4

Epistulae 6.16, The Elder’s Story

The final two chapters proceed section by section through the standardized text.¹ Sections are headed in bold: book.letter.section. Section numbers began with Cellarius’ 1693 edition (Ch. 2, Figure 2.2e). The key:

· Latin text in italics;

· ^{superscript letters} indicate textual variants (markers) collated in the spreadsheets (sometimes including two-three words, all marked, e.g., 6.16.13o);

· [^{superscript letters}] indicate a collated variant absent in the standardized text;

· English translation in roman text: parentheses indicate (understood) words not explicit in the Latin.

The purpose of Chs 4-5 is to dissect the Latin (and explore the translation process, not just provide another translated product), so the English translation is more technical than fluid or elegant. Important variants follow (i.e., diagnostic clues to the manuscript tradition, not isolated or late mistakes), with [missing words in brackets]. “corr.” notes the earliest sources that correct a major γ variant to the standard reading (all readings for all sources are available in the Online Resources). See Ch. 2, Table 2.1 and Figures 2.2a–e for source text abbreviations.² Commentary completes each section.³

Pliny’s narrative divides into three parts: the proem that invites the tale (1–3), the story of Elder and the eruption (4–20), and a postscript from Younger, explaining his writing process and enticing Tacitus with a sequel (21–22).

6.16. Address

C. PLINIUS TACITO SUO S.

Gaius Plinius greets his (dear friend) Tacitus.

Variants: (Plinius) Novocomensis γ, Veronensis γ2; (Tacito) Placito γ3b1a, + Cornelio Agr.; + (salutem) plurimam γ (some).

C. is the abbreviation for the common name “Caius/Gaius.”⁴ S. is short for salutem and goes with the usually gapped (i.e., missing) verb dicit to mean “says hello/gives greeting” to the addresse in the dative case (Tacito). Modifying Tacito is suo, a possessive pronoun denoting formally affectionate familiarity for “one’s own” (family and friends). This is a standard address, identical to that for 6.20 (Ch. 5).⁵ The addressee of each letter, combined with the first few words of each letter (the incipit), comprised the ancient indices that allowed readers to navigate the correspondence creatively.⁶

6.16.1

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

You insist that I write to you about the death of my uncle, so that you might be able to convey it more accurately to posterity. I give (you) thanks—for I see that the renown of his death, if it were extolled by you, is destined to be everlasting.

Variants: ^a obitum c q r° (gloss); ^b propositum D γ3, corr. propositam Valla e c f q.

Pliny begins with an indirect command (petis ut … scribam), followed by a relative clause of purpose begun by an ablative of degree of difference with a comparative (quo verius … tradere … possis). He then enters indirect statement (after video, a verb of saying, thinking, knowing, or perceiving) for which gloriam is the subject accusative. Video, “I see” (i.e., “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’s demise in his Historiae, though that is technically uncertain at the point of writing (Pliny has finished the letter, but Tacitus has not yet published the Historiae). Therefore, he uses the imperfect subjunctive in the conditional (si celebretur a te, “were it extolled by you”).

Straightaway with petis (a stronger opening than ais in Ep. 6.20.1), Pliny puts the burden for the letter’s existence on Tacitus, claiming (disingenuously) he is simply answering a research request.⁷ This establishes critical and objective distance for Pliny, reinforced at the end of the second letter (6.20.20). However, it also reveals that Pliny composed and edited the letters as a set: epistolography as ready-made history for a proper historian. Through publication, Pliny then made the “not-history” Letters history, even as the historian’s Historiae accidentally fell into the same obscurity as most ancient letters. A Möbius strip of genre and rivalry weaves between the two men.⁸

Pliny builds an opposition (exitum … posteris, morti … immortalem—an oxymoronic play on words) between dying and living that twines through both letters.⁹ That tension represents a key facet of the Younger Pliny’s motivation. His subject is not the eruption; it is the death of his uncle.¹⁰ Both celebretur and propositam convey the sense of “making widely known.” Not for the last time, Pliny describes publication as a way to curate immortality: in this case, a belated funerary encomium (laudatio funebris, or exitus illustri viri) for someone famous who happens to be a close relative (raise compassion [ἔλεος] and pity [πάθος]!).¹¹ Elder Pliny had explicitly averred from leveraging writing for fame (HN, praef. 16; Ch. 1); now his adopted son can do it for him as an act of duty—and by proxy gain his own renown.¹²

For Younger is not just orchestrating the Elder’s reputation—he is crafting his own.¹³ Pliny pointedly uses the comparative adverb verius: he claims interest in a “more accurate” account; his first- and near-hand experience of his uncle’s death-day is the reason why Tacitus consulted him, and Pliny is eager to validate the enquiry. Sallmann recognized that the comparative meant to fix the truth of Elder Pliny’s character—as Younger knew it or wanted it remembered—threefold as it progressed through the letter: 1) as an avid scholar; 2) helpful and courageous humanitarian; and 3) wise philosopher who faced death with equanimity and without fear.¹⁴ In so doing, Younger Pliny could be a dutiful (pius) son and could challenge alternate versions of the Elder’s death (specifically, suicide by slave: Ch. 1 and below, 6.16.19–20). Pietas meant duty to gods, nation, and family.¹⁵

Pliny has still other goals. He nonchalantly reveals flaws in his uncle’s behavior—more a “construct” than a “person,” sympathetically admits his younger self’s vulnerabilities, and advertises his own literary talent.¹⁶ Pliny initially claims that the gloria of his uncle’s death will never die (a standard heroic trope), but even in reinforcing that praise, doubts about the Elder as a competent protagonist seep in, and a new objective emerges—to showcase Pliny’s brand of historical writing.¹⁷ The resulting narrative is performative (“it’s really true”), intricate, and multi-valent.¹⁸

Pliny’s writing is lean, brisk, and vibrant, with forward-facing verbs, participles favored over subordinate clauses, and temporal adverbs to mark the pace and denote transitions, rather than argumentative linkages.¹⁹ Within a straightforward structure, his style varies in tempo (from calm, smooth, elegant phrasing, to sweeping, lively flow, staccato action, slowing to sticky, nearly contorted, moments of consideration—often when describing novel volcanic phenomena). It also varies in tone (from deadly serious, to conversational, melodramatic, even quasi-comic) so that the reader cannot settle into complacency or boredom. Every so often, Pliny drops a quote (Ep. 6.16.11, 6.20.1) or pithy saying (sententia: e.g., 6.16.3, 10; 6.20.7, 17: aphorisms that tended to get excerpted in Medieval florilegia: Ch. 2) to demonstrate erudition and elegance.²⁰ His prose, like his persona, is distinctively elusive in its kaleidoscopic shifting between casual and formal registers, and its sampling of genres, models, and roles.²¹ Above all, Pliny’s expression reflects the emotional tenor of the sequences he is describing; the reader feels the sound, pace, and friction of his mimetic, even cinematic, language.²²

6.16.2

Quamvis enim pulcherrimarum clade^a terrarum [^b], ut populi ut urbes^c memorabili casu—quasi semper victurus, occiderit; quamvis ipse^d plurima^e opera^f et^g mansura^h condideritⁱ, multum^j tamen^k perpetuitati eius scriptorum tuorum aeternitas addet.

For although he died in the destruction of the loveliest of lands, as populations, as cities (did) in a memorable disaster—it will be as if he lives forever; although he himself composed plentiful and enduring works, nevertheless the immortality of your written words will add much to his perpetuity.

Variants: ^b exemplo f 76; ^c iubes γ3b1b; ^d-e [ipse plurima] γ1; ^f-j [opera ... multum] γ, scripserit Valla, scripserit plura Bussi.

This sentence has two parallel parts—each with concessive clauses headed by quamvis, literally “as much as you wish,” emphasizing how hard it will be, given the scale of the eruption and the Elder’s publications (plurima opera et mansura), for Tacitus to elevate further the scholar-admiral (but he will—all the more epic!).²³ Both parts end with perfectly opposing perfect subjunctives (occiderit, condiderit), whose subject is Elder Pliny. Both are subordinate in the primary sequence of tense to the main verb, the future-tense addet. The phrase quasi semper victurus, with its future active participle, latches onto memorabili before it; the paradox of epic loss is that it is never forgotten, so Pliny sandwiches semper victurus between casu and occiderit.²⁴ Quasi acts faintly like an adversative, akin to tamen in the second part. In the first clause, the relative adverb ut (dramatically doubled) links the Elder’s singular death with the deaths of larger communities. The second part shifts the subject from Elder Pliny to the aeternitas of Tacitus’ writing, and the object is multum, a quantity to multiply the permanence of Elder’s already enduring writing (opera, which Pliny detailed in Ep. 3.5; Ch.1).²⁵

Pliny builds on his epically intertwined themes of living and remembering in the face of colossal destruction. Amid massive loss of lands and lives, an individual (sort of, quasi) survives. The sheer quantity of Elder’s literary output and the importance of Tacitus’ accounts will reinforce that survival (future active participles mansura, victurus, and future indicative: addet). Pliny gears up to the superlative: it was the most beautiful place that was ruined; whole cities and peoples perished (occiderunt is gapped; ut simply means “as” here).²⁶ Pliny varies his nouns of “destruction” with two ablatives of attendant circumstance: clade, casu.²⁷ The structural opposition between finality and eternality builds, and against that tension the Younger offers the hope of textual permanence—a hope nearly dashed when Tacitus’ version was lost. But Pliny would have been satisfied to see his own hedge survive: two polished epistles, bursting with more personal and emotive detail than Tacitus was likely to include.²⁸ All that remains from Tacitus are snippets in Histories 1.2 and Annales 4.67 (see Ch. 5). The fuller account has prevailed.

6.16.3

Equidem^a beatos puto, quibus deorum munere datum est aut facere^b scribenda aut scribere legenda, beatissimos vero quibus utrumque. Horum in [^c] numero avunculus meus et suis libris et tuis erit. Quo^d libentius suscipio—deposco etiam—quod iniungis.

As for me, I think that fortunate 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 among 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).

Variants: ^a et quidem γ1; ^b [facere] γ3b1b; scribenda facere f; ^d quod γ1.

Here, equidem is self-referential before puto, which introduces parallel indirect statements (beatos and beatissimos [esse]), both of which then connect to relative clauses (introduced by the indirect object quibus …).²⁹ The prize is this sententia: 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).³⁰ The gerundives are substantial—that is, they incorporate “things” in their understanding (“things worth writing/reading”), so they act more like nouns than verbal adjectives. Another relative clause (horum…) claims that the Elder Pliny will (future tense) belong to the choir of special souls who both “did great things” and “wrote well,” and so he earns a superlative (beatissimus).³¹

The cause of that greatness will stem from a complimentary triangle he draws between the Elder (avunculus meus et suis libris), Tacitus (et tuis), and himself (in the last sentence). The relative pronoun quo smoothly links to Younger Pliny’s palpable eagerness (libentius, comparative ablative), as he demands (deposco) the yoke (literally, from iniungo) of writing his uncle’s story for posterity. Tellingly, the final word of the proem frames it with the first via its second-person singular address to Tacitus, reinforcing the historian’s responsibility for what follows, though Pliny has done all the work.³²

The same claim that Pliny makes, to allow Tacitus to speak more truthfully (16.1: quo verius) as a historian, actually frees Pliny himself (quo libentius, another comparative adverb with ablative of degree of difference) to write his own (personal, epistolographic) way and himself become beatissimus by his own definition.³³ Pliny offers (mostly, as far as we can tell) objective facts, entwined with subjective comments about those facts.³⁴ His method of temporal and discursive manipulation “does things with words” (the culmination of facere scribenda—scribere legenda).³⁵ By dialing between opposites (e.g., public and private, young and old, curiosity and fear, rational and insane, past / present / future, eternal and momentary), Pliny generates an atmosphere of creative tension and narrative confusion that herds the reader into thinking what Pliny would prefer.³⁶ The subsequent narrative is folded together (literally: complicated) via multiple temporal frames, points-of-view, and literal-metaphorical levels, conveyed nimbly, dramatically, and sometimes humorously as a glorifying “cultural monument” for his uncle and ultimately (and uniquely) himself.³⁷

6.16.4

Erat Miseni^a classemque imperio^b praesens^b regebat. Viiii^c kal.^d Septembres^e hora^f fere^g septima mater mea indicat ei adparere nubem inusitata^h etⁱ magnitudine^j et specie.

He (Elder Pliny) was at Misenum, and was commanding the fleet in person. On the ninth day before the first of September (24 August) at about the seventh hour (13:00), my mother indicated to him that a cloud of unusual size and shape was appearing.

Variants: ^b praeses imperio γ1; imperio praeses r° r; ^c-e nono Kal. Septembres Π (04 a) U, nonum Kal. Septembres M, nonum (also no̅n̅) Kal. [ ] γ Valla (f), novum Kal. [ ] Oxford Auct.F.2.22 k n AI75, nou Kal. [ ] R1472, no̅u̅ Kal. [ ] c q Naples Ex-Vindobonensis lat. 42, Viiii Kal. [ ] Bussi, nonē Kal. [ ] LL52, November (-ris) Kal. [ ] Vatican Pal.lat. 893 r° r 76 78 83 92b 92a t, [ ] Kal. Novembris BL23777 Laet. 98 Cat.; ^f hora diei Π (04 a); ^h inusitatam γ1 θ (f q), invisitatam α (M U); ⁱ [et] γ1 e.

Ch. 3 extensively discusses the debate about the eruption date and time. It explains why there are no valid alternatives to 24 August in the manuscript tradition; neither has archaeology yet produced secure evidence for an October or November eruption.

Misenum was the location of the Roman fleet (classis Misenensis) for the western Mediterranean (Figures 1.5, 4.1).³⁸ Its inner (now a lagoon, Lago di Miseno) and outer ancient harbors were set just inside the cape, sheltered from heavy wind and wave. The area around Misenum, despite its active volcanic nature, was thick with elite seaside residences (Ch. 3).

Figure 4.1 Map of Misenum, AD 79: aqueducts, likely location of Pliny the Elder’s villa (shaded areas cannot see Vesuvius), and routes of escape (“A” toward Cumae; “B” toward Baiae). Sources: Beloch, Campanien; Illiano, “Misenum”; detail of Pl. 1 GIS (B. Wilkerson, P. Foss).

Two tenses operate in the Latin. The first sentence uses imperfect (erat, regebat), which indicates ongoing periodic action in the past and makes clear Pliny the Elder’s position as commander. The adjective praesens has the sense of “in person” or “for the moment,” implying that Pliny was not doing his job on-site all the time, but probably sharing his time between Misenum and Rome. There he could be in more direct contact with the emperor—Ep. 3.5.9 describes his predawn habit of visiting Vespasian before discharging official duties and returning home (Ch. 1).³⁹ A variant, the noun praeses, would act in apposition to the subject of regebat, and mean he was the “guardian” or “head” of the fleet, but that would be redundant.

The phrase imperio regere is a stock term for exercising command, which here was more bureaucratic than military; the position was more prestigious than powerful (Ch. 1).⁴⁰ Tacitus (Hist. 3.57) uses the same phraseology when referring to an admiral from a decade previous: is nuper classem Misenensem molli imperio rexerat, “he had recently commanded the Misenian fleet in a tolerant manner.”⁴¹ In that context, Tacitus relates how the short-lived emperor Vitellius (in late AD 69) gave instructions to one Claudius Julianus, former fleet commander at Misenum, to secure the loyalty of disenchanted sailors (since Julianus had been known for his “lax discipline,” molli imperio), and win back troops who had just joined Vespasian. Julianus promptly went over to Vespasian, part of a gathering wave of defections that led to the final Flavian victory.⁴² Vespasian’s ascent, of course, led to Elder Pliny returning to public life (Ch. 1).

The tense then switches to historical present (indicat)—that is, present tense understood to have happened in the past. This makes the narrative more vivid, endowing the “then” with the “now.”⁴³ Younger Pliny slips us easily into that timeframe through the imperfect tenses in the first sentence. Pliny also paints a gesture here: Plinia points out the cloud literally with her finger (index)—and specifically to her scientist brother (ei), which initiates indirect discourse (nubem as subject accusative with infinitive adparere), in which inusitata modifies both magnitudine and specie in the ablative of quality or description.

The α family reads invisitatam, “unseen, unknown,” probably a corruption from a shared ancestor of θ’s inusitatam, in which the adjective modifies nubem directly. In 1903, Müller offered to split the difference with invisitata, which appears in no manuscript.⁴⁴ Lefèvre sees this beginning of the eruption sequence nodding to the genre of “signs and wonders” (mirabilia) literature, to which portions of the Elder’s Historia Naturalis also belong, as well as natural marvels in other letters of the Younger (e.g., Ep. 4.30, 7.27, 8.8, 8.20, 9.33).⁴⁵ It is interesting that the eruption went “unheard,” at least 30 km. away at Misenum; Cassius Dio (66.22.3–4, Ch. 3) mentions a tremendous noise.

The word nubem appears five times in the two letters, in senses both of showing and concealing. The cloud first calls attention to the event (Ep. 6.16.4); it has a curious shape (16.4–5); its debris-fall and collapses cause most of the casualties (6.20.9, 11) and then extinguishes all light (6.20.14) and seemingly, hope. Plinia first notices the marvel that later kills her brother, and nearly overwhelms her and her son. Upon her hinges the adventure and the danger, for the cloud is a mystery, a killer, an anvil on which character is hammered and revealed. Finally, the story’s heartbeat quickens with elision and polysyndeton (et ... et) among the last six words, whose oddity the Younger is about to contrast starkly with the Elder’s obdurately ordinary force of habit.

6.16.5

Usus^a ille sole^b, mox^b frigida^c, gustaverat^d iacens^e studebatque^f; poscit^g soleas^h, ascenditⁱ locum ex quo maxime miraculum illud conspici poterat. Nubes^j—incertum procul intuentibus ex quo monte (Vesuvium^k fuisse^l postea^l cognitum est)—oriebatur, cuius similitudinem et formam non alia magis arbor^m quam pinus expresseritⁿ.

He (Elder Pliny) took in the sun, soon after had a cold bath; he had eaten laying down and began studying; he asked for his slippers and ascended to a place from which that marvel could best be seen. A cloud—it was uncertain, to those watching far away, from which mountain; afterwards it was known to have been Vesuvius—was arising, whose resemblance and shape no other tree than a pine could have portrayed.

Variants: ^a zisus r(2), surgit r(1) 76 t BL23777 Laet. 98 Cat.; ^b et e sole solet mox r(1), [mox] t BL23777 Laet. 98, solebat Cat.; ^c frigidam Agr. 78 83 92b 92a; ^d gustata r(1) t BL23777 Laet. 98 Cat.; ^f studebat r(1), enim studebat t BL23777 Laet. 98 Cat.; ^g poposcit γ; ^h scalas γ1a; ⁱ ascenditque Vatican Ott.lat. 1537 Bussi; ^j nubes et γ, nube et D h; ^k Vesuinum γ1; ^l postea fuisse γ1 Vatican Ott.lat. 1537 Bussi; ^m res (transposed with magis) Bussi; ⁿ expressit γ1a 76.

