almost buried by pumice. Heaving himself free, he feels his own hair singing "as the sulfurous dawn raced across the sky toward him" (327). Then, he spots Pompeii and walks toward the city.
Chapter 20 Summary: "DILUCULUM"
After digging himself free, Attilius walks toward Pompeii through the "undulating landscape" (328). When he enters, the city seems strange. He realizes that the streets are so filled with falling pumice that he is "laboring along a street at roof level" (329). With the volcano burning in the distance, people seem to be entering the city to save loved ones or possessions. People panic that their homes are being looted and they fight with one another. Attilius ignores the "brawl" (331) and locates Ampliatus's house. He enters a bedroom and deduces that it belonged to Corelia. However, neither she nor her family are present. He wonders where Ampliatus might have taken his family to escape the horrors of the volcano, deciding that the baths must be the answer.
Attilius rushes to the construction site where Ampliatus is loudly ordering slaves to clear his expensive building project. Stepping into sight, Attilius is confronted by the frenzied Ampliatus. The former slave is obsessed with opening the baths to make money, in spite of the apocalyptic situation. He tries to strike a bargain with Attilius to get the water running. Attilius asks about Corelia and, realizing that her father has been driven insane, goes to find her himself. He finds Corelia and tries to escape but Ampliatus sends his slaves to catch them. Attilius and Corelia escape by running toward the "wave of fire" (340) on top of Vesuvius. The slaves are too scared to follow. Once they are out of sight, Attilius finds the aqueduct and the reservoir. He ushers Corelia inside and into the water.
Chapter 21 Summary: "HORAALTERA"
Ampliatus is killed instantly when the "incandescent sandstorm" (342) hits Pompeii. More than 2,000 people in Pompeii are killed and their bodies are caught in the falling ash, leaving Pompeii as "a town of perfectly shaped hollow citizens" (343) which are preserved for millennia. In the refugee camp, Pliny tells his slaves to leave him on the beach as everyone else runs away. They take his notes to deliver to his nephew. After diligently documenting the eruption, he is glad to be given one "last insight" (344) into nature's power. He faces the oncoming storm "like a Roman" (345).
The eruption continues for the rest of the day, changing the landscape around the volcano and the volcano itself. Later, Pliny's body is recovered, and his observations become an important historical document. The aqueduct begins to flow again, as do the rumors and superstitions among the survivors. One of these legends concerns "a man and a woman who had emerged out of the earth itself" (346), having tunneled underground away from Pompei for several miles. The couple was wet with water, as Corelia and Attilius had been when they dived into the reservoir, and they headed together toward the coast. Most people, however, dismiss this story as pure "superstition" (346).
Part 4 – "Venus" Analysis
Pliny the Elder dies a true Roman death: As many thousands of Roman citizens run away from the erupting volcano, Pliny decides to accept his fate. Pliny's death is an example of the way in which Roman identity is constructed and perpetrated. Everyone on the beach is a part of the Roman Empire, yet only Pliny chooses to act in the way he believes is becoming of a Roman. As such, Roman identity is not simply the generalized demeanor or character of the empire’s inhabitants. Rather, the true Roman identity is an idealized version of a Roman citizen which is created through mythic acts such as Pliny turning to face the volcano. His display of stoicism is a self-perpetuating example of identity, in which he chooses to act like a Roman and, in doing so, provides an example for other people who wish to act in a Roman manner. Even though most Romans do not join him, and even though Roman society is portrayed as corrupt and self-interested, the idealization of Roman identity is embodied in the death of Pliny the Elder.
When Attilius returns to Pompeii, he witnesses the city being buried in real time. He is shocked to discover that so much debris has already fallen that, as he walks along the streets, he is already at the first story level of the houses. He is able to climb straight onto Corelia's balcony due to the stones and ash that has amassed in the streets. This burial of an entire city is the transformation of Pompeii from the bustling city of classical times to the archeological site that it has become in the 21st century. The prophecy commissioned by Ampliatus is realized as the foundations are laid for the global interest which will be turned toward Pompeii many centuries later. The transformation of the city and the fulfilment of the prophecy plays into the theme of The Tensions Between Fate and Agency: Ampliatus believed that he could use fate to his advantage, using his prophecy to exert his control over the citizens of Pompeii, but the opposite is true. While the citizens run away, Ampliatus loses his mind and returns to his property. He takes his family with him, blindly believing that he is able to master fate by sheer force of will. His desperate display of vacuous agency shows that Ampliatus was never in control of his destiny. He fundamentally misunderstood the prophecy and, in doing so, demonstrated the folly and the hubris of trying to outsmart fate.
At the end of the novel, the narration switches style. For the majority of Pompeii, the narration has been objective, reliable, and detached. The narrator has described events as they happened. In the final passages, however, the firm facts of the earlier narration are replaced by legends and stories. The possibility of Attilius and Corelia's survival is left ambiguous; rather than tell the audience explicitly that the pair survived, the narration alludes to legends about a couple who emerged from the ruins of Pompeii after hiding in a reservoir. These legends may or may not be true. This change in style is a reminder of the nature of the text itself. The novel blends together historical fact with a fictional narrative. Pliny, for example, was a historical figure but his character and his actions as portrayed in the novel are largely fictional. By cloaking the survival of Attilius and Corelia in mystery, the novel provides a final reminder to the audience of the blend of fact and fiction. Their survival, like the novel itself, is a combination of legend, story, facts, and hope, in which the audience can choose to believe any version of events.
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