Looking from Cape Misenum towards Mt. Vesuvius in the far right distance

This begins a series of posts that will translate and comment upon Pliny the Younger’s two letters (6.16 and 6.20) about the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in AD 79–the disaster that buried Pompeii, Herculaneum, and other sites. These posts are part of a book project that intends to understand the scholarly and popular reception of those letters. I am also teaching these letters in LAT 223 at DePauw this Fall term, so this is a good time to do it.

I will provide the Latin (using Mynors’ 1963 Oxford Classical Text [OCT]), and then work through it with a translation, dissection of grammatical constructions, and discussion of what the letters tell us. I will doubtless make mistakes as I proceed, and will be grateful for comments and corrections; the essence of scholarship is rectification through better evidence, arguments, or questions.

Today we start with how we even have these letters: the manuscript tradition. Simply put, we do not possess the Younger Pliny’s original letters. What we do have are later copies of, or excerpts from, compilations of his letters into books and collections. These copies fall into groups, or ‘traditions’, as reconstructed through textual criticism. (Below are just the basics; for more detail, see Roger Pearse’s site, which works from L. D. Reynolds, Texts and Transmission, Oxford 1983, 316-22, which in turn relies upon Mynors’ 1963 OCT. William Johnson at the University of Cincinnati also has a useful bibliography for Pliny). Note: the abbreviation ‘ms.’ = ‘manuscript’ (‘mss.’ = ‘manuscripts’).

1. The ‘Nine-Book’ series
   • The ‘Eight-Book’ series (known as ‘γ‘ [gamma]):
     • Codex Veronensis deperditus (‘lost’) (at least 10th c. AD); contained books 1-7 and 9, with some omissions from books 1 and 9.
     • Oxford, Holkham Hall 396 (15th c.), contains 167 letters of the γ tradition.
   • Supplementary source (known as ‘θ‘ [theta]), date and origin uncertain, represented by several manuscripts in the Vatican, Turin, and Paris, used to fill in gaps and offer better readings in certain places.
   • Carolingian source (known as ‘α‘ [alpha]):
     • ‘V‘: Codex Vaticanus latinus 3864 (9th c. AD), contains books 1-4;
     • ‘M‘: Codex Laurentianus Mediceus 47.36 (9th c. AD), contains books 1-9.15, 9.17-9.25; written at Fulda monastery; was at Corvey monastery before it was stolen and brought down to Italy; it is now in Florence, in the library of the Medici family (visit the website).
       • excerpt in Codex Vaticanus latinus Reginensis 251, pp. 11-13 (early 9th c. AD), containing letter 6.16.
2. The ‘Ten-Book’ series (known as ‘β‘ [beta]):
   • ‘Π‘: Pierpont Morgan M.462 (late 5th c. AD), contains 2.20.13 to 3.5.4; once whole when in the collection of St. Victor in Paris from the 14th-16th c. Only six leaves remain, but all other manuscripts in this series were copied from this one. This publication is available as a Project Gutenberg e-book, with scans of the plates if you want to see what an ancient text looks like!
   • ‘B‘: Florence, Laurentianus Ashburnham 98 (9th c. AD), contains Book 1 down to 5.6.31, minus a couple of letters in books 2 and 3, a descendant of Π.
   • ‘F‘: Florence, Laurentianus S. Marco 284 (11th c. AD), contains Book 1 down to 5.6 (exactly 100 letters), a descendant of Π.
   • ‘I/i‘: Oxford, Bodleian Auct L.4.3 (a compilation of the 16th c. by G. Budé and containing all the letters), largely relying upon Π.
   • ‘a‘: editio Aldina 1508 (a printing-press edition), containing all the letters.

Our letters (6.16 and 6.20) happen to be extant in multiple manuscripts. This is good, because we have multiple sources that we can compare towards trying to get as close as possible to Pliny’s original text. This is also bad, because it can lead to confusion, contradiction, and uncertainty, esp. regarding points such as the month and date of the Vesuvian eruption. Mostly it’s good; we’d rather have more sources than fewer.

As the list of series and sources above can be confusing, here’s a graphical representation of how the Younger Pliny’s letters have descended to us:

For letters 6.16 and 6.20, the principal relevant sources are: γ, θ, M, i, a, which offer variant readings for particular passages. Mostly, it is three documents surviving physically today (M, a, i) that provide the OCT text from which we will be translating; I’ve highlighted those in yellow. When it is important for a point of understanding or interpretation, I will refer to these sources to provide alternate readings. The whole set of alternate readings for any text is called an apparatus criticus, and the ‘ap crit,’ as it is known, appears at the bottom of each page of text in modern scholarly editions, wrapped in mystical abbreviations and orthography that are revealed to graduate students with great solemnity, as if it’s some secret about the authorial certitude of our literary heritage (and it sort of is); here’s a key to unlock the ‘ap crit’ abbreviations.

The scholarly edition of the Latin text for this translation project, as mentioned above, will be the Oxford Classical Text edited by R.A.B. Mynors and published in 1963. In our next post, ‘Dramatis Personae,’ we will learn about the characters in this story, and begin to find out why the Younger Pliny, some 25-30 years after Vesuvius exploded, wrote these letters in the first place.

Lake Como: hometown of the Pliny family

Dramatis Personae

Both Vesuvian letters (Ep. 6.16 and 6.20) are addressed to the historian Cornelius Tacitus. The first (6.16) responds to a request that Tacitus has made to the Younger Pliny for information about how the Younger Pliny’s uncle (the ‘Elder Pliny’) died in the AD 79 eruption. The second (6.20) gives more information, again at Tacitus’ request, about how Pliny and his mother (Plinia) survived the disaster. One other character also appears in the latter letter: a mysterious unnamed friend from Spain. Let’s meet them all.

• The Younger Pliny. Our hero, ‘Caius Plinius Caecilius Secundus,’ was born in AD 61 or 62 in northern Italy (Novum Comum). His father died while he was young, and he was adopted by his mother’s brother, the Elder Pliny (whom Younger Pliny almost exclusively calls ‘uncle’ rather than ‘father’). Young Pliny put his fine education (his rhetoric teacher was Quintilian!) to good use: at age 18 he won his first court case defending an obscure man named Junius Pastor against powerful interests (Ep. 1.18). Progressing up the legal and political ladder (and he got rich when he inherited his uncle’s estate), he took on military, juridical, and administrative assignments from North Africa to Syria, and became consul in AD 100. On that occasion, he gave a formal speech of praise to the Emperor Trajan, known as the Panegyricus. Pliny went on to publish the three-hour ‘Director’s Cut’ of that speech which, although irritatingly obsequious, remains a model of Latin rhetoric. Pliny then was put in charge of the commissioners responsible for keeping the Tiber river from flooding,

  Trajan’s head on a coin from Bithynia

  and ended his days as governor of Bithynia et Pontus (northwest Turkey).  The Younger Pliny was the epitome of the active learned gentleman of the Roman imperial age. His social savvy kept him alive during the reign of the emperor Domitian, and his finely crafted sentences won him political clout and literary admiration. He edited and published nine books of private letters during his lifetime; a tenth book of imperial correspondence was added to the corpus later. In our letters, the Younger Pliny dramatically survives the eruption (the author always lives, right?).

• Pliny’s Monstrous Races, 12th c. ms.

  The Elder Pliny. ‘Caius Plinius Caecilius’ was also born at Novum Comum, in AD 23 or 24. He was of the equestrian order, and worked his way through military offices and legal cases until an army buddy named Titus (whose father Vespasian became emperor in AD 69) gave a boost to his public service aspirations–Pliny ended up admiral of the western imperial fleet at the time of his death. As an author, Pliny’s magnum opus was the Historia Naturalis, an encyclopedic account of the world that contained both real and imagined facts and tales (such as the Monstrous Races, popular both in medieval accounts of Strange Lands and in modern Dungeons&Dragons- like bestiaries). Pliny was interested in everything. In our story, the Elder Pliny dies because of that curiosity, nobly succumbing to the volcano.

• Plinia. Pliny’s mother is prominent in our two letters, but must have died not too long after Vesuvius erupted, since she is barely mentioned elsewhere. She was sister to the Elder Pliny. We will learn more about her in letter 6.20.

• Aesina ms. of Tacitus’ Agricola and Germania

  Cornelius Tacitus. Tacitus was a contemporary and friend of the Younger Pliny, and equally admired and hated by Latin students for the difficulty of his prose. He was the paramount historian of the Roman era, expert in examining the lures and flaws of power. He wrote a biography of his father-in-law (Agricola), the major literary source of information about Roman Britain, and an ethnographic-ish treatise on the Germans (Germania), which became the ur-text of German nationalism (painting strong and noble savages resistant to an increasingly decadent empire). Tacticus also wrote two long imperial histories: the Annales, covering the Julio-Claudian period from the death of Augustus to the last days of Nero (AD 14-68), and the Historiae, which records the Flavian years from AD 69-96. Neither has survived to us complete. It was to work on his Historiae that Tacitus, at some point between AD 104-108, wrote a letter to the Younger Pliny asking what had happened to his uncle. Sadly, the portion of Tacitus’ work covering the Vesuvian disaster does not survive. But Pliny’s letters do.

• The Friend from Spain. The only other speaking role in these letters belongs to ‘amicus ex Hispania‘, who appears twice in letter 6.20 to exhort Younger Pliny and his mother to flee. He is described as a pal of the Elder Pliny who (with very poor timing) has just arrived for a visit. We don’t know who he is, but he’s the perfect fellow for some author to use as the subject of the next historical novel about the Last Days of Pompeii.

In our next post, ‘The Historian’s Request‘, the voices of our characters will begin to speak.

To learn more about these people, see:

• von Albrecht, M., A History of Roman Literature, vol. 2, Leiden 1997, 1146-57
• Birley, A., Onomasticon to the Younger Pliny. Letters and Panegyric, Munich, 2000.
• Briggs, W.W., Ancient Roman Writers, Dictionary of Literary Biography vol. 211, Detroit, 1999, 235-250 (the Plinys), 306-313 (Tacitus)
• Carlon, J.M., Pliny’s Women, Cambridge 2009.
• Hoffer, S.E., The Anxieties of Pliny the Younger, Atlanta 1999.
• Radice, B., transl. and intro., The Letters of the Younger Pliny, Baltimore 1963.
• Reynolds, L.D., ed., Texts and Transmission, Oxford 1983, 307-22 (the Plinys), 406-11 (Tacitus).
• Sherwin-White, A.N., The Letters of Pliny, Oxford, 1966.
• Syme, R., Tacitus, Oxford 1958.
• Wescott, J.H., Selected Letters of Pliny, Boston 1898.
• Krasser Gießen, “Plinius Secundus,” Der Neue Pauly. Enzyklopädie der Antike, Band 9, Stuttgart, 2000, 1141-44.
• Woodman, A.J., Cambridge Companion to Tacitus, Cambridge 2010.

Bay of Naples: pulcherrimarum terrarum

6.16.1-3: The Historian’s Request

With the background established, let’s read the letters. The Latin is in italics; English translation follows in Roman text, indented, and then commentary in brown text. Parentheses indicate (‘understood’) words that are not explicit in the Latin. Remember: our purpose here is as much to give a look at the process of translating as to provide another translated product. So I will tend to err on the side of a technical rather than a fluid English translation.

C. PLINIUS TACITO SUO S.

Gaius Plinius greets his dear (friend) Tacitus.

‘C‘ is the abbreviation for the common name ‘Caius‘, or ‘Gaius‘. ‘S‘ is short for ‘salutem‘, and goes with the gapped verb ‘dicit‘ to mean ‘says greeting’. ‘Suo‘ is a term of affectionate familiarity often used to denote ‘one’s own’ (i.e., family and friends). This is a pretty standard opening for a letter.

1 Petis ut tibi avunculi mei exitum scribam, quo verius tradere posteris possis. Gratias ago; nam video morti eius si celebretur a te immortalem gloriam esse propositam.

1 You ask that I write to you about the death of my uncle, so that you might be able to hand it down more accurately to posterity. Thank you — for I see that the everlasting renown of his death is established if he were honored by you.

Right away the Younger Pliny tells us that this letter is a response to Tacitus’ request for information to help with his history project (‘Pliny: please tell me how your uncle died…’). Not for the last time, Pliny will describe the power of published writing as a vehicle for immortality.

Pliny begins with an indirect command (‘petis ut…scribam‘), followed by a relative clause of purpose (‘quo…tradere…possis‘). He then goes into indirect statement (after a verb of saying, thinking, knowing, or perceiving: ‘video‘) that segues right into a mixed condition. Video, ‘I see’ (that is: ‘I understand/know/realize’) assumes the mental certainty of historical fame in the perfect passive infinitive (video…esse propositam) dependent upon Tacitus including the Elder Pliny’s demise in his Historiae, which is technically uncertain at this point (Pliny is not done with this letter, and Tacitus hasn’t finished or published the Historiae yet). Therefore the imperfect subjunctive is used (si celebretur a te, ‘if he were honored by you’). All these classic constructions are great for teaching Latin.

We also get tension (exitum…posteris, morti eius…immortalem gloriam) between mortality and continuity that builds through both letters (Wescott’s notes [218] calls them ‘oxymorons’). That tension is the essence of the Younger Pliny’s motivation in responding to Tacitus. 

2 Quamvis enim pulcherrimarum clade terrarum, ut populi ut urbes memorabili casu, quasi semper victurus occiderit, quamvis ipse plurima opera et mansura condiderit, multum tamen perpetuitati eius scriptorum tuorum aeternitas addet.

2 For although he died in the destruction of the loveliest of lands, as whole populations and as cities (did) because of a memorable disaster, it will be as if he lives ever on; although he himself composed works both plentiful and destined to endure, nevertheless the immortality of your written words will add much to his perpetuity.

Here Pliny marks the magnitude of the cataclysm: it was the most beautiful place that was ruined; whole cities perished with their populations. Scholars of Pompeii always try to vary the nouns they use to describe the eruption; so far, I’ve used ‘destruction’, ‘disaster’, ‘cataclysm’, etc.; Pliny does the same: clades, casus. We have a lot of words for Very Bad Things.

The structural tension between finality and perpetuity builds:
• pulcherrimarum terrarum, ‘loveliest of lands’ vs. clade, ‘destruction’;
• populi…urbes, ‘(living) populations and cities’ vs. casu, ‘disaster’;
• quasi semper victurus, ‘it will be as if he lives ever on’ vs. occiderit, ‘he died’.
Younger Pliny then serves up dollops of hope: though Elder Pliny wrote quite a lot (plurima), and what he wrote is going to endure (mansura), the immortality (aeternitas) of Tacticus’ own history-writing will add yet more (multum) to the Elder Pliny’s continuing legacy (perpetuitati). The irony, of course, is that Tacitus’ version has not survived.

Pliny has revealed an urgent desire for his uncle to be remembered: the more ways, the bigger ways, the more lasting ways, the better. In a way, Tacitus has provided Pliny a way to demonstrate filial pietas, that Roman value of loyal devotion to gods, nation, and most importantly family.

3 Equidem beatos puto, quibus deorum munere datum est aut facere scribenda aut scribere legenda, beatissimos vero quibus utrumque. Horum in numero avunculus meus et suis libris et tuis erit. Quo libentius suscipio, deposco etiam quod iniungis.

3 Indeed I think that fortunate persons are those to whom is given, by gift of the gods, either to do things worth writing about, or to write things worth reading, and indeed, most fortunate are those to whom both are given. My uncle will be amongst the number of the latter, both in his own books, and in yours. Accordingly I quite freely undertake–even demand–what you have enjoined me to do.

‘puto‘ introduces parallel indirect statements (‘beatos and beatissimos [esse]‘) which both connect to relative clauses (introduced by quibus…). The prize is: ‘aut facere scribenda aut scribere legenda’ which has both a synchysis of forms (infinitive-gerundive-infinitive-gerundive) and a near chiasmus of verbs (facere-scribere-scribere-legere). This elegant sentiment has been meaningful both to the 4th Earl of Chesterfield (ca. 1740) and to aspiring hobbits today. The former knew his Latin, and in writing to his bastard son (letter 37) after quoting our Plinian passage, he advises:

“Pray mind your Greek particularly; for to know Greek very well, is to be really learned: there is no great credit in knowing Latin, for every body knows it; and it is only a shame not to know it.”

Nowadays hardly anyone knows Latin, much less Greek (ergo, this blog).

The gerundives above are substantival–that is, they incorporate ‘things’ in their understanding (‘things worth writing/reading’), so they act more like nouns than the verbal adjectives they are supposed to be. (Gerundives and gerunds are great fun.) Another relative clause (horum…) claims that the Elder Pliny will belong to the choir of special souls who both ‘did great things’ and ‘wrote well’ (listen up, college students), and once again he manages to compliment Tacitus. The eagerness that the Younger Pliny shows here is palpable: he is now demanding (‘deposco‘) the yoke (literally, from ‘iniungo‘) of writing his uncle’s story for posterity. It’s a good thing he did.

Next time, in the post for 6.16.4-6, ‘A Strange Cloud,’ we will watch a curious apparition form over the mountain.

Strange Cloud: non alia magis arbor quam pinus

6.16.4-6: A Strange Cloud

The Younger Pliny now begins the tale that Tacitus has asked him to share. It is critical to remember that the real subject of, and reason for, these letters, is to honor the life and memory of the Elder Pliny–not to describe a volcanic eruption and its effects–though it was the latter that the Elder Pliny was interested in recording that day, as we will see later on.

This post will also consider the date of the eruption in some detail.

4 Erat Miseni classemque imperio praesens regebat. Nonum kal. Septembres hora fere septima mater mea indicat ei adparere nubem inusitata et magnitudine et specie. 

4 He (Elder Pliny) was at Misenum and he was in command of the fleet. On the ninth day before the first of September at about the seventh hour, my mother indicates to him that a cloud of unusual size and shape is appearing.

Misenum was the location of the Roman fleet (classis Misenensis) for the western Mediterranean. This map shows the inner (now a lagoon, ‘Lago Miseno’) and outer ancient harbors tucked just inside the cape, sheltered from heavy wind and wave. The area around Misenum, known as the Phlegraean (‘Burning’) Fields because of its active volcanic nature, is rife with archaeology; here’s information for visiting the superb Museo dei Campi Flegrei). Right away, Younger Pliny establishes his uncle’s clout as commander.

Two tenses operate in the Latin here. The first sentence uses imperfect (erat, regebat), which indicates ongoing (incomplete) action in the past. Younger Pliny is telling us that the Elder Pliny’s location and job were ongoing. The tense then switches to the present (indicat), as I have translated above, but it is really ‘historical present‘–that is, present tense understood to have happened in the past (i.e., “my mother indicated to him that a cloud…was appearing”). (Credit to Plinia for being the first to notice something.) Use of the historical present makes the narrative more vivid–a ‘you are there’ approach, and Younger Pliny slips us easily into that temporal frame through the imperfect tense in the first sentence.

