e darkness again, and a thick, heavy fall of ashes. Again
and again we stood up and shook them off; otherwise, we should have been
covered by them, and even crushed by the weight. At last the black mist I
had spoken of seemed to shade off into smoke or cloud, and broke away.
Then came genuine daylight, and the sun shone out with a lurid light, such
as it is wont to have in an eclipse. Our eyes, which had not yet recovered
from the effects of fear, saw everything changed, everything covered deep
with ashes as if with snow. We returned to Misenum, and after refreshing
ourselves as best we could, spent a night of anxiety in mingled hope and
fear. Fear, however, was still the stronger feeling; for the trembling of
the earth continued, while many frenzied persons, with their terrific
predictions, gave an exaggeration that was even ludicrous to the
calamities of themselves and of their friends. Even then, in spite of all
the perils which we had experienced, and which we still expected, we had
not a thought of going away till we could hear news of my uncle."(4)

As to the fate of the Elder Pliny, it seems that the old man had been
obliged together with his friends and servants to fly from the villa at
Stabiae where he was resting. The sea being too agitated to allow of an
embarkation, the fugitives turned their steps towards the slopes of Mons
Gaurus, the present Monte Sant' Angelo, with pillows bound over their
heads to serve as protection against the showers of hot cinders that were
falling thickly on all sides. At length the famous old writer, who was
somewhat plethoric and unwieldy, sank exhausted to the ground, never to
rise again, and shortly expired in an attack of heart failure, induced by
the unusual excitement and fatigue he had lately been called upon to
endure. At any rate, it appears fairly certain that the Elder Pliny did
not perish, as is still sometimes asserted, by the direct effects of the
eruption, but rather through an ordinary collapse of nature--syncope,
perhaps. Three days later his body was found lying not far from Stabiae by
his grief-stricken nephew, who describes his uncle's corpse as looking
"more like that of a sleeping than of a dead man."

This then was the first, as it was also the most violent, of the many
outbreaks of Vesuvius which our own age has witnessed, and with this
eruption of 79 in the reign of Titus, the Mountain, as we have already
said, greatly altered its shape. More than half the