The second printed edition (r) had two versions of the first sentence. The second started with the insensible zisus (Ch. 2); the preceding version started with surgit, and its variations dominated printings until Aldus’ 1508 edition (a).

The deponent usus (est) takes two ablatives as its objects (both sole and frigida). Actions come thick and fast (asyndeton, scarce conjunctions) in various tenses—pluperfect, imperfect, historical present—disrupting the tempo and elevating uncertainty against Pliny’s steady daily routine (recalling Ep. 3.5.10; Ch. 1).⁴⁶ The meal here must be prandium, “lunch,” usually informal; this might be why Younger Pliny bothers to mention that the Elder was reclining (iacens) while he ate, which was protocol for a more formal cena, “dinner.”⁴⁷ However long it took to bathe, eat, and study, Elder Pliny finally requests sandals to observe the cloud (Ch. 3); this order is the first instance of the mostly invisible presence of his slaves.⁴⁸ Tension builds as he climbs: ex quo begins a relative clause in which the cloud is the subject (miraculum illud, “something worthy of wonder”), and it uses a helping verb (poterat) with a passive infinitive (conspici) that accentuates the separation between Elder and eruption.

Pliny notes the difficulty (incertum) of distance (procul) to those watching, and even steps away briefly from the Elder’s exclusive perspective by using the dative plural intuentibus. Uncle was not the only one observing—in fact, here the Younger’s scientific eye may be emulating the Elder’s.⁴⁹ He also breaks the temporal frame with postea, emphasizing hindsight as key to understanding in present narrative time (the mountain was Vesuvius) what was happening then.⁵⁰ It seems odd that the observers didn’t immediately know the source of the eruption, when in HN 3.61–62, Elder Pliny had arranged the important sites on the Bay of Naples, except that visibility there can vary greatly, and we cannot take the acuity of ancient eyesight for granted.⁵¹ Vesuvius was not widely known to be volcanic (Ch. 3).

The verb oriebatur, with its sense of birth, begins to use organic language; cuius introduces a famous relative clause of characteristic, describing the cloud by reference to the pinus pinea (stone, or umbrella pine) tree.⁵² The appearance and shape of the cloud were of the sort that only a pine tree could convey (expresserit is a potential subjunctive). The natural and human worlds became so strange that Pliny employs vivid similes to capture what it was like to see it firsthand.⁵³ The family saw the second, magmatic phase of the eruption (EU2f / A2 / A, Ch. 3); the opening phase had begun earlier that day. The analytic description that follows led volcanologists to give the name “Plinian” to a type of eruption with an explosive first stage. No full Plinian eruption of Vesuvius has happened since.⁵⁴

6.16.6

Nam longissimo velut^a trunco^b elata^c in altum quibusdam ramis diffundebatur, credo quia^d recenti^e spiritu evecta^f, dein^g senescente eo destituta aut^h etiam pondere suo victa in latitudinemⁱ vanescebat, candida interdum, interdum^j sordida et^k maculosa^l prout terram cineremve sustulerat.

For having been raised high up on an extremely tall sort of trunk, (the cloud) was spreading itself 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 overcome by its own weight, it was dissipating to the sides, sometimes white, sometimes dingy and flecked, according to the earth or ash it had borne.

Variants: ^a vero ML47.34; ^c flata γ, corr. elata Valla c f, eflata r, efflata t BL23777 Laet. 98 Cat., electa 76; ^d quod D h, etiam γ2c Valla, et γ3ab, ut Agr., corr. quia θ (q) 04 Cat.; ^g demum γ1b, deinde γ2c γ3a; ^h ut γ, et Agr., corr. aut θ (q) 98 Cat.; ⁱ altitudinem γ, corr. latitudinem 92a 98 Cat.; ^j [ ] γ1.

Younger Pliny channels the observational and analytic eye of his uncle, trying to explain the mechanics of the developing cloud. Nubes continues as subject, ruling the entire sentence; it earns its first superlative (longissimo), and its center (elata in altum) balances poetically upon trunk and branches. Light and dark colors, sky and earth, intermix. Perfect passive participles (elata, evecta, destituta, victa) modifying nubes appropriately describe motions that Pliny tries to explain from the shape of their outcomes. The present tense (credo) is present narrative time: it is Pliny expressing his or Elder’s event-contemporary notes for Tacitus (cf. Ep. 6.16.22).⁵⁵

A simple letter transposition led to the appearance of altitudinem for latitudinem in some manuscripts; for scribes who had never seen an eruption, that still made sense. Pliny employs life-form similes and metaphors, whereas Dio reported popular imagination: “Giants” (66.23.1; Ch. 3). The cloud is a “pine tree” with a “trunk” and “branches”; it has “breath” (spiritu), which tracks a life cycle from being born (recenti) to growing old (senescente eo).⁵⁶ At last, the surging, rising smoke is abandoned (destituta) and conquered (victa) by its mortal weight (pondere suo). Those columns of elevated debris that collapsed and “died” were deadly pyroclastic density currents (PDCs, Ch. 3): Pliny sketches a bionarrative arc of rise, decline, and fall.

The center of Vesuvius is about 30 km. away from Misenum by direct line of sight, and the Elder Pliny, his curiosity now alight, decides to take a closer look. It is perhaps 14:00 (Ch. 3). He has as yet no sense of urgency, but that is about to change.

6.16.7

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

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

Variants: ^a id Bussi; ^b est r° (gloss) r t BL23777 Laet. 98 Cat.

The cloud has grown into a larger, more indefinable phenomenon; Bussi added the neuter id to give magnum something to modify, but it is more ominous alone. Likewise, visum doesn’t need est (though r’s editor added it). The language is sparse and stark; the eruption is so immense that it cannot be understood at a distance, a distance that dogs the next clauses with their indirect discourse and its snippets of conversation, as if the cloud has hazed and muted the rush of decisions circling around Young Pliny, who is at the center of the section (mihi, vellem, respondi, me) but none of the action.

Younger starts this pivotal personal moment with the historical present: “He gives me (mihi ... facit) an opportunity (copiam) to come along (venire) together with him (una) if I should wish (si ... vellem, potential subjunctive). Then he shifts to the perfect tense of recollection: [but] I replied (respondi) that I (me) preferred (malle) to study (studere) and as it turns out (et forte) he (ipse) had set (dederat) something that (quod) I should write (scriberem, relative clause of purpose).”⁵⁷ This is the last moment that the Younger’s “person” appears directly in the letter until the Elder’s death in 6.19 (ut ego colligo), and it is the section where we learn the most about their relationship.⁵⁸ It seems a bit hierarchical, transactional, even cold—Young Pliny has two ways by which he can engage with his uncle, and he chooses remote rather than hands-on learning. Was Elder Pliny too formal, too intimidating? Words like “worth knowing” (the gerundive noscendum) and “highly learned” (eruditissimo) suggest their bond was based on studium (Ch. 1).

Pliny skips responsibility by citing his assignment; he clings to an excuse, just as he repeatedly reminds the reader (Ep. 6.16.1, 3, 21–22; 6.20.1, 20) that Tacitus requested these very letters. The use of forte (“by chance”) is interesting; was the pressure of completing the teacher’s lesson enough to keep him home (and perhaps save his life), despite that same teacher offering leave? Was Young Pliny a good student, or dull pedant? Does the writer look back on his choice with regret or relief? Did he remain by his own decision, or his uncle’s (see relictus, Ep. 6.20.1)? Or was it indeed accident that he stayed back?⁵⁹ Perhaps Pliny is constructing ironic self-distance—though the intellectual heir to his uncle, sharing an intense aspiration for learning, he was (callow, less intrepid) and is (in social habits and political ambition) different.⁶⁰ Younger Pliny’s true character is revealed more through how he paints (or cinematographically directs) the scenes with his pen than how Pliny the character behaves in the letters. He will finish his current assignment for Tacitus (scribere legenda: Ep. 6.16), but he really wants to relate what happened after staying home to work on Livy (facere scribenda: Ep. 6.20).⁶¹

The admiral not only asks, but acts in historical present: iubet, facit. His choice for transport is a Liburnian. These were light, fast ships with two banks of 15 oars (biremes) on either side (ergo 60 rowers), and a large square sail. The Liburnian type (and term) was apparently taken from swift boats used by pirates among the coastal islands of Illyria (modern Croatia). But hard knowledge of Roman navy vessels is problematic. Evidence is sketchy; transport ships, not military craft, tend to preserve as shipwrecks, and designs and usage changed over time.⁶² But it is clear that a Liburnian, with a relatively small crew, was meant for reconnaissance, communication, light transport, maneuverability, and best speed. In Suetonius’ vita of Pliny (Ch. 1), only a single Liburnian is mentioned, arousing doubt for some about a larger expedition (or the truth of Pliny’s account at all), but if this ship remained Pliny’s command vessel after he added larger transports, there is no contradiction (see below: Ep. 6.16.9, 12, 17).⁶³

6.16.8

Egrediebatur domo; accipit^a codicillos Rectinae^b Tasci^c imminenti^d periculo exterritae^e (nam^f villa^f eius subiacebat, nec ulla nisi navibus fuga): ut se tanto discrimini^g eriperet^h orabatⁱ.

(Elder Pliny) was just leaving the house; 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 remove her from such a hazardous situation.

Variants: ^a accepit γ, corr. accipit Naples Ex-Vindobonensis lat. 42 Escorialensis N.III.10; ^b-c rectinae nasci Π (a) U, rectine casci D h, recti necasti Oxford Auct.F.2.22 k ML47.34, rectine cause γ1, recti netasci M = retine ccasci γ3 (most), retine irasci p, recte negasti Valla, recte ne [ ] θ (f q), recine ithacesie r, retinere classiarii Bussi 78 83 92b 92a, retinere amici Agr., recinna Cassius t, Rectina [ ] BL23777 Laet. 98, retinae classiarii Cat.; ^e exterire p, exterriti Bussi 78 83 92b 92a Cat., exterrere Agr., exterritus t, exterrita BL23777 Laet. 98; ^f navicula γ2c γ3b, nam villa D h γ1 γ3a corr. θ (q r° r) Agr.; ^g discrimine 76 Cat. a; ^h eriperent Bussi; ⁱ orabant Agr. 78 83 92b 92a Cat.

The imperfect of egrediebatur conveys that the Elder’s departure is dramatically interrupted by another historical present (accipit, though γ texts use the perfect-tense accepit). The sender, one Rectina (Chs 1, 3, and below) is modified in the genitive by exterritae, which confirms that she is female; the cause of her fear is in the ablative. The parenthetical phrase (not that Latin used such punctuation) is a narratological gloss, not part of the message; as a personal friend, Elder Pliny would have known the location of her coastal villa at the foot of (subiacebat) Vesuvius, probably between Torre del Greco and Leopardi (Ch. 3, Figure 1.5). The message is shared using indirect command (ut ... eriperet) that Pliny introduces with another imperfect verb (orabat) to frame this section—her rescue plea was ongoing until such time as she was saved. The message itself could have been as short as: Rectina Plinio oro ut me eripias, “Rectina to Pliny: please get me out of here.” The details of the danger were soon obvious and would have been easy for the Younger to discover and add later; he may even have taken wording from the tablet as a primary source after the eruption.

This part of the text is notoriously corrupt—the only constant being re(c)tin- (best guess for the original is Rectinae Tasci, i.e., Rectina [wife of] Tascus, as preserved in M; see Ch.1). Bussi invented retinere classiarii, swapping a person in danger for sailors in peril (thinking of the Elder Pliny’s command at Misenum). That reading was accepted in whole or part by multiple generations of editors down to Lemaire in 1823. Rectina’s identity is obscure, but she may be a noble from a southern Italian family (Ch. 1). Some have argued that this entire scene was fabricated by Younger Pliny to fashion an opportunity for the Elder to act as heroic savior.⁶⁴ Certainly Pliny uses the episode strategically to heighten the stakes and construct an arc of moral movement across the Bay. But given the circumstances of an actual cataclysm (is it reasonable to expect a fleet commander to do nothing?), Elder’s extensive social network, and the verifiability of many contextual details, it seems excessive to claim that deep a level of invention.

The word for “note” (codicilli) is always plural, referring to the bound “leaves” of the document (ink on thin wood or impressed wax tablets, rather than papyrus). These could have represented the original message or its transcription. How did it reach the Elder at Misenum? One possibility is semaphore or light signal (if Rectina had access to a signal point, someone with the knowledge to use it, and the requisite complex communications infrastructure in the Bay of Naples).⁶⁵ Her direct message (see above) could have been brief.

If the note traveled physically, why could Rectina not have? Younger Pliny specifies there was no escape except by ship; winds and waves were contrary, and a small coastal craft with sails might not have been able to make headway, as occurred later to Pomponianus and Pliny (Ep. 6.16.12, 17).⁶⁶ Perhaps water offered the only seeming escape to Rectina because of serious earthquakes, roads crowded by refugees (presumably she wanted a wagon for herself, some attendants, and her baggage, per Ep. 6.16.12, 6.20.8), or because the villa indeed lacked all road access.⁶⁷ Yet the major coastal road circling the Bay would not have been far away (Figures 1.5–1.6). If a physical message, it is more likely that Rectina sent it earlier that day, during the early light ashfall of the phreatomagmatic opening phase (Ch. 3), when roads or sea were more accommodating.⁶⁸ Had Rectina a mounted messenger to send, they could have reached Misenum in 2.5–3.5 hours, at ca. 15 km./hour through relatively urbanized terrain.⁶⁹ A mid-late morning rider could have arrived by 14:00. A small boat making ca. 2–3 knots (ca. 3.5–5.5 km./hour) against unfavorable winds would have taken an infeasible five to seven hours. The villa was probably between 24 km (just north of Torre del Greco) to 31 km (Oplontis) away from Misenum by sea (overland, 40 to 50 km), in the general area of modern Leopardi. In this area, tephra fall was initially relatively light, carried SE by the winds (Figures 1.5, 3.5).

Ultimately, we do not know four key variables with any precision: when the eruption noticeably began (as opposed to when we are told it was first seen), exactly where Rectina’s villa was located, when she sent the messenger to Pliny, and the manner by which the message came. Presumably Rectina’s messenger was in a hurry. Until he received the distress call, Elder Pliny was not. Within the ablative of separation (tanto discrimini), discrimen carries a triple notion: something dangerous, a critical distance, and a decisive moment. All of those meanings are in play at this turning point (the next section begins with vertit), when the Plinys (apparently) convert a scholarly expedition into a humanitarian mission.

6.16.9

Vertit^a ille consilium et quod^b studioso animo incohaverat^c obit maximo. Deducit quadriremes^d, ascendit ipse non^e Rectinae^f modo^g sed multis (erat enim frequens amoenitas orae^h) laturusⁱ auxilium.

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

Variants: ^a vestit D γ2c; ^c inchoabat a; ^f-g retinendum γ1a, recti ne dum γ1b, retinet modum γ2c, rectine modum γ3ab, recina modo vetante r, rectoris in modum Agr.; ^h orat γ2-3, erat γ3b1a Valla corr. or(a)e γ1 (f q r° r) Agr.; ⁱ laurus α.

Vertit. All change; back in the historical present. Elder Pliny reclaims the protagonist position (ille), which soon shifts into closer focus (ipse). The first sentence is elegantly structured, with the two verbs (incohaverat obit) nestled between adjectives that convey the development in purpose from curiosity to courage (studioso … maximo).⁷⁰ Science does not vanish, however—Pliny and his scribal assistant still pursue studium on the voyage. The descriptive results are simply folded into the following sections (Ep. 6.16.10–11, 13, 18).⁷¹

The noun (animo) plays double duty—first as an intellectual, then as a spiritual driving force. The Elder’s mission, his plan (quod), broadens at the same time—not just to save one person (that is, household), but as many (multis) as possible (and so he brings more ships). This exhibits the three facets of Ciceronian magnanimitas, or “great-heartedness”: fortitudo, constantia, and clementia, “bravery, steadfastness, and mercy.”⁷² Note the positional emphasis of auxilium at the end of the sentence, accentuated by the future active participle laturus: “don’t worry, reader—he’s bringing help!” In the clever parenthetical phrase about the densely-populated Neapolitan shore, the metonymic amoenitas is the subject, though of course it is the coast that is crowded. It reflects Strabo’s comment (5.4.8, Ch. 3) about heavy development of sea front properties.⁷³

It is in expressing the Elder’s motivations (rather than actions) that Younger Pliny appears most to use artistic license. His uncle’s singularity has not altered (it is in fact emphasized in the first two and last two words of the sentence), but now the force of his moral and heroic character pivots to embrace the expectant plurals gathered in the middle of the sentence and on the opposite curved shore. Pliny raises the drama to such a pitch that the reader is charmed to forget that Elder did not personally save anyone at all.

Elder Pliny adds ships for his changed purpose, fitting out quadriremes, perhaps all those available (a dozen?).⁷⁴ This class was stationed at Misenum, as we know through references on sailors’ tombstones. It was a larger, relatively roomy vessel modeled on a bireme, with more oars (likely 88, each manned by two rowers), and perhaps no sail.⁷⁵ Quadriremes offered maneuverability, stability, room for survivors and possessions, and excellent speed.⁷⁶ A medium-length row across the Bay, or sail with a brisk following wind, could achieve ca. 6–8 knots (Ch. 3).⁷⁷

Note that the letter does not say that Pliny put aside the Liburnian, only that he changed the purpose of his plan (consilium). The adjacency of quadriremes (object of deducit) and ascendit have always suggested that the former also served as object (repeated as an understood singular) to the latter. But Pliny sometimes uses the verb intransitively, and I suggest he does so here, as the verb looks not backward, but forward to laturus auxilium.⁷⁸ For Pliny, conveying the admiral’s departure with an amplified expedition was the point; he might have found amusing subsequent scholarly angst about different ships being mentioned in his and Suetonius’ accounts, when it was never a contradiction. Given its speed and agility, and the fact that it was already readied, the Liburnian could have served as Pliny’s command ship. He could give orders and do research while sailors actually helped people. This would explain why only he is mentioned arriving at Stabiae, why a smaller oared vessel did not have the power to depart from there against heavy wind and waves near dusk, and why Suetonius only mentions the Liburnian in his vita (see Ep. 6.16.7, 12, 17; Ch. 1).