The pivot point between the temporal frames is a precise date and time–seventh hour, ninth day before the Kalends (first) of September (cf. the Roman calendar). This is Aug. 24, because the Romans counted inclusively (both the start and end of a sequence: Aug. 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, Sept. 1). The Roman system for hours of a day is confusing; they divided up daylight into 12 equal parts regardless of the time of year, so hours during the summer were longer than during the winter (at the vernal and autumnal equinoxes they = 1 hour). Happily, one can use the NOAA Solar Calculator to determine sunrise and sunset at any time in history anywhere on earth. So here’s the information to plug in for Capo Miseno (ancient Misenum):

• Lat. 40.785640 N; Long. 14.085770 E
• Time Zone: 1 (Central European Time)
• Date: 24 August 79, Local time (doesn’t matter except for knowing azimuth)

Result? Sunrise at 5:19 and sunset at 18:49. That’s 13 1/2 hours of daylight, divided/12 = 67.5 min. per ‘hour’ x six (hours elapsed before the ‘seventh’ hour begins) = 405 min that we tack on to 5:19 to equal 12:04, or, just about noon (that’s what most translations say, but now you know how they derived it).

Have I forgotten or ignored anything? Well, yes. For one, a change in calendars. Pope Gregory XIII, in order to re-align the Julian calendar to the solar year (and liturgical holidays), decreed that the day after 4 Oct. 1582 became 15 Oct. 1582: ten days ‘disappeared’, and the leap year calendar was adjusted to drop leap years in years not divisible by 400 (the year 2000 was, but 2100 will not be a leap year). For our purposes, the NOAA Solar Calculator extrapolates the Gregorian calendar backwards through time, so in order to work with 24 Aug. in the Julian calendar, we need to add ten days, and calculate for 2 September. The results are now: 5:29 sunrise and 18:35 sunset (786 min/12 = 65.5 min per ‘hour’ x six (hours elapsed) = 393 min. tacked on to 5:29, equalling 12:02, or, just about noon! What?

That’s a lot of calculator trouble for two lousy minutes. But it does point out that the start of the Roman ‘seventh hour’ is always going to be noon. It has to be: it is halfway from sunrise to sunset, and marks the highest point of the sun on any day of the year. Pliny would have known that because the gnomon on his sundial would have cast its shortest shadow at noon. (Great article from Oxford on the workings of a Roman sundial, and correct, except for a confusion over how Romans counted their hours [the first hour of the day is '1', not '0'].) Sorry. I could have been more direct. But it wouldn’t have been as much fun.

So much for precision. But precision is not the same as accuracy. For we can’t be completely sure that 24 August was the date of the eruption at all. Recently there’s been wrangling about the correct date. Jeremy O’Clair has collated several arguments, with references, in his blog ‘Ancient Study‘; see also the Wikipedia article and Blogging Pompeii. Here are highlights,  details, and some thoughts.

• Dates in the manuscripts.

  The M manuscript showing eruption date near the bottom, from U. Pappalardo via Jeremy O’Clair’s blog

  No, they are not always reliable. Recall that we have five main manuscript sources for this letter (γ, θ, M, i, a), and of those, M, a, and i are the primary coherent documents. Manuscripts M and a give us “nonum kal. Septembres“. But there are other manuscripts as well. According to S.E. Stout’s critical edition (1962), the 15th-c. Codex Parisinus 8620 (f) has only “nonum kal.” (no month); a ca. 1474 printed edition (Hain 13108) (r) has “November Calend“; three other printed editions (Hain 13114, ca. 1490; Hain 13115, ca. 1498; Cataneus ca. 1506) all have “Kl. [or Cal.] Novembres” (s). It should be noted that f, r, and s don’t quite agree with each other, though they all come from the same (γ) tradition (itself not mentioning a month at all), which then do not agree with M and a (which have “Septembres“, M also being our oldest substantially-complete ms.). Furthermore, the Hain 13108 (r) and 13114 printed editions have “Novembres” as a corrupted conjecture from “nonum“, according to Stout (this is sensible: nonum–>novem–>Novem[bres]). All in all (and the [γ] tradition is the most problematic in the manuscript tradition anyway), the “November” references are seriously flawed and cannot be considered strong literary evidence for an alternative date. That leaves a reference in Berry (The Complete Pompeii, 2007, p.20) to “IX Kal. Decembris“. This is an editorial emendation (supposed for the Pliny mss. that don’t mention a month) by Carlo Maria Rosini in 1797, as noted by Rolandi et al. in their 2007 article. It derives purely from his archaeological excavations of environmental data (certain plant remains, the presence of a carpet on one floor, and braziers in atria [used for cooking, not just for heating, by the way: see Figures 1.11-13 here]) which suggested to him a cold climate at the time of the eruption. In other words, to Rosini’s mind, the archaeology did not fit the text, so he changed the text.

• An interesting coin.

  Coin of Titus, AD 79, Tribunician Power 9th time, Imperator 15th time, Consul, 7th time, Pater Patriae (same type as the one said to be found at Pompeii, found near Bury St. Edmunds in Britain: SF-634850)

  Rolandi et al. (2007) describe a silver denarius found on 7 June in 1974 at Pompeii as part of a hoard in the House of the Golden Bracelet (VI.17.42). It shows the portrait of Titus and a capricorn symbol, with notice that Titus was imperator for the 15th time (for a victory won that summer in Britain; see Dio Cassius’ text below): IMP XV. Working from an article by G. Stefani in 2006, they also cite two other documents: a bronze copy of a letter from Titus to the city of Munigua in Spain, and a military diploma from Egypt; both mention Titus as imperator for only the 14th time, and those documents are internally dated to 7 and 8 September respectively. The argument seems airtight–such a coin has to date after the Spanish and Egyptian documents, since the title of the emperor on the coin is more ‘up-to-date’. Accordingly, the promulgation of the emperor’s 15th honor of imperator (and therefore the eruption) would have to date after 7 Sept. But there is a question about the actual legibility of that silver denarius from the House of the Golden Bracelet (P 14312/176 in the Naples Museum); what has been published is an artist’s drawing that shows a clear, well-preserved piece; there is no photograph of the actual object. A nearly identical Titus/capricorn coin lists imperator for the 14th time, so if the Golden Bracelet coin is not preserved well on that side, it’d be impossible to tell the difference. Has anyone seen the Pompeian coin in question?

• Environmental Data. This includes a whole bunch of conflicting data about artifacts, ecofacts, or the dispersal pattern of volcanic fallout. Collectively, it does not point one way or another. Modern high-altitude wind patterns during August usually flow westward, but the AD 79 ash fell to the south-east (Rolandi et al. [2007]), more in line with a late summer/early autumn (modern) pattern. The problem, of course, is arguing from a general modern pattern to a specific ancient fallout. The species of fish sauce found bottled up points to a July-early August harvest, and August production. Other arguments about pollen, fruit (fresh or dried), leaves, etc., why some of the dead were wearing heavy clothing–all falter on the fact that not just one kind of evidence from one season is preserved at this site. Pompeii is a complicated palimpsest. I won’t comment further on environmental data, since I doubt any such evidence will ever be conclusive; please refer to  ’Ancient Study‘, Wikipedia, and Blogging Pompeii if you’re curious.
  

How do we know what year it was? (Pliny doesn’t give any hint.) Well, that comes from another source: The late 2nd c. AD Roman historian Dio Cassius, preserved in paraphrased, epitomized form by the 11th-c. monk Xiphilinus, in sections 66.20-23 (at Bill Thayer’s site; the 1925 Loeb translation) tells us it happened “at summer’s end” in the first year of Titus’ reign (AD 79):

20.3 As a result of these events in Britain Titus received the title of imperator for the fifteenth time…

21.1 In Campania remarkable and frightful occurrences took place; for a great fire suddenly flared up at the very end of the summer… Mt. Vesuvius stands over against Neapolis near the sea and it has inexhaustible fountains of fire…the crater is given over to the fire and sends up smoke by day and a flame by night; in fact, it gives the impression that quantities of incense of all kinds are being burned in it. 4 This, now, goes on all the time, sometimes to a greater, sometimes to a less extent; but often the mountain throws up ashes, whenever there is an extensive settling in the interior, and discharges stones whenever it is rent by a violent blast of air. It also rumbles and roars because its vents are not all grouped together but are narrow and concealed.

22.1 Such is Vesuvius, and these phenomena usually occur there every year. But all the other occurrences that had taken place there in the course of time, however notable, because unusual, they may have seemed to those who on each occasion observed them, nevertheless would be regarded as trivial in comparison with what now happened, even if all had been combined into one. 2 This was what befell. Numbers of huge men quite surpassing any human stature — such creatures, in fact, as the Giants are pictured to have been — appeared, now on the mountain, now in the surrounding country, and again in the cities, wandering over the earth day and night and also flitting through the air. 3 After this fearful droughts and sudden and violent earthquakes occurred, so that the whole plain round about seethed and the summits leaped into the air. There were frequent rumblings, some of them subterranean, that resembled thunder, and some on the surface, that sounded like bellowings; the sea also joined in the roar and the sky re-echoed it. 4 Then suddenly a portentous crash was heard, as if the mountains were tumbling in ruins; and first huge stones were hurled aloft, rising as high as the very summits, then came a great quantity of fire and endless smoke, so that the whole atmosphere was obscured and the sun was entirely hidden, as if eclipsed.

23.1 Thus day was turned into night and light into darkness. Some thought that the Giants were rising again in revolt (for at this time also many of their forms could be discerned in the smoke and, moreover, a sound as of trumpets was heard), while others believed that the whole universe was being resolved into chaos or fire. 2 Therefore they fled, some from the houses into the streets, others from outside into the houses, now from the sea to the land and now from the land to the sea; for in their excitement they regarded any place where they were not as safer than where they were. 3 While this was going on, an inconceivable quantity of ashes was blown out, which covered both sea and land and filled all the air. It wrought much injury of various kinds, as chance befell, to men and farms and cattle, and in particular it destroyed all fish and birds. Furthermore, it buried two entire cities, Herculaneum and Pompeii, the latter place while its populace was seated in the theatre. 4 Indeed, the amount of dust, taken all together, was so great that some of it reached Africa and Syria and Egypt, and it also reached Rome, filling the air overhead and darkening the sun. 5  There, too, no little fear was occasioned, that lasted for several days, since the people did not know and could not imagine what had happened, but, like those close at hand, believed that the whole world was being turned upside down, that the sun was disappearing into the earth and that the earth was being lifted to the sky. These ashes, now, did the Romans no great harm at the time, though later they brought a terrible pestilence upon them.

Here’s a link to the original Greek text on Perseus. The part (23.3) about the Pompeians dying in the theater was believed for a long time (I recall, though I can’t put my hands to the evidence), until the theater began to be excavated in 1764 and no bodies found there.

Also note the reference to the eruption happening “at the very end of the summer.” (And you thought you were done reading about this.) The Greek is: “κατ᾽ αὐτὸ τὸ φθινόπωρον“. “αὐτὸ” here means “right at,” and “φθινόπωρον” is an interesting word; it basically means “autumn,” but is a compound of “φθιν” “the waning of,” from “φθίω” and “όπωρα” “latter part of summer”, i.e., late July-August-early September. The Loeb translator chose to be literal, “right at the waning of summer.” If one prefers “autumn” more generally as a fair translation of φθινόπωρον (and it is), then the specifying force of “αὐτὸ“ has to be explained. I don’t think this passage can decide between the manuscript variations; the textual tradition of Dio is far more problematic than that of Pliny anyway. No help there, really.

Perhaps it is best to conclude that we don’t know the exact date for certain, and it doesn’t matter a whole lot to understanding what happened. Only a (understandably) sharp thirst for rare glimpses of precise historical accuracy really keeps this debate going. If we want to convey the precise immediacy of the ‘historical present’ (as museum exhibitions need to), 24 August is a ready default, and currently better than the alternatives. If we want to be more accurate, however, we should be more vague, and simply say: ‘in late AD 79′.

By the way, I quite like the parts about the Giant-like Men causing havoc on the volcano (in the Greek: “ἄνδρες πολλοὶ καὶ μεγάλοι, οἷοι οἱ γίγαντες γράφονται”). I picture the Elder Pliny’s Monstrous Races crawling out of the uncivilized margins of his seventh book (here, a fun translation from 1601) to take revenge on Pliny (and Romano-Hellenistic culture in general) for making them look ridiculous. 

Let’s get back to the story.

5 Usus ille sole, mox frigida, gustaverat iacens studebatque; poscit soleas, ascendit locum ex quo maxime miraculum illud conspici poterat. Nubes — incertum procul intuentibus ex quo monte (Vesuvium fuisse postea cognitum est)— oriebatur, cuius similitudinem et formam non alia magis arbor quam pinus expresserit.

5 He (Elder Pliny) took in the sun, then had a cold bath; he had eaten laying down and he began to study; he asks for his slippers, and he ascends to a place from which that marvel was best able to be seen. A cloud–it was uncertain to those watching from afar from which mountain (afterwards it was known to have been Vesuvius)–was rising up, whose resemblance and shape a pine tree would not have portrayed any differently.

A curious cloud appears on the horizon and Elder Pliny continues his routine: sunbathing, cold dip (in a bathing pool or in the sea next to the house), a bit of food, and study. The meal here is probably prandium, ”lunch”, which was usually informal; this might be why Younger Pliny bothers to mention that the Elder was reclining (iacens) while he ate, which was normal protocol for the more formal cena, ”dinner”. (See pp. 27-32 of this dissertation for literary evidence about when Romans ate.) The Plinys are probably living in a multi-terraced seaside villa like we find along the west side of Pompeii (e.g., the House of the Golden Bracelet) or below Herculaneum (the Villa dei Papiri is an example; see this virtual model); this allows Elder Pliny to climb up and have a look (literally at “something genuinely out of the ordinary and worthy of wonder”: miraculum).

Plinian eruption model from San Diego State University

The description of the cloud is justly famous–and only sensible to those who have seen the sort of pine trees that grow around the Bay of Naples (see the vintage postcard at the head of this post). This category of eruption is still called ‘Plinian’ by volcanologists, in honor of the first detailed, analytic description.

The Latin tenses are all over the place–pluperfect, imperfect, perfect, historical present again, making the result a bit choppy. For Latinists, the part from cuius to expresserit is a nice relative clause of characteristic, though.

6 Nam longissimo velut trunco elata in altum quibusdam ramis diffundebatur, credo quia recenti spiritu evecta, dein senescente eo destituta aut etiam pondere suo victa in latitudinem vanescebat, candida interdum, interdum sordida et maculosa prout terram cineremve sustulerat.

6 For having been raised high up on a very tall sort of trunk, (the cloud) was spreading out into something like branches, I believe because, having been carried forth by a fresh blast and then forsaken by that diminishing force, or even conquered by its own weight, it was dissipating, sometimes white, sometimes dingy and flecked, according to the earth or ash it had borne.

Here the Younger Pliny is channeling the observational and analytic eye of his uncle, trying to explain the mechanics of the developing shape of the cloud. In real terms, he’s not far off, which is one reason why I suspect volcanologists love him.

More interesting, perhaps, is how Pliny searches for life-form similes and metaphors to express what he sees: the cloud is a “pine tree” with a “trunk” and “branches”; the volcano has “breath” (spiritus), and the cloud follows a life-cycle from being born (recens) to growing old (senescens). At last the surging, rising smoke is abandoned (destituta) and overcome (victa) by its mortal weight (pondus). Sadly, it is when those columns of elevated debris collapsed and “died” that the pyroclastic flows and surges occurred that killed everyone. Without knowing it, Pliny’s metaphors of decline and fall for his inanimate clouds were about to be harshly but aptly played out upon a living populace.

Next time, in the post for 6.16.7-10, ‘The Hero Embarks,’ the Elder Pliny prepares to venture a scientific study of this miraculum, until the sudden arrival of a letter forces him to change tack and try to rescue some friends, all while the Younger Pliny, um, catches up on his homework.

Footnote: We have two papyrus letters home from young sailors posted to Misenum in the 2nd c. AD; they were from the Fayum area in Egypt (the towns of Karanis and Philadelphia). Here is the Greek for the second letter.

Relative location of Vesuvius compared to the naval base at Misenum (inner and outer harbors visible at lower center). Based on GoogleEarth.

6.16.7-10: The Hero Embarks

The Younger Pliny has just unfolded a detailed description of the volcanic cloud that was first spotted by his mother around noon. (Note that this just provides a terminus ante quem for the initial explosion, but because of the explosive nature of ‘Plinian eruptions’, it is unlikely to have begun too long before Plinia noticed it.) Pliny is working from three sources: his memory, notes he took shortly after the event, and conversations with other people after the eruption (as he says later in section 22 of this letter).

As the crater of Vesuvius is about 30 km. away from Misenum by direct line of sight, the Elder Pliny, his curiosity alight, decides to have a closer look. It is perhaps 2 or 3 in the afternoon (we don’t know how long Pliny took with his bath, his lunch, and his climb to a vantage point). There was as yet no sense of urgency, but that was about to change.

7 Magnum propiusque noscendum ut eruditissimo viro visum. Iubet liburnicam aptari; mihi si venire una vellem facit copiam; respondi studere me malle, et forte ipse quod scriberem dederat.

7 (The cloud) seemed significant to such a highly learned man, and worth knowing about closer up. He orders a Liburnian (light ship) to be prepared; he makes the opportunity available to me if I should wish to come along; I responded that I preferred to study, and by chance he himself had set me something to write.

Reconstruction of a Roman bireme from navistory.com

(Note: I translate the Latin historical present as present to help convey the vividness Pliny intends.)

Elder Pliny’s first choice for transport is a Liburnian. These were light, fast ships with two banks of oars (biremes) on either side, manned by ca. 60 rowers, and a large square sail. The Liburnian type (and term) was apparently taken from swift vessels used by pirates amongst the coastal islands of Illyria (modern Croatia)–good stories always include pirates. But our hard knowledge of ships in the Roman navy is problematic. Evidence is sketchy; transport ships, not military craft, tend to preserve as shipwrecks, and designs and usage changed over time. The subject has recently been treated in a book by Michael Pitassi (Roman Warships, Boydell 2011): review from the Classical Journal; review from De Re Militari; (more critical) German review from H-Net. Suffice it to say that a Liburnian, with a relatively small crew, was meant for reconnaissance, communication, light transport, and speed.

The speed of ancient ships, either rowed or driven before the wind, has been much debated. Lionel Casson, the most expert 20th-c. scholar on the subject, argued for 5-6 knots (9-11 km./hr) with favorable winds (based on literary accounts of long-distance journeys). There was a brisk wind running SE that day (we know this from the fallout pattern of ash and because the Elder Pliny’s ship would later get stuck at Stabiae in the SE corner of the Bay of Naples).

Young Pliny chooses words like ‘worth knowing’ (noscendum, a future passive participle [gerundive]) and ‘highly learned’ (eruditissimo); they apply to the Elder Pliny’s quest to understand this monumental natural phenomenon. But they also foreshadow Young Pliny’s fateful choice in this section: to stay home and study rather than accompany his uncle to investigate the eruption. We get snippets of conversation here: ‘Secundus, do you wish to come with me?’ ‘No, I’d rather study.’ He adds that he was doing a writing assignment that Elder Pliny himself had set for him. Is this an excuse? The use of forte (‘by chance’) is interesting; was the pressure of completing the teacher’s assignment enough to keep him home (and perhaps save his life), despite that same teacher giving him leave to skip out for some experiential learning?  Is Young Pliny being the good student, or the dull pedant? One wonders whether the writer is looking back on his choice with regret or relief. He will get his own part in the drama in any case, as the second letter shows. The Younger Pliny seems to be setting himself up as a (somewhat less intrepid) intellectual heir to his uncle, with an intense aspiration for learning. Does that play a role in the detail he includes, conveying the sort of information that his uncle ultimately could not?

