Once characters start having to address each other as "Glutinus Maximus" and so on, the ghostly sniggers of Frankie Howerd and Monty Python start echoing round the spa baths.

Robert Harris Books | Waterstones Robert Harris Books | Waterstones

In this book, Robert Harris gives an in depth account of Ingham's career: his personality, his formula of doing things and his rise to prominence. Harris has been working the historical fiction vein for a number of years now, but only with Pompeii has he finally hit his stride. Harington stated he had "wanted to do a body transformation for something—it was one of those processes that I had never really done before . Frank, resolute and widely feared, Bernard Ingham served as Margaret Thatcher's Press Secretary between 1979 and 1990. The animation team was so concerned with realism in the eruption that they would always have real photographs and footage of real eruptions visible to them on separate screens as they put together the eruption of Mount Vesuvius for the film.Anderson cites the volcanic eruption of Mount Etna in Italy and various eruptions of Japanese volcanoes as specific examples of volcanic eruptions which the production crew observed through footage which has been captured on film. However, later this is later contradicted when Attilius compares himself to the mythical character of Theseus but does so in a way that makes him seem greater than the hero, or more lost. Politics however isn’t static and no political figure could ever truly shield themselves from the ambition and corruption of others. The film relies for its reconstruction of historical events on two letters from Pliny the Younger to the Roman historian Tacitus.

Pompeii (film) - Wikipedia Pompeii (film) - Wikipedia

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. There is a current vogue in film (Gladiator, Troy, Alexander the Great) as well as books for classical themes — why do you think this is? There, Milo manages to save Cassia, but Ariadne is killed when the villa collapses into the Mediterranean Sea.Ampliatus plans to offer a cheap water supply to Pompeii, which Exomnius had helped him to do while he steals from the imperial treasury. The focus on the aqueduct, itself an incredible technical accomplishment, is also a clever idea, and interesting from both the technical and political point of view; from Ampliatus' fishery to what's found when the water supply dwindles Harris uses it very effectively. He relished the fact that power, real power, should be kept hidden: an invisible force that permitted the people these civic ceremonials…” (Harris p.

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Marius — decent, practical, incorruptible — promises Pliny, the famous scholar who commands the navy, that he can repair the aqueduct before the reservoir runs dry. What follows is a disaster of greed, the deception of experts, and the paying of monstrous sums of money to earn the rights to publish the book across the globe. However, a reader can learn the general succession of events during the final days at Pompeii, including the tremors, accurate timeline of the eruption, and even the role of Pliny and his failed rescue mission as the volcano begins to erupt.Cicero is the consul, Caesar is the cruel youthful rival, Pompey is the greatest general the republic has ever seen, Crassus is the wealthiest man, Cato is a political fanatic, Catilina is a psychopath and Clodius an enterprising playboy. Harris’ understanding of religion, on the other hand, doesn’t quite meet the ancient perspective of religion, as he is showing to characters, one who holds the gods in contempt, and believes that science is the answer, and the other, who believes the gods will help, but won’t be quicker than his own solutions to problems, rather than the reciprocity of the ancient Roman religion. Corelia's father is the former slave and land speculator Numerius Popidius Ampliatus, who came to fortune after he rebuilt Pompeii from a past earthquake. He shows that the gods may not be the immediate solution to their problems, which seems to be, much like Attilius, very uncharacteristic in Rome. The novel blends together the history of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD with a fictional plot about an engineer sent from Rome to repair the city’s aqueducts.