Although Pliny provides no details, his uncle’s expedition likely detached quadriremes to assist communities from Herculaneum southeastward along the coast. Domenico Carro, retired Rear Admiral, has mapped out how such an operation might have worked, perhaps collecting people who had made it to sea on smaller craft, as well as sending landing craft to shore.⁷⁹ Attempting to assist Herculaneum, the most populous, most accessible, and least threatened (at the moment) community, may have seemed both prudent and possible. Hundreds were sheltered in fornici, vaulted substructures (Ch. 3), dozens were waiting on the open beach, and a large, 9-m. long overturned launch was found near an officer in his 40s carrying richly decorated weapons and a bag with carpentry tools.⁸⁰ Perhaps the soldier had landed and was supervising evacuation when the first PDC (EU2/3pf; Figure 3.4a, Ch. 3) overcame the town.

Some have linked Pliny’s expedition to another skeleton, from Fondo Matrone at Bottaro, near the maritime port of Pompeii. Excavations carried out from 1899–1901 uncovered a row of porticoed shops, along with 81 bodies (Figure 3.12).⁸¹ One, found on 20 Sept. 1899 outside shop entrance no. 5, was a man with sword and ivory sheath, a chain of 75 gold links wrapped thrice around his neck, gold rings, bracelets, and serpentine arm rings. The excavator, Gennaro Matrone, an engineer playing archaeologist, declared the skeleton was Pliny the Elder because of its wealth. This sensationalist hypothesis failed to gain much traction at the time, though it periodically resurfaces, as recently with a scientific inquiry.⁸² The Bottaro skeleton might be another fleet officer sent to organize shore rescue, but it lacks evidence for a dagger or fittings for a cingula militare, “belt,” associated with an active duty officer. Alternatively, the Bottaro soldier could be private security for a prominent person (not uncommon employment for a veteran).⁸³ But it cannot be proved to be Elder Pliny: unique individualized evidence would be required (which doesn’t exist), the original excavation contexts and finds were not properly controlled and documented, and the theory does not accord with any other locational and circumstantial details about Pliny’s death (see below).

6.16.10

Properat^a illuc^b unde^c alii^d fugiunt^e, rectumque^f cursum recta^g gubernacula in periculum^h tenet adeo solutus metuⁱ, ut omnes^j illius^k mali motus omnes figuras ut deprenderat^l oculis dictaret enotaretque.

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

Variants: ^b-d illuc alii unde γ1 γ3a, illuc alium de-(fugiunt) D h, illuc unde [ ] γ2c, [ ] alii unde γ3b, [ ] alii vestri γ3b1b, [ ] alii territi Bussi, illuc unde alii territi inde 83 92b 92a, illuc unde alii territi Cat., illuc unde alii confestim r 76, corr. illuc unde alii θ (f q r°) Agr.; ^f rectum ipse Bussi; ^g rectaque γ3ab Valla; ^h particulam γ3b3; ⁱ metus γ1a; ^l deprehenderat γ a, deprehenderet γ1 76 Laet.

Younger Pliny now fully casts his uncle as rescuing hero. The illuc (“thence”) and unde (“whence”) are sandwiched between two verbs of contrasting energetic motion (properat, fugiunt): singular Elder, first responder, rushes through a tide of refugees. This scene represents the archetypal disaster narrative, repeated on the stages of earthquakes, tsunamis, fires, storms, and attacks, in which main characters (cool under pressure) contrast frantic crowds. Elder Pliny hurries toward danger, showing the physical preparedness, mental willingness, and moral compass of a leader.

Ethical judgment is built deeply into description, repeating “straight” / “right” / “correct” (rectum / recta) when describing the rudder and its heading. The juxtaposition of periculum, “danger,” and tenet, “he holds,” shows the Elder’s resolution. The following result clause (adeo solutus metu ut …) praises the fearlessness (ablative of separation), which allows him to observe, describe, and record the approaching threat. Younger Pliny builds credence by describing autopsy (ablative of means oculis) and two methods of writing: the commander’s own notes (enotaret) and dictation to a secretary (probably a slave [notarius: Ep. 3.5.15, Ch. 1]: dictaret)—imperfect subjunctive in secondary sequence—which must be the sources (along with interviews of surviving shipmates) for this account.⁸⁴ We almost forget that Younger never witnessed any of this except by remote imagination and his uncle’s evidence, which described what he saw (figuras) and how they changed (motus) over the two to three hours of the journey (Ch. 3) as he watched them (ut = “as” + the indicative deprehenderat). Uncle’s vision and verbiage filtered into and flavored nephew’s rewording.

In that careful construction, Elder Pliny acts properly with respect to his social position, his authority (as fleet commander), and his duty. The moral angle is heightened by a new word Young Pliny chooses for the eruption: malum, the neuter substantive of the adjective for “evil” / “wicked” / “bad” (here in the genitive: mali, agreeing with illius). The impassive force of nature takes on a personality; it has sinister intentions. Elder’s journey has now touched mythology: the hero, brave and true, confronts the monster.

This is Elder Pliny’s chance to “do something worth writing about,” and Younger Pliny can honor him by “writing something worth reading” (Ep. 6.16.3). The fleet at Misenum did not have a lot of substantial work in the late first century AD. The naval base supported no military expeditions; it acted more as a maritime Praetorian Guard, a “Home Fleet.” The biggest enemy sailors faced on a daily basis was probably boredom. Suddenly, Elder could put men and ships to noble purpose and fulfill the potential of his command through salvation (and study). To the admiral’s small, quick ship are joined the largest transports; dramatic danger and response are elevated. Elder Pliny sails ESE toward a hail of ash and burning stone, approaching shore by late afternoon / early evening.

6.16.11

Iam navibus^a cinis incidebat^b, quo propius accederent^c, calidior et densior^d; iam^e pumices^f etiam nigrique^g et^h ambusti^h et fracti igne lapides; iam vadum subitum ruinaque montis litora obstantia. Cunctatusⁱ paulum^j an retro^k flecteret^l, mox gubernatori ut ita faceret monenti^m “Fortes” inquit “fortuna iuvat: Pomponianumⁿ pete^o.”

Now ash was falling on the ships, hotter and heavier the nearer they approached; then pumice, and even stones, blackened, burnt, and broken by fire; then 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.”

Variants: ^a manibus ML47.34, corr. navibus Valla; ^b inciderat γ; ^c accederet γ, accideret γ3b1b c, accederes Valla (LL52 alt. Naples Ex-Vindobonensis lat. 42 Escorialensis N.III.10 76); ^d depressior γ1, dempsior Oxford Auct.F.2.22 k ML47.34; ^f punicos γ1b, punices α γ2c; ^g nigri Naples Ex-Vindobonensis lat. 42 Escorialensis N.III.10 Bussi 76; ^h ambusti γ, arbusti γ3b1a, ambustique Naples Ex-Vindobonensis lat. 42 Escorialensis N.III.10 Bussi, corr. et ambusti e θ (f q r t); ⁱ cunctanti γ, cunctati γ1b D γ2c, corr. cunctatus Valla e f q; ^j paululum γ1b; ^l flecterent γ1b; ^m monet γ1; ⁿ praeponianum γ3b1b; ^o petit r t.

Younger Pliny immediately builds a quick-paced adventure through triple repetition (tricolon crescens) of iam, “now.” His play-by-play amplifies peril with every phrase; the staccato list may derive from uncle’s notes. First, ash: quo is an ablative of degree of difference, coordinating the comparatives calidior and densior with increased proximity (propius) to the volcano; the imperfect incidebat reinforces the continuous ashfall. The same verb, not present but “understood” in the plural, has the second set of projectiles as subjects: light and relatively harmless pumice (puffed-out magma), and stone (pieces of the mountain and caldera wall); see Ch. 3.⁸⁵ The stone is thrice transformed (blackened, burnt, broken) by fire (the ablative of means igne); the etiam sounds a note of disbelief about the intensity of heat necessary to affect stone so severely.

Narrative excitement accelerates, leaving behind the need for any verbs. The final iam speaks to massive topographic alteration; vadum subitum means that ships cannot get as close to the coast as they expect. It has been interpreted as a blanket of pumice upon the water, as uplift of the seabed, or material deposited by a PDC—the one that destroyed Herculaneum—extending into the sea; the latter best explains the “collapse of the mountain” (Ch. 3).⁸⁶ Ruina may be nominative—in parallel with cinis, pumices, lapides, and vadum—in apposition with the relatively rare form obstantia as a substantive (a “hinderance” or “obstruction”), perhaps preserving participial force from its verbal origin (obsto) to act upon litora (plural, “shoreline”) as an object. But ruina could also be an ablative of means, with litora obstantia in the nominative plural: “and due to the collapse of the mountain, the shoreline blocking (the way).” Neither is entirely satisfactory, though I lean toward the former. Elder Pliny uses obstantia as a noun while discussing urination advice, and much of the specific description here must be cribbed from his notes.⁸⁷

Elder is stuck offshore, unable to discharge the duty of rescuing those on land—the obstacles are too great, and getting worse. At this point, Younger Pliny has the Elder pause (cunctatus) before the ferocity of nature; the hero cannot decide what to do, and we wait with him, wondering. This shows the Elder felt some fear—without which bravery would have been nothing but foolishness.⁸⁸ The helmsman manning the steering oars—serving as a foil, an understandably apprehensive “ordinary person”—indirectly advises him to turn back within a dative-case participial clause: gubernatori ut ita faceret monenti.⁸⁹ As readers, we might want Elder both to go on (and be the hero) or like the helmsman, veer off (and save himself); we cannot decide what role Pliny should play. The Younger takes advantage of our indecision, and has it both ways. Uncle steers south, skirting the storm (Figures 1.5, 3.5), to a shore that is accessible (at Stabiae), and a friend (Pomponianus). Suspense ebbs so it may rise again.

Marking that shift (we are exactly halfway through the letter) is a moment of direct speech. Elder utters a timeworn proverb about the bold making their own luck, known in various forms from the historian Ennius to the playwright Terence, to Caesar and the poet Vergil: Fortes fortuna iuvat, “Fortune favors the brave.”⁹⁰ Fortune turns out to be fickle. While Younger characterizes the words heroically, is it possible that they were spoken ironically, the admiral resigned to his fate? If so, his subsequent behavior would be about living his final hours well, as a philosopher should; no rescue mission had any real chance against an eruption of this magnitude.⁹¹

The quote’s origin revolves around the willingness to recognize and take opportune risk. Its sentiment traces back to the account of a Greek statue. In the late fourth century BC, the famous sculptor Lysippos won exclusive license to carve Alexander the Great’s portrait in marble. In the agora of his hometown Sikyon (Figure 1.4), he set up a bronze figure that personified the “right moment,” a concept the Greeks called Καιρὸς (Kairos, or “Opportunity”; Latin: occasio). In an epigram by the poet Poseidippos, 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:⁹²

— Τίς πόθεν ὁ πλάστης;—Σικυώνιος.—Οὔνομα δὴ τίς;—Λύσιππος.—Σὺ δὲ τίς;—Καιρὸς ὁ πανδαμάτωρ.—Τίπτε δ᾿ ἐπ᾿ ἄκρα βέβηκας;—Ἀεὶ τροχάω.—Τί δὲ ταρσοὺς ποσσὶν ἔχεις διφυεῖς;—Ἵπταμ᾿ ὑπηνέμιος.—Χειρὶ δὲ δεξιτερῇ τί φέρεις ξυρόν;—Ἀνδράσι δεῖγμα ὡς ἀκμῆς πάσης ὀξύτερος τελέθω.—Ἡ δὲ κόμη, τί κατ᾿ ὄψιν;—Ὑπαντιάσαντι λαβέσθαι νὴ Δία.—Τἀξόπιθεν δ᾿ εἰς τί φαλακρὰ πέλει;—Τὸν γὰρ ἅπαξ πτηνοῖσι παραθρέξαντά με ποσσὶν οὔτις ἔθ᾿ ἱμείρων δράξεται ἐξοπιθεν.—Τοὔνεχ᾿ ὁ τεχνίτης σε διέπλασεν;—Εἵνεκεν ὑμέων, ξεῖνε, καὶ ἐν προθύροις θῆκε διδασκαλίην.

(Passerby): “Who’s the sculptor, and from where?” (Statue): “From Sicyon.”

(Passerby): “The name, please!” (Statue): “All-conquering Kairos.”

(Passerby): “Why are you standing on tiptoe?” (Statue): “Always in a hurry.”

(Passerby): “And why the wings sprouting on either side of your heels?” (Statue): “I fly with the wind.”

(Passerby): “And the razor in your right hand?” (Statue): “So men may know no edge is sharper than mine.”

(Passerby): “Why is your hair in your face?” (Statue): “A grip for the one who meets me, by Zeus!”

(Passerby): And the reason you’re bald behind?” (Statue): “Once I’ve passed you, running by on winged feet, you won’t latch onto me from behind, for all your desire.”

(Passerby): “Why did the artist fashion you?” (Statue): “For your sake, stranger; and he put (me) in the portico, a lesson to all.”

The Younger, with fortes fortuna iuvat, appears to describe the Elder as one to recognize and seize opportunity as it approaches, but Elder is actually inconsistent. He dallies when the cloud first appears; and while he pivots from investigation to rescue, when that proves impracticable, he diverts to the edge of the fallout zone, where his decisions turn out wrong and he “gets burned.” Like Pliny, the original bronze Kairos perished due to flame.⁹³

Perhaps the argument applies better to the author. Tacitus’ invitation provided the chance for the Younger to show off his narrative chops at blurring lines among Aristotle’s three types of mimesis: things as they are/were, as they are said/seem to be, and as they ought to be.⁹⁴ The Younger’s conceit is to promise Tacitus historical realism for the purpose of presenting the categorical idealism of the Elder’s legacy, while himself demonstrating phenomenal idealism in the storytelling. Pliny leaves enough of the historical Elder exposed for a critical reader to hesitate, reexamine, and admire the actuality: the Younger’s seductive skill at sculpting a heroic figure for a half-competent uncle.⁹⁵

6.16.12

Stabiis^a erat^b diremptus^c sinu^d medio (nam sensim circumactis^e curvatisque^f litoribus^g mare^h infunditurⁱ); ibi^j quamquam nondum periculo adpropinquante^k, conspicuo tamen et^l cum cresceret^m proximoⁿ, sarcinas contulerat in naves^o, certus^p fugae^q [^r] si contrarius ventus resedisset. Quo tunc^s avunculus meus secundissimo invectus^t, complectitur trepidantem consolatur^u hortatur^v, utque timorem eius sua securitate leniret, deferri^w in^x balineum^y iubet^z; lotus^aa accubat^bb cenat^cc, aut^dd hilaris^ee aut (quod^ff aeque^gg magnum^hh) similisⁱⁱ hilariⁱⁱ.

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—; although the danger was not yet drawing near there, nonetheless it caught the eye as close at hand, especially when it strengthened. He (Pomponianus) had loaded luggage onto ships, set on escape once the contrary wind had died back down. By that (same) most favorable wind my uncle was then 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.

Variants: ^a stabit γ, scriba is Valla c f q, iuxta hic Agr., abi 78 83, ab-(erat) 92b 92a; ^b errat γ3ab, corr. erat Valla c f q; ^c directus γ1a, diremitus γ (γ1b D h), devenit Oxford Auct.F.2.22 k ML47.34, diremit γ3ab, dirimit Bussi, corr. diremptus Agr., perveneratque Cat.; ^d sine Vatican Ott.lat. 1537 Bussi; ^e circuatis γ1a; ^f turbatisque D h γ2c γ3ab; ^h maxima re γ, corr. mare Valla c f q r° Agr., in mare r, mox in mare re 78 83, mox in mare 92b 92a; ⁱ (re-)funditur γ1a; ^j ubi Laet. 98 Cat.; ^k propinquante γ1a; ^l etiam γ3b1a; ⁿ proxime γ3b1b r; ^p artus Bussi; ^q figurae γ3b1b; ^r et γ1a; ^s nunc γ1 k; ^t innectus ML47.34 k; ^v hortaturque γ1a; ^x se in Valla f r° r 76 t BL23777 Laet. 98 Cat. a, [ ] γ3b3; ^aa letus U γ1a, locus D; ^dd atque γ2c γ3ab Valla c f r 76 t BL23777 Laet. 98 Cat. a, corr. aut θ (q), (cenat)-que Agr.; ^ff quod est Bussi 83 92b 92a a; ^hh magnum est BL23777 Laet. 98 Cat.; ⁱⁱ hilari similis f g Escorialensis N.III.10 BL Add 20054 76.

The text here is quite corrupt in the γ family; most variants were efforts to make sense of difficult Latin. Pomponianus (Ep. 6.16.11; also Ch. 1) is secure, and the eruptive fallout pattern hints at his villa’s location west of the main settlement at Stabiae (Ch. 3). Household survivors must have provided information to Young Pliny’s post-eruption enquiries.⁹⁶ Coring has recently reconstructed the paleotopography of the Stabian coast; the sea pressed ca. 100–400 m. inland from today’s line, leaving a narrow beach at the base of the ridge that held villas with several stepped-back levels of substructures, and ramps and tunnels to traverse the terrain without impeding the sea-view from above (Figures 1.5, 4.2, 4.5; see 6.16.17 below).⁹⁷

Figure 4.2 Map of Stabiae, AD 79: Urban center, luxury villas, rural settlement, and hypothetical area of Pomponianus’ villa. Sources: Miniero, “Insediamenti,” Figure 1; Moormann, “Villas,” Figure 28.1 after Kockel; De Carolis, Patricelli, and Cominesi, “Suburbio.” GIS: B. Wilkerson, P. Foss, Salve Project, Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Berlin.

Pliny’s shoreline description is usually taken to refer to the Bay of Naples as a whole. However, it probably refers just to this SE bulge of the Bay. It also suggests that Pliny’s ships, to sail across that corner, had passed the horn between Torre del Greco and Oplontis, additional support for locating Rectina’s coastal villa near modern Leopardi. At first, the Latin phrasing seems a double ablative absolute (circumactis ... litoribus), but infunditur in the passive acts as a “middle” voice here; the prefix in- takes those ablatives directly.⁹⁸ In other words, he (Pliny) was at Stabiae (Stabiis erat, locative case), separated (diremptus) by the middle of the Bay (sinu medio), because (nam) the sea (mare) pours up (infunditur) gradually (sensim) against curved (curvatis) and bent-round (circumactis) shores (litoribus).

By now, Pomponianus’ location had received ca. 25 cm of white pumice (EU2f), and gray pumice fall (EU3) had begun by the time Elder Pliny settled in (Figures 3.5, 3.7).⁹⁹ Severe peril was looming, not yet proximate, as indicated in a tripled ablative absolute (periculo … proximo) nesting a circumstantial cum clause (cum cresceret) that captures the ebb and flow of the eruption plume.¹⁰⁰ Pomponianus was clearly worried, having loaded his own ships with baggage, ready for evacuation (si ... resedisset, a contrary-to-fact conditional).¹⁰¹ Eastward was worse, and mountains blocked the south. The road west to Surrentum, the via Minervia (Figure 1.5; shown on the Tabula Peutingeriana: Figure 1.6), may have been passable, but the depth of pumice would have begun to hinder wheeled traffic.¹⁰² Pomponianus clearly wished to take as many belongings as possible (easier by ship).