8 Egrediebatur domo; accipit codicillos Rectinae Tasci imminenti periculo exterritae (nam villa eius subiacebat, nec ulla nisi navibus fuga): ut se tanto discrimini eriperet orabat.

8 (Elder Pliny) was just leaving the house (when) he receives a note from Rectina, wife of Tascus, terrified at the impending danger (for her villa was positioned below [the mountain] and there was no escape except by ships): she was pleading that he take her a significant distance away.

The name of the person who sent the letter is problematic in the manuscripts, doubtless because her identity is obscure. M has recti netasci; γ has recti necasci; a (the 1508 print edition) has Rectinae Nasci. An unproblematic reading in section 9 below refers to Rectinae, which helps clarify the reading here, relying on M for (ne)Tasci in preference to Nasci in other sources. We know it’s a ‘she’ because exterritae, in adjectival agreement, is feminine.

From the 18th c. to the early 20th c., scholars debated whether Rectina and her villa were the origin for the modern town name of ‘Resina’ (e.g.,  J.J. Winckelmann’s Letter on the Herculanean Discoveries [1762]). As Andrew Wallace-Hadrill has shown, however, the etymological argument does not hold.

Pompeian fresco of seaside villa; such images are as idealistically imaginary as they are representative of real architecture. Courtesy of UT-Austin.

The word for ‘note’ is codicilli, always in the plural, for it refers to the ‘leaves’ of the document (thin wood or wax on wood, likely, rather than papyrus). So how did the  note get to Pliny at Misenum? Rectina says there was no escape except by ship. We don’t know exactly where her villa was; the whole shore was dotted with villas, according to the geographer Strabo (5.247):

“…the whole of this (bay) is furnished, partly by the cities I’ve mentioned, and partly by the residences and plantations, which, contiguous between them, display the appearance of a single city.”

The coast below the mountain was ca. 22-32 km away from Misenum by sea (the shorter distance at Portici, just NW of Herculaneum; the longer at Torre Annunziata to the SE); overland, the distance from Misenum is (at least) ca. 28-40 km. to the same two destinations. We don’t know whether the sea offered the only escape because the roads had become blocked by the eruption and/or refugees (presumably Rectina wants a carriage), or because the villa’s location lacked any road access whatsoever. The former is reasonable, given her proximity to the volcano (nam villa eius subiacebat) and what conditions were like even 30 km. away at Misenum (as Pliny describes later in the second letter). The latter is less likely; the eastern shore of the Bay of Naples is not (and was not) so precipitous as to prohibit terrestrial travel. The closest thing to substantial cliffs is at Stabiae to the southeast, and roads had access there.

If Rectina was able to send a mounted messenger by land (just one might pass more easily than the household parades on jammed roads we will encounter in the second letter), that messenger, at a reasonable rate of 15-16 km./hr, would be able to make it to Misenum in two to three hours. If she had sent out a small boat making ca. 2-3 knots (ca. 3.5-5.5 km./hr) against unfavorable winds (again using Casson’s estimates), such a journey would have taken five to seven hours.

Ultimately, we do not know four key variables: when the eruption actually began (as opposed to when we are told it was first seen), where Rectina’s villa was located, when she sent the messenger to Pliny, and by what route the message came. The point of all this is to see roughly what possibilities are in play. If the eruption happened shortly before noon and Rectina sent a messenger by horse not long after, the message could have arrived by 3 p.m.  Presumably Rectina’s messenger was rather in a hurry. Until he received the message of distress, Elder Pliny was not.

9 Vertit ille consilium et quod studioso animo incohaverat obit maximo. Deducit quadriremes, ascendit ipse non Rectinae modo sed multis (erat enim frequens amoenitas orae) laturus auxilium.

9 He (Elder Pliny) changes his plan, and that which he had begun with an attitude of study he takes on with a spirit of courage. He draws out quadriremes; he himself boards, ready to bring assistance not only to Rectina, but to many (for the pleasantness of that shore was crowded).

Younger Pliny now shifts the story from an investigation to a rescue mission. In translating the first sentence it is difficult to capture the elegant structure of the Latin, with the two verbs (incohaverat obit) nested between adjectives that convey the change in purpose from curiosity to bravery (studioso…maximo). The noun (animo) also plays both ways–first as an intellectual, then as a spiritual driving force. The Elder’s mission broadens at the same time–not just to save one person (or household, more likely), but as many (multis) as he could (and so he brings more than one ship). Note the positional emphasis of auxilium (“aid”) at the end of the sentence, accentuated by the future active participle laturus (‘about to bring’). You can almost hear the shout: ‘don’t worry–he’s bringing help! Pliny’s on his way! (The clever poetic parenthetical phrase about the densely-populated Neapolitan shore is also hard to render in English: the metonymic amoenitas is the subject, though of course it’s the shore that is crowded, except that it’s crowded because of its “pleasantness”!)

Quadrireme reconstruction by J.F. Coates

Elder Pliny changes ships for his changed purpose, now fitting out quadriremes. This type of ship is known otherwise to have been stationed at Misenum through references on sailors’ tombstones (cf. Pitassi, pp. 100-106). This was a larger, relatively roomy vessel, with more oars (ca. 90, each probably manned by two rowers), and probably no sail. For the relatively short voyage across the bay, rowing speed (sustained perhaps up to 5-6 knots [9-11 km.hr]) might match or exceed sailing speed, and the ships would have had more room to take on survivors. Here’s an ancient graffito from Alba Fucens that shows a quadrireme.

Fresco of two Roman warships, from the Temple of Isis at Pompeii, now in the Naples Museum.

10 Properat illuc unde alii fugiunt, rectumque cursum recta gubernacula in periculum tenet adeo solutus metu, ut omnes illius mali motus omnes figuras ut deprenderat oculis dictaret enotaretque.

10 He hurries to a place from which others flee, he holds course with a firm rudder straight into danger, so much absolved of fear that he takes in all the movements and all the shapes of that calamity with his eyes, dictates them, and marks them down.

Younger Pliny now fully casts his uncle as the rescuing hero. The Latin is fascinating here – the illuc (‘thence’) next to the unde (‘whence’) sandwiched between two verbs of contrasting energetic motion (properat, fugiunt), evoking a highway jam-packed with refugees going out while a handful of first responders pour in from the opposite direction. This scene may be the first historical instance in the western written tradition of the ‘disaster’ narrative archetype, which has since been repeated on the stages of earthquakes, tsunamis, fires, storms, and terrorist attacks, in which characters cool under pressure contrast with often frantic crowds.

Who runs towards danger? Loren Christensen addresses this issue in his book Warriors (Paladin, 2009), and Dave Grossman has done the same with his Killology research group. Grossman has popularized an allegory about sheep, sheepdogs, and wolves, which describes 98% of the population as sheep (those who tend to deny, are frightened of, and flee danger), less than 1% as wolves (those who use fear and prey on sheep), and maybe just over 1% as sheepdogs (those who accept or even yearn for danger so they can do their job to protect the sheep from the wolves). While Christensen and Grossman concentrate their work on the psychology of personal violence, the physical preparedness, mental willingness, and moral compass required to be a police officer or solider are akin to those required by other emergency personnel. These three aspects are also at the heart of any respectable martial arts training.

Ethical judgement is built deeply into the language of Younger Pliny’s description of his uncle: he repeats the word for  ’straight’ / ‘right’ / ‘correct’  (rectum/recta) when describing the rudder and its course. The juxtaposition of periculum (‘danger’) and tenet (‘he holds’) shows the Elder’s resolution. The result clause that follows (adeo solutus metu…) describes Elder Pliny’s lack of fear, which allows him coolly to observe, describe, and record the nature and the development of the threat he is swiftly approaching. These capabilities represent some key Components of Reaction Time that operate for humans under physical and psychological stress. In sum, Elder Pliny is described as acting properly with respect to his social position, his authority (as fleet commander), and his duty.

The moral angle is heightened by a new word that Young Pliny chooses for the eruption: malum, the neuter substantive of the adjective for ‘evil’ / ‘wicked’ / ‘bad’. The impassive force of nature has now taken on a personality; it has malicious intentions. In his nephew’s description, Elder Pliny’s journey has now risen to a mythological level: the brave and true hero has gone to confront the monster.

This is Elder Pliny’s big chance to ‘do something worth writing about‘. The truth is, the fleet at Misenum did not have a lot of substantial work in the late 1st c. AD. There were no military expeditions supported by that naval base; it acted more as a maritime Praetorian Guard, a ‘Home Fleet’. The biggest enemy those sailors faced on a daily basis was probably boredom. Suddenly, Elder Pliny can put those men and ships to noble purpose and fulfill the potential of his command by saving people (and studying the threat besides). Furthermore, the Younger Pliny can honor the man he declined to accompany that fateful day by ‘writing something worth reading’.

And so the Elder Pliny sails into a towering hail of ash and burning stone.

Next time, in the post for 6.16.11-12, ‘Fortune Favors the Brave,’ the Elder Pliny weathers the storm, has another bath, and keeps spirits up at a friend’s house.

A Roman seaside villa on a sunnier day (fresco from Stabiae)

6.16.11-12: Fortune Favors the Brave

This post is part of a serialized translation and commentary of Pliny the Younger’s letters to the historian Tacitus about the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79.

At this point in the story, the Elder Pliny has set off to rescue citizens trapped in their villas below Vesuvius on the east edge of the Bay of Naples. He is commanding several warships, and noting down his observations of the eruption as it develops. It is likely late afternoon as the ships approach shore.

11 Iam navibus cinis incidebat, quo propius accederent, calidior et densior; iam pumices etiam nigrique et ambusti et fracti igne lapides; iam vadum subitum ruinaque montis litora obstantia. Cunctatus paulum an retro flecteret, mox gubernatori ut ita faceret monenti ‘Fortes’ inquit ‘fortuna iuvat: Pomponianum pete.’

12 Now ash was falling on the ships, hotter and heavier the nearer they approached; now stones, even blackened, burnt, and broken by fire; now unexpected shallows, and the collapse of the mountain as a blockage upon the shoreline. Having hesitated a bit about whether he should turn back, he soon said to the helmsman, who was advising that he do just that: “Fortune favors the brave: head for Pomponianus.”

Younger Pliny builds a sense of immediate adventure with repetition of a key word three times: iam, meaning “now”. It is a play-by-play that increases the danger with each phrase (this is called tricolon crescens): first ash (even that gets more hazardous the closer they get); then stone that is itself three times transformed (blackened, burnt, broken); then the fall of the mountain and perhaps the subsidence of the sea that has turned navigable sea into impassable shallows. (The Latin is tricky: ruina ['collapse'] may be nominative–in parallel with cinis, pumices, lapides, and vadum–, agreeing with a rare form of obstantia as a substantive [a 'hinderance' or 'obstruction'] perhaps preserving some participial force from its verbal origin (obsto) that acts upon litora ['shoreline'] as an object. But one could also see ruina as ablative of means, and litora obstantia in the nominative plural: ‘and due to the collapse of the mountain, the shoreline blocking [the way]‘. Neither is an entirely satisfactory syntactical explanation.) 

Elder Pliny is stuck offshore, unable to discharge the duty of rescuing those along the beach–the obstacles are too great, and getting worse. At this point, Younger Pliny has the Elder pause before the ferocity of nature; his hero cannot decide what to do, and we pause with him, wondering. The helmsman manning the steering oars tells him to turn back–we want him both to go on (and be the hero) and also to veer off (and save himself); we ourselves cannot decide how we want Elder Pliny to play his role. Younger Pliny has it both ways. His uncle steers south, away from immediate threat, to a shore that is accessible (at Stabiae), where he can attempt to rescue at least someone (his friend Pomponianus). His daring is underscored by uttering a timeworn proverb about the bold making their own luck, a version echoing statements in both the comic playwright Terence and the epic poet Vergil: Fortes fortuna iuvat. Fortune favors the brave.

What’s the import of this statement? A variation has proved popular in the mythic wisdom of American entrepreneurship: that one makes their own luck through hard work and perseverance (see Quote Investigator). This has become an important piece of advice for people trying to establish or improve themselves (cf. Nick Usborne, Richard Wiseman, Susan RoAne, Alex Rovira and Fernando Trias de Bes). If we compiled their advice, ‘luck’ could be said to come from:

1. Maintaining an open and positive attitude to good fortune;
2. Socializing, networking, and cooperating so people know who you are and what you can do;
3. Paying attention to opportunities and making the most of them;
4. Persevering through inevitable difficulties by turning problems into possibilities (maintaining confidence while learning from mistakes);
5. Accepting responsibility for one’s actions

Pliny’s phrase revolves mostly around the willingness to recognize and take opportune risk (nos. 3 and 4). We can trace this sentiment at least as far back as the tale of a statue commissioned for the city of Sikyon in Ancient Greece. In the late fourth century BC, there was a famous Greek sculptor named Lysippos. His skill was such that he had been given exclusive license to carve Alexander the Great’s portrait in marble. In the agora of his hometown Sikyon, he set up a bronze statue that personified the “right moment,” a concept the Greeks called “Kairos,” or “Opportunity.”

2nd c. BC Roman relief copy of Lysippos’ Kairos, Turin D317; another ancient copy (now missing) once existed in the Palazzo Medici in Florence.

In the following epigram by the poet Poseidippos (Anthologia Graeca 2.49.13), who saw the work when it was relatively new, the statue comes alive, and engages with a passerby in a dialogue that describes its form and mission (after a translation by  J.J. Pollitt):

(Passerby): “Who are you?”
(Statue): “Opportunity, who conquers all.”
(Passerby): “Why do you stride upon the tips of your toes?”
(Statue): “I am always running.”
(Passerby): “And why do you have a pair of wings on your feet?”
(Statue): “I fly like the wind.”
(Passerby): “And why do you hold a razor in your right hand?”
(Statue): “To show people that my appearance is more abrupt than any blade.”
(Passerby): “And why does your hair hang down over your face?”
(Statue): “So that anyone who meets me may seize it.”
(Passerby): And why, by Zeus, is the back of your head bald?”
(Statue): “Because no one, once I have raced past on my winged feet, can ever catch me from behind, much though they yearn to.”
(Passerby): “And why did the artist fashion you?”
(Statue): “For your sake, stranger…”

Elder Pliny is certainly described by his nephew as one to recognize and seize opportunity as it approaches. Sometimes, however, one gets burned. Like Pliny, the original bronze Kairos perished due to flame. The statue and many others of the most famous works of ancient art (such as the Aphrodite of Knidos and the chryselephantine statue of Zeus from Olympia) were collected in the palace of Lausos in Constantinople. In AD 476, the Lauseion burned down. But the theme of capturing ‘the right moment’ in art endures; see, for instance, a current show at the Ki-gallery in Turin: “Chronos und Kairos“, or in an essay about its temporary perfection.

Bay of Naples; Stabiae is at the southeast corner. From the Melbourne Museum “A day in Pompeii” show, 2009.

12 Stabiis erat diremptus sinu medio (nam sensim circumactis curvatisque litoribus mare infunditur); ibi quamquam nondum periculo adpropinquante, conspicuo tamen et cum cresceret proximo, sarcinas contulerat in naves, certus fugae si contrarius ventus resedisset. Quo tunc avunculus meus secundissimo invectus, complectitur trepidantem consolatur hortatur, utque timorem eius sua securitate leniret, deferri in balineum iubet; lotus accubat cenat, aut hilaris aut (quod aeque magnum) similis hilari.

12 He (Pomponianus) was at Stabiae, separated by the middle of the bay (for the sea pours up against a shoreline gradually curving and bent around it); there, although the danger was not yet drawing near, nonetheless it caught the eye as close at hand, especially when it strengthened. He (Pomponianus) had loaded luggage onto ships ready for escape if the contrary wind should die back down. By that (same) most favorable wind my uncle was carried in; he embraces the trembling man, comforts him, and encourages him so that he might alleviate the man’s fear through his own confidence; he asks to be brought to the baths; having washed, he lies down at table and dines, either cheerful or (that which is equally as impressive) pretending to be cheerful.

Plan of the Villa San Marco, Stabiae

We don’t know who Pomponianus was; this letter is the only reference to him. Nor can we locate his villa. Stabiae was excavated in two phases: the Bourbon period (1749-1782), using tunnels; and an open-air dig organized by a local school principal after World War II. Several major villas have been uncovered, including the Villa Arianna and the Villa San Marco, but the identities of their owners in AD 79 are unknown. These villas do, however, evince the tremendous luxury of first-century residences perched along the edge of a natural seaside cliff at the southeast corner of the Bay of Naples.

View of the Bay of Naples from the funicular on Monte Faito, above the site of Stabiae, from http://www.liberoricercatore.it/Servizi/funivia.htm

Younger Pliny takes the trouble to describe the shape of the bay in some detail, presumably to indicate how Elder Pliny could sail across open water (rather than along the shore, clogged with debris) to reach Stabiae. That town at this point in the eruption sequence had begun to experience ash and pumice fall. Immediate peril was not yet proximate, but was looming, as Pliny indicates in a tripled ablative absolute (periculo…proximo) nesting a circumstantial cum clause (cum cresceret).

Pomponianus was clearly worried about the eruption, for he had already loaded up his own ships with luggage, ready for evacuation. His problem, of course, was that the same northwesterly winds that were carrying the ash towards the town and bringing Elder Pliny swiftly to his door were preventing his escape by boat. This is likely another reason for the pains that Younger Pliny has taken with his topographic description: with those winds, Stabiae had become a maritime cul-de-sac. All they could do was wait. Younger Pliny paints an interesting contrast between the contrarius ventus afflicting Pomponianus, and the wind’s secundissimus character in association with Elder Pliny’s arrival. In the gathering darkness, the admiral seems to bring some hope and cheer.

Reconstruction of a Stabian villa by the Restoring Ancient Stabiae Foundation

Elder Pliny immediately begins to build morale: a triplet of deponent verbs that demonstrate physical comfort (complectitur), verbal comfort (consolatur), and spirit-boosting (hortatur). The words connected with Pliny’s host, by contrast, are nervous: he is trepidantem (‘shaking’), and fearful (timorem eius, nicely expressed in reverse order to Elder Pliny’s sua securitate). Pliny has made the gestures and said the words; now he must act the part: he personally has to demonstrate his confidence. This is the purpose of the purpose clause (utque…leniret) the indirect statement (deferri…iubet), and the brisk verbal sequence (lotus accubat cenat) which shows an entirely ordinary sequence of late-afternoon and evening activities: bath and formal dinner (reclining), all continuing the immediacy of the historical present tense. This parallels Pliny’s actions earlier the same day right after the eruption cloud was sighted: bath, and then lunch. Everyday habits bracketing heroic journey demonstrates Elder Pliny’s unfluttered character. The final clause serves as an exclamation point: Pliny was either genuinely unworried (in fact, jovial), or–an even greater achievement–pretending to be light and lively, for the benefit of keeping his friends calm. Word choice is key: hilaris evokes genuine merriment, not feigned or pretended cheer. Perhaps the genuineness was in concern for his friends, and Pliny felt that avoiding panic through simulation would serve them best.

