A Horrid Inundation of Fire - Volcano: Nature and Culture - page 39

3 'A Horrid Inundation of Fire'

The first coherent list of active volcanoes was made by the
Roman natural philosopher and historian Pliny the Elder (ad
23-79) in his Natural History . Pliny wrote of Etna, which 'always
glows at night'; of Chimaera in Phaselis (now in Turkey), which
'blazes day and night with a continuous flame'; of Hephaestus in
Lycia, which 'flares up so violently when touched by a blazing
torch that even the stones and sand in rivers glow'. Of Strom-
boli he wrote that 'it differs from Lipari only in the flame of
its volcano being brighter'.¹ One volcano he did not mention
because it was not considered a danger - Vesuvius - was to bring
about his death.
The terrible event of 24 August ad 79 was described in the
greatest possible detail by Pliny's nephew, known to us as the
letter-writer Pliny the Younger (62-114). His is usually said to
be the first eyewitness written account of an eruption, though
the description of Etna exploding, written by Thucydides who
was in Sicily at the time of the 400 bc event, clearly has the ring
of the eyewitness. The seventeen-year-old Pliny, studious and
informed, later described what he could recall of the Vesuvius
eruption in two letters to the historian Tacitus. It was an extra -
ordinary good fortune for posterity that he should be present at
one of the formative events of European culture: the right young
man, in the right place at the right time, looked on from Misenum
across the bay as Vesuvius erupted, and described what began as
an ordinary day and ended in mass death. His uncle, who was
commander of the Roman fleet based at Misenum, was with

George Poulett Scrope,
Eruption of Vesuvius
as seen from Naples,
October 1822 ,
1823, lithograph.