The noonday sun rose, searing, in the skies over Baiae, a popular vacation spot for Rome's elite and anyone else who could afford it. Bathers lolled on the beaches and tourists streamed into the shops and eateries of the town. At this time of day, everyone wanted to be either indoors or close to water. In his villa overlooking the city, Senator and Ex-Consul Iullus Bricius pushed aside the pile of letters, memos, petitions, and other odds and ends on his desk. He was sick of all of it. A tall, lanky man with grizzled, curly dark hair and piercing brown eyes, he wanted nothing better than to retire and go home to Gaul.
He stood up ftom his desk to stretch his back and legs. He was thirty-nine, and a Senator only because of his family's position in their ancestral Province. Or because, and this was his working theory, the damn Emperors in Rome kept killing everybody else and had few other options. Needing to move around, he left his praetorium, or office, and walked down a side colonnade into the garden. From here, he had a sweeping vista of the bay and a distant volcano towering on the shore opposite. It had been shooting plumes of smoke and ash for weeks. The idiots in the towns below, mostly Pompeii and Herculaneum, assumed it was Vulcan at work in his forge, too content and busy to be upset about anything. Bricius, a Celt of the Arveni tribe and descendant of both Vercingetorix and Mark Antony, had another idea. Gobbanos was pissed off and planning a nasty surprise. As he looked toward Vesuvius, the top of the mountain suddenly disappeared in a column of smoke and ash, billowing straight into the sky in the shape of giant mushrooms.
"Oh, shit!" Bricius shouted.
He yanked open the garden gate, crossed an alley, and got the attention of a gardener on the neighboring property. The man opened that gate. Bricius ran past him along a rock path toward the kitchen entrance. He pawed the door open.
"Primus! Uncle Beaky!"
He charged through the kitchen, hoping his relatives on the maternal side were home. A houseman found him.
"We're seeing it, My Lord," he said. "Come with me."
He led Bricius to the vestibule of the home, where seventy-six-year-old Ex-Consul Julius Antonius, called Beaky, and his son, Legatus Marcus Antonius Primus, stood looking at the same cloud, which was growing in intensity. Julius made up his mind.
"Marcus, I need you to get to Messala. I'm ordering the evacuation of Stabaiae, Baiae, and Misenum. Everyone needs to fall back on Capua or Cales. Iullus, get to Capua and then to Cales, let them know to expect refugees and open their public buildings. Move!"
"Don't go home," Primus said to Bricius. "We can use our horses here."
Glad that he still routinely wore braccaes or trousers, closed boots, and a shirt-like tunic as a proper Celt always did, Bricius followed Primus to the stables. Both men's training kicked in as they saddled and bridled horses and vaulted aboard. Bricius found the main road out of town and kicked his horse to the gallop as the ash cloud picked up intensity behind him.
...
The earth rumbled and a shelf of knick-knacks fell forward with a crash, sending shards of glass and pottery across the tile. Flavius Messala, a former Legate and now City Magistrate of Baiae, lurched out of his nap and stumbled into the corridor as the earth below continued to rumble. He had felt earthquakes before, including one in Syria over fifty years ago. He ran outside and looked across the bay.
"Ye Gods!"
Others were seeing the same thing and beginning to panic. Messala, now in his seventies, put years of training in focus. He called some vigiles or town constables.
"Get everyone off the damn beach!"
He got the attention of an Aedile, or city administrator who lived in the domus or house across the street.
"Open the theatres, the circus, and temples," he said. "We'll need meeting points and shelters."
He backtracked and poked his head in the side door of his home.
"Victory!"
His wife of fifty-three years came around a corner, a basket of medical instruments in her hand and two capsae, or cylindrical leather cases for bandages, slung over her shoulder. A trained medic and midwife, she knew more of what to do than he did.
"I see it," she said.
They ran toward his office in the forum or city square. Panicked vacationers trailed him. Not in the mood, he turned on them.
"You see what's happening! If you want to live, get your asses out of town. Get to Capua or Cales."
He repeated his message as he elbowed his way through the crowded streets. He found Prince Alexander of Mauretania.
"I need you to ride to Rome, let the August One know what's going on. We need help down here."
