On or around the 17th of October, 79AD, Mount Vesuvius – a volcano in southern
Italy – erupted. Ash, dust and poisonous gases were blasted high into the sky,
falling like deadly rain on the landscape for miles around. As the eruption entered its second
day, all-consuming pyroclastic flows swamped the countryside, submerging and at the same time
perfectly preserving the Roman city of Pompeii. There had been a settlement on the site of Pompeii
for centuries before the arrival of the Romans. A Neolithic village became an ancient Greek town,
then changed hands again and again as the years went by. It finally became a fully
Roman colony around 87BC, following a failed attempt at rebellion by some of its citizens.
Pompeii had been a wealthy city before the Romans, and under their influence it only became more so.
Many grand civic projects were undertaken. An aqueduct was built to deliver fresh flowing
water to the city, and Pompeii was home to one of the first amphitheatres in the Roman
Empire to be built of stone rather than wood. The city, which may at its peak have been home
to as many as 20,000 people, also had multiple large theatres, public and private baths,
a thriving civic centre and marketplace, as well as a great many grand privately-owned homes.
There were many reasons why there was so much wealth in Pompeii.
The land surrounding it was rich and fertile, making farming there a prosperous activity.
Additionally, its location on the beautiful Bay of Naples made it desirable for wealthy Romans,
many of whom constructed luxurious villas both in and outside the city. Merchants, too, were very
much at home in Pompeii, as it served as an entry point for goods coming into southern Italy by sea.
All of these factors made Pompeii a wealthy city, and a valuable cultural centre for the
Roman Empire, too. Citizens living there would have enjoyed what was for the time an excellent
quality of life. Over the years, barring a few setbacks like an earthquake in 62AD and a riot
at the amphitheatre in 59AD, Pompeii thrived. All of that would change one day in October 79AD,
when Mount Vesuvius erupted. The first thing most citizens
noticed would likely have been a powerful ground tremor. The inhabitants of Pompeii were used to
the occasional earthquake… but what followed was completely new and alien to them. As the
ground fell still a pall of smoke filled the sky, and pieces of hot stone began to fall like rain.
These pieces were small in the beginning, but as time went on became larger and more dangerous. As
night fell, chunks of ash and pumice as large as fists were falling on the city. Many citizens had,
by this stage, begun to flee – packing their possessions, gathering their families,
and setting out to seek refuge on foot or by cart. Over the course of a single day, the population of
Pompeii shrunk to just a few thousand. Those who fled, it soon turned out,
had been wise to do so. The next day the volcano began spewing out pyroclastic flows.
Pyroclastic flows are dense, hot clouds of volcanic material that flow downhill much
like a landslide, burying, incinerating and decimating everything in their path.
Anyone who remained in Pompeii by the time the first of these arrived
stood no chance of survival, and could no longer have possibly outrun their fate.
Buildings were swamped, streets filled, and city walls overtopped by a slurry of dust and
molten rock. The flows came upon the city so quickly that many of those who remained
had little time to react. They were buried by the superheated material, dying within seconds.
Pliny the Younger, a Roman lawyer and author,
was one of the only people alive at the time to put down an account of the disaster in writing.
He witnessed it from the nearby city of Misenum, from which he and his mother were forced to flee.
“I turned around and saw a thick black cloud advancing over the land behind us like a flood.
‘Let us leave the road while we can still see,’ I said, ‘or we will be knocked down
and trampled by the crowd.’ We had hardly sat down to rest when the darkness spread over us.
But it was not the darkness of a moonless or cloudy night, but it was just as if
the lamps had been put out in a completely closed room. We could hear women shrieking,
children crying and men shouting. Some were calling for their parents, their children,
or their wives, and trying to recognize them by their voices. Some people were so frightened of
dying that they actually prayed for death. Many begged for the help of the gods, but even more
imagined that there were no gods left and that the last eternal night had fallen on the world.
There were also those who added to our real perils by inventing fictitious dangers.
Some claimed that part of Misenum had collapsed or that another part was on fire. It was untrue,
but they could always find somebody to believe them. A glimmer of light returned, but we took
this to be a warning of approaching fire rather than daylight. But the fires stayed some distance
away. The darkness came back and ash began to fall again, this time in heavier showers. We had to get
up from time to time to shake it off, or we would have been crushed and buried under its weight.
I could boast that I never expressed any fear at this time, but I was only kept going by the
consolation that the whole world was perishing with me. After a while, the darkness paled into
smoke or cloud, and the real daylight returned, but the sun shone as wanly as during an eclipse.
We were amazed by what we saw, because everything had changed and was buried deep in ash like snow.
We went back to Misenum and spent an anxious night switching between hope and fear.
Fear was uppermost because the earth tremors were still continuing
and the hysterics still kept on making their alarming forecasts.”
Pliny the Younger survived the eruption… although it is clear from his writings that
it was a difficult and traumatic experience. His uncle, Pliny the Elder, unfortunately perished
while taking ships across the bay to try and rescue people from the burning city of Pompeii.
As the eruption died down, the pyroclastic flows settled and hardened, leaving Pompeii
almost completely buried. Emperor Titus set aside funds to provide aid for those affected,
but there was a limit to what could be done. Some survivors returned to the place where their city
had once stood and made attempts to dig out their old homes, searching for valuables, or
for the bodies of loved ones left behind. Later, there is some evidence that opportunistic thieves
visited the site, digging through the layers of tephra in search of jewellery and other valuables.
As they did so they were digging through a gigantic mass grave.
Current estimates put the death toll at around 1,500, but this can only ever be an approximation
of the number lost to the disaster. The city of Pompeii was never rebuilt.
As the years passed its existence was forgotten, and it was not rediscovered until the 1700s.
Through a gargantuan effort involving hundreds of workers, the buried city was slowly uncovered…
bringing to light a surreal, incredibly detailed snapshot of life in Ancient Rome.
The intense heat of the pyroclastic flow which destroyed the city had, in the same moment,
preserved many things that would otherwise have decayed over time. Some bodies, for example,
had been partially turned to glass by the sheer heat of the volcanic flow.
Elsewhere intricate frescoes, the ruins of opulent villas, and even examples of obscene
graffiti carved into walls were discovered, all of them in incredible condition given their age.
Today, the site is a tourist attraction, visited by thousands each year. The excavation is ongoing,
and with each year that passes new discoveries are made, adding to our understanding of Roman life.
The very thing which destroyed Pompeii – that unstoppable flow of seething volcanic material –
became the thing which allowed us, centuries later, to truly understand what was lost.
The fate of the city of Pompeii is now a story known the world over. What is less well-known
is that Mount Vesuvius remains an active volcano… and that it has since erupted again,
most recently in 1944. At this time, the mountain once again spewed forth a huge
quantity of volcanic material, killing 26 people and displacing tens of thousands from their homes.
In the years since 1944, the number of people living in close proximity to Mount Vesuvius
has increased dramatically. More than half a million now make their homes in what is
considered the most dangerous area around the volcano. Close monitoring of seismic
activity should provide at least two weeks warning before the volcano next erupts.
Devastation on the scale of the destruction of Pompeii, therefore,
is unlikely… but the volcano which caused this apocalyptic event is by no means dormant.