The first warning of a coming eruption after unnumbered centuries of quiet
was given by a series of earthquakes which did an immense amount of damage
at Herculaneum and Pompeii; yet in a district which had from time
immemorial been subject to similar convulsions of nature, the shocks,
though unusually distressing and destructive to life and property, were
evidently unconnected in the popular mind with their true cause: the
reawakening to life of the mountain overhead. The mischief done by the
earthquakes was accordingly repaired as quickly as possible, and the
normal course of life was resumed until the terrific and wholly unexpected
outbreak of August 24th 79, during the reign of the Emperor Titus. Of
this, the first recorded eruption of Vesuvius, we are exceptionally
fortunate in possessing the testimony of a credible eye-witness, who was
no less a personage than Caius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, better known to
the modern world as Pliny the Younger, who wrote two lengthy letters to
Tacitus on the subject of this event, the first describing the fate of his
uncle, the Elder Pliny, most eminent of Roman naturalists, who perished
during this period of terror; and the second containing a more detailed
account of the eruption itself. For it so happened--luckily for
posterity--that at the time of this sudden outburst of Mons Summanus, the
Elder Pliny was in command of the Roman fleet at Misenum on the Bay of
Naples, where his young nephew (who was also his adopted son) was living
with his mother in a villa. "On the 24th of August," writes Pliny the
Younger some eleven years after the event he is about to describe, "about
one in the afternoon, my mother desired my uncle to observe a cloud which
appeared of a very unusual size and shape. He had just returned from
taking the benefit of the sun, and after bathing himself in cold water,
and taking a slight repast, was retired to his study. He immediately arose
and went out upon an eminence, from whence he might more distinctly view
this very uncommon appearance. It was not at that distance discernible
from what mountain this cloud issued, but it was found afterwards to
ascend from Mount Vesuvius. I cannot give a more exact description of its
figure than by resembling it to that of a pine-tree, for it shot up to a
great height in the form of a trunk, which extended itself on the top into
a sort of branches, occasioned, I imagine, either by a sudden gust of air
that impelled it, the