Lucilla--NaNoWriMo2014

Chapter Twenty-Four

Mark and Lucilla did not take a train for Rome. Petronius did not know how they traveled but would be watching the train station in Rome.

Mark said to Lucilla, "I have a surprise for you."

"I love surprises. Where are we going?"

"To Pompeii."

"Mark, Pompeii is a myth. Nobody knows where it is. I heard stories of Mount Vesuvius errupting long before I was born. Nobody in Rome knew if it ever existed."

Mark and Lucilla rode past Naples, a huge city on their left as they made their way north.

"Mark, when I was a girl, the sea shore used to come this far inland. We would be in water if this were in my time."

At length they came to the site of Pompeii. There stood the old city walls. The old shoreline was apparent although there were no evidences of ships unearthed.

"I think the ships put out to sea when the earthquake and volcanic ash rained down."

"The city gate still looks like might have when I was a girl. It looks like it could have been built only a hundred years ago.

Once they passed through the city gate, they entered a small museum. There they saw artifacts from the city. Lucilla recognized everything on display.

"Just like I would find in homes and in the markets. Amazing."

Behind glass was a plaster cast of a pregnant girl.

"Lucy, this city was found by a farmer. He was plowing when he struck something. When they were digging, the found bones in cavities. They took time to figure it out. Then they got an idea, they poured plaster in the holes. Then they brushed away the dirt and found images of those who died that day."

"Is this bread, Mark? They made it the same way. I have even seen these marks on the bread. Our bakers made it to show who made it when sold in market."

The two looked around the museum. One image they stopped for was the carving of a man having sex with a dog, which had an agonizing look on its face. The man was grinning.

"Funny what things survive to show what kind of people we were then," Lucilla said.

Then they walked out into the streets. There were white stones set in the larger ones the formed the pavement and the sidewalks.

"Know what those small crystal like stones are for, Mark?"

"What, dear?"

"They will glow at night to show people where they are going. I have noticed street lamps here, but we had no such things in old Rome."

They then went past street after street of ruins of houses and of temples and family shrines. Fountains were still there but no longer dispensing water as in days of old. On and on they walked their bicycles to the main forum. There were the government buildings, the market area, and a temple of Saturn. It had been damaged in an earthquake ten years prior to the day Vesuvius blow its top.

"This is remarkably preserved," Lucilla said. "Are there any homes intact, Mark?"

Mark then took her to a house not unlike what she had lived in. A door that opened into the streets, an atrium at one end and a pool complete with fountains, lead pipes for water, and off an on valves.

"Mark, you have plumbing nowadays, but the items such as valves and pipes are not like ours. It is as if the whole art of plumbing disappeared and had to be rediscovered."

"Lucy, that is exactly what happened. We were a thousand years learning again what your craftsmen forgot after Rome fell. People left and left their tools. Plumbing died and was reborn."

Mount Vesuvius loomed large as they traveled to the arena.

"Lucy, you have seen combats in your time. Did you hear how seriously they took the Gladiatorial combats here."

"Myth says they chose sides among the gladiator teams would join them in the arenas and then fight to the death with them."

"It really happened here, Lucy."

Then they stepped throught the gate to the arena. There on the walls the names of prostitutes were written.

"Oh, Mark, there is the name of Hera. She really did live, after all. That is another myth. Hera could service 25 to 50 customers in one night. She was second only to Messilina in Rome, so the story goes. But she was a willing amateur."

Then they stepped into the ampitheater.

"In my time, Mark, they put on plays by Roman writers and those of the Greeks."

"You have seen Oedipus Rex, Lucy?"

"Yes, Odeipus is separated from his mother at birth. She is the wife of the king. One day Oedipus confronts the king along the way. For some reason they fight. Oedipus kills him and ends up in the city where he confronts his mother. He does not know who she is. He has to pass tests in order to win her hand in marriage."

"That play still exists. We have copies."

"Mark, it was not fair that Oedipus drove himself to discover who killed his father. He loved his wife so much. He pursued the truth, but the truth bit him and his wife. She commits suicide because she innocently married her son. Absurd. He then has his eyes put out because of his deed. But he was innocent."

"How did you like Lysistrara?"

"Oh, how funny it was, Mark. Women in Greece were tired of war, so in order to have peace, the women in the warring countries agree to withhold having sex with their husbands until there was peace among their countries."

"Have you heard of anyone talking about the play Julius Caesar? It was not written in your time. Rather an Englishman by the name of Shakespeare wrote about the death of Caesar."

As they looked over the stage, Lucilla tried to imagine the plays that took place there.

"You know of Brutus, Calpurnia, Portia, Marcus Antony?"

"Yes, they come to us by the historians."

Mark then told her the story of Julius Caesar and how people considered him to be gaining too much power. How the senators waited for Caesar to convene the Senate one day. How they gave him mutiple wounds. The speech that Mark Antony made that turned the crowds against Brutus and his companions.

Lucilla gave Mark an skeptical look. "I am no sure of the speech. Tacitus says nothing about it and neither does Seneca. But there was a civil war and later Mark Antony went to Egypt and fought against Octavia or Augustus Caesar. The Battle of Actium."

"Remember the Library of Alexandria?"

"Yes, my father took me there as a girl. They confiscated out writings and copied them. Then we got them back. It took but three days. That is how they got my fathers writings."

"Well, his works are no longer there."

"Some barbarian stole them out of the library?"

"No, the library burned down. Everything in it went up in flames."

"What about the Lighthouse, we could see it for miles."

"it's gone too."

For a few moments Mark and Lucilla had ignored a party of tourists who turned out to be German SS men and civilians. Lucilla let out a muffled gasp when she saw Petronius among them.

Mark managed to pull Lucilla into a small, dark niche while they passed with heads in the air admiring the ornate statuary on the top row of the ampitheater.

After they passed Mark and Lucilla took a street parallel with the forum. Lucilla studied the markings and women's names over the door.

"Mark, this was a brothel. They went inside. There were no beds but a low shelf which if padded could have supported ancient prostitute and her customer.

"Oh, Mark, I'm feeling like a whore at this moment. She pulled him on top of her.

They made love.