5

Epistulae 6.20, The Younger’s Story

The introduction to Ch. 4 explains the format and presentation of the text.

Younger Pliny pens a follow-on to Ep. 6.16, describing to Tacitus his own and his mother’s flight from the eruption. The proem (section 1) is brief, followed by an encapsulation of evening, overnight, and predawn conditions at Misenum (2–5). Morning brings a decision to flee and the flight itself (6–18), before returning home (19–20), capped by an epilogue (20). The letter contains many references to the previous letter, showing that Pliny meant both, at this point (if not before) to comprise two facets of a single coherent account.

6.20. Address

C. PLINIUS TACITO SUO S.

Gaius Plinius greets his (dear friend) Tacitus.

See 6.16 (Ch. 4) for how Pliny addresses letters.

6.20.1

Ais^a te adductum litteris quas exigenti tibi de morte avunculi mei scripsi, cupere^b cognoscere, quos^c ego^c Miseni relictus^d (id enim ingressus abruperam^e) non solum metus verum^f etiam casus pertulerim. “Quamquam animus meminisse horret … incipiam.”

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

Variants: ^a iis q, his Genvensis G.II.17 some copies of p r, scribis 92b 92a Cat.; ^b cuperem most γ1b; ^d littus h Burney 229 Milan Ambros. H.54.sup γ3ab, lictus Oxford Auct.F.2.22 k ML47.34, lictus γ2c (Oxford Auct.F.2.22 k ML47.34), litus γ3b1b e, [ ] D Valla c r° r, corr. relictus θ (f q t corr. BL23777) 76 Agr. Laet. 98 Cat. a; ^e adrumpam H, abrumperam c, arripueram Cat.

The first two words emphasize “you” (the addressee Tacitus), who seems to request the second letter more softly than he demanded the first (6.16.1: petis).¹ The response of the historian to Younger Pliny’s first account is couched in indirect discourse (ais te adductum [esse is gapped] …), followed by an instrumental ablative that references Ep. 6.16. A “letter” (litterae)—denoting a message comprised of individual alphabet letters (each of which is a littera), words, and sentences—is plural in form. Litteris then becomes the antecedent for a relative clause (quas … scripsi). The essential topic of 6.16 (de morte avunculi mei) is reinforced, and a succinct participial phrase (exigenti tibi) reprises the statements (see 6.16.1, 3) that Tacitus’ curiosity is the reason for Pliny to write.

That curiosity is emphasized by an extension of the initial indirect discourse into a double infinitive: cupere cognoscere, the objects of which (metus … casus) are pulled inside the indirect question (quos … pertulerim) that ends the sentence.² By holding metus ... pertulerim until the end, Pliny plays up his own trials and frights after being “left behind” at Misenum by his uncle (or he chose to stay: 6.16.7?). He is about to play a complicated character game: casting his teen-age self to demonstrate aspiring Stoic self-possession in facing challenges without his uncle, while using (excusable) immature behavior to manifest authorial honesty.³

So Pliny defends the epistle (“you asked for it, Tacitus”) while admitting he had halted the story (id enim ingressus abruperam, Ep. 6.16.21: a contrived interruption). He then spikes the prose with poetry, reflecting the epic ambition of the second letter, which (as Marchesi shrewdly suggests) Pliny hints Tacitus set up for him.⁴ Pliny quotes Vergil, Aeneid 2.10–13:

Sed si tantus amor casus cognoscere nostros

et breuiter Troiae supremum audire laborem,

quamquam animus meminisse horret luctuque refugit,

incipiam.

But if such desire drives you to know our disasters,

and hear in brief the final trial of Troy,

although my soul shudders to remember and once more shrinks from grief,

I shall begin.

Pliny positions himself in the role of Aeneas telling his tale of woe to Dido, six years after Troy’s fall (just as Pliny related events decades later).⁵ He also samples the passage (cupere cognoscere in reference to amor cognoscere, and the reuse of casus). It is interesting that Pliny omits luctuque refugit. While those words were not necessary for Tacitus to recognize the reference, the removal of personal grief might acknowledge the fact that this letter—though containing plenty of hazard and panic —does not describe the loss of close family or friends (as Ep. 6.16 did: Elder Pliny). This despite the fact that it automatically evokes the death of his uncle by describing his own survival.⁶

Letter 6.20 is a second chance to impress Tacitus, whose Histories he will later predict (Ep. 7.33.1) to be immortal. Moreover, Pliny is keen to appear as a character in Tacitus’ account. Pliny does not shrink from self-aggrandizement when there’s opportunity—but he is careful.⁷ At the end of this letter (6.20.20) Pliny denies that his account has any enduring value, but he is teasing. His personal account “cannot be history,” ... or can it?⁸

The Vergilian reference also sets an epic storytelling stage and moves the reader back into the past, to the moment after his uncle sailed away (Ep. 6.16.9). While after that point in that letter everything came second-hand, what follows in 6.20 is Pliny’s personal recollection, with extra emotional vividness. Some comes from the verb horret, which precisely describes the feeling of hairs standing up on the back of one’s neck. It also means to quake with apprehension—trembling that anticipates the ground-shaking in 6.20.3. Finally, the quote portends several Vergilian allusions (6.20.7, 12–15), distinguishing it from Ep. 6.16, which probably doesn’t have any.⁹

6.20.2

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

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

Variants: ^a [ ] γ a, non h, corr. enim θ (f q r t BL23777 corr.) Laet. 98 Cat.

The initial ablative absolute quickly shifts into the historical/epic past that Pliny is building. At first read, ipse might seem to refer to Elder, per each of the three times it appears in Ep. 6.16: 2 (referring to the Elder’s writings); 7, 9 (setting the Younger’s homework and then boarding the ship). We must wait until the first-person verb (impendi) at the end of the clause to see that ipse = the Younger, doing his homework (studiis, indirect object). Pliny repeats the excuse for not accompanying his uncle (6.16.7); each Pliny had his own course of study.¹⁰

The Younger emerges as a parallel, but distinctive, protagonist. The Elder’s literary credentials, bravery, and sense of adventure are praised in Ep. 6.16, but his nephew engages those qualities differently in 6.20. Here, Young Pliny’s afternoon routine, couched in an abrupt list of balineum, cena, and somnus, mirrors the Elder’s in 6.16.12–13. But while the Elder slept and snored soundly, the Younger had a brief and restless night, because he lacks securitas.¹¹ He cannot grow because he has not really been tested; his direct experience has been limited to seeing the ash cloud and feeling earth tremors. When that changes, his journey will begin.

6.20.3

Praecesserat per multos dies tremor terrae, minus formidolosus^a quia Campaniae solitus^b; illa^c vero^d nocte^e ita^f invaluit^g, ut^h non moveri omnia sed vertiⁱ crederentur^j.

Earth-quaking had been happening for many days—not so frightening because it is common in Campania—but on that night it was so strong that everything seemed not only to be shaking, but overturning.

Variants: ^b-h non solum castella verum etiam oppida M; ^c ille γ corr. illa Valla c f q r 76 t BL23777 Laet. 98 Cat. a; ⁱ everti γ1 Valla a, corr. verti θ (f q t BL23777) Agr. 78 83 Laet. 98 Cat.; ^j credebantur M.

Cassius Dio (66.22.3) and Seneca corroborate Pliny’s statement about precursory and habitual earthquakes (Ch. 3). Pliny usefully admits their normality (solitus) in Campania, but emphasizes a contrast in magnitude, elevated by the completely unexpected eruption.¹² The situation is two levels removed from the Campanian everyday, and three from what is normal elsewhere.¹³

For Pliny writing in middle age, that bumpy night recalls the disquietude of his mind; tremor terrae emerges from motus memoriae.¹⁴ In his studied recollection, how does he portray himself and others, confronted by a suddenly unstable world? He uses a result clause (ita invaluit … ut) followed by three passive constructions (moveri and verti as complementary infinitives to crederentur, “were being believed”) because the cause of the quakes is unknown (the grammatical subject is a generic omnia, “all things”). Terrestrial and linguistic conventions get stretched and upended.

The α tradition (M) reads vastly differently: qui Campaniae non solum castella verum etiam oppida non moveri omnia sed verti credebantur, “here in Campania, not only strongholds, but even towns were all being thought not only to be shaking but overturning.” The word castellum does not appear anywhere else in Younger Pliny, and the doubled non ... verum, non ... sed reveals the awkwardness of the corruption; γ for once provides the cleanest reading. Catanaeus’ second edition (Cat , 1518) modified and melded both readings (... oppida vexare solitus ...), which continued being copied into the 18th century before it died out.¹⁵

6.20.4

Inrupit^a cubiculum meum^b mater; surgebam invicem^c, si^c quiesceret excitaturus. Resedimus^d in area^e domus, quae mare a tectis modico spatio dividebat.

Mother burst into my bedroom at the same time I was getting up, about to rouse her, were she still asleep. We sat down on a terrace of the house which was separating, by a modest extent, the sea from the structures.

Variants: ^a invasit in M, irrumpit γ3ab r BL23777 Laet. 98 Cat. a; ^b [ ] γ1b; ^c [ ] γ3b1b; ^d residemus M, residimus γ1 some γ3b, resedemus Agr., praesedimus 76.

Noteworthy is the mixed conditional with a present-contrary-to-fact imperfect subjunctive (quiesceret) in the protasis, and a future-more-vivid future active participle (excitaturus) in the apodosis, all set up by the imperfect of surgebam: “Right then I was in the process of getting up, about to wake up [my mother] (which I was definitely going to do), if she were [still] sleeping (which she wasn’t).”¹⁶ The vocabulary is adrenalized (inrupit, surgebam, excitaturus), perking up the reader at the same time that both main characters (Pliny and Plinia) wake before dawn and bump into each other out of mutual concern.¹⁷ There is a running theme in this letter about the anxiety of separation. Uncle Pliny is away (and at about this time being roused [excitatus] in Ep. 6.16.14); he had “left behind” Young Pliny (relictus, 6.20.1). Mother and son’s clash—conveying confusion in tense and tension—eventually calms down (resedimus) with a simple relative clause (area … quae) in the next sentence.

As the earth and its inhabitants become increasingly agitated, Pliny and his mother act with strange serenity, moving to an open space (area) where the roof is less likely to fall on them. This space is narrow (modico spatio); it separates the built (tectis) and marine (mare) environments; its straitness is re-emphasized below in 6.20.6 (angusto). We ought to understand a kind of seaside terrace, of the sort recently revealed at the Villa dei Papiri in Herculaneum, and conforming to what we know about the location of the Elder’s house at Misenum: probably aligned along the NW side of Punta Sarparella (Ch. 3; Figure 4.1). It is also a pinched emotional space, a limbo between hope and fear until they hear about Elder, or something happens to them.

Being caught between environments parallels the first letter (Ep. 6.16.15–16 compares the dangers of inside vs. outside). Elder Pliny behaves serenely in the face of his peril, as do his sister and nephew; they share a disposition that doesn’t panic. Younger Pliny admits that this may have been foolish (imprudentia; 6.20.5 below), but it is part of his youthful character role—someone expected to follow the instructions of the older and wiser. In this rite of passage, Younger Pliny must grow up, sieze the head-of-household role (his mother oscillates between being decisive and deferential), and take the initiative as his uncle loses it across the Bay of Naples.

6.20.5

Dubito, constantiam vocare^a an^b imprudentiam^b debeam (agebam enim duodevicensimum annum^c): posco^d librum Titi^e Livi^f, et quasi per otium lego atque etiam ut coeperam excerpo. Ecce amicus avunculi qui nuper ad eum ex Hispania^g venerat, ut me et matrem sedentes^h, me veroⁱ etiam legentem^j videt^k, illius patientiam^l securitatem^m meam corripit. Nihilo segniusⁿ ego intentus in librum.

I am not sure whether I should call it intrepidity or ignorance—after all, I was seventeen years old: I ask for a book of Titus Livius, and as if it were study-time, I read and take notes as I had previously begun to do. Suddenly a friend of my uncle—who had recently come from Spain—when he sees me and mother sitting, and indeed me still reading, he admonishes her forbearance and my unconcern. No less keenly, I (remain) focused on my book.

Variants: ^a rogare γ, corr. vocare Valla (LL52 corr. g c) f q 76 Agr. t BL23777 Laet. 98 Cat. a; ^b [ ] γ3b1b r° r, an impudentiam γ3b3; ^d postea γ3b4; ^f Livii γ corr. Livi ML47.34 Valla; ^h sedentis γ (γ2–3ab), sedenteis Π? (04 a); ⁱ [ ] γ1b, verius H; ^j lugentem γ1b; ^k vidit Valla (LL52 Naples Ex-Vindobonensis lat. 42); ^l patientia H, patriam ML47.34; ^m sedentem H.

Pliny the Writer shifts for the first time in this letter into the vivid historial present, segueing from present-tense dubito, expressing uncertainty about his past self and mother sitting seaside while the house shook. Dubito might expect a doubting clause with quin, but such clauses appear with a negated verb of doubt or denial. Here Pliny uses a deliberative subjunctive, with the “either … or” separated by an plus the infinitive vocare, as the hinge between the two reasons for his hesitation, his mind wavering like the columns and beams of his home.¹⁸

Observe Pliny’s self-ascribed qualities: constantia, imprudentia, securitas, contextualized by the revelation of his age. Constantia evokes the Elder’s great-heartedness (Ep. 6.16.9) despite anxiety (6.16.11–12).¹⁹ Absence of worry in the face of actual danger is imbecility (Elder sensibly pauses at 6.16.11: cunctatus); this is why the Spanish friend chastises Younger Pliny. Imprudentia refers not to idiocy, but a lack of knowledge and experience, which Pliny reflectively (and stereotypically) ascribes to youth: “for I was living out my eighteenth year.”²⁰ As with calendrical dates (Chs 1, 3, 4: 6.16.4, 20), the Romans counted inclusively, so agebam enim duodevicensimum annum translates to being 17.

Pliny is trying to establish securitas through a strongly inculcated habit: study.²¹ We learn the specific assignment his uncle had set yesterday prior to sailing off (6.16.7—the phrase etiam ut coeperam tells us this). Titus Livius, ca. 59 BC–AD 17, wrote Ab Urbe Condita Libri, chronicling Rome from its founding in 753 BC to the middle of Augustus’ reign in 9 BC.²² Livy was—and is—considered the historian of the Roman Republic. Pliny’s correspondent Tacitus has by this time already published works about the Germans and his father-in-law Agricola but is clearly hoping to become the historian of the Roman Empire with his forthcoming Histories (Ch. 1). With this reference, Pliny couches himself in their company despite denying that he writes history (Ep. 5.8; 6.16.21–22; 6.20.20).²³

Angelica Kauffmann’s Pliny the Younger and his Mother at Misenum (1785) cleverly captures Young Pliny’s dedication to the past above his awareness of the present (Figure 5.1). The painting nods slyly to the first sighting of the eruption cloud in Ep. 6.16.4, with but a thin column of smoke emitting from the mountain and Plinia the only figure actually looking at it. But the scene is set at 6.20.2–5; the young man seems confused: follow the assignment and training of his uncle, and study, or hearken to the amicus ex Hispania warning of danger, and flee? Uncertain, Young Pliny’s stylus hangs mid-air, like the quamquam of his Vergilian quote in 6.20.1. The naïve hesitancy of the boyish figure sharpens Pliny the adult correspondent’s affected pause to write history for Tacitus. Pliny didn’t know what he was doing back then, but he makes up for it now by writing these letters.

Figure 5.1 Angelica Kauffmann, Pliny the Younger and his Mother at Misenum, 79 A.D., 1785. Oil on canvas. 103.0 x 127.5 cm. Gift of Franklin H. Kissner. Princeton University Art Museum / Art Resource, NY (photo: Bruce M. White).

The painting has some geographical verity; Kauffmann spent time in Naples in 1784.²⁴ She had already established her reputation as a history-painter and was a founding member of the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 1768.²⁵ For Kauffmann, as with Boscarati (Figure 4.4, Ch. 4: 6.16.12), characters are foremost, contrasting the volcano-centric paintings that follow Jacob More’s lead (Figures 4.6–4.9, Ch. 4: 6.16.16).²⁶ Above all, her credibility as a painter, just as Pliny’s (intermittent) aspiration as an author, stood upon the presentation of history, as prestigious a discipline in the 18th century as it was in the second.²⁷

When Pliny describes his study attitude (quasi per otium), he echoes his uncle’s pretense of cheerfulness (similis hilari) during dinner at Pomponianus’ villa (Ep. 6.16.12).²⁸ The use of otium invokes the adult value of “studied leisure”—what a Roman aristocrat could afford to do (and preferred to do) if politics and business (literally the opposite, neg-otium) did not interfere. Pliny may be conjuring nostalgia for a more innocent stage of his life (before Domitian’s tyranny and sycophancy to Trajan: Ch. 1). He seems to be fashioning a younger self who pretended to be more grown up than he actually was, but was suddenly compelled by natural disaster to take real responsibility in a dangerous world. Pliny must read and take notes (lego atque … excerpo) on Livy, a painstaking process essential both to his uncle’s Natural History, and to the contemporary records the Younger made (and consulted) as sources for these two letters (Ch. 1: Ep. 3.5; Ch. 4: Ep. 6.16.22).

Affected ease is interrupted (Ecce) by the friend of the Elder come from Spain in a relative clause (qui … venerat).²⁹ Ut + the indicative verbs videt and corripit (in the historical present) must be understood temporally, as “when,” “after,” or with urgency: “as soon as.” The objects of those verbs are modified by present-active participles: sedentes (Pliny and mother) and legentem (just Pliny, enhanced with vero etiam, as Younger Pliny incredulously recalls his much-Younger self’s stubbornness). Elegant parallel construction then chiastically varies when the visitor lambasts illius patientiam securitatem meam. Asyndeton (lack of a conjunction like et) adds a frantic touch.

