The Pirates of Pompeii

It is A.D. 79. The Roman world is reeling from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Hundreds of refugees are living in a makeshift camp, trying to come to terms with what has happened. Then even more tragedy strikes: the camp’s children begin to disappear. Flavia Gemina and her friends Jonathan, Nubia, and Lupus are determined to find out more and start to investigate a powerful and charismatic man known as the Patron. A dangerous trail leads them to the caves and grottoes of Sorrento, where they encounter pirates, slave dealers, and possible death. 

Flavia and her friends embark on a new adventure as they try to unravel the mystery of the missing children. After hearing rumors of the Patron, the children convince Felix—who may be responsible for the kidnappings—to take them to his estate. Once there, Flavia and her friends investigate every aspect of Felix’s world. While Felix is kind and generous, Flavia is still convinced that he is the mastermind behind the kidnappings.  

Flavia and the others meet Felix’s spoiled daughter, Pulchra. The bratty girl flaunts her wealth, beats her slave, and demands that Nubia be treated like a slave as well. Instead of standing up for her friend, Flavia treats Nubia poorly. After Pulchra beats Nubia, Nubia decides to join a group of runaway slaves. However, the slaves are in more danger than they know. 

The Pirates of Pompeii leads readers on an epic adventure full of suspense and surprises. Felix and his daughter Pulchra are welcome additions to the cast of characters. Felix’s generosity seems too good to be true, while Pulchra is a selfish brat who is easy to hate. Soon, Flavia begins treating Nubia more like a slave than a friend. When Pulchra and Flavia are kidnapped and beaten, they finally realize how horrible it is for slaves. The dramatic shift in Pulchra’s perception and Flavia’s offer to free Nubia redeems the girls and highlights the importance of treating everyone with respect.   

Lawrence uses vivid descriptions and diverse characters to bring Ancient Rome to life. While the wealthy lived in luxury, many Romans’ lives were difficult, and children were particularly vulnerable. Readers will empathize with the kidnapped children and the mistreated slaves. The final battle between the children and their kidnappers will leave readers cheering. The Pirates of Pompeii is a fast-paced adventure with well-developed characters that readers will love. In addition, it reminds readers: “Don’t be ashamed of your tears. A man is never afraid to weep for his family.” 

Readers can learn more about Pompeii’s tragic destruction by pairing The Pirates of Pompeii with Through Time: Pompeii by Richard Platt. 

Sexual Content  

• None 

Violence  

• Many people died when a volcano close to Pompeii erupted, and “one man’s bloated corpse had washed up on the shore around noon.”  
• Lupus joins a group of mourners. “When the professional mourners scratched their cheeks, he scratched his. It hurt, but it brought release. He needed to feel the pain.” While Lupus doesn’t know the person the mourners are grieving, he grieves Pliny, “the great admiral who had treated him with courtesy and respect, but who had died gasping like a fish.” He also grieves a friend’s death as well as his father’s death. “The father whose murder he witnessed, powerless to stop.”  
• Flavia finds a little girl named Julia hiding in a cave, crying. Julia says men grabbed her and her brother, Rufus. “. . . Rufus was brave and had kicked on so hard that he had fallen to the ground. . . Then I screamed my loudest scream and bit the other one on the arm and Rufus kicked him between the legs and we ran. . .” Julia gets away, but her brother is missing. 
• Flavia’s uncle Gaius was robbed. “The robbers who had cracked his ribs had also bruised his jaw and broken his nose.” Uncle Gaius’s dog “almost died trying to protect his master. . . and a knife wound in the chest had rendered him harmless as a lamb.” 
• Nubia meets a runaway slave. She is worried because “the Romans crucified runaway slaves. She was not sure what ‘crucified’ meant, only that it was something terrible.” 
• Lupus has difficulty eating because “someone cut out his tongue.” 
• Jonathan’s father, Mordecai, explains that Emperor Titus “gave the command to burn the temple. Thousands of our people died in the siege of Jerusalem. . . There are those who say that he is the reason Vesuvius erupted. The rabbis always said God’s curse would come upon this land if ever Titus rose to power.” 
• When Pulchra’s jewelry box falls off her bed, she blames her slave, Leda. Pulchra “slapped Leda hard across the face. . .” Later, Flavia finds Leda “curled up in a box. . . rolling her eyes in terror. She lay on one side with her knees drawn up almost to her face, which was red and swollen from crying.”  
• Leda said Pulchra beat her for misbehaving and locked her in the box. Flavia convinces Leda to come out of the box. Flavia sees Leda’s back. “In one or two places, seeping through the fine yellow linen of her tunic, Flavia could see the dark stain of fresh blood where Pulchra had wielded a birch switch with particular vigor.” 
• Pulchra beat Nubia for being “insolent.” Then Pulchra purposely broke Nubia’s flute. Nubia runs into a tree grove.  
• Pulchra and Flavia get into a fight. “Furiously, Flavia grabbed a handful of Pulchra’s yellow hair and tugged as hard as she could. . . Pulchra screeched and aimed a few feeble blows at Flavia. . .” After being hit in the stomach, “Flavia doubled over, trying desperately not to be sick, then furiously tackled Pulchra around the knees and brought her thudding down onto the dusty ground.” 
• As the girls were fighting, two masked men came out of the bushes and kidnapped Leda, Pulchra, Flavia, and Jonathan. “Flavia and Pulchra were still rolling in the dust when the masked men lifted them apart and wrenched their hands behind their backs. When she saw the leering masks, Pulchra screamed.”  
• Flavia’s dog Tigris, “raced down the hillside and sunk his teeth into the shorter man’s ankle. . . The masked man cursed and kicked the puppy hard. Tigris flew up into the air, then landed in the dust with a thud. He lay motionless.” Later, Flavia is reunited with the puppy. 
• The kidnappers take the group of friends to a cave where there are approximately fifty children tied up. The kidnappers beat Pulchra, Flavia, and Jonathan, but not Leda because, “You’ve been beaten quite enough.” 
• Flavia “felt a searing streak of pain across her back. And then another. And another. . . [the kidnapper] had beaten her heart, too, though he had taken care not to break the skin.” The other beatings are not described. 
• After being taken to a ship, the children fight the kidnappers. Their first move is to dump chickpeas on the deck. “As one of Venalicius’s big men took a step forward, his foot flew out in front of him and he crashed to the deck.” Jonathan used his sling to throw coins at the men, and Nubia threw a wine jug at a man. “It shattered on the man’s head and he sank gently to the deck.”  
• Venalicius goes to grab a dagger, but “then a figure with tangled hair head-butted Venalicius in his stomach. He went down. . . And now children were swarming over him, tying his hands and legs and stomach until he was more rope than man.” Some of the men jumped overboard and sunk to their deaths while the others were tied up.  
• Lupus sees the slave dealer, Venalicius, “treasured up like a pig for slaughter. . . Lupus wrenched the dagger from the cabin wall and in one savage motion he brought it down toward the slave dealer’s throat. Flavia screamed as she saw blood spurt from the slave dealer’s head.” Lupus cut off the slave dealer’s ear. Felix stops Lupus from killing the man. The story implies that Lupus saw the slave dealer kill his father. 

