Last Decades in Pompeii

In the first century CE, no place on Earth seemed as favored as Pompeii.  It was a vacation destination, very like the Hamptons or Caribbean today, where the wealthy would go for a while and dream of living on the villas overlooking the bay of Naples.  A place to relax and enjoy away from the cares of life and the hassles of the busy capital of the Roman Empire.

The villas stretched for miles, beginning to overrun the vineyards and farms which the locals had cultivated for centuries in the rich volcanic soil.  Fishermen whose ancestors not so long ago were poor and scratching out a living were suddenly delivering fresh seafood to markets at top dollar.  Money was exchanging hands, there seemed no end to possibility, the sun was warm and bright.  The Empire itself was entering a long phase of prosperity, where indeed all roads and tribute led to Rome, now being clad in marble. 

Of course, you had to be a citizen.  Dreams were not for the likes of the slaves, who actually tilled the soil, trimmed the vines, worked in the sex shops, created the artisan trinkets being sold, no doubt, as souvenirs.   Restaurants and shops flourished, all staffed by slaves, owned by freemen who had once been poor.  This was a civilization built on slave labor, as were most of those in the agricultural ancient world.

Maybe once in a while someone would worry a little about Vesuvius, looming overhead.  And yet, the volcano had been dormant for so long that the likelihood of anything happening on any given day seemed quite remote.  And surely, even the Cassandras felt that there would be typical warning signs if it was becoming active again.  Perhaps plumes of smoke or trembling earth.  Time enough then to gather belongings and get away. 

Just one more day in paradise, that’s all anyone wanted.  They would deal with the future as it came.  Life is, after all, dangerous anywhere.  No worries, have a drink.

Of course, on that awful day in 79 Vesuvius activated with a vengeance and no warning.  By the time anyone realized what was happening, most had been killed by superheated air rushing down the mountain, and soon after by the poisonous gas pouring through the streets.  The pumice that rapidly buried everything was almost, as it were, and afterthought.

We enjoy our days immensely, and have our own pleasures.  We think that if something catastrophic should happen to the climate, as we know it has in the past, we will have time and warnings.  Perhaps that is so.  But maybe the climate effects will be more like the hot air, gas, and pumice, sudden and final and with no chance at all to try to fix problems.

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An interesting thought experiment is imagining that I ended up somewhere, at my exact age and situation but possibly able to speak the language fluently, and wondering what I would do, even knowing a tragedy would strike.  I have no illusions about my influence on things. 

Should I be about to board the Titanic, I would no doubt exchange my ticket and avoid the trip.  I might or might not try to warn someone about the danger, but who would listen anyway?  More morally uncertain is what I would do if I were placed in, say, Nazi Germany in the twenties, or in Pompeii in the thirties.  Should I spend my final years warning appropriate people of what is to come _ would I be any more heeded than those who are aware of the climate today?  Or should I just express my opinions where appropriate, but otherwise enjoy living out my days as best as possible?

I’ve done a lot in the world, I still influence my small domain as I will.  But it is also important to retain a cosmic balance and accept even the bad which is sure to come (in my opinion.)  It all may or may not be part of a cosmic plan, but the future is certainly unknowable, even to an astute fellow like myself.  Perhaps it is “apres moi, le deluge.”  But I refuse to take full, or much, responsibility for what may happen; just as I must take little or no credit if things should turn out well after all.

 

 

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Another vision by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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On stately slopes, drenched by the sun,

The villas overlooked the bay,

Not far from Naples, up the shore,

Where wealthy Romans, rulers, more

Came to relax and play.

 

So many miles of fertile ground

With walls and courtyards circled round

The inner gardens bright with flower scent

Which floated on the murmured fountain fall

And outside stretching towards the sky there went

The vineyards, groves of fruit trees tall.

 

But oh! That deep forbidden chasm which shafted

Deep in the mountain heated richly under!

A savage place! as holy and destructive

As any scroll or sacred book instructed

To priests who warned of hubris-destined blunder!

 

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,

As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,

A mighty fountain creepingly was forced;

Amid whose swift gas plumes which burst

Would rain the dust as blindingly as snow,

Or potters’ clay, to harden here below;

And ‘mid those falling rocks to rest forever

Would hold a moment of historic river.

 

Square miles to vanish in an instant motion,

Freeze master, slave, and servant as they ran,

Each one-time wealthy Roman, ruler, more,

Would end together as a lifeless ocean.

 

And ‘mid the quiet, underneath the lyre,

Some learned voices prophesized the fire!

 

The vessels bringing visitors for pleasure

Floated wind-swept on the waves;

And soon was heard the sighs of leisure

As vacations drowned the hassle of the days.

It was a miracle of craft of men

The villas filled with harmony again!

 

Professors with their digging tools

In a picture once I saw:

They were Italians reaching for their past,

And used their tools to find that last,

Hoping for Empire’s call.

 

Could I revive within me

Such optimistic dreams

To such deep delights ‘twould win me

That in essays filled with schemes,

I would build that future fine,

Those happy folk! Those sun-drenched ways!

 

And all who heard should see them there,

And all should cry, Beware! Beware!

His flashing eyes, his floating hair!

Weave a circle round him thrice,

And close your eyes with holy dread,

For he on honey-dew hath fed,

And drunk the milk of Paradise.

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You have undoubtedly been exposed to Twain’s “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court,” or any of its many variants in all forms of entertainment.  If only you could go back in time with what you know, how easily you could become wealthy and important.  But the sad fact is that very few people know enough about the details of history at any given time to make useful predictions, and a lot of what we know is predicated on other knowledge already being available (e.g. knowing how to make gunpowder is relatively useless without the ability to make the iron for cannons.)  And we are always stuck, just as we are in the present, with the limitations of who we actually are.  Perhaps your journey would be more like H. G. Wells’ “In the Country of the Blind.”, where the power to see becomes a handicap.