Campania is a hotbed of geologic activity (Ch. 3; 6.20.3), but Spain is in a somewhat less vulnerable geological position; it has many small quakes, but few massive events, and vulnerability varies greatly across the peninsula (the central plateau and north-central coast are more stable).³⁰ Perhaps the Spanish friend is unaccustomed to the Campanian frequency of tectonic activity—or perhaps he is quite aware, and sensible enough to challenge his hosts’ complacency. Elder Pliny might have made his acquaintance during his term as procurator of Hispania Tarraconensis ca. AD 72–74 (Ch. 1).

The Spanish visitor (who reappears in 6.20.10) must have used strong language (corripit suggests impolite words that Pliny chooses not to remember or quote; Tacitus uses the term for political and legal accusation).³¹ Pliny obstinately clings to his literary lifejacket in pointed adolescent rejection of the man’s authority. Nihilo segnius translates to “none the slower”; it is litotes, which uses the negative (nihilo) of the contrary (segnius) to make an ironically understated affirmative statement: “zealously.”³² Pliny repeatedly takes pains to impress his scholastic dedication upon his uncle, his friend Tacitus, his uncle’s friend, and the reader. And while Pliny himself is hardly sluggish, the sense of segnis transfers cleverly in the next sentence to a day that refuses to resolve into customary clarity.

6.20.6

Iam^a hora^b diei^b prima, et adhuc dubius et quasi languidus dies. Iam quassatis^c circumiacentibus tectis, quamquam [^d] in aperto loco, angusto tamen^e, magnus^f et certus^g ruinae^h metusⁱ.

At this time (it is) the first hour of the day, and so far the daylight (is) overcast and pretty feeble. Now because the surrounding rooms are shaking violently—although (we are) in an open space, it is nevertheless narrow—fear of collapse is considerable and inevitable.

Variants: ^a [ ] γ3b, corr. iam ML47.34 Valla c f q 76 t BL23777 Laet. 98 Cat. a; ^b diei hora γ1b, dies hora H; ^c quassata omnia M; ^d tamen γ1b; ^f-g certus magnus γ3ab, certus magnae γ3b4; ⁱ motus γ, locus H, corr. metus θ (f q r° r t BL23777) 76 Agr. a.

This first sentence wavers in and out of focus, framed by the specific and immediate temporal marker iam. Right now, it is an hour past sunrise (hora diei prima), ca. 6:30 (see Ch. 3), but the next four major words emphasize vagueness and uncertainty: adhuc: “up to this point” (not a specific time); dubius (from duo+habeo, “holding two different things at once,” and so ambiguous); quasi (“like” or “as if” but not anything true to itself); and languid (“weak,” “dull,” “faint”). The word dies is also used twice, and it does mean “day,” but not just in the sense of a new day, but in the appearance of the sun that is supposed to reveal the world (compare the uses of dies in Ep. 6.20.16, 18). Because of the eruption, the expected dawn is blurry—not truly bright enough to even be called “daylight.” Time itself is muddled.

The dissolution of boundary between night and day is echoed in the instability of the earth. Quassatis is onomatopoetic, providing a sound effect for the narration: it is violent; it shakes off the torpor of the previous sentence. Furthermore, quassatis circumiacentibus tectis is an ablative absolute serving as a circumstantial participial clause—the shaking is now happening constantly around them. Younger Pliny contrasts the Elder’s experience. Instead of huddling under the roof trying to escape fallout, they take refuge in an open area where they cannot be hurt by the roof itself, but even that protection is thin: angusto tamen (6.20.4). The danger of indoor collapse was real, causing about one-third of known deaths in Pompeii (Chs. 3–4; 6.16.15–16).

Everything is so unsettled that only one thing is sure (certus): fear. Yet Pliny and Plinia still do not move. The lad’s attempts to stay calm and imitate his uncle are belied by the tense compression of space and time in the two sentences: an utter lack of verbs. The repetition of iam also recalls its triplet in letter 6.16.11 (when the Elder approaches the eruption). Pliny does this to build a similar sense of play-by-play, but because the word iam only appears twice instead of three times, it hints that his dangers are tamer than those faced by the Elder. This reinforces a recurring message about the Younger Pliny’s adventure (6.16.21–22; 6.20.1): his eruption experience cannot match his uncle’s. Nevertheless, there is a shift in Younger’s own remembered demeanor: insouciance is yielding to apprehension. In the next section, fear motivates movement, and Pliny describes extraordinary sights warranting trepidation.

6.20.7

Tum^a demum [^b] excedere^c oppido visum; sequitur vulgus attonitum, quodque^d in pavore simile prudentiae [^e], alienum consilium suo praefert, ingentique agmine abeuntes^f premit et impellit.

Then it finally seems (best) to exit the town. A confounded mob follows, and what in fear seems akin to wisdom (occurs): each prefers another’s judgment to their own, so in a massive throng (the crowd) presses and pushes (us) on as (we) leave.

Variants: ^a cum γ1b, tunc Valla (LL52 Naples Ex-Vindobonensis lat. 42); ^b ruinae γ2c Valla Harley 2497, utrique Valla corr. (LL52 Escorialensis N.III.10) 76, utrique ne g BL Add 20054 Schøyen 1781; ^d quoque γ, quom p 78 83 92b 92a, corr. quodque Valla (LL52 corr.) c q r° r 76; ^e est Valla c f q 76 t BL23777 Laet. 98 Cat.

Tottering tiles have finally forced Younger Pliny, his mother, and their household to abandon home (oppido: ablative of place from which), perhaps around 7:00–7:30. An eruptive column collapse occurred at about that time that affected Pompeii (EU3 pf tot, Figure 3.11), but two hiatuses followed—windows that survivors thought they could take advantage of at Pompeii and Stabiae (Figure 3.4b–c: R1–R2; Chs 3–4). They are joined by a crowd of slaves, freed persons, and neighbors (vulgus attonitum) who lack and desire direction. As since 6.20.4, Younger Pliny generates synchronicity—across the Bay, at the same time (Ep. 6.16.17), Elder Pliny and Pomponianus’ household head to shore. In this twinned dilemma, Younger variously ponders the psychology of decision-making under stress.

In 6.16.16, reason (rare; only the Elder) and fear (common; everyone else) are clearly and suspiciously distinct, a separation buttressed by parallel clauses. In 6.20.7, Younger Pliny describes a group panic in which terror and rationality, and individual and multitude, are indistinguishable (mirrored by the “run-on” appositional structure and the linked proximity of pavore simile prudentiae and alienum consilium suo). This mental condition leads to paralysis—the threat of falling stone has literally petrified the crowd until the Plinys provide a vector for action by leaving home. Elder Pliny is lionized as a beacon of reason, but Younger Pliny admits his own hesitation and fear; both he and his mother had already been chided by their Spanish guest (6.20.5) for inaction, and will be again (6.20.10).³³ Both passages complicate arguments that Pliny is classist (patricians pondered; plebs panicked). Pomponianus is no less elite than Elder Pliny, and he is “frightened” and “irrational.” Do Pliny the Younger or his mother have a real plan, or are they are simply buffeted along? Younger Pliny pretends calm and control (like uncle, 6.16.12). Visum [est] (“it seems/seemed best”) does not denote bold confidence, or even reveal who had the idea, and demum suggests that looking back, Younger Pliny is a bit astonished at his younger self’s indecision. Nevertheless, the term vulgus is usually pejorative, and Younger Pliny may be adapting his uncle’s categorical dichotomy between “learned” and “ignorant,” in which precious few (and it was not a matter of status, power, or money) belonged to the former.³⁴

The pressing and pushing action of the crowd comes from the back (literally, the end of the sentence). There is no one to step forward (like Elder Pliny) and lead people to safety. Confusion is oddly heightened because Misenum is a military town—it is accustomed to order and hierarchical governance. Its population was perhaps 4,000, with another 6,000 soldiers probably quartered around the western arc of the inner harbor (many of them out with the fleet, presumably) and so not necessarily part of this crowd (Figure 4.1, Chs 1, 3).³⁵ To whom would the residents look for guidance other than the commander of the imperial fleet and his family? But the “knowledgeable” admiral is away, the mob is leaderless, and Pliny has not shown himself ready to fill his uncle’s sandals; perhaps Plinia is giving orders.³⁶

In a throng, each follows someone else’s judgment (alienum consilium), and this only shoves (premit et impellit) the group (abeuntes) farther forward.³⁷ Pliny’s word for the shape of the crowd, agmen, resides on the tense edge between order and chaos: an agmen can mean, in its most regimented sense, a marching line of soldiers (appropriate for a naval base), but the word can also represent a more chaotic mass, verging toward its use as a term for coursing water. The letter is starting to spill floods of people, voices, and (soon) pyroclastics.

6.20.8

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

Having exited the town, we stopped. There we experienced many marvels, many terrors. For the carts which we had ordered to be brought out, despite (being) on completely flat ground, kept being knocked in opposite directions and even when wedged by rocks were not staying still in the same spot.

Variants: ^b multa formidine M; ^c [ ] h γ3b4; ^e sulca γ1b.

After exiting the urbanized area (to avoid the danger of collapsing roofs on either side of the road), Younger Pliny describes his household (first-person plural) stopping and wondering at what nature is doing. He uses a gerundive (miranda) expressing obligation: the multa had to be marveled at. The natural spectacle inspires awe both because of, and in spite of, its danger. He sets up the sentence with a tricolon of alliteration (multa, miranda, multas), which escalates, and then holds in tension, the majestic attraction with its horrors: the terrible beauty of a world teetering on its edge.³⁸

Judging by the geography of the promontory of Misenum and the timing of the story, the procession is likely to have moved WNW of the Roman port of Misenum toward the valley between Monte di Procida (Mons Misenus) and the hills southwest of Baiae (Figure 4.1, “A”). That valley had a road (Via Cappella / Via Mercato di Sabato) running through its center, the mouth of which was flanked by the tombs of sailors who had served in the Roman navy.³⁹ Tombs would have been clearly “out of town” (egressi tecta), but as we do not know the extent of urbanization at ancient Misenum, anywhere along the southern edge of the inner harbor could indicate where the family paused (see below). 6.20.13 also says that when the final pyroclastic density current arrived, it was “on their backs” (caligo tergis imminebat), making sense if they are walking WNW. The other road (“B”) does not head away from the eruption. Our only ancient map of the area, the Tabula Peutingeriana, shows only the route passing by the Lago di Fusaro/Acherusian Lake, from Baiae to Cumae (no spur road to Misenum), and does not resolve the issue (Figure 1.6).⁴⁰ Route “B” encounters significant undulation and elevation as the road rises from the inner harbor; route “A” is dead flat the whole way.⁴¹

Younger Pliny comments that their carts packed with belongings were being shaken so badly that even on the most level ground they were being moved in opposite directions, recalling the swaying roofs at Stabiae (6.16.15). On the Misenan shore, Pliny emphasizes the tension between reliable immovability (in planissimo campo; lapidibus … fulta) and uncontrollable movement (in contrarias partes agebantur [a passive-voice verb; it is just “happening”]; ne … quiescebant). He uses the imperfect to describe ongoing tremors in a section that otherwise is straightforward perfect tense.

The flat route along the shore (Figure 4.1, “A”) went past the schola armaturarum, or schola militum (today called miliscola at the west end of the inner harbor). That appellation designated the base training ground (parade maneuvers rather than fighting practice) for soldiers and sailors, as known from an early 4th-c. AD inscription.⁴² The same inscription memorializes the rebuilding of a (moveable) wooden bridge that spanned the canal linking the inner and outer harbors (pons ligneus, Figure 4.1, Ch. 3). That bottleneck makes route “B” unlikely. Finally, the next section speaks about a beach; the inner military harbor had quays; route “B,” therefore, cannot be correct.

6.20.9

Praeterea mare in^a se^a resorberi^a et tremore terrae quasi repelli^b videbamus^c. Certe processerat^d litus^e multaque animalia maris^f siccis^g harenis detinebat^h. Ab alteroⁱ latere nubes atra et horrenda ignei^j spiritus tortis^k vibratisque^l discursibus rupta^m in longas flammarum figuras dehiscebat: fulguribusⁿ illae^o et similes et maiores erant.

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

Variants: ^b revelli M; ^c videbantur Valla, videbamur c f, videbatur (θ?) q r° r 76 t BL23777 Laet. 98 Cat.; ^d praecesserat γ, corr. processerat θ (f q r° 76 Agr. 78 83 BL23777 Laet. 92b 92a 98 Cat.); ^e littus D γ2c γ3ab, luctus γ3b1a; ^g in siccis a LL52 corr., siccis et r; ^h detinebant γ3b4, detinebantur e Laet. 98 04 Cat., detinebatur Naples Ex-Vindobonensis lat. 42; ^j ignes H Naples Ex-Vindobonensis lat. 42, igneis γ1b, [ ] γ3b1a; ^k portis γ, partis H, porrectis Valla c f (porretis q) r° r 76 t BL23777 Laet. 98 Cat., certis 78 83 92b 92a e corr., corr. tortis Agr. Π (i a); ⁿ fulgoribus γ, corr. fulguribus Valla 76.

The first sentence is a double indirect statement. Videbamus takes an accusative, mare, that governs resorberi and repelli, both present passive infinitives (even something as massive as the sea is helpless to such forces). Mare first works with the reflexive in se, and then in the context of a sort of simile to explain why the water is receding: “as if [the sea were] being driven back by earthquake.” The second sentence is straightforward, but shifts the agent of action from sea to shore: it is the beach that has pushed forward and continues to cling to exposed marine animals. Note the nested word order framed by litus and detinebat: multa animalia (who belong in the water but who are now on dry land) separated from that dry land (siccis harenis)—even though they are in fact stuck upon it—by an inconstant maris. The juxtaposition of maris with siccis conveys superficial similarity, but their essences are discordant. That is the point: the world is behaving in contradiction.

The column of fleeing townspeople is also caught and exposed in the middle, on the thin spit of sand between the Tyrrhenian Sea and the military harbors. Moving WNW, they see the submission of ocean to land on the left, and on their right, the air invaded by earth and fire. The third sentence contains many participial phrases. Nubes is modified by atra, the future passive participle horrenda (echoing 6.20.1 horret), and a perfect passive participle, rupta, which governs the perfect passive participles tortis and vibratisque that modify discursibus. The main verb dehiscebat serves the subject nubes, and illae is a demonstrative pronoun for figuras, as the subject of erant. Similes accompanies the dative fulguribus: “similar to lightning.” Maiores, a comparative adjective, requires an ablative of comparison—again, fulguribus! As the dative and ablative endings are identical for a third declension noun, Pliny can use “fulguribus” once in writing but twice in meaning (zeugma).⁴³ Pliny’s language hisses and crackles with awesome destructive energy (he has his uncle’s eye for detail, but applies his own dramatic flair), and his longas flammarum figuras recalls the Elder’s flammae flammarumque in Ep. 6.16.18.⁴⁴ The cloud is the largest PDC (EU4 pf, Figures 3.4c, 3.12) and is on its way (see 6.20.11).

Sounds of the eruption help Pliny continue personifying it. First, he affixes breath to the blast (as in 6.16.6, using the same word: spiritus). He continues the metaphor by writing that the cloud dehiscebat, “was opening up wide.” The verb stem, hisco, means to yawn, and the prefix broadens the split. Pliny’s continuing use of the imperfect tense helps the account stay vivid—ocurring while the reader scans the lines. It was certainly intense for the 17-year old Pliny (and as revived in memory, when writing the letters). Avuncular instruction and habits have made an impact; Younger Pliny notices and details strange things. The descriptive adjectives and participles in this passage reveal a young man both frightened and amazed by unfolding events. He is taking note and trying to derive explanations—a budding scholar applying skills to a genuine crisis.

When Pliny the Younger describes the recession of the shoreline, he is recording a characteristic of a tsunami, or “N-wave.” The “drawback” of water is just the trough (rather than crest) of a force wave working its way through the medium of water.⁴⁵ Tsunamis are most often the result of massive undersea earthquakes or landslides, but can also be caused by volcanic eruptions (due either to displacement of water from the collapse of pyroclastic material into the water, causing a kind of landslide, or, as likely in this case, due to accompanying quakes, which buckle the seafloor, causing ripples with very long wavelengths). Tsunamis caused by volcanic eruptions dissipate faster than those caused by earthquakes, and tend not to affect coastlines distant from the source of the eruption. Clearly in the case of AD 79, the shockwave was not severe enough to cause a strong tsunami; if it had been, Pliny and the rest of the refugees would have been washed off the vulnerable coastal road.⁴⁶ Younger Pliny himself must have been gaping at the sight; his amazement is about to get slapped back into reality by the guest from Spain, who will tell them to run: the dark eruption cloud has begun ploughing the atmosphere behind them.

6.20.10

Tum vero idem^a ille^a ex Hispania amicus acrius et instantius “si frater” inquit “tuus^b, tuus avunculus vivit, vult esse vos^c salvos; si periit^d, superstites voluit: proinde quid cessatis evadere?” Respondimus non commissuros nos^e ut de salute illius^f incerti nostrae consuleremus.

Then indeed that same friend (of Elder Pliny) from Spain said, more sharply and insistently, “If your brother—your uncle—lives, he wishes you both to be safe; if he has died, he wanted you to survive him: so why have you stopped fleeing?” We responded that we were not about to allow ourselves to seek our own welfare while we were uncertain about his.

Variants: ^a ille idem γ3ab and descendants; ^b [ ] D h γ2c q p, [ ] (avunculus tuus) LL52 76, meus e; ^c [ ] γ1b; ^d perit γ1 γ2c γ3ab, corr. periit Valla c f q r 76 Π (04 a); ^e [ ] LL52 76, (nos commissuros) [ ] f; ^f eius a.

Section 10 reintroduces Pliny the Elder’s unnamed Spanish guest-friend (idem prompts the reader to recall 6.20.5), who is even more put out than before (comparative adverbs acrius, instantius). Recalling the helmsman in Ep. 6.16.11, who wisely advises Elder Pliny to turn back, this visitor tries convincing Younger Pliny and his mother to leave.⁴⁷ When the friend says, si frater tuus, tuus avunculus vivit ... he is addressing both Pliny the Younger and his mother. The doubled tuus is anaphora—deliberate emphatic repetition. One can see the friend looking first at Plinia and then turning to Pliny (in order of authority) as he makes his point. The protasis of the simple condition in his speech, si frater tuus, tuus avunculus ..., forms chiasmus. There is also heavy alliteration of the consonants “v” and “s”: ... vivit, vult esse vos salvos, the last syllable of which echos the reason: “-vos”: you. Through the words of the guest, Pliny speaks to his past self; his survival means the story can live through the letters.