Drugs and Alcohol  

• Flavia’s uncle Gaius sells wine. Wine is mentioned when describing the items being given to the survivors. 
• Before Flavia and her friends leave Pompeii, Jonathan packs a “dark brown powder.” He says, “We’re going to an unknown place with a possible criminal mastermind. You never know when you’ll need a good sleeping powder!” 
• After his daughter is kidnapped, a farmer seeks help from Felix. Felix gives him wine, and “the farmer drained the cup and shuddered.” 
• During dinner, wine is served to everyone, including the children. The steward “filled each guest’s cup, simultaneously pouring out foamy black wine from one jug and clear water from the other. The mixture ranged from ruby red in Felix’s cup to the palest pink for the little girls.” Flavia drinks so much wine that she is ill the next day. 
• To help the kidnapped children get free, Nubia puts a powder in their wine. She believed it was a sleeping powder, but instead, it was “mushroom powder” that made the men hallucinate. 

Language  

• Several times, Flavia exclaims, “Neptune’s beard!” 
• An adult exclaims, “By Jupiter!” 
• After a walk, Pulchra says, “Great Juno!” 
• After Pulchra beats Nubia, Flavia thinks, “That stupid, spoiled little harpy with the golden hair and eyes. She had dared to strike Nubia!” 
• Pulchra and Flavia call each other names such as spoiled little patrician, peasant, harpy, and gorgon. 

Supernatural 

• None 

Spiritual Content  

• The gods Castor and Pollux are Flavia’s “guardian gods.”  
• After the volcano erupted, “people moaned and wailed at the evil omen of a bloodred world. Some believed Apollo, the sun god, was dying and that he would never rise again.” 
• After her uncle is robbed, Flavia wonders what they will eat. An adult tells her, “God will provide.” 
• When Jonathan is in a coma, his father prays for him, saying, “Please, Lord, bring him back.” When Jonathan finally wakes, his father says, “Praise God!” 
• When the emperor promises to compensate people who lost property in the eruption, the people cheer. “There were many shouts of ‘Hail Caesar!’ and ‘May the gods reward you.’” 
• Felix has “an ancient shrine to the wine god, Dionysus.” Felix explains why the shrine has a picture of a ship with dolphins surrounding it. Pirates kidnapped Dionysus and “dragged the god into their ship and tied him up.” Dionysus escaped and “turned into a lion and roared in their faces. . . The pirates leaped overboard before the beast could devour them.” Afterwards, Dionysus drank wine. “The wind put Dionysus in such good spirits that he took pity on the drowning sailors and turned them all into dolphins. And that is how dolphins came to be.” 
• Felix believes Flavia and her friends survived the volcano’s eruption because “the gods must surely have favored you.” 
• Felix’s wife says, “I believe that my husband is part man, part god. Like Hercules. . .For a long time, I wondered which of the gods was his father. . .” 
• Lupus was the only child who escaped the kidnappers. As he looks for Felix, he prays, “Let him be there.”