For most Romans their work day was regulated by the rising and setting sun. But not the elder Pliny.  He was often found toiling over a manuscript by the light of an oil lamp, “the hero and victim of a morbid appetite for work.”¹Carcopino 2003, 184 His Natural History is a collection of 37 books that sought to encompass everything the Romans knew about the world.  Despite its size, it was widely copied and read throughout the Medieval period and was one of the first books printed in Europe with the invention of the printing press.

Pliny kept a low profile during the tumultuous reign of Nero but when Vespasian came to power in 69 AD, he was made a procurator (governor) of Gaul. This was the first of a string of appointments that took him to Africa, Spain, and Germany before final returning, in 78 AD, to Italy where he was made commander commander of the Roman fleet at Miseneum.  Although Pliny accepted these administrative positions, he was a scholar at heart, and spent most of his time working on his manuscript.

When, on the morning of August 24, 79 AD, Pliny saw a mushroom cloud rise ominously on the horizon, he immediately requisitioned a ship to carry him across the bay to investigate.  “Fortune favors the brave,” he is reported to have spoken in response to the protests of his pilot.  

Just as the ship was preparing to disembark, Pliny received a plea for help from a certain woman, an acquaintance of his, whose villa was situated by the sea at the base of Mount Vesuvius.  Pliny commanded his ship to make for this stretch of the coast but was unable to get close enough to pick up survivors. His ship was forced to dock at Stabiae, instead, where he sought out a friend named Pompanius.  Since the wind was blowing hard towards the shore, they were unable to evacuate by sea and were forced to spend the night instead.  Everyone was terrified except Pliny who reportedly carried on as though they were in no great danger. While Pliny took a bath and enjoyed a proper meal, Vesuvius was entering into a second and more dangerous stage that would ultimately engulf Stabiae in a cloud of ash and pumice.  Most who lived in Stabia were able to escape, but Pliny, who suffered from asthmatic lungs, didn’t make it.  He was last seen standing on a hill with two of his slaves, unable to go any further.  This is, at least, the report left us by his nephew, Pliny the Younger.

Vesuvius

The eruption of Mount Vesuvius was accompanied by ominous precursors. In 62 AD Pompeii was rocked by an earthquake that damaged a large number of buildings.  During the earthquake Mount Vesuvius discharged a cloud of poisonous gas that killed a flock of sheep grazing nearby, an ominous precursor. The tremors were felt again in the days leading up to the eruption. Even after Vesuvius began to spew clouds of ash, there was still enough time to escape the city. It appears as though many did manage to evacuate since many of the houses that have been excavated at Pompeii appear to have been emptied of their contents.

A letter written by Pliny’s nephew, Pliny the Younger, to the famous Roman historian Tacitus, provides the sole account of what happened that fateful day when Vesuvius erupted. The younger Pliny, aged 18 years old at the time, declined his uncle Pliny’s invitation investigate the volcanic plume, pleading that he had studies to attend too.  That night their house in Miseneum was shaken by constant tremors.  Early the next morning Pliny’s mother came up to his room.  One can sense the nervous tension in Pliny’s narrative as he recounts how he and his mother spent the morning seated on a balcony overlooking the sea watching the waves crash against the shore.  The tremors began to grow more violent as the day progressed until finally, he and his mother felt it was necessary to evacuate the house, fearing it might collapse.   As they made their way out of town, writes Pliny, “some extraordinary and alarming things happened.” Here is the rest of the story in Pliny’s own words.

The cloud of ash that dusted Pliny and his mother was the same cloud that swept down the slopes of Vesuvius and buried the city of Pompeii in over thirty feet of mud and ash.  Of those who remained in Pompeii, none escaped.

Excavations

One spring day in the year 1748 a farmer accidently snagged a statue with his plow.  Further digging in the area culminated in an extensive archaeological excavation of Pompeii, the first of its kind.  Since then large portions of the city have been exposed, including theatres, gymnasiums, forums, temples, baths, taverns, brothels, villas, and houses, everything required for the functioning of a proper Roman city.

As archaeologists dug through the layers of ash, they noticed cavities left behind by objects that had been buried and then decomposed, leaving an empty cavity behind.  In the mid-1800’s, Signor Fiorelli, the director of excavations at Pompeii, struck upon the idea of pouring plaster into these cavities in order to preserve their form before excavating the cavity.  The results were astonishing and profoundly moving. Plaster casts were subsequently made of a mother clutching her child, a man trying to rise, slaves with shackles still around their legs, a dog tangled up in a chain fastened to the leg of a table—each frozen in the moment the pyroclastic flood swept over them.