While in the narrative context of the story, mother and son are not aware of the Elder’s fate, the reader (originally Tacitus, and now us) is. They and we might wonder at the synchronicity of the guest saying si vivit ... si periit shortly before the PDC arrives that ensured the Elder’s death at Stabiae and would cause panic at Misenum a few minutes later.⁴⁸ These words trigger a reader’s flashback to Ep. 6.16, and create a time-rewind tension: in Ep. 6.20’s story-time, the loss of brother / uncle / father hasn’t happened quite yet, though it already did in 6.16. Moreover, the reader, though conscious of the Younger’s survival, cannot be sure that his mother will make it. The reader is now uncertain how the letters align, and “when” they are supposed to be. That gentle confusion mirrors the muddle of the characters inside the letters. Puzzled (incerti), we are enticed to take the path of least resistance and read the letters as simple straightforward accounts (which they are not). Pliny has us.⁴⁹

Safety in vivit, salvos, superstites, and evadere is dented by the possibility of sudden death: periit and cessatis. This uncertainty sits at the fulcrum of the simple conditional sentence, with present tense for vivit, and past tense for periit. The present tense offers hope; the past is final. Pereo is rarely used in the present tense; its indicative mostly appears in a past or future form (the infinitive also has a sense of futurity; the subjunctive, of course, possibility). The word appears in Pliny’s Letters 42 times, but never in the present indicative referring to human mortality (Ep. 1.13.6 and 1.15.2 use perit metaphorically; perit here, in many γ sources, is a corruption). Pliny uses the word just once elsewhere in these two letters, to devastating effect in 6.20.17.

The last sentence is complicated, wordy, almost mumbling. It begins with an indirect statement after respondimus. Nos is the direct object of that verb, and also the subject accusative of the infinitive (non commissuros [esse is gapped]). The future active infinitive (“be about to”) gives the response a sense of hesitancy that nicely conveys the emotional uncertainty felt by Pliny and his mother. Nos appears once, but is used twice—both times as an accusative—similar to the doubled fulguribus in 6.20.9. Nos turns to govern a jussive noun clause (ut ... consuleremus) which also acts doubly: with an ablative prepositional clause, de salute illius (“to care about his welfare”) and with the dative nostrae [saluti is gapped], (“to care about our welfare”). These gapped and doubled words, and the complicated string of excuses made by Pliny and his mother, seem a sort of stuttering, captured in the word that separates the Elder’s welfare from their own: incerti. They did not have adequate information, and were not confident to decide about whether to leave home (in case, perhaps, a message came from the Elder, because it was also fleet headquarters). They do not know where he is, and are worried he will not know where they have gone. Out of danger from the tremors, they are not entirely interested in further flight.⁵⁰ Meanwhile, in this conversational pause, they (and we readers) have forgotten to watch Vesuvius. The story has entered a suspense-building pattern as violent nature approaches: 6.20.9 cloud! (10: talk) 11: Cloud! (12: talk) 13: CLOUD!! (13: talk) 14–17: CLOUD!!!, when human cries get absorbed into the eruption, Young Pliny is struck speechless, and his older narrating self has to supply the words.

6.20.11

Non moratus ultra proripit^a se effusoque cursu periculo aufertur. Nec multo post illa nubes descendere^b in^c terras^c, operire maria; cinxerat Capreas^d et absconderat^e; Miseni^f quod procurrit abstulerat.

Not having delayed further, he hurries himself off and is carried away from danger at a rushed pace. Not long after, that cloud sank down upon the earth and covered the seas; it had encompassed Capri and hidden it from sight; it had taken away that part of Misenum that juts out.

Variants: ^a procepit γ1a, prorepit γ1b Milan Ambrosianus H.54.sup.; ^c [ ] γ1b; ^d Capras γ1, Capraes γ2c, [ ] 76, corr. Capreas Valla; ^e absconditur γ1b, [ ] 76; ^f Misen M.

Shortly after about 8:00 in the morning, the Spanish friend has understood the urgency of the situation (non moratus ultra). The eruption column had collapsed; ash, debris, and superheated gas in the form of the most massive pyroclastic density current (EU4pf, S6, Figures 3.4c, 3.12) was pouring toward Capri and Misenum over the surface of the Bay of Naples (Ch. 3, previewed in 6.20.9). A PDC from the Krakatoan eruption of 1883 traveled over 48 km (30 mi) across the sea to reach the coast of Sumatra; the distance from Vesuvius to Misenum is about 30 km (18 mi).⁵¹ Pliny probably uses the plural maria to indicate all the sea that he could see.

The absolute furthest Pliny and his mother could have traveled from Misenum, along the Spiaggia di Miseno, and still seen Capri, is 3.2 km (Figure 4.1). From that point (Parrocchia S. Maria del Buon Consiglio), both the Cape of Misenum and Capri can be seen (on a generally similar compass line; 134 degrees toward the Misenum promontory; 154 degrees to Capri). Such a distance would have taken 45 minutes at a walking speed of ca. 4.7 km./hr, perhaps the upper limit of his mother’s speed, or an hour’s journey at a lesser pace; oxcarts moving at ca. 2.5–3.0 km/hr would have lagged.⁵² Beyond that location, topography blocks the island and promontory (Miseni quod procurrit). But it is highly doubtful that they got that far. The exodus was meant to avoid injury from falling masonry, so Pliny and Plinia, along with most townspeople, likely stopped somewhere beachside (the schola militum) once they had cleared the town and naval base (6.20.8). There was no initial sign that the volcano itself was directly dangerous. Only the Spanish friend is depicted hurrying further away. Yet they probably moved far enough that the conversations in 6.16.12-13 could happen after the occlusion of Capo Miseno and before the PDC arrived.

The PDC would have taken some time (perhaps 20 minutes: Ch. 3) to cross the distance to Misenum, slowed variably by topography as it went. From 6.20.9–18 Pliny seems to be describing the same PDC event (EU4pf) as a snapshot series of deposition phases, and according to at least one analysis, it may indeed have been long-lived.⁵³ Pliny is slowing narrative time—to elaborate dramatic details—but it is also likely that this largest blast event could have lasted 30–40 minutes from the time it was first spotted, cascading down the mountain, to when it began clearing at Misenum.

The reflexive pronoun se, as object of proripit, indicates high-speed hurrying. I retain “himself” in the translation because the Spanish friend is practically falling over his own body to scatter as fast as possible. The scene then veers toward comedy. The perfect passive particle effuso describes his pace, cursu, as an ablative of manner on the heels of periculo, an ablative of separation that goes with the passive aufertur. Basically, he has propelled himself at the start of his flight with such speed that his feet have taken over and he is now carried off by them as a passenger, recalling the panic of Elder Pliny’s companions in 6.16.18. The friend is racing (non moratus ultra) the velocity (nec multo post) of the descending cloud.⁵⁴

The amicus from Spain is sometimes painted as irrational or undutiful here, but he has tried twice now to exhort his hosts to move (he owes them no pietas), and flight is the only sensible response to what is advancing on the horizon.⁵⁵ The precise phrase effusoque cursu appears only once elsewhere, in Livy 2.65.6.⁵⁶ There the historian describes a battle in which Romans pursue Volscians across a ridge toward their camp, paene agmine uno, “nearly in a single line,” fugientes sequentesque, “those fleeing and those following.” The intertextual echoes in this letter are strong (cf. 6.20.5, 7, 13), speaking to Pliny reworking Livian exemplars as he crafts a personalized historiographical voice.⁵⁷

The motion of that cloud (illa, pointing to 6.20.9) embraces the planet: descendere in terras and operire maria. These are historical infinitives, a rapid, vivid narration that continues into the following section. Augoustakis has shown both that Pliny rarely employs this construction, and that Tacitus uses it for battle descriptions in the Agricola and Historiae.⁵⁸ One may translate them as imperfect or perfect active indicatives. The cloud reduces the refugees’ ability to orient themselves to known topographical features; options for movement narrow; bewilderment rises (again: incerti, 6.20.10).

6.20.12

Tum mater orare^a, hortari^b, iubere^c quoquo modo fugerem; posse enim iuvenem^d, se et^e annis^e et corpore^f gravem bene morituram, si mihi causa mortis non fuisset^g. Ego contra salvum me nisi^h una non futurumⁱ; dein^j manum eius amplexus, addere gradum cogo. Paret aegere incusatque^k se quod me^l moretur^l.

Then my mother kept begging, urging, ordering that I flee in whatever way (possible); for a young man could, (but as for) her, weighed down both by years and flesh—she would die well, if only she were not the cause of my death. I objected that I was not about to not save myself without her; then having embraced her hand, I compel her to take a step forward. She obeys reluctantly, and reproaches herself for delaying me.

Variants: ^a [ ] γ3b1b r, orabat γ3b4 LL52 (gloss) t; ^d [ ] γ3b2; ^j deinde γ p corr. dein γ3ab^l moreretur γ3b3, non moretur 76.

This section is one of the least corrupt. Some editors, such as Valla, gloss these opening historical infinitives as imperfects. Plinia’s appeals govern the huddled accusatives of iuvenem [me] and se in the indirect speech that dominates the rest of the sentence, and posse, as a standard infinitive, demonstrates variatio (a slight breaking of the pattern that produces emphasis).⁵⁹ This is brisk back-and-forth (adverb contra) conversation between mother and son, a “competition of generosity,” remembered, recrafted, and burnished.⁶⁰ Forming a tricolon crescens, orare, hortari, and iubere ratchet up the urgency as the cloud closes in. Iubere should introduce an infinitive (or at least the indirect command here should have an ut), but speech is not bound by grammar at a time like this: Pliny can flee or talk however he likes (quoquo modo).⁶¹ Mother becomes increasingly demanding; panic and despair intensify. With the future infinitive morituram (esse is omitted) she stakes a claim for a good Stoic death. Pliny must survive, however: he is young; he is the last of the family line; he needs to tell the tale.

Si mihi causa mortis non fuisset is an optative conditional, consolation for Plinia if she avoids being the causa of death (in the genitive) for her son (in the dative). His corresponding refusal, also in indirect discourse (no speaking verb necessary), matches and negates her future infinitive with his own: me ... non futurum [esse]. Moreover, nisi una (“not unless together”) enacts heroic disobedience, paradoxically proving his pietas. His response recalls their joint answer to the Spanish friend in 6.20.10, that concern for Elder Pliny was pausing their flight. Since that time they do not seem to have moved. Now is the time at Misenum for Young Pliny to lead, to evolve from praesens to praeses (Ep. 6.16.4): his family’s impending demise gives birth to his adulthood.

This scene is a Vergilian allusion to when father Anchises appeals to son Aeneas to leave him at Troy (Aeneid 2.638–44). Venus has removed the mist from Aeneas’s sight so he can see the gods at work destroying the city. Aeneas realizes the need to leave, and runs home to collect his family, but Anchises refuses, saying that he has had a long life and has suffered enough. As the family continues pleading, Anchises prays for a heavenly sign, and a shooting star appears, at which point Anchises relents. In each scenario, parents try convincing their children to abandon them. They point out the strength of the young and their own feebleness: the past ought not hinder the future. But Aeneas, paragon of pietas, rejects the impossible choice; he hefts his heritage on his shoulders and grips the hand of a future prince as they depart the burning ruins. If Pliny is a “new Aeneas” here, perhaps, as Schönberger suggests, he shows a kind of “bourgeois heroism”—more difficult to achieve than “martial heroism.”⁶² Similarly, Cova argues that Pliny’s story is a “rationalized” version of the fall of / flight from Troy: a disaster due to nature, not human action; accompanied by natural, not supernatural, qualities; and the characters are common, real people, “family heroes,” not epic, mythic demigods.⁶³

Pliny has Plinia act the double role of Anchises and Ascanius, and crafts a moment of truth for his own character, finally taking charge (amplexus, cogo) with gentle help and forceful motion. Her acquiescence (paret) is hesitant (aegere incusatque se, moretur), which accentuates her son’s action. We also hear her reason (quod me moretur, a causal clause subjunctive).⁶⁴ It is no accident that reflexive pronouns are profuse here, even in a letter with so many: this is a personal, psychological kind of historiography, with Pliny (ego) at the center: a familiar kind of protagonist, but a new kind of writer.

6.20.13

Iam cinis^a, adhuc tamen^b rarus^b: respicio^c; densa^d caligo^e tergis^f imminebat, quae nos^g torrentis^h modo infusa terraeⁱ sequebatur^j. “deflectamus” inquam^k, “dum videmus ne in^l via strati comitantium turba in^m tenebris^m obteramurⁿ.”

Now ash, although so far, thin: I turn around—a thick cloud was hanging over our backs, which, having been poured over the earth like a torrent, was following us. “Let us change course,” I say, “while we can see, so that we, laid out in the road, do not get trampled by the mob of people following in the darkness.”

Variants: ^b rarus tamen M, tamen ranis γ1b; ^c despicio γ1b; ^f tergit γ3b1a, terga e; ^k inquit γ1b; ^m [ ] γ1b; ⁿ operiamur M, obruamur o (Vat. Ott.lat. 1965).

From thin ashfall on a threatening horizon, the situation escalates.⁶⁵ Pliny enhances the scene with verbal ellipsis in the first two clauses, and continuous vivid action in the present and imperfect tenses of the verbs that follow. Once again he animates the danger: imminebat means “hanging over, threatening.” As in Ep. 6.16, the eruption is a malicious, sentient being, chasing the Plinys: respicio, tergis, sequebatur, and comitantium all trigger alarm from behind. The repetition is deliberately pleonastic (superfluous), but it is real, not exaggerated; this is exactly how PDCs happen.⁶⁶ Torrentis comes before the word it should follow (modo) because the streaming PDC is outstripping syntax.⁶⁷ They are suddenly being followed, not in a cooperative or deferential way (6.20.7), but in a terrifying way.

This cloud is more dangerous than just its darkness. The EU4pf PDC (Figures 3.4c, 3.12) was the same one that killed Pliny the Elder in Ep. 6.16.18–19: a tide of hot gas, ash, and earth particles (Ch. 3). Picking up on his uncle’s skills of scientific observation, Younger Pliny aptly describes the caligo in the relative clause as torrentis modo infusa terrae; the participle infusa takes the dative terrae as the surface onto which it has been poured out. In addition, infusa recalls effuso (the “poured-out pace” of the Spanish friend) from 6.20.11, reinforcing the sense of a world being blended into a fluid of air, earth, and victims.⁶⁸

The hortatory subjunctive deflectamus shows Younger Pliny continuing to supervise, to avoid the mindless mass panic soon to be triggered. Up to this point he has been guided by his mother, the Spaniard, and the impetus of the crowd. Now Pliny, much like his uncle, steers a course, and likewise exercises the judgment others have abandoned. Deflectamus is characterized by a temporal clause (dum videmus) establishing the window for moving off the road, followed by a negative purpose clause that gives the reason: so that they might not get trampled while plopped down in the roadway, in via strati.⁶⁹ This is expressed in the passive voice with an ablative of agent and genitive plural present participle (turba comitantium). Pliny no longer has any sway over the populace of Misenum (6.20.7); they are as chaotic (a key facet of turba) and inexorable as the PDC. Any splinter of human agency is removed by the phrase in tenebris: even if the fleeing townspeople had the mental clarity to avoid stampeding Pliny and his mother, they couldn’t. They cannot see. Human beings have become both passive and active components of the volcanic flow; swallowed by the monster, they now act on its behalf.

The α tradition (M and its descendants) reads the less likely operiamur here: “(lest) we be covered over,” or more strongly: “overwhelmed, buried.” More suitably horrific is γ’s obteramur, which may also have been the reading of Π, since Aldus, Budé, and Beroaldus don’t change it.⁷⁰

6.20.14

Vix^a consideramus^b, et nox non qualis^c inlunis^d aut nubila, sed qualis^e in locis^f clausis lumine exstincto. Audires^g ululatus feminarum, infantum^h quiritatusⁱ, clamores virorum; alii^j parentes^k, alii liberos, alii coniuges vocibus requirebant, vocibus noscitabant^l; hi^m suum casum, illiⁿ suorum miserabantur^o; erant qui metu mortis mortem precarentur.

We had hardly settled down, when night (came), not like a moonless or cloudy night, but like being in a closed room with the lamp snuffed out. You would have heard the shrieking of women, the crying of babies, the shouts of men: some were seeking parents, others children, others spouses with their voices, trying to recognize them by their voices; these over here were bemoaning their own downfall, those over there the ruin of their family: there were some who were praying for death out of fear of death.

Variants: ^a viam θ (r° r) a , vix viam f t BL23777 Laet. 98 04 Cat., corr. vix Agr. 78 83 92b 92a a Cat. ; ^b consederamus γ (γ1 h k γ3b1b γ3b2–4) Valla c q, deserueramus θ (f r° r t BL23777) Laet. 98 04 Cat. a , constiteramus 92b 92a, corr. consideramus Agr. a Cat. ; ^d in lumis H, illuminis γ1b, inlunis (et) p 78 83, lunis r t illunis e Cat. Π (04 a); ^g audire γ1b; ^h infantium γ, corr. infantum e 76; ⁱ quiritans γ1b, queritatus some γ; ^l vocitabant γ1b, [ ] p; ^m his γ1b, hii M r t; ^o miserebantur γ1 h e p LL52 q t 04.

