Speaker 1: Soon afterwards, the cloud began to descend and cover the sea.
Speaker 1: It had already surrounded and concealed the island of Capri
Speaker 1: and the promontory of mycene Him. My mother begged me
Speaker 1: to leave her and escape as best I could, but
Speaker 1: I absolutely refused, taking her by the hand and making
Speaker 1: her to hurry along with me. Ash was already falling
Speaker 1: by now, though in no great quantity. Then I turned
Speaker 1: and saw a thick black cloud advancing over the land
Speaker 1: behind us like a flood. Let us leave the road
Speaker 1: while we can still see, I said, But we will
Speaker 1: be knocked down and trampled by the crowd. We had
Speaker 1: scarcely sat down when darkness came upon us. Not such
Speaker 1: as we have when the sky is cloudy or when
Speaker 1: there is no moon, but that of a room when
Speaker 1: it is shut up and all the lamps put out
Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff to blow your mind. A production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radios has to work. Hey, welcome to stuff
Speaker 1: to blow your mind. My name is Robert Lamp and
Speaker 1: I'm Joe McCormick. And if you know your ancient Roman literature,
Speaker 1: you might have guessed from that opening that today we're
Speaker 1: gonna be talking about the great eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Uh.
Speaker 1: This is something that I've wanted to do an episode
Speaker 1: on for a long time, mainly because I love some
Speaker 1: of the ancient Roman original documents that we're going to
Speaker 1: be reading from today that they are like so crisp
Speaker 1: as a descriptive source of this ancient catastrophe that happened
Speaker 1: in the year seventy nine. Yeah, this is a This
Speaker 1: is a topic I'm excited to get into as well
Speaker 1: because I definitely have strong childhood memories of of course
Speaker 1: being fascinated with volcanoes. Volcanoes along with dinosaurs are just
Speaker 1: part of being a child. But then also I remember
Speaker 1: having a national copy of National Geographic that had all
Speaker 1: these beautiful, haunting photographs of the remnants of Pompeii, Uh,
Speaker 1: the the victims of Vesuvius. Yeah, it's funny you should
Speaker 1: bring up dinosaurs, because I think this was sort of
Speaker 1: in the back of my mind and I hadn't brought
Speaker 1: it to the front until you said that there's a
Speaker 1: weird way that in a lot of the paleo art
Speaker 1: that I grew up with as a child. I think
Speaker 1: we've actually mentioned this on the show before, that dinosaurs
Speaker 1: are often depicted with volcanoes currently erupting in the background.
Speaker 1: Do you know what I'm talking about? Yes, absolutely, you
Speaker 1: see it all the time. And the thing is, sometimes
Speaker 1: I feel like the artists, the paleo artist in question,
Speaker 1: is definitely trying to get something across, like this is
Speaker 1: a region in which they were volcanic eruptions, or perhaps
Speaker 1: they're discussing the role of volcanoes, the role they may
Speaker 1: have possibly played according to various theories regarding extinction events.
Speaker 1: But other times I think it's this just idea of
Speaker 1: this was this primal dangerous age in which the earth
Speaker 1: is opening up, monsters are walking about, feasting on each other.
Speaker 1: It's just that the world is alive with danger. I
Speaker 1: think that's correct. But I think there's also something to
Speaker 1: the thing you mentioned first, like the idea that volcanoes
Speaker 1: are sometimes invoked as one of the explanatory mechanisms for
Speaker 1: some of the extinction events that killed lots of the dinosaurs,
Speaker 1: And because they're thought of this way, we think about
Speaker 1: dinosaurs often, like as if we we mainly think of
Speaker 1: them in like the last moments before they were wiped
Speaker 1: from the face of the earth. That's like the defining
Speaker 1: time of their existence. They're frozen and amber, uh in
Speaker 1: the moment right before their doom. And in a strange way,
Speaker 1: that is quite literally the case about the settlements surrounding
Speaker 1: Mount Vesuvius. Absolutely. I mean, that's one of the things
Speaker 1: about Pompei is it is it allows us to to
Speaker 1: look into the path in ways that the remains of
Speaker 1: other ancient cities do not. Yeah, it's for that reason
Speaker 1: that at the same time that it's very grim to
Speaker 1: look at, it's also kind of magical. Uh. So we're
Speaker 1: gonna be talking about the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. This
Speaker 1: this catastrophe in the year seventy nine CE that obliterated
Speaker 1: several Roman settlements around the Bay of Naples, including the
Speaker 1: city of Pompeii and the town of Herculaneum. And historians
Speaker 1: studying the subject are very lucky because we actually have
Speaker 1: access to historical documents describing the eruption of Mount Vesuvius
Speaker 1: in seventy nine in extreme detail. Specifically, this is a
Speaker 1: pair of letters written by the first century Roman politician
Speaker 1: and author Plenty the Younger, who is in fact the
Speaker 1: nephew of the great Roman author and encyclopedist Plenty the elder,
Speaker 1: whose natural history we reference on the show all the
Speaker 1: time for insights on what the ancient Romans thought they
Speaker 1: knew about everything from sea monsters to the culinary virtues
Speaker 1: of lead. That's right, I feel it. Scarcely a month
Speaker 1: goes by that we don't reference plenty of the Elder.
Speaker 1: So it's it's it's great and of course bitter sweet
Speaker 1: to meet up with him again here, right, because this,
Speaker 1: of course is the end of the story of plenty
Speaker 1: of the Elder. He spent a lifetime collecting all of
Speaker 1: this knowledge and pseudo knowledge about the world. But we've
Speaker 1: never discussed before how plenty of the Elder died. It
Speaker 1: was the mountain that killed him. So about these letters
Speaker 1: describing the event. Sometime early in the second century CE,
Speaker 1: I think I've seen it placed, maybe around the year
Speaker 1: one oh four, one oh five, something like that. Around
Speaker 1: this time, plenty Of the Younger wrote two letters to
Speaker 1: the Roman historian Cornelius Tacitus to give his firsthand account
Speaker 1: of the eruption and to explain the ultimate fate of
Speaker 1: his uncle. Now, these two letters are famous for their
Speaker 1: vivid description of the events, and so we wanted to
Speaker 1: put you on the ground during the eruption of Vesuvius.
