‘It’s Greek!’ Costas exclaimed.
‘These kinds of inscriptions were highly formulaic,’ Hiebermeyer said. ‘You find them in Egypt too, from the time before the Romans when the Greeks ruled. It reads “The council and the people honour Leukios Kalpornios Peison, the son of Leukios, the ruler and patron of the city.” ’
‘Ruler and patron,’ Costas whistled. ‘The local Mafia boss?’
Jack grinned. ‘I remember this. There’s an identical inscription in Greece. Calpurnius Piso was Roman governor on the island of Samothrace, in the Aegean. He must have brought this back as a memento.’
‘Along with a shipload of statues and other art,’ Maria murmured. ‘Maurice showed me the stuff they found here in the eighteenth century, in the Naples museum. It’s incredible.’
‘This particular Calpurnius Piso was probably the father or grandfather of the one we know most about, who lived in the time of the emperors Claudius and Nero,’ Hiebermeyer said. ‘That later Calpurnius Piso seems to have been especially loyal to Claudius, but hatched a plot against Nero that failed. Piso retired to his house, maybe this very one, where he opened his veins and bled to death. That was in AD 65, eleven years after Claudius’ death and fourteen years before Vesuvius blew. We don’t know who the owner of the villa was at the time of the eruption, but it was probably another family member or this inscription wouldn’t still be here. Maybe a nephew, a cousin, someone who escaped Nero’s purge of the family following the assassination attempt.’
‘So this clinches it,’ Jack said, eyeing Hiebermeyer. ‘This really was the home of Calpurnius Piso. Another small step for archaeology. Congratulations, Maurice.’
They moved out into the open courtyard again. Hiebermeyer took off his hard hat and jerked his head towards the looming presence behind the rooftops. ‘Don’t congratulate me, Jack. It was the volcano that did it, not us. This inscription was revealed by the earthquake. It’s what alerted the authorities to what else might have been revealed, old excavation workings that might have opened up. Then they saw the tunnel entrance.’
‘It seems to be more Greek than Roman around here,’ Costas said, wiping the dust from his hands. ‘I had no idea.’
‘There are layers of it,’ Jack said. ‘First the Greeks who colonized the Bay of Naples, then the Romans who rediscovered Greece when they conquered it. The Roman generals in Greece looted all the great works, from places like Delphi and Olympia, and a lot of Greek art starts to appear in Rome, often stuck on Roman monuments. Then wealthy private collectors like Calpurnius Piso bring back their own haul, some of it masterpieces but mostly lesser works, what was left. Then, by the time we’re talking about, the early imperial period, Greek artisans are making stuff specifically for the Roman market, just as Chinese potters or Indian furniture-makers produced stuff for western taste in the nineteenth century. That’s what you mostly see in Pompeii and Herculaneum, objets d’art in the Greek manner, more style than substance.’
‘I look at a sculpture,’ Costas said determinedly. ‘I like it or I don’t like it, and I don’t care about the label.’
‘Fair enough.’ Jack grinned. ‘The truest kind of connoisseur. But you really have to understand the context here, and that’s the beauty of these sites. You can see how the Romans used their art, how they appreciated it. To them, it didn’t matter if they had a Greek Old Master or a fine reproduction, because when it came to the crunch they were all just decoration. What really mattered to the Romans were the portraits of their ancestors, images that embodied the virtues they so admired, that emphasized family continuity. Those portraits were kept hidden away, often in a private room, and were traditionally in wax and wood so haven’t survived. The Romans get a lot of bad press because art historians of the Victorian period, who glorified classical Greece, mostly only saw collections of ancient sculptures ripped out of context and lined up in galleries and museums. It seemed to show indiscriminate judgement, bad taste, vulgarity. Come here, and you can see that nothing was further from the truth. If anything, it was the Greeks at this period who lacked the edge.’
‘Which brings us very neatly to the reason you’re here,’ Hiebermeyer beamed, pressing his hard hat back on.
They watched as the guard finally roused himself, ambling over to the wooden doorway and making a big display of unlocking it. ‘The greatest lost library of antiquity,’ Hiebermeyer said quietly. ‘And one of the greatest black holes in archaeology. Until now.’