Nearly all volcanological studies of the AD 79 event have focused on sections or cores acquired on the east side of the bay, from Neapolis to Stabiae; they rarely include the north-northwestern shore in isopleth maps (Figures 3.5–3.12) because that area was not affected until the end.⁷¹ Recent work on submarine deposits shows that PDCs entered the Bay of Naples and changed its bathygraphy, but relatively little research has charted the western extent of pyroclastic debris within the northern part of the bay.⁷² A PDC did travel nearly 20 km south across the Bay to reach the Roman Villa del Pezzolo at Marina di Equa (Figure 3.12; Ch. 4, Ep. 6.16.18); it is just as certain that the blast’s leading edge crossed 30 km. westward over the Bay to cover Misenum (6.20.9, 11, 13–14, 16).⁷³ One core (C69) from the Bay of Naples contains a 9-cm thick layer of AD 79 tephra at a sea-depth of 141 m, 29.2 km southwest of Vesuvius (Figure 3.12).⁷⁴ Misenum was spared serious consequence by its distance (6.20.16: et ignis quidem longius substitit) and protection from the PDC’s vector by the intervening Pausilypon Hill (Posillipo; 150 m high in direct line to Vesuvius). Only the southernmost portion, Capo Miseno, would have been exposed directly. PDCs (at least the more dilute portions) can flow around topographic obstacles to some degree, depending on their shape and height.⁷⁵

Pliny dramatically begins his sentence with vix—barely had they gotten clear of the road. Consido means “sit down,” but he and mother do not seem to have advanced far since pausing in 6.20.8. They have chosen the looming cloud over the onrushing crowd. The immediate appearance of et (here equaling cum, or “when”) leaves no time for thought—the darkness is upon them, premature nighttime during nascent daytime.⁷⁶ This is also a passage where the θ reading is visible: viam deserueramus, “we had abandoned the road.” This reading combined with vix in f and subsequent sources, and was marginally inserted in r° as preparation for its printing in r (Ch. 2: Table 2.1, Figure 2.2c).

Pliny then selects a vivid negative-positive simile. The night is not like one lacking moonlight (either because it’s not there or because it is cloudy; for lunar visibility, see Ch. 4, 6.16.17); such are natural, periodically experienced conditions of darkness. Instead, Pliny constructs an artificial environment to express a profoundly unnatural blackness: locis clausis lumine exctincto, parallel ablative phrases with noun–participle synchesis.

Younger takes the reader inside the darkness by fronting the next sentence with the second-person audires, a potential subjunctive. If you had been there, he says to Tacitus (and us), you would have heard (and only heard; seeing was not an option) speech that was not language: wails, cries, shouts: objective misery.⁷⁷ The alternating narrative pattern of description–conversation (starting in 6.20.9) has shattered and merged. Ululatus is onomatopoetic, a keening wail used on both celebratory and funereal occasions, and a highly specific sound to convey. Humans must now use their animal senses, seeking and confirming missing family members through vocal recognition. The common genitive plural endings of feminarum, infantum, virorum beat an expectant rhythm, and Pliny juxtaposes women and children on the inside of the clause, while the men shout at the outside edge.⁷⁸ Gender dissolves in the subjective misery of the following sections, as people are reduced to: generic alii, hi, illi, erant qui (and multi, plures in 6.20.15) as subjects—and parents, children, and partners as objects.⁷⁹ Pliny reprises synchesis: vocibus requirebant, vocibus noscitabant; but this time hopefully—affirming that families were expressing their humanity and finding each other, despite the depths of despairing darkness. This is pietas too.⁸⁰

Yet despondency for self and family is the emotion of the next clause, governed again by a single verb (miserabantur, suitably deponent at the intersection of grief for self and pain for others) and, like the entire passage, elegantly ordered despite the chaos of the subject matter. Pliny’s parallel constructions build to a dreadful alliterative crescendo, a polyptoton, the varied repetition of words with the same root: metu mortis mortem precarentur, ending the relative clause of characteristic of erant qui. Its bare, jarring essence: “fear—death—death—pray,” a pathetic paradoxical statement, sets up a cosmic-scale reality check in the next section.⁸¹

6.20.15

Multi ad deos^a manus tollere, plures nusquam iam deos ullos^b, aeternamque^c [ ^d ] illam et novissimam noctem mundo^e interpretabantur. Nec defuerunt qui fictis mentitisque^f terroribus vera pericula augerent^g. Aderant^h quiⁱ Miseni illud ruisse^j, illud ardere, falso sed credentibus, nuntiabant^k.

Many were raising their hands to the gods, (but) more were now concluding that no gods existed, and (it was) that very last and everlasting night for the world. Nor were there lacking the sort of people who were exaggerating true perils with invented and fictitious terrors. There were also those reporting—falsely, but to gullible people—that one part of Misenum had collapsed; that another part was burning.

Variants: ^b [ ] γ1b, illos ML47.34, corr. ullos Valla; ^c aeternumque γ (D H h γ2c), corr. aeternamque γ3ab Valla; ^e [ ] γ1; ^j revise γ1b; ^k initiabant D Oxford Auct.F.2.22 k ML47.34, corr. nuntiabant Valla.

Does Pliny remember seeing shadows of raised hands in the shifting dark, or does he automatically associate certain phrases with such gestures (Ep. 6.16.16: Figure 4.9)?⁸² In any case, he describes the crowd’s discrepant mindsets. He juxtaposes the many, who reflexively raise (another historical infinitive: tollere) their hands in prayer to the gods, with the most, who experience two aspects of a deep shock.⁸³ First, they are alone—the gods are gone, there are no gods, no appellate higher powers; and second, this is The Last Day for the world (mundo, dative of reference).⁸⁴ The deponent interpretabantur, meaning both “to understand” and “to explain” simultaneously to oneself and others, expresses these dawning realizations. Nusquam esse means “not to exist”; an understood indirect discourse follows intrepretabantur. Pliny will shortly describe what does still exist: confused, frightened mortals. Clauses that began with individuals locally and vocally searching for family conclude with a verb that conveys individuals grappling with universal isolation.⁸⁵

In the last two sentences, Pliny describes more voices, this time of misinformation. Using perfect passive participles, he emphasizes the fabricated nature of the claims with fictis mentitisque terroribus, juxtaposed with vera pericula, “real dangers.” With falso sed credentibus, he invokes another paradox.⁸⁶ The difference between real and fake information could only of course have been perceived after the fact, unless the claims were patently mythic, like Cassius Dio’s wandering giants (Ch. 3); Pliny himself avoids all fanciful explanations.⁸⁷ Pliny hints at those who rush to judgment by using a relative clause of characteristic: Nec defuerunt qui … augerent, a construction recently employed in 6.20.14 (erant qui ... precarentur). In both cases, Pliny describes people not thinking clearly about what they are saying (either in prayer or rumor). Exchange of false information, common during disaster/emergency scenarios, worsens precarious situations, exacerbates fear, and leads to poor decision-making.⁸⁸ In Pliny’s account, do fictis and mentitis connote deceitfulness, that is, intentional fabrication, heightened by the relative clause of characteristic (“the sort of people who would…”)? If so, then the author is laying down a subtle moral verdict.

Pliny proceeds to provide two specific examples of faulty intelligence, both relating to their town (6.20.7–9): that “this or that” (illud … illud) part of Misenum had fallen to ruin, or was in flame. For the third time (tricolon crescens) he uses a relative clause (aderant qui ... nuntiabant) but with variatio: the indicative verb conveys concrete misinformation in indirect speech.⁸⁹ It is also imperfect tense; people were repeatedly repeating it (not were just inclined to do so). The emotional and psychological situation was deteriorating, as antagonists broke down spirits rather than provide comfort. The relative clauses categorize different groups of speakers: nec distinguishes the forlorn from the fearmongers. Pliny implies that people, without gods or hope of rescue, began crumbling from the inside. He remarkably portrays the diverse psychologies by which humans respond to extreme stress.

6.20.16

Paulum^a reluxit, quod^b non dies nobis, sed adventantis^c ignis indicium videbatur. Et ignis quidem longius substitit^d; tenebrae rursus cinis^e rursus^f, multus^g et^h gravisⁱ. Hunc identidem^j adsurgentes excutiebamus^k; operti alioqui^l atque^m etiamⁿ oblisi^o pondere essemus.

It grew bright again a little, which did not seem like daylight to us, but rather a sign of approaching fire. And indeed, some distance off the fire halted—darkness again, ash again, thick and heavy. This ash we were shaking off repeatedly by rising up; otherwise, we would have been covered and even crushed by its weight.

Variants: ^a paululum most γ; ^b quidem γ3b1b γ3b2–3 γ3a 92b 92a; ^c adventatis γ1b ML47.34 LL52 p 78 83; ^d subsistit γ3b4 83 92b 92a 98 Cat.; ^e-i [ ] [ ] tumultus [ ] gravis γ, (rursus tenebrae) rursus cinis multus et gravis θ (q), cinis [ ] multus et gravis r° Agr. Laet. 98 Cat., cinis [ ] multum et gravis r t BL23777; corr. cinis rursus multus et gravis Π (04 a) M; ^k excutiebamur γ3ab; ^l-o alio qui et etiam oblisci H, alio qui et [ ] elisi γ1b, alio qui ad etiam oblisi h, alioquin [ ] etiam oblisi γ3a γ3b1a Agr. 78 83 92b 92a, alio quia decima oblisi γ2c, γ3b1b γ3b2–4, alioquin [ ] de caelo oblisi Valla c f 76, alioqui atque de caelo oblisi q t BL23777 Laet. 98 Cat., alio quia de caelo oblisi r° r, corr. alioqui atque etiam oblisi Π (a) M.

This problematic section contains two passages that elucidate Valla and θ influences upon the editing of the γ text (Ch. 2, Figure 2.2c). First, γ corrupted cinis rursus multus et gravis into [ ] [ ] tumultus [ ] gravis, “serious commotion,” likely meant to refer to the anxious crowd, but which left hunc in confusion. To compensate, γ3ab texts altered the next verb to excutiebamur, “we were being brushed aside” (i.e., every time Pliny and Plinia tried to get up). Even Valla did not suggest a conjecture here, but q copied in both the θ reading (correct but for the reversal of rursus) and then the raw γ reading via c°. (This is evidence for θ being parental or an elder sibling to γ in their branching off from the 9-Book family; see Ch. 2.) The editor of r° used θ3, skipping the second rursus (a reading both Agricola and Laetus took via θ2); but in r, he changed multus to multum, making it adverbial (which t and BL23777 followed).

The second example, the elision-rich alioqui atque etiam oblisi, is even more complicated. The γ text must have been hard to read because there is an early split of slight variations (H, γ1b, h, γ3a, γ3b1a) as copyists struggled to make sense because cinis was absent, so they construed the pressure coming from the crowd: “(we would have been overwhelmed) in another spot and even forgotten (oblisci)/knocked out (elisi)/crushed (oblisi).” Then γ2c (Ch. 2: Biondo?) introduced a bold conjecture: alio quia decima, “(overwhelmed) in another spot because by the (proverbial) tenth (wave) (we would have been crushed by the weight),” picked up by nearly all γ3b texts. Valla understood that decima was an obscure stretch, so he tried to correct it by recalling cinis in 6.20.13 (the correction is marked clearly in LL52): alioquin de caelo, “otherwise (covered [by ash]) from the sky (we would have been crushed by the weight).” The θ2-branch of his descendants then engrafted the θ and Valla strands: alioqui atque de caelo, even as r° and r tried to hang on to alio quia from R1472’s γ3b1b ancestor. In each case, Π and then M eventually confirmed the correct reading.

Pliny offers a faint, false glimpse of clearing sky (paulum reluxit, with its adverbial accusative), but a relative clause (quod ...) follows quickly to quash that promise.⁹⁰ Pliny recalls his uncertainty about what the light meant by using a passive imperfect (videbantur). The brightness was not seeming to be daylight (dies), but a new wave of approaching fire (adventantis ignis). This was perhaps the tail (C1, F, eu3d) of the same extended PDC (EU4pf, S6, Ch. 3, Figure 3.4c) described in previous sections, or perhaps subsequent smaller PDCs confined to Vesuvius’ slopes (such as EU5). Pliny simply relates that the fire stopped short.

Four times Pliny references brightness: reluxit … dies … ignis … ignis, contrasting strongly the aeternamque … et novissimam noctem of the previous section. Prose wavers literally and metaphorically between darkness and light; Pliny finally douses the temporary false hope (from the glowing PDC) with a devastating synchesis. Shadow returns, thick with ash: tenebrae rursus cinis rursus. The repetition of the word rursus (again) ... rursus (again) separates the two elements that Pliny experiences for a second time (cinis and nox in 6.20.13–14): darkness (tenebrae) and ash (cinis). Following rursus is identidem, “again and again, repeatedly”; the constant ashfall has worsened: multis et gravis. The Plinys must keep rising and shedding to prevent being covered and crushed (operti…oblisi pondere essemus, a mixed simple-present, past contrary-to-fact conditional).

Reluxit and substitit in the perfect (“it lightened; it stopped”), whisper closure, but the imperfects videbantur and excutiebamus shunt back into an infernal time loop. In the face of nature’s inexorable assault, humans can only suffer through. The accumulating weight (pondere, ablative of means) is both real and metaphorical: there is no end in sight. There is, however, temptation to give up and be buried alive, not far from where mythical Misenus was interred after his death helped Aeneas to enter the Underworld in the Burning Fields; so the place was named.⁹¹ On the threshold of hell, Younger Pliny admits he surrendered.

6.20.17

Possem gloriari non gemitum mihi^a, non vocem parum fortem in tantis periculis excidisse, nisi me cum omnibus, omnia mecum perire misero^b, magno^c tamen mortalitatis solacio credidissem^d.

I could boast that no groan of mine, no feeble cry, escaped during such dire dangers, except that I believed that I was going to die along with everything else, and everything else die with me—a pitiful yet significant consolation for being mortal.

Variants: ^a [ ] γ2c, corr. Valla mihi (after periculis), mihi f (and a second mihi after periculis); ^b misero quidem Valla 76; ^c magna γ3b4; ^d cecidissem Valla c r° r 76 t, excidissem q BL23777 Laet.

The frame of this sentence is a mixed contrary-to-fact conditional. The apodosis (possem ... excidisse, coming first) is in the literary present tense, while the protasis (nisi ... credidissem) refers to how Pliny felt during the event. This temporal weaving offers a complex look into Pliny’s self-presentation. The subjunctives indicate that he wishes (now) that he could trumpet (gloriari) his past composure (rather than use the indirect speech that follows), but his courage wavered, and he understands his condition only in retrospect (magno ... solacio). Genuine revelation or not (Pliny is so artful that it can be hard to tell), this relates the protagonist emotionally to the reader and lets them witness inherent human fallibility under pressure.⁹² It is the pleasing pathos of disaster stories: the reader can fantasize that they themselves might have had greater self-possession, without actually being tested.

Pliny’s story becomes more plausible if he acknowledges some imperfection (though this is also a kind of self-praise). Aeneas, too, had his doubts and fears, and Young Pliny does not want to surpass the fortitudo of his uncle in the previous letter.⁹³ Moreover, his emotional response is understandable because it is universal; there is perverse solace in the idea that one will not perish alone, as long as everyone is doomed (more on this below).

In the protasis’ sententia, Pliny uses chiasmus to convey his individual reflection in a cosmic mirror, the parallel inversion of self and all, cleverly taking advantage of the identical form of the personal pronoun me in the accusative and the ablative, and Latin’s word-order flexibility that allows the preposition cum to stay in its same position relative to me, governing omnibus in the first part and me in the second. Younger Pliny expresses a kind of tragic–heroic solidarity against the fickleness of nature. Death comes to all, but not usually all at once. Imminent and inevitable pan-destruction elicits resignation, during which whimpering and wailing is pointless, but still worthy of pity.

Pity comes next. Apposing this belief in global catastrophe is the ablative solacio, agreeing with both misero and magno, a clever alliterative yet ostensibly contradictory pair of adjectives (with tamen as an off-center fulcrum) that form the psychological tension of sad and grand that Pliny is trying to convey.⁹⁴ The individual is indeed small and insignificant within the larger scheme of things. And while misero technically agrees with solacio, it cannot be coincidence that Pliny chooses to place it near the ablative personal pronoun in mecum (“poor me”). Human value becomes sharpest, most contested, at the death-moment. Pliny is an important (magnus) senator now, but was an insignificant (miser) boy then —except in surviving to write. The time-loop of the previous section resolves into unidirectionality, inextricable with mortality. It is finally over (or so he thought: credidissem).

Perhaps Pliny was also comforted by the promise of a world-death to end all suffering. Credidissem suggests a case study in applied philosophy, with an Epicurean bent.⁹⁵ The younger Seneca, in discussing earthquakes and how to find solace in the midst of natural disaster, riffed off the poet Vagellius (QNat. 6.2.9): …si cadendum est, cadam orbe concusso, non quia fas est optare publicam cladem, sed quia ingens mortis solacium est terram quoque videre mortalem. “…if fall I must, let me fall with the world shattered, not because it is right to hope for a universal disaster, but because it is an immense solace for death to see that the earth is also mortal.”⁹⁶ Cassius Dio perhaps alludes to this passage in 66.23.1 (Ch. 3): “others believed that the whole universe (τὸν κόσμον πάντα) was being resolved into chaos or fire.”

Philosophy and dramatic tragedy are eschatological cousins; both expose the human condition as crucified between exhilarating potential and inevitable temporaneity. Sometimes the emotional reaction is dejection; sometimes, a bitter kind of glee. In a tragic Senecan work, Medea says, in response to the Nurse’s appeal for calm and control (Medea 426–28):

Sola est quies,

mecum ruina cuncta si video obruta;

mecum omnia abeant. Trahere, cum pereas, libet.

The only peace, with me: is if I see everything obliterated in ruin; with me: let everything pass away. It is pleasing to drag the world down when you die.⁹⁷

By starting lines 427–28 with mecum (which Pliny surely echoes), Medea reveals that it is all about her, and her agency; she is equivalent to the world, and claims both its power and transience. Her plan sings revenge; her determination exudes confidence. Medea accepts the end of things because she has caused it; this is very different in tone and attitude from the Younger Pliny’s melancholy submission to natural forces beyond his control.