Especially for long journeys, you would have to relearn a new language from scratch.  And how could you tell what year it was?  Even if you know Vesuvius erupted in 79AD, how would you relate that to the people of that era who used completely different dating methodology?  For the year makes all the difference _ leave a good thing too soon and you are simply poor and foolish _ again.  Wait too long, and you are dead.

In most of history, even having a general idea of what is going to happen will be of very little use during the normal lifespan of a life.  The Roman Empire will fall _ sure _ but when and where exactly.  The Huns are coming?  Same issues.  Even simple things like knowing rats cause bubonic plague won’t be of much use if the bubonic plague doesn’t happen to be the plague du jour. 

The sad fact is returning to the past, with a fair amount of knowledge of how the future really worked out, puts you in not much better shape than you are in the present, wondering which of the strong possibilities (or some long-shot) for the future works out.  It is still you getting out of bed, making decisions, living the day, one day at a time.  Living in fear and hoping for a sign of imminent disaster will only cause you more worry, and will not save you from the blast, gas, and stone when it suddenly shows up.

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Some, especially those with great stakes in keeping the world as it is, deny that there is any change in climate, or that if there is people and industry are the cause, or that if they are there is nothing to be done about it anyway.  Many more accept that the world is getting warmer, for whatever reason, and no matter what may be done.

But the scenarios are largely distant and gradual _ the sea will rise a few meters over a century, the temperature will go up a few degrees centigrade,  storms may become somewhat more frequent and severe.  Local rainfall patterns may change.  Some species may become extinct.  Too bad, of course, but all that you really need to do is to build a three foot seawall where necessary;  use a little more air conditioning; make houses stronger; change the patterns of what is grown to match the new climate.

Few except alarmist catastrophists point to tippling points and sudden equilibrium shifts.  Suddenly the sea may be saturated with CO2 and the temperature will skyrocket quickly.  Suddenly storms may be so severe that we never recover from them, and cannot move goods as we do now.  Rainfall patterns may become so erratic that we can plan no crops, and that everything fails one way or another.  Water disputes may turn into nuclear wars.  The squalid conditions leading to population collapse may bring forth a new plague.  Not in decades or centuries, but in months or years.  Not gradually, but so severely that there can be no normal adjustment.

Of course, at some point, the Earth is self-correcting and life will survive, maybe even human life, but after the death of billions and the end of the pollution and ecological dumping.  Not over centuries.  Suddenly as the black plague swept Europe, and with as little escape for anyone.

It is like living under the volcano of Vesuvius.  We all know it may erupt anytime, but nobody knows when, and meanwhile the days are lovely and life is very good.

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Lucius Publius was chatting with his neighbor Antonius Primus as they surveyed the crews working their fields above Pompeii.  They were some of the originals, people whose ancestors had been here seemingly forever, when the farms were respectable but poor, and all wealth was isolated and local.  Vast changes had been occurring as the town went upscale and the elite decided this was one of the places to be each summer, to see and be seen, to experience the fringes of life.

“So, Lucius, what’s new?” The Mediterranean sparkled below, blue and dotted with sails.

“Well,” drawled Lucius “To tell you the truth I’ve got an offer I don’t think I can refuse.”

“It’s hard to believe the prices being offered these days, isn’t it?”

“You said it.  I hate to give it up, this landscape is in my blood, but I think I owe it to the family to take what I can and let them try to move on up.”

“Now me,” said Antonius, “I don’t think it’s quite at peak.  I’m gonna hang on a few years and let the kids make their own decisions and probably get more.”

“I don’t know.  It seems like a big bubble to me.  One minor eruption from the big guy over there,” he gestured at Vesuvius, “ and the fat cats might all decide Naples is the better bet.”

“Ah, it’s ignored us this long, I’m sure it will ignore us some more.  Life is risk.”

“True enough.  Well, our risk is to find some modest villa outside Rome and make some connections.”

“When you moving out?” asked Antonius.

“Oh, in a month or so.  No rush.  They’re gonna level everything and start over.  Just want the lot, you know.”

“Yeah, no respect for patrimony.  Well, I’ll certainly miss you.”

“You should think about it friend,” said Lucius.  “We’re not getting any younger.”

“Too old to start over in Rome, for me, I think, “ smiled Antonius.

And the years went on.  Antonius held on to his farm, which kept rising in paper value, as his children engaged in local town politics.  He died shortly before Vesuvius blew, and never know that all his generations and all memories of them had been completely erased from the face of the Earth in a matter of hours.

Lucius found a lovely small villa and his children went into public service, rising in the bureaucracy as the Empire grew.  Unfortunately, all his descendants succumbed to the Antonine Plague a hundred-odd years later, and in the end there was nothing remaining of his family history either.

No matter what decision you make, you never know.  Both Lucius and Antonius themselves lived full and happy lives, and died in the happy knowledge that they had done their best.  There is no real way to prepare for most of the possible calamities of the future, and those that do so lose their best chances of the present.

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Some claim history teaches us lessons.  Others dismiss it as bunk, for today is always new and tomorrow always unexpected.  Certainly trying to tease grand themes out of the past and apply them to the grand themes of today is usually an excuse to bolster irrationally formed goals.

On the other hand, to approach history humbly as a set of stories of people just like us living (or in this case not) through events can make us reflect on our own place.  The circumstances of history are stranger than fiction, and the reactions to those events were real, not conjured up by some novelist.

So think a bit on Pompeii, and hubris, and arrogance, and certainty and being blind to what might happen because it hasn’t happened yet.  But also be humble enough to recognize that even if you knew the future exactly, it would not do much more for your life than to make you more depressed.