His ships were probably rigged, not oared (or with insufficient oarage), just as Pliny’s Liburnian was not large enough to row its way out (Ep. 6.16.7, 9, 17). The same NW winds carrying fallout toward the town and bringing Pliny’s ship swiftly to his door were preventing 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 (and perhaps a pun on their shared cognomen).¹⁰³ In the gathering gloom, the admiral seems to bring some hope and cheer, even beneath a mountain licked by flames, just as sculpted on the front of the Como Cathedral ca. 1485—part of that community’s push against Verona to claim the Elder as their own (Figure 4.3).¹⁰⁴

Figure 4.3 Pliny the Elder arriving at Stabiae, bas-relief on the façade of the Cathedral of Como, attributed to Tommaso and Giacomo Rodari, ca. 1485 (photo: Alinari). A bas-relief framed by decorative architectural elements: At center, Elder Pliny arrives at Stabiae and is greeted by four other figures. Behind them on the right, Vesuvius is blanketed in flames as smaller figures try to escape down its slopes.

Elder immediately begins building morale: a triplet of deponent verbs in historical present that demonstrate physical comfort (complectitur), verbal comfort (consolatur), and spirit-boosting (hortatur)—the practical ethics of Senecan Stoicism.¹⁰⁵ 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 has to demonstrate confidence. This is the purpose of the purpose clause (utque … leniret), the indirect statement (deferri … iubet), and the brisk verbal sequence (lotus accubat cenat) with a routine of late-afternoon and evening activities: bath and formal dinner (reclining), all continuing the immediacy of the historical present tense.

This second half of the letter parallels Pliny’s earlier actions, right after the eruption cloud was sighted: bath and lunch (6.16.5). Everyday habits bracketing a heroic journey present an unflustered character with serenity and securitas—but Elder Pliny is too composed here, just as his friend at Misenum acts too panicky (Ch. 5: Ep. 6.20.5, 10).¹⁰⁶ The final clause is 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.¹⁰⁷ Word choice is key: hilaris evokes genuine merriment, not feigned cheer, so similis hilari is a bit jarring. Perhaps the genuineness was out of concern for his friends, and Pliny felt that avoiding panic through simulation would serve them best—or he genuinely had no clue. Likewise, maybe Younger Pliny winks at his own craft here—that his account is more similitas than veritas, which somehow makes it verius, “more true” (6.16.1).

A massive painting in the Loggia del Consiglio of Verona depicts Elder Pliny in full heroic mode during the eruption of Vesuvius (Figure 4.4). Completed between 1765–70 by Felice Boscarati (or Boscaratti or Boscarato) but practically unstudied, it is an odd amalgam of narrative elements.¹⁰⁸ Pliny’s figure, at the steps of a grand columnar building, points at the eruption even as he looks back vaguely toward a note-taking scribe, behind whom three soldiers cower. Codices of his Natural History lie anachronistically beneath the feet of a young woman fleeing with a strongbox. Flight occupies the rest of the canvas: women, children, and men packing and fleeing on foot, horse, or ship. Sheep, cattle, a young girl, and a woman with a basket on her head gaze serenely back toward the viewer. The topography is impossible for Misenum, and could be Stabiae, but is undoubtedly imagined; the whole timeline of Ep. 6.16.5–17 is squeezed into one ridiculous scene. Boscarati, painting patriotically for his hometown’s claim on the Elder as a native son, seems simply to be glorifying him as a leader, calm amid chaos. Pliny stands tall, bravely recording events while everyone else hunches, crouches, and scampers; none pay any attention to the admiral except for two apparent slaves. In that respect—that the Elder acted as an authority without giving useful instructions, physically helping anyone, or knowing what to do—the painter accidentally captured the Younger’s sub-text more surely than any of the more literal painterly efforts over the next century (e.g., Figures 4.6–4.9).

Figure 4.4 Felice Boscarati, Plinio Il Vecchio osserva l’eruzione del Vesuvio, 1765–70, oil on canvas, 329 x 463 cm, inv. 5893–1B0859, Verona, Museo di Castelvecchio, Archivio fotografico (photo: Umberto Tomba, Verona).

Despite Pliny’s good humor (real or not) and nonchalant heroic poise, the worst is coming. Trapped by wind and rough sea as a barely visible sun sets, Pomponianus and his guests observe the volcanic tempest with fascination (as William Hamilton actually did, or spectators pretended to do centuries later at Victorian-era pyrodramas).¹⁰⁹

6.16.13

Interim [a] Vesuvio^b monte pluribus^c locis^d latissimae flammae^e altaque^f incendia relucebant^g, quorum fulgor et claritas tenebris^h noctis excitabaturⁱ. Ille agrestium trepidatione ignes^j relictos^k desertasque villas per solitudinem^l ardere^m in remedium formidinis dictitabatⁿ. Tum^o se^o quieti^o dedit et quievit^p verissimo quidem^q somno^r; nam meatus animae, qui illi propter amplitudinem corporis gravior et sonantior^s erat, ab iis^t qui limini obversabantur^u audiebatur^v.

Meanwhile from many places on Mt. Vesuvius, exceedingly broad flames and towering fires were blazing, and their lightning-white brightness was being made sharper by nighttime darkness. He (Elder Pliny) kept saying, as a palliative for (his friends’) dread, that due to the rushed alarm of the countryfolk, (their) fires were abandoned, and (it was) deserted estates (that were) burning throughout an uninhabited area. 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 were perched outside his door.

Variants: ^a vero some γ3a some α; ^b vesuino γ1; ^d in locis α (M); ^e flamen γ1a; ^f atque γ3ab c f q r t BL23777 Laet. 98 Cat. a; ^g reluctabant γ3b1a γ3b4; ^h tenebras some γ Valla c f q r t BL23777 Laet. 98 Cat.; ⁱ excipiebat γ2c γ3b Valla c f q r t BL23777, pellebat Laet. 98 04 Cat.; ^j-k ignis relictas γ3ab c r, igni relictas 78 83 92b 92a 98 04 Cat., corr. ignes relictos Valla e f q r°; ^l sollicitudinem Harley 2497 k some γ3a 04, [ ] γ1b; ^m [ ] γ1b, ardore γ2c; ⁿ [ ] γ1b, dictabat γ, corr. dictitabat Valla e f q r°; ^o [ ] γ1b; ^q equidem γ2c γ3ab Valla c q r t BL23777 a, et quidem γ3b1a; ^t his γ r t BL23777 Laet. 98 Cat., eis Agr., corr. iis p Valla c f q; ^u observabantur ML47.34 A531.

Figure 4.5 View north of Mt. Vesuvius, 2006, from the terrace of the Villa Arianna, Stabiae (photo: P. Foss).

The first clause pulls back from the dinner party to a broader visual and temporal perspective (interim), a spectacular backdrop of fire across the mountain: side-to-side (latissimae) and up into the sky (alta), interlocked via adjective–noun synchysis.¹¹⁰ The light both comes from the peak (Vesuvio monte) and shines back on it (relucebant). Younger Pliny’s triad of brightness words (flammae, incendia, relucebant) builds to a crescendo of hendiadys: fulgor et claritas (something like “bright-white lightning light”), its brilliance enhanced by the heavy background of night shadows (tenebris noctis). Parallel imperfect verbs punctuate each clause—the fireworks kept going.

Lightning (fulgor) often accompanies explosive eruptions; recent research suggests two mechanisms for generating volcanic lightning, one similar to that in thunderstorms, but much weaker.¹¹¹ Depending on how late the group stayed awake to watch (6.16.14: pervigilaverant suggests all night), it is possible that some of the fiery activity they witnessed, during the gray pumice fall of EU3, was caused by the EU3 pf 1 and 2 PDCs that hit the lower slopes of Vesuvius (e.g., Oplontis and Boscoreale; see Ch. 3, Figures 3.4b, 3.8–3.9) in the early morning hours of 25 August.

Outlined against the raw blaze of the mountain is ille (“he,” “the man,” Elder Pliny). His power comes not from fire, but from words: dictitabat, “he was saying over and over” (γ has the plainer—though still continuous—dictabat, which Valla corrected). Does the repetition indicate that his listeners were skeptical of his explanation and he was trying too hard, or just reflect his intensity?¹¹² The Elder Pliny’s ploy to calm his friends was to tell them that the fires they saw were from villas abandoned in confusion by farmers. It is a tricky passage; Melmoth’s 1746 effort (published only eight years after formal Bourbon excavation of Herculaneum began, and six years after English visitors began visiting the 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.”¹¹³ Hutchinson’s revised translation in the 1915 Loeb gets it right, separating the ignes relictos [esse] from the desertasque villas per solitudinem ardere (parallel indirect discourse). Hutchinson also correctly interprets per solitudinem as a geographical indicator (“in the abandoned district”).¹¹⁴

All modern editions read solitudinem, but Beroaldus’ 1504 edition (04), which used Π (see Ch. 2), changed his 98 reading of solitudinem to sollicitudinem. It seems unlikely he would have done so if that had not been Π’s reading. Perhaps Π used an abbreviation that could be read either way; the two words are often confused (sollicitudinem appears in all families of the tradition). Besides this passage, Pliny uses solitudo five times in his Letters, and sollicitudo 24 times.¹¹⁵ He always uses the latter term with reference to personalized anxiety—mostly his own.¹¹⁶ Four of his five references to solitudo concern the countryside or an abandoned house (two Campanian villas); it seems the correct choice, although the area was not sparsely occupied—140 agricultural estates (villae rusticae) have so far been identified in the Sarno River plain, especially between the lower slopes of Vesuvius and the floodplain (Figures 4.2, 4.4).¹¹⁷ Nevertheless, Younger Pliny perceived country villas as isolated, especially by contrast to crowded Roman streets (Ep. 7.3.3).

Elder Pliny tries to reassure his friends about their own situation: out there, a triplet of desertion words; people panic, flee their hearths, and their villas are burning in a now-abandoned area. Here we remain calm, enjoy our bath, dinner, and conversation, and stay put. The secondary vocabulary emphasis is on fear, words evoking confusion and raw dread, not just anxiety: trepidatio and formido. Against that, Elder Pliny’s ille ... dictitabat forms an insulating verbal embrace. His calm reason acknowledges (without accusing) his companions’ fear by displacing it to the terrified rustics on the other side of the plain, “below” their company both in character and geography. In the face of overwhelming visual evidence, however, Elder’s stubborn confidence and poor reasoning will prove his undoing.

He doesn’t just stay put—he goes to bed. The triad of quieti, quievit, and verissimo … somno is remedy for the terrors of the previous sentence. But Younger Pliny adds an even more effective antidote—laughter. For the proof of the Elder’s peace of mind while in repose is his snoring (meatus animae). His rattling is so substantial that it can be heard outside his room by the slaves stationed to mind him (all they get is an anonymous relative clause: qui limini obversabantur).¹¹⁸ The author provides particular personal information—Pliny the Elder was fat, and pronounced particularly deeply and loudly. His rumbles are audible even above the roars of Vesuvius (audiebatur is the punch line); he is both his own volcano, and someone who can sleep through an actual eruption. This is either a sign that he possesses enormous emotional tranquility, or is hopelessly naïve.¹¹⁹ The cost of delay, with each moment, piles up outside his door.

6.16.14

Sed area ex qua diaeta^a adibatur^b ita iam cinere^c mixtisque^d pumicibus oppleta surrexerat, ut si longior in cubiculo mora [^e], exitus negaretur. Excitatus procedit, seque Pomponiano ceterisque qui^f pervigilaverant^g reddit.

But the courtyard by which his suite was approachable had now so mounted up, full of ash with pumice mixed in, that if delay in his bedroom were more prolonged, 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.

Variants: ^a zeta γ, corr. dieta Valla (dicta c) e f q r, reta p (recta Oxford D’Orville 144); ^b adiebat γ1b, habebatur r BL23777; ^c cinerem γ2c p 76; ^d mixtis γ1b, missisque a; ^e esset Bussi 78 83 92b 92a 04 Cat. a; ^f [ ] γ3b1a; ^g pervigilarant γ (D h γ2c γ3ab).

The previous section (13) ended with two imperfect passive-voice verbs. That sense of things happening beyond one’s control is carried over into another imperfect passive: adibatur, part of a clause that tries to describe accumulating fallout outside Pliny‘s door. 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.”¹²⁰ Sleeping quarters were often located off of such circulatory spaces, and it is a place where ash would easily collect. But the question of Pliny’s accommodations is slightly more complicated.

Perhaps Younger is using synonyms: the Elder’s room is both diaeta (γ has an alternate spelling: zeta) and cubiculum. Or he is distinguishing a transitional space between court (area) and sleeping area (cubiculum), with diaeta referring to the “set” of both rooms. Such an arrangement appears, for example, at the Villa di P. Fannius Synistor at Boscoreale (the famous room M now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, with its little-discussed ante-room O).¹²¹ Sherwin-White agrees that diaeta means a kind of “apartment” or “suite” of two or more rooms.¹²² In that case, the closed-off part is the cubiculum, while the slaves occupy an adjacent space transitional to the courtyard, one vulnerable to drifting ash.

In the Latin, iam…surrexerat, in which area is modified by oppleta—which governs the ablatives for ash and pumice—introduces a result clause (ut … exitus negaretur) that is the apodosis for a present contrary-to-fact conditional clause (si … mora [esset]).¹²³ The condition injects tautness into the narrative present over what might have happened in the past (the reader knows the Elder will perish, but when?).¹²⁴ As the bottom of the hourglass fills, so does the house.

Breaking that tension, Pliny is awakened (perfect passive participle excitatus) and joins the others (the reflexive seque ... reddit). These phrases convey a lessening and distancing of autonomy, as if Elder is sleepwalking, not in active control. Meanwhile, Pomponianus’ household has stayed up all night (the per- in pervigilaverant). As Keeline notes, Younger Pliny uses vigil- to paint a critical contrast. In both men’s previous writings (HN pr.19: vita vigilia est; Ep. 3.5.8: summa vigilantia; see Ch.1), the Elder exemplifies waking watchfulness.¹²⁵ But here at peak eruption, he has not been paying attention—nearly resulting in his death, had slaves not intervened. Elder is losing the power of exemplum and increasingly needs the help of others, who have been monitoring the situation and are deciding whether to stay or flee.

6.16.15

In commune consultant^a, intra^b tecta^c subsistant^d an^e in^e aperto^f vagentur^g. Nam crebris vastisque^h tremoribus tecta nutabantⁱ, et quasi emota^j sedibus^k suis nunc huc^l nunc illuc abire aut referri videbantur.

They deliberate together, whether they should remain under shelter, or wander outdoors. For the buildings 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.

Variants: ^b an intra a, utrum intra Burney 229; ^c [ ] ML47.34 Valla, corr. tecta c f q; ^d ne subsistant Bussi; ^f aperta γ3b1b c q r t BL23777; ^g vagent γ1b; ^h vistisque γ3b4; ⁱ mutabant γ1b r; ^j-k emotas edibus α, mota sedibus γ1, emotam sedibus γ1.

Deliberation begins in the historical present (consultant), a verb that introduces an indirect question (the utrum that often precedes an is omitted here, though the scribe of Burney 229 added it).¹²⁶ The decision whether to stay or go is now collective—Elder Pliny no longer acts as sole director (though Younger Pliny rationalizes that in the next section). The verb vago for moving outdoors suggests serious uncertainty about less-than-optimal options. If they do leave, they’re not sure where to proceed—it simply might be safer than getting crushed inside.

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, such as the built-up area of a city like Misenum—see Ep. 6.20.8). Here it specifically denotes Pomponianus’ villa. It can also refer more abstractly to a concept like “shelter.” Since roofs are protecting the characters from falling debris while at the same time threatening to crash upon their heads due to tremors (the devil’s choice debated below in 6.16.16), it seems that “roofs” should be prominent in the translation. The verb subsisto emphasizes the bunker mentality: huddling underneath (sub-) and indoors (intra tecta).

In 6.16.6, Pliny described Vesuvius as akin to a living thing. Here, the villa is in anthropomorphic death throes—the verb nuto (which means “to nod”) describes the tottering of limbs. The earth is also alive, heaving heavily (vastis) and frequently (crebris). The earth is supposed to be stable; it is the locus of foundations (sedibus) for human buildings. Now those structures seem (videbantur) almost to walk forward and back (abire aut referri), with the imperfect tense indicating repeated motion, and the ablatives indicating “place from which.”¹²⁷ The very structure of the world has become unstable, unstandable, and the vision of its occupants is being shaken (informing videbantur, voice shifted from active to passive). Synchestic, swaying vocabulary (nunc huc nunc illuc) adds queasiness. As the earth wakes with Pliny, it shows little regard for its tiny occupants, who in the next section decide to take their chances under a dark morning sky, at about the same time (ca. 7:00, Figure 3.4b) that Young Pliny and his mother also prepare to venture out (Ch. 5: Ep. 6.20.7).

6.16.16

Sub^a dio^b rursus^c quamquam^d levium exesorumque^e pumicum^f casus^g metuebatur^h, quod tamenⁱ periculorum^j collatio^k elegit^l; et apud illum quidem^m ratio rationem, apud alios timorem timor vicit. Cervicalia capitibus imposita linteis constringuntⁿ; id munimentum adversus incidentia^o fuit.

Under the open sky, on the other hand, the fall of pumice stones—however light and corroded—was concerning, a course that a comparison of dangers chose; and indeed, for him (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.

Variants: ^a [ ] γ1b; ^b [ ] γ1b, die α, deo γ (D h γ1a γ2c), divo Valla c f q r 76 78 t BL23777 83 92b 92a a; ^d quam γ3b3; ^e expressorumque γ1a, excresorumque γ1b, exosorumque γ3b1a; ^h metuebat γ2c γ3ab, metuebant ML47.34 76 Agr., metuebantur Valla, corr. metuebatur θ (f q r° r); ^j malorum γ, molarum γ3b1a, corr. periculorum θ (f) e mg.; ^k collocatio γ, corr. collatio ML47.34 Valla c p, conlatio γ3b1a, collatione e; ^l eligit α r t, legebantur e; ⁿ constringuntur A531 Vatican Ott.lat. 1537 Bussi 92b 92a; ^o incendia c° c f q, decidentia a.