One hundred and fifty years previously Cicero, in the context of articulating Stoic philosophy through the literary voice of Marcus Porcius Cato, had treated the dilemma of solo versus universal destruction in de finibus (3.64). In that work, he proposes that a good and wise person ought to put the interests of the state (and its future) above their own, and warns against the selfish person who disregards the interests of others, including those not yet born:

Quoniamque illa vox inhumana et scelerata ducitur eorum qui negant se recusare quo minus ipsis mortuis terrarum omnium deflagratio consequatur (quod vulgari quodam versu Graeco pronuntiari solet), certe verum est etiam iis qui aliquando futuri sint, esse propter ipsos consulendum.

And because that (well-known) saying is considered inhuman and wicked, of people who refuse to care that, after they are dead, the incineration of the entire world could happen—usually declared in a certain Greek verse—then it is certainly true that it is necessary to care about those who someday will exist, for their own sake.⁹⁸

The versu Graeco to which Cicero refers is: ἐμοῦ θανόντος γαῖα μιχθήτω πυρί·, οὐδὲν μέλει μοι· τἀμὰ γὰρ καλῶς ἔχει. “After my death, may earth be mixed with fire; it doesn’t matter to me; for my affairs will be just fine.”⁹⁹ The quote is from an unknown tragedy; it is a dramatic construction, not a philosophical argument, but clearly had become a commonplace by the first century BC. According to Suetonius (Nero 38), the emperor Nero bent the same quote into cruelty, because he wanted to watch:¹⁰⁰

Dicente quodam in sermone communi: ἐμοῦ θανόντος γαῖα μειχθήτω πυρί, “Immo,” inquit, “ἐμοῦ ζῶντος,” planeque ita fecit.

When someone remarking in casual conversation said: “After my death, may earth be mixed with fire,” He replied “No—while I’m living,” and clearly, he did just that.

This passage introduces the Great Fire of Rome in AD 64, for which Suetonius openly blames Nero, claiming he coveted property on which he could build a new palace in the heart of the city—the Golden House. Suetonius (crediting Nero) cleverly turns an offhand expression of mortal resignation (or perhaps of refusing to accept responsibility for the consequences of one’s actions—that death provides a kind of immunity) into a timely preface for the greatest disaster to befall the city. The Great Fire would have been the civic tragedy most near in memory to Romans: to the Younger Pliny as a young child, to the Elder in the prime of his life, and to Tacitus as a disaster story (Annales 15.38–44).¹⁰¹

Pliny, in his moment of truth, seems more Epicurean than Stoic, but he clearly claims that he thought the end was nigh, and no future interests or future people would be around either to have concerns, or be the object of concerns. There was an apocalypticism inherently rooted in Romans’ yearning for a surpasssing intensity of experience, which resulted in an “anticipation of conflagration as intense as the fear of it.”¹⁰² The sentiments of tyrannical emperors or murderous witches come off as arrogant and selfish, but they are based in a desire for one’s existence to be meaningful and notable, given the ephemerality of life and memory. To lose all hope of that desire defines despair. Pliny recalls and stages both battling emotions in his seventeen-year-old self—not as a claim to glory, but as an admission of humanity—which is quite brave in its own authorial way.¹⁰³

6.20.18

Tandem illa caligo tenuata quasi in fumum nebulamve^a discessit^b; mox dies verus^c, sol etiam effulsit^d, luridus^e tamen, qualis^f esse^g cum deficit^h soletⁱ. Occursabant^j trepidantibus^k adhuc oculis mutata omnia altoque cinere tamquam nive obducta.

At last that dark cloud, having been thinned as if into smoke or mist, dispersed; soon afterwards (came) real daylight—the sun even shone forth—but it was pale, just like it usually is when it is eclipsed. Confronting our still trembling eyes, everything was changed and blanketed in deep ash as if by snow.

Variants: ^a nebulam ne H c r; ^b decessit a (Π?) Cat. ; ^c [ ] γ, vere Π (I 04 a); ^d effluxit γ1; ^g esset γ1; ^h defecit γ1 γ2c some γ3ab, corr. deficit Valla; ⁱ sol et M H D h k γ3a γ3b1 γ3b3–4 78 83 92b 92a, sol γ1b ML47.34, corr. solet Valla c f r° r 76 Agr.; ^j occursabat M, occurrebant a (Π?); ^k (adhuc) trepidantibus γ1.

After doomsday, the sun returns; wan rays filter through darkness. Younger Pliny describes the singular caligo (darkness with subtance) dissipating through hendiadys: fumum nebulamve. In 6.20.16, there was the false semblance of day (the firey advance of a PDC). Pliny now contrasts that delusive dawn with verus dies, genuine daylight. Yet while that light may be “real,” it is nonetheless distorted by the adjective luridus and the verb deficit. Pliny is trying to describe a world halfway to normal, in eerie limbo. He resorts to qualifiers: quasi, qualis, and tamquam (“as if,” “just like,” “as if”). He struggles to find vocabulary and phrasing to represent the picture still vivid in his mind’s eye. The metamorphosis of the landscape must have been indelible.

Pliny describes the light as luridus (pale yellow, sallow), and compares it (tamquam) to washed-out sunlight during an eclipse. Cassius Dio mentions the same (66.22.4; Ch. 3). Elder Pliny treats eclipses extensively in the Natural History.¹⁰⁴ In HN 2.57, he specifically mentions solar and lunar eclipses happening within 15 days of each other in AD 71 (Nam ut xv diebus utrumque sidus quaereretur, et nostro aevo accidit imperatoribus Vespasianis patre iii. filio consulibus; “For it happened that [an eclipse of] both heavenly bodies could be observed within a period of fifteen days, even in our lifetime, when the emperors—older Vespasian for the third time, as well as his son—were consuls”).¹⁰⁵ Younger Pliny was about nine years old. During the night of 4 March, a partial lunar eclipse was visible under a clear Mediterranean sky, covering about a third of the moon, high in the sky toward the south. About two weeks later, on 20 March, a total solar eclipse marched across the eastern Mediterranean, from just off of Cyrene toward Troy, cutting directly across Attica (Figure 1.4).¹⁰⁶ In Athens, the sun darkened entirely by 9:26 in the morning; the whole event took three hours. A total eclipse happening over such a major city would have been known to Elder Pliny during his Natural History research.¹⁰⁷

Total solar occlusion also occurred on 30 April AD 59 (passing over Neapolis), 5 January AD 75 (over Tarentum, southern Italy), and 27 December AD 83 (Egypt and Syria, about when Younger Pliny was serving as military tribune; Ch. 1).¹⁰⁸ These were the only eclipses to happen in the Mediterranean during the Plinys’ lifetimes. It is well possible that either Pliny observed one in person (they certainly knew the causes and periodicity: HN 2.43–58); if not, they will have read third-party accounts.

Pliny’s HN 2.98 discusses the sun dimming due to an eclipse in a strange context: after Caesar’s assassination in 44 BC; the sun was constantly dimmed (pallore continuo), which Elder calls prodigiosus (marvelous) and longior (extended), lasting “nearly an entire year.”¹⁰⁹ Younger would have been familiar with his uncle’s description, though he uses an adjective (luridus) rather than noun (pallor). The key point is that both luridus and pallor have a moral valency, associating chromatically with death, sickness, and fear. The post-nubes world is unhealthy; the light revealing it is feeble, and the landscape covered by pale piles of pumice and ash. The colors of life have washed out of the world.

Omnia, modified by mutata and obducta on either side, is the subject of occursabant, an intimidating visual “run-up” with its prefix (ob- changed to oc-) taking a tremulous dative case (trepidantibus).¹¹⁰ Pliny the Writer’s eyes are uneasy and unadjusted. Omnia marks the third time the word has appeared in three sentences; Pliny has also used the word three times in the last six sections of letter 6.16, and as a subject in 6.20.3. This repetition builds a sense of generic immensity, banal ubiquity, as if no other word can suffice.

Pliny also structures the last clause to match the meaning of his vision: mutata on one end and obducta on the other form the verbal mantle of snow-like ash, with omnia inside. The color and texture make sense for the simile, but the season, the temperature, and the place are all wrong: a natural landscape has turned unnatural. If everything in Pliny’s world has changed, what does he and his household have to go back to? The next section describes their return.

6.20.19

Regressi^a Misenum, curatis utcumque corporibus suspensam dubiamque noctem^b spe^c ac^c metu exegimus^d. Metus praevalebat; nam et tremor terrae perseverabat^e et plerique lymphati^f terrificis vaticinationibus et sua et aliena mala ludificabantur^g.

Having returned to Misenum, with our bodily needs attended to however we could, we spent an uncertain night gripped both by hope and fear. Fear was ever the stronger; for shaking of the earth continued to go on and a great many deranged persons were ridiculing both their own and others’ misfortunes by means of their terrifying prophesizing.

Variants: ^b noctemque r t, mentem a (Π?) Cat. ; ^c [ ] ac γ1b; ^d exigimus γ (H D h γ2c γ3ab) a, exaegi mihi q, exigimus mihi t, corr. exegimus γ1b Valla e c f r° BL23777 Laet. 98 Cat.; ^f limphari γ1b; ^g ludificabant Oxford Auct.F.2.22 k ML47.34 Valla c f 76, corr. ludificabantur θ (q) r.

Younger Pliny introduces this sentence with a perfect active participle, offering a temporal break between the action of the eruption and its aftermath. Pliny and his mother were probably not far distant from Misenum, but their return journey through ash and debris must have been slow. In addition, people may have hesitated to return quickly; there had already been false hopes of the eruption’s end (6.20.16). Vesuvius had not finished (there are four more eruption units, EU5–8; Figure 3.4c), but no other outbursts from the mountain would threaten Misenum again.

Back home, the first thing Pliny mentions is a return to regular habit and familiar custom: bathing, expressed through the ablative absolute curatis corporibus. What normally is a relaxing ritual seems tense and awkward, however; the adverb utcumque suggests improvisation and resourcefulness. This may have been difficult, as the Aqua Augusta aqueduct had ruptured and that water supply interrupted, but at least the (pumice-laden) sea was at hand for basic washing. Fresh potable water would have been the real problem throughout the Bay of Naples, though the former admiral’s family would doubtless have exerted their privilege. The “Grotta della Dragonara” cistern at the foot of Capo Miseno may have helped (Figure 4.1).¹¹¹

Twice on the previous day Pliny the Elder had taken baths: at his house (Ch.3, Ch. 4: 6.16.4), and then at Pomponianus’ villa (6.16.12, to wash away the soot of his sea voyage just as Pliny and Plinia are doing from their land excursion). Parallels between the two letters emerge strongly. There is one immense difference; Pliny and his mother have survived; what of the Elder? So the next sentence describes an interstice; knowledge and emotional states are still unstable, like architecture threatened yet by tremors. In the ablative, spe ac metu contrasts escape and doom, life, and death. The night, noctem, is modified by suspensam dubiamque, an example of hypallage, or transferred epithet, a rhetorical transposition (the humans are on tenterhooks, not the night).¹¹² Pliny has not yet released the narrative tension (suspensam); hopes and hearts are literally hanging in the balance between fright and fear, not just for themselves, but for the missing head-of-household. The key noun repeats: metus, winner of the emotional struggle. The imperfect praevalebat breaks with the simple perfect of exegimus by stressing ongoing action. All three verbs in the sentence are imperfect, creating an unsettling equation that never resolves: earthquakes + fear = madness. Trauma is far from over.

This sentence is rife with multisyllabic words: praevalebat, perseverabat, terrificis, vaticinationibus, and ludificabantur. The tone is practically sesquipedalian.¹¹³ Big words can dilute emotional impact in dramatic circumstances; plain speech has more punch. Is Pliny using ornate expression to convey his own anxiety and uncertainty by stretching out the sentence? Or is he subtley mimicking the ravings of the lunatics (lymphati) who kept predicting doom? Either way, the account hangs on every syllable and conjunction—plenty of polysyndeton (nam et…et…-que…et…et) conveys the confusion of keeping up with the chaos. There’s no real order or normal routine (despite the ad-hoc bathing), just one thing after another.

Despite this somewhat frenzied sentence, Pliny seems to want to distinguish his more “rational” account from the prophetic babbling of the plerique lymphati. The existence of the latter asserts that he himself is still sane, despite having suffered the same frightful hazards. This contributes to Younger’s construction of his philosophical and social identity through the Letters, here reflecting temperantia (self-control), fully the theme of Ep. 7.1. In that letter, Pliny writes to a friend, Rosianus Geminus, advising him not to sacrifice the integrity of his habits (mores) for the sake of temporary relief from discomfort. Pliny then describes how he himself had come through a serious prolonged illness, declining the comfort of a bath (posse me tuto lavari) when it was unclear whether the bath was medically advisable (though he admits looking forward to it). He also takes pride in claiming that he kept both his actual composure and the appearance of composure (animum vultumque composui), like the Elder’s self-control at Pomponianus’ villa in 6.16.12. At the end, Younger Pliny makes an astonishing admission (7.1.7):

Quae tibi scripsi, primum ut te non sine exemplo monerem, deinde ut in posterum ipse ad eandem temperantiam adstringerer, cum me hac epistula quasi pignore obligavissem. Vale.

The words which I’ve just written you, at first it was so that I would not advise you without an example, but then so that I might bind myself in future to the self-same restraint, since I would already have bound myself with this letter as a kind of pledge. Farewell.

Pliny is using the letter as a check on his resolution, using contractual language: adstringerer, a middle-voice action of drawing himself to himself; pignore, a bond, pledge, or even hostage; and obligavissem, an action of binding liability, again upon himself (me). The verbs are flush with cords and ties: literal “ligality” (quae…scripsi; hac epistula).¹¹⁴

What of the mad-men? The terms lymphati and ludificabantur refer to persons who are normally sane, but have been driven to delirium because of circumstances. The term lymphatus, past participle of lympho, is kin to lympha, a variant Latin word for the Greek νύμφη (water-nymph), and related to limpidus, an adjective that describes transparency (in particular, clear water).¹¹⁵ It not clear how this term came to describe someone bereft of rational thought, but there seems to be an association of the term in Republican and early Imperial sources with furor, “raging madness.”¹¹⁶ Pliny the Elder uses lymphatus, lymphatio or lymphaticus several times. Most telling is at HN 8.185: greges…lymphati, describing crowds in religious ecstacy at the festival of Apis in Egypt, who suddenly futura praecinunt (predict future events) in their altered states; this appears the best candidate for inspiring the Younger’s use of the term (it is unique in the Letters).¹¹⁷ All of Elder’s examples have to do with madness that has been induced (something that happens to people; not innate) or various remedies for it. The eruption has wrought a mental–emotional transformation upon some unfortunates, but Pliny has the medicine of his uncle’s scientific and philosophical training.

The population of Misenum not only experienced darkness, but also earthquakes, smoke, raining ash, and panicked crowds. This likely caused widespread post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Perhaps Pliny’s Vergilian quote at this letter’s opening (6.20.1), his mind bristling at remembering, exposes this trauma (see also Ep. 8.17, Ch. 1).¹¹⁸

In disaster psychology, scholars consider several variables: was the disaster natural or human-made? Did it have clearly defined, or vague, geographic limits? Was a local, or more widespread population, affected?¹¹⁹ Was the disaster brief or prolonged, was there any warning, and how severe was the shock? The impact of the AD 79 Vesuvian eruption had graded geographic limits (worse in some places than others) and was largely localized. Its effects were prolonged: hours, days, and months, and years for different wavelengths of effects: death/destruction, hunger/thirst, injury/disease, and economic loss from reduction in agriculture, trade, and property (Ch. 3: Cassius Dio 66.23.3, 5), and displacement. There was little actual warning, and the shock was serious.

On 8 July, 2000, the volcano on Miyake Island in Japan erupted, forcing, by two months later, the eventual evacuation of the entire population (ca. 3000 people). Follow-up psychological studies examined forms and rates of PTSD. Researchers found that more severe instances of PTSD symptoms and depression were significantly associated with the socially vulnerable (poorer, with less education, widowed or divorced, or with health problems), as well as those who had lost their home or were unsure about the loss of their home.¹²⁰ Human mortality was not a factor in this eruption (as it may not have been at Misenum, compared to Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Stabiae), but uncertainty (incerti: 6.20.10) about, or loss of even a family pet was significantly associated with higher psychological trauma. Pliny now turns to his own family’s particular anxiety: the fate of the Elder Pliny, mentioned at the intervals of a finite doubling sequence: 6.20.1, 2, 5, 10, and now, 20.

6.20.20

Nobis tamen ne tunc quidem, quamquam et^a expertis periculum et exspectantibus^b, abeundi^c consilium, donec de avunculo nuntius^d [ ^e ]. Haec nequaquam historia digna^f non^g scripturus^h leges et tibi scilicetⁱ qui requisisti imputabis, si digna ne epistula quidem^j videbuntur. Vale^k.

But not even then did we have any intention of leaving, although we were both experienced in danger and expecting it, until (there was) news about my uncle. These things (that are) hardly worthy of history —you will read them (but) not write about them—and you, who obviously asked for them, will have yourself to blame if they will not even seem worthy of a letter. Farewell.

Variants: ^a [ ] γ, corr. et Π (04 a) M; ^b ea spectantibus γ, corr. exspectantibus Valla c f q 76 Agr. t a; ^c adeundi γ, corr. abeundi Valla e c f q r° r 76 Agr. t BL23777 Laet. 92b 92a 98 Cat.; ^e veniret Π (04 a) Cat.²; ^f [ ] γ3b3 some γ3b2; ^g nos γ, corr. non Valla e c f q r° r 76 t BL23777 Laet. Cat. Π (04 a); ^h scripturos γ (D γ1b h γ3a) 78 83 92b 92a, corr. scripturus γ2c γ3b Valla, conscripturus q t; ^j [ ] γ3b4.

The first sentence is constructed in a deliberately awkward way. Everything comes indirectly, as if Younger Pliny now seeks a means to dissassociate himself from his reflection. It leads with nobis (“us” up front), a dative of possession with a gapped est that goes with consilium, literally: “But there was no plan of leaving for us, even then.” Nobis also agrees with expertis and exspectantibus in the second clause, alliteratively using the past perfect participle exp- and the present active participle exsp- to emphasize continuity between the wounds of traumas past, and a flinching against more to come. This brings the letter full circle to the pain of fear and fear of pain in 6.20.1: non solum metus verum etiam casus.

