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''Pompeii'' is a novel by British author and previous journalist and BBC television reporter Robert Harris published by Random House in 2003. It is a historical fiction with a blend of fictional characters with the real-life eruption of Mount Vesuvius on 24 August 79 AD that overwhelmed Pompeii and its surrounding towns. ''Pompeii'' is especially notable for the author's references to various aspects of volcanology and use of the Roman calendar. A film version of the book, to be directed by Roman Polanski with a budget of US$150M, was cancelled in 2007 due to the threat of the Screen Actors Guild strike. ==Plot summary== Marcus Attilius Primus arrives in the Bay of Naples from Rome to take charge as ''aquarius'' (hydraulic engineer) of the Aqua Augusta, the aqueduct that supplies water to the many towns in a region encompassing the Bay of Naples and Mount Vesuvius. The nine important towns are, in sequential order, Pompeii, Nola, Acerrae, Atella, Naples, Puteoli, Cumae, Baiae, and Misenum. Attilius' predecessor as ''aquarius,'' Exomnius, has mysteriously vanished as the springs that flow through the aqueduct begin to fail, lowering the supply of water available to the region's reservoir, the Piscina Mirabilis in Misenum. Then, dramatically, the flow of water stops entirely. Attilius concludes that the aqueduct must be blocked somewhere close to Mount Vesuvius, since reports claim a shut down of the system just before Nola, meaning that towns from there through Naples and Misenum are without any water supply. With aid from Pliny the Elder, whose fleet is docked at Misenum, Attilius assembles an expedition to travel to Pompeii, the closest town still being supplied with water, and then on to the blocked section of the Aqua Augusta. While Attilius' expedition is there, the ''aquarius'' himself becomes embroiled as part of a plot of the former slave and land speculator Numerius Popidius Ampliatus. Ampliatus is planning to offer a cheap water supply to Pompeii, which Exomnius, the previous ''aquarius'', had helped him do while stealing from the imperial treasury. Attilius' questions and studies make Ampliatus suspicious of what Pliny the Elder and his nephew later discover—thousands of Roman sesterces at the bottom of the reservoir that should have gone to Rome and which Attilius' predecessor had intended to retrieve once he'd emptied the reservoir. Ampliatus' daughter Corelia gets Attilius the proof he needs from her father's written records when he is performing repairs to a collapsed section of tunnel in the region around Mount Vesuvius. The eruption of Mount Vesuvius on 24 August overwhelms Pompeii, Oplontis, and Herculaneum. Attilius risks his life and comes back to Pompeii to find Corelia. Attilius and Corelia dig their way through the aqueduct tunnel, which the springs are beginning to fill—which carries a high risk of drowning. Ampliatus is killed when he refuses to evacuate the city, and Pliny dies from the effects of fumes on a corpulent body when he tries to evacuate the citizens. At the end of the book Attilius and Corelia enter the aqueduct just as the waters are coming back to full flow. The last sentence of the novel reports a local legend that a man and woman had emerged from the aqueduct after the eruption—implying that Attilius and Corelia likely survived the trip up the aqueduct. The incident of Ampliatus feeding a slave to his eels is based on the actual historical case of Vedius Pollio. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Pompeii (novel)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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