Having described the perils of staying put, Pliny returns (rursus) to the other option: the hazards of open ground (sub dio). Specifically, the company is concerned about pumice stones. Pumice is qualified by its light (levium) nature; the participle exesus literally means “eaten away,” or in this case “hollowed out,” describing its pitted and porous lithic nature. 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).¹²⁸ Pumice was also a fine abrasive: for exfoliating skin and for smoothing and polishing papyrus before writing. Pumice even appears in Latin poetry as a metaphor for “finished writing” (e.g., Catullus 1.2), and as an evocation of stylistic aridity.¹²⁹

West of Stabiae, EU3 gray pumice fall had accumulated perhaps another 10 cm. on top of the ca. 25 cm. of white pumice, but large clasts were dropping at temperatures near 200° C (Ch. 3, Figure 3.4b).¹³⁰ At Pompeii, neither choice was a good one. A 2003 study concluded that 37% of human victims were killed by the falling-debris phase of the eruption—90% of those indoors due to building collapse (Ch. 3; compare Figure 3.7 with Figures 3.11–12).¹³¹ Pyroclastic density currents killed the other 63%—whether people were inside or outside did not matter.

The comparison of dangers (periculorum collatio; γ had malorum, which θ corrected) leads to an impersonally described choice (elegit), in favor of falling pumice instead of collapsing architecture. The object of the choice is quod, acting as a resumptive pronoun that refers generally to the antecedent of the outdoor option (sub dio) rather than the danger itself (casus—whose masculine gender does not match quod).¹³² The pronoun may be taking neuter “by attraction” to periculorum within its own clause; that is, “a comparison of dangers chose the danger (quod) of pumice-fall.”

Younger Pliny strains to paint his uncle in the best light. He claims comparative knowledge of the characters’ deliberative processes: Elder’s mind wrestled with arguments (ratio); the others chose that which scared them least (timor).¹³³ 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 seems blunt and desperate. It is the last time in the letter that the character of Elder Pliny’s actions or motivations is distinguished from those of others.

We are not told who thought to raid the dining-rooms for cushions and fabric (see Ch. 3 for discussion of cloth as protection from tephra). Linteum is a fairly generic word; it just means “linen-cloth,” so it could be “curtains,” “covers,” or “napkins” (the usual translation). Such napkins were large and sturdy enough to pack left-overs from a cena, a “dinner,” and take them home. In this function, they became sportulae, gift-bags.¹³⁴ Pliny uses linteum only one other time in all the Epistulae, and it is two sections later (6.16.18), describing the cloth upon which his uncle lies down to rest.

Figure 4.6 Jacob More, Mount Vesuvius in Eruption, 1780, National Galleries of Scotland. Presented to the RI by Sir John James Steuart of Allanbank, 1829; transferred 1859.Figure 4.7 Pierre Henri de Valenciennes, Eruption du Vésuve arrivée le 24 août de l’an 79 de J.-C. sous le règne de Titus, 1813. Toulouse, Musée des Augustins (photo: Daniel Martin).Figure 4.8 John Martin, restored version of The Destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum, 1822 (photo: © Tate, London 2021). Added at the foot is a selection of numbers from Martin, Descriptive Catalogue, 23–24, below their subjects. “25: Pliny embracing his friend Pomponianus. 26: The Family and Slaves of Pomponianus. 27: The Soldiers in attendance on Pliny. 28: The multitude of people crowding towards the ship for safety. 29: The Roman Fleet brought by Pliny. 30: Roman Centurions protecting their families. 31: The falling ashes which buried Pompeii. 32: The Sea agitated by the earthquake, and retiring.”Figure 4.9 John Martin, The Destruction of Herculaneum and Pompeii, ca. 1822–26. Tabley House Collection, University of Manchester, UK/Bridgeman Images.

The dramatic tableau of Elder Pliny and his companions fleeing from Stabiae with cushions strapped on their heads became a favorite of 18th and 19th-c. paintings (Figures 4.6–4.9). When John Martin showed his The Destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum at the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly in 1822 (see Prologue), he provided a 31-page written guide with historical context, as well as citations and summaries of ancient accounts of Vesuvius and its eruption (not bothering to translate the Latin).¹³⁵ He also melded Pliny’s two letters into a single story that commented on the enormous painting before viewers’ eyes. More impressively didactic, he included a sketch of the painting in a fold-out leaf, with numbered elements corresponding to a list of features and figures (Figure 4.8). Intent on offering hard details from the ongoing excavations as well as the Epistulae, he labeled such things as the mensa ponderaria (no. 11, a table carved with cavities to measure the volume of dry goods in the Pompeian Forum), the terrible find of chained skeletons in a portico near the Large Theater (no. 14), and even the falling ash (no. 31) and tsunami-drawback of the sea (no. 32, Ep. 6.20.9).¹³⁶ In a twist on the Younger’s account, however, he showed Elder Pliny, in a crested helmet (no. 25), embracing and supporting the collapsing figure of Pomponianus, rather than himself being propped up by slaves, as previous painters had done (More, Figure 4.6; Valenciennes, Figure 4.7). Clearly Martin felt compelled to amplify the admiral’s heroic grandeur to match the scale of his canvas.

In a second, smaller version painted a few years later for Sir John Leicester, however, Martin dropped Pliny and Pomponianus entirely, perhaps in contrition for his previous “ahistorical” effort, or because he preferred to insert a cowled figure that recalled the prophetic madmen (lymphati) of Ep. 6.20.19 that Atherstone had featured in a contemporary poem (Figure 4.9).¹³⁷ It was becoming progressively less important to identify Pliny’s character as new archaeological discoveries eclipsed an old narrative. The eruption scene was immediately recognizable without him anyway, as the “Last Day” of Pompeii became a cultural commonplace, and new fictional characters rose in popularity.¹³⁸ The 19th-c. challenge and attraction became to render the chiaroscuro majesty of the erupting volcano and accentuate the romantic tension between natural and human scales, choosing the moment just before mortal surrender to the inevitable.¹³⁹ Accordingly, any academic reference to Elder Pliny’s specific story was simply an entrée for the viewer to place themselves in the position of imminent catastrophe and cathartically to imagine the delicious terror.¹⁴⁰

6.16.17

Iam dies alibi, illic nox omnibus noctibus nigrior densiorque; quam^a tamen^b faces^c multae^d variaque^e lumina solabantur^f. Placuit egredi^g in litus, et ex proximo adspicere, ecquid^h iamⁱ mare admitteret; quod^j adhuc vastum et adversum permanebat.

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 relieving. It pleased (them) to go down to the shore and see close-up whether the sea would now allow anything; but still it continued to be heavy and contrary.

Variants: ^a-b quamquam tamen γ1b, quantam [ ] γ2c γ3a γ3b2-3, quantum ML47.34, quam p, quam tam γ3b1 γ3b4, quamquam Valla c f q r BL23777 Laet. 98 Cat., quam tamen D h γ1a corr. e Bussi t Agr. 78 83; ^c facies γ3b4 q 92a; ^d multa et α, multo γ1a, multae quam p, multaeque γ3b1b, multaque r° r; ^e varia p γ3b1b r, variaeque Laet. 98, ^f solebantur α D γ1b, sequebantur γ1a, solabantur h γ2c Valla c f q r° 76, solebant p γ3b 92a r, solvebant e Bussi 78 83 92b t BL23777 Laet. 98 Cat. a; ^g aggredi γ1b; ^h et quid α D γ1 γ3a, quid γ2c Valla c f q r 76 t BL23777 Laet. 98 Cat., equidem γ3b, et quidem γ3b1a, ecquid h corr. Bussi Agr. 78 83 i 04 a; ⁱ [ ] α; ^j quid γ1b.

It is a new day, ca. 7:30, when an eruptive collapse triggers a PDC (EU3pf tot I, III); Ch. 3; Figures 3.4b, 3.11) that kills almost everyone still at Pompeii. The chiasmus of dies alibi, illic nox does two things. First, it briefly withdraws the reader from the scene, reminding the reader that the present-day Younger-writer is pretending to be past-tense Younger-narrator in Misenum, while the past-tense Elder-actor is across the Bay (illic). Second, it conveys that the disaster was local, not global (though to those involved, it seemed global: Ep. 6.20.15–17). Younger Pliny also 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]). Everywhere else, there is a sun/god, but at Stabiae, deep night clings. It is a darkness more impenetrable than any night known (comparative adjective with ablative of comparison omnibus noctibus). In the first clause, a repetition of dark words emphasizes the blackness: nox … noctibus nigrior densior.¹⁴¹ The main verb erat is unsurprisingly gapped.

The relative pronoun quam carries night (nox) to the other half of the sentence, where there is a manuscript problem. The 9-Book tradition (α [M] and γ [D]) reads solebantur (a passive form of soleo “be accustomed to,” which doesn’t make sense, appears nowhere in Latin literature, and must be corrupt); we don’t know the 10-Book Π reading. Decembrio (e) and Bussi each conjectured solvebant, “was loosening/dissolving,” and Aldus (a) and Mynors accepted this, but that verb is not so used in the context of illumination. Guarino (h) corrected solebantur to the deponent (from solor) solabantur, “were lightening/mitigating,” retained by Valla; this is the strongest option.¹⁴² The adverb tamen is a hinge point; torches (faces) and other lumina such as lamps and lanterns were fighting the darkness. The darkness is being contained and contested; globally by daylight at the start of the sentence, and locally by technology at the end. The impersonal construction (placuit [iis] egredi), and multae and varia stress that many individuals are fleeing with whatever illumination they have to make their way: points of light against the gloom. The Elder is just one of the crowd now.

Lumina survive from the eruption, including one elaborate bronze lantern from Oplontis: “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).¹⁴³ Small holes in the lantern hood would have allowed smoke to exit and provided oxygen to the flame.¹⁴⁴ The moon, however, would not have provided illumination. On the 24th of August at the Bay of Naples, moonrise was at 13:55:44 (at an azimuth of 114 degrees, 18 minutes, 22 seconds [north of southeast]), and moonset at 23:59:57 (at an azimuth of 245 degrees, 12 minutes, 27 seconds [north of southwest]). In other words, the moon would long have disappeared by the time Pliny’s group (and his family at Misenum on the other side of the Bay) left shelter and tried to escape the eruption on the morning of the 25th.¹⁴⁵

The group makes its way to shore, hoping to launch their boat. If Pomponianus’ villa was indeed above the west edge of the port (above, 6.16.12; Ch. 3), it cannot be far. Multilevel villas on the Varano plateau at Stabiae and along the Sorrentine peninsula possessed ramps that could traverse ca. 40 m. or more of elevation and featured terracing with grottoes, fountains, and shrines.¹⁴⁶ But they could not have walked quickly though the shifting and sliding pumice (especially downhill). Stabiae was at the edge of the last major PDC (see below), and he could not know it, but the Elder Pliny was not far from safety.

As noted above, the impersonal placuit egredi takes infinitives (egredi and adspicere), the dative of the persons “pleased” (iis or eis) being omitted. Egredior is often used in contexts of “setting sail” or “disembarking from a ship,” so it is particularly appropriate. The company must get close enough (ex proximo; the adjective is a substantive here) to see if wind and wave permit escape (about the ships: Ep. 6.16.7, 9, 12). Autopsy (adspicere) introduces an indirect question: would at this point (iam) the sea suffer (admitteret) their passage (interrogative pronoun ecquid as direct object: “allow anything at all”)?¹⁴⁷ Earlier (6.16.12), 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 waves continue to be against them (adversum).¹⁴⁸ Permaneo spells doom; it implies conditions that “stay until the end.” Not long after the company reaches shore, just before ca. 8:00, tephra-fall lessens twice (R1-R2, Figures 3.4b–c). Elder Pliny decides to rest; perhaps he thinks the worst is over.

6.16.18

Ibi super abiectum^a linteum^b recubans^c semel^d atque^e iterum frigidam^f aquam^g poposcit hausitque. Deinde flammae flammarumque^h praenuntius odor sulpurisⁱ alios^j in fugam vertunt^k, excitant illum.

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.

Variants: ^a adiectum γ, corr. abiectum Valla c f q; ^c recubasse γ, corr. recubans Valla Naples Ex-Vindobonensis lat. 42 76 Agr. 78 83, recumbens c f q; ^d mei γ, [ ] γ1b, mer-(atque) p, iner-(atque) A531, sedit Valla c f q r 76 BL23777 Laet. 98 Cat., corr. semel Bussi Agr. 78 83; ^g [ ] BL23777 Laet. 98 Cat. Π (04 a); ⁱ sulpuri sed γ, sulfaris se H, sulpuris se γ1b Valla c f r° 76, sulphuris sed r Agr., corr. sulphuris Bussi 78 83 92b 92a t BL23777 Laet. 98 Cat. a; i-j sulphuris alii se q t; ^j et alios γ1, alii Valla c f r 76; ^k vertit γ1.

This section was significantly corrupt in γ, causing many variations that Valla and Bussi eventually corrected, later confirmed by Π and M. With the present active participle recubans and the final two verbs (vertunt, excitant), Pliny puts the reader back in the historical present. Those verbs bracket opposing elements of water and fire, and draw sharp contrast between actions at the start (resting) and the end (sudden movement).

At the ships, Pliny lies back on a sheet of cloth that had been tossed aside. Many translate linteum as sailcloth—reasonable, given the context. The wind has been against them, and the crew would need to row to get offshore. However, the same word has just been used (Ep. 6.16.16), referring to linens large enough to bind cushions to heads; these are at hand and could also 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 under a lightening sky, as eruption fall briefly lessens. Pomponianus’ company apparently pauses with him. Dargent implies that slaves carried Pliny down (Figure 4.10)—distastefully apropos—but it does not make sense to have both litter and linetum. In the background of the etching, Pomponianus’ ship founders along with their hopes.

Figure 4.10 “The Death of Pliny,” 1883 engraving by Y. Dargent, in Rambosson, Histoire des météores, 401, Figure 80. As Vesuvius erupts in the background, a line of fire and smoke occupies the righthand part of the engraving, threatening ruins near a shore. On the beach, a man (Elder Pliny) lies splayed out on a piece of cloth as five men flee past a litter. A heavy sea rolls in the background, capsizing a ship.

Elder Pliny has two slaves with him (6.16.19), whom he asks more than once for cold water; the two adjacent perfect-tense verbs convey urgency. They are also his (indirectly conveyed) last words. As his journey has progressed, Elder Pliny has become more Stoically equanimous—or, less a leader; we have heard nothing from him since his bogus interpretation of the fires on Vesuvius in 6.16.13. Here, illum is isolated at the tail of the line; Elder will be alone on the sail at the end (Figure 4.10).¹⁴⁹

The ommission of aquam is late, first happening in BL23777 (ca. 1483–85), but picked up by important printed editions. Since a, i, and 04 did not reinstate it (perhaps reflecting Π), the gap remained until Döring and Keil (1843, 1853, and 1858 eds) briefly added aquam back, on the basis of α and γ. Keil’s editio maior (1870) removed it again, and it remains absent in the German and French traditions, while English and Italian editors restored it beginning with Stout in 1962.¹⁵⁰

Cold water features prominently in the De Medicina by the encyclopedist Aulus Cornelius Celsus, written in the Julio-Claudian period. It is advisable for digestion, he says (1.2.2, 2.10; 1.8.3–4), but not for exertion (1.3.6–7, 3.23), even though it does bring one’s temperature down (1.3.12, 3.27). Elder himself discusses cold, clean water (HN 31.31–41), including (37): aquam salubrem aeris quam simillimam esse oportet, “healthy water ought be most like air.” Amid the heat and debris, a cold drink must have been welcome, but what is about to kill Pliny is bad air.

The smell of sulfur; the sign and sight of fire. Roiling toward the party on the beach is the deadliest PDC, caused by caldera and total column collapse; it left ca. 80 cm. of debris at Stabiae, near the limit of its power (EU4pf; Ch. 3; Figures 3.4c, 3.12).¹⁵¹ Its approach must have been terrifying; other than Pliny’s personal attendants, the others flee. A chiasmus (alios ... vertunt, excitant illum) shows the physical separation between Pliny and his companions as he gets left behind. The PDC affected the entire Bay; so far, at least 111 victims have been recovered from Stabiae and its vicinity, though the current’s depositional depth tapered off quickly up the slopes to the south.¹⁵² Weary though he was, this fiery avalanche is enough to impel Elder Pliny one last time.

6.16.19

[^a]Innitens^b servolis^c duobus adsurrexit et statim concidit, ut ego colligo^d, crassiore caligine spiritu obstructo^e, clausoque stomacho qui illi^f natura invalidus et angustus et frequenter aestuans^g erat.

Leaning upon two young 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.

Variants: ^a qui BL23777 Laet. 98 Cat.; ^b innixus γ; ^c servis γ; ^d coniecto γ; ^e obstructu Oxford Auct.F.2.22 k ML47.34, obstructo corr. Valla; ^g interaestuans γ Π (i a), intus aestuans γ2c γ3b1b Valla f q r 76 t BL23777 Laet. 98 Cat., aestuans α (M U).

Three words (innixus, servis, coniecto) have a clean γ transmission, and because Aldus (a) drew both upon γ and Π, it is not possible to know what the 10-book readings were (i and 04 offer no help). In the first case (innitens/innixus), it is a minor difference between present and perfect active tense of the deponent verb innitor.¹⁵³ The diminutive servolis is used by Pliny just thrice elsewhere (more commonly he uses the regular form); there is no certainty either way.¹⁵⁴ Both colligo and coniecto can mean “infer” or “conclude,” but the former has a greater sense of making a judgment based on organized physical evidence, as Pliny uses twice in Ep. 1.1 to describe his process of sorting letters for publication (Ch. 2). Colligo is preferable here; Young Pliny was not a direct witness to his uncle’s death, and must have relied upon interviews; here we have a glimpse into his research process.

The PDC heading toward the beach at Stabiae had prompted everyone else to run for their lives (Figure 4.10). But two slaves stayed to prop up Pliny (Figures 4.6–4.8). Whether that effort was too much in an atmosphere thickening with dust and noxious fumes, or because the rolling cloud hit them, is unknown. No further mention is made of the slaves and whether they survived. Pliny did not consider them much other than human props, but slaves must have been a significant source of information for the Younger’s enquiries (ut ego colligo).¹⁵⁵ It is possible that the PDC had dimmed to the point that it was not immediately deadly for robust persons.¹⁵⁶

How might the PDC have affected someone caught in its blast? One can survive 200–250° C air (probably higher than the conditions at Stabiae) for 2–5 minutes if the air is dry, clean, and still. Dust and fumes are more problematic, however; 100-micron and smaller particles go directly into the lungs; flying dust and fumes reduce pulmonary oxygen concentration and severely restrict respiration, and these factors reduce the tolerable temperature to below 100° C.¹⁵⁷ Above 43° C, significant exposure can blister the skin; if what Pliny says (Ep. 6.16.20) is accurate—that the Elder’s body was found whole and uninjured, then suffocation probably killed him (cardiac arrest is another favored diagnosis).¹⁵⁸

Support for asphyxiation comes from recent PDC modeling, suggesting that at Pompeii, the duration of the PDC’s passage at ca. 115°C lasted about 17 minutes; such a PDC certainly killed anyone still alive there (Ch. 3).¹⁵⁹ At Stabiae, 6 km. S, the PDC would have been cooler, briefer, and more dilute; survivors are to be expected. Yet Pliny specifically mentions the density of the cloud (crassiore caligine) as the reason his breath was obstructed (starting a string of six ablatives with an instrumental ablative followed by two ablative absolutes).¹⁶⁰

The word stomachus 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 here, since the gullet has nothing to do with breathing—the windpipe (trachea) does, though both share a passage above the epiglottis. Nevertheless, stomacho serves as antecedent to the relative clause begun by qui, which explains that Pliny had a “pre-existing condition,” which one might suspect from his earlier characterization as a heavy snorer. That condition may have included asthma.¹⁶¹ Specifically, his windpipe was weak, narrow, and often irritated (tracheal stenosis).

