Today we’ll take you through the streets of Pompei and show you what happened on a
fateful day back in ‘79.
You’ll meet the Pompeiians and experience their seemingly wonderful lives, as well as
understand, in all its horror, their infinitely hideous deaths.
-10 minutes August 24, 79 AD, just after midday.
The young lovers Decimus and Livia frolic in the courtyard of a friend’s house, unconcerned
that a puff of smoke was just emitted from Vesuvius, the fire-vomiting mountain of Jupiter,
God of sky and thunder.
At the back of this lavish villa, Cornelia, a wealthy woman getting on in years, tends
to flowers in the garden.
Decimus and Livia’s best friend, Cornelius, enters the courtyard, shielding his eyes from
the blaring sun.
He’s obviously been enjoying some wine today.
Livia asks him if he’s been to the bar of Amarantus again.
There’s nothing Cornelius likes more than a good game of dice and some of that fine
Pompeian wine.
Cornelius, almost staggering, tells them that he actually spent the morning at the gladiator
tavern next to the gladiator’s barracks.
He was checking up on a fighter he sees potential in, a tough and skilled slave named Felix.
Cornelius left about 20 men at the barracks, all of whom will soon be in the fight of their
lives.
Cornelius loves fighting, not just spectating.
Back in ‘59, he was a major part of a riot that broke out when those idiots from Nocera
came to support their gladiators fighting the Pompeian guys.
Cornelius broke a man’s jaw.
He felt it crack under his clenched fist.
No mercy; this was Cornelius’s motto.
Hot women and warm blood, that’s what he lived for, like many of the young men of Pompeii.
Cornelius laughs for no reason, so Livia asks what’s up.
He tells them after the tavern, he spent an hour on the second floor of the brothel, the
little one between the forum and the North-South business district.
In Pompeii, there are brothels everywhere!
The last time Cornelius was there, he scratched into a wall the words, “Hic ego puellas
multas futui, “Here I BLEEPED many girls.”
Livia finds this all a bit immature, but Decimus likes doing a bit of graffiti himself when
he’s at the brothel with the female slaves.
Cornelius tells the couple, this time, he wrote, “Decimus BLEEPS Felicia.”
They all start laughing, even Livia.
Life is good.
But soon, that elderly woman watering those flowers in the garden will die a painful death.
Amarantus will scream for his life as he sees something in the sky that would frighten even
the Gods.
Felix the gladiator and his gladiator buddies, all strong and athletic, will stand a better
chance than most.
Of the three friends in the courtyard, only one will survive.
It will be a race for survival.
-8 minutes Gaius Plinius Secundus (Pliny the Elder),
the great Roman author and natural philosopher, now commanding the Roman naval fleet in Misenum
close to the end of the Bay of Naples, is talking with his beloved nephew, Gaius Caecilius
(Pliny the Younger).
In the distance, they just saw that plume of smoke rising from Vesuvius.
Misenum is about 13 miles (21 km) from Pompeii.
The 17-year-old youngster seems rattled by the smoke.
His uncle tells him not to be concerned.
Such emissions are common, he says.
It’s just Jupiter letting them know he’s there, nothing to worry about.
His uncle has written books about nature.
The older man has just gotten out of the bath and had lunch.
Pliny the Younger’s mother is also there, and she too seems concerned about that smoke.
Pliny the Elder, refreshed from his bath, picks up a book.
Everything is fine, he tells the woman.
For once, he’s wrong, deadly wrong.
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And now, back to Pompeii.
-4 minutes On this day in Pompeii, there are close to
11,000 people in the city, a city surrounded by walls measuring about 2 miles (3 km) in
circumference.
Seven gates allow people in and out of the city.
There will be a stampede when everyone tries to get out at once.
It’s a sunny day.
Given the time, many people have just eaten at the Thermopolium, a food joint where many
residents have lunch.
There are cafes on many of the streets where men enjoy wine and talk about their exploits.
The local market, the macellum, is packed to the hilt.
Slaves follow their masters around, carrying their goods.
Over at the palaestra, the local sports complex, men are boxing, some are wrestling, while
others throw javelins and discuses.
The swimming pool and gymnasium are almost full.
People pray at the temple, some a bit worried about the tremors they’ve been feeling of
late.
The public baths (batos capiebat), as always, are frequented by older men who love to tell
stories.