Speaker 1: By reading some selections from these letters. Uh, these will
Speaker 1: come from a couple of different England translations that you
Speaker 1: can easily find online. I sort of made a composite
Speaker 1: out of two different translations, trying to take some of
Speaker 1: the best parts from each one. One is from a
Speaker 1: book called Volcanoes of Europe from Dunedin Academic Press from
Speaker 1: seventeen by Degal Jeram Alwyn Scarth and Jean Claude Tangai.
Speaker 1: And then there's another widely used English translation by William Melmouth.
Speaker 1: So those two came together to to create what you're
Speaker 1: about to hear. Yes, these are are typically described as
Speaker 1: the the oldest detailed accounts, detailed firsthand accounts of a
Speaker 1: volcanic eruption. That's not to say that volcanic eruptions were
Speaker 1: not known to to do ancient people's They were known,
Speaker 1: um and then we have mentioned of them popping out.
Speaker 1: There's even I read there's there's an argument that Virgils
Speaker 1: mention of an eruption of Mount Etna in the in
Speaker 1: Needed was actually generated via firsthand observation, But even that
Speaker 1: would not be the level of detail that we're discussing here, right,
Speaker 1: I have not found any evidence of a description of
Speaker 1: a volcanic eruption in in literary history older than Plenty's
Speaker 1: description here that contains nearly anywhere close to the amount
Speaker 1: of detail we get right, certainly nothing that has survived,
Speaker 1: and probably because a lot of the people who might
Speaker 1: have been in a position to write such an account
Speaker 1: themselves did not survive. Uh So, Plenty the Younger begins
Speaker 1: his first letter by praising Tacitus's skills as a writer
Speaker 1: of history and talking about his uncle, Plenty of the Elder,
Speaker 1: and he he says, basically, you know, my uncle died
Speaker 1: in a misfortune, but there's a chance to redeem his legacy,
Speaker 1: because if you put him in your in your history,
Speaker 1: if his name becomes associated with the eruption of Vesuvius,
Speaker 1: it will render his name immortal. Uh So, I'm going
Speaker 1: to pick up after that section of of introduction and
Speaker 1: just read from Plenty's account within his first letter. At
Speaker 1: the time of the great eruption, my uncle Plenty was
Speaker 1: with the fleet under his command at mycene him on
Speaker 1: the August about one in the afternoon. My mother desired
Speaker 1: him to observe a cloud which appeared of a very
Speaker 1: unusual size and shape. He had just taken a turn
Speaker 1: in the sun, and after bathing himself in cold water
Speaker 1: and making a light luncheon, he had gone back to
Speaker 1: his books. He immediately arose and went out upon a promontory,
Speaker 1: from whence he might get a better site of this
Speaker 1: very uncommon appearance. From that distance, it was not clear
Speaker 1: from which mountain the cloud was rising, although it was
Speaker 1: found afterwards to be vesuvious. The cloud could best be
Speaker 1: described as more like an umbrella pine than any other tree,
Speaker 1: for it rose high up like a trunk, and then
Speaker 1: divided into branches. I imagined that this was because it
Speaker 1: was thrust up by the initial blast until its power weakened,
Speaker 1: and it was left unsupported and spread out sideways under
Speaker 1: its own weight. Sometimes it looked light colored, sometimes it
Speaker 1: looked modeled and dirty, with the earth and cinders it
Speaker 1: had carried up. This phenomenon seemed to a man of
Speaker 1: such learning and research as my uncle, extraordinary and worth
Speaker 1: further looking into. He ordered a light vessel to be
Speaker 1: got ready and gave me leave if I liked it
Speaker 1: to accompany him. I said, I had rather go on
Speaker 1: with my work, and it so happened. He had himself
Speaker 1: given me something to ride out. As he was coming
Speaker 1: out of the house, he received a note from Retina,
Speaker 1: the wife of Tascus, who was in the utmost alarm
Speaker 1: at the immediate danger which threatened her for her villa.
Speaker 1: Lying at the foot of Mount Vesuvius. There was no
Speaker 1: way of escape but by boat. She was terrified by
Speaker 1: the threatening danger and begged him to rescue her. He's
Speaker 1: changed his plan at once, and what he had started
Speaker 1: in a spirit of scientific curiosity, he ended as a hero.
Speaker 1: You know. At this point I always stopped and I wonder, like,
Speaker 1: how did he get the note? I imagine it must
Speaker 1: have come to him across the water, right that maybe
Speaker 1: in a smaller boat she was able to send a
Speaker 1: noe doubt and to ask him to come back with
Speaker 1: larger boats that she and her family could escape on.
Speaker 1: I imagine, I mean, the only ways it would be
Speaker 1: that or by some manner of bird. Yeah, as long
Speaker 1: as we're interjecting, I want to remind everyone here that
Speaker 1: that Plenty of the Elder would have been about fifty
Speaker 1: six years old at this point. If you're trying to
Speaker 1: picture him in your head, and perhaps cast Um an
Speaker 1: actor in the role. Yes, and the younger Plenty also
Speaker 1: says of his uncle that he was that he was
Speaker 1: like brave and stout, But he he also says, he
Speaker 1: was a quite corpulent man, so like he wasn't necessarily,
Speaker 1: you know, fit as a fiddle to be running out
Speaker 1: into danger. But anyway, to go back to the account,
Speaker 1: uh Plenty continues, he ordered the galleys to be put
Speaker 1: to sea, and he went himself on board with an
Speaker 1: intention of assisting not only Rectina, but the several other
Speaker 1: towns which lay thickly strewn along that beautiful coast, hastening
Speaker 1: then to the place from whence others fled with the
Speaker 1: utmost terror. He steered his course direct to the point
Speaker 1: of danger, and so much calmness and presence of mind
Speaker 1: as to be able to make and dictate his observations
Speaker 1: upon the motion and all the phenomena of that dreadful scene.
