CAMPANIA TOUR
The Eruption of Vesuvius
On the morning of August 24, A.D. 79, a great noise was heard in the area around Vesuvius. A mushroom shaped cloud of gas and volcanic rock rose high in the air, darkening the sky. A shower of burning cinders and rock fragments covered Pompei. It lasted until the next day, caving in roofs and claiming its first victims. The Pompeian's tried to take shelter in the houses or hoped to escape by walking on top of the layers of pumice stones constantly being formed, which by this point were more than 2 meters deep. But at dawn on August 25, a violent explosion of toxic gases and burning cinders devastated the city. It infiltrated everything, taking those who were trying to flee by surprise and making every form of defence vain. A shower of very fine ash was deposited everywhere to a depth of more than six meters, enveloping everything and adhering to the forms of the bodies and even the folds of their clothes. When, two days later, the fury of the elements abated, the entire area had a different aspect: a white blanket covered everything; the Sarno river was trying to find its course again after having been filled with volcanic rubble; and the coast, submerged by the material spewed forth by Vesuvius, had encroached on the sea! The whole city was declared off limits, to protect the property of the survivors, but clandestine diggers tried to plunder it anyway. For a long time the human presence was rare and marginal, and only under the emperor Hadrian, around 120 A.D., was at least the road system in the area reopened to traffic.
We have an eye-witness report of the catastrophe in a letter from Pliny the Younger to the Roman historian Tacitus, in which he tells about the death of his uncle, Pliny the Elder, as he was trying to bring aid to the devastated cities
Letter from Pliny the younger
[...] A black and terrible cloud, rent by snaking bursts of fire, gaped open in huge Civitavecchia dock Rome transfer rome civitavecchia dock flashes of flames; it was like lightning, but far more extensive [...] Soon afterwards, the cloud lowered towards the earth and covered the sea [...]Then my mother began to beg [...] me to try to escape as best I could [...] Ashes were already falling, but not yet thickly. .. When night fell, not one such as when there is no moon or the sky is cloudy, but a night like being in a closed place with the lights out. One could hear the wailing of women, the crying of children, the shouting of men; they called each other, some their parents, others their children, still others their mates, trying to recognize each other by their voices. Some lamented their own fate, others the fate of their loved ones. There were even those who out of their fear of death prayed for death[...] It lightened a little; it seemed to us not daylight but a sign of approaching fire. But the fire stopped some distance away; darkness came on again, again ashes, thick and heavy. We got up repeatedly to shake these off; otherwise we would have been buried and crushed by the weight. [...] At last that fog thinned and dissipated in a kind of smoke or mist; soon there was real daylight; the sun even shone, though wanly, as when there is an eclipse. Our still trembling eyes found everything changed, buried by a deep blanket of ashes as if it had snowed [...]. Fear prevailed, since the earthquake tremors went on, and many, out of their senses, were mocking their own woes and others’ by awful predictions. But we, even though we had escaped some perils and expected others, we did not think even of going away until we should have news of my uncle.[...]