The α family (and standard reading) uses the participle aestuans, “burning,” “seething,” “agitated,” but both γ and Π read interaestuans, an unique word whose prefix suggests a condition that occurs at intervals.¹⁶² If periodicity (inter-) is redundant or too awkward with frequenter, then aestuans is preferable, but interaestuans has better textual support. Either way, it is no mystery under the circumstances that Pliny starved of oxygen, while attempting to lift his ample frame and follow his friends as the surge hit. That he was not carried away by friends or slaves can be explained by their imminent need for self-preservation.

Scholarly focus on medical diagnosis in this passage misses the philosophical quality of the Younger’s description. Elder Pliny (like his sister and nephew in Ep. 6.20.14–17) was mortal, just like everyone taking flight, physically more vulnerable compared to many of them, and feeble compared to the destructive force of Vesuvius. Still, he pushes as far as his physical frame allows and simply asks for water at the end; we do not hear him wail and despair (compare Ep. 6.20.14–15, 17, 19); there are no grand final words. He dies seemingly without complaint, in an ordinary way (next section: quiescenti ... similior), with the most “ordinary” people, true to his origin, his routine, and his character. Just one flourish, perhaps: he stands at the end, dying like the emperor Vespasian.¹⁶³ It was the death of a remarkable man—but beyond the circumstances, not such a remarkable death.¹⁶⁴

6.16.20

Ubi dies redditus (is^a ab eo quem novissime viderat^b tertius^c), corpus inventum^d integrum^e inlaesum opertumque ut^f fuerat indutus^g: habitus^h corporis quiescenti quamⁱ defuncto^j similior.

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.

Variants: ^c tertium γ2c γ3b c, corr. tertius Valla; ^d inventum est a; ^g inductus γ1a, indutum f 76; h-j [ ] γ3b4; ^i-j (similior) quam defuncto Bussi.

Since Romans counted calendrical dates inclusively, the third day was 26 August; survivors found Elder the day after he perished. He was 55 years old (Ch. 1). Four copulae (linking verbs) are gapped: est after redditus, erat after tertius, est after inventum, and est after similior.¹⁶⁵ Dies agrees with tertius and is the referent for both is and eo, the antecedent for the relative clause quem ... viderat. The result of this serial ellipsis is a stately, ponderous parade of in- participles and adjectives following and agreeing with corpus—a gloomy funerary procession, and the last we hear of uncle Pliny.¹⁶⁶ That the Elder’s body was clothed as he had dressed—whole and uninjured—suggests that he was at the edge of the PDC, and/or the Younger was deliberately countering claims that the Elder was killed by one of his slaves; the attending slaves themselves, wary of being blamed and probably the sources for this account, may well have insisted so.¹⁶⁷

As quoted fully in Ch. 1, a surviving fragment of a work attributed to Suetonius, the Vita Plinii Secundii, part of the “Lives of Famous Men” (De viris illustribus, mostly writers), gives two versions of the Elder’s death. The first conforms with Younger Pliny: vi pulveris ac favillae oppressus est, “he was smothered by the force of dust and cinders.” The second is qualified by: vel ut quidem existimant, “or, as some people suppose,” reporting popular gossip, that: servo suo occisus, quem deficiens aestu ut necem sibi maturaret oraverat, “(he) was killed by his slave, whom he (Pliny), failing from the billowing heat, had begged to hasten his death.”

Suetonius is not claiming that the suicide story was the true one; he simply offers it as an alternative. Suicide was hardly a dishonorable form of death in ancient Rome anyway.¹⁶⁸ Yet 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 is insisting that his uncle’s body was thus “untouched,” in response to a generally circulating suicide story about his uncle, so that his addressee, Tacitus, would verius tradere (6.16.1), “convey it more accurately,” i.e., “write it how Pliny wanted.”¹⁶⁹

A statement follows that the habitus (posture, position, attitude) of the body was more like a sleeper than a dead man.¹⁷⁰ This resonated with visitors to Pompeii after Fiorelli perfected the method of pouring plaster into cavities to recreate the lost organic forms of the city (Ch. 3). While we now know that the posture of the bodies at Pompeii resulted from their being almost instantaneously overheated,¹⁷¹ the impression of ancients sleeping as if petrified, despite being disinterred from their catastrophic tomb, has proved emotionally powerful to subsequent authors and artists: “they are shadows that have been made solid, holes that have been filled.”¹⁷²

6.16.21

Interim Miseni ego et mater—sed nihil ad historiam, nec tu aliud quam^a de^b exitu^c eius^d scire voluisti. Finem ergo^e faciam.

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.

Variants: ^b [ ] γ3b4; ^c exitum γ3b4; ^c-d eius exitu γ3b3b; ^e ego γ3b1a Burney 229.

Like iam in section 17, interim displaces the reader temporally and geographically, and promises more to a hungry reader. But sed nihil ad historiam—a casual, dismissive aphorism that does the opposite of what it says—disrupts that displacement immediately after introducing the main characters of Ep. 6.20. Such interruption and reset (aposiopesis, then revocatio) is a powerful paired rhetorical strategy.¹⁷³ It piques curiosity (for Tacitus and us), prompting a second request, and giving Pliny another chance to chronicle his adventures—both as / as not a historian (Pliny enjoys the greater flexibility and freedom of epistolography).¹⁷⁴

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 fake modesty, by which Pliny himself pretends to step back from history-writing, he is certainly interested in facilitating it. He wants to state, for the record, the cause of his uncle’s death (6.16.19–20, above). He also wants readers to enjoy the telling. So Pliny claims to close (finem ... faciam). That, too, turns out to be a false ending, a “masterpiece of hypocrisy.”¹⁷⁵ There’s just one more thing.

6.16.22

Unum adiciam, omnia me^a quibus interfueram^b quaeque statim, cum maxime vera memorantur, audieram^c, persecutum^d. Tu^e potissima^f excerpes; aliud^g est enim epistulam aliud historiam^h, aliud amico aliud omnibus scribere. Vale.

One thing I shall add: that I have traced/recorded 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.

Variants: ^a e γ, et γ1, [ ] γ3b1b Valla c, ea Bussi Agr. 78 83 92b 92a, corr. me θ (f q r 76 t BL23777 Laet. 98 Cat. a); ^b interfuerat γ3a γ3b1a γ3b2 γ3b4 Bussi Agr.; ^c audierat vera γ, audieram vera Valla c r 76, audiveram 78 83 92b 92a a, corr. audieram θ (q t BL23777 Laet. 98 Cat.); ^e tum A531, ^f potissimum γ, corr. potissima Valla.

After adiciam, indirect discourse engages, 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 afterward (quaeque statim ... audieram), when its sources were likely to be reliable (cum maxime vera memorantur).

Pliny’s language clearly alludes to a declaration by the fifth-c. BC Athenian historian, Thucydides (1.22.2): ... οἷς τε αὐτὸς παρῆν καὶ παρὰ τῶν ἄλλων ὅσον δυνατὸν ἀκριβείᾳ περὶ ἑκάστου ἐπεξελθών, “[I deemed it worthy to write ... the facts] ... by investigating both events at which I was present and events reported to me by others, with as much accuracy as possible.”¹⁷⁶ Such statements anticipate questions about a writer’s research and writing process: to what extent did they misremember, fabricate, or embellish their account?¹⁷⁷ For Pliny’s part, the key word is persequor, which he uses two different ways in the Epistulae: to “pursue, track down, follow up on,” and to “record, write, edit, comment on.”¹⁷⁸ Here Pliny seems to fold together both definitions, so persecutum [esse] denotes both the process of investigation (personal experience, observation, interviews, note-taking, and note-organization), and its product (the collected notes, the original letter to Tacitus, the revised letter for publication). It then becomes difficult to argue, for instance, that Younger Pliny did not recall the date of the eruption if such details were included in event-contemporary archival materials to consult decades later.

Nikitas’ structural analysis of the two letters showed that they consist, in their main narratives, of two kinds of alternating description in roughly equal parts: physical phenomena related to the eruption (φ), and human responses to those phenomena (α).¹⁷⁹ This suggested to him that Pliny’s source was a chronicle compiled shortly after the eruption, which he then spliced into the two letters. In effect, Younger’s work (at the time and also later) echoes the Elder’s (6.16.10), when uncle notes and dictates what he sees as he sails toward the eruption, or as described in Ep. 3.5.10–17 (Ch. 1), or by the Younger himself (Ch. 5: Ep. 6.20.5).¹⁸⁰ The heir presents himself as having the critical eye and methodological discipline of his adopted father, and worthy (despite Ep. 6.20.20) of playing the historian, because the definition of ἱστορία includes both the practice and product of inquiry. Furthermore, he saw for himself.¹⁸¹

Even if Pliny had not retained notes (however unlikely), it is highly likely that he remembered plenty of detail. The “reminiscence bump” is a well-documented cognitive phenomenon, namely that older adults tend to retain and recall more, and more vivid, events from their adolescence and twenties than from other times of their lives. This becomes even more probable when it comes to so-called “flashbulb” events: unique, intensely personal, public (affecting broad populations), and possibly traumatic experiences.¹⁸² The same effect has been shown to appear in a study of autobiographies, in which events from ages 18–32 take up a statistically significant nearly half of all reported life events.¹⁸³ At a time when his social role and personal identity were already being shaped circumstantially by his uncle and mother, the particulars of Vesuvius’ eruption cannot have faded far.

Finally, can we really believe that no one had asked him to tell the tale, as perhaps the most famous survivor, in all those intervening years?¹⁸⁴ Pliny must have had plenty of practice, from soon after the event to decades later, at relating the story. Perhaps this is when some of the literary references and rhetorical flourishes began working their way in. The changes in pace and phrasing, the sounds of the words, the poetic patterning, all speak to generating dramatic suspense in oral recitation. Tacitus’ formal request simply gave Pliny the opportunity to compose a literary-historical version in letters, and then revise them as Ep. 6.16, 20 for definitive publication.

After assuring Tacitus (and all other eventual readers) of the care he has taken with the sources for his account, he passes off responsibility for the information to his correspondent: tu potissima excerpes, “you, Tacitus, will pick out the most important parts.”¹⁸⁵ Tacitus asked; Younger Pliny has chosen to answer in a form that Pliny prefers (epistolography), using a method that dovetails with Tacitus’ project (history), but which is also flavored with ideas, topics, allusions, and styles from philosophy, rhetoric, and epic. Pliny is enjoying himself—not least when he expresses the conceit of modesty to counter accusations of familial hagiography or autobiographical self-congratulation.¹⁸⁶

The key verb excerpere exemplifies the Elder’s work process and describes how the Younger gathered sources (including his uncle’s). The phrase also appears to absolve Pliny of the responsibility of editing, but of course his letters were carefully edited both at composition and before publication, e.g., the double synchesis (aliud … epistulam aliud…historiam, aliud amico aliud omnibus) of his highly polished final sentence, capped by a word precious to 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” (only the literate matter, apparently), but when such a letter is written to a historian (who is also a friend and colleague), and moreover is prepped for general consumption, we shrug our shoulders, share a knowing grin, and look forward to the sequel.¹⁸⁷

So ends a letter exuding sobriety, swathed in charming variety—artful episto-historical sparring with an expert historian.¹⁸⁸ As Pliny suspected and hoped, it did not satisfy Tacitus’ curiosity, because a follow-on was duly requested, letter 6.20, which tells the story of how, on the opposite side of the Bay of Naples from where the Elder fell, the Younger and his mother faced, and fled, Vesuvius’ fury.

Notes

· 1 Standardized text slightly revised from Mynors, Epistularum, 173–77, 179–82, as described in Ch. 2. This Oxford Classical Text is also the source of all other Latin quotes from Pliny’s letters. Spreadsheets of collated readings are in Online Resources. The Neapolitan edition (76) first included letter numbers in a printed text.

· 2 The variants serve for a traditional apparatus criticus (see Preface, Ch. 2).

· 3 Gibson, Book 6 will shortly offer thorough treatment and proper context for the Vesuvian letters within the sixth book. I cite it prudently and necessarily vaguely. Many thanks to R. Gibson for sharing a draft. Textual commentary began with Catanaeus’ 1506 ed. (Cat.); see Ch. 2. Other key editions and commentaries consulted: Zehnacker and Méthy, eds., Pline le Jeune, 203–6, 210–12; Trisoglio, ed., Opere, 126–27, 620–43; Sherwin-White, Letters of Pliny, 371–75, 378–80; Gigante, Il Fungo; Schönberger, “Vesuv-Briefe,” esp. 543–48; Shelton, Selected Letters, 84–119; Duff, Liber Sextus; Gierig, Plinii, 42–55, 62–70. N.F. Jones, “Vesuvius Letters,” analyzes both letters as a coherent set.

· 4 Pliny names himself simply: praenomen (Caius) and nomen (Plinius); his full name at the time of writing was Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus (Ch. 1).

· 5 Bodel, “Publication,” 23–24; Luschnig, Latin Letters, 6; Sherwin-White, Letters of Pliny, 100, for addresses to Tacitus. See Negel, “Adressaten,” for a study of how Pliny manages his social-literary community (readers, writers, and characters) through his addresses.

· 6 Bodel, “Publication,” 23–35 believes that Pliny, not a later editor, indexed the letters. For more on indices, addresses, and addressees, see Gibson, “Starting with the Index,” who describes how indices allowed readers to fashion epistolary anthologies by reading in their own preferred order. Also Gibson and Morrello, Reading the Letters, 45–47, 137–39, 161–68 (letters to Tacitus), 274–92 (appendix listing all addresses). The oldest surviving manuscript of Pliny (Π), six leaves of a late 5th-century AD manuscript now in the Pierpont Morgan library in New York, contains an index with double names (that is, nomen and cognomen): Lowe and Rand, Sixth-Century Fragment, 24–25, Plates II–III; see also Ch. 2.

· 7 Beck, “Petis ut,” 8–17; Hajduk, “Narration,” 58, n.12. On petis rather than iubes: Gibson, Book 6. See Halla-aho, “Requesting,” comparing rogo vs. peto vs. velim requests in Cicero and Pliny’s letters; also Coleman, “Bureaucratic, 199–206 (adding quaeso).

· 8 Ash’s metaphor (“Pliny the Historian,” 211–12; also 224–25); Ch. 2, Ep. 1.1.

· 9 Wescott, ed., Selected Letters, 218, n.2; Gibson, Book 6. Ludolph, Epistolographie, 72 and Berry, “Advocate,” 3–4 see a complimentary allusion to Tacitus’ Agricola (1.1).

· 10 Among others: Galtier, “Tacite et Plinie,” 159; Barrett, “Pliny, Ep. 6.20 Again,” 39.

· 11 Schönberger, “Vesuv-Briefe,” 533; Marchesi, Art of Pliny’s Letters, 171–89; Edwards, “Pliny’s Tacitus,” 71–72; Beck, “Petis ut,” 14, n.33; Berry, “Advocate,” 4–5; Ash, “Pliny the Historian,” 222–24; Sallmann, “Quo verius,” 215–18; Gigante, Il fungo, 24–28; Cova, “Problemi,” 616; Lefèvre, Römertum zum Ästhetizismus, 127; Lefèvre, “Vesuv-Briefe,” 194–96; Galtier, “Tacite et Plinie,” 162–63; Gibson, High Empire, 61; Gibson, Book 6; Lloris, “La muerte,” 129 (pulchra mors).

· 12 Marincola, Authority and Tradition, 57–62; also Ludolph, Epistolographie, 72–73.

· 13 See Keeline, “Model,” 173–75 for Pliny’s self-centrality, and a review of recent research on Pliny’s motives and veracity, from fairly straightforward readings (e.g., Bromberg, Berry, Beck, Lefèvre, N.F. Jones, Sallman, Gigante, Zehnacker; now add Carro) to more skeptical treatments (e.g. Eco, Copony, Cova, Henderson, Gibson and Morello, Riemer, Keeline). Cova, “Problemi,” 616–17, on analytic strategies.

· 14 Sallmann, “Quo verius”; Bütler, geistige Welt, 80; Schönberger, “Vesuv-Briefe,” 538, 543 (a questionable claim that verus is inherently absolute and not subject to increase). Cova, “Lettura retorica,” 58 (“literariness does not mean falsehood”); Sauer, “Der Ausbruch”; picked up by Ripoll, “l’héroisme,” note that a two-fold concern for truth and moral exemplarity was normal, not contradictory, in Latin historiography. Likewise Zehnacker, “Esthétique,” 442, 445–47. As a Stoic sage with references to Seneca: Copony, “Fortes,” 215–17 (originally Lillge, “Literarische Form.”). Also Cova, “Problemi,” 614–15.

· 15 Bromberg, “Telemacheia,” 52, 65–69, applied not just to biological, but to adoptive and even role-model parentage, with special attention to an “Odyssean framework.” Also, Bernstein, “Father”; N.F. Jones, “Vesuvius Letters.”

· 16 Keeline, “Model,” for Pliny’s critique of his uncle. Bromberg, “Telemacheia,” 60; N.F. Jones, “Vesuvius Letters,” 32; Lefèvre, Römertum zum Ästhetizismus, 123–41 and “Vesuv-Briefe,” et al. assert the standard reading of Ep. 6.16 showing the Elder’s curiosity and heroism, compared to the Younger’s modesty, anxiety, and self-doubt in Ep. 6.20; in other words, the uncle “sets the behavioral standard.”

