more about the novel 'Pompeii'

I loved the novel Pompeii so much that I can't resist writing about it again.

I don't want to post a spoiler, of course, so I have to be careful here...

But the whole time I was reading it I was thinking of the fact that the Romans didn't know what a volcano could do, because the only volcano to have erupted near a city was Etna, in Sicily. Only an extremely highly educated and well-read citizen would have recognised the warning signs of a volcanic eruption. This was one of the gripping aspects of the story - I winced each time Attillius, the main character, pondered the strange things he was seeing.

Two of the Pliny family play a part in the story, uncle and nephew. I've just come across the nephew's account of that day. It must have been a terrifying day. Parts of it remind me of the night in 1983 when I drove through ashy smoke to the Upper Yarra Valley, trying to find my uncles, who were trapped in East Warburton during the Ash Wednesday Bushfires. There was an air of general panic, and a young constable standing at the crossroads at the town of Yarra Junction told me East Warburton was burned to the ground and everyone was dead. Pliny's account of fleeing from Misenum with his mother as part of a panicked crowd seems to have had similarities to the misinformation and fear that governed the night of our bushfires. He wrote:

We had scarcely sat down when a darkness came that was not like a moonless or cloudy night, but more like the black of closed and unlighted rooms. You could hear women lamenting, children crying, men shouting. Some were calling for parents, others for children or spouses; they could only recognize them by their voices. Some bemoaned their own lot, other that of their near and dear. There were some so afraid of death that they prayed for death. Many raised their hands to the gods, and even more believed that there were no gods any longer and that this was one last unending night for the world. Nor were we without people who magnified real dangers with fictitious horrors. Some announced that one or another part of Misenum had collapsed or burned; lies, but they found believers.

As far as I know, Misenum survived the eruption okay. And my uncles were fine, by the way. They were asleep in bed!

Some trailers for the 2009 exhibition in Melbourne, 'A Day in Pompeii', give some idea of what it must have been like for those people in Roman Italy so long ago:
here and here.

I remember that I wept when I saw this one in 3D.

Here's a link to the published letters of Pliny the Younger. I couldn't find the one to Tacitus about Vesuvius, though. Perhaps I didn't persevere long enough. I'm looking forward to reading through them one by one. It's a great insight into the life of a man I'd like to have met.

a moratorium on remoras

Reading The Big Issue today, I came across the word remora.

It was explained in Mic Looby's regular column. He said the word comes from the Latin for 'delay', because 'according to one legend, a few affixed remora can slow a ship's progress'.

Online Etymology Dictionary says: "sucking fish", 1567, from L. remora, lit. "delay, hindrance," from re- "back" + mora "delay"...Pliny writes that Antony's galley was delayed by one at the Battle of Actium.

I wondered how large they are, that they could slow a ship, so I had a look at a video clip of one attaching itself to a diver who was waiting out a decompression stop on the way up from a dive, and it only seemed as long as his forearm.



Dive The World, where this video was posted, says:

In ancient times, the remora was believed to stop a ship from sailing. In Latin remora means "delay", while the genus name Echeneis comes from Greek echein ("to hold") and naus ("a ship"). Particularly notable is the account of Pliny the Younger, in which the remora is blamed for the defeat of Mark http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifAntony at the Battle of Actium and (indirectly) for the death of Caligula.

Good on you, little (or not so little) remora, I say. Caligula was no loss, from what I gather.

Here's a fascinating essay with interesting quotes from Pliny. It seems that "Upon its being shown to the emperor [Caligula], he strongly expressed his indignation that such an obstacle as this should have impeded his progress, and have rendered powerless the hearty endeavours of some four hundred men. One thing, too, it is well known, more particularly surprised him, how it was possible that the fish, while adhering to the ship, should arrest its progress, and yet should have no such power when brought on board" (Id.). Thus, Pliny points out, "did an insignificant fish give presage of great events.

Encarta says they grow to about 90 centimetres long, so I suppose if you were rowing around in a galley, a few remoras on the hull might slow you down.

Then I got to wondering about the word moratorium. Back to the Online Etymology Dictionary:

1875, originally a legal term for "authorization to a debtor to postpone payment," from neut. of L.L. moratorius "tending to delay," from L. morari "to delay," from mora "pause, delay," originally "standing there thinking." The word didn't come out of italics until 1914. General sense of "a postponement, deliberate temporary suspension" is first recorded 1932.

Well, enough of standing here thinking... I'd better stop.