Speaker 1: So he's taken notes as he goes. He was now
Speaker 1: so close to the mountain that the cinders, which grew
Speaker 1: thicker and hotter the nearer he approached, fell into the ships,
Speaker 1: together with pumice stones and black pieces of burning rocks
Speaker 1: shattered by the fire. They were in danger too, not
Speaker 1: only of being a ground by the sudden retreat of
Speaker 1: the sea, but also from the vast fragments which rolled
Speaker 1: down from the mountain and obstructed all the shore. Can
Speaker 1: you imagine that being out on a boat and so
Speaker 1: like the sea is first of all pulling away from
Speaker 1: the shore as you're trying to get into the shore
Speaker 1: to rescue people from the villas along the shoreline, So
Speaker 1: the seas retreating, and then also stuff from the mountain
Speaker 1: is now coming down and making its way into the water, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, it must have been like approaching a shore
Speaker 1: upon which there was a battle. Only instead of two
Speaker 1: human force is engaged in battle, it is a battle
Speaker 1: between civilization and the elements of the earth itself. Unreal.
Speaker 1: He continues. Here he stopped to consider whether he should
Speaker 1: turn back, for the pilot was advising retreat. Fortune favors
Speaker 1: the brave, he said, Steer to where Pomponius is from.
Speaker 1: Ponianus lived at Testavia, a town across the Bay of Naples,
Speaker 1: which was not yet in danger, but would be threatened
Speaker 1: if the eruption spread. Pomponianus had already put his belongings
Speaker 1: into a boat to escape as soon as the contrary
Speaker 1: onshore wind changed, The wind, of course, was fully in
Speaker 1: my uncle's favor, and quickly brought his boat to Stabia.
Speaker 1: My uncle calmed and encouraged his terrified friend the more
Speaker 1: effectually to soothe his fears by seeming unconcerned himself. He
Speaker 1: ordered the drawing of a hot bath, and then, after
Speaker 1: having bathed, sat down to supper with great cheerfulness, or
Speaker 1: at least with every appearance of it, which is just
Speaker 1: as brave. Is that? Just as I guess? So, Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you're like trying to calm other people even though
Speaker 1: you are yourself scared, Yeah, I mean, if there's only
Speaker 1: so much you can do, calmness is going to help
Speaker 1: and help to maintain a a proper retreat. I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess to a certain extent one could again apply
Speaker 1: to military metaphor here, you know, and the military backgrounds
Speaker 1: of individuals involved. Yeah, So I guess what they're saying
Speaker 1: here is that he's stuck at the house until the
Speaker 1: winds change and they can get out by water, and
Speaker 1: trying to encourage people not to panic while they're while
Speaker 1: they're there, so plenty continues. Meanwhile, tall broad flames blazed
Speaker 1: from several places on Vesuvious and glared out through the
Speaker 1: darkness of the night. But my uncle, in order to
Speaker 1: soothe the apprehensions of his friend, assured him it was
Speaker 1: only the burning of the villages which the country people
Speaker 1: had abandoned to the flames. After this he retired to rest,
Speaker 1: and it is most certain that he was so little
Speaker 1: disquieted as to fall into a sound sleep, for his breathing,
Speaker 1: which on account of his corpulence, was rather heavy and sonorous,
Speaker 1: was heard by the attendants outside his door. But eventually
Speaker 1: the courtyard outside began to fill with so much ash
Speaker 1: and pummice that if he had stayed in his room,
Speaker 1: he would never have been able to get out. So
Speaker 1: he was awakened, and he went to Pompony Inis and
Speaker 1: the rest of the company, who had stayed up all
Speaker 1: night and were feeling too anxious to think of going
Speaker 1: to bed. They consulted together whether it would be most
Speaker 1: prudent to trust to the houses, which now rocked from
Speaker 1: side to side with frequent and violent concussions, as though
Speaker 1: shaken from their very foundations, or fly to the open fields,
Speaker 1: where the stones and cinders, though light and porous, fell
Speaker 1: in large showers and threatened destruction. In this choice of dangers,
Speaker 1: they resolved for the fields, a resolution which, while the
Speaker 1: rest of the company were hurried into by their fears,
Speaker 1: my uncle embraced upon cool and deliberate consideration. They went
Speaker 1: out then having pillows tied upon their heads with napkins,
Speaker 1: for this was their whole defense against the storm of
Speaker 1: stones that fell around them. And I have to admit
Speaker 1: that is that is a slightly comical mental image. Yes,
Speaker 1: it is put in your head. Well it's it's like
Speaker 1: both at the same time. It's like funny, but it's
Speaker 1: also so grim and so real, Like you can imagine like, Okay,
Speaker 1: so the house you're you're afraid the house is going
Speaker 1: to collapse. You've got to get away from the house.
Speaker 1: But outside the house, stuff is, rocks are falling from
Speaker 1: the sky. So what do you do? You know, like
Speaker 1: it's not safe to be under a roof. So like
Speaker 1: they literally were like, okay, we've got to improvise helmets, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: So yeah, I agree, it is it is both a
Speaker 1: little bit comic but also terrifying. I mean, this whole
Speaker 1: situation is terrifying. And I think one thing to keep
Speaker 1: in mind too, is we read this account is again
Speaker 1: thinking about to what extent Plenty is trying to manage
Speaker 1: evacuation and to to to manage their response, a calm
Speaker 1: response to this catastrophe that's taking place, because that is
Speaker 1: going to be vital not only did this scenario, but
Speaker 1: to other scenarios and even future scenarios regarding the clash
Speaker 1: of human civilization and volcanic activity. Yes. Uh, And you
Speaker 1: say he's having to manage in evacuation, he's not only
Speaker 1: having to do that, he's having to improvise management of
Speaker 1: an evacuation because they don't know what the best practices are.
Speaker 1: So anyway goes on to the conclusion of the letter here.
Speaker 1: So they've gone out with the pillows tied to their heads,
Speaker 1: and then Plenty of the younger says it was now
Speaker 1: daylight everywhere else, but they're a deeper darkness prevailed than
Speaker 1: in the thickest night, and they were forced to light
Speaker 1: their torches and lamps. My uncle went down to the
Speaker 1: shore to see if there was any chance of escape
Speaker 1: by sea, but the waves were still far too high.