One question the reader should have by know is: how do we know any of this detail? It will not be a spoiler to reveal that while Pliny the Elder will not survive the next 24 hours, others did, including those in his company on the voyage and at the villa. It must be those individuals whom Younger Pliny questioned in the aftermath, as he gathered his notes about what had happened.

Despite Pliny’s good humor (real or not), the worst of the eruption has not yet occurred. Trapped by wind and rough sea as a barely visible sun sets, Pomponianus and his guests prepare to weather the volcanic storm.

Next time, in the post for 6.16.13-16, ‘An Anxious Night,’ Pliny catches some winks at Pomponianus’ villa while it shudders around him.

Lightning from the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in October, 2010, by Sigurdur Hrafn Stefnisson, from National Geographic

6.16.13-16: An Anxious Night

This post belongs to a serialized translation and commentary of Pliny the Younger’s letters (6.16 and 6.20) to the historian Tacitus about the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. This is the fifth installment for letter 6.16.

The Elder Pliny has now arrived at the villa of his friend Pomponianus at Stabiae in the southeast corner of the Bay of Naples. Beset by ash, pumice, and tremors, the gathered guests and household staff are not yet in any immediate physical danger. But they can see the fiery devastation happening just a few miles away.

13 Interim e Vesuvio monte pluribus locis latissimae flammae altaque incendia relucebant, quorum fulgor et claritas tenebris noctis excitabatur. Ille agrestium trepidatione ignes relictos desertasque villas per solitudinem ardere in remedium formidinis dictitabat. Tum se quieti dedit et quievit verissimo quidem somno; nam meatus animae, qui illi propter amplitudinem corporis gravior et sonantior erat, ab iis qui limini obversabantur audiebatur.

13 Meanwhile from Mt. Vesuvius, exceedingly broad flames and tall fires were illuminating many places, and their lightning-white brightness was made sharper by the darkness of the night. He (Elder Pliny) kept repeating, as a palliative for terror, that they were fires left unattended because of farmers’ consternation, and deserted estates were burning because of that abandonment. Then he gave himself over to rest and indeed settled down into a deep sleep; for his snoring, which on account of his ample frame was quite heavy and loud, was heard all night by those who stayed perched outside his door.

The first clause constructs a scene of fire all over the mountain: side-to-side (latissimae) and up into the sky (alta), interlocked via adjective-noun synchysis. The blazes are both coming from the peak (e Vesuvio monte) and shining back (relucebant) to spotlight the mountain. Younger Pliny’s triad of words evoking brightness (flammae, incendia, relucebant) builds to a crescendo of hendiadys: fulgor et claritas (something like ‘bright-white lightning light’), its brilliance set off — enhanced — by the dark background of tenebris noctis. Parallel imperfect verbs punctuate each clause.

Lightning (fulgor) of several different kinds does accompany large eruptions (as in the photo above of an Icelandic event), though the cause and mechanism are not yet completely understood. 

Outlined against the raw blaze of the mountain is ille (“he,” “the man,” Elder Pliny). Pliny’s power comes not from fire, but from words: “dictitabat,” “he was saying over and over again.” (Here it should be noted that the M and θ manuscripts have dictitabat, while γ has a plainer — though still continuous – dictabat. See the manuscript tradition here.) What was Pliny repeating? Words of comfort and contrived explanation. A path to reason out the unbelievable.

The Elder Pliny’s ploy to calm the fears of his friends was to tell them that the fires they saw were from villas abandoned in confusion by farmers. Translators have variously treated this passage; Melmoth’s 1746 effort (published only eight years after formal Bourbon excavation of Herculaneum began, and six years after English visitors began to visit that site) expands the ends of the sentence and compresses the center: “But my uncle, in order to calm the apprehensions of his friend, assured him it was only the conflagration of the villages, which the country people had abandoned.” As this does not properly represent the Latin, the revised translation of Melmoth in Hutchinson’s 1915 Loeb edition separates the ignes relictos [esse] from the desertasque villas per solitudinem ardere (nice parallel indirect discourse here). Hutchinson interprets per solitudinem as a geographical indicator (“in the abandoned district”). Westcott (p.220, no.31) sees it adverbially: the abandoned villas left to burn “by themselves.” It could also be explanatory: “because of that abandonment,” building off of relictos and desertas, which might seem overly redundant, but there is a powerful repetition here of ‘things left behind’. (Radice’s 1963 translation just tweaks Hutchinson, and not for the better.)

Here’s the verbal tension: the Elder Pliny is supposedly reassuring his friends about their situation (things are burning because they were deserted in a panic, so we should stay here). However, the very triplet of desertion-words suggests that the fires just might be (splitting definitions finely, if I may) ‘consecutive’, not ‘consequent’, to abandonment. Could this repetition represent a subconscious cry across the years by the Younger Pliny? “Uncle, get out while you can!” One thinks of the standard audience response to a horror film in which a character is about to open a door that hides the monster: “Don’t go in there!” Indeed, the secondary vocabulary emphasis is on fear, particularly words that evoke confused panic and raw dread, not just anxiety or alarm: trepidatio and formido. How is the Elder Pliny portrayed in the face of his friends’ trembling? He is the calm voice of reason who acknowledges (without accusing) his companions’ fear by describing the terror of panicky country-folk. Pliny of course does not submit to such fear, and in hindsight, stubbornly staying proves to be his undoing.

Elder Pliny doesn’t just stay put — he goes to bed. The triad of quieti, quievit, and verissimo…somno is a remedy for the terrors of the previous sentence. But Younger Pliny then employs an even more effective antidote to fear — laughter. For the very proof of the Elder’s peace of mind while in repose is his snoring (meatus animae, a lovely euphemism). Indeed his rattling is so substantial that it can be heard outside his room by the persons (servants, presumably) stationed there to mind him. Here the author provides personal information — Pliny the Elder was fat, and so he pronounced particularly deeply and loudly. Pliny’s rumbles are audible even above the roars of Vesuvius; he is his own volcano, and a man who can sleep through an actual eruption. Alas, the cost of delay is at this moment piling up outside his door.

The primary direction of the Vesuvian debris fall.

14 Sed area ex qua diaeta adibatur ita iam cinere mixtisque pumicibus oppleta surrexerat, ut si longior in cubiculo mora, exitus negaretur. Excitatus procedit, seque Pomponiano ceterisque qui pervigilaverant reddit.

14 But the courtyard by which his suite was approachable had so mounted up, full of ash with pumice mixed in, that if delay were more protracted in his bedroom, exit would be denied. Having been roused, he (Elder Pliny) came out, and returned himself to Pomponianus and the others who had kept watch all night.

Ash outside the portico of the palaestra of the Villa Arianna, Stabiae (see plan below, ‘H’)

The previous section ended with two imperfect verbs emphasizing the ongoing watchfulness outside Pliny’s room while he sleeps. That tense is carried over into adibatur, part of a clause that tries to describe the area outside the door where the ash is steadily rising. Melmoth-Hutchinson-Radice’s choice to translate the area outside Pliny’s room as a ‘court’ or ‘courtyard’ is reasonable, since ‘area‘ means ‘open space’, sleeping quarters were often located off of such circulatory spaces, and it is a place where ash would easily be collecting. But the question of Pliny’s room is slightly more complicated.

There are two basic choices. First, that Pliny’s room is simply described both as a diaeta (the word in the M and θ manuscripts; γ has an alternate spelling for the same term: zeta) and also as a cubiculum. Second, that there was a transitional space between the court (area) and the place Elder Pliny was sleeping (cubiculum), and ‘diaeta‘ means the set of both rooms together. Such an arrangement does appear at the Villa of P. Fannius Synistor at Boscoreale (the famous room M now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, with its little-discussed ante-room O); see the plan below, and marvelous digital renderings here.

Plan of the Villa of Publius Fannius Synistor at Boscoreale; note rooms M and O, lower left

How does Pliny use the term ‘diaeta‘ elsewhere in his letters? The word appears in 2.17 (about his Laurentian Villa; at 12, 15, 20, and 24), 5.6 (his Tuscan villa; 20, 21, 27, 28, 31), and 7.5 (in which he dearly misses his wife Calpurnia). Sherwin-White, in his commentary, takes diaeta as a kind of ‘apartment’, perhaps what we might now call a ‘suite,’ something more than just a standard single room, which aligns with the second option above (hence my translation choice). In that case, the room in that suite where Pliny sleeps is called the cubiculum; the attendants hearing him snore might occupy an adjacent space.

‘Idealized’ Roman house plan

A word of caution is necessary, however. It has long been common, in textbooks and websites (such as the Wikipedia entry for domus; see left) for terms from the Augustan-age architect Vitruvius (and, for that matter, Pliny the Younger) to be pasted onto genericized ground plans of atrium-peristyle houses. The problem is that such models represent do not represent any actual instance of an ancient residence. They are abstractions. Recent research has shown Latin terms for domestic spaces to be frustratingly inconsistent (Here’s a chapter by P. Alison on the subject from the World of Pompeii).

In terms of the Latin, iam…surrexerat introduces a result clause (ut…) that immediately encloses a mixed contrary-to-fact conditional clause (si…mora [fuisset]…negaretur). Why is the tense mixed? Because we would expect a pluperfect subjunctive (fuisset) gapped after the mora (the hypothetical delay had not happened), while the negaretur in the imperfect provides greater narrative vividness (as J.H. Westcott suggested, on the principle of ‘repraesentatio,‘ in Selected Letters of Pliny, Allyn and Bacon [1898] 221 n.6). Old Latin school textbooks are awesome, by the way; Westcott’s manuscript notes are available in the archives at Princeton.

As the bottom of the hourglass fills, so does the house, and Pliny’s attendants rouse him (excitatus is a perfect passive participle) to keep him from being trapped. He joins the others, who have stayed up all night. This is interesting because although his portrayal so far has been one of confidence and command, because he doesn’t pay attention to what is actually happening, the Elder Pliny is in danger of being trapped. He needs the help of others who are bothering to keep watch. They all must now decide: stay, or flee?

Villa Arianna, Stabiae

15 In commune consultant, intra tecta subsistant an in aperto vagentur. Nam crebris vastisque tremoribus tecta nutabant, et quasi emota sedibus suis nunc huc nunc illuc abire aut referri videbantur.

15 They deliberate together, whether they should remain under shelter, or wander outdoors. For the roofs kept swaying due to frequent and prodigious shaking, and  just as if shifted off their foundations they were seeming to go forth or come back now this way, now that way.

I continue to keep the present tense in English for the historical present (consultant) in the Latin. That verb of speaking introduces an indirect question (the utrum that often precedes the an is omitted here). Interestingly, the decision about whether to stay or go is done collectively now — Elder Pliny is no longer the sole director (though we’ll see how Younger Pliny rationalizes that in the next section). Serious uncertainty about the less-than-optimal options is suggested by the verb vago for moving outdoors. It implies that if they do go outside, they’re not sure where to proceed after that — simply that it might be safer than getting crushed in the house.

Tecta, used twice here, technically means ‘roofs’, but by metonomy it also means a building that has a roof (or buildings in plural) — especially houses — and specifically here Pomponianus’ villa. It can also refer more abstractly to a concept such as ‘shelter’. Since roofs are protecting our characters from falling debris while at the same time threatening to crash upon their heads due to tremors (this is the devil’s choice debated in section 16 below), it seems that ‘roofs’ should be prominent in the translation. The verb subsisto also emphasizes a bunker mentality: huddling under (sub-) a roof, indoors (intra tecta).

Previously, in section 6, we had seen how Pliny describes Vesuvius as akin to a living thing. Here, the villa is in anthropomorphic death-throes — the shaking to and fro of its members is described with the verb nuto, which at its core means ‘to nod’. The earth itself seems alive, heaving heavily (vastis) and frequently (crebris). The earth is supposed to be stable; it is the locus of foundations (sedibus) for human buildings. But now those structures seem (videbantur) almost to walk forward and back (abire aut referri). The very structure of the world has literally become unstable (‘unstandable’, as Ovid used instabilis in his Metamorphoses). Walls and roofs are being tossed about, and the very vision of their occupants is being shaken (which informs videbantur). Synchestic vocabulary (nunc huc nunc illuc) adds to the queasiness.

As the earth comes alive, she shows little regard for her tiny occupants, who in the next section decide to take their chances out under the sky.

16 Sub dio rursus quamquam levium exesorumque pumicum casus metuebatur, quod tamen periculorum collatio elegit; et apud illum quidem ratio rationem, apud alios timorem timor vicit. Cervicalia capitibus imposita linteis constringunt; id munimentum adversus incidentia fuit.

16 Under the open sky, on the other hand, the fall of pumice stones — however light and corroded — was worrying, but a comparison of dangers chose that course; and indeed for the Elder Pliny, reckoning defeated reckoning, (whereas) for the others, one fear won out over another. Cushions placed on their heads they bound with linens; that was their defense against falling objects.

Fourth-style fresco from Pompeii (V.2.4; Naples mus.120029) showing banqueters, with rolled-up fabric at the edge of the couches indicating cushions, or bolsters (cervicalia)

We have just been told the perils of staying indoors; here Pliny describes the other option (rursus): the hazards of open ground (sub dio [deo: γ; die: M]). Specifically, the company is concerned about the hail of pumice stones (qualified by their light (levium) nature; exorsum literally means ‘eaten away’, or in this case ‘hollowed out’, describing the pitted and porous nature of the stone).

Vesuvian pumice

Pumice was a highly useful stone in the ancient world. In construction, it was used in the production of Roman concrete (as a light, durable aggregate, most famously at the top of the Pantheon dome in Rome, but still in modern buildings); a group of geophysicists has just published proof of its export from the Pompeian area. Pumice was also used as an fine abrasive: for exfoliation of skin and for smoothing and polishing papyrus before writing. (And, I recall, for polishing Roman frescoes, though I cannot find the reference for this.) Pumice appears in Latin poetry as a metaphor for ‘finished writing’ (e.g. Catullus 1), and as an evocation of stylistic aridity.

The comparison of dangers (periculorum collatio [malorum collocatio: γ]) leads to a choice (elegit: γ [eligit: M]) in favor of falling pumice instead of collapsing masonry. The object of the choice is quod, here acting as a relative pronoun and clearly referring to the antecedent of pumice-fall, but the gender does not match (casus is masculine; the pronoun should thus be quem; ref. Westcott 221, n.13). The pronoun may be taking neuter ‘by attraction’ to periculorum in its own clause; that is, ‘a comparison of dangers chose (quod = the danger) of falling pumice.’

What comes next reveals the Younger Pliny’s efforts to paint his uncle in the best light. He claims knowledge of the internal deliberative process of the Elder Pliny compared to all the others. Pliny’s mind wrestled with arguments (ratio); the others chose that which scared them least (timor). Never mind that all agreed to go outside! While the chiastic construction of reason vs. fear is elegant, the attempt to ennoble Elder Pliny’s reasoning here is rather blunt and perhaps a bit desperate. It is the last time in the letter that the character of the Elder Pliny’s actions or motivations is distinguished from those of the others.

At Pompeii, neither choice was a good one. A 2003 study by G. Luongo et al. concluded that 38% of human victims were killed by falling-debris phase of the eruption — 90% of them indoors due to building collapse. The other 62% were killed by pyroclastic density currents (PDCs) that overran the town — whether they were inside a building or outside did not matter.

We are not told who had the idea of strapping on cushions to provide protection against the storm of stone. They raided the dining-room also for the fabric to bind them over their heads. Linteum is a fairly generic word; it just means linen-cloth, so it could be curtains, covers, or napkins (which is the usual translation). Such napkins are not the utterly useless sort one finds today in the bars or gelaterie of Italy, but rather items large and sturdy enough to pack the left-overs from a cena and take them home. In this function, they became sportulae, gift-bags (see the Duncan-Jones article cited here). Pliny uses linteum only one other time in his letters, and it is two sections later (6.16.18), when describing the cloth his uncle lies down upon to rest. I’ll examine that in the next installment.

Pierre Henri de Valenciennes, The Eruption of Vesuvius, August 24, 79 A.D. (1813)

The dramatic tableau of Elder Pliny and his companions fleeing from Stabiae with cushions on their heads became a favorite scene to portray in 18th-19th century paintings inspired by this letter. Such works by Jacob More (c. 1780), Pierre Henri de Valenciennes (1813), and John Martin (1822-26) are all featured in the highly-interesting The Last Days of Pompeii: Decadence, Apocalypse, Resurrection museum exhibition and catalog. Flight, hope, despair, and collapse: all operate upon those who attend the end of the world.

Next time, in the post for 6.16.17-22, ‘The Smell of Sulfur,’ we witness the Elder Pliny’s last breath and the close of the letter.

Back to Part 6

Forward to Part 8

John Martin’s early 19th-c. vision of the beach at Stabiae (detail)

6.16.17-22: The Smell of Sulfur

This post belongs to a serialized translation and commentary of Pliny the Younger’s letters (6.16 and 6.20) to the historian Tacitus about the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. This is the sixth (and last) installment for letter 6.16.

The Elder Pliny, his friends, and their servants have fled the villa of his friend Pomponianus at Stabiae. Rather than risk burial from collapsing roofs, they have decided to take their chances along the shoreline while pumice continues to rain down. It is probably between 5:30-6:30 a.m. (see also Sigurdsson’s eruption timeline here); sunrise at Stabiae (Lat. 40.696518 N; Long. 14.483070 E) on 25 August was at 5:28 (NOAA solar calculator; see Part 4 for instructions on how to use it).

17 Iam dies alibi, illic nox omnibus noctibus nigrior densiorque; quam tamen faces multae variaque lumina solvebant. Placuit egredi in litus, et ex proximo adspicere, ecquid iam mare admitteret; quod adhuc vastum et adversum permanebat.

17 It was now daylight elsewhere, but over there was a night blacker and thicker than all other nights; which, however, numerous torches and diverse lights were cutting through. It pleased (them) to go down to the shore, and see close-up whether the sea would now permit access; but still the waves continued to be heavy and contrary.

It is now a new day. The chiasmus of dies alibi, illic nox does two things. First, it briefly withdraws the reader from the scene to understand that this disaster was local, not global (though to many at the time, it seemed global; see epistula 6.20). It is but a brief breath before we plunge back into the story. Second, Younger Pliny uses the calendrical change to heighten the contrast between a ‘normal’ day and this extraordinary one, in which the sun has risen (the root of dies has the same Sanskrit root as Greek διός, meaning ‘light of heaven’ ['god' = Greek Ζεύς,  Latin deus]), but night hangs on at Stabiae (illic). In fact, it is a darkness more impenetrable than any night known (comparative adjective with ablative of comparison omnibus noctibus). In the first clause, note the repetition of dark words that emphasizes the blackness: nox…noctibus nigrior densior. The main verb erat is gapped (which is common).

1st-2nd c. AD Hekateion, Metropolitan Museum of Art 1987.11.2. Each of the three bodies of Hekate carries two torches. She is goddess of the night.

