d vice, had sprung up in happy ignorance that they
"stood on a volcano," and that their prosperity was to have a sudden and
disastrous close.[3]

(_b._) _Premonitory Earthquake Shocks._--The first monitions of the
impending catastrophe occurred in the 63rd year after Christ, when the
whole Campagna was shaken by an earthquake, which did much damage to the
towns and villas surrounding the mountain even beyond Naples. This was
followed by other shocks; and in Pompeii the temple of Isis was so much
damaged as to require reconstruction, which was undertaken and carried
out by a citizen at his own expense.[4] These earthquake shakings
continued for sixteen years. At length, on the night of August 24th,
A.D. 79, they became so violent that the whole region seemed to reel and
totter, and all things appeared to be threatened with destruction. The
next day, about one in the afternoon, there was seen to rise in the
direction of Vesuvius a dense cloud, which, after ascending from the
summit of the mountain into the air for a certain height in one narrow,
vertical trunk, spread itself out laterally in such a form that the
upper part might be compared to the cluster of branches, and the lower
to the stem of the pine which forms so common a feature in the Italian
landscape.[5]

(_c._) _Pliny's Letters to Tacitus._--For an account of what followed we
are indebted to the admirable letters of the younger Pliny, addressed to
the historian Tacitus, recounting the events which caused, or
accompanied, the death of his uncle, the elder Pliny, who at the time of
this first eruption of Vesuvius was in command of the Roman fleet at the
entrance to the Bay of Naples. These letters, which are models of style
and of accurate description, are too long to be inserted here; but he
recounts how the dense cloud which hung over the mountain spread over
the whole surrounding region, sometimes illuminated by flashes of light
more vivid than lightning; how showers of cinders, stones, and ashes
fell in such quantity that his uncle had to flee from Stabiae, and that
even at so great a distance as Misenum they encumbered the surface of
the ground; how the ground heaved and the bed of the sea was upraised;
how the cloud descended on Misenum, and even the island of Capreae was
concealed from view; and finally, how, urged by a friend who had
arrived from Spain, he, with filial affection, supported the steps of
his mother in flying from the city of destruction.