Speaker 1: There my uncle, laying himself down upon a sail cloth
Speaker 1: which was spread for him, called twice for some cold water,
Speaker 1: which he drank. Then immediately the flames, preceded by a
Speaker 1: strong whift of sulfur, dispersed the rest of the party
Speaker 1: and obliged him to rise. He raised himself up with
Speaker 1: the assistance of his two servants, and instantly fell down dead, suffocated,
Speaker 1: as I conjecture, by gross and noxious vapor, having always
Speaker 1: had a weak throat which was often inflamed as soon
Speaker 1: as it was light again, which was not till the
Speaker 1: third day after this melancholy accident. His body was found
Speaker 1: entire and without any marks of violence upon it, in
Speaker 1: the dress in which he fell, and looking more like
Speaker 1: a man asleep than dead. So plenty of the elder
Speaker 1: dies here on the shore, but not everybody in his
Speaker 1: party does, because, of course, like the servants and friends,
Speaker 1: are later able to report back to plenty of the
Speaker 1: younger what happened to his uncle right, and and of
Speaker 1: course plenty of the younger mentions his his ailing lungs
Speaker 1: as being a possible reason that he succumbed to these fumes.
Speaker 1: It has also been hypothesized that he could have actually
Speaker 1: even though by all appearances it might have had something
Speaker 1: to do with the fumes it also could have simply
Speaker 1: been a stroke or heart attack. Yeah, I mean, obviously
Speaker 1: this is a high stress, high exertion situation, um, and
Speaker 1: he wasn't a young man anymore. But so Plenty then
Speaker 1: ends his letter by saying he witnessed a lot of
Speaker 1: other stuff, but he didn't include it in the letter
Speaker 1: because Tacitus originally had only asked how his uncle had died.
Speaker 1: And apparently Tacitus wrote back and wanted to know more.
Speaker 1: He wanted to know details about what the younger Plenty
Speaker 1: and his mother had encountered when they stayed behind it
Speaker 1: Mycene him. And that makes for the content of the
Speaker 1: second letter. So maybe we should take a break, and
Speaker 1: then when we come back we can read from plenty
Speaker 1: second letter about the eruption. Than alright, we're back. So
Speaker 1: before the break we were discussing how Plenty the elder died,
Speaker 1: and now we are essentially going to explore how Plenty
Speaker 1: of the younger lived. Yes, so now remember in the
Speaker 1: first letter, Plenty of the younger and his mother stayed
Speaker 1: behind at Mycene him while the elder took the fleet
Speaker 1: out to help people who were further along the shore.
Speaker 1: And so plenty picks up his narrative like this. He says,
Speaker 1: after my uncle left us, I studied, dined, and went
Speaker 1: to bed, but slept only fitfully. We had had earth
Speaker 1: tremors for several days, which were not especially alarming because
Speaker 1: they happened so often in Campania. But that night they
Speaker 1: were so violent that everything felt as if it were
Speaker 1: being shaken and turned over. My mother came hurrying to
Speaker 1: my room, and we sat together in the forecourt facing
Speaker 1: the sea. As I was at that time but eighteen
Speaker 1: years of age. I know not whether I should call
Speaker 1: my behavior in this dangerous juncture courage or folly. But
Speaker 1: I looked up to Livy and amused myself with turning
Speaker 1: over that author and even making extracts from him, as
Speaker 1: if I had been perfectly at my leisure. Though it
Speaker 1: was now morning, the light was still exceedingly faint and doubtful,
Speaker 1: The buildings around were already tottering, and we would have
Speaker 1: been in danger in our confined space if our house
Speaker 1: had fallen down. This made us decide to leave town.
Speaker 1: We were chased after by a panic stricken crowd that
Speaker 1: chose to follow someone else's judgment rather than decide anything
Speaker 1: for themselves. I love that detail that he's like he's
Speaker 1: trying to act like he's not afraid, so he's just
Speaker 1: going on with his studies. Is like, I'll just keep
Speaker 1: reading Livy and make some notes. And then again this
Speaker 1: is terrifying scene of like every no one knows what
Speaker 1: to do, and so like, of course they're going to
Speaker 1: follow uh cliny here, just like like somebody who looks
Speaker 1: like they know what needs to be done, it knows
Speaker 1: no where they need to go. They're going to fall
Speaker 1: in behind them. We Also, he was the of a
Speaker 1: family of military command, so his uncle would have been
Speaker 1: known as the commander of the fleet there at the bay.
Speaker 1: So I think if the relatives of the commanders suddenly
Speaker 1: start leaving town, everybody is going to see that and
Speaker 1: be like, we probably need to get out to Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would. I would say, you know, the comeback here
Speaker 1: would be of course we're following you and not thinking
Speaker 1: for ourselves. You're the military, like you're you're a are
Speaker 1: you're the one to follow you. We're not going to
Speaker 1: trust your own judgment here you are the Navy. But again,
Speaker 1: this would not have been a time when people had
Speaker 1: like a list of safety procedures they could look up
Speaker 1: for a volcanic eruption. I mean you, you have no precedent,
Speaker 1: You have no idea what to do, right, because as
Speaker 1: will as we'll discuss as we get into this topic more.
Speaker 1: This volcano had not erupted in quite a while. It
Speaker 1: had at the very least been centuries. Yeah. Now Plenty
Speaker 1: picks up of this narrative. He says, being at a
Speaker 1: convenient distance from the houses, we stood still in the
Speaker 1: midst of a most dangerous and dreadful scene. The carriages
Speaker 1: we had ordered began to lurch to and fro, although
Speaker 1: the ground was flat, and we could not keep them still,
Speaker 1: even when we wedged their wheels with stones. Then we
Speaker 1: saw the sea sucked back, apparently by a convulsion of
Speaker 1: the earth, and many sea creatures were left stranded on
Speaker 1: the dry sand. From the other direction, over the land,
Speaker 1: a dreadful black cloud was torn by gushing flames and
Speaker 1: great tongues of fire, like much magnified lightning. Soon afterwards,
Speaker 1: the cloud began to descend and cover the sea it
Speaker 1: had already surrounded and concealed the island of Capri and
Speaker 1: the promontory of my Sine Him, my mother begged me
Speaker 1: to leave her and escape as best I could, but
Speaker 1: I absolutely refused, taking her by the hand and making
Speaker 1: her to hurry along with me. Ash was already falling
Speaker 1: by now, though in no great quantity. Then I turned
Speaker 1: and saw a thick black cloud advancing over the land
Speaker 1: behind us like a flood. Let us leave the road
Speaker 1: while we still can see, I said, or we will
Speaker 1: be knocked down and trampled by the crowd. We had
Speaker 1: scarcely sat down when darkness came upon us, Not such
Speaker 1: as we have when the sky is cloudy or when
Speaker 1: there is no moon, but that of a room when
Speaker 1: it is shut up and all the lamps put out.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine that? So this is daytime now, but
Speaker 1: the it is not only dark like a night, it
Speaker 1: is darker than night. Yeah, this is this is the
Speaker 1: darkness at noon type situation exactly. So he goes on
Speaker 1: to describe the terror of the scene. He says, you
Speaker 1: might hear the shrieks of women, the screams of children,
Speaker 1: and the shouts of men, some calling for their children,
Speaker 1: others for their parents, others for their husbands, and seeking
Speaker 1: to recognize each other by the voices that were led.