The relative pronoun quam carries night (nox) over to the other half of the sentence, where there is a small manuscript problem. While I retain Mynors’ preference (solvebant, deriving from θ [t], Codex Taurinensis D.ii.24), the better M and γ manuscripts read solebantur (which doesn’t make sense), emended to solabantur (“were lightening/mitigating”) by Gottlieb Cortius in his 1734 edition; ref. Church and Brodribb, Select Letters of Pliny the Younger, new ed. (1881) 171-2. The adverb tamen serves as a hinge point; by either reading, torches (faces) and other sources such as lamps and lanterns (lumina) were fighting the darkness — loosening or lessening it.

Standing back, one can see the darkness contained and contested; globally by daylight at the start of the sentence, and locally by the man-made technology at the end. The words multae and varia stress how many individuals are fleeing with whatever illumination they have to make their way: points of light against the gloom.

Lantern from Oplontis, 2013 British Museum exhibition.

Lumina survive from the eruption;  most elaborate is the bronze lantern from Oplontis (right). As the British Museum exhibition notes: “The lanterns they carried were fuelled by olive oil stored in the cylindrical reservoir at the base, and originally had shades made of thin sheets of animal horn” (parchment shades were also possible). Small holes in the lantern hood would have allowed smoke to exit and provided oxygen to the flame. See Pompeii in Pictures II.4.8 for a location where two such bronze lanterns were recovered along the Via dell’Abbondanza. There is a definitive study of bronze lamps from Pompeii and Herculaneum, though most lamps were made of terracotta.

The company decides to make their way to the shore in hopes that they can launch a boat. Again, we do not know where Pomponianus’ villa was along the shore, or with respect to the shore. The principal Roman structures discovered and first excavated by the Bourbons at Stabiae are on the Varano plateau, a bluff with a steep  (ca. 45°) slope leading down to the present shoreline, but Roman remains are also present elsewhere on that coast.

Stabiae area from the NW, showing Varano plateau and approximate ancient shoreline. Map imagery from Google Earth. Shoreline estimate from M. Mastroroberto and G. Bonifacio, “Ricerche archeologiche nell’ager stabinus,” in Bonifacio and Sodo, Stabiae (cited below), 154, fig. 1. Click on image to enlarge.

The villas perched on that bluff were multi-level in nature; the Villa Arianna, for instance, had an access ramp that began at about 15 m. above sea-level, switching back up the slope past vaulted substructures built to hold back subsidence of the soil, and terraces that accessed a grotto, fountains and other features, now mostly eroded away. The ground floor of the main living area of the villa, on top of the plateau, rests at 55.6 m. above sea level, such that the complex traverses more than 40 m. of elevation. Even at that height above waterline, however, sufficient volcanic debris rained down to collapse roofs and bury the villas (leaving ca. two meters of deposits).

Map of initial white pumice fall (white line) and subsequent grey pumice fall (red line), from L. Gurioli et al., Geology 33.6 (2005) 441.

[For details and plans of the Villa Arianna, see A. De Simone, "Villa Arianna: configurazione delle strutture della Basis Villae," in G. Bonifacio and A.M. Sodo, eds., Stabiae: Storia e Architettura, Studi della Soprintendenza Archaeologia di Pompei 7 (2002), 41-52, esp. figs. 3-4).]

Looking towards the shoreline of the Bay of Naples; map imagery from Google Earth. Herculaneum, Pompeii, and Stabiae were all closer to the sea in antiquity. Click on image to enlarge.

In Pliny’s day, the shoreline was some 400 m. closer to the base of the Varano plateau than it is today. But there’s no way to know how far a walk it was for Pliny from the villa to the shore, or whether heading up the mountain ridge to the south would have been an option. Stabiae was at the edge of the last major “pyroclastic density current“ of the eruption (see below, section 18), so although he couldn’t know it, the Elder Pliny was not far from safety.

Placuit egredi is a nice example of an impersonal verb with infinitives (egredi [deponent] and adspicere), the dative of the persons ‘pleased’ being omitted. Egredior is often used in contexts of ‘setting sail’ or ‘disembarking from a ship’, so it’s particularly appropriate. They must get close enough (ex proximo) to see if wind and wave allow excape. Autopsy (adspicere) introduces an indirect question: whether at this point (iam) the sea will suffer their passage. Earlier, Pomponianus had tried to leave that way but had been prevented, and with quod as a relative pronoun referring back to mare, Pliny tells us with the ongoing past action of the imperfect tense (permanebat) that impossibly high and heavy water continues to be against them. Permaneo in this context spells doom; it implies conditions will ‘stay that way until the end’. The end is, indeed, near.

18 Ibi super abiectum linteum recubans semel atque iterum frigidam aquam poposcit hausitque. Deinde flammae flammarumque praenuntius odor sulpuris alios in fugam vertunt, excitant illum.

18 There, lying down upon a cloth cast aside, once and then again he asked for cold water and drank it. Then fire and the smell of sulphur — the harbinger of flames — turned the others to flight, and roused him.

Pliny can go no further. At the ships, he lies back, on a sheet of cloth that has been tossed aside (abiectum, ms. M) or placed down (adiectum, ms. γ). Most translators translate linteum as sailcloth, which seems reasonable, given the context. The wind has been against them, and they’d need to row to get offshore. However, tossing aside a sail, rather than furling it, seems needless. The same word has just been used in section 16, referring to linens large enough to bind cushions to the refugees’ heads; these are at hand and could have served the purpose. It is not an important distinction; either interpretation  provides just a bit of dignity and comfort for Pliny’s last moments upon the pumice stones.

Elder Pliny has two slaves with him (section 19), whom he asks more than once for cold water to drink. Cold water features prominently in the De Medicina by the encyclopaedist Aulus Cornelius Celsus, written in the Julio-Claudian period. Cold water is advisable for digestion (I.2.2, 2.10; I.8.3-4), but not for exertion (I.3.6-7, 3.23), even though it does bring the temperature down (I.3.12, 3.27). Elder Pliny himself discusses cold, clean water in the Historia Naturalis XXXI.31-41), in which he includes this line (XXXI.37):

aquam salubrem aeris quam simillimam esse oportet.

Healthy water ought be most like air.

Amidst the heat and debris, a cold drink seems a good idea, but what will kill Pliny is a lack of air.

Pyroclastic density current (PDC), Eruption of Mt. Pinatubo, The Phillipines, 15 June 1991. Photo: Alberto Garcia/Corbis

The smell of sulfur. The sign and sight of fire. Rolling toward the party on the beach (they seem to be waiting for Pliny to feel better) is the sixth and final major eruptive column collapse of the Vesuvian eruption. The flow of that column collapse left about one meter of debris at Stabiae, near the limit of its power. But its approach must have been terrifying. Only in the last 30-40 years of volcanic research has this phenomenon really begun to be documented and understood.

First dubbed a “nuée ardente,” or “burning cloud” after the eruption of Mt. Pelée on the island of Martinique in 1902 which destroyed the town of St. Pierre and killed about 30,000 people, the phenomenon of a volcanic avalanche is now known as a “pyroclastic density current” or “PDC” by volcanologists. Terms such as pyrolastic flow (for higher density components of the current that hug the ground) and pyroclastic surge (for lower density components not inhibited by topography) are still commonly used, however. The PDC is a mix of solid fragments ejected from the volcano and hot gases that, mixed together, behaves as a fluid, and travels with great power at high speeds. The speed of the fourth major PDC, the first to hit Pompeii, has been estimated at 50-60 meters/second, and its temperature has how been estimated at about 300° Celsius (see also L. Gurioli et al, Geology 33.6 [2005] 443).  

A descriptive illustration of the force and effect of the first pyroclastic density current (which destroyed Herculaneum) was created by the BBC for their 2003 documentary, Pompeii: The Last Day:

.

Isopach map of PDC depth from the AD 79 Vesuvian eruption (bottom map; the top map shows the 2nd-millennium B.C. Avellino eruption); click to access a PDF of L. Gurioli et al.’s article.

The depth of the sixth, and last major, PDC, which reached Stabiae, was about one meter, tapering off quickly up the slopes to the south. Weary though he was, the sight and smell of this fiery avalanche was enough to rouse Elder Pliny one last time.

19 Innitens servolis duobus adsurrexit et statim concidit, ut ego colligo, crassiore caligine spiritu obstructo, clausoque stomacho qui illi natura invalidus et angustus et frequenter aestuans erat.

19 Leaning upon two slaves he stood up and then immediately collapsed, as I gather, because his breath was constricted by the particularly dense murk and his windpipe was closed up, which for him by nature was weak and narrow, and often inflamed.

The pyroclastic density current heading towards the beach at Stabiae had prompted everyone else to run for their lives. But two slaves stood with Elder Pliny to help him up. Whether that effort had been too much for him in an atmosphere thickening with dust and noxious fumes, or whether it was because it was at that moment the rolling cloud hit them, is unknown. No more mention is made of the slaves, and whether they survived. As human props, they were not important to Pliny’s letter. However, it seems likely that they might have made it, both as witnesses to the Elder’s last moments (Pliny has to say “ut ego colligo” in order to explain how his uncle died, because he wasn’t there), and because the PDC by now may have dimmed to the point that it was not immediately deadly for robust persons.

Bob Thompson from the University of Durham, who has worked at Montserrat, has put together a useful page that explains how volcanic eruptions harm humans. Exposure time to the surge was probably 2-5 minutes; 200° C air (perhaps a high estimate for conditions at Stabiae) can be survived for that long if the air is dry and still. Dust and fumes are more problematic, however. 100-micron and smaller particles go directly into the lungs. Flying dust and fumes also reduce the oxygen concentration.

Commenters have often noticed a problem with the word ‘stomachus,’ which technically means the “gullet,” or “esophagus.” As the inlet for food, it has an extended meaning of “stomach,” and also “taste” or “good digestion.” In that respect, the word is inaccurate, since the gullet does not have to do with breathing — the windpipe (trachea) does. Regardless of the anatomical distinction, Pliny’s throat was choked up, and he perished from asphyxiation. (Dr. Jacob Bigelow, in an 1856 communication to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, disagreed, but he was unaware of pyroclastic density currents!) Pliny specifically mentions the density of the cloud (crassiore caligine) as the reason his breath was obstructed (starting a nice string of six ablatives with an instrumental ablative followed by two ablative absolutes). Stomacho serves as the antecedent to the relative clause begun by qui which then explains that Pliny had a ‘pre-existing condition,’ which we might have suspected from his earlier characterization as a heavy snorer. Such a condition may have included asthma, as Retief and Cilliers (Acta Theologica 26.2 [2006] 107-14) and others have hypothesized. Specifically, his windpipe was weak, narrow, and often swollen. It is no surprise or mystery, therefore, that Pliny perished, running out of oxygen in attempting to lift his ample frame and flee with the rest of his friends while the surge hit. That he was not carried away by his friends or slaves can be explained by their own need for self-preservation.

20 Ubi dies redditus (is ab eo quem novissime viderat tertius), corpus inventum integrum inlaesum opertumque ut fuerat indutus: habitus corporis quiescenti quam defuncto similior.

20 When daylight returned (the third from that which he [Elder Pliny] had most recently seen), his body was found whole, uninjured, and clothed as he had dressed: the posture of his body was more like one sleeping than dead.

As noted in Part 4, the Romans counted calendrical dates inclusively, so the third day on which a real dawn appeared was 26 August. Survivors went back to find him the day after he died. An ‘est‘ is gapped after inventum; that gap allows for a stately parade of participles and adjectives following and agreeing with corpus. That the Elder’s body was clothed as he had dressed — and was whole and uninjured — tells us that he was at the edge of the pyroclastic density current, and claims that he was not killed by one of his slaves, as one suspicion circulated in antiquity.

A surviving fragment of a work generally attributed to the Roman historian Suetonius, the Vita Plinii Secundii, itself part of a collection of lives of “Illustrious Men” (De Viris Illustribus, mostly writers), has the following to say about the Elder’s death:

Periit clade Campaniae; cum enim Misenensi classi praeesset et flagrante Vesubio ad explorandas propius causas liburnica pertendisset, nec adversantibus ventis remeare posset, vi pulveris ac favillae oppressus est, vel ut quidam existimant a servo suo occisus, quem aestu deficiens ut necem sibi maturaret oraverat.

“He died in the disaster in Campania; for while he was in command of the fleet at Misenum and while Vesuvius was blazing, he had set out in a Liburnian galley in order to explore the causes (of the eruption) nearer at hand, nor was he able to come back due to adverse winds; he was smothered by the force of dust and cinders, or as some think, was killed by his slave, whom he (Pliny), failing from the billowing heat, had begged to hasten his death.”

Suetonius was a younger contemporary of Pliny and of Tacitus; his lives of Famous Men is thought to the earliest of his works, written perhaps between AD 106-107, not long before Pliny penned the Vesuvian letters. The Younger Pliny helped Suetonius in his political and literary career. Some significant discussion of the discrepancy in death stories between Suetonius’ and Pliny’s versions has occurred, summarized most recently (with helpful bibliography) in a paper by Ryan Sellers. Sellers’ paper is worth a read, as he re-calibrates the ancient perception of an assisted suicide by the Elder Pliny not as a shameful act, but as a noble act of self-determination (in this Sellers is surely correct).

It should be noted, however, that Suetonius is not claiming that the suicide story was the true one; he simply offers that version as an alternate, “ut quidem existimant” (as some people suppose), reporting popular gossip. It does seem likely, however, that Younger Pliny added the detail about a corpus…inlaesum either as a corrective to Suetonius’ published alternative, or as a response to a generally-circulating suicide story about his uncle, so that his addressee, Tacitus, would ‘get it right’ (or ‘get it the way Pliny wanted’). “Inlaesum” is opposite to laesum, from laedo, indicating an acute harm, usually inflicted by another person, in the sense of “doing injury to someone.” Such injury can be physical, but it may also be emotional or reputational. Younger Pliny, for reasons we may not fully fathom, is insisting that his uncle’s body was ‘untouched’.

Cast of Pompeian body against Vesuvius (The Guardian)

Younger Pliny follows with a statement that the habitus (posture, position, attitude) of the body was more like a sleeper than a dead man. This of course resonated with visitors to Pompeii after Guiseppe Fiorelli perfected the method of pouring plaster into cavities to re-create the lost organic forms of the city. While we know now that the posture of the bodies at Pompeii resulted from their being almost instantaneously overheated, the impression of sleeping ancients, disinterred from their catastrophic tomb, has proved emotionally powerful to subsequent authors and artists, such as Gormley and McCollum (below).

Antony Gormley, “Untitled,” 2002, shown at The Last Days of Pompeii: Decadence, Apocalypse, Resurrection exhibition, J. Paul Getty Museum, 2012-13

Allan McCollum, “The Dog from Pompeii,” 1991, shown at The Last Days of Pompeii: Decadence, Apocalypse, Resurrection exhibition, J. Paul Getty Museum, 2012-13

One might even stretch towards Samuel Beckett’s Imagination Dead Imagine, “to see if they still lie still in the stress of that storm, or of a worse storm, or in the black dark for good, or the great whiteness unchanging, and if not what they are doing.”

Anne Madden, Traces of Pompeii, 1984-85

Michael Huey, The Bed (2008), featured in The Last Days of Pompeii: Decadence, Apocalypse, Resurrection exhibition, Cleveland Museum of Art, 2013, from http://iheartphotograph.blogspot.it. As the exhibition catalogue states, Huey repurposes this found photograph to portray Pliny and his mother at home while the mountain erupts outside.

21 Interim Miseni ego et mater—sed nihil ad historiam, nec tu aliud quam de exitu eius scire voluisti. Finem ergo faciam.

21 Meanwhile at Miseum I and my mother — but this has naught to do with history, nor did you want to know anything except about his [Elder Pliny's] death. So I shall make an end.

This interrupted sentence, and the larger issue of how interested Younger Pliny actually was actually in writing history, has recently been treated by A. Augoustakis, The Classical Journal 100.3 (2005) 265-73 and R. Ash, Arethusa 36 (2003) 211-25. Both agree that the interruption piques the curiosity of the reader (today for us, and for Tacitus in the past), prompting the request for a second letter to relate the experiences of Pliny and his mother (epistula 6.20). By specifying (and therefore limiting) Tacitus’ original inquiry (nec tu aliud quam de exitu eius scire voluisti), Pliny can hint that there is more to the story while not seeming too eager to relate it before it has been requested. Despite this false modesty, by which Pliny pretends to step back from history-writing himself, he is certainly interested in facilitating the writing of history. He certainly wanted to state, for the record, the cause of his uncle’s death (sections 19-20, above).

Pliny then states that he will close. That, too, turns out to be a false ending. There’s just one more thing.

Pliny and Tacitus definitely met each other (and other writers). But the bit about ‘dialogue’ and ‘handful’ is right.

22 Unum adiciam, omnia me quibus interfueram quaeque statim, cum maxime vera memorantur, audieram, persecutum. Tu potissima excerpes; aliud est enim epistulam aliud historiam, aliud amico aliud omnibus scribere. Vale.

22 One thing I shall add: that I have related all the things at which I was present, and those things that I heard right away, when true things are best remembered. You will select the most important bits; for it is one thing to write a letter and another to write a history; one thing to write to a friend, and another to write to everyone. Farewell.

After the ‘saying’ verb of adiciam, we enter indirect discourse, with the accusative me as the subject of the infinitive persecutum [esse], which then governs omnia as the direct object. In this construction, Pliny places all the events (omnia) he has shared next to himself (me) because, as he carefully explains, he was either there himself (the relative clause quibus interfueram), or he heard the information as soon as possible afterwards, when its sources were likely to be reliable (quaeque statim, cum maxime vera memorantur, audieram).

After assuring Tacitus (and all other eventual readers) of the care he has taken with the sources for his account, he then passes off responsibility for the information to his correspondent: tu potissima excerpes (“you, Tacitus, will pick out the most important parts”). This seems to absolve Pliny of the responsibility of editing, but of course his letters were carefully edited before publication.

Pliny’s editing is evidenced in the double synchesis (aliud…epistulam aliud…historiam, aliud amico aliud omnibus) of his highly polished final sentence, capped by a word precious to both Tacitus and both Plinys: scribere. The Younger can claim that a letter to a friend is quite another thing from a historical account written for everyone (everyone literate, at least), but when such a letter is written to a historian, and the letter itself is prepped for general consumption, we can share a shrug of the shoulders and a knowing grin, and look forward to the sequel.

So ends the epistle. As Pliny suspected, it did not satisfy Tacitus’ curiosity, because the historian requested a sequel. In the next post, we will begin translating letter 6.20, which tells the story of how, on the opposite side of the Bay of Naples from where the Elder fell, Pliny the Younger and his mother faced, and fled, Vesuvius’ fury.

Back to Part 7

Forward to Part 9 (forthcoming)

The world turned topsy-turvy: detail of a relief from Pompeii depicting the earthquake of AD 62/3 toppling the Temple of Jupiter (see below for details)

6.20.1-3: Shuddering to Remember

This post belongs to a serialized translation and commentary of Pliny the Younger’s letters (6.16 and 6.20) to the historian Tacitus about the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. This is the first installment for letter 6.20, and the ninth overall.

