Ashes to Ashes

Pliny's accounts of the Mount Vesuvius eruption. A captivating as well as articulate letter to the historian Tacitus, of which were so detailed that modern day volcanologists named a type of eruption after him, described the horrors and panics of that fateful day.

We start when Pliny abandons his home with his mother, after it seemed that it was no longer safe. "Nam vehicula quae produci iusseramus, quamquam in planissimo campo, in contraris partes agebantur, ac ne lapidibus quidem fulta in eodem vestigio quiescebant." The ground shook so violently and constantly, the carts Pliny had requested could not stay still even with stones placed to keep them in place.

"Praeterea mare in se resorberi et tremore terrae quasi repelli videbamus." Next, the first phase of a tsunami had begun, as the waters quickly retreated from land, leaving sea life exposed and left to die on the sand. As this occurred, Pliny had noted that the clouds of ashes, which he described simply as a black cloud, reached into the skies with great lightning strikes appearing to split the clouds apart.

Next,  Pliny said ash began to form a thin layer, as the clouds of ashes advanced quickly towards him. "'Deflectamus' inquam 'dum videmus, ne in via strati comitantium turba in tenebris obteramur.'" Quickly, he and his mother had made their way off the road to sit down, whilst it was still visible so they wouldn't get trampled by the crowd of people bound to run about in panic. Soon after, the sky quickly blocked out the sky, leaving them in pitch-black darkness.

As the darkness enveloped Misenum, the cries of men, women, and children alike echoed throughout. Some called for their loved ones, only able to identify them by their voice in the darkness. Some were so afraid of dying, they prayed for death.