2 Vesuvius comes alive

CHAPTER II Vesuvius comes alive August 24 AD79 The morning started furiously hot- even hotter than a normal August day- but Pompeii's market traders wasted no time setting up their stalls in the Forum. No one spared a glance for the Temple of the Capitoline Triad. Repaired by stonemasons months ago, most people had forgotten it had ever been damaged.

From under the shade of a leafy plane tree, a few curious citizens looked on as a wealthy lady paraded through the square in the comfort of her carrying chair, with her slaves in attendance.

She gazed at the traders busy preparing for a day of good business, as they laid out their wares under the watchful eye of a statue of Mercury, the god of commerce.

A shoemaker put out his tools and wine merchants lined up their flagons. Fabric, pottery, wool, bread, honey- thanks to the ships that came to the nearby port of Puteoli, everything was on sale here, as long as the browsers had a few coins in their pockets.

No one noticed that the Sun was looking unusually hazy in the sky. By ten o'clock, the market was in full swing. Traders called out their wares, slaves wandered from stall to stall, buying everything on the day's shopping list.

In a corner, an old man with a stoop was busily adding his own graffiti to Pompeii's local notice board- a city wall. With no telephones or postal service, this was the way most people in Pompeii left messages for each other. But this man wasn't happy with what he saw on the wall and he decided to say so: Oh, wall! I can't believe you haven't fallen down under the weight of all these boring messages!