I  provide the Latin (using Mynors’ 1963 Oxford Classical Text [OCT]), and then work through it with a translation, dissection of grammatical constructions, and discussion of what the letters tell us. Other pages in the series detail the manuscript tradition and the cast of characters in the two letters. The Codex Laurentianus Mediceus for letter 6.20 can be viewed here Plut. 47.36, p. 186.

The Latin is in italics; English translation follows in Roman text, indented, and then commentary in brown text. Parentheses indicate (‘understood’) words that are not explicit in the Latin. My purpose here is as much to look at the process of translating as to provide another translated product. So I tend to err on the side of a technical rather than a fluid English translation.

The Younger Pliny has already written one account of the eruption (6.16) in order to describe the death of his uncle, Pliny the Elder. He now pens a follow-on to Cornelius Tacitus about his own, and his mother’s, flight from the volcanic storm.

C. PLINIUS TACITO SUO S.

Gaius Plinius greets his dear (friend) Tacitus.

‘C‘ is the abbreviation for the common name ‘Caius‘, or ‘Gaius‘. ‘S‘ is short for ‘salutem‘, and goes with the gapped verb ‘dicit‘ to mean ‘says greeting’. ‘Suo‘ is a term of affectionate familiarity often used to denote ‘one’s own’ (i.e., family and friends) This address is identical to that of 6.16.

1 Ais te adductum litteris quas exigenti tibi de morte avunculi mei scripsi, cupere cognoscere, quos ego Miseni relictus (id enim ingressus abruperam) non solum metus verum etiam casus pertulerim. ’Quamquam animus meminisse horret, …incipiam.’

1 You say that you have been drawn, by the letter which I wrote you — who requested it — about the death of my uncle, to desire to know not only what fears, but indeed what disasters I underwent, having been left behind at Misenum (for having begun, I had broken off at that point). ‘Although my soul shudders to remember, … I shall begin.’

The first sentence is relatively complex, but not difficult when broken into its constituent parts. It begins with an emphasis on ‘you’ (that is, the addressee Tacitus). The response of the historian to the Younger Pliny’s first account is couched in indirect discourse (ais te adductum [esse is gapped]…), followed by an instrumental ablative that references Pliny’s letter 6.16. (A ‘letter’ (litterae) — denoting a message comprised of individual alphabet letters [each of which is a 'littera'], words and sentences — is plural in form.) Litteris then becomes the antecedent for a relative clause (quas…scripsi). The essential topic of letter 6.16 (de morte avunculi mei) is stressed, and the motivation for that letter, using a succinct participial phrase (exigenti tibi) reprises the statements (from 6.16.1 & 3) that Tacitus’ curiosity is the reason for Pliny’s accounts.

That curiosity is emphasized further by a extension of the initial indirect discourse into a double infinitive: cupere cognoscere, the objects of which (metus…casus) are pulled inside the relative clause (quos…pertulerim) that ends the sentence. Pliny emphasizes Tacitus’ desire to know what happened, and his own trials and fears after having been “left behind” at Misenum by his uncle.

So Pliny offers a defense for writing this epistle (‘you asked for it, Tacitus’), even while he admits he had halted a story (id enim ingressus abruperam) which it seems he wanted to go on and tell. After that formally intricate introduction for his friend the prose historian, Pliny follows with a quotation from epic poetry.

West Ham mosaic from Somerset, England, showing the meeting between Aeneas and his son Ascanius (left) and Queen Dido of Carthage (right), as arranged by the goddess Venus (center). Scene from the end of Book I, Vergil’s Aeneid. 4th c. AD. Image from the Vanderbilt Classics Dept.

Vergil, Aeneid II.10-13:

Sed si tantus amor casus cognoscere nostros
et breuiter Troiae supremum audire laborem,
quamquam animus meminisse horret luctuque refugit,
incipiam.

“But if such desire drives you to know our disasters,
and hear in brief the final trial of Troy,
although my soul shudders to remember and once more shrinks from grief,
I shall begin.”

Here Pliny positions himself in the role of Aeneas telling his tale of disaster to Dido, just months after the fall of Troy (compared to Pliny’s relation of events some two decades later). He also samples other parts of the same passage (cupere cognoscere in reference to amor cognoscere, and the re-use of casus). It is interesting that Pliny omits luctuque refugit from his quotation. While those words were not necessary for Tacitus to recognize the reference, the removal of personal grief might relate to the fact that this letter — though containing plenty of hazard and panic — does not describe the loss of any family members or friends (as letter 6.16 did, with the Elder Pliny’s death).

6.20 is also another chance to impress Tacitus, whose Histories he will predict in a later letter (Ep. 7.33.1) to be immortal. In 7.33 Pliny is keen to appear as a character (and a particularly heroic one) in an event submitted for Tacitus’ account. Pliny does not shrink from self-aggrandizement when he sees an opportunity (see Ilaria Marchesi, The Art of Pliny’s Letters [Cambridge 2008] 221-2). So while the first sentence seems to claim that Pliny is only fulfilling a request and helping out a friend, the Vergilian quote betrays an eagerness to write himself dramatically into the story. At the end (6.20.20) Pliny will deny that his account has any historical value, but that seems a ploy of, or a play on, false modesty.

The reference to Vergil serves another function. Pliny sets a storytelling stage for moving the reader back into the past — in fact, to the moment after his uncle sailed away (see section 2 below). While after the Elder’s departure everything reported in 6.16 came second-hand, what follows in 6.20 is Pliny’s first-hand recollection, and he will supply the emotional vividness that came with it.

Some of that vividness is evoked by the verb ‘horret‘, which precisely describes the feeling of hairs standing up on the back of one’s neck. It also means to quake with apprehension; such trembling anticipates the serious shaking of the ground that is part of Pliny’s memory (below, section 3).

2 Profecto avunculo ipse reliquum tempus studiis (ideo enim remanseram) impendi; mox balineum cena somnus inquietus et brevis.

2 After my uncle had set sail, I spent my remaining time at my studies (since for that I had stayed home); afterwards it was a bath, dinner, and short and restless sleep.

The initial ablative absolute quickly shifts into the historical/epic past that Pliny is building. At first read, the ipse that follows might seem to refer to the Elder, as it had each of the three times it appears in letter 6.16 (section 2, referring to the Elder’s writings; sections 7 and 9, setting the Younger’s homework and then boarding the ship that took him towards the eruption). But we must wait until the first-person verb (impendi) at the end of the clause to see that ipse = the Younger, and it describes doing his assignments. Once again, Pliny mentions the excuse for why he did not accompany his uncle.

This reference also begins to set up a parallel between the Younger and the Elder. The latter’s literary credentials, bravery, and sense of adventure were all praised in letter 6.16; his nephew and adopted son will imply taking on those qualities in 6.20. So it is no surprise that Young Pliny’s afternoon routine (couched in rather abrupt list form) of balineum, cena, and somnus — while routine for elite Romans — mirrors that of the Elder’s in 6.12-13. The one difference is that while the Elder slept and snored soundly, the Younger had a brief and restless night.

Primary direction of the Vesuvian debris-fall

To this point, Pliny’s direct experience of the eruption had been limited to the sight of the ash cloud (but the wind was carrying it SE, away from him) and earth tremors. That was about to change overnight, as the eruption shifted from its Plinian to Peléan phase.

3 Praecesserat per multos dies tremor terrae, minus formidolosus quia Campaniae solitus; illa vero nocte ita invaluit, ut non moveri omnia sed verti crederentur.

3 Earthquakes had been happening for many days previous, which were less frightening because they are common in Campania; but that night they were so strong that everything could be believed not only to be shaking, but to be overturned.

It was the evening of Aug. 24 (probably). Pliny’s statement about precursory earthquakes is corroborated by the otherwise more fanciful account of Cassius Dio 66.22.3. Pliny also usefully admits the ‘normality’ of tremors in Campania, which may explain the relatively nonchalant attitude of Pliny and his mother. But that night the earth is restless, like Pliny’s mind. He uses a result clause (ita invaluit…ut) followed by three passive constructions (moveri and verti as complementary infinitives to crederentur) because the cause (the grammatical subject) of the quakes is unknown. Terrestrial and, to some extent, linguistic conventions get upended.

*   *   *

Although a regional tremor in AD 37 had wrecked the lighthouse at Capri and conveniently prefigured an emperor’s death [Suetonius, Tib. 74], it is likely that the initial cycle of the AD 79 eruption event goes back to a serious earthquake some 16 or 17 years before, recorded both by Tacitus and the Younger Seneca.

Tacitus, Annales 15.22, C.D. Fisher’s Oxford text (1906):

Isdem consulibus gymnasium ictu fulminis conflagravit effigiesque in eo Neronis ad informe aes liquefacta. Et motu terrae celebre Campaniae oppidum Pompei magna ex parte proruit; defunctaque virgo Vestalis Laelia in cuius locum Cornelia ex familia Cossorum capta est.

“During the same consulship, a gymnasium burned down from a lightning strike, and in it, a statue of Nero melted into a bronze lump. And the populous town of Pompeii in Campania for the most part fell down because of an earthquake; and the Vestal Virgin Laelia died, in whose place Cornelia, from the Cossi family, was enrolled.”

Tacitus often lists unusual events (omens, prodigies, natural disasters) at the end of his entry for each year of the Annales, and so the Campanian earthquake falls comfortably for him between a lightning strike that destroyed an image of Nero (slyly looking forward to that tyrant’s own fall), and the death of a Vestal Virgin. See M. Owen and I. Gildenhard’s detailed commentary on this passage, and R. Syme, Tacitus (Oxford 1958) 520-7 for more on Tacitus and prodigies.

Tacitus’ text gives a date for the earthquake of AD 62, in the consulship of Publius Marius and Lucius Afinius (14.48), as Tacitus begins the very next section of the text (15.23) with consuls for the following year (AD 63): Memmius Regulus and Verginius Rufus. As can be seen in the passage below, Seneca (alive during the event, unlike Tacitus) specifically cites Regulus and Verginius as consuls during the disaster, and so gives a date of AD 63, specifically on the Nones of February (that is, February 5th) of that year. For our purposes, it does not matter which year it was; both sources are relatively reliable and seem to be irreconcilable, so we shall use 5 Feb. AD 62/3 to catalog the date of the event (cf. this list of 1st-c. AD Roman consuls).

Seneca’s account appears in his Naturales Quaestiones 6.1.1-3, 6.31.1 (de terrae motu), T.H. Corcoran’s Loeb text and translation (1972). See also A. E. Cooley and M.G.L. Cooley, Pompeii: A Sourcebook (Routledge 2004) C1.

[1.1] Pompeios, celebrem Campaniae urbem, in quam ab altera parte Surrentinum Stabianumque litus, ab altera Herculanense conveniunt et mare ex aperto reductum amoeno sinu cingunt, consedisse terrae motu vexatis quaecumque adiacebant regionibus, Lucili, virorum optime, audivimus, et quidem hibernis diebus, quos vacare a tali periculo maiores nostri solebant promittere. [1.2] Nonis Februariis hic fuit motus Regulo et Verginio consulibus, qui Campaniam, numquam securam huius mali, indemnem tamen et totiens defunctam metu, magna strage vastauit. Nam et Herculanensis oppidi pars ruit dubieque stant etiam quae relicta sunt, et Nucerinorum colonia ut sine clade ita non sine querela est; Neapolis quoque privatim multa, publice nihil amisit leuiter ingenti malo perstricta; villae vero prorutae, passim sine iniuria tremuere. [1.3] Adiciuntur his illa: sexcentarum ouium gregem exanimatum et divisas statuas, motae post hoc mentis aliquos atque impotentes sui errasse. Quorum ut causas excutiamus, et propositi operis contextus exigit et ipse in hoc tempus congruens casus.

[31.1] Quare tamen per plures dies motus fuit? Non desiit enim assidue tremere Campania, clementius quidem, sed cum ingenti damno, quia quassa quatiebat, quibus ad cadendum male stantibus opus non erat impelli sed agitari.

“[1.1] Lucilius, my good friend, I have just heard that Pompeii, the famous city in Campania, has been laid low by an earthquake which also disturbed all the adjacent districts. The city is in a pleasant bay, back a ways from the open sea, and bounded by the shores of Surrentum and Stabiae on one side and the shores of Herculaneum on the other; the shores meet there. In fact, it occurred in days of winter, a season which our ancestors used to claim was free from such disaster. [1.2] This earthquake was on the Nones of February, in the consulship of Regulus and Verginius. It caused great destruction in Campania, which had never been safe from this danger but had never been damaged and time and again had got off with a fright. Also, part of the town of Herculaneum is in ruins and even the structures which are left standing are shaky. The colony of Nuceria escaped destruction but still has much to complain about. Naples also lost many private dwellings but no public buildings and was only mildly grazed by the great disaster; but some villas collapsed, others here and there shook without damage. [1.3] To these calamities others were added: they say that a flock of hundreds of sheep was killed, statues were cracked, and some people were deranged and afterwards wandered about unable to help themselves. The thread of my proposed work, and the concurrence of the disaster at this time, requires that we discuss the causes of these earthquakes.”

[31.1] “Yet why has an earthquake lasted for several days? For Campania did not cease its continuous trembling; the earthquake became milder but still caused great damage because it shook things already shaken, and since they were scarcely standing, and were ready to fall, they did not need to be pushed but only to be shaken.”

Usefully, the disaster is visually documented in two marble reliefs from the northern district of Pompeii, which provide topographic detail about the damage.

Marble Relief no. 1, from the SE side of the lararium in the House of L. Caecilius Iucundus (V.1.26) at Pompeii depicting the earthquake of AD 62/3; image from the Landesmuseum für Vorgeschichte in Halle (Germany). 13.5 x 87.5 cm., SAP inv. no. 20470, part of the Boscoreale Antiquarium collection. Recently featured in the British Museum exhibit: Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum. The relief shows the jumbled monumental center of the city (left to right): arch at the NW corner of the forum, temple of Jupiter (with flanking equestrian statues, perhaps of the Dioscuri), and an altar, complete with sacrificial implements and taurine victim.

Marble Relief no. 2 (plaster copy), depicting the earthquake of AD 62/3; image from the Landesmuseum für Vorgeschichte in Halle (Germany). Allegedly found nearby (exact findspot unrecorded), this relief did not originally belong to the House of L. Caecilius Iucundus (V.1.26), according to the Swedish Project at Pompeii, though it was displayed on the wall above Relief no. 1 in the lararium for many years. Sometime in the 1980s, the original was stolen (Pompei: Pitture e Mosaici Vol. III [1991] 578-9), and it has not been recovered. A copy in plaster, 18 x 86 cm., was made in the 1930s and exists in the inventory of the Museo della civiltà romana in Rome, no. 1368. See the Homo Faber online exhibit. The relief shows (left to right): the castellum aquae, collapsed Porta Vesuvio, donkey-cart in front of the city walls, and altar and tree outside the gate. See a plan and explanation of the area at Pompeii.

At least one of the reliefs was definitely part of a lararium (household shrine) in the house of L. Caecilius Iucundus (V.1.26). Iucundus was a banker and and broker who kept an archive of 153 writing tablets documenting financial transactions, the latest of which is dated to January, AD 62 (awfully close to Tacitus’ date for the disaster; cf. A. E. Cooley and M.G.L. Cooley, Pompeii: A Sourcebook (Routledge 2004) H69-82. A lararium documenting the serious effects of the earthquake may have been a way in which Iucundus expressed thanks for his survival to the tutelary gods of his house and family.

How severe was the AD 62/3 event?

Moment Magnitude Scale of recent earthquakes. the AD 62/3 quake was about 5.1 on this scale, but its location and ground conditions at Pompeii amplified its practical effects on the city.

A recent assessment by E. Cubellis and A. Marturano (“Felt index, source parameters and ground motion evaluation for earthquakes at Mt. Vesuvius,” Annals of Geophysics 56.4 [2013] S0439) of the AD 62/3 earthquake assigns it a magnitude of 5.1 +/- 0.3 on the Moment Magnitude Scale, though they also give it a IX on the Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale to better describe the local damage at Pompeii (Cubellis and Marturano, Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research 118 [2002] 339-51). It is the physical evidence of earthquake damage and repair at Pompeii and other sites, combined with the literary descriptions of Seneca and Tacitus, which feed scientific estimates for historical earthquakes.

Dipinto from the north external wall of the Palastra Grande at Pompeii (Notizie degli Scavi 1939, 308, fig. 21), honoring Nero for games with a hunt and athletes: the bottom three lines (pro salute Neronis Claudi Caesaris…)

There is other evidence for activity between AD 62/3 and 79. Suetonius (Ner. 20) and Tacitus (Ann. 15.33-34) record that in AD 64 (according to Tacitus), after Nero débuted a vocal performance at the theater in Naples, the building collapsed — Suetonius says from an earthquake during the show. A dipinto from Pompeii on the right side of doorway IX.7.3 (CIL IV, 3822; Notizie degli Scavi [1888] 517-8 c [see also g]) is reconstructed as follows: “pro salute Ner[onis] in terr[ae motu],” perhaps marking gratitude for Nero’s escape from death, for rebuilding funds, or for sponsoring entertainments despite the ban on gladiatorial contests at Pompeii (imposed after the AD 59 riot; see Tacitus, Ann. 14.17; L. Jacobelli, Gladiators at Pompeii [L'Erma, Roma 2003] 106). See Notizie degli Scavi [1939] 307-10, nn. 410, 415; A.E. Cooley and M.G.L. Cooley, Pompeii: A Sourcebook [Routledge 2004] D39, and perhaps Notizie degli Scavi [1946] 95, n. 78bis).

CIL X, 846 describing the restoration of the Temple of Isis at Pompeii by Numerius Popidius, six years old. From Pompeii in Pictures; replica on-site at the Temple in Pompeii; original in the Museo Nazionale in Naples MNN 3765.

Post-quake reconstruction is the theme of two inscriptions connected to local temples; one from the Isaeum at Pompeii (CIL X, 846; image above), and one referring to the Temple of Mater Deum at Herculaneum in AD 76 (CIL X, 1406; image below).

CIL X, 846 reads:

N(umerius) POPIDIUS N(umerii) F(ilius) CELSINUS/ AEDEM ISIDIS TERRAE MOTU CONLAPSAM/ A FUNDAMENTO P(ecunia) S(ua) RESTITUIT. HUNC DECURIONES OB LIBERALITATEM/ CUM ESSET ANNORUM SEXS ORDINI SUO GRATIS ADLEGERUNT

“Numerius Popidius Celsinus, son of Numerius, rebuilt the Temple of Isis, collapsed from the earthquake, from its foundations, with his own money. On account of his generosity, the town councillors enrolled him free of charge into their ranks, even though was only six years old.”

Little Numerius is a startling example of upward mobility in Roman society, as his father (Numerius Popidius Ampliatus) was a freedperson — and so ineligible for public office –, though the boy had citizenship by means of his free birth. By paying for the restoration of the temple in his son’s name, the father was ensuring that his descendants would belong to Pompeii’s political elite. The ‘donation’ also ensured that the boy’s selection was ‘free’ of the usual fee, and exempted him from the age restriction of 25 years old.

CIL X, 1406, in contrast, documents funding from the very top of the Roman social pyramid.

