Here lay two bodies, feet to feet—mother and daughter, perhaps. The former lay outstretched and tranquil; the young girl of fifteen, in an attitude expressive of frightful agony. Her legs are drawn up and her hands clinched. With one hand she had drawn her veil about her head, to screen herself from the ashes and smoke. The form and texture of her dress are clearly seen; and through its rents the fair young skin appears like polished marble.
Close by lay a young woman of high rank; young, richly dressed and beautiful. One upraised arm and her clenched hands tell plainer than words her agony and despair. A man—tall, stalwart, in coarse dress and nail-studded sandals, lay at hand. Upon his back, with straightened limbs and extended arms, he had resolved, since unable to escape, to die like a man. His powerful features are clearly shown, and a portion of his moustache adheres to the plaster cast.
Such are sights from which the veil of time has at last been lifted. How many perished in that fearful outbreak we shall never know. Seven hundred skeletons have been found in one-third of the city of Pompeii. Perhaps two thousand perished there. But of the scores who fled from the city, from suburban villas, from villages along the mountain, and who were overtaken by the fiery storm ere they reached a place of safety, who shall tell? Who may declare the fate of the lady who appealed to the Roman admiral Pliny for relief? Such questions each may determine for himself. History will preserve an eternal silence.
Such are the facts concerning the first great historic eruption of Vesuvius. That volcanic phenomena were known to the ancients we have already seen; but the character of Vesuvius seems to have been unsuspected. The Greeks knew of the mountain top as a depressed plain, covered with groves and wild vines. Spartacus and his gladiators, with their thousands of followers, had their fortified camp there. Strabo called it a volcanic mountain, but Pliny the elder did not include it in his list of volcanoes. The fertile, rounded slopes were covered with well-tilled fields.
But the neighboring regions were active, though Vesuvius was not. Pithecusa, the modern Ischia, was often and terribly shaken, and various attempts to settle upon it were in consequence abandoned. Poisonous gases poured forth, even when there was no active eruption.
Still nearer Vesuvius lay the noted lake Avernus, which in Roman mythology was the gateway of hell. It was said to exhale noxious vapors so powerful that birds could not cross it. At the present day it is only a pretty lake, without any unusual properties. It appears to cover an extinct crater.
In the year 63 a great earthquake was felt in the Vesuvian region. Hundreds of lives were lost, and great damage was done in many cities; and numerous lighter shocks occurred during the next sixteen years. No one seems to have apprehended any danger from the mountain. How long it had remained dormant is unknown. But Pompeii and Herculaneum are both built upon lava beds. That Pompeii itself was a very old city is clearly established. In general outline it is elliptical, nearly two miles in circuit, the entire area being one hundred and sixty acres. Characters upon many of the foundation stones would seem to indicate a period earlier than the Etruscan occupation; while other portions, especially the towers, are certainly of later date. It is quite fair to suppose that Vesuvius, from these facts, had lain quiet for a thousand years or more.
One effect of this first eruption of Vesuvius was to break down the western wall of the crater and destroy the entire side of the mountain next the sea, leaving as the only remains of the ancient crater a little ridge on the south flank, and that portion, which under the name of Somma, still encircles the present cone.
From the time of its first eruption, the restlessness of Vesuvius has been well observed. The next action occurred in the year 203. In the meantime the sides of the crater had become overgrown with brushwood and forest trees, and the basin itself was a favorite haunt of wild boars. In the year 472 the mountain broke forth with more violence than at either of the former periods. The roaring was simply indescribable. The clouds of ashes spread over the entire adjacent region. Houses toppled down miles away. Scores of people were suffocated. The ashes fell in showers at Constantinople and Tripoli.
Other eruptions followed in 512, 685, and 993. No stream of molten lava issued at any of these. But in 1036, a great eruption took place, during which, we are told, the lava poured forth from fissures in the sides, as well as from the top, and ran in a broad and deep stream into the sea. Thirteen years later another similar outbreak occurred; then ninety years passed without any disturbance.