With the clouds like this you...

desainme - Nov 30, 2003 11:31 pm - Voted 10/10

The 79 AD Eruption of Vesuvius



by Pliny the Younger (AD 61-113)



My dear Tacitus,



You ask me to write you something about the death of my uncle so that the account you transmit to posterity is as reliable as possible. I am grateful to you, for I see that his death will be remembered forever if you treat it [sc. in your Histories]. He perished in a devastation of the loveliest of lands, in a memorable disaster shared by peoples and cities, but this will be a kind of eternal life for him....



He was at Misenum in his capacity as commander of the fleet on the 24th of August [sc. in 79 AD], when between 2 and 3 in the afternoon my mother drew his attention to a cloud of unusual size and appearance...