Speaker 1: One lamenting his own fate, another that of his family,
Speaker 1: Some praying to die from the very fear of dying,
Speaker 1: some lifting their hands to the gods. But the greater
Speaker 1: part convinced that there were now no gods at all,
Speaker 1: and that the final, endless night of which we had
Speaker 1: heard had come upon the world. Among these there were
Speaker 1: some who augmented the real terrors by others imaginary or
Speaker 1: willfully invented. I remember some who declared that one part
Speaker 1: of my snum had fallen, that another was on fire.
Speaker 1: It was false, but they found people to believe them.
Speaker 1: So just chaos is reigning, misinformation is flying. The world
Speaker 1: is dark and full of terror. The day is dark
Speaker 1: and full of terrors. All right, he continues, It now
Speaker 1: grew rather lighter, which we imagined to be the forerunner
Speaker 1: of an approaching burst of flames, as in truth it
Speaker 1: was rather than the return of day. However, the fire
Speaker 1: fell at a distance from us. Then again we were
Speaker 1: inst in a thick darkness, and a heavy shower of
Speaker 1: ashes rained upon us, which we were obliged every now
Speaker 1: and then to stand up to shake off. Otherwise we
Speaker 1: should have been crushed and buried in the heap. I
Speaker 1: matt it might have boasted that during all this scene
Speaker 1: of horror, not a sigh or expression of fear escaped me.
Speaker 1: But in truth my support was grounded in that miserable
Speaker 1: though mighty consolation that all mankind were involved in the
Speaker 1: same calamity, and that I was perishing with the world itself.
Speaker 1: That line has haunted me ever since I first read it.
Speaker 1: That he says he's not afraid because he knew it
Speaker 1: wasn't just him dying, it was the end of the
Speaker 1: entire world. And finally he concludes the letters, saying, at
Speaker 1: last the darkness paled into smoke or cloud, and the
Speaker 1: real daylight returned, But the sun shone with a lurid light,
Speaker 1: as during an eclipse. Every object that presented itself to
Speaker 1: our weakened eyes seemed to change, being covered deep with
Speaker 1: ashes as with snow. We returned to mycene Him, where
Speaker 1: we refreshed ourselves as well as we could, and passed
Speaker 1: an anxious night between hope and fear, though indeed with
Speaker 1: a much larger share of the latter, for the earthquake
Speaker 1: still continued, while many frenzied persons ran up and down,
Speaker 1: heightening their own and their friends calamities. By terrible predictions. So,
Speaker 1: first of all, I think those letters are just amazing
Speaker 1: literary documents. But also I wanted to say, there is
Speaker 1: a painting that I've seen online several times that captures
Speaker 1: the spirit of those letters pretty well for me. It's
Speaker 1: called The Destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum by the English
Speaker 1: romantic painter John Martin. Yeah. All right, so we've presented
Speaker 1: you with the drama of what is happening. Let's provide
Speaker 1: a little background just about this region, about Pompeii and
Speaker 1: some of these other cities that we were name dropping, right,
Speaker 1: what was going on in the area before the seventy
Speaker 1: nine eruption of Vesuvius. So the part of Italy immediately
Speaker 1: surrounding Mount Vesuvius. The the larger region here is known
Speaker 1: as Campania, which Plenty makes reference to because he says,
Speaker 1: you know, we were used to earthquakes in Campania. It's
Speaker 1: kind of a geologically active region. So when the little
Speaker 1: earthquakes began, we weren't too worried at first, and still,
Speaker 1: you know, until it started rocking the house back and forth. Um,
Speaker 1: and so Campania translates into I think roughly into the
Speaker 1: word countryside. Apparently it was once known as the Campania
Speaker 1: Felix or the Happy countryside. And it's this region in
Speaker 1: the southwestern part of the Italian peninsula along the Tyrannian Sea,
Speaker 1: and its capital is, of course, the coastal city of
Speaker 1: Naples or Napoly in Italian. This is where the pizza
Speaker 1: comes from, is it? I think maybe it is a
Speaker 1: famous variety of pizza that comes from Here's Nepolitan and Neapolitan.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. I don't know what the relationship between
Speaker 1: those two works. You thinking about ice cream? Maybe, I
Speaker 1: don't know. We'll have to get this. We'll have to
Speaker 1: come back to it on our other show Invention. Just
Speaker 1: right in and shame us. Go ahead, Okay. So today,
Speaker 1: Campania is a highly sought after tourist destination, in large
Speaker 1: part due to the natural beauty of its coastline, including
Speaker 1: stretches like the famous Amalfi Coast. If you've seen these
Speaker 1: gorgeous photos of like little antique towns nestled into the
Speaker 1: steeply descending hillsides between looming cliffs, sull covered in trees
Speaker 1: and lush greenery. This kind of stuff along the waterfront
Speaker 1: in Italy, I think there's a very good chance that
Speaker 1: you are looking at images of the Amalfi coast. But
Speaker 1: it turns out that the tourism industry is not new
Speaker 1: in Campania. Even in the first century during the Roman Empire,
Speaker 1: places especially around the Bay of Naples, were extremely fashionable
Speaker 1: as vacation resorts for the rich elite of Rome and
Speaker 1: other capitals of the Empire. And again you just look
Speaker 1: up pictures of this place and you instantly understand why
Speaker 1: it is a place of of of absolutely gorgeous natural
Speaker 1: formations and vegetation. The coastline is pristine and striking. I mean,
Speaker 1: I want to go there right now. Yes, yes, looking
Speaker 1: at a photos of this region, which which is still
Speaker 1: a vacation destination. Like you said, it looks very inviting.