CIL X, 1406

IMP(erator) CAESAR VESPASIANUS AUG(ustus) PONTIF(ex) MAX(imus)/ TRIB(unicia) POT(estate) VII IMP(erator) XVII P(ater) P(atriae) CO(n)S(ul) VII DESIGN(atus) VIII/ TEMPLUM MATRIS DEUM TERRAE MOTU CONLAPSUM RESTITUIT

“The Emperor Caesar Vespasianus Augustus, Chief Priest, with Tribunician Power for the 7th time and acclaimed Imperator for the 17th time, Father of the Fatherland, Consul for the 7th time (Elect for the 8th time), restored the Temple of the Mother of the Gods [Cybele], which had collapsed from the earthquake.”

The specific honorifics and titles of the Emperor Vespasian, especially the detail of being consul elect for the eighth time, permit a dating of August-December of AD 76. This inscription is clear evidence of imperial stimulus funds to support the redevelopment of an area stricken by disaster, even more than a decade after the event. That being said, the difficulty that these communities faced in their recovery from the earthquake has been assessed recently by N. Monteix (in G. Djament-Tran and M Reghezza-Zitt, Résiliences urbaines [Paris 2012]). For more on earthquakes prior to the AD 79 eruption, see E. De Carolis and G. Patricelli, Vesuvio 79 d.C. la distruzione di Pompei ed Ercolano (L’Erma, Roma 2003) 71-76; and W.F. Jashemski and F.G. Meyer, The Natural History of Pompeii (Cambridge 2002) 33-35.

For the Younger Pliny, now in middle age, the tremor terrae emerges from motus memoriae. In that process of studied recollection, how will he portray himself and others, confronted by a suddenly unstable world?

In the next post, which covers 6.20.4-7, Pliny and his mother sit by the seaside during the tremors until the shaking gets so bad that they decide, with the urging of a family friend visiting from Spain, to flee Misenum.

Back to Part 8

Forward to Part 10 (forthcoming)

Angela Kauffmann, Pliny the Younger and his Mother at Misenum, 79 A.D. (1785) Princeton University Art Museum (detail; see full painting below)

6.20.4-6: When in Doubt, Study.

This post belongs to a serialized translation and commentary of Pliny the Younger’s letters (6.16 and 6.20) to the historian Tacitus about the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. This is the second installment for letter 6.20, and the tenth overall.

This installment was completed with the contributions of DePauw LAT 223 students Jackson Hicks and Leigh Plummer in Fall 2014 and 2015.

At this point in the story, Younger Pliny has spent a restless and bumpy night while his uncle the Elder Pliny has sailed off to investigate the eruption and try to evacuate refugees. He awakens to a dark day.

4 Inrupit cubiculum meum mater; surgebam invicem, si quiesceret excitaturus. Resedimus in area domus, quae mare a tectis modico spatio dividebat.

4 My mother burst into my bedroom at the same time I was getting up, about to rouse her, were she still asleep. We sat down in a courtyard of the house which was separating, by a modest extent, the sea from the buildings.

In the Latin, noteworthy is the mixed conditional with a present-contrary-to-fact imperfect subjunctive (quiesceret) in the protasis, and a future-more-vivid future active participle (exciturus) in the apodosis, all set up by the imperfect of surgebam: “Right then I was in the process of getting up, about to wake [my mom] up (which I was definitely going to do), if she were [still] sleeping (which she wasn’t).” In the second sentence, the relative clause (area…quae) is straightforward.

The first line is dotted with adrenaline vocabulary (inrupit, surgebam, excitaturus) that perks up the reader at the same time that the story’s main characters (Pliny and his mother) are waking up during the night to find each other out of mutual concern. There is a running theme in this letter about the anxiety of separation. Uncle Pliny is away (and at about this time in letter 6.16, also being roused [excitatus]); he “left behind” Young Pliny (relictus, from 6.20.1). Can mother and son stay together as the volcanic storm descends upon them?

Amidst a setting in which the earth and its inhabitants are becoming increasingly agitated, Pliny and his mother act with a strange calmness, simply moving to an open space (area) where the roof is less likely to fall in on them. This space is narrow (modico spatio) and separates the built (tectis) and marine (mare) environments; its straitness is re-emphasized below in section 6 (‘angusto‘). We ought to understand a kind of seaside terrace, of the sort known from the villas at Stabiae and recently revealed at the Villa dei Papiri in Herculaneum.

Panorama along the cliffside terrace along the northwest frontage of the Villa San Marco, Stabiae; Vesuvius on the horizon (click for full-size). Photo: P. Foss

Two different levels of seaside terrace for the Villa dei Papiri at Herculaneum, from the recent excavations. Photo: P. Foss

Again this parallels letter 6.16, as sections 6.16.15-16 compare the dangers of staying inside vs. outside. The Elder Pliny behaves serenely in the face of catastrophe, as do his sister and nephew; they are ‘of a mind’ that does not panic. Younger Pliny admits that this may have been foolish (imprudentia, section 5 below), but it is part of his youthful character role — someone expected to follow the instructions of older, wiser men (his mother plays an analogously deferential role). What emerges in this letter is a suddenly awkward rite of passage in which the Younger Pliny must grow up and take on the eldest-male-in-the-household role, in strange synchronicity with his uncle suffocating across the Bay of Naples.

Pliny expresses uncertainty in explaining why they sat along the sea while the house shook around them. He will fall back on a strongly inculcated habit: when in doubt, study.

Angelica Kauffmann, Pliny the Younger and his Mother at Misenum, 79 A.D. (1785) Princeton University Art Museum. For a detailed study of this painting, see: V.C. Gardner Coates, “Making History: Pliny’s Letters to Tacitus and Angelica Kauffmann’s Pliny the Younger and his Mother at Misenum,” in S. Hales and J. Paul, Pompeii in the Public Imagination from its Rediscovery to Today (Oxford 2011) 48-61.

5 Dubito, constantiam vocare an imprudentiam debeam (agebam enim duodevicensimum annum): posco librum Titi Livi, et quasi per otium lego atque etiam ut coeperam excerpo. Ecce amicus avunculi qui nuper ad eum ex Hispania venerat, ut me et matrem sedentes, me vero etiam legentem videt, illius patientiam securitatem meam corripit. Nihilo segnius ego intentus in librum.

5 I am not sure whether I should call it intrepidity or ignorance (for I was seventeen years old): I ask for a book of Titus Livius, and I read and take notes as I had begun to, just as if I were at ease. And suddenly a friend of my uncle — who had recently come from Spain — when he sees me and mother sitting down, and indeed me even reading, he admonishes her forbearance and my unconcern. No less actively, I remain focused on my book.

Dubito might make one expect a doubting clause with quin, but such clauses appear with a negated verb of doubt or denial. Here Pliny uses a deliberative subjunctive, with the ‘either…or’ separated by ‘an‘ plus the infinitive vocare, as the hinge between the two reasons for his hesitation, his mind now wavering like the columns and beams of his house.

Observe the qualities Pliny ascribes to himself: constantia, imprudentia, securitas — all contextualized by the revelation of his age at the time. Constantia refers to steadiness, and evokes the Elder Pliny’s lack of anxiety in 6.16. Absence of worry in the face of actual danger is a kind of foolishness; this is why his uncle’s Spanish friend is about to chastise him. Imprudentia refers not to idiocy, but simply a lack of knowledge and experience, which Pliny reflectively (and perhaps stereotypically) ascribes to his youth: “agebam enim duodevicensimum annum” (for I was seventeen years old). The Romans counted inclusively, which is why duodevicensimum translates to the ordinal number ‘eighteenth’.

Statue of Livy in front of the late 19th-c. Austrian Parliament Building in Vienna (Tacitus and other historians are also represented there).

In conditions of hazard and uncertainty, Pliny finds his comfort zone in studying. Here we learn what specific assignment his uncle had set him yesterday, prior to leaving to investigate the eruption (in 6.16.7 — the phrase etiam ut coeperam tells us this). Titus Livius is Livy, the Roman historian, who lived ca. 59 BC – AD 17 (the dates are not secure). Livy’s monumental (and partially surviving) work was Ab Urbe Condita Libri, a history that proposed to chronicle Rome from its founding in 753 BC to the middle of Augustus’s reign in 9 BC. Livy was — and is — considered the historian of the Roman Republic. Pliny’s correspondent Tacitus has by his time already published works about the Germans and his father-in-law Agricola, but is clearly hoping to become the historian of the Roman Empire with his forthcoming Histories. Pliny is writing these letters to Tacitus to help his friend in that cause. Pliny may also himself be dabbling in writing history; though he repeatedly denies it (6.16.21-22; 6.20.20), he seems to protest the point too much.

When Pliny describes his studying (quasi per otium), there’s an echo of his uncle’s pretense of cheerfulness (similis hilari) during dinner at the Stabian villa of Pomponianus (6.16.12). The use of the term otium also invokes the adult value of ‘studied leisure’ — what a Roman aristocrat could afford to do (and preferred to do) if politics and business (literally the opposite, neg-otium, the root of our word ‘negotiate’) did not get in the way. As Pliny remembers back to this moment, is he nostalgic for a more innocent stage of his life (before the tyranny he suffered under Domitian and the praise he felt he had to give Trajan)? Does he recall a younger self wanting to be more grown up than he actually was, but soon compelled by this natural disaster to take actual responsibility in a suddenly dangerous real world?

What Pliny has to do is to read and take notes (lego atque…excerpo) on Livy. The painstaking process of outlined annotation (fare degli appunti; la schema) makes up a substantial part of homework for secondary education in Italy still today (Students and teachers do not all agree that this is a good thing.) The American educational system tends not to demand such assiduous practice of reading-to-write, so it is often introduced at the college level, often too late to become a useful habit.

The pretended ease of Pliny and his mother are interrupted (Ecce) by a friend of the Elder Pliny recently arrived from Spain, as the relative clause (qui…venerat) describes. And ut + the indicative verbs videt and corripit must be understood temporally, as ‘when,’ ‘after,’ or here, with its sense of urgency, ‘as soon as’. The objects of those verbs are modified by present-active participles sedentes (Pliny and his mother) and legentem (just Pliny, emphasized with ‘vero etiam‘, as if the Younger Pliny thinks back incredulously upon the much-Younger Pliny’s stubbornness). This elegant parallel construction is repeated with slight variation when the visitor lambasts illius patientiam securitatem meam. The lack of a conjunction, such as ‘et,‘ is asyndeton, which adds a sense of franticness to the atmosphere.

Campania remains a hotbed for geologic activity, with numerous noticeable earthquakes every year above the Campania-Lucania Extension Fault. Extension faults are also called normal faults (click on the link for an animation). Spain is in a somewhat less vulnerable geological position; it has many small quakes, but few massive events, and vulnerability varies greatly across the peninsula (the central plateau and northwest regions are largely stable). Perhaps the Spanish friend is unaccustomed to the Campanian frequency of tectonic activity, or perhaps he is quite aware, and sensible enough to challenge his hosts’ complacency. Pliny the Elder might have made the man’s acquaintance from his term as procurator of Hispania Tarraconensis ca. AD 72-74. Recent LiDAR research has located Roman goldmining operations in the Eria Valley of León, the northwest part of that territory, near the huge hydraulically prospected mines of Las Médulas (as Pliny describes, using the method of “ruina montium,” Hist. Nat 33.70ff.):

…”The third method will have surpassed the accomplishments of the Titans. The mountains are hollowed out by means of galleries driven for long distances by the light of lamps. The lamps also measure the periods of work, since the miners do not see daylight for many months. They call this type of mine arrugia. Faults suddenly slip and crush the workers, so that now it seems less audacious to seek pearls and purple dye in the depths of the sea, so much more harmful have we made the earth.” (J.W. Humphrey, J.P. Olson, and A.N. Sherwood, Greek and Roman Technology: a Sourcebook, Routledge 1998, 187-88)

While the Elder Pliny is suffering a natural disaster, he had in Spain helped to supervise a man-made disaster, however beautiful it looks today: 

The Spanish visitor (who reappears in 6.20.10) must have used strong language (corripit suggests impolite words that Pliny chooses not to remember or quote directly, or perhaps it nods to Tacitus’ usage as a term for political and legal accusation). Nevertheless, Pliny stays put, obstinately and contrarily holding onto his lifejacket of a book. His literary studies are still a safe place, even if the world no longer is.

Nihilo segnius translates to none the slower (segnis); that is, zealously. Pliny has repeatedly taken pains to impress his uncle, his friend Tacitus, his uncle’s friend, and the reader with his focus on study. And while Pliny himself is not sluggish, the sense of this adjective will be transferred in the next sentence to a day that refuses to resolve into its customary clarity.

6 Iam hora diei prima, et adhuc dubius et quasi languidus dies. Iam quassatis circumiacentibus tectis, quamquam in aperto loco, angusto tamen, magnus et certus ruinae metus.

6. Now it was the first hour of the day and so far the daylight was overcast and almost feeble. At this point, because the surrounding rooms were shaking violently, although [we were] in an open space, it was nevertheless narrow, and fear of collapse was considerable and inevitable.

This first sentence wavers in and out of focus, framed by a specific and immediate temporal marker ‘iam.‘ Right now, it is sunrise (‘hora diei prima‘), but the next four major words emphasize vagueness and uncertainty: adhuc: ‘up to this point’ (not a specific time); dubius (from duo+habeo, ‘holding two different things at once’, and so ambiguous); quasi (‘like’ or ‘as if’ but not anything true to itself); and languid (‘weak,’ ‘dull,’ ‘faint’). The word dies is also used twice, and it does mean ‘day’, but not just in the sense of a new day, but in the appearance of the sun that reveals the world once more. Because of the eruption, the expected dawn is blurry — not truly bright enough to even be called ‘daylight.’ Time itself is muddled.

The dissolution of the boundary between night and day is echoed in the instability of the earth. Quassatis is onomatopoetic word, providing a sound effect for the narration. Like a contemporary example, the Batman screen capture (‘BAM!’), quassatis is a violent word; it shakes off the torpor of the previous sentence. Furthermore, ‘quassatis circumiacentibus tectis” is an ablative absolute, a circumstantial participial clause — the shaking is now happening constantly around them (‘circum-‘).

Younger Pliny describes a scene in direct contrast to the experience of the Elder Pliny. Instead of huddling under the roof trying to escape the falling rocks, they are taking refuge in the open area where they can’t be hurt by the roof itself, but even that protection is narrow “angusto tamen”. As stated in 6.16.15-16, the danger of an indoor collapse was real. A 2003 study done by G. Luongo et al. discovered that 38% of human casualties at Pompeii were from falling debris, and 90% of that number was from indoor collapse. Sadly, the walls of that ancient site are increasingly prone to falling down today, after centuries of exposure, erosion, neglect, and tourist wear-and-tear.

Sections of Pompeii are still in danger of collapse. Here, the fall of a building that once housed gladiators. http://phys.org/news/2010-11-italy-collapses-pompeii.html

Everything is so unsettled and uncertain that now only one thing is sure (certus): fear. Yet Younger Pliny and his mother still do not move. The lad is still trying to stay calm and imitate his uncle. The repetition of iam recalls its triple repetition in letter 6.16.11. Pliny does this to build a similar sense of play-by-play, but because the word iam only appears twice instead of three times, it hints that his dangers are tamer than those faced by the Elder Pliny. This reinforces a recurring message about the Younger Pliny’s adventure (see 6.16.21-22; 6.20.1): his experience of the Vesuvius eruption could not have been as significant as that of his uncle. The sentence also describes a shift in Younger Pliny’s own demeanor. Insouciance is turning to fear.

In the next section, fear will motivate movement, and Pliny will describe the extraordinary sights that warrant trepidation.

Back to Part 9

Forward to Part 11 (forthcoming)

Drawback from the Boxing Day tsunami, 2004, Hat Rai Lay Beach, Thailand

6.20.7-9: The Elements Torn Asunder.

This post belongs to a serialized translation and commentary of Pliny the Younger’s letters (6.16 and 6.20) to the historian Tacitus about the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. This is the third installment for letter 6.20, and the eleventh overall.

This installment was completed with the contributions of DePauw LAT 223 students Jackson Hicks, Luke Lohrstorfer, and Leigh Plummer in Fall 2014 and 2015.

The Younger Pliny and his mother have been unsettled by strong tremors at their seaside residence early on the morning of the second day of the eruption. The Elder Pliny, who sailed off the afternoon before, is on the Stabian seashore with his friend Pomponianus.

7 Tum demum excedere oppido visum; sequitur vulgus attonitum, quodque in pavore simile prudentiae, alienum consilium suo praefert, ingentique agmine abeuntes premit et impellit.

7. At that point, it finally seemed best to exit the town. A confounded mob followed — and what in fear seems akin to wisdom, each prefers another’s judgement to their own — and in a massive throng it presses and pushes us on as we leave.

Tottering roof tiles have finally forced Younger Pliny, his mother, and their household to abandon their home at Misenum. They are joined by a mob of slaves, freedpersons, and neighbors (vulgus attonitum) who lack, and desire, direction. As he has since 6.20.4, Younger Pliny generates synchronicity—across the bay, at the same time (in letter 6.16.16), Elder Pliny and Pomponianus’ household are also deciding whether to stay or go. In these twin dilemmas, Younger Pliny focuses on the psychological processes of decision-making under stress:

(6.16.16): apud illum quidem ratio rationem, apud alios timorem timor vicit
(6.20.7): quodque in pavore simile prudentiae, alienum consilium suo praefert

(6.16.16): For the Elder Pliny (illum), reckoning defeated reckoning, (whereas) for the others, one fear won out over another
(6.20.7): and what in fear seems akin to wisdom, each prefers another’s judgement to their own

In 6.16.16, reason (rare; only the Elder) and fear (common; everyone else) are clearly distinct, a separation buttressed by the parallelism of the clauses. In 6.20.7, Younger Pliny describes a group panic in which terror and rationality, and individual and multitude, are indistinguishable (mirrored by the ‘run-on’ appositional structure and the linked proximity of pavore simile prudentiae and alienum consilium suo). This mental condition leads to paralysis — the threat of falling stone has literally petrified the crowd until the Plinys provide a vector for action by leaving their home. The Elder Pliny is lionized as a beacon of reason, but Younger Pliny admits his own hesitation and fear; both he and his mother had already been chided by their Spanish guest (6.20.5) for inaction, and they will be again (6.20.10). Both passages complicate a common argument about these letters — that Pliny is consistently classist (patricians pondered; plebs panicked). Pomponianus is no less elite than Elder Pliny, and he is frightened and irrational; neither do Pliny the Younger or his mother have a real plan (they are simply pushed along, premit et impellit, by the rest). Instead, Younger Pliny mostly pretends to be calm and controlled. Visum [est] (‘it seemed best’) does not denote bold confidence, and demum suggests that looking back, Younger Pliny was a bit astonished at how long it took his younger self to get up and go.

The pressing and pushing action of the crowd comes from the back (literally, the end of the sentence). There is no person to step forward, like the Elder Pliny, to lead people to safety. Confusion is heightened because Misenum is a military town—it is accustomed to even more hierarchical governance than civilian settlements. To whom would the residents look for guidance other than the commander of the imperial fleet (Elder Pliny) and his family? But the admiral is away, the mob is leaderless, and Pliny is not yet ready to fill his uncle’s sandals. This is despite the fact that the actual danger he faces is much more distant, far less intense, and ultimately not deadly at all (not that they knew it).

