Free Pompeii by Robert Harris Page B

baby when his father had finished the Aqua Claudia, but so often had he been told the story of the day of its dedication – of how, at four months old, he had been passed over the shoulders of the engineers in the great crowd on the Esquiline Hill – that it sometimes seemed to him he could remember it all at first hand: the elderly Claudius, twitching and stammering as he sacrificed to Neptune, and then the water appearing in the channel, as if by magic, at the exact moment that he raised his hands to the sky. But that had had nothing to do with the intervention of the gods, despite the gasps of those present. That was because his father had known the laws of engineering and had opened the sluices at the head of the aqueduct exactly eighteen hours before the ceremony was due to reach its climax, and had ridden back into the city faster than the water could chase him.
    He contemplated the piece of clay in his palm.
    And you, father? Did you ever come to Misenum? Did you know Exomnius? The aquarii of Rome were always a family – as close as a cohort, you used to say. Was Exomnius one of those engineers on the Esquiline on your day of triumph? Did he swing me in his arms with the rest?
    He stared at the figure for a while, then kissed it and put it carefully with the others.
    He sat back on his haunches.
    First the aquarius disappears and then the water. The more he considered it, the more convinced he was that these must be connected. But how? He glanced around the roughly plastered walls. No clue here, that was for sure. No trace of any man's character left behind in this plain cell. And yet, according to Corax, Exomnius had run the Augusta for twenty years.
    He retrieved the lamp and went out into the passage, shielding the flame with his hand. Drawing back the curtain opposite, he shone the light into the cubicle where Exomnius's possessions were stored. A couple of wooden chests, a pair of bronze candelabra, a cloak, sandals, a pisspot. It was not much to show for a lifetime. Neither of the chests was locked, he noticed.
    He glanced towards the staircase, but the only sound coming from below was snoring. Still holding the lamp, he lifted the lid of the nearest chest and began to rummage through it with his free hand. Clothes – old clothes mostly – which, as he disturbed them, released a strong smell of stale sweat. Two tunics, loincloths, a toga, neatly folded. He closed the lid quietly and raised the other. Not much in this chest, either. A skin scraper for removing oil in the baths. A jokey figure of Priapus with a vastly extended penis. A clay beaker for throwing dice, with more penises inlaid around its rim. The dice themselves. A few glass jars containing various herbs and unguents. A couple of plates. A small bronze goblet, badly tarnished.
    He rolled the dice as gently as he could in the beaker and threw them. His luck was in. Four sixes – the Venus throw. He tried again and threw another Venus. The third Venus settled it. Loaded dice.
    He put away the dice and picked up the goblet. Was it really bronze? Now he examined it more closely, he was not so sure. He weighed it in his hand, turned it over, breathed on it and rubbed the bottom with his thumb. A smear of gold appeared and part of an engraved letter P . He rubbed again, gradually increasing the radius of gleaming metal, until he could make out all the initials.
    N. P. N. l. A.
    The l stood for libertus and showed it to be the property of a freed slave.
    A slave who had been freed by an owner whose family name began with a P, and who was rich enough, and vulgar enough, to drink his wine from a gold cup.
    Her voice was suddenly as clear in his mind as if she had been standing beside him.
    'My name is Corelia Ampliata, daughter of Numerius Popidius Ampliatus, owner of the Villa Hortensia...'

    The moonlight shone on the smooth black stones of the narrow street and silhouetted the lines of the flat roofs. It felt almost as hot as it had been in the late