Pompeii*

He sat in a crouched position. With his palms he covered his face, contorted in terror and disbelief. Two thousand years hence, from beyond the iron bars of a dusty locked storage room, we stared at him arrested by the frozen expression.

We, Dani, Cinthia and I got out from the Pompeii Scavi metro station into a burning sun. Cold drink and souvenir shops lined the street outside and vendors urged the tourists pouring out of the station to buy bottles of frozen water for double the usual price. The heat beating down upon us was so intense that we could hardly refuse their bid. Our backpacks heavy with water bottles we left behind the clamour and chaos outside and entered the gates of Pompeii and then the world changed

People bewailed their own fate or that of their relatives, and there were some who prayed for death in their terror of dying. Many besought the aid of the gods, but still more imagined there were no gods left, and that the universe was plunged into eternal darkness for evermore.

The Pompeiians awoke to a usual morning on the 24th of August, AD79. By the early afternoon they noticed a cloud of unusual size and appearance in the skyline. Gradually panic spread. Some stay put, preferring the refuge of their carefully built brick and stone houses.Others began to leave,urging their horse driven carriages on through the stone paved streets.After, hell struck..

The catastrophic eruption of Mount Vesuvius spanned two days. It buried the entire city in metres of ash and pumice.Those who chose to stay back died of the intense heat and suffocation.The catastrophe left such strong memories that Pompeii was left unoccupied for years. Gradually more earth accumulated and Pompeii and her fate were forgotten.

The pavement stones of the streets are intact. We walked carefully avoiding the depressions formed by the cart wheels.We stopped at the threshold of houses. There no longer was any need to knock.we entered the houses appreciating the faded paintings on the walls and the interior gardens. An elaborate mosaic at the threshold of one asked us to be "Beware of the Dog". The temples and houses of Pompeii now opens into the heavens arrested in surprise. In the battle of gods neither Apollo nor Jupiter stood a chance against Vulcan, the Roman god of fire.Incidentally the eruption of theVesuvius happened a day after Vulcanalia, the festival for Vulcan.

Today the Vesuvius occupies the sky line of Pompeii in presumed innocence. It is hard to imagine the magnitude of the terror it once unleashed upon a trusting populace that had occupied its foothill. But a few days later I trekked up another mountain, the Etna. Located in the East coast of Siclily Mt.Etna is a still active volcano. White spirals of steam rises constantly from its summit. "When the fumes turn gray, we know we are in trouble." says our tour guide. He showed us how Etna transforms the landscape around her almost every day.We stood gaping at the edges of the huge craters formed by lava flow, and trekked up over piles of black gravelly lava stone. From among the pile stood out a few splinters that had been only three years ago a three-storey five star hotel. The day before we went the Etna had had one of her little fits of anger.


Back to our storyline, the forgotten city of Pompeii came again to attention in the 16th century. Ever since the excavations and restoration of the site has been in progress. In 1860 the human remains in the site were brought to the attention of Giuseppe Fiorelli who was in charge of the excavations. In a sudden inspiration he decided to pour plaster into the cavities and cast the remains.

You will read what I have written, but will not take up your pen, as the material is not the stuff of history. You have only yourself to blame if it seems not even proper stuff for a letter. Farewell.

We wandered among the ruins marveling at the perfection of the baths and the proportions of the theaters and temples.But not until we saw the plastercasts did the intensity of what we were seeing really strike us. The ghost city. Its love and hatred, its every day, the greatest of its aspirations and the pettiest of its deeds, all frozen into a moment.

If I start to describe the sights of Pompeii. I could go on and on and it would fill pages.Descriptions that you would find in any good tourism website. But try as I might I cannot describe how I felt being there- amazed? petrified? We took the Circumvesuvian train line back to the hostel. And, no longer longer could I look outside my window at the Vesuvius without hearing the echo of a centuries-old wrath.



**The quotes are from the letters of Pliny the Younger, who escaped the tragedy in 79AD and gave an eye witness account of the events in letters to his friend and historian Tacitus