The Last Days of Pompeii
5 Feb 62 CE O.S. – 16 Oct 201833 items
ancient worlddisasterThirty hours on the Bay of Naples
Around midday in the autumn of 79 CE, Vesuvius threw up a column of pumice and gas more than 30 kilometres high. Through the afternoon and night it rained pumice on Pompeii; after midnight the column began to collapse into surges of hot gas and ash that killed everyone left in Herculaneum, then in Pompeii, by the next morning.
The one eyewitness account is two letters that Pliny the Younger, seventeen at the time, wrote to the historian Tacitus a quarter of a century later: 6.16 on the death of his uncle, Pliny the Elder, and 6.20 on his own night at Misenum. Most items sit on those thirty hours. A few before set the scene (the earthquake of 62 and the repairs that followed), and a few after follow the towns back out of the ground.
Which day?
The manuscripts of Pliny date the eruption to 24 August. Autumn fruit in the ruins, sealed wine jars, and a charcoal scrawl found in 2018 that reads 17 October all point to 24 October instead. This timeline tells the eruption on 24–25 October, and gives the August date an item of its own that sets out both cases.
Julian dates, Roman hours
Every ancient date here is entered in the Julian calendar, which the app converts: 24 October 79 (Julian) is 22 October in the Gregorian calendar projected backwards. Dates from 1738 on are Gregorian.
A Roman day had twelve hours from sunrise to sunset, longer in summer and shorter in winter; the seventh always began at noon. Pliny names only two hours. Every other time is an estimate from the volcanology, chiefly Haraldur Sigurdsson’s reconstruction, and each note says which it is. Times are local solar time at Pompeii, about an hour ahead of UTC, so 13:00 in a note is 12:00 UTC.
How it is laid out
Periods: the repairs after the earthquake, the eruption as a whole, the pumice fall and the surges, the two Plinys’ nights, and the Bourbon digs.
Threads to filter by:
eyewitness(Pliny’s letters),volcanoes,rescue,losses,calendar(the date dispute) andarchaeology.
A cloud of unusual size and appearance. — Pliny the Younger, Letters 6.16
Items
The earthquake of 62 or 63
24 August? The date in Pliny’s manuscripts
“XVI K Nov”: a date in charcoal
A cloud shaped like a pine
Rectina’s note; the fleet sails
“Fortune favours the brave”
White pumice turns grey
The first surge reaches Herculaneum
Flight from Misenum
Oplontis
A surge sweeps into Pompeii
Darkness at Misenum
Pliny the Elder dies at Stabiae
The sun comes out, yellow as in an eclipse
Pliny the Elder’s body is found
Titus sends help to Campania
Pliny writes to Tacitus
- ≈ 1,631 years
Digging at Herculaneum begins
Digging at Pompeii begins
A library of burnt scrolls
Fiorelli’s plaster casts
Vesuvius’s last eruption
Skeletons on Herculaneum’s shore
The charcoal date is found