Speaker 1: But that's not all. Of course, Campania also has a
Speaker 1: reputation as a rich and fertile farmland, both then and now,
Speaker 1: and it's even today. It's very densely populated. But it's
Speaker 1: also a center of agricultural food production for Italy. Yes,
Speaker 1: lots of orchards, lots of vineyards. Uh. Now, probably the
Speaker 1: most famous point of destruction within this this sort of
Speaker 1: broad cone of destruction from the vesuvious eruption is the
Speaker 1: city of Pompeii. It was a city that had been
Speaker 1: settled by seafaring Greeks almost a thousand years before, like
Speaker 1: in the eighth century b C. And then for several
Speaker 1: centuries after that was a city controlled variously by the
Speaker 1: Greeks and the Etruscans, sometimes trading off. It only fell
Speaker 1: under Roman control during the second century b C. E
Speaker 1: Before the Empire. This would have been during the period
Speaker 1: of the Roman Republic. UH. And then by seventy nine c.
Speaker 1: Pompeii had somewhere between like ten thousand and twenty thousand inhabitants.
Speaker 1: It was wealthy, it was thriving. Like other places in Campania,
Speaker 1: Pompeii was a resort for the famous and the powerful
Speaker 1: families of Rome, with expensive villas, bath houses, restaurants, brothels,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of a kind of an aspen of
Speaker 1: ancient Rome, all right. Uh. The one problem, of course,
Speaker 1: that is that all of this was built up in
Speaker 1: the region surrounding Vesuvius and uh and of course Vesuvius
Speaker 1: at the time was slumbering, or seemed to be slumbering,
Speaker 1: But then in seventy nine it awakens and you know
Speaker 1: I would say it's not. We can come back to
Speaker 1: this later if you want, but it's not necessarily just
Speaker 1: a coincidence that like, this is a place of great
Speaker 1: beauty and agricultural production, so it draws a lot of
Speaker 1: people and just happens to be near a dangerous active volcano.
Speaker 1: There might be some reasons that both of these things
Speaker 1: are true. Oh yeah, I mean yeah, we can go
Speaker 1: and touch on these facts really quickly, because first of all,
Speaker 1: we mentioned how fertile, uh, the the area is, how
Speaker 1: well things grow even on the slopes of Vesuvius itself,
Speaker 1: and that is because of this rich volcanic soil. Yes,
Speaker 1: and I think it's also possible to argue that some
Speaker 1: of the geologic features that make it kind of risky
Speaker 1: in terms of volcanic activity also contribute to the beauty
Speaker 1: of its coastline. Absolutely. I mean the the the volcanic
Speaker 1: activity is the the the engine that formed the land
Speaker 1: that people are occupying, that people are growing crops upon, etcetera. Now,
Speaker 1: on the day of the eruption, it's estimated that of
Speaker 1: the between ten thousand and twenty thousand inhabitants of Pompeii,
Speaker 1: about two thousand inhabitants were probably killed, and when you
Speaker 1: add up all those who perished in other Vesuvian settlements
Speaker 1: like the towns of Herculaneum, Oplontis and Stabbia, Stabia was
Speaker 1: where plenty of the elder sale to help his friend,
Speaker 1: somewhere close to maybe like sixteen thousand people died in total,
Speaker 1: though it's very difficult to have accurate numbers. But one
Speaker 1: thing that makes Pompey special is because of the way
Speaker 1: it was buried under the ash and ejecta of the eruption,
Speaker 1: Pompeii became at once both obscure and illuminating. Obscure of course,
Speaker 1: because it was literally hidden from investigation. It's sort of
Speaker 1: vanished from history, as if wiped off the face of
Speaker 1: the earth because it had been paved over by the volcano.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, uh it kind of became
Speaker 1: a bright and transparent window into life in ancient Roman
Speaker 1: times because under all of that dust, the city was
Speaker 1: almost perfectly preserved. Since it had been buried and erased
Speaker 1: from history, there's no way for the remains of the
Speaker 1: city to be disturbed. And it was also very democratic
Speaker 1: in its preservation of the dead. Uh So it's one
Speaker 1: of these great examples where we we get a little
Speaker 1: inside into just how daily life worked in this city
Speaker 1: before the eruption. Yeah, many people are just found, presumably
Speaker 1: lying dead, exactly where they were when the calamity hit,
Speaker 1: and so the city basically stayed that way until amateur
Speaker 1: excavation of the of this geologically paved oversight began around
Speaker 1: an event that is sometimes referred to as the birth
Speaker 1: of modern archaeology. All right, on that note, we're going
Speaker 1: to take one more break, but when we come back,
Speaker 1: we're going to continue our exploration by looking at the
Speaker 1: volcanic eruption itself. Than alright, we're back. Okay, so we've
Speaker 1: gotten the ground level view of what was happening on
Speaker 1: the day of the eruption of Vesuvius in but what
Speaker 1: do we know now looking back with the scientific lens.
Speaker 1: What what do we think probably happened on that day
Speaker 1: in geological terms? All right, well, let's let's back up
Speaker 1: a little bit and just talk about the basic idea
Speaker 1: of volcano. Of volcano, of course, is just a upture
Speaker 1: in a planet's crust, but there are are various types
Speaker 1: of volcanoes, depending on their location, their history, and the
Speaker 1: the underlying activity. Fun fact, though the word volcano derives
Speaker 1: from the volcanic isle of Volcano, named for Vulcan, the
Speaker 1: Roman god of fire. The Greeks knew this island by
Speaker 1: other names, but they also considered it the foundry of Hephaestus,
Speaker 1: basically the equivalent of Vulcan. Yeah, they're like the forge,
Speaker 1: god of sparks and banging. Yeah. So so again, you know,
Speaker 1: the ancient people's definitely knew of volcanoes, and they were
Speaker 1: remembered at least in the in the construction of myths
Speaker 1: and the naming of places. Now, Vesuvius itself is considered
Speaker 1: a soma stratovolcano. Um. It's also considered a complex volcano.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about what this means. First, we'll talk
Speaker 1: about the soma part. So, if you were to travel
Speaker 1: back four hundred thousand years or so, you would not
Speaker 1: find Mount Vesuvia, said all. Rather, you'd find Mount Soma.
