Library Notes
August 14, 2004
By Pansy Hundley, Librarian.
How much do you know about Pompeii? Well, you are about to know more about it than you’ve ever known before. Our group toured Pompeii, I bought the book and we learned some very interesting information about this place that we had only heard of before.
In the beginning days of ancient Pompeii, these poor people did not know for quite some time which language they should speak, or who to pay homage to, or where to pay their taxes!
They were taken over by the Greeks, then the Etruscans, the Samnites from Hirpinia and later the Romans came trooping in and a special form of "association" came about that allowed the people a certain amount of independence. Then came the Social War launched by the Italians against Rome, and Pompeii took the opportunity to shake their yoke and fight for its’ freedom.
Rome finally defeated the Italians at Nola and Pompeii officially became a Colony in 80 BC. With time the Pompeians became so completely Roman as to accept their language, customs and laws.
My little Pompeii book that I bought, in Pompeii, of course, tells us this:
"The first sign of the tragedy that was to strike Pompeii came from the terrible earthquake of 62 AD. The city, like many others in the region, suffered severe damages. When the fear of another quake had passed, reconstruction and restoration of the temples, and public and private buildings began. The city built new luxurious homes, workshops and stores, increasing its’ economic, commercial and industrial strength.
However, seventeen yeas later, on 24 August 79 A.D. , slightly after twelve o’clock noon the incredible disaster struck. Vesuvius erupted, literally burying the city (along with Herculaneum and Stabia) under six to seven meters of ash, lapilli and volcanic matter. Only a few managed to escape. Most of the population that numbered around twenty thousand died of suffocation in the streets, houses and cellars, where many thought they could find refuge from the destructive fury of the fire and poisonous gases.
Vesuvius was the cause of Pompeii’s tragedy and also its’ fortune. Tragic because of the eruptions which caused the apocalyptic destruction of entire cities like Pompeii, Herculaneum and Stabia, yet fortunate for us because she has preserved her victims almost intact, a silent yet eloquent testimony of a not inglorious past, of an industrious way of life, of a civilization in its’ most intimate essence. In the Forum, looking towards the Temple of Jupiter, you see it before you, immense, grey, with its two peaks (Somma and Vesuvius) about 1270 metres high."
This city of 20,000 people covered a total of 62 acres. Of that 62 acres, twelve acres have still not been excavated, after the hundreds of years that have passed. At the time excavation began, the city was covered over with 25 feet of ash, lapilli, and volcanic matter, as well as centuries of dirt.
And, for this week, we will have to leave this interesting, tragic, very unusual place, but we’ll return next week to learn even more about it. You could call this" Pompeii #1," with a continuing story., or you could call it "Pansy’s Continuing Vacation" or you could call it "She’s Still Talking". But, you know, people keep telling me how much they are enjoying my trip, and you remember about the bulldog and sic ‘em and so I just keep going. However, the end is in sight, for those of you who want to move on to lawnmower troubles (Oh, Not Again!) or mouse problems, or just the continuing problems of Pansy. For this week, let us now jump into a good, interesting ,exciting mystery book, and hope that it is present in this library when you pop in to collect it and sit up all night reading it. "Relative Sins", written by Cynthia Victor, seems a good one to fill the bill.
"Once upon a time, shy and insecure Kailey Davids had been easy prey for the manipulating, social-climbing Cameron Hawkes. But when Cameron’s true colors were finally revealed, Kailey fled their unbearably destructive marriage, only to die – so the world thought – along with her infant daughter in the fiery car crash engineered by her husband. Now, a lifetime away from this evil and tragic event, Kailey Davids and Susannah Holland – mother and daughter – are leading separate lives, continents apart. Neither is aware of the forces of fate that will hurl them together and reunite them with Cameron. And neither is aware they are giving him the chance to destroy them both again.
Sweeping from New York to California to Rome and Southeast Asia, this gripping novel of betrayal, passion, and the bonds of love, is fiction at its’ most irresistible."
Now, I ask you, is that one likely to keep you awake and sitting up all night, or not?