When work finishes later, much of the town will visit the baths, but only the rich will
bathe in the elegant, exclusive, smaller baths – the forum baths.
The others will go to the stabiam, or central baths, where women and men in separate rooms
will plunge into the frigidarium (cold baths), the tepidarium (medium temperature), and finally,
the calidarium (hot baths).
The two theaters are mostly empty today.
The smaller roofed one is where shows are hosted.
The larger one, Cornelius’s favorite place, can hold as many as 5,000 people.
It’s been home to outstanding spectacles of blood, wild animal hunts, vicious executions,
and, of course, the much-loved gladiatorial fights.
Almost everyone in Pompeii is looking forward to the next one.
There’s already a buzz in the air.
And so it was, on that day, life went on as normal, despite the plumes of smoke and the
earthquakes that had shaken the ground over the last few weeks.
Eruption Pliny the Elder puts his book down.
Now he seems concerned.
His nephew has a look on his face as if to say, I told you so.
Pliny the Elder walks outside of the house onto a crag of raised ground, staring into
the distance at the expanding cloud that’s rising above Pompeii and nearby Herculaneum.
This is not right, he thinks.
This is serious.
It’s Mount Vesuvius.
Pliny the Younger joins his uncle.
What he’s seeing in the sky, he cannot quite understand.
It looks like a pine tree shooting up to the sky connected to a thick trunk, its branches
widening and widening, expanding with what looks like a great force.
It sometimes appears bright and red but also dark and spotted.
Pliny the Elder, an expert in all matters concerning nature, knows this is abnormal.
He tells his men to pass on the message around the camp.
Get a vessel ready, he says.
He invites his nephew on the trip, but the younger man says no.
He’s got work to do, the writing his uncle had told him to finish.
At this point, he doesn’t understand the danger of what’s happening over there.
His uncle is about to have the worst day of his long and illustrious life.
+ 5 minutes People come out from their market stalls to
view the smoke in the sky.
Men in the brothels felt the earth shake beneath, and it wasn’t anything to do with the women
joined to their loins.
They’ve all felt tremors before, but this one feels stronger.
Even Decimus, Livia and Cornelius, usually impossible to perturb, have walked out to
the front of the house where the shops are, to see what’s going on.
As they do, their chained dog whines and cowers.
Birds take flight overhead as if in retreat from a great storm.
The sky is clear above them, but that giant cloud in the distance is growing, casting
a shadow over their faces.
They’re no longer laughing.
The gladiators have dropped their wooden practice swords to the floor.
A man with a shield takes off his helmet, the sweat running down his cheeks into his
thick beard.
These men are scared of nothing.
They see death regularly.
But now, some of them are worried.
+30 minutes Ash starts to fall from the sky onto the people
in the street.
At first, it's gentle, but that doesn’t stop some of the people thinking about getting
out of the town.
Still, many just stay in their houses, hiding from the ash.
Some can’t go; they don’t have anywhere to go.
+45 minutes Ash and white pumice stones are now falling
on Pompeii at a rate of about 4-6 inches/hr (10-15 cm/hour).
The pumice, which is between 250° and 280° F (120-140° C), heats the roofs of houses.
Entire families are huddled in their rooms, waiting for this to stop.
They’ve never seen anything like it.
Everything is covered in ash.
What many people don’t understand is that there’s still a chance to escape, but the
time to do so is slowly draining away.
+120 minutes Pliny the Elder now believes the people of
Pompeii are in great danger.
He’s getting several vessels ready for what will become his attempt at a rescue mission.
He’s nervous.
The giant cloud is now looming over the land below it.
Decimus and Livia are sitting in an embrace, listening to the small rocks hitting the roof.
Cornelia, who is unable to run, sits with them.
“This has never happened before,” she keeps saying over and over.
Cornelius thinks they should get out of the city.
He says he can get everyone on a boat and away to safety.
They can run to the North, toward Naples, or south, toward Stabia.
Mountains lay in the east, and the Mediterranean Sea is to the west.
Cornelius tells them they should either risk getting on a boat or head North.
Cornelia says she’s too weak.
It will be over soon, anyway, she says, lying to herself.
Cornelius isn’t sold; he’s going.
He doesn’t like what he’s seeing.
He turns to Decimus and Livia and says, “Goodbye, my friends.
May the Gods be with you.”
He takes off, running through gray clouds, past the chained dog that is now yelping,
completely covered in hot ash. +3 hours minutes
The outdoor pools are like a thick soup of water and ash.