Speaker 1: So Mount Soma underwent various eruptions, and we have to
Speaker 1: remember that volcanoes are places of violent change, and due
Speaker 1: to these violent eruptions, Mount Soma eventually collapse into what
Speaker 1: is known as a caldera. So this occurs when a
Speaker 1: particularly violent eruption empties the underlying magma chamber of a volcano,
Speaker 1: making it impossible for it to support its own weight. Alright,
Speaker 1: so um again, it's like the volcano just has erupted
Speaker 1: so much, and it grew so much, erupted so much
Speaker 1: that it's just caved in on itself. It's just destroyed itself.
Speaker 1: It's like if you you were too empty out all
Speaker 1: of the molten lava from your molten lava cake and
Speaker 1: then the cake just collapses. Right. All you have with
Speaker 1: like the edges of the cake that form like like
Speaker 1: ring mountain around a center. It's like a crater um.
Speaker 1: And this is where we get that classic image of
Speaker 1: what a volcano you usually looks like. If you draw
Speaker 1: a cartoon volcano, you're probably drawing a ring shaped called
Speaker 1: where the top of the mountain has collapsed after some
Speaker 1: eruption in the past. But even though the the the
Speaker 1: the mountain itself has collapsed, the underlying volcanic avict activity
Speaker 1: is still there. So magma and volcanic gases continue to build,
Speaker 1: and this can result in a few different varieties of caldera.
Speaker 1: The center can swell back up into what is known
Speaker 1: as a resurgent dome like with the yellow Stone, and
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's so called supervolcano. But in the
Speaker 1: case of Vesuvius, another volcanic cone and this is the
Speaker 1: Mount of Vesuvius, rises up in the center of the
Speaker 1: Soma Caldera. And this is why we call this type
Speaker 1: of volcano a Soma volcano. So the remnants again of
Speaker 1: the old mountain, the caldera, are still around it, and
Speaker 1: the Soma Caldera is also sometimes referred to it's just
Speaker 1: Mount Soma today. But again it is the remnant of
Speaker 1: the old mountain and in the center is Vesuvius. That's
Speaker 1: hard I mean volcano inside a volcano, right, and again
Speaker 1: it's important to know, yeah, Vesuvia is certainly in geologic time,
Speaker 1: is is a young volcano. Okay, So what sort of
Speaker 1: volcano is Vesuvius itself. We'll remember we used the the
Speaker 1: description a Soma strato volcano. So a strato volcano is
Speaker 1: a steep conical volcano built from many layers of lava
Speaker 1: ash pomis and tefra tefra that's a pyroclass or rejected
Speaker 1: fragments from the volcano that have fallen to the ground.
Speaker 1: All of this from various eruptions, building up, building up
Speaker 1: this volcano. Now you mentioned it was a young volcano. Yes,
Speaker 1: relatively young again in terms of geologic time. Uh, certainly
Speaker 1: human time is a different matter, which we'll get into. Uh.
Speaker 1: During its life, it's had periods of activity and inactivity.
Speaker 1: Its most recent period of activity as of this recording
Speaker 1: was between nineteen thirteen and nineteen forty four CE. And
Speaker 1: today it's uh, you know it's it's it's inactive. You
Speaker 1: rather inactive. You can actually hike up to the top. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's eruptions, however, we're known in ancient times. But at
Speaker 1: the time of its eruption in seventy nine C, it
Speaker 1: had been inactive for at least two hundred and ninety
Speaker 1: five years. It was reputed to have erupted into seventeen
Speaker 1: b c E based on the writings of Solicitaicus, but
Speaker 1: a great many modern writers have rejected this. We know
Speaker 1: it sustained a particularly powerful eruption during the second millennium
Speaker 1: b c E. This is the Avellino eruption, which decimated
Speaker 1: the Bronze Age settlements in the area. Uh. But again
Speaker 1: we it's ultimately a situation where we don't have a
Speaker 1: lot of information about its pre about its activity in
Speaker 1: pre seventy nine c e UH in that time period,
Speaker 1: but we can presume that it had been centuries since
Speaker 1: its last eruption. Avelino is the name of another town
Speaker 1: nearby Naples, so it's actually I remember that because it's
Speaker 1: the town that Tony Soprano's family comes from. Okay. At
Speaker 1: any rate, enough time had passed for humans in this
Speaker 1: region to lose their immediate fear the mountain um, and
Speaker 1: so cities encroached upon its domain, gardens and vineyards popped
Speaker 1: up around it. The children of Prometheus grew bold in
Speaker 1: the silence of Vesuvius. But again it's it's clear that
Speaker 1: they had not really completely forgotten what Vesuvius had been
Speaker 1: capable of in the past. Myths of giants battling Hercules, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, still remained about the mountain. Uh. There were
Speaker 1: geologic connections that linked that clearly linked Vesuvius to Mount Etna,
Speaker 1: which was certainly active and was described erupting again in
Speaker 1: Virgils and need, which I referred to earlier. So it's
Speaker 1: not like people did not know what had happened here
Speaker 1: in the past, or what a volcano looked like, I mean,
Speaker 1: there was it was the world wasn't completely ignorant of
Speaker 1: what it could do. You know, it's kind of weird.