· 17 Radicke, “Selbstdarstellung,” 465. For Pliny as historian (esp. re: Tacitus), e.g., Edwards, “Pliny’s Tacitus”; Haynes, “Tyranny”; Woodman, “Writing History,” for whom Pliny was more interested in writing contemporary/recent history than ancient history (so the eruption is a perfect experiment); Whitton, “Tread Our Path”; Whitton, “Quintilian, Pliny”; Gibson and Morello, Reading the Letters, 161–68; Newlands, “Eruption”; Tzounakas, “Neque enim”; Marchesi, Art of Pliny’s Letters, 171–89; Griffin, “Pliny and Tacitus”; Ash, “Pliny the Historian”; Augoustakis, “Nequaquam historia digna”; Galtier, “Tacite et Plinie”; Sallmann, “Quo verius”; Traub, “Pliny’s Treatment”; Schönberger, “Vesuv-Briefe,” 531–34. Berry, “Advocate,” treats the letters as lawyerly exchanges. Riemer, “Der Tod”; “Ein Beispeil,” 39–40 has Younger Pliny “utterly committed to the principles of an apologist” with regard to the Elder.

· 18 Per Eco, “Portrait,” 123. Eco first deconstructed Pliny’s literary game, and his argument deserves reading in entirety (repeatedly). With few exceptions, I will not attempt to cite its disassembled components here.

· 19 Zehnacker, “Esthétique,” 442–45: Pliny heeded his instructor Quintilian’s advice, based on Ciceronian qualities. On style and influences, see also Schönberger, “Vesuv-Briefe,” 531–34, 541–43; Aubrion, “Correspondance,” 352–63.

· 20 Schönberger, “Vesuv-Briefe,” 542.

· 21 Henderson, Pliny’s Statue, xi, 195, n.5.

· 22 Maritz, “Technicolour”; Bromberg, “Telemacheia,” 50; Schönberger, “Vesuv-Briefe,” 541–43: Pliny adapts style to situation. In the passages describing the eruption, Pliny engages in ἔκφρασις τόπων: Chinn, “Before Your Very Eyes,” 267, n. 9.

· 23 Cova, “Lettura retorica,” 60–61 examines two remembrance motifs introduced by each quamvis: the first circumstantial (corresponding to facere scribenda in 6.16.3); the second is the Elder’s achievement (= scribere legenda). Also Cova, “Contro Plinio il Vecchio,” 58; Gibson, Book 6.

· 24 Schönberger, “Vesuv-Briefe,” 542: paradox is part of pathos. Church and Brodribb, Select Letters, 170, characterizes this expression as murky; I have split the future active participle into “it will be” and “live” in order to maintain a sensible English flow.

· 25 Keeline, “Model,” 186: aeternitas is qualitatively superior to perpetuitas, and the Elder preferred quantity to quality (176–78), which Younger Pliny may subtly criticize with plurima opera (cf. tot volumina, Ep. 3.5.7). See also Ep. 5.8 (Ch. 1), where Pliny says that history first of all gives worthy subjects immortality, but also extends the reputations of historians (Woodman, “Writing History”).

· 26 Shelton, Selected Letters, 86.

· 27 Shelton, Selected Letters, 86; Gibson, Book 6 notes clade uniquely here in the Epistulae.

· 28 Edwards, “Pliny’s Tacitus,” 69, 77; Traub, “Pliny’s Treatment,” 230–32.

· 29 Duff, Liber Sextus, 57: “for my part.”

· 30 This passage is frequently marked by a manicle in manuscripts and excerpted in florilegia (Ch. 2: Vaticanus latinus 5114 [Flor ]), and rarely ignored by modern critics (e.g., Gibson, Book 6; Edwards, “Pliny’s Tacitus”; Keeline, “Model”; Beck, “Petis ut”; Marchesi, Art of Pliny’s Letters, 151–53). Among many later citations: the 4th Earl of Chesterfield (ca. 1740), in the collected letters to his bastard son: Stanhope, Letters Written, no. 37.

· 31 Lefèvre, Römertum zum Ästhetizismus, 127; N.F. Jones, “Vesuvius Letters,” 35; Ash, “Pliny the Historian,” 220. For Bromberg, “Telemacheia,” 57–58, an Iliadic definition of the hero (9.443): “to be a speaker of words and a doer of deeds.” Uterque means each of two things, considered separately, so as a neuter singular here (to parallel the collective of the previous infinitive-gerund clauses) it would take an impersonal singular verb [datum est]; in English the verb is plural, so: “both.” Duff, Liber Sextus, 58; Shelton, Selected Letters, 87.

· 32 Galtier, “Tacite et Plinie,” 161; Gibson, Book 6.

· 33 Ludolph, Epistolographie, 75–76; Shelton, Selected Letters, 87.

· 34 Eco, “Portrait,” 124–25: the story says something, but the discourse says something else / more.

· 35 Eco, “Portrait,” 135.

· 36 Eco, “Portrait,” 128–29. Whitton, “Tread Our Path,” 364: “As Sallust presents it, nature’s choice is between making history and writing history. Tacitus took the latter route; Pliny a more complex mixture of the two, offering to posterity a virtual history of his own life in letters.” Also, Tzounakas, “Neque enim”; Leach, “Self-Presentation,” 17–18. Traub, “Pliny’s Treatment,” 222: “Pliny as a wishful historian was disposed to use the epistle as a means of presently sublimating his urge to write a history.”

· 37 Eco, “Portrait,” 124.

· 38 Carro, Quadriremi, 35–48.

· 39 Healy, Science and Technology, 22–23; Sherwin-White, Letters of Pliny, 371; Syme, “Pliny the Procurator,” 227, Münzer, “Die Quelle,” 111.

· 40 Sherwin-White, Letters of Pliny, 371; see Carro, Quadriremi, for the duties of the position. Gigante, Il fungo, 29 sees a Vergilian allusion (Aeneid 6.851: tu regere imperio ...), but Marchesi, Art of Pliny’s Letters, 175, is skeptical; also, Bromberg, “Telemacheia,” 60–61.

· 41 Moore, Histories, Loeb vol. 111, 424–35.

· 42 Morgan, “‘Battle’ of Terracina,” 124–26, Morgan, 69 A.D., 231–34, and Fields, AD 69, 56–58. Before Claudius Julianus defected, the acting fleet commander, Claudius Apollinaris (Tacitus, Hist. 3.57), and his predecessor, Lucilius Bassus, had also switched sides (Tacitus, Hist. 2.100).

· 43 Illias-Zarifopol, “Pragmatic Hero,” 153–54. Elevating the effect, Pliny uses the historical infinitive in Ep. 6.20 (Ch. 5): Augoustakis, “Nequaquam historia digna,” 268–69.

· 44 Müller, ed., Epistularum, 148; Shelton, Selected Letters, 89; Gigante, Il Fungo, 51.

· 45 Lefèvre, Römertum zum Ästhetizismus, 127–28, citing Lillge, “Literarische Form,” 221, 252–72; also Gibson, High Empire, 56; extensive citations in Gibson, Book 6.

· 46 Gibson and Morello, Reading the Letters, 104–35.

· 47 Foss, “Kitchens and Dining Rooms,” 27–32.

· 48 Gonzalès, Pline le Jeune, 313–19, catalogs certain and likely appearances of slaves in the two letters.

· 49 N.F. Jones, “Vesuvius Letters,” 36.

· 50 A curiosity of de Matociis’ Brevis adnotatio de duobus Pliniis (1313–1320; Chs 1–2) is his erroneous citation of Suetonius’ De viris illustribus that Elder Pliny died in Sicily in an eruption of Mt. Aetna (Merrill, “Eight-Book Tradition,” 181, 187; Reeve, “Vita Plinii”).

· 51 spectato monte Vesuvio; Beagon, “Curious Eye,” 79.

· 52 Moser, Nelle, and Di Pasquale, “Timber”; Jashemski, Meyer, and Ricciardi, “Plants,” 143–44.

· 53 On this language of likeness: Gigante, Il Fungo, 64–65; Gibson, Book 6.

· 54 Cioni et al., “Explosive Activity.”

· 55 See Eco, “Portrait,” re: coexistent temporal narrative frames.

· 56 Gibson, Book 6.

· 57 Shelton, Selected Letters, 91.

· 58 Gibson, High Empire, 57–58, 72–75; Gibson, Book 6. Gibson, “Elder and Better,” demonstrates the Younger’s familiarity with, and use of, the Natural History.

· 59 Lloris, “La muerte,” 128–29, suggests that younger Pliny felt guilty for not going with the Elder; for Lefèvre, Römertum zum Ästhetizismus, 136, the Elder was protecting the boy from danger (N.F. Jones, “Vesuvius Letters,” 37, 40, also floats this idea, because of ipse) and not to abandon Plinia (a rather patronizing view). Lyttleton and Montagu, Dialogues, 50–56 (VII: “Pliny the Elder—Pliny the Younger”) imagines the Plinys conversing in the Underworld, a moralizing and humorous conversation in which the Elder chastises the Younger for “vanity” rather than “true magnanimity,” and for losing “the substance of glory by seeking the shadow” (54).

· 60 Gibson, High Empire, 73. Compare Keeline, “Model,” Gibson and Morello, Reading the Letters, 104–35; Henderson, “Knowing Someone.” In Ep. 1.6, Pliny “hunts” boar while studying.

· 61 Per Marchesi, Art of Pliny’s Letters, 174: Pliny turns from auctor to actor.

· 62 Carro, Quadriremi, 65; Pitassi, Roman Warships, 106–11; Bennett, “Becoming a Roman,” 217.

· 63 See, e.g., Beck, “Petis ut,” 9–10, n. 21.

· 64 Copony, “Fortes,” 218–23, et al., some arguments of which are less persuasive now that our understanding of the eruption sequence and dynamics has greatly improved, though her closing words: “philosophic-philanthropic overpainting (228)” ring true. See also Winkler, “Vesuvausbruch,” 382. Suspicious of systemic confabulation: Keeline, “Model,” 189; Gibson, High Empire, 59; Lloris, “La muerte,” 124, 130 (except for the explanation of Elder’s death).

· 65 Carro, Quadriremi, 40, 66, favors a form of visual communication, though (n. 358) his attempt to wrangle the reading of 16.8b-c rectina classiarii that Bussi conjured is misguided. Woolliscroft, Signalling, assesses methods of remote communication.

· 66 Carro, Quadriremi, 67.

· 67 Scandone, Giacolmelli, and Rosi, “Death,” 12–16 (earthquake magnitude); Olshausen, “Mit der Katastrophen leben,” 454–55; Meier, “Eine fast verschlafene Katastrophe,” 26, Gibson, High Empire, 59, among others.

· 68 Sigurdsson and Carey, “Eruption,” (2002) 44–47; Sigurdsson, “Eruption (1985),” 344, 375.

· 69 Bevan, “Travel,” 6, estimates 10–30 km./hr. for a riding horse; Arcenas, “ORBIS,” 250 km/day for continuous horse relays.

· 70 The Ciceronian technique of “resolved double-cretic clausula” (Berry, “Advocate,” 10). Cova, “Contro Plinio il Vecchio,” 57–58 on upgrading from scientific to philanthropic intent.

· 71 N.F. Jones, “Vesuvius Letters,” 38–39; Quasi-contra Méthy, Les lettres, 421, for whom any reference to science or studia ends up disappearing behind an emphasis on moral values.

· 72 Lefèvre, Römertum zum Ästhetizismus, 131; see also below, Ep. 6.16.12; 6.20.5.

· 73 See Mattusch, Pompeii and the Roman Villa; Pappalardo, Roman Villas.

· 74 Carro’s figure (Quadriremi, 36, 68–69); see also Cova, “Rilettura,” 93–96; Cova, “Problemi,” 611–12. Guadagno, “Il viaggio,” 63, 65, 68–69, accepts Suetonius’ account of a single Liburnian (Ch. 1), doubting a multi-ship rescue expedition.

· 75 Pitassi, Roman Warships, 100–6; Casson, Ships and Seamanship, 141–45. Carro, Quadriremi, 69–70, 72 assumes sails.

· 76 Nelson, Warfleets, 65, 116.

· 77 Carro, Quadriremi, 69, 72. The maximum speed of a modern reconstructed trireme, sustainable for about a minute, was 8.3 knots in a sprint via sea-trials with the Olympias (170 oars): Rankov, Trireme Olympias, 35–36; Rankov, “On the Speed”; Morrison et al., Athenian Trireme, 261–65; a quadrireme would have had comparable numbers.

· 78 Intransitive use of ascendere: Ep. 5.6.14 (twice), 8.20.9; Panegyricus 58.3. Though other Roman authors often use ascendere with in + the accusative, Pliny never uses that preposition (e.g. Ep. 6.16.5; in 8.17.5 he uses ad +). Thanks to Duff, Liber Sextus, 60, whose puzzlement sparked this argument.

· 79 Carro, Quadriremi, 71–83, sensibly, but with some imaginative elaboration.

· 80 The soldier (no. 26) was found in the 1980s, but only recently has (yet unpublished) analysis of his gear been completed (Lavanga, “2000-year-old Skeleton”). Carro anticipated this interpretation: Quadriremi, 79–80; for skeletal analysis: Capasso, Fuggiaschi 249–58; Lazer, Resurrecting Pompeii, 28–32, 62–65; gear: Ortisi, “Roman Military,” 351; Ortisi, “Römisches,” 199, 202; plan and photos of body and boat on beach: Capasso et al., “Die Flüchtlinge,” 46, Abb. 2; Carro, Quadriremi, xi, Figures 1–2.

· 81 Matrone, Précis; De Carolis and Patricelli, Vesuvius, 2–9, 16, 20; Avvisati, Plinio; Sogliano, Notizie degli Scavi 1901, 430; van der Graaff, “Row Houses,” 126–27 with additional bibliography (n. 28); Dunn, Shadow, 131–32. For the topographical and archaeological context of Pompeii’s two ports (maritime and riverine): Scarano Ussani, Moregine.

· 82 Pappalardo, in Carro, Quadriremi, vii–xi; Lidz, “Here Lies.” Andrea Cionci’s scientific team presented results in January 2020 but has not yet published them. The skull (of an older man) was from one individual; DNA indicated the lower mandible came from another (in his thirties).

· 83 Ortisi, “Roman Military,” 352 reviews all evidence for soldiers in the Vesuvian area, not just coastal locations. See also Ortisi, “Römisches.” Carro, Quadriremi, 83 and Pagano in Russo and Russo, Indagine, 12, favor a naval officer.

· 84 Shelton, Selected Letters, 93; Gibson, High Empire, 61; Gibson, Book 6; Sullivan, “Pliny,” 198; Zehnacker, “Esthétique,” 445; Elder Pliny begins to “see for himself” in 6.16.5; Augoustakis, “Nequaquam historia digna,” 271–72. Contra Marchesi, Art of Pliny’s Letters, 175, I doubt that the Elder’s notes were necessarily lost, just not conveyed in their full, raw form in Ep. 6.16.

· 85 Shelton, Selected Letters, 94. Bromberg, “Telemacheia,” 55: Elder is like Odysseus, undertaking a heroic sea voyage and facing a “hail of terrifying projectiles.”

· 86 Respectively, Sigurdsson, “Eruption,” (1982), 44–45; Haywood, “Strange Death,” 2; Marturano and Varone, “The A.D. 79 Eruption,” 244. See also Gibson, Book 6.

· 28.69: 87 HN Hesiodus iuxta obstantia reddi suadet, ne... (as an instrumental ablative).

· 88 N.F. Jones, “Vesuvius Letters,” 39; see also below, 6.16.12: similis hilari.

· 89 Keeline, “Model,” 188–89, argues that the Elder ignored good advice.

· 90 Gibson, Book 6; e.g., Terrence, Phormio, 203: fortis fortuna adiuvat; Vergil, Aen. 10.284: audientis Fortuna iuvat. Caesar: Plutarch, Caes. 38.5 (Schönberger, “Vesuv-Briefe,” 536; Lefèvre, Römertum zum Ästhetizismus, 129–30; Gibson, Book 6). Fortuna was also the name of a quadrireme in the 2nd-3rd c. Misenum fleet: Carro, Quadriremi, 36, n.185.

· 91 Elder Pliny discusses the vicissitudes of Fortune (HN 7.130–51) with the usual sentiment that no one can be called happy until their final day. Galtier, “Tacite et Plinie,” 164, sees a connection to the tragic Aristotelian “Reversal of Fortune.” For Schönberger, “Vesuv-Briefe,” 536–38, Pliny is the Stoic sage exhibiting the virtue of securitas.

· 92 Anthologia Palatina 16.275 (Anthologia Planudea). Greek text: Gow and Page, eds., Greek Anthology, 172 (Posidippus 19); Translation is reformatted from: F. Nisetich in Gutzwiller, New Posidippus, 49. For analysis of the statue and Poseidippos’ epigram, see: Boschung, Kairos; Stewart, “Lysippan Studies 1”; Pollitt, Art in the Hellenistic Age, 53–54; Austin and Bastianini, eds., Posidippi Pellaei.

· 93 The statue and many other notable works of ancient art (e.g., the Aphrodite of Knidos and the chryselephantine statue of Zeus from Olympia) were collected in the palace of Lausos in Constantinople, which suffered conflagration in AD 475: Guberti Bassett, “Lausos Collection,” 7, 9–10. Elder wrote at length about Lysippos (HN 34.61–66), but does not mention Kairos.

· 94 Aristotle, Poetics 25, per Stewart, “Posidippus,” 192–95.

· 95 Per Eco, “Portrait.” See also Stewart, “Posidippus,” 204–5 (rendering “truth” in portrait sculptures) in the context of Leach, “Self-Presentation.” Galtier, “Tacite et Plinie,” 167–69, sees Pliny writing in the epideictic genre (a rhetoric of praise and blame), but generally sympathetic with everyone’s reaction under stress; there are no “villains” in the story.

· 96 Guadagno, “Il viaggio,” 65.

· 97 De Luca, “Il rapporto; ” Vogel and Märker, “Reconstructing.”

· 98 As in Elder Pliny, HN 4.6: Atrax amnis Ionio mari infunditur. Glare, ed., Oxford Latin Dictionary, infundo, s.v. 4a.

· 99 Vogel, “Reconstructing,” 68; Pfeiffer, Costa and Macedonia, “Numerical Simulation”; Sigurdsson, “Eruption” (1985), 342, 276; see Ch. 3.

· 100 For Shelton, Selected Letters, 95, cum cresceret is a temporal clause.

· 101 Shelton, Selected Letters, 95. For the grammatical underpinnings of certus fugae si contrarius ventus resedisset, see Romer, “Troublesome Wind,” though Romer did not understand the dynamics of the eruption and thought Pomponianus might eventually have escaped by sea.

· 102 The Via Minervia was a coastal route since the 7th c. BC, connecting the Sarno Plain to the Temple of Athena beyond Surrentum (Ch 3); starting in 1832, it was partially traced by Bourbon roadbuilders. See Pollone, “‘Sacred Routes’,” 150–53; Russo, “Viscera rupis,” with refs.; Seiler, forthcoming monograph on the road network in the Sarno plain.

· 103 Gibson, Book 6.

· 104 Ch. 1; Gibson, High Empire, 1–3.

· 105 Lefèvre, Römertum zum Ästhetizismus, 131; Gibson, High Empire, 62.

