Pompeii Quotes
"The principles of engineering were simple, universal, impersonal – in Rome, in Gaul, in Campania – which was what Attilius liked about them."
"His face was directly over the running water and he smelt it at once. Released from the confined space of the pipe, it was strong enough to make him want to retch. An unmistakable smell of rottenness. Of rotten eggs."
"The slave was dead. That much was obvious, even from a distance."
"The engineer returned his attention to the water. Was it his imagination or was the pressure slackening?"
"Your property, yes. But the Emperor’s water."
"A good aquarius, his father had said, should know more than just the solid laws of architecture and hydraulics – he should have a taste, a nose, a feel for water, and for the rocks and soils through which it had passed on its journey to the surface. Lives might depend on this skill."
"An aqueduct was a work of Man, but it obeyed the laws of Nature."
"I never thought I’d live to see the Augusta dry. You were right to be worried, pretty boy."
"‘Showers of milk, of blood, of flesh, of iron, of wool, of bricks. Portents.'"
"He could feel a fresh spark of it within himself. He called to a couple of slaves to close the gates to the yard and told Polites to see to it that the two messengers were given food and drink."
"The sky was red with the setting sun and the large lagoon to his right, where the warships were built and repaired, was deserted for the evening; a few seabirds called mournfully among the reeds."
"Nature has granted man no better gift than the shortness of life. The senses grow dull, the limbs are numb, sight, hearing, gait, even the teeth and alimentary organs die before we do, and yet this period is reckoned a portion of life."
"He promised himself that when the aquarius returned he would summon him to dinner and pick his brains to discover exactly what had happened to the Augusta. And then together they would consult some of the texts in the admiral’s library and he would teach him a few of the mysteries of Nature, whose surprises were never-ending."
"Grief at what he had lost and regret at what he had failed to do, his twin assailants, caught him unawares again, and hollowed him, as they always did."
"It was only as they drew closer that Attilius saw that her walls were no longer continuous – that the long years of the Roman peace had persuaded the city fathers to drop their guard."
"He dropped his sack and put his hands into the clear arc of water, cupped them, raised them to his lips. It tasted sweet and pure and he almost laughed aloud with pleasure and relief, then plunged his head beneath the pipe, and let the water run everywhere – into his mouth and nostrils, his ears, down the back of his neck – heedless of the people staring at him as if he had gone insane."
"Baths were not a luxury. Baths were the foundation of civilization."
"The gods! I ask you! As if the gods could care less who or what we fuck or how we live."
"Salve lucrum! 'Hail profit!' That's the motto of the new Pompeii."
"You can have all the money in the Empire but it doesn’t make you a gentleman."
"For the first time he had a presentiment of something terrible. He could not define it. But too much was happening that was out of the ordinary."
"If being stronger than rock means anything any more. But he kept the thought to himself."
"Cement that dries underwater. Now that is a miracle."
"He was remembering the flat, muddy forests of Upper Germany... his men drowning in that filthy barbarian sea."
"The Divine Augustus deserved his place in the pantheon simply for commissioning the Campanian aqueduct and the Piscina Mirabilis."
"He felt an almost childish anticipation... and immediately he was a boy again, back at the family home in Comum."
"It took her a moment to realise that they were having money thrown to them. That was typical of her father."
"She would give them to him herself. Even better, she would tell him where she had been. He would know that she had discovered the truth and then he could do to her what he pleased."
"He felt an overwhelming impulse to surrender to it – a yearning for that perfect blue oblivion so strong that he had to force himself to turn away."
"It was like being caught in a sudden hailstorm – a warm, dark, dry hailstorm, if such a thing were imaginable."
"This phenomenon, whatever it is, is a sign from Nature. This is mine."
"He had loved her so much – his little girl! – how had it come to hatred?"
"He was aware of a wetness on his face and when he dabbed the back of his hand to his nose it came away smeared in blood."
"It was still too early, the thing was too awesome – too strange and remote – for it to be perceived as an immediate threat."
"Sulphur was the universal fuel of all these phenomena – the coil of flame at Comphantium in Bactria, the blazing fishpool on the Babylonian Plain, the field of stars near Mount Hesperius in Ethiopia."
"No Roman should ever succumb to fear: what had happened to the stern values of his youth?"
"Fortune favours the brave, Torquatus. Steer towards the shore!"
"Nature is a merciful deity, her anger never lasts forever. The fire dies. The storm blows itself out. The flood recedes."
"To be brave, by definition, one has first to be afraid."
"The records tell us that the summer in the consulship of Opimius was very much like this one. Long hot days filled with endless sunshine – 'ripe', as the vintners call it."
"The admiral did most of the talking and he tried to keep it light, avoiding all mention, for example, of Rectina and the precious library of the Villa Calpurnia, or the fate of the fleet, which he supposed must be broken up by now and scattered all along the coast."
"Let us drink a toast, to the genius of Roman engineering – to the Aqua Augusta, which gave us warning of what was to happen, if only we had had the wit to heed it!"
"He had trained himself to fall asleep at will – even upright, in a saddle, in a freezing German forest."