"Yes, Sir!" Alexander said.
He heard someone shout his name.
"Messala!"
He turned to see Antonius Primus and Praetorian Tribune Malchis Barca, already on horseback.
"Father's ordered the evacuation of the town," Primus said.
"Hot damn, I'm already on that!" Messala snapped.
He joined several other Senators, officers, and town officials already gathering in the largest administration building at the forum. Citizens crowded around, demanding answers. Messala raised his hands for quiet.
"We are evacuating the town, take what you can carry, and get to Capua or Cales!"
....
The forum in Cales never settled down, no matter the time of day. Situated near the coast of Campania, it was an anchor town for the Via Latina, a major artery to the Appian Way, which ran from the Port of Brundisium and up the boot of Italy to Rome. The Vinicius family were the main landowners in the area, and their vineyards produced the finest wines in Italy. Marcus Vinicius, a forty-six-year-old former general and now gentleman farmer made his way through the crowds. He had just finished a conference with his accountant and banker and needed a late lunch before going home. He found a taberna and got in the line to the counter. As he waited, he scanned the horizon. A large plume of smoke rose in the distant sky.
"Looks like it finally blew," another man said.
Others also noticed, and reached the same conclusion. Marcus forgot about lunch. Within hours, Cales and so many other cities would be overloaded with refugees, many badly wounded. He left the line and found a side street, entering the vestibule of a large domus or townhouse. An overseer or leader of the local Christian community lived there. Marcus had never converted, but his wife and daughters were devout and he attended meetings on special occasions.
"Is your master home?" he asked a doorman.
The servant left and Marcus pondered his next moves. The Christian came into his atrium.
"General Vinicius," he said. "A pleasure to see you."
"And you, Pudens," Marcus said. "But my errand is not pleasant. Vesuvius just blew."
"Dear God in Heaven!" Pudens said. "We'll have people coming this way."
"My thoughts exactly," Vinicius said. "I came to offer my help."
"You are the most qualified," Pudens said.
He called his servants and sent them to find other Overseers and Elders scattered through the city. Then he and Vinicius began tallying up possible supplies and places for food and aid stations. They could tell from the street noise that more people were becoming aware of the disaster and starting to panic.
...
Victoria looked around her at bedlam. Despite orders to the contrary, people had loaded up carts and pack animals, and many were using litters or even traveling chariots, large four-wheeled, horse-drawn vehicles that took up most of the road space. Pedestrians stood little chance in the chaos and were trying to muddle along on the curbs of the road. A pregnant woman huddled in pain, cradling her belly and trying to herd three small children.
Victoria knew that sudden, emergency childbirths and miscarriages were likely, caught the woman's attention and led her off the trail behind a bush. They spread a blanket carried by the oldest child and she helped the mother lay down on it.
"We can get through this," Victoria said. "I'm a midwife. Just do what I say."
As she paced the mother through her contractions, she could hear Julius and Flavius bellowing orders. Like most military men, they had almost no patience for civilians. Victoria disagreed. Dispaced people were never disciplined and rarely followed orders. Such was life. Berating them only made their behavior worse. She guided the baby through the birth canal as the mother struggled for breath. Smoke and ash were now thick in the air, making breathing difficult. The child was squalling as Victoria lifted him up for his mother to see.
"We have a little recruit here," she said. "And he's already got the lungs for a parade ground."
Victoria snipped the cord as the mother clasped the child to her breast. She could feed him. Where the others would get food was anyone's guess. Victoria delivered the afterbirth and cleaned the mother up as best she could.
"You'll have to get up and keep moving," she said. "You can't stay here."
She pulled the mother to her feet and guided the family back to the roadside. Another pregnant woman in distress huddled by a milestone. Victoria helped her stand, found another bush, and repeated the process. It would be a long night.
....
Iullus Bricius had alerted Capua, Cales, and several other towns and was now on his way back toward the Bay. All roads leading out of the area were packed. He came to a rise and looked toward Vesuvius. The top and side of the volcano glowed red. As he watched, a chunk of the mountain facing Pompeii tore away, molten lava rolling toward Pompeii, Herculaneum, and he guessed Oplontis. No one was alive in those towns now.