· 106 Ripoll, “l’héroisme”; Olshausen, “Mit der Katastrophen leben,” 460.

· 107 As Aeneas comforts his crew after their shipwreck in Africa (Aen. 1.208–9): Lefèvre, Römertum zum Ästhetizismus, 131–32; see above, Ep. 6.16.9). Also, N.F. Jones, “Vesuvius Letters,” 39 argues that similis again reveals Elder’s apprehensions (as at 6.16.11: cunctatus).

· 108 Caburlotto et al., I pittori, 96–99; Zannandreis, Le vite, 414–16, who excoriates Boscarati for “losing the script” of Pliny’s letter.

· 109 Prologue; Daly, “Volcanic Disaster,” 276–78; Malamud, “Edge of the Volcano,” 214.

· 110 Cinematic wide-angle shot, and a close attention to light: Maritz, “Technicolour,” 13–14.

· 111 Aizawa, “Physical Properties,” 45–46, 53–54; See also: Schultz, “Lightning”; Genareau et al., “Elusive Evidence”; Behnke, et al., “Observations.”

· 112 Lefèvre, Römertum zum Ästhetizismus, 132, prefers the latter.

· 113 Melmouth, trans., Letters of Pliny, vol. 1, p. 298, originally published in 1746. Early accounts by English visitors come from Horace Walpole and Thomas Gray, who visited the excavations at Herculaneum (“Portici”) and describe them in letters of 14 June, 1740; see Moormann, Pompeii’s Ashes, 103–4.

· 114 Hutchinson, revised trans., Letters, 478–81. Winifred Margaret Lambart Hutchinson wrote popular compilations of Greek and Roman mythology and remains an under-appreciated female Classics pioneer: Hall and Stead, People’s History. Of the seven extant occurences of per solitudinem/-es, three appear in the Elder’s HN: 5.25, 13.139, 26.11, referring to uninhabited wastelands or deserts; likewise Columella (de re rustica 7.6.9) and Livy (39.54.5). Also Shelton, Selected Letters, 97.

· 115 solitudo:solitudo: Ep. 1.6.2, 2.12.3, 6.30.4, 7.3.3, 7.27.6; sollicitudo: 1.5.8, 1.11.2, 1.22.11, 2.5.3, 2.9.1, 2.11.11, 2.11.14–15, 4.19.3, 5.6.1, 5.12.1, 5.17.3, 6.4.4, 6.6.1, 6.9.2, 6.23.4, 7.6.14, 7.25.5, 8.11.1, 8.17.6, 9.22.1, 10.5.1, 10.25.1, 10.50.1 (from Trajan).

· 116 Hoffer, Anxieties, for a full study. Also Strunk, “Pliny the Pessimist.”

· 117 Vogel et al., “Rural Settlement”; Seiler, Vogel, and Esposito, “Ancient Rural Settlement”; Esposito, “Villae rusticae”; Adams, Suburban Villas; Moormann, “Villas”; Miniero, “Insediamenti”; Gibson, Book 6; Esposito, forthcoming monograph on villas and land use in the Sarno plain.

· 118 Gibson, Book 6.

· 119 Contrasting views on sleepiness: Ripoll, “l’héroisme,” 73; Keeline, “Model,” 190–94. Görler, “Schnarchen,” 432–33, sees Younger Pliny reporting his uncle’s snoring accurately, yet nodding to historical figures, such as Alexander the Great and Cato the Younger, stoically sleeping well before a traumatic day (also Lefèvre, Römertum zum Ästhetizismus, 132; Gigante, Il Fungo, 34). For Obberauch, “Et statim concidit,” 724, snoring (with sleep apnea) is a condition that favors his diagnosis of fatal apoplexy (see below).

· 120 Melmouth, Letters of Pliny, vol. 1, p. 299; Hutchinson, Letters, 481; Radice, Letters, 430–31.

· 121 Bergmann, “New Perspectives.” For the term diaeta in literary sources: Leach, “Oecus on Ibycus,” 67.

· 122 Sherwin-White, Letters of Pliny, 193–4; Pliny uses diaeta in Ep. 2.17.12, 15, 20, 24 (Laurentian villa), 5.6.20, 21, 27, 28, 31 (Tuscan villa), and 7.5 (missing his wife Calpurnia). Recent research shows that Latin terms for domestic spaces are frustratingly inconsistent: Allison, “Domestic Spaces.”

· 123 Duff, Liber Sextus, 61. In his 1470 printing of Ep. 6.16, Bussi filled in esset after mora, which endured until Keil’s first critical edition in 1853.

· 124 Westcott, Selected Letters, 221, n. 6; Shelton, Selected Letters, 97, argues for a future less vivid condition using the imperfect to indicate the past temporal frame.

· 125 Keeline, “Model,” 177–78, 190–91.

· 126 Shelton, Selected Letters, 98.

· 127 Shelton, Selected Letters, 98. For earthquake hazard at Stabiae: Scandone, Giacolmelli and Rosi, “Death,” 12–16.

· 128 Pumice export from the Bay of Naples to Rome for use in buildings such as the Pantheon: F. Marra et al., “Geochemical Fingerprints”; Lancaster et al., “Provenancing.”

· 129 Batstone, “Dry Pumice.”

· 130 Vogel, “Reconstructing,” 68; Pfeiffer, Costa, and Macedonia, “Numerical Simulation”; Zanella et al., “Influences of Urban Fabric,” 8–9, for the temperatures of fallout measured at Pompeii.

· 131 Luongo et al., “Causes of Death.”

· 132 Shelton, Selected Letters, 98. Westcott, Selected Letters, 221, n.13: “the antecedent of quod is hopelessly vague.”

· 133 Part of the construction of the Elder’s Stoic character, and a last gasp of agency: Cova, “Lettura retorica,” 60; Cova, “Contro Plinio il Vecchio,” 57.

· 134 Duncan-Jones, “Payment of Dinner-Guests.” Duff, Liber Sextus, 62, argues for a sail.

· 135 Martin, Descriptive Catalogue. Also Gardner Coates et al., Last Days of Pompeii, 132–33. Martin was also inspired by his friend Edwin Atherstone’s 1821 poem of 1544 lines: “The Last Day of Herculaneum.”

· 136 For these locations at Pompeii, See J. Berry, Complete Pompeii, 130, 144; the portico had been converted into gladiatorial barracks after the earthquake of AD 62/63.

· 137 Atherstone, “The Last Day of Herculaneum,” lines 85–89: “Here one, to madness work’d, his hard clench’d hands / Threw out tow’rds heaven,—with flashing, rolling eyes / Brow hardly furrow’d;—bared and gnashing teeth, / And nostril spread, as though in maniac rage / To threat the Thunderer.”

· 138 Foss, “Rediscovery and Resurrection,” 32–34; Hales and Paul, Public Imagination; Gardner Coates et al., Last Days of Pompeii; Moormann, Pompeii’s Ashes; Rowland, From Pompeii, 129–45, 152–67; Daly, “Volcanic Disaster,” 258–78.

· 139 E.g., More (Figure 4.6) and de Valenciennes (Figure 4.7): Gardner Coates et al., Last Days of Pompeii, 126–27, 130–31. A tradition of drawing, painting, and vividly describing modern conflagrations had been developing since the 1631 re-eruption of Vesuvius: Alfano and Friedlaender, Geschichte des Vesuv, Taf. 5a–16, 18–30, 32–63, 69, 78 (eventually superceded by photography); Bremen, “Vesuvausbruch 1631”; Daly, “Volcanic Disaster,” 259–60; Jenkins and Sloan, Vases & Volcanoes. Even Suerbaum, “Aktualisierte,” 94–109, provides an updated journalistic retelling. Volcanic reconstructions and eruptive reenactments were also popular in the 19th c.: Darley, Vesuvius, 96–150. For the impact of the 1631 eruption on the development of volcanology, see Cocco, Watching Vesuvius; Nazzaro, Il Vesuvio treats subsequent eruptions. See also Prologue.

· 140 Recuber, “Disaster Porn!” treats the modern media phenomenon, but Victorian-era paintings and poems already elicited horror, pity, empathy, and relief.

· 141 Nox ... noctibus is polyptoton, rhetorical repetition of a word varying by case: Lefèvre, Römertum zum Ästhetizismus, 133.

· 142 Döring’s 1843 ed.; Gigante, Il fungo, 56–58; Trisoglio, ed., Opere, 126, 626; Church and Brodribb, Select Letters, 171–72; Glare, ed., Oxford Latin Dictionary, Solor, s.v. 2. Schönberger, “Vesuv-Briefe,” 545, suggests solabantur refers to boosting morale more than lumens.

· 143 Roberts, Life and Death, 280, Figure 362: British Museum inv. no. 1856,1226.670. Quote from The British Museum, “Eruption Story.”

· 144 Two bronze lanterns were recovered along the Via dell’Abbondanza at II.4.8 in Pompeii (SAP inventory nos. 5798, 5816: C. Parslow, “Documents Illustrating,” 37). Also Conticello De Spagnolis and De Carolis, Le lucerne.

· 145 Thanks to Alexander Komives, Dept. of Physics and Astronomy at DePauw University, for calculating the arc of the moon during the eruption using Zotti and Wolf, eds., Stellarium. Had the moon been visible, it would have offered substantial light; it was in a phase of 64% illumination.

· 146 Zarmakoupi, Designing for Luxury, 60–62, 90–94, 187; De Simone, “Villa Arianna,” 41–52, especially Figures 3–4; Russo, “Viscera rupis.”

· 147 Shelton, Selected Letters, 99.

· 148 Lefèvre, Römertum zum Ästhetizismus, 133 hears pathos in the a-v-a-v alliteration of adhuc vastum ... adversum.

· 149 Meier, “Eine fast verschlafene Katastrophe,” 24; Schönberger, “Vesuv-Briefe,” 545; Lefèvre, Römertum zum Ästhetizismus, 133.

· 150 E.g., Zehnacker and Méthy, eds., Pline le Jeune, 100; Zehnacker, “Esthétique,” 447; Trisoglio, ed., Opere, 126.

· 151 Santangelo et al., “Stratigraphy”; Gurioli et al., “Pyroclastic Flow Hazard.”

· 152 De Carolis, Patricelli, and Cominesi, “Suburbio,” 22–24, 28, 30. Beyond Stabiae: see Cinque and Robustelli, “Alluvial.” Their study of the Roman Villa at Marina di Equa, a 10-km. walk west of ancient Stabiae and about 18 km. dead south of Vesuvius’ crater, shows damage from more than a meter of ash fallout and PDC accumulation. For coastline changes on the Sorrentine peninsula: Aucelli et al., “Historical Sea Level Changes”; Aucelli et al., “Late Holocene.” Those PDCs traveled directly over the bay (Chs 3, 5).

· 153 Pliny nowhere else uses innitens; he uses innixus twice in the Panegyricus (8.4, 66.5), both in the sense of “reliance,” though the former does use a physical metaphor of leaning on someone for support.

· 154 Ep. 2.17.22, 3.16.8 (regarding personal attendants); Panegyricus 7.6. Beck, “Petis ut,” 12, sees the diminutive as belittling, and evidence that the slaves could not have been complicit in Elder’s death (see below, section 20); Schönberger, “Vesuv-Briefe,” 545, does not see the term as disparaging (just youthful).

· 155 Gonzalès, Pline le Jeune, 318.

· 156 Vogel and Märker, “Modeling the Spatial Distribution,” for modeling of PDC primary and secondary (e.g. from subsequent erosion) deposits from the Vesuvian eruption.

· 157 Horwell and Baxter, “Respiratory,” 2–4, 19; Baxter et al., “Physical Modeling,” 166–67; Baxter et al., “Human Survival,” 1053.

· 158 Bigelow, “Death of Pliny,” Zirkle, “Death of Gaius,” Obberauch, “Et statim concidit”; and others argue against asphyxiation, but the phenomenon and dynamics of pyroclastic density currents and their effects on human physiology were not well understood until the late 1990s. Cf. Bessone, “Sulla morte”; Haywood, “Strange Death”; P.M. Martin, “Mort ordinaire”; R. Martin, “Mort étrange”; Lloris, “La muerte,” 123–24; Grmek, “Mort de Pline”; Grisé, “L’illustre mort”; Sallmann, “Quo verius,” 213; Lefèvre, Römertum zum Ästhetizismus, 133–35; Cova, “Rilettura,” 87–88; Cova, “Problemi,” 612–13; Gibson, Book 6.

· 159 Dellino, et al., “Impact,” though several assumptions (e.g., ambient air temperature, dynamic pressure) in their calculations need reexamination.

· 160 Or Shelton, Selected Letters, 100: ablative of means and ablatives of attendant circumstance.

· 161 Retief and Cilliers, “Death,” emphasize asthma; see also Sherwin-White, Letters of Pliny, 374; Lefèvre, Römertum zum Ästhetizismus, 133–34. Obberauch, “Et statim concidit” argues for apoplexy (cerebral hemorrhage, or stroke), based on the sudden et statim concidit.

· 162 Glare, ed., Oxford Latin Dictionary, s.v. questions its validity. Interaestuans was the favored reading until Döring and Keil used aestuans from 1843–70. Italian and French editions have preferred interaestuans; German and English editions have wavered between the two. See Trisoglio, ed., Opere, 126.

· 163 For an imperial death: Schönberger, “Vesuv-Briefe,” 534, citing Suetonius, Ves. 24.

· 164 Cova, “Lettura retorica,” 61–62; Cova, “Contro Plinio il Vecchio,” 55.

· 165 Shelton, Selected Letters, 100: middle voice for redditus [est].

· 166 Schönberger, “Vesuv-Briefe,” 541, on the wear and heaviness of this passage; Lefèvre, Römertum zum Ästhetizismus, 134 sees elevated intensity in the four negating in- prefixes. Gigante’s attempt (Il Fungo, 37) to connect to epic and royal bodies on a shore is strained.

· 167 Shelton, Selected Letters, 101.

· 168 Maxwell-Stuart, “Studies in the Career,” 9–14.

· 169 Ripoll, “l’héroisme,” 71; Sherwin-White, Letters of Pliny, 374; Lefèvre, Römertum zum Ästhetizismus, 134–35; Guadagno, “Il viaggio,” 63–64. Controversy and confusion about Pliny’s death continued into the Renaissance: Tomlinson, “Anecdote.”

· 170 Keeline, “Model,” 190–94, on the Elder’s sleepiness.

· 171 Mastrolorenzo, “Lethal Thermal Impact,” and Luongo, “Causes of Death.”

· 172 Anthony Gormley, Untitled (2002): Gardner Coates et al., Last Days of Pompeii, 234–35, Pl. 89.

· 173 Augoustakis, “Nequaquam historia digna,” 266–67; Ash, “Pliny the Historian,” 214–16; Berry, “Advocate,” 13; Bromberg, “Telemacheia,” 56–57 (this point reflects when the Elder’s [Odyssean] experience is separated out, and Young Pliny [Telemachus] is left to fend with his mother); Marchesi, Art of Pliny’s Letters, 171; van der Paardt, “Verslaggever,” 61; Sallmann, “Quo verius,” 210; Riemer, “Ein Beispeil,” 34–40; Lefèvre, Römertum zum Ästhetizismus, 136 on the rhetorical force; Gibson, Book 6. Also Nikitas, “La relation,” 188–89; Meier, “Eine fast verschlafene Katastrophe,” 28.

· 174 Ash, “Pliny the Historian,” 216, 221, 224–25; Bromberg, “Telemacheia,” 56–57; Edwards, “Pliny’s Tacitus,” 71–73; Beck, “Petis ut,” 8–17. In this way, the second letter (6.20) better represents Pliny’s vision of historiography (Marchesi, Art of Pliny’s Letters, 188).

· 175 Eco, “Portrait,” 135; Gibson, Book 6 re: exitu reminds of the deaths of famous men, and seems to close the narrative circle started by exitum in 6.16.1.

· 176 Translation by Cameron, Thucydides, 43. Also Marchesi, Art of Pliny’s Letters, 166–68, 172, along with Woodman, “Writing History,” 238; Morello, “Saying Nothing,” 204–5; Traub, “Pliny’s Treatment,” 229; Gibson, Book 6.

· 177 Practically every study has addressed this question, e.g. Copony, “Fortes”; Cova, “Rilettura,” 90–91; Cova, “Problemi,” 613–14; Lloris, “La muerte,” 124–28; Berry, “Advocate,” 17; see also 6.16.1: quo verius. Sallmann, “Quo verius,” 218, admits we don’t know.

· 178 The former: Ep. 1.5.11, 4.9.21, 7.30.2; the latter: 1.8.3, 3.9.28, 9.13.14. Sherwin-White, Letters of Pliny, 374–75, takes an investigation for certainty.

· 179 Nikitas, “La relation,” suggested previously by Forehand, “Natural Phenomena,” 33, for Ep. 6.20. Zehnacker, “Quotidien,” 52, comes to the same conclusion. He suggests a ring-composition for the whole of 6.20 (48–49), expanding on Merwald, “Die Buchkomposition,” 10. See also Schönberger, “Vesuv-Briefe,” 540.

· 180 Dorandi, “Commentarii.”

· 181 Marincola, Authority and Tradition, 63–86.

· 182 Wolf and Zimprich, “Reminiscence Bump”; Munawar, Kuhn, and Haque, “Understanding the Reminiscence Bump”; Tekcan et al., “Life-Span Retrieval”; Koppel and Rubin, “Recent Advances.” Bromberg, “Telemacheia,” 68: “Pliny’s single most vivid and formative experience.”

· 183 Benz, Pierce, and Flood, “Autobiographies.”

· 184 Gibson, High Empire, 75, for the idea of volcanic celebrity.

· 185 Cova, “Rilettura,” 88–90, suggests that Pliny couches his letter as a commentary (Zehnacker, “Esthétique,” 448, agrees), but this is only a self-effacing topos, as in Ep. 1.1 (Ch. 2).

· 186 Marchesi, Art of Pliny’s Letters, 173–74.

· 187 Edwards, “Pliny’s Tacitus,” re: modeling friendship on the basis of mutual self-improvement, and blurring the generic line between historiography and epistolography. Also Castagna, “Teoria e prasso,” 162, re: this passage, that friendship is also a modality of political practice, not just a moral value or social norm. That blurred line therefore extends to the relationship between Pliny and Tacitus. Cova, “Rilettura,” 91–93, suggests that Tacitus made a single request that Pliny broke into two letters; Ash, “Pliny the Historian,” 215, wonders about a single original, revised later into the two parts of what Marchesi, Art of Pliny’s Letters, 171, calls a diptych. Also Gibson, High Empire, 61, 69–70, re: the lack of attention and interest paid to slaves and the general populace in these letters.

· 188 Zehnacker, “Esthétique,” 448–49.