Comparison With The US
The novel takes as its motto two parallel quotes, from Tom Wolfe's "Hooking Up" and from the "Natural History" of Pliny the Elder (who, as noted, is a central character in the book itself), with both writers speaking in nearly identical terms of the preeminence of, respectively, the present United States and the Roman Empire, over the rest of the world.
The theme of comparing ancient Rome to the contemporary United States is repeated in various ways throughout the book, for example in the deliberate use of typically American terminology, as when Attilius regards Pompeii as "a hustling boomtown" while Ampliatus boasts that "I am the man who runs this town."
Attilius himself is very much of a "modern" character, a typical proponent of the problem solving approach – a pragmatic engineer, who has little use for religion or gods but an unbounded confidence in the ability of sound Roman engineering and science to solve problems – given a thorough knowledge of natural laws, good planning and a firm leadership, all of which he is fully capable of providing.
Read more about this topic: Pompeii (novel)
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