Periculum is embedded deeply between the two participles and is the object of both; the et…et binds them further into the knots in Pliny’s and his mother’s stomachs. The release clause for that tension comes last, introduced by the anticipatory donec (hope), the object of their concern (de avunculo), and the neutral nuntius that will either turn out to be gratifying or—as both writer and reader know—crushing. No verb is necessary after nuntius, but the Π manuscript clearly had veniret, as proved by both a and 04.¹²¹ Pliny’s family cannot leave (the gerund abeundi) until they have that information.¹²² But because the reader knows, the letter can end. Still, Pliny pushes nuntius to the opposite end of the sentence from nobis, as if extending hope, which they held tunc quidem, “even then,” even after processing the utter obliteration of the Bay—into the heart of which Elder Pliny had sailed. Hope requires a gap —however things turn out, spes always ends when nuntius arrives.

Haec expands nuntius to encompass the entirety of the letter’s contents in the next sentence. Pliny yanks himself and his readers out of the story, and haec is either subject (videbuntur) or object (scripturus, leges, requisisti) of every single verb phrase. Haec refers both to the events in his letters (Pliny means both letters, presumably), and the letters themselves. He undercuts the seriousness of his writing immediately (nequaquam historia digna), repeatedly (non scripturus, si digna ne epistula) and disingenuously, just as he did at the end of the first letter (6.16.22).¹²³

Pliny has now rendered his accounts (imputare is an accounting term), and it is up to the historian to decide how much, how personally, and how vividly Pliny’s stories will be shared in the Historiae.¹²⁴ Of course, we will probably never know, absent the discovery of a long-lost papyrus or manuscript with the relevant chapters. But two hints do survive, in Historiae 1.2 (finished in AD 110) and Annales 4.67 (written between AD 114 and 120).¹²⁵ Tacitus opens his Historiae by framing the time period and stating his gratitude that he can write openly about a period that begins with the difficult civil wars of AD 69. It was a time, he says somewhat sarcastically in 1.2, opimum casibus, “bountiful in catastrophes.” These disasters were both man-made (the civil wars) and natural. He remarks:¹²⁶

Iam vero Italia novis cladibus vel post longam saeculorum seriem repetitis adflicta. Haustae aut obrutae urbes, fecundissima Campaniae ora; et urbs incendiis vastata, consumptis, antiquissimis delubris, ipso Capitolio civium manibus incenso.

Moreover, Italy was struck by brand-new calamities—or at least calamities come back after a long string of centuries. Cities on the so-very-fertile shores of Campania were swallowed up or buried; and the city (Rome) was laid waste by fires, with the most ancient of sanctuaries consumed, the Capitolium itself burned by citizens’ hands.

Tacitus uses a word for disaster (clades) that means a “breaking into pieces.” His choice of these passive voice verbs for the cities (haustae aut obrutae) implies an understanding of the different conditions of settlements like Herculaneum, which were utterly “swallowed up” by about two dozen meters of pyroclastic collapses, and Pompeii, “entombed” by two to four meters of ashfall and PDCs—but excavatable in antiquity, as survivors returned to salvage the site.¹²⁷ In the same sentence, following the Vesuvian disaster, Tacitus mentions the AD 80 fire in Rome, which affected the Campus Martius and the Capitoline Hill, including the original Pantheon and second Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus—the most serious conflagration in living memory other than the Great Fire of AD 64 (see 6.20.17).¹²⁸ Tacitus records physical and social communities broken, burned, and buried by forces of nature (Vesuvius) and civium manibus, “by citizens’ hands” (Rome).

In the Annales, referring to a half-century before, Tacitus describes the island of Capri, a fond and isolated retreat for the paranoid emperor Tiberius (Figure 5.2):¹²⁹

Figure 5.2 “Capri and Vesuvius,” Vintage cigarette card, purchased in 1944; photo dates to 1937 or before. Photo: Edizioni Brunner & C., Como.

Caeli temperies hieme mitis obiectu montis, quo saeva ventorum arcentur; aestas in favonium obversa et aperto circum pelago peramoena; prospectabatque pulcherrimum sinum, antequam Vesuvius mons ardescens faciem loci verteret.

During winter, the climate is mild, because of the mountain barrier by which the savage forces of the winds are kept away; in the hot season it is turned toward the west wind and is thoroughly pleasant with the open sea all around; it used to look out upon the most beautiful bay, before Mount Vesuvius, catching fire, transformed the appearance of the place.

Tacitus uses superlative adjectives in both passages to elevate the loveliness and richness (pulcherrimum, fecundissima) of the Bay (both landscape and seascape). Those beautiful images come from his mind’s eye (if he had seen them; the eruption happened when Tacitus was 22 or 23 years old; he had been at Rome for several years).¹³⁰ He contrasts the nostalgic attraction of these places with the post-eruption devastation visible when he is writing (and his audience is reading). But Tacitus also calls upon the visual memory of his friend Pliny to assist him, and he may well have pulled clades and pulcherrimum right from Pliny 6.16.2: pulcherrimarum clade terrarum.¹³¹

* * *

At the end of his letter, Pliny shifts the burden of reminiscence from his own shoulders onto Tacitus’, concerning the relevance, value, and integrity of the account: tibi scilicet qui requisisti imputabis, “you will only have yourself to blame, obviously, you who asked for [these things].”¹³² Pliny uses the phrase tibi imputabis only once elsewhere, in letter 9.13. That document, written to a young lawyer named Ummidius Quadratus, tells how Pliny had spoken in the senate against one of his colleagues, Publicius Certus, a treasury official slated to become consul (all this in AD 97 shortly after the emperor Domitian had been assassinated). The charges related to Certus’ role in the prosecution and execution, in AD 93, of the younger Helvidius Priscus on a charge of treason. Pliny had published his and others’ speeches from that dramatic day (which do not survive) and is responding in this letter to Quadratus’ request for personalized context. It presents another example, this time in the political realm, of Pliny’s personal bravery and honesty, couched with enough modesty to deflect criticism. Toward presenting an exemplum for young Quadratus, Pliny extols the proper virtues of character, reveals the clever method by which he brought down Certus, paints a picture of justice restored, and ends the tale with Certus’ convenient death, a few days later, by illness. Pliny ends (9.13.26):¹³³

Habes epistulam, si modum epistulae cogites, libris quos legisti non minorem; sed imputabis tibi qui contentus libris non fuisti. Vale.

You have a letter, if you think about the length of a letter, not any shorter than the speeches you have read; but you have yourself to blame, you who were not content with the speeches. Farewell.

The inspiration for both instances must again be his uncle, who had used the phrase in the dedication of his opus magnum to Titus (Ch. 1: praefatio.4), saying that the emperor can only blame himself (igitur tibi imputabis) if the tone of the Elder’s address is too familiar (familiarius), because Titus has been too kind to him.¹³⁴ It is a classic form of joking ingratiation for someone whose friend and colleague has been elevated to a higher level of power, and both parties must recalibrate their registers of social interaction.

The threat of leaving the story to Tacitus of course does not turn out to be true; while Tacitus may well have included some of Pliny’s account in his own Histories, Pliny did not take chances, and published it himself.¹³⁵ Pliny ends things abruptly; he tells us nothing about the aftermath. We know from other letters that Pliny and his third wife Calpurnia returned to holiday in Campania (Tacitus also saw the territory; see above).¹³⁶ His catharsis and his project to extol the Elder are complete. He has exercised both pietas and self-promotion. Having taken his audience on a carefully crafted, sometimes contrived, but emotionally powerful journey through a kind of memory, all that is left to say—to his friend, his readers, and his uncle—is vale.

Aftermath

What happened after the eruption? Things got worse. Not just because the tail of a disaster often adversely affects more people than the event itself, but because other calamities occurred that must have hindered the imperial response.¹³⁷ Cassius Dio (66.24), immediately after describing the eruption (Ch. 3) discusses the AD 80 fire (above, 6.20.20). He says the fire occurred τοῦ Τίτου πρὸς τὸ πάθημα τὸ ἐν τῇ Καμπανίᾳ γενόμενον ἐκδημήσαντος, ἐπενείματο, “while Titus was absent in Campania attending to the catastrophe that had befallen that region.”¹³⁸ Suetonius, Titus 8.3, offers some detail about how Titus approached the crises (the eruption, the fire, and also a plague):

Quaedam sub eo fortuita ac tristia acciderunt, ut conflagratio Vesuvii montis in Campania, et incendium Romae per triduum totidemque noctes, item pestilentia quanta non temere alias. In iis tot adversis ac talibus non modo principis sollicitudinem sed et parentis affectum unicum praestitit, nunc consolando per edicta, nunc opitulando quatenus suppeteret facultas.

There were some dreadful disasters during his reign, such as the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in Campania, a fire at Rome which continued three days and as many nights, and a plague the like of which had hardly ever been known before. In these many great calamities he showed not merely the concern of an emperor, but even a father’s surpassing love, now offering consolation in edicts, and now lending aid so far as his means allowed.¹³⁹

Suetonius emphasizes the number and severity of setbacks (in iis tot adversis ac talibus) and the emotional capacity of the emperor (his sollicitudinem and affectum), whom he characterizes not just as a leader, but a parent. Titus worries, sympathizes, comforts through official pronouncements, and brings tangible aid. Such a response assists the afflicted, but it also reinforces the political order, putting his bereft subjects under further social obligation, while he enacts the benevolent paternalism of a highly hierarchical system.¹⁴⁰

Suetonius (Titus, 8.4) and Cassius Dio (66.24.3–4) also describe the emperor’s measures:¹⁴¹

Curatores restituendae Campaniae e consularium numero sorte duxit; bona oppressorum in Vesuvio, quorum heredes non exstabant, restitutioni afflictarum civitatium attribuit.

He chose commissioners by lot from among the ex-consuls for the relief of Campania; and the property of those who lost their lives by Vesuvius and had no heirs left alive he applied to the rebuilding of the buried cities.

Ὁ δ᾿ οὖν Τίτος τοῖς μὲν Καμπανοῖς δύο ἄνδρας ἐκ τῶν ὑπατευκότων οἰκιστὰς ἔπεμψε, καὶ χρήματα ἄλλα τε καὶ τὰ τῶν ἄνευ κληρονόμων τεθνηκότων ἐδωρήσατο· αὐτὸς δὲ οὐδὲν οὔτε παρ᾿ ἰδιώτου οὔτε παρὰ πόλεως οὔτε παρὰ βασιλέως, καίτοι πολλῶν πολλὰ διδόντων αὐτῷ καὶ ὑπισχνουμένων, ἔλαβεν, ἀνέστησε μέντοι καὶ ἐκ τῶν ὑπαρχόντων πάντα.

Titus accordingly sent two ex-consuls to the Campanians to supervise the restoration of the region, and bestowed upon the inhabitants not only general gifts of money, but also the property of such as had lost their lives and left no heirs. As for himself, he accepted nothing from any private citizen or city or king, although many kept offering and promising him large sums; but he restored all the damaged regions from funds already on hand.

We get the following information. Titus chose commissioners from a pool of ex-consuls (a group of proven “good” men) and did so by lot (to deter accusations of favoritism). Their job was to “restore” the afflicted portions of Campania (the verb restituo [ἀνίστημι in Greek] conveys a powerful sense of putting things back together physically, legally, socially, and healthily). They paid for the effort by converting properties of those who had died (and left no heirs) into resources for rebuilding surviving communities. The emperor also provided outright grants of cash, rejecting private donations that might be perceived as currying the favor of a new sovereign. It is the response of a centralized authority, its aristocratic representatives, and the bureaucracy at its command, to recycle derelict resources, inject new funds, and organize relief efforts.

Taylor explores in fine detail the mechanisms and dynamics of the imperial initiatives. First, surveyors must have retraced the old property divisions upon the blasted ground using surviving landmarks, surviving ownership records, and plat-maps.¹⁴² Authorities informed surviving owners who wanted to reestablish legal claim to their estates and also identified abandoned properties, so as to donate them—or more likely proceeds from their sale (probably at prices above their now rock-bottom value)—to affected communities. The emperor was likely the buyer; he could later off-load properties at a profit to wealthy landowners or real-estate speculators.¹⁴³ More importantly, by the end of this process, the state would possess large amounts of vacant but intrinsically fertile and eventually valuable farmland to offer veteran soldiers.¹⁴⁴

We have no information about humanitarian efforts to provide food, water, shelter, medical care, family reunion, foster care for orphaned children, employment, or transportation (which must have been difficult and dangerous for some time; the Neapolis-Stabiae coastal road and its branch to Nuceria (Figure 1.5) was not completely repaired for another 42 years).¹⁴⁵ Critical aid was presumably organized through the combined efforts of local survivor communities, families, guilds, and patron–client networks, frayed and fragmented to varying degrees depending on their exposure to the eruption, and supplemented by imperial liberality.

Pliny and his family remained long enough to discover and recover the Elder Pliny’s body (despite modern claims to have found it: Ch. 4: Ep. 6.16.9), and for the Younger to gather information about what had happened (6.16.20–22). One of the Elder’s subordinates must have taken interim command of the fleet at Misenum, overseen clean-up efforts, and used salvageable ships for transportation and communication purposes as civilian networks underwent operational repairs. There was no reason or justification for Plinia’s household to remain, and so they must soon enough have packed up. Like other wealthy families with multiple residences, they could afford to go somewhere else. Meanwhile, the so-called Villa of Augustus at Somma Vesuviana and the baths at Pollena Trocchia on the north slopes of the mountain were both built within a few decades of the eruption.¹⁴⁶ Poorer survivors who had lost everything were under stress whether they stayed or tried to relocate.

There is evidence for relocation, from Neapolis. Though it had suffered from earthquakes in AD 62/63 and 64 (Ch. 3; 6.20.3), the city avoided the heaviest ashfall and full deadly force of PDCs during the eruption, though its agricultural hinterland to the east was buried by meters of ash and lahars (mudflows brought down the denuded slopes of the volcano by rain).¹⁴⁷ In 1535, near the palazzo of the Prince of Salerno, a marble inscription was found. This inscription served as a statue base dedicated to Lucius Munatius Concessianus, a “patron of the colony,” the highest local honor he could earn during his lifetime, and it probably dates to the third century AD.¹⁴⁸ The statue was set up by the reg(io) primaria splendidissima Herculanesium, “the excellent, most illustrious district of the Herculaneans.” More than four generations later, descendants of refugees from the eruption were proudly inscribing their demonym and proclaiming its survival and success on the east side of the historical center of Naples.¹⁴⁹

The Herculaneans’ desire to honor an accomplished individual from their district was akin to the Younger Pliny’s motivation to celebrate his uncle’s last days, but fashions of praise had meanwhile changed. Whereas Elder Pliny in the first century had achieved things worth writing about and written things worth reading (6.16.3) and was brave (fortis, 6.16.9–11) and cheerily calm (hilaris, 6.16.12–13) in a crisis, Concessianus was lauded chiefly for his largitas and liberalitas (lavish financial generosity), qualities that became more important in the later Empire as local grandees began to imitate the nature, and verbal forms, of imperial largesse.¹⁵⁰ To the Plinys, those terms would have smacked of bribery and corruption. After the Second World War, the neighborhood of Forcella, the ancient regio Herculanensium, became notorious for the Camorra, the Neapolitan criminal enterprise.¹⁵¹

The memory of the ancient residents would be preserved as Herclanium (sic) on the fifth segment of the Tabula Peutingeriana, a 6.8 m long Roman map, preserved today in a 13th-c. parchment in the Austrian National Library in Vienna (Figure 1.6). It is a copy of an early fourth-c. AD map that includes data from multiple sources, including probably a world map of Agrippa, the emperor Augustus’ right-hand man. We have most of our ancient information about Agrippa’s map from—who else?—Elder Pliny, who consulted it in the Porticus Vipsania (Agrippa’s clan name) in Rome.¹⁵²

Meanwhile, Vesuvius was not quiescent; eruptions are recorded, for example, in AD 203, 472, 507–12, 536 (?), 685, 787, 968, 999, 1007, 1037, and 1139, with episodes of fumarolic (steam and gases) or strombolian (brief lava bursts) activity in between.¹⁵³ Over one millenium later (1594–1600), Domenico Fontana’s tunnelers cut, apparently unaware, through the buried ruins of Pompeii. After nearly another century (1689), an inscription with the name of the town was uncovered (but misattributed). After more than two more decades, the theater of Herculaneum was struck by well-diggers (1710–16). Another twenty years later, Charles VII began excavations there (1738), with Pompeii to follow (1748).¹⁵⁴ The re-eruptions of Vesuvius in the 17th c. and physical discoveries at the buried cities ever since the 18th c. have continued to inject interest into Pliny’s Vesuvian letters, and have given him an enduring and appreciative audience. After all, he wrote something worth reading.

Notes

· 1 Schönberger, “Vesuv-Briefe,” 546.

· 2 Shelton, Selected Letters, 104–5. Illias-Zarifopol, “Pragmatic Hero,” 151–52, draws attention to the fact that Pliny often uses periculum and metus to denote political dangers.

· 3 Forehand, “Natural Phenomena,” 33; Gibson, High Empire, 65: Pliny was aiming for consistency (an adult virtue), at least.

· 4 Marchesi, Art of Pliny’s Letters, 182 (“Tacitus was fluent in Pliny’s langauge of allusion”: 189); Gigante, Il fungo, 37–39; Whitton, “Trapdoors,” 45; Galtier, “Tacite et Plinie,” 165; Augoustakis, “Nequaquam historia digna,” 269–70. Gibson, High Empire, 61: Pliny “wrongfoots” his readers by packing his literary-historical allusions into Ep. 6.20 rather than 6.16. See Schwerdtner, Klassiker, 147–61; at 150 she suggests that Pliny left out luctuque refugit because, from the historical perspective of the events in Ep. 6.20, Pliny and his mother were not aware of Elder’s death. Bromberg, “Telemacheia,” 62–69; 62: “Pliny’s second Vesuvius letter continues to advance a significant Vergilian subtext while also appropriating Homer’s Telemachus as a model for the younger Pliny’s plight ...”