A human stampede.

In a throng, each person follows the judgement of someone else instead of their own, and this only pushes the group farther forward. One can reference (Johns Hopkins professor of emergency medicine) Edbert Hsu’s description of human stampedes that kill many each year.

The word for the shape of the crowd, agmen, resides on the tense edge between order and chaos: an agmen can mean, in its most regimented sense, a marching line of soldiers (appropriate for residents of a naval base), but the word can also represent a more chaotic mass, verging towards its use as a term for coursing water. This letter spills floods of people, voices, and pyroclastics.

How large, potentially, was the crowd? Misenum as a town was not particularly big, as its land area is limited; John D’Arms has estimated its population at 3,300-4,000 in the mid-second century AD (“Memory, Money and Status at Misenum: three new inscriptions from the collegium of the Augustales,” Journal of Roman Studies 90 [2000] 126-44). P. Miniero (Baia. Il Castello, il Museo, l’area archeologica [Napoli 2000] 70), estimates the population of the naval base at about 6,000 men, probably quartered around the inner harbor.

8. Egressi tecta consistimus. Multa ibi miranda, multas formidines patimur. Nam vehicula quae produci iusseramus, quamquam in planissimo campo, in contrarias partes agebantur ac ne lapidibus quidem fulta in eodem vestigio quiescebant.

8. Having cleared the rooftops, we stopped. There we experienced many marvels and many terrors. For the carriages which we had ordered to be brought out, although upon the flattest ground, were being knocked in opposite directions and not even wedged by rocks were they resting in the same spot.

The eruption of Vesuvius in 1944, displaying the iconic pine tree shape of the smoke cloud.

After exiting the urbanized area (to avoid the danger of collapsing roofs on either side of the road), Younger Pliny describes his household pausing to wonder at what nature is doing. He uses a future passive participle, i.e., a gerundive (miranda) expressing obligation: how the multa must be marveled at. The natural spectacle is beautiful both because of, and in spite of, its danger. He sets up the sentence with a tricolon of alliteration  (multa, miranda, multas), which escalates, and then holds in tension, the majestic attraction with the horrors that it is bringing: the terrible beauty of destruction.  

The port of Misenum, the possible location of Pliny the Elder’s house on the northwest slope of Capo Miseno, and possible routes of escape (A, towards Cumae; B, towards Baiae; each letter represents a distance of 2.4 km., or about a 30 min. walk, from the lower slopes of Capo Miseno). Click to access a much larger version. P. Foss, using Google Earth.

Judging by the geography of the promontory of Misenum and the timing of the story, this procession is likely to have moved northwest of the Roman port of Misenum towards the valley between Monte di Procida (Mons Misenus) and the hills southwest of Baiae (see above, route ‘A’, in red). That valley had a road running through its center, the mouth of which (at ‘A’) was flanked by the tombs of sailors who had served in the Roman navy (see Beloch’s map below). Tombs would have been clearly ‘out of town’ (egressi tecta), but as we do not know the extent of urbanization at ancient Misenum, anywhere along the southern edge of the inner harbor could indicate where the family paused. 6.20.13 also says that when the final pyroclastic density current arrived, it was ‘on their backs’ (caligo tergis imminebat), and the only way that makes sense is if they are walking west/northwest (the wind was blowing southeast that day). The other road (route ‘B’, in yellow) goes more towards the eruption. Our only ancient map of the area, the Tabula Peutingeriana, shows only the route passing by the Lago di Fusaro/Acherusian Lake (‘A’), from Baiae to Cumae (no spur road to Misenum), and so does not resolve the issue. Yet route ‘A’ is dead level the whole way; route ‘B’ encounters significant undulation and elevation just as the road rises from the inner harbor. ‘A’ is therefore the likely route. (To explore Roman roads, try Omnes Viae, a site that plans ancient routes based on the Tabula Peutingeriana and the Itinerarium Antonianum.)

Tabula Peutingeriana, detail of the Phlegraean Fields (click to see enlarged version). P. Foss, after the digital file in Omnes Viae.

The present parchment version of the Tabula dates from the 13th c. AD, which was copied from a 4th-c. AD original (perhaps Constantinian), but the document has 1st c. AD details (such as towns marked for ‘Herculanum’ and ‘Pompeis’, which were never re-built), so the cartographic and iconographic data of our surviving map is a palimpsest. For instance, the half-oval perforated by two ‘archways’ to the right of Puteolis in the image below probably represents the ‘Crypta Neapolitana’ and/or ‘Grotta di Seano’, 700-m+ tunnels driven under the Pausilypon ridge that separates Neapolis from Puteoli, to shorten and straighten travel distance, first begun in the 30s BC on Agrippa’s orders (Strabo 5.4.5 mentions a third tunnel as connecting Cumae and Lake Avernus, which is called the Grotta di Cocceio, after its engineer, and is nearly 1 km. long). See L. Amato, et al., “The Crypta Neapolitana; a Roman tunnel of the early imperial age,” in More than two thousand years in the history of architecture, international congress proceedings (UNESCO, Paris, 2001).

Younger Pliny comments that their carriages packed with belongings were being shaken so badly that even on the most level ground they were being moved in opposite directions, recalling his description at Stabiae through Elder Pliny’s eyes, where the roofs are swaying back and forth (6.16.1; blog part seven). On the Misenan shore, Pliny emphasizes the tension between reliable immovability (in planissimo campo; lapidibus…fulta) and uncontrollable movement (in contrarias partes agebantur [a passive-voice verb; there is no ‘agent’ of the verbal action; it is just ‘happening’]; ne…quiescebant).

Depiction of a covered Roman carriage (though Pliny and his mother were clearly walking). Relief, south exterior wall of the Maria Saal church; originally from a Roman tomb at Virunum (state of Carinthia, Austria; the city, founded by Claudius, was the provincial capital of Noricum). http://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/the-embattled-driver-in-ancient-rome/

The flat route along the shore went past the ‘schola armaturarum,’ or ‘schola militum’ (today the area called miliscola at the west end of the inner harbor). That appellation designated the base training ground (parade maneuvers rather than fighting practice according to E.L. Wheeler, “The Occasion of Arrian’s Tactica,” Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 19 [1978] 357-58) for soldiers and sailors, as known from an early 4th-c. AD inscription (CIL X, 3344 [ILS 5902]) found there, as argued early on by Michele Arditti (Il porto di Miseno [1808] 41). The inscription memorializes the rebuilding of a (moveable?) wooden bridge that spanned the canal linking the inter and outer harbors (pons ligneus in Beloch’s map below). The bottleneck, and perhaps unreliability, of that bridge during an eruption is another reason why escape route ‘A’ (above) is the most likely. Details in the next few sentences will confirm this route.

Karl Julius Beloch, Map of Misenum in Campanien. Geschichte und Topographie des antiken Neapel und seiner Umgebung (1890). Click to access large version.

9 Praeterea mare in se resorberi et tremore terrae quasi repelli videbamus. Certe processerat litus multaque animalia maris siccis harenis detinebat. Ab altero latere nubes atra et horrenda ignei spiritus tortis vibratisque discursibus rupta in longas flammarum figuras dehiscebat: fulguribus illae et similes et maiores erant.

9 Moreover, we were watching the sea suck back into itself again as if being driven back by the shaking of the land. Certainly the shoreline had advanced and was holding back many creatures of the sea upon dry sand. On the other side, a dark and hair-raising cloud, burst by twisting and quivering ripples of fiery exhalation, was yawning into tall shapes of flames: these flames were both similar to, and greater than, the lightning.

The first sentence is a double indirect statement, used with main verbs of saying, thinking, knowing, or feeling. Videbamus takes an accusative, mare, that in turn governs resorberi and repelli, both present passive infinitives. Mare first works with the reflexive “in se,” and then in the context of a kind of simile to explain why the water is receding: “as if [the sea were] being driven back by earthquake”. The second sentence is straightforward, but shifts the agent of action from sea to shore: it is the beach that had pushed forward and was clinging to the marine animals left exposed to the air. Note the nested structure framed by litus and detinebat: multa animalia (who belong in the water but who are now on dry land) separated from that dry land (siccis harenis)—even though they are in fact stuck upon it—by an inconstant maris. The juxtaposition of maris with siccis shapes a superficial similarity even as the combination is discordant. This is the point: the world is behaving in contradiction.

In fact, it is the line of fleeing townspeople that is caught and exposed in the middle, on the thin spit of sand between the Tyrrhenian Sea and the harbors. Moving west-northwest, they see the submission of ocean to land on the left, and on their right, the air invaded by earth and fire. The third sentence contains many participial phrases, but can be translated with patience. Nubes is modified by atra, the future passive participle horrenda, and a perfect passive participle, rupta, which governs the perfect passive participles tortis and vibratisque that modify discursibus. The main verb dehiscebat serves the subject nubes, and illae is a demonstrative pronoun/adjective for figuras, as the subject of erant. When one sees et…et… the translation “both…and…” should be used. Similes is accompanied by a word in the dative case, fulguribus, yielding: “similar to the lightning.” Maiores is a comparative adjective which requires an ablative of comparison–again, fulguribus! Because the dative and ablative endings are the same for a third declension noun, Pliny uses “fulguribus” once in writing but twice in meaning.

Rendition of Vesuvius eruption based on Pliny. George Julius Poulett Scrope. 1822.

Pliny’s personification of the eruption continues. First, he affixes the blast with breath. He did this in his first letter (6.16.6), using the same word: spiritus. He continues the breath metaphor by writing that the cloud dehiscebat, was opening up wide. The verb stem, hisco, means to yawn, and de- broadens that split. Note the continuing use of the imperfect tense, showing action that began in the past, and is continuing to happen; this helps the account feel vivid—ocurring while the reader scans the lines. It was vivid for the 18-year old Pliny (and in his later memory, as he wrote these letters); once again he portrays the volcano as a kind of living monster. Unlike his uncle, whom he describes as being brave and heroic throughout the events, Pliny the Younger has so far seemed a victim to circumstance. Yet now he shifts slightly. No longer can he nonchalantly read Livy; instead, he and his mother are in flight. The instruction and habits of his uncle have made an impact; Younger Pliny begins to notice strange things. The descriptive adjectives and participles he uses in this passage reveal a young man who is frightened, but also amazed by the unfolding events. He is taking note and trying to derive explanations—a scholar who can finally apply his skills.

Water being pushed back in rapid recession, warning of an approaching tsunami in Japan 2011. USGS.

When Pliny the Younger describes the recession of the shore line, he is recording a characteristic of a tsunami. The ‘drawback’ is in fact, just the ‘trough,’ rather than the ‘crest,’ of the force wave working its way through the medium of water. Tsunamis are most often the result of massive undersea earthquakes or landslides, but can also be caused by volcanic eruptions (due to displacement of water from the collapse of pyroclastic material into the water, causing a kind of landslide, or due to accompanying quakes). Tsunamis caused by volcanic eruptions dissipate faster than Pacific-wide tsunamis caused by earthquakes, and tend not to affect coastlines distant from the source of the eruption. Click here; the video shows the development of a tsunami from a volcano, using various clips from the Thailand tsunami in 2004. Another video, a little longer, shows footage from the Japan tsunami in 2011. Clearly in the case of AD 79, the shockwave was not severe enough to cause an actual tsunami; if it had been, Pliny and the rest of the refugees would have been washed out from the vulnerable coastal road.

Younger Pliny himself must have been gaping at what he saw; his amazement is about to get slapped back into reality by the guest from Spain, who tells him to run.

Back to Part 10

Forward to Part 12 (forthcoming)

The blog posts about the Vesuvius eruption are on hold while I complete my book, Pliny and the Destruction of Vesuvius (Routledge, 2021). The book is about Letters 6.16 and 6.20, and has these chapters:

1. Two Plinys: Short biographies of the Elder and Younger Pliny, setting the context for the Vesuvian letters;
2. Two Letters: A reconstruction of the transmission history of Epp. 6.16 and 6.20 within the context of the whole manuscript tradition of the Epistulae. This is based on the collation of every known extant manuscript and early printed edition of the text of those letters (which has never been done before). It will show, among other things, how ‘November’ crept into the manuscript tradition as an error, how that error was propagated, and why the textual tradition cannot be used as a basis for arguing that the eruption happened in October or November, despite the repeated citation of problematic 17th-/18th-c. scholarship and recent press favoring a non-August date. Previews of my argument and evidence will be given at public lectures in Tampa Bay (Archaeological Institute of America, 6:00 p.m., 29 Oct. 2019), San Francisco St. University (18 Nov. 2019), Milwaukee (Archaeological Institute of America, 9 Feb. 2020), Spokane (Archaeological Institute of America, 20 Feb. 2020), and Knoxville (Archaeological Institute of America, 10 Mar. 2020).
3. Two Days: a reconstruction, based on the latest volcanological studies and a new complete GIS model of the AD-79 topography of the Bay of Naples, of the eruption sequence, its effects upon the landscape and people of the Bay of Naples, and how those new studies enlighten the accounts in Pliny’s Epistulae, including the likely location of the Pliny’s villa from which the eruption was first spotted.
4. Epistulae 6.16, The Elder’s Story: Text, new translation, and commentary;
5. Epistulae 6.20, The Younger’s Story: Text, new translation, and commentary;
6. An appendix of the manuscripts and printed editions, with a link to spreadsheets of the collations of Epp. 6.16 and 6.20, which will then be posted on this blog for public availability and study.

Thank you kindly for your patience.

Pliny and the Eruption of Vesuvius (Routledge, March 2022) is in press. Here is how to order for your library at a 20% discount. My blog posts about the Vesuvius eruption are well obsolete, but I will leave them as-is for archival purposes. The book is about Letters 6.16 and 6.20, and contains these chapters:

1. Two Plinys: Short biographies of the Elder and Younger Pliny, setting the context for the Vesuvian letters.
2. Two Letters: A reconstruction of the transmission history of Epp. 6.16 and 6.20 within the context of the whole manuscript tradition of the Epistulae. This is based on the collation of every known and available extant manuscript and early printed edition of the text of those letters (which has never been done before).
3. Two Days: A reconstruction—based on the latest volcanological studies and a new complete GIS model of the AD-79 topography of the Bay of Naples—of the eruption sequence, its effects upon the landscape and people of the Bay of Naples, and how those new studies enlighten the accounts in Pliny’s Epistulae, including the likely location of the Pliny’s villa from which the eruption was first spotted. In addition, this chapter treats the date of the eruption, both in the manuscript tradition, and in the archaeological evidence. It shows, among other things, how ‘November’ crept into the manuscript tradition as an error, how that error was propagated, and why the textual tradition cannot be used as a basis for arguing that the eruption happened in October or November, despite the repeated citation of problematic 17th-/18th-c. scholarship and recent press favoring a non-August date.
4. Epistulae 6.16, The Elder’s Story: Text, textual variants, new translation, and detailed commentary.
5. Epistulae 6.20, The Younger’s Story: Text, textual variants, new translation, and detailed commentary.

Routledge will also host the data files behind the arguments in their Online Resources. Those will include:

1. A side-by-side continuous Latin and English translation of Epp. 6.16, 6.20, including the collation markers (PDF).
2. Ep. 6.16 Inventory of Sources and Collation (Excel spreadsheet).
3. Ep. 6.20 Inventory of Sources and Collation (Excel spreadsheet).
4. Epp. 6.16 and 6.20 Collation “Fingerprints” — the key readings that decipher the manuscript tradition (Excel spreadsheet).
5. Select Collation of Epp. 1.8, 12, 23-24 — key readings to understand the manuscript tradition for Epp. 1.1-5.6 and the F source (PDF).
6. Select Collation of Book 8 Letters — key readings to understand the manuscript tradition for the theta branch of the manuscript tradition (PDF).
7. Collation Encoding Key (how manuscript abbreviations in items 2-6 are encoded in the collation spreadsheets) (PDF).
8. Continuous Color Diagram for the Manuscript Tradition (PDF).
9. Continuous Halftone Diagram of the Eruption Sequence (PDF).
10. Geographic Information System (GIS) of the pre-eruption Bay of Naples in AD 79 (ArcGIS folder).

Please cite my work appropriately. Thank you.

20-min. lecture from 6 January 2022, Archaeological Institute of America Annual Meeting. All details and data to be published in March 2022: https://www.routledge.com/Pliny-and-the-Eruption-of-Vesuvius/Foss/p/book/9780415705462

Two talks for the Herculaneum Society, based at Oxford, 26 February 2022, now on YouTube:

• Professor Pedar Foss, DePauw University, on “Ashy Tuesday-Wednesday: The Date and Sequence of the AD 79 Eruption;”

• Professor Roy Gibson, Durham University, on “From Como to the Bay of Naples: Pliny’s Epistolary Italy.”

Two reviews of Pliny and the Eruption of Vesuvius have come out, one by Margot Neger in BMCR, and one by Paolo Bernardini in La Provincia di Como (here is the PDF and a translation). I should note that the Addenda et Corrigenda on the publisher’s website has also been updated, in order to address the few but unfortunate errors in the text; thank you to colleagues and reviewers for pointing those out.

Published today, an article led by Gabriel Zuchtriegel, Director General of the Pompeii Archaeological Park:

https://pompeiisites.org/e-journal-degli-scavi-di-pompei/la-data-della-distruzione-di-pompei-premesse-per-un-dibattito-aperto/

It’s a review of recent work on the question of the eruption date; thanks to Dr. Zuchtriegel for asking me to review and comment on the article just a few weeks ago, prior to its publication. The article was picked up across the Italian media today and has made it to the Guardian.

Even though Dr. Zuchtriegel attributes my work immediately in his article, none of these press notices have mentioned Pliny and the Eruption of Vesuvius, my 2022 book that bucked the recent trend of trying to date the eruption to later in the autumn of AD 79. My manuscript research, which I first began to work out on this blog site, has now been generally accepted as demonstrating that Pliny wrote Aug. 24 as the eruption date, and not anything else. If you want to know more details about the evidence and arguments at play, check out my other posts on this site about Pliny and the Eruption, or consult the book. As always, I am open to any new, well-documented evidence that may come to light.

You can also see the arguments yourself, in a lecture I delivered this fall courtesy of Prof. Robert Holschuh Simmons and Monmouth University, the the 8^th annual Thomas and Anne Sienkewicz Lecture on Roman Archaeology (thanking them for the invite, and the recording):

The New York Times on Mar. 2, 2025 ran a story about attempting to fix the precise date of the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/02/science/volcano-vesuvius-pompeii.html

They consulted with me on the story, and I’m glad to see they represented the arguments and evidence pretty fairly. This fall I’ll be delivering a keynote address at an international colloquium on the topic:
21-23 Nov., 2025, Sorrento and Pompeii:

ERA D’AUTUNNO, IO NO, NUN MME NE SCORDO
79 d.C. questioni di metodo e di umanità
convegno internazionale intorno all’eruzione del Vesuvio

“IT WAS AUTUMN, I DON’T, I NEVER FORGET ABOUT IT
79 AD questions of method and humanity
international conference on the eruption of Vesuvius.”

There’s a call for papers for the colloquium that closes on 15 March. Here’s the circular: