Great Disasters and Horrors in the World's History

by Allen Howard Godbey

The younger Pliny tells us of his uncle’s death, and of the suddenness of the calamity. The people were in the amphitheater when the volcano burst forth. The elder Pliny, in command of the fleet at Misenum, was called by his sister to notice a strange cloud that had just appeared. He had just returned from a walk, bathed, and gone to his study. This was August 24, A. D. 79, about 1 P.M. The dense cloud occasionally glowed with light; again, it was of inky blackness. It was the “pine tree banner,” since become so familiar to the Neapolitans. Pliny at once started for his galleys, determined to have a closer view of the strange scene. As he went to the shore he received a note from a lady who lived at the base of the mountain, urging him to come to her assistance. He set out at once to render what aid he could; “for the villas stood extremely thick upon that lovely coast.” They neared the mount; cinders, pumice, ashes, and glowing stones fell on and among the vessels. Sternly ordering the frightened crew to press on, Pliny stood in the bow of his vessel, calmly dictating notes and observations on the awful scene. Reaching Stabiae, he found a friend in great fear, preparing for flight, and waiting for a change of wind. Pliny ordered baths, and sat calmly down to supper, assuring his friend that the lurid flames on the mountain sides were but villages fired by the heated stones. Retiring to rest, his anxious friends heard him snoring. Finding they were about to be entombed in the falling cinders, they roused him, and all, tying pillows on their heads as protection from the showers of stones, sought the seashore; but the waves ran too high for them to embark. It was still dark as Erebus in the limit of the cloud, though already broad day. Drinking some water, Pliny stretched himself on a mat; but an unusual rush of sulphurous vapor compelled the company to disperse, and two servants assisted him to rise, but he at once fell back dead. Perhaps the noxious vapors were in greater quantity near the ground. His nephew tells us he always had weak lungs. The company fled. Three days later, Pliny’s body was found “looking more like a man asleep than dead.” At Misenum, fourteen miles away, the earth was constantly and violently shaken. Houses were toppling down. Chariots could not be steadied, even by supporting them with large stones. The sea rushed back, leaving many marine animals stranded high and dry. The dark cloud on Vesuvius flamed and roared. The cloud enveloped Misenum and spread to Capreæ. “Nothing was to be heard but the shrieks of women and children, and the cries of men; some were calling for their children, others for their parents, others for their husbands, and only distinguishing each other by their voices; one was lamenting his own fate, another that of his family; some wished to die that they might escape the dreadful fear of death; but the greater part imagined that the last and eternal night was come, which was to destroy the gods and the world together.” Then came the flash of flames; then darkness and ashes, blinding, crushing, burying. Stabiae also was buried. But the destruction of the two great cities is given no word; it was sudden and complete. The ruins show they were shattered by an earthquake. Then showers of broken lava rushed upon Herculaneum; while Pompeii, farther away, was reached only by the cinder-showers. Dion Cassius tells us the people were seated in the theatres when the shock came.

In their terror, every object was distorted and magnified. “A multitude of men, of superhuman stature, resembling giants, appeared sometimes on the mountains, sometimes in the environs; stones and smoke were thrown out; then the giants seemed to rise again, while the sounds of trumpets were heard.”

Cassius, however, wrote a century and a half after the disaster; and the chief value of his testimony is to show how terrible and lasting an impression had been made upon the Campanians, from whom he derived his narrative.

After the desolation, the site of Pompeii was searched for such relics as might be of practical use elsewhere. The search was rough and destructive. The Emperor Alexander Severus made the place a “sort of quarry from which he drew a great quantity of marbles, columns and beautiful statues which he employed in adorning the edifices which he constructed at Rome. Modern research has discovered but few gold and silver articles, coins, and statues. It has developed however, a far more fearful and faithful picture of the eruption than has been given by any historian. The clouds of falling ashes so enveloped each object as to preserve an exact impression, from which casts have been made, showing every curve and line, even to the texture of the clothes. So we look upon the death-agony, and conceive the terrors of the scene.

Here is the arena. Here were skeletons; perhaps of gladiators already slain; perhaps of wounded men, unable to rise, who rolled and gasped, and struggled in the choking gloom. There is the prison; you may see the fetters still round the leg bones of the inmates.

Here stood the temple of Isis. On that pedestal was a beautiful image of her, draped in purple and gold. In the next room lay a priest beside the battered wall, with axe in hand. In the next room sat a priest overtaken at his dinner. In other cloisters lay other priests, who had remained at the temple, perhaps deeming Isis would protect them in that awful hour. Close by the prison door lay a skeleton with a handful of silver coins. Mayhap some one had perished there while endeavoring to bribe the jailor to release a prisoned friend. Close by that column, in his narrow niche, a Roman sentry stood, full armed; observing to the last, stern, unflinching obedience to superior powers, who neglected to relieve him in the terror of the time.

In the vault of a beautiful suburban villa of Diomed, lay eighteen adults, a boy, and an infant, huddled together in attitudes terribly expressive of the agony of a lingering death. To the skulls of the children still clung their long, blonde hair. There was the impress left by the bust of a young girl of striking beauty. Near the garden gate without the house were two skeletons; one with a bunch of keys and a quantity of money; the other with a number of silver vases. Doubtless the family had thought to escape by retiring to the well-provisioned cellar; while two slaves endeavored to profit by the confusion to escape with their booty. The stifling sulphureous vapor found them out.

In the house of the Faun stood the skeleton of a woman; her hands raised over her head. Her scattered jewels lay about the floor. Endeavoring at length to leave the house, she found the doorway blocked with ashes. The flooring of the upper rooms began to fall, and she lifted her arms in vain attempt to stay the crumbling roof. Thus was she found.

In a garden near by a woman was found seven feet from the earth. She had surmounted many obstacles, but perished as she scaled a wall.

Beneath a staircase lay a man who had with him a vast treasure of gold and silver. He had preserved it at a terrible cost. Near by were five others who had met a similar fate. They lay fifteen feet above the earth. Plunderers were these, overpowered by a rush of mephitic gas while delving for buried treasures.