· 5 Gigante, Il Fungo, 42–45, 50, 61 ties Aeneid 2 to this letter. Schwerdtner, Klassiker, 159 suggests Pliny playfully uses Aeneas as a foil, and is not so hubristic to pretend equivalency. See also Edwards, “Pliny’s Tacitus,” 72–74; Gibson, Book 6. Aen. 1.755-56 and 5.626 both mention the seventh summer (septima aestas) since Troy’s fall. I won’t enter the debate about the apparent contradiction, but regardless, inclusive counting means a time span of six years.

· 6 To paraphrase Marchesi, Art of Pliny’s Letters, 174.

· 7 Marchesi, Art of Pliny’s Letters, 171–89, 221–22.

· 8 Cova, “Rilettura,” 91–92.

· 9 On this, Marchesi, Art of Pliny’s Letters, 175–76 disagrees with Gigante, Il Fungo.

· 10 Lefèvre, Römertum zum Ästhetizismus, 136.

· 11 Lefèvre, Römertum zum Ästhetizismus, 137; Cova, “Contro Plinio il Vecchio,” 56.

· is a dative of reference with 12 Campaniae solitus [est]: Shelton, Selected Letters, 106. Schönberger, “Vesuv-Briefe,” 546 considers the genitive.

· 13 Scandone, Giacolmelli, and Rosi, “Death,” 12–16; Olshausen, “Mit der Katastrophen leben,” 458.

· 14 Forehand, “Natural Phenomena,” 34–38, argues that Pliny artfully and symbolically described the conditions of the natural disaster to enhance the psychological and emotional responses of confused and frightened people in the story. Indeed Pliny strategizes the juxtaposition, but does not contrive to the point of fabricating details: Barrett, “Pliny, Ep. 6.20 Again.”

· 15 Badius in 1533, followed by the H. and P. Stephanus and Claudius Minos editions of the late 16th and early 17th centuries, Bonaventura, Elzevier, and Boxhorn from 1640–60, the anonymous Oxford ed. of 1677, Hearne in 1703, and the Tonson-Watts editions of 1722 and 1741.

· 16 Shelton, Selected Letters, 106–7 explains the conditional as future less vivid with an imperfect subjective because it is in secondary sequence.

· 17 Schönberger, “Vesuv-Briefe,” 546; Lefèvre, Römertum zum Ästhetizismus, 136–37.

· 18 Shelton, Selected Letters, 107.

· 19 Berry, “Advocate,” 14–15.

· 20 Leach, “Otium,” 156 calls it “puppy-dog precocity.” See also N.F. Jones, “Vesuvius Letters,” 41.

· 21 On studium, see Méthy, Les lettres, esp. 426: Elder Pliny’s studies so subsume his free time that his habitual dichotomy becomes negotia-studia, not negotium-otium (see Ch. 1).

· 22 Levick, “Historical context.” Schönberger, “Vesuv-Briefe,” 535: Livy’s history contains many exempla virtutis.

· 23 Woodman, “Writing History”; Marchesi, Art of Pliny’s Letters, 144–71; Gardner Coates, “Making History,” 51–54, 59–61; Galtier, “Tacite et Plinie,” 166–67; Gibson, Book 6; Berry, “Advocate,” 14–15: as a “proto-historian.”

· 24 Gardner Coates, “Making History,” 56–57, who treats this painting in detail. See also Gardner Coates et al., Last Days of Pompeii, 128–29.

· 25 Roworth, “Art of Painting,” 13, 22–37, 42–57. See now Baumgärtel, Angelica Kauffman.

· 26 Gardner Coates, “Making History,” 58; Zissos, “Vesuvius and Pompeii,” 518–20.

· 27 Gardner Coates, “Making History,” 59–61.

· 28 For Gigante, Il Fungo, 40, it is a Livian allusion (27.2) that Marchesi, Art of Pliny’s Letters, 188, unfolds.

· 29 Schönberger, “Vesuv-Briefe,” 533: Ep. 6.20 has many short, restless, interruptive words.

· 30 IGN-UPM Working Group, Peligrosidad Sismica; Mezcua, Rueda, and García Blanco, “Historic Earthquakes.”

· 31 Walker, Annals, 89, n. 1.

· 32 N.F. Jones, “Vesuvius Letters,” 41.

· 33 Schönberger, “Vesuv-Briefe,” 539: when the character of the Spanish friend rebukes Pliny and Plinia’s securitas, he is subjectively reproaching, but objectively praising, them. For Bromberg, “Telemacheia,” 65, the Spanish friend acts as Athena does in the Odyssey, to goad the son into action.

· 34 Taylor, Knowledge-Construction, 9–13, 58–86, 239–42, refining Toner, Popular Culture.

· 35 Miniero, Baia, 70.

· 36 For Gibson, High Empire, 69, Pliny is refusing the leadership the town needs, a preview of his ability to avoid both Domitian’s wrath and later, collegial accusations of collaboration (Ch. 1). Pliny was both a slippery politican and slippery writer. See also Olshausen, “Mit der Katastrophen leben,” 456; N.F. Jones, “Vesuvius Letters,” 42–43 (Plinia).

· 37 For crowd and stampede rez-Escudero and de Polavieja, “Adversity”; Hsieh et al., “Epidemiological.”

· 38 The complementary contribution (cf. Ep. 6.16.5) to mirabilia literature: Lefèvre, Römertum zum Ästhetizismus, 127–28, 137.

· 39 Illiano, “Misenum,” 381, Figure 2, 384; Miniero, “Miseno,’ 175, 180–84; in his day, Beloch, Campanien, 200, saw traces of about twenty columbaria (niched communal tombs) along the Via Cappella. See also Giuliani, Viabilità antica, 132, 152–59.

· 40 On the Tabula, see below. Its cartographic and iconographic data is a palimpsest: Rathmann, “Tabula”; Talbert, Rome’s World.

· 41 Beloch, Campanien, 200, posited the same two routes; Sherwin-White, Letters of Pliny, 379 thought the Baiae route.

· 10, 3344 [42 CIL ILS 5902], as argued early on by Arditi, Il porto, 41–42. See also E.L. Wheeler, “Occasion,” 357–58.

· 43 Trisoglio, ed., Opere, 638.

· 44 Sherwin-White, Letters of Pliny, 379.

· 45 Bryant, Tsunami, 13–14, 26–56.

· 46 Bryant, Tsunami, 14; Milia, “Syneruptive Features”; Tinti and Saraceno, “Tsunamis.” For historically-attested tsunamis in the ancient Mediterranean world (besides the Vesuvian eruption): Ñaco del Hoyo and Nappo, “Waters Recede.”

· 47 N.F. Jones, “Vesuvius Letters,” 43. Marchesi, Art of Pliny’s Letters, 180–84’s attempts to conjure Vergilian influence via Andromache are not wholly convincing (the chopping and changing get a bit fine; Marchesi admits the danger: 185), though the mini, mock Troy insights, and the switch away from a masculine point-of-view, are welcome.

· 48 Trisoglio, ed., Opere, 638, n.275, picked up by Lefèvre, Römertum zum Ästhetizismus, 138.

· 49 This is the kind of game that Eco, “Portrait,” describes.

· 50 N.F. Jones, “Vesuvius Letters,” 43.

· 51 A historical review of PDC flows over water: Jutzeler et al., “Submarine Deposits”; Krakatoa: Carey et al., “Pyroclastic Flows.”

· 52 Scheidel, Meeks, and Weiland, “ORBIS,” 20; Hopkins, Sociological, 302 (oxen moving under 3 km./hr).

· 53 Dellino et al., “Impact,” estimate 17 minutes of flow duration at Pompeii.

· 54 Gibson, Book 6.

· 55 As Barrett, “Pliny, Ep. 6.20 Again,” 39, refuting Forehand, “Natural Phenomena,” 35–36. Schönberger, “Vesuv-Briefe,” 539, calls “common sense” “cowardice in disguise,” and Berry, “Advocate,” 17 thinks the friend “selfish ... ridiculous ... cowardly and crass,” but Lefèvre, Römertum zum Ästhetizismus, 138 more generously admits that “both parties are right.”

· 56 effuso cursu appears ten times, seven in Livy (1.37.4, 2.50.6, 6.24.4, 6.29.3, 10.29.12, 33.10.6, 37.42.8): Packard Humanities Institute, “Latin.”

· 57 Marchesi, Art of Pliny’s Letters, 186–88, describes Livian influence on the Vesuvian letters; see also Ash, “Pliny the Historian”; Augoustakis, “Nequaquam historia digna,” 270–71. Gigante, Il Fungo, 42, sees an allusion in Aeneid 2.378.

· 58 Augoustakis, “Nequaquam historia digna,” 267–68; Knoepfle, “Historial Infinitive”; Schlicher, “Historical Infinitive.” It was also a favorite construction of the republican historian Sallust.

· 59 Augoustakis, “Nequaquam historia digna,” 269.

· 60 Cova, “Lettura retorica,” 59.

· 61 Shelton, Selected Letters, 113.

· 62 Schönberger, “Vesuv-Briefe,” 536–37. This passage, with its nod to the sack of Troy, is a scholar’s favorite, e.g. Görler, “Schnarchen,” 427; Gibson, Book 6; Marchesi, Art of Pliny’s Letters, 177–78; Augoustakis, “Nequaquam historia digna,” 269; Bromberg, “Telemacheia,” 51; Gigante, Il Fungo, 42–48; Galtier, “Tacite et Plinie,” 165–66; Lefèvre, Römertum zum Ästhetizismus, 139, but cautions that Pliny was generally “sparing with literary echoes.” Schwerdtner, Klassiker, 150–54, 158–59: Pliny was not thinking of Aeneas while helping his mother, but while composing his letters, “literary studies offered access to the exempla virtutis.”

· 63 Cova, “Lettura retorica,” 59–60, referencing Seneca. He argues that the quality of a death and its cause are independent variables; dying in a historic eruption doesn’t make the death more noble, just more famous. Cova, “Contro Plinio il Vecchio,” 56, wonders if Pliny doesn’t invent this kind of familial heroism.

· 64 Shelton, Selected Letters, 113.

· 65 Sherwin-White, Letters of Pliny, 379 notes how “cinis…rarus” here foreshadows “cinis rursus, multis et gravis” below in 6.20.16, right before Younger Pliny’s admission of their most desperate hour.

· 66 Pleonasm as used by Tacitus and Pliny: Ash, ed., Annals, 182. There may also be another Vergilian allusion (Aen. 2.564–66), according to Bromberg, “Telemacheia,” 63.

· 67 Shelton, Selected Letters, 114: the term for modo’s position is “postpositive.” For Gigante, Il Fungo, 43–44, yet another Vergilian allusion (Aen. 2.304–8).

· 68 Marchesi, Art of Pliny’s Letters, 186–88 would make connections to Livy’s account of the fall of Alba Longa (1.29). Gigante, Il Fungo, 43, also looks to Livy, but elsewhere.

· 69 Olshausen, “Mit der Katastrophen leben,” 456, inteprets via strati as a “gravel road,” which could be true if the participle were in agreement as strata (and might have been anyway), but the manuscripts give no such reading. Strati is a participle of sternere.

· 70 The reading of o (Vaticanus Ottobianus Latinus 1537): obruamur, “crushed, overwhelmed,” is clearly a conjecture, perhaps by a scribe familiar with Vergil. It is a lone variant, not a reading grounded in the tradition (despite Gibson, Book 6; Marchesi, Art of Pliny’s Letters, 178; from: Gigante, Il fungo, 44 who reaches too far for a Vergilian allusion here). Obruamur was corrected by its descendant Parma 2659.

· 71 Vogel and Märker, “Modeling,” focuses on the Sarno plain, south and east of the volcano; see also Gurioli et al., “Pyroclastic Flow Hazard,” esp. Figure 1; Rolandi, “Volcanic Hazard.” One study of cores from Misenum focuses on the prehistoric eruptions from the Campi Flegrei caldera itself, and does not attempt to find deposits from the AD 79 Vesuvian event: Insinga et al., “Late-Holocene Evolution.”

· 72 Milia, “Syneruptive Features.” Most maps of the fallout from the volcano rely on Lirer, et al., “Tephrostratigraphy” and Sigurdsson et al. “Eruption” (1982, 1985, 2002), but I use the models of Pfeiffer, Costa, and Macedonia, “Numerical Simulation,” which account for subsequent compaction, and Vogel and Märker, “Modeling,” who consider erosion. See Ch. 3.

· 73 Marina di Equa: Aucelli et al., “Villa del Pezzolo”; Aucelli, “Historical”; Cinque and Robustelli, “Alluvial,” 162–68; based on the 6 m. of total deposit in Figure 9 (b-c-d), the AD 79 deposit of fallout and EU4pf PDC (“surge”) there can be estimated at just under about one meter. Whether AD 79 debris has been found further west is contested, e.g. at the Villa del Capo Sorrento: Filser et al., “Surrounded,” 93 (and n. 85), contra Russo, Capo Sorrento, 68, Figure 59.

· 74 Unfortunately, studied cores have come from the southern part of the bay, and not the northern part nearer Misenum. Sacchi et al., “Stratigraphic Signature” note carefully that the tephra recovered from Core C69 and elsewhere in the bay are not the result of a simple single-event deposition, but of complex processes. Core C69 was likely formed by “deposition by distal gravity currents, evolved from relatively low density flows traveling on the water surface after the entrance of pyroclastic currents into the sea.” (463–64). In other words, the PDC billowed from Vesuvius across the Bay of Naples, eventually losing steam and settling into the sea, but with continued forward motion through the water caused by its momentum, complicated by interaction of the hot fluids with cold seawater and with deposits on the seabed accumulated from earlier in the eruption sequence. See also Insinga et al., “Proximal,” esp. 183. See Milia, “Syneruptive Features,” for isopachs of fall in the Bay of Naples itself.

· 75 Sulpizio et al., “Pyroclastic,” 52–56, discusses the impact of topographic features on the flow dynamics of PDCs—which is highly complex, and dependent on the physical properties of the PDC (whether acting “as a fluid or as a granular mass of solid particles,” 55), the height of the topographic obstacle, the angle of incidence for the obstacle, and the topographic context for the obstacle. In a dense flow such as EU4pf, “flow stripping” can occur, by which heavier particles are blocked while more dilute particles continue around a barrier. Finally, Cioni et al., “Pyroclastic,” 210, compares the volume of ejecta (2–3 km³) to the total PDC volume (0.75 km³) for the eruption—the latter figure is the highest known for a Plinian eruption at Somma-Vesuvius.

· 76 Montague, Selected Letters, 265; Westcott, Epistulae Selectae, 223.

· 77 Marchesi, Art of Pliny’s Letters, 179, and Gigante, Il Fungo, 45–46 see Vergilian and Livian affinity in this sonic atmosphere; Gibson, High Empire, 71 (and n.104) and Book 6 list the possible allusions.

· 78 Meier, “Eine fast verschlafene Katastrophe,” 33, calls this “role-specific behavioral attribution.” On infantum being preferable to infantium: Trisoglio, ed., Opere, 127.

· 79 Objective vs. subjective misery: Lefèvre, Römertum zum Ästhetizismus, 140.

· 80 Galtier, “Tacite et Plinie,” 167. Duff, Liber Sextus, 69: the rhetorical repetition of vocibus, used two ways. Gibson, High Empire, 71 thinks Pliny’s portrayal is critical, not sympathetic.

· 81 Schönberger, “Vesuv-Briefe,” 542, 547. Berry, “Advocate,” 18–20, suggests it has Livian rhetorical qualities, and, in metu ... precarentur, a conceptual Epicurean connection to Lucretius 3.79–90 (also Gigante, Il Fungo, 46, Trisoglio, ed., Opere, 640).

· 82 The gesture of raising hands toward the sky, in the direction of the gods, specifically indicated prayer, an appeal to divine aid, and was recognized as a human universal in antiquity (Corbeill, Nature Embodied, 26).

· 83 Augoustakis, “Nequaquam historia digna,” 269.

· 84 Shelton, Selected Letters, 115.

· 85 Sherwin-White, Letters of Pliny, 380 and Montague, Selected Letters, 265 both reference here the Stoic ἐκπύρωσις (ekpyrosis), an expected periodic fiery end to a millennially recycling world. See Downing, “Cosmic Eschatology”; Schönberger, “Vesuv-Briefe,” 547; Gibson, Book 6; Gigante, Il Fungo, 46–47 (more possible allusions to Vergil and Lucretius). In the context of urban disaster: Closs, “While Rome Burned,” 15–27.

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

· 87 Noted by Sherwin-White, Letters of Pliny, 380; Berry, “Advocate,” 16.

· 88 Krafft et al., “Sensemaking,” explain three primary models for how rumors develop in a disaster scenario, in particular the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing.

· 89 Shelton, Selected Letters, 115. Sherwin-White, Letters of Pliny, 380 calls attention to Cassius Dio 66.23.1 and Seneca, Naturales Quaestiones 6.2–3 (Ch. 3). “Tacitean Rumor Technique”: Lefèvre, Römertum zum Ästhetizismus, 140; Schönberger, “Vesuv-Briefe,” 547.

· 90 Shelton, Selected Letters, 116.

· 91 Aen. 6.149–235: Gibson, Book 6; Dinter, “Minor Heroes,” 157–59. Misenus was Aeneas’ friend and Hector’s trumpeter.

· 92 For Gibson, High Empire, 71, lack of whimpering demonstrates constantia. Also Gibson, Book 6.

· 93 Sherwin-White, Letters of Pliny, 149, 380 invokes the concept of the Magnanimous Man from Aristotle. See Schwerdtner, Klassiker, 156, re: Pliny and Aeneas struggling to lead despite their respective apprehensions. Also Lefèvre, Römertum zum Ästhetizismus, 141, on Young Pliny portraying his composure measured between the Elder and the general populace.

· 94 And also the opposite of the animo ... maximo of Ep. 6.16.9. See also Nutting, “Ablative,” 390.

· 95 Downing, “Cosmic Eschatology,” 104–5. See also Stucchi, “Lutto, dolore,” esp. 192.