The gladiators are hiding in the barracks.
Not a person is out in the streets, except for those that have the foresight to understand
this is not going to stop.
This is based solely on their intuition.
They’ve never experienced this before and have no education as to what’s happening,
but they’ve heard stories, stories they once thought were fiction, about fire swallowing
the Earth.
Little do they know that the reason their soil is so good in Pompeii is because of former
volcanic eruptions.
When you live near a volcano, you have to take the rough with the smooth, but they don’t
know that.
They also don’t know what a volcanic vent is or that they’re about 6 miles away from
it.
If they run now and head in the right direction, they can still escape.
The ash is thick on the ground.
Some of the less stable roofs on the houses moan and creak.
It is now or never, make or break, escape or perish in exquisite pain.
Some of the prostitute slaves are screaming at the brothel owner.
Why aren’t they allowed to decide if they want to run?
One woman is crying.
A dog, with which she’d always felt an affinity, has choked on its chain after trying to break
free.
It’s as if it had a sixth sense.
+5 hours The rocks hitting the town are much larger,
about the size of your fist.
They pummel the houses.
Some people try to run south to the harbor and are struck on the head.
It seems the North was a better choice.
The bombardment is unforgiving.
The heat and ash clouds wrap around those trying to escape, burning their skin.
They scream in what is now almost darkness, the sun blotted out by the ash.
People drop to the floor in the grips of asphyxiation.
The roof protecting Decimus, Livia, and Cornelia gives way.
Cornelia can’t move fast enough and is trapped in the debris.
Hot ash burns the skin from her face.
Decimus and Livia run for cover, but each way they turn, there’s more falling debris.
They embrace as they’re pelted by super-heated rocks.
As Cornelius waits at the bay, still looking for the ship, the ash falls on him.
The falling rocks smash through the branches of trees.
Back in the barracks, those gladiators who he respected so much became trapped in their
barracks when the roof collapses.
Felix lies on the ground, covered in ash, his sword still clasped to his hand.
He’s alive, but he’s choking on ash. +6 hours
On his ship, Pliny the Elder can see the rocks and ash covering what used to be a beautiful
coastline.
He can just about make out people, stricken on the shore, waving their hands, hiding from
the deluge raining down on them.
He orders his men to keep going in the direction of the coast, even as cinders reach the ship,
growing thicker and hotter the nearer he approaches.
He remembers the expression he’d read about Vesuvius in a book, how it vomited fire.
Now that vomit is blasting his ship.
God knows what it's like in Pompeii.
One of his men suggests they turn back.
There’s no saving them now, but Pliny can see the people waiting for the rescue ship.
“Fortune,” he tells his men, “favors the brave; steer to where Pomponianus is.”
Pomponianus is a Roman Senator.
He’s about three miles away from Pompeii in the city of Stabiae.
Pliny figures he can be saved.
They can all be saved.
He has no idea the worst is yet to come.
+6 hours 30 minutes Pliny reaches Pomponianus and embraces him
like a long-lost brother.
The ash and stones are still raining down from the sky.
They’ll get out of this mess, thinks Pliny.
He’s so sure about this that he even takes a bath to wash the ash off his skin.
He sits down with Pomponianus for something to eat, and they plan their escape.
In the distance, what looks like flames surround Vesuvius, lighting up the darkening sky.
The sea is rough.
Pliny has never seen it like this, as if it’s folding back on itself.
Pomponianus tells him, “We need to go now, right now.”
He motions with his finger to the villages already on fire, engulfed in flames.
Pliny tells him not to worry.
The villages, he says, wrongly, have already been evacuated.
There’s no rush, says Pliny.
They need to wait, anyway, for a favorable wind.
As if to make that point, he’s soon asleep, snoring in front of his shocked hosts and
his men.
+8 hours With the buildings collapsing all around them,
survivors in Pompeii have no choice but to run out to the fields.
Some of them fasten pillows to their heads, screaming as their bodies are whacked with
stones.
Many collapse, having traversed only a short distance from their houses.
They waited too long.
Some do manage to get to the shore, but what’s coming is beyond their imagination.
Almost everyone left in central Pompeii has been injured in some kind of way.
People wander around in a daze, choking on the ash and toxic gases.
+12 hours The cloud in the sky is now about 20 miles
(32km) high.