Speaker 1: It's it's one of these tragedies of time scales that
Speaker 1: humans are I feel like, almost constantly facing off against,
Speaker 1: where if you look at the activity of a volcano
Speaker 1: across geologic time, you just see it's pretty regular, you know,
Speaker 1: pretty frequently this thing is going to erupt. But then
Speaker 1: you zoom into human historical time and the eruptions are
Speaker 1: not quite frequent enough to discourage settlement because our memories
Speaker 1: are not that long, like a few hundred years. Seems like,
Speaker 1: you know, an eternity to an individual person. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean the whole whole lives will pass during the
Speaker 1: periods of relative inactivity of a volcano, uh in many
Speaker 1: of these cases. So you know, we don't know everything
Speaker 1: about the seventy nine CE eruption a k a. The
Speaker 1: plan a plan a in eruption named for plenty, but
Speaker 1: but we still know quite a bit, as it was
Speaker 1: again the first volcanic eruption to be described in detail.
Speaker 1: We have plenty of the Younger's excellent descriptions of the
Speaker 1: pre eruption, quakes, the eruption itself, the ash fall, pyroclastic flows,
Speaker 1: and the resulting mild tsunami in the Bay of Naples.
Speaker 1: It is estimated that the column of ash that rose
Speaker 1: up into the sky towered some twenty miles or thirty
Speaker 1: two kilometers, and then it ejected one cubic mile or
Speaker 1: four cubic kilometers of ash in just something like nineteen hours.
Speaker 1: Ten ft of tephra fell on Pompeii, pyroclastic flow buried
Speaker 1: herculaneum under seventy five ft or twenty three ms of ash,
Speaker 1: and will eventually look at what all of this meant
Speaker 1: for the humans who resided in the impacted cities as well,
Speaker 1: like on a biological level. I think we'll have to
Speaker 1: get into that in the next episode. Yeah, it's also
Speaker 1: been estimated that the eruption itself would have carried the
Speaker 1: thermal energy of a hundred thousand Hiroshima atomic bombs, and
Speaker 1: all of this would have lasted roughly two days. Vesuvius
Speaker 1: has erupted some three dozen times since uh, sometimes with
Speaker 1: deadly results. Mud flows and lava flows from a sixt
Speaker 1: thirty one eruption killed, but some three thousand, five hundred people,
Speaker 1: and today, as before the seventy nine CE eruption, vineyards
Speaker 1: and orchards cover the slopes of the mountain. Uh, there's
Speaker 1: an there's an enormous population surrounding the volcano today. I
Speaker 1: believe the area is like the most densely populated part
Speaker 1: of Italy. Right. I've also seen it described as the
Speaker 1: as the most densely populated area surrounding a volcano on Earth.
Speaker 1: But again, the yeah, people, but it's beautiful. You look
Speaker 1: at these pictures, it's beautiful. There's an actually tremendous amount
Speaker 1: of growth there. Again, the soil is very fertile um
Speaker 1: and before the eruption of six thirty one, during a
Speaker 1: very long period of inactivity, forests are actually said to
Speaker 1: have grown in the crater, and you would have found
Speaker 1: three lakes there as well. So yeah, given the the
Speaker 1: amount of time, the great amount of time relative to
Speaker 1: the human experience and even the lives of plants that
Speaker 1: transpires between eruptions, I mean, you can have a great
Speaker 1: greening of the mountain occur. Oh man, I wish I
Speaker 1: could see what that was like to have the forests
Speaker 1: and the lakes down in there, because I love that
Speaker 1: kind of thing. I don't know if you've been the
Speaker 1: Crater Lake in Oregon. I have not, Well, you've probably
Speaker 1: seen images of it. At least it's absolutely gorgeous, one
Speaker 1: of the most amazing beautiful places I've ever been. But
Speaker 1: I think it's exactly that contrast of like of uh,
Speaker 1: this clear still water and all these forests in life
Speaker 1: just flooding in to this place where there was catastrophic destruction,
Speaker 1: you know, some number of centuries ago, right, and then
Speaker 1: that and then the humans come in as well, And
Speaker 1: there's probably something elegant to be said about just like
Speaker 1: the nature of of the human experience too, you know,
Speaker 1: like even though something terrible happened here, humans have a
Speaker 1: way in many cases of moving forward through it and
Speaker 1: and finding a way to make a life there. I
Speaker 1: know it's not this way, but it almost it seems
Speaker 1: almost malicious, like the the the volcano with this fertile
Speaker 1: volcanic soil is just sort of like baiting you. It
Speaker 1: is like leaving out this bait to attract you into
Speaker 1: the geologic trap. Sorry, I know that's anthropomorphizing. It's it's
Speaker 1: not the volcane know, it's fault. It doesn't mean to
Speaker 1: hurt you. Yeah, I think even Tolkien didn't say Mount
Speaker 1: Doom itself was evil, right, it was just but Mount
Speaker 1: Doom is more what you'd expect. It's in more door,
Speaker 1: which is a place where even the air, the very
Speaker 1: air you breathe as a toxic fume and nothing grows there.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's just like it's just this blasted landscape.
Speaker 1: I mean no, that this is the case where the
Speaker 1: area right around this volcano that could erupt again is
Speaker 1: extremely beautiful and fertile and inviting to life. All right,
Speaker 1: On that note, we're gonna go ahead and call it
Speaker 1: for this episode, but we will be back in the
Speaker 1: next episode of Stuff to Blow your Mind to continue
Speaker 1: our discussions regarding Vesuvious. We're gonna get into some of
Speaker 1: the sort of forensic evidence of what happened to the
Speaker 1: people in Pompeii. We're gonna get into We're gonna discuss
Speaker 1: the possible remains of Plenty the Elder, and will also
Speaker 1: just discuss the continued threat posed by volcanoes to settled
Speaker 1: regions today and you know, and some some about you know,
Speaker 1: what we what we're prepared to do or unprepared to
Speaker 1: do about their eruptions. I can't wait. I've been wanting
Speaker 1: to talk about this for so long. I'm so glad
Speaker 1: we finally got here. Yeah, and I think it may
Speaker 1: kick off even further UM further episodes that deal with
Speaker 1: volcanoes and UH and human history. There's a there's a
Speaker 1: lot of rich there's a lot of rich soil UH
Speaker 1: that that is left behind by these UH. These often
Speaker 1: cata cataclysmic events. In the meantime, if you want to
Speaker 1: check out other episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind,
Speaker 1: you can find our show wherever you get your podcasts UM.
Speaker 1: If you go to Stuff to Build your Mind dot com,
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