promontory of Misenum. My mother implored me earnestly to make my
escape, saying that her age and frame made it impossible for her to get
away, but that she would willingly meet her death if she could know that
she had not been the cause of mine. But I absolutely refused to forsake
her, and seizing her hand I led her on. The ashes now began to fall upon
us, though as yet in no great quantity. I looked back and saw behind us
a dense cloud which came rolling after us like a torrent. I proposed
that while we still had life we should turn out of the high road, lest
she should be trampled to death in the dark by the crowd.

We had scarcely sat down when darkness closed in upon us, not like the
darkness of a moonless night, or of a night obscured by clouds, but the
darkness of a closed room where all the lights have been put out. We
heard the shrieks of women, the cries of children, and the shouts of
men; some were calling for their children, others for their parents,
others for their husbands or wives, and recognising one another through
the darkness by their voices. Some were calling for death through very
fear of death; others raised their hands to the gods; but most imagined
that the last eternal night had come, and that the gods and the world
were being destroyed together. Among these were some who added imaginary
terrors to the real danger, and persuaded the terror-stricken multitude
that Misenum was in flames. At last a glimmer of light appeared which we
imagined to be a sign of approaching flames, as in truth it was; but the
fire fell at a considerable distance from us, and again we were immersed
in darkness. A heavy shower of ashes now rained upon us, so that we were
obliged from time to time to shake them off, or we should have been
crushed and buried in the heap. I might congratulate myself that during
all this horror not a sigh or expression of fear escaped me, if it had
not been that I then believed myself to be perishing with the world
itself, and that all mankind were involved in the same calamity--a
miserable consolation indeed, but a powerful one.

At last this dreadful darkness was dissipated by degrees like a cloud of
smoke; real day returned, and even the sun appeared, though very faintly
as he appears during an eclipse. Everything before our trembling eyes
was changed, being covered over with white ashes as with deep snow. We
returned to Misenum, where we refreshed ourselves as well as we could
and passe