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subject the reader to examples of his poetry. The Last Days of Pompeii is essentially a love story with the bonus of a volcanic eruption near the end. The setting and the knowledge that there will be a tragic outcome for a number of the characters are among the appealing aspects of the book. The story can be simplified by concentrating on the key characters.
Glaucus, the hero, is from Athens and resides in the house commonly known as the House of the Tragic Poet (VI, viii, 3), most famous for the mosaic of a dog accompanied by the words Cave canem (Beware of the dog) at the principal entrance. He is infatuated with Ione who lives in an unspecified house with her brother Apaecides. Her guardian is the evil Egyptian priest of the Isis cult, Arbaces, who wants Ione for himself and wishes to eliminate his rival. Conveniently for Arbaces, Glaucus is very handsome and has two other female admirers he can enlist, intentionally or otherwise, to help him achieve his goal. One of these is Julia, the wealthy and beautiful daughter of Diomedes, who inhabits the so-called Villa of Diomedes beyond the Herculaneum Gate. The other woman who loves Glaucus is a blind slave called Nydia. Arbaces obtains some poison from a witch who lives in a cave on the slopes of Mt Vesuvius. The witch is more than happy to supply this to Arbaces as she recently had the misfortune to offer shelter to Glaucus and Ione during a storm, during which Glaucus managed to wound her familiar. The witch also has a talent for prophecy and predicts the imminent destruction of Pompeii. Arbaces manages to pass the poison off as a love potion to Julia. He instructs her to administer it to Glaucus to make him more attentive to her. Nydia learns of this and steals the potion to give to Figure 1.6 Illustration by Lancelot Speed of the main protagonists of The Last Days of Pompeii by Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1897, Frontispiece)
     
Figure 1.7 Illustration by Clérice Frères from a French edition of The Last Days of Pompeii ,by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, published in 1936 (Frontispiece) Glaucus herself. As it has neither colour nor odour, Glaucus is not aware that his water has been spiked. Instead of making him fall in love with Nydia, however, it temporarily turns him into a raving lunatic. He roams the streets in this state and is found ranting next to the lifeless body of Ione’s brother who has just been murdered by Arbaces. Apaecides had converted to Christianity and was attacked by the priest for having abandoned the cult of Isis. Arbaces merely transforms the stylus of the incoherent Glaucus into a blood soaked ‘murder weapon’, which he plants by the corpse. Glaucus is duly taken into custody. He recovers from the poison only to discover that he is incarcerated and is about to fight a lion that is being starved in anticipation of the forthcoming games in the amphitheatre. He denies having committed any crime but he is ignored. With only one exception, his circle of young male friends, with whom he regularly partied, offer no support and leave him to his fate.
    Meanwhile, Arbaces has managed to trap and hold Ione and Nydia captive in his home, along with a priest from the Temple of Isis, Calenus, who witnessed the foul deed and has threatened to expose the true criminal. Confident that everything is going according to plan, Arbaces heads off to the amphitheatre to watch the demise of his rival but Nydia manages to get a message to Glaucus’ last remaining male friend, the loyal Sallust. He duly liberates Ione, Nydia and Calenus, who make their way to the amphitheatre to exonerate Glaucus and expose the actual culprit. Glaucus is saved just in the nick of time but the lion is still hungry. Arbaces is about to become an alternative meal when Mt Vesuvius erupts. Numerous characters and unnamed Pompeians die in the course of the following pages but Glaucus and his true love, Ione, have the perfect guide to lead them to safety through the unnaturally dark and chaotic streets in