The worst is about to come, which will kill almost every last surviving bit of life.
Those are the pyroclastic surges that sweep into the cities and villages, killing the
runners to the south and burning so hard in Pompeii it will vitrify people’s brains.
Gas and rock of about 360–430° F (180–220° C) flow into the cities, devouring everything
it comes into contact with.
The last of the survivors, still clinging to life, are burned to death, if not choked
to death first on the toxic gases.
The flow passes through Pompeii, moving further afield, killing everything as it passes.
+14 hours There’s a second pyroclastic surge, this
one measuring about 430-500° F (220-260° C).
In the rich people’s houses, the silverware melts.
Not much can withstand the heat.
Those who have managed to escape, now many miles away, shudder to think what’s happened
to the folks who stayed behind.
They don’t know it, but everyone who stayed in Pompeii is now dead.
+16 hours The gases have now encompassed Pliny and the
rest of his men still in Stabiae.
Pliny tries to get up, but he coughs and chokes, his slaves supporting his vast weight.
It doesn’t help that he is overweight and already has multiple health issues.
He collapses to the ground.
In Misenum, Pliny the Younger and his mom, far from imminent danger but aware of the
risk, have fled more inland.
The ashes had reached them, so they ran.
Pliny looked back to see a dense dark mist coming towards him, spreading itself over
the country.
God knows, he and his mother think, what has happened to Pliny the Elder.
They look into the distance toward Pompeii.
It’s totally engulfed now.
It’s almost disappeared.
+17 hours There’s nobody in Pompeii left to kill,
but if there was, the 4th, 5th, and 6th pyroclastic surges would finish them off.
The entire city is covered in 2 feet (6 meters) of debris and ash.
If any living being was suddenly dropped down into the city, where just a day before, people
were making merry with wine and enjoying the fruits of their labor, they would be enshrouded
by thick smoke as hot as 572° F (300° C).
We are talking about 1.5 million tons of debris per second, 100,000 times the thermal energy
of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Not even a cockroach would have a chance at survival.
+18 hours The cloud is now 21 miles (33 km) high.
Pliny the Younger will later write a letter to the historian Tacitus describing what he
saw in the distance that day.
During his escape, he will write, he came across people who were sure part of Misenum
was swallowed by the cloud.
Everyone was so very frightened.
It was as if the world was ending.
Pliny explained: “You might hear the shrieks of women, the
screams of children, and the shouts of men; some calling for their children, others for
their parents…one lamenting his own fate, another that of his family; some wishing to
die…some lifting their hands to the gods; but the greater part convinced that there
were now no gods at all, and that the final endless night of which we have heard had come
upon the world.”
Almost two thousand years later, tourists armed with smartphones visit the remnants
of the devastation caused by Vesuvius, people who Pliny couldn’t have imagined in his
wildest dreams.
Molds taken from the bodies deposited in the ash show how people were frozen in time, many
of them inside buildings, who’d hidden from the ash.
But more fell down and died in those terrifying pyroclastic surges.
Just recently, archeologists found the skeleton of a man who must have been running and was
crushed by a rock hurtling through the sky, taking off his head.
Escape was possible, but only if they ran during the first few hours.
Most of the bodies of the runners had headed south to the sea.
The North was the way to go, all the way to Naples.
What these Pompeians did in their lives, we know because of the buildings we’ve mentioned
today, all of which were real, including the 25 brothels, where 100s of lines of vulgar
graffiti were scrawled on the walls.
Pompeians liked their luxuries, they embraced decadence, the free Pompeians at least.
Vulgar they may have been at times, but they knew how to live.
They also knew how to survive.
Between 15,000 and 20,000 people lived in Pompeii and Herculaneum, and only about 2,000
died in total.
As for our man Cornelius, his full name was Cornelius Fuscus.
He did escape.
We embellished his life and made up his friends, but he existed.
Even though thousands of Pompeians managed to escape the smoke and heat, we know nothing
about them.
We only know Cornelius escaped Pompeii because there’s an inscription that states that’s
where he lived before he went to Naples and joined the Roman army.
He must have become a refugee like thousands of others.
He later died in a military campaign, but you can bet he’d never seen an army as frightening
as what he experienced that day in ‘79.
Now you need to watch “An Airplane Lost Engines Flying Through Volcanic Ash, This
is What Happened Next.”
Or, have a look at “How the Roman Legion Turned Men into Warriors.”