The Historians' History of the World 06

Driven from their homes, which no longer afforded security, the unfortunate inhabitants sought refuge in the fields and open places, covering their heads with pillows, to protect themselves from the increasing fall of stones and volcanic matter, which accumulated in such quantity, as to render it difficult to withdraw the feet from the mass, after remaining still some minutes; but the continuance of internal convulsion still persecuted them; their chariots agitated to and fro, even propped with stones, were not to be kept steady; while, although now day elsewhere, yet here most intense darkness was rendered more appalling by the fitful gleams of torches, at intervals obscured by the transient blaze of lightning.

Multitudes now crowded towards the beach, as the sea, it was imagined, would afford certain means of retreat; but the boisterous agitation of that element, alternately rolling on the shore, and thrown back by the convulsive motion of the earth, leaving the marine animals upon the land it retreated from, precluded every possibility of escape.

At length, preceded by a strong sulphurous stench, a black and dreadful cloud, skirted on every side by forked lightning, burst into a train of fire and igneous vapour, descended over the surface of the ocean, and covered the whole bay of the crater, from the island of Capreæ to the promontory of Misenum with its noxious exhalations; while the thick smoke, accompanied by a slighter shower of ashes, rolled like a torrent among the miserable and affrighted fugitives, who, in the utmost consternation, increased their danger by pressing forward in crowds, without an object, amidst darkness and desolation; now were heard the shrieks of women, screams of children, clamours of men, all accusing their fate, and imploring death, the deliverance they feared, with outstretched hands to the gods, whom many thought about to be involved, together with themselves, in the last eternal night.

Three days and nights were thus endured in all the anguish of suspense and uncertainty; many were doubtless stifled by the mephitic vapour; others spent with the toil of forcing their way through deep and almost impassable roads, sank down to rise no more; while those who escaped, spread the alarm, with all the circumstances of aggravation and horror which their imaginations, under the influence of fear, suggested. At length a gleam of light appeared, not of day, but fire; which, passing, was succeeded by an intense darkness, with so heavy a shower of ashes, that it became necessary to keep the feet in motion to avoid being fixed and buried by the accumulation. On the fourth day the darkness by degrees began to clear away, the real day appeared, the sun shining forth sickly as in an eclipse; but all nature, to the weakened eyes, seemed changed; for towns and fields had disappeared under one expanse of white ashes, or were doubtfully marked, like the more prominent objects, after an alpine fall of snow.

If such be the description of this most tremendous visitation, as it affected Stabiæ and Misenum, comparatively distant from the source of the calamity, what must have been the situation of the unfortunate inhabitants of Pompeii, so near, of Herculaneum, within its focus? Must we not conclude that, at the latter place at least, most of those not overwhelmed by the torrents of stony mud which preceded others of flaming lava, burying their city sixty feet under the new surface, were overtaken by the showers of volcanic matter in the field, or drowned in attempting to escape by sea, their last but hopeless resource, since it appears to have received them to scarcely less certain destruction?

[79-80 A.D.]

The emperor Titus, whose great and good qualities here found every opportunity for their display, immediately hastened to this scene of affliction; appointed curatores, persons of consular dignity, to set up the ruined buildings, and take charge of the effects of those who perished without heirs, for the benefit of the surviving sufferers; to whom he remitted all taxes, and afforded that relief the nature of their circumstances required; personally encouraging the desponding, and alleviating the miseries of the sufferers, until a calamity of an equally melancholy description recalled him to the capital, where [as we have just been told by Dion Cassius] a most destructive fire laying waste nearly half the city, and raging three days without intermission, was succeeded by a pestilence, which for some time is said to have carried off ten thousand persons daily.h

THE RUINS OF POMPEII

AGRICOLA IN BRITAIN

[79 A.D.]