· 96 Corcoran, trans., Natural Questions, vol. 2, 140–41.

· 97 Text: Fitch, Medea, 380. Also references in Trisoglio, ed., Opere, 642.

· 98 Rackham, trans., De Finibus, 284–85. See also George, “Stoic Attitudes,” 252–53.

· 99 Snell, Fragmenta, 940, Adespota n. 513.

· 100 Rolfe, Suetonius, vol. 2, 148–49. Caligula, for his part, grumbled that no natural disasters affected his reign, which might have made his reign memorable (Suetonius, Gaius 31; Rolfe, Suetonius, vol. 1, 464–67).

· 101 For ancient disasters and their psychological, moral, and political resonances: Toner, Roman Disasters, 42–43, 61–65, 181–211; Birmes et al., “Psychotrauma,” 22–27; Closs, “While Rome Burned.” “Après moi, le deluge” wrote Marquis de Mirabeau in L’Ami des Hommes (1755), a common saying in France that could be taken multiple ways, just as the Greek quote above, depending on circumstance and agenda. See Laurence and Paterson, “Power and Laughter,” 193.

· 102 Barton, Sorrows, 55–56, in part because death allows for transcendant virtue and glory to be revealed: Galtier, “Tacite et Plinie,” 169–70.

· 103 N.F. Jones, “Vesuvius Letters,” 44–48.

· 104 Rackham, trans., Natural History, vol. 1, 47–58 (2.43). Elder Pliny’s understanding of astronomical phenomena is generally not thought very strong, and he mostly repeats the work of other scholars rather than working from his own observation. He also has a philosphical purpose: to banish superstition about eclipses by explaining the mechanisms of their occurance and recurrance. See Fögen, “Scholarship,” 93–95.

· 105 It is common for solar and lunar eclipses to occur within 14–15 days of each other because in both cases, the orbit of the moon around the earth has to be flat enough with respect to the sun to permit occlusion. For the date of this eclipse, see Gallivan, “Fasti,” 187–88, 213, who has Vespasian’s third consulship in AD 71 and Titus’ first consulship in AD 70 and his second in AD 72. Given that Vespasian and Titus were joint consuls seven times in the decade of the 70s, it seems best to credit the date of Vespasian’s third consulship. Textual variants add IV for Vespasian’s fourth consulship (AD 72, coeval with Titus’ second), or erum (the Loeb edition: Rackham, Natural History, vol. 1, 206–7) or II between filio and consulibus to indicate Titus’ second consulship. These variants seem inferior and are somewhat later in the manuscript tradition, though it must be said that no “correct” (as we yet know it) variant of the Natural History’s text exists for this passage that would identify AD 71 as the year (Vespasian’s third consulship). Thus either: the tenure of Titus’ joint consulships from year to year with his father was more fluid and continuous than we understand from our reconstructed Fasti (Gallivan), or the Elder Pliny got his date wrong for the eclipse, or the texts are thoroughly corrupt. Frankly, any combination of the three is likely. Here I follow the Teubner text (von Jan and Mayhoff, eds., Naturalis Historiae, 144–45); it lists all variants in its apparatus criticus. For manuscripts of the Elder Pliny’s Natural History, see Reeve, Transmission; “Editing”; Reynolds, Texts and Transmission, 307–16. For a study of the Elder Pliny’s use of astronomical terminology (such as sidus, which in this context means both “star” (i.e., the sun) and moon: Gábli, “Terminology,” 52–53.

· 106 National Aeronautics and Space Administration, “NASA Eclipse Web Site”; Zotti and Wolf, Stellarium.

· 107 Hoffman, “Geographical Position,” considers what sources Elder Pliny could have used to treat eclipses other than those he knew about himself. Beagon, “Curious Eye,” 76, notes that it is in describing eclipses that the Elder takes the reader on his only “metaphorical journey into the heavens.”

· 108 Syme, “Pliny the Procurator,” 207–8, is too positivistic in using this eclipse to prove that Elder was in Italy in spring of AD 59. For the Plinys’ travels: Pauly, Der Neue Pauly, vol. 9, 1135–36 (Elder); 1141–42 (Younger); Keyser, “Pliny the Elder,” 235–36; Tatum, “Pliny the Younger,” 243–44.

· 109 McConnell, “Extreme Climate,” describes the northern hemisphere sun-dimming and cooling consequences of the Mt. Okmok (Alaska) volcanic eruption in early 43 BC; Mt. Etna in Sicily also had a minor eruption in 44 BC. Ancient authors often conflated major historical events with heavenly happenings.

· 110 Shelton, Selected Letters, 117.

· 111 It was perhaps spring-fed: Beloch, Campanien, 198–99; Keenan-Jones, “Ground Movements,” 209–12: ground water in the Misenum-Baiae area tended to be sulferous. Libertini et al., “Augustan aqueduct,” 12–13, think it was fed by the aqueduct, but it could not have crossed the entrance to the inner harbor. Cisterns may also have been damaged by tremors.

· 112 Trisoglio, ed., Opere, 643.

· is a linear measurement of a foot and a half. Horace uses it to denote overly ornate verbiage. In 113 Sesquipedalis Ars Poetica, 95–99, he describes poetic strategies for hewing to, or breaking, stylistic categories, in order to engage an audience emotionally: et tragicus plerumque dolet sermone pedestri Telephus et Peleus, cum pauper et exsul uterque proicit ampullas et sesquipedalia verba, si curat cor spectantis tetigisse querella. “…and the tragic characters Telephus and Peleus often grieve, in prose speech, when they are a pauper or an exile, each tossing aside perfumed speech and foot-and-a-half words, if they care that their lamentations touch the heart of the audience.” It is true that Catullus (97.5) had first used in poetry (otherwise used for architectural or engineering purposes), but Catullus does so as a form of absurd exaggeration in a biting attack on a patrician rival (aemulus) named Aemilius who he says has foot-and-a-half long teeth.

· 114 Sherwin-White, Letters of Pliny, 402–3 suggests that Pliny is referring in Ep. 7.1 to an illness he had in AD 96. He also points out Ep. 7.26.4: ut tales esse sani perseveremus, quales nos futuros profitemur infirmi, “that we should resolve to be, when healthy, just like how we promised we would be when we were sick.”

· 115 Simon and Danko, “Lymphaticus,” 1–2.

· 116 Glare, ed., Oxford Latin Dictionary, 1056: furebant (Catullus 64.254, re: maenads, ecstatic followers of the god Bacchus/Dionysos); furit (Vergil, Aeneid 7.377, referring to Queen Amata); furorem (Horace, Carmina 1.37.12–14, referring to Cleopatra); furoris (Seneca, Medea 386, referring to Medea as a maenad); also furens (Seneca, Troades 34, referring to Cassandra).

· 117 Augoustakis, “Nequaquam historia digna,” 270–71 for lymphati as a hapax legomenon (unique instance of a word) in the Younger Pliny, and an allusion to Livy and Tacitus. All examples in the HN: 25.60, concerning how the toxic plant hellebore can help treat delirium and other maladies; 26.52, that seeds of the lions-paw plant causes night terrors; 28.226, using a mix of horse urine and quenching water from the forge to treat madness and epilepsy; 30.84, in which Magi (magicians) give advice about patients suffering temporary delirium (see Carey, Pliny’s Catalogue, 25; Beagon, Roman Nature, 19–20, 105–13 on the Magi); 31.9, advice that too much water drunk from the River Gallus in Phrygia will cause madness; 34.151, that nails from a tomb driven into a threshold will cure nightmares; 37.51, amber (either in drink or amulet form) as a guard versus delirium; 37.61, adamas (diamond, perhaps; see Proctor, “Anti-Agate,” 385–86) to dispel madness; 37.146, a mineral called aspisatis serving the same function. Marchesi, Art of Pliny’s Letters, 180, sees the term in Vergil via Lucan; Gibson, Book 6: Lucretius.

· 118 The lifetime prevalence for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) ranges from about 10–30% for a population affected by severe trauma (“Epidemiology of PTSD,” National Center for PTSD, https://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/PTSD-overview/epidemiological-facts-ptsd.asp , accessed 10 Jan 2018). For a study of PTSD incidence amongst volcanic eruption survivors, see Warsini et al., “Post-Traumatic Stress”; Warsini et al., “Living Through”; esp. 210: “…participants in this study expressed panic, fear, and anxiety as emotional responses to the disaster. This impact was so great that when recalling and recounting details participants were able to report their experience with exceptional sensory memory.” See also Toner, Roman Disasters, 150–70 for a discussion of PTSD in Roman contexts, and Olshausen, “Mit der Katastrophen leben,” esp. 456–60, for a systematic analysis of the stress factors of the Vesuvian eruption. Forehand, “Natural Phenomena,” 34, 38, claimed that “Pliny’s main interest throughout his letter has been to study the psychology of people under stress,” a sentiment contested by Barrett, “Pliny, Ep. 6.20 Again,” 38–39.

· 119 McFarlane, “Psychiatric Morbidity,” 39–41; Fullerton and Ursano, “Psychopathological Consequences,” 18. Both authors extensively review predictors (risk factors) for, consequences of, and coping mechanisms for psychiatric morbidity (mental illness) in the wake of disasters.

· 120 Goto et al., “Miyake Island,” 2009–16.”

· 121 Modius Brugensis, Novantiquae Lectiones, Letter LI, 235, argued against veniret, which Catanaeus had added to his second, 1518 ed., after taking it from Aldus.

· 122 For Bütler (geistige Welt, 80–84), the operative characteristic of both Plinys is Standhaftigkeit, “steadfastness.”

· 123 Shelton, Selected Letters, 119; Gibson, Book 6, especially recalling the frequent use of dignus/a in the Natural History. Bromberg, “Telemacheia,” 57: “Letter 20 too closes with the same self-abnegating rhetoric as occasioned it (in 6.16). Yet “Little Pliny’s letter made history after all” (Lefèvre, Römertum zum Ästhetizismus, 141). The more Pliny uses the word digna (despite its syntactic negation), the more he means it. See Schwerdtner, Klassiker, 160–61, for Pliny’s self-portrayal as pius and litteratus.

· 124 Duff, Liber Sextus, 71, re: imputabis.

· 125 Benario, “The Annals,” 101–4; Sherwin-White, Letters of Pliny, 380; Cooley and Cooley, Sourcebook, 111; Galtier, “Tacite et Plinie,” 160; Augoustakis, “Nequaquam historia digna,” 271, with refs.

· 126 Moore, trans., Histories, vol. 1, 4–7.

· 127 Wallace-Hadrill, Herculaneum, 36; J. Berry, Complete Pompeii, 27–28; see Cooley and Cooley, Sourcebook, 53–54 and Lazer, Resurrecting Pompeii, 93–95 for evidence of post-eruption salvage at Pompeii.

· 128 Canter, “Conflagrations,” 276–77. Cassius Dio 66.24 gives the most extensive ancient account of the event, and like Tacitus, he pairs it with Vesuvius’ eruption as a disastrous double-whammy to afflict Titus’ reign.

· 129 Jackson, trans., Annals, vol. 2, 116–17.

· 130 See Ch. 1; Syme, Tacitus, vol. 1, 63–65; R. Martin, Tacitus, 26–32; Mendell, Tacitus, 4–9 for briefs of Tacitus’ early life and career; there is no firm evidence he visited the Bay of Naples prior to the eruption.

· 131 Riemer, “Ein Beispeil,” 30–31, on the real and reported richness of the area, and quasi-sarcastically on 40: “It is better to die in Campania than anywhere else in the world, even if it happens under the worst of circumstances.”

· 132 Augoustakis, “Nequaquam historia digna,” 271 takes scilicet as ambiguous, in that “of course” Tacitus will use Pliny’s account as ready-made for historical purposes, despite Pliny’s self-effacing pretence that Tacitus can decide.

· 133 Mynors, Epistularum, 269.

· 134 von Jan and Mayhoff, Naturalis Historiae, 2.

· 135 Berry, “Advocate,” 6–7, argues that Tacitus did not mention Younger Pliny in the Histories’ account of the eruption, since “later” (Ep. 7.33) Pliny asks the historian to be included for his actions in AD 93–94 (Ch. 1).

· 6.4, 6.7, 6.14, 6.28, 6.30, 7.5 (Sherwin-White, 136 Ep. Letters of Pliny, 36).

· 137 Toner, Roman Disasters, 45–66 for familial, local, and imperial measures to address post-disaster problems, involving self-help, the leverage of existing social networks, appeals to elites, and euergetism (philanthropy) on the part of those elites, who trade concrete resources for social capital and enduring remembrance through inscriptions, rebuilt structures, etc. See also Tuck, “Harbors”; S.C. Martin, “Past Eruptions”; Hughes, “How Natural.”

· 138 Cary, trans., Roman History, vol. 8, 308–9. There is some curious evidence that Titus’ entourage had visited the cities on the Bay of Naples before the eruption. On the wall of a latrine in the Casa della Gemma (Insula Orientalis I.1) at Herculaneum, close to the Suburban Baths and the beach, is a graffito (Della Corte and Ciprotti, CIL 4.10619): Apollinaris. medicus. Titi imp. hic. cacavit. bene, “Apollinaris, doctor of the emperor Titus, shat well here.” Either the remark is a joke (Koloski-Ostrow, Sanitation, 112), a genuine sentiment of the doctor’s visit, or a record by a family member of the special visitor (Varone “Newly Discovered,” 119–20). Titus had only been sole ruler for a few months (since 24 June) in AD 79 (see Ch. 3). Hillard, “Other Accounts,” 21–29, collects post-eruption sources.

· 139 Rolfe, trans., Suetonius, vol. 2, 316–19 (his translation).

· 140 Toner, Roman Disasters, 122–23; Leopold, “Consolando,” 816–23.

· 141 Rolfe, trans., Suetonius, vol. 2, 318–19; Cary, trans., Roman History, vol. 8, 310–11 (their translations).

· 142 Taylor, “Roman Neapolis,” 298, 302–5, who favors centuriation along the pre-eruption lines, but acknowledges that the numerous land division patterns around Nola are confusing. Camardo, “Herculaneum,” 304–7, concurs with Soricelli (“dopo l’eruzione”; “Divisioni agrarie”) that new grids were laid upon the newly elevated landscape.

· 143 Taylor, “Roman Neapolis,” 309–11; Soricelli, “dopo l’eruzione,” 141–42.

· 144 Taylor, “Roman Neapolis,” 283, 299–302, 305–9. His argument that large amounts of property belonging to the cult of the Siren Parthenope were key to veteran land distribution is unconvincing; it relies upon a strained reading of an interpolation (Sirenae Parthenopae) for a passage from the Liber Coloniarum, a fifth-c. AD compilation of Augustan-Commodan veteran foundations. For text and translation of the passage, see Campbell, Roman Land Surveyors, 184–85, 421–22. The Liber clearly states that Titus apportioned Neapolitan territory to soldiers: miles imp. Titi lege modum iugerationis ob meritum accepit, “a soldier, by a law of the emperor Titus, received a portion of the land distribution according to what he deserved.” The eruption aftermath is the most likely window of time in which that would have occurred. There is a final catch, however: the text refers to Neapolim, but all three manuscript versions follow with variants of syria palestinae (emended by Lachmann, Die schriften, 235, to Sirenae Parthenopae). There was a Flavian colony called Neapolis in Judea (modern Nablus), just north of Jerusalem. See Taylor, “Roman Neapolis,” 301; Keppie, “Colonisation,” 104. Accordingly, the passage may not refer to the Bay of Naples at all, though the entry for Neapolis comes between Minturnae to the south and Nuceria to the east, so the context seems right. The text is probably corrupt due to confusion amongst its ancient editors.

· 145 Taylor, “Roman Neapolis,” 294–95; Cooley, Pompeii, 60–61. A forthcoming book on the Vesuvian aftermath is expected from S. Tuck. Evidence comes from three Roman milestones, one from Neapolis and two from the road between Nocera and Stabiae, all dating to AD 120–121, when the Emperor Hadrian was consul for the third time and had tribunician power for the fifth time: Mommsen, CIL 10.6939–40. The old road was on average about 4 m below the new ashy surface in the Sarno plain area and more than 20 m below ground near Herculaneum, but it seems that, by disinterment or leveling and packing of the new ground surface (or some combination), a usable track was established soon after the eruption (see de’ Spagnolis Conticello, Il Pons Sarni, 53, 77–79, 94–96; Pagano, “L’area vesuviana,” 36–38).

· 146 Scarpati, Perrotta, and De Simone, “Impact.”

· 147 Taylor, “Roman Neapolis,” 293–96, 298.

· 148 Mommsen, CIL 10.1492; Amodio, Napoli tardo-antica, 44; Camodeca, “Le città della Campania,” 292, n.50.

· 149 Taylor, “Roman Neapolis,” 298–99; Galante, De Herculanensi. See Tuck, “Harbors,” for a study of post-eruption population movements; also S.C. Martin, “Past Eruptions,” 9–13.

· 150 Forbis, “Liberalitas and Largitio”; Forbis, Municipal Virtues, 34–42.

· 151 Barbagallo, Storia della camorra, ch. 11; Taylor, “Roman Neapolis,” 298.

· 152 Pliny, HN 3.17. See Talbert, Rome’s World, 133–37; Dilke, “Maps,” 207–9. The Porticus was likely located just east of the Via Lata, the urban portion of the Via Flaminia which stretched from Rome across Etruria and the Apennines to Rimini on the Adriatic coast (today called the Via del Corso), near the present-day Piazza dell’Oratorio; see Boatwright, “Visualizing Empire,” for the most detailed treatment of the Porticus and its context. For Agrippa’s map, see also Carey, Pliny’s Catalogue, 61–74.

· 153 Some dates are in dispute, and some accounts of eruptions may be confused with others, or belong to the same eruptive sequence: Scarth, Vesuvius, 87–114 (with a table on p. 88); De Simone and Russell, “Late-antique Eruption,” 367–68; Principe et al., “Chronology”; Bockmann, “Spätantike.”

· 154 Foss, “Rediscovery,” 28–31.