Harris' intent is not only to expose the corruption and violence of ancient Pompeii, but also to contrast it to modern-day America. The book's protagonist Attilius uncovers a plot to block the waters of the surrounding areas in the Pompeiian aquaducts. Like numberless real-life and fictional investigators, Attilius can do nothing to reverse the process: a combination of human greed and natural forces has doomed Pompeii already. Its end is ashen, not watery. Inevitably, one compares the situation to that of political opportunists who would control natural resources in Tennessee, California and New York.
Harris' most interesting character is modeled after Greek hero-villains, whose hubris -- god-defying pride -- brings about nemesis -- destruction of the man and his environs. Ampliatus, an opportunistic former slave turned land-grabber, has clogged points of the aquaduct with Roman gold he is hoarding. Fueled by a Sybil's prophecy that Pompeii's fame will be eternal, Ampliatus literally forces nature's hand, as the underground pressures he creates bring about the volcanic explosion. He resembles "Antigone's" Creon as his ambitions destroy not only his own life but that of his city -- the gods are not mocked forever.
Harris thus models not only America's preeminence as a great nation -- as Pompeii once was -- but also the seeds of our possible destruction in our attempts to over-control the environment without suitable moral reasoning. Harris' ending compounds the novel's irony, as Ampliatus, who hoped to sell his own waters to Pompeii, dies in a river of lava, and the great philosopher Pliny, who has foreseen the destruction, suffocates in the ashes with the thought that men "put themselves at the center of everything."
Harris could indeed be labeling America as Anglo-centric, although his tale could speak of any civilization brought low by unnatural order set right; both history and literature speak of civilizations destroyed by nature, a response of the gods to the evil deeds of men. Harris' novel invokes the frightening possibility that our gods are merely awaiting an opportunity to visit nemesis on America for our political, social and moral corruption.