And so we come to the end of our visit!
I really enjoyed taking you around. I don’t often get to tell my story to people. Most of the time I am on my own in the library, reading and studying… plus, who cares about the life of a slave?
Perhaps that is why I never left the villa, not even after the disastrous eruption: my heart remained here, among the books I loved. I have guarded the library for two millennia, watching everything that has happened around here… until today.
So let me tell you one last amazing thing before we say goodbye. The building you are in has also had an interesting history. In the last century, during the fascist dictatorship, it was a prominent Fascist building (check, yim); then it became a school; finally it was abandoned and fell into disrepair. Until 2008, when it was taken over by the local council and it reopened its doors to the people of Herculaneum: the MAV, the virtual archaeological museum, was founded. A museum in the city, just a few metres from the excavations and in the heart of modern Herculaneum: what better ending for our story?
But before you go back to your own time, stop for a moment in our Herculaneum. Look around, enjoy the atmosphere. Then, on your way up the stairs, you will discover what happened in the bowels of the earth on that fateful day, when I, the master and everybody else, we were all erased from history. You will learn about the catastrophe from the living voice of its main protagonist: the volcano itself will tell you its version!
I will stay here, waiting, as always. See you next time!