page_title: Mount Vesuvius
section_title: Before AD 79
hierarchical_section_title: Mount Vesuvius / Eruptions / Before AD 79
caption_attribution_description: Italiano: Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli (inv. nr. 112286). Da Pompeii, Casa del Centenario (IX, 8, 3-6) - Affresco del larario della casa, con Bacco in forma di grappolo d'uva, che versa del vino al suo animale preferito, la pantera; in alto un festone con bende ed uccelli; in basso il serpente agatodemone genius loci, indirizzato verso un altare cilindrico; il monte visibile è presumibilmente il Vesuvio per come appariva prima dell'eruzione del 79 d.C., caratterizzato da una sola cima, e fittamente ricoperto di vegetazione, fra cui si riconoscono filari di vitigni ai suoi piedi. English: Roman fresco showing Bacchus (on the left) and serpent (Agathodaimon) from the Casa del Centenario in Pompeii. Museo Archeologico Nazionale (Naples) Deutsch: Römisches Fresko aus dem Haus der Jahrhundertfeier in Pompeji. Links Bacchus, im Vordergrund Schlange (Agathodaimon) und Altarstein. Der Berg im Hintergrund ist vermutlich der Vesuv. Museo Archeologico Nazionale (Neapel) Русский: Агатодемон — божество полей и виноградников и дух Везувия в виде змеи.
context_page_description: Mount Vesuvius is a somma-stratovolcano located on the Gulf of Naples in Campania, Italy, about 9 km east of Naples and a short distance from the shore. It is one of several volcanoes which form the Campanian volcanic arc. Vesuvius consists of a large cone partially encircled by the steep rim of a summit caldera caused by the collapse of an earlier and originally much higher structure.
  The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79 destroyed the Roman cities of Pompeii, Herculaneum, Oplontis and Stabiae, as well as several other settlements. The eruption ejected a cloud of stones, ashes and volcanic gases to a height of 33 km, erupting molten rock and pulverized pumice at the rate of 6×10⁵ cubic metres per second, ultimately releasing 100,000 times the thermal energy released by the Hiroshima-Nagasaki bombings. More than 1,000 people died in the eruption, but exact numbers are unknown. The only surviving eyewitness account of the event consists of two letters by Pliny the Younger to the historian Tacitus.
  Vesuvius has erupted many times since and is the only volcano on the European mainland to have erupted within the last hundred years.
context_section_description: Scientific knowledge of the geologic history of Vesuvius comes from core samples taken from a 2,000 m (6,600 ft) plus bore hole on the flanks of the volcano, extending into Mesozoic rock. Cores were dated by potassium–argon and argon–argon dating. The area has been subject to volcanic activity for at least 400,000 years; the lowest layer of eruption material from the Somma caldera lies on top of the 40,000 year‑old Campanian ignimbrite produced by the Campi Flegrei complex.
  25,000 years ago: Vesuvius started forming in the Codola Plinian eruption.
  Vesuvius was then built up by a series of lava flows, with some smaller explosive eruptions interspersed between them.
  About 19,000 years ago: the style of eruption changed to a sequence of large explosive Plinian eruptions, of which the AD 79 one was the most recent. The eruptions are named after the tephra deposits produced by them, which in turn are named after the place where the deposits were first identified:
  18,300 years ago: the Basal Pumice (Pomici di Base) eruption, VEI 6, the original formation of the Somma caldera. The eruption was followed by a period of much less violent, lava-producing eruptions.
  16,000 years ago: the Green Pumice (Pomici Verdoline) eruption, VEI 5.
  Around 11,000 years ago: the Lagno Amendolare eruption, smaller than the Mercato eruption.
  8,000 years ago: the Mercato eruption (Pomici di Mercato) – also known as Pomici Gemelle or Pomici Ottaviano, VEI 6.
  Around 5,000 years ago: two explosive eruptions smaller than the Avellino eruption.
  3,800 years ago: the Avellino eruption (Pomici di Avellino), VEI 6; its vent was apparently 2 km (1.2 mi) west of the current crater and the eruption destroyed several Bronze Age settlements of the Apennine culture. Several carbon dates on wood and bones offer a range of possible dates of about 500 years in the mid-2nd millennium BC. In May 2001, near Nola, Italian archaeologists using the technique of filling every cavity with plaster or substitute compound recovered some remarkably well-preserved forms of perishable objects, such as fence rails, a bucket and especially in the vicinity thousands of human footprints pointing into the Apennines to the north. The settlement had huts, pots and goats. The residents had hastily abandoned the village, leaving it to be buried under pumice and ash in much the same way that Pompeii and Herculaneum were later preserved. Pyroclastic surge deposits were distributed to the northwest of the vent, travelling as far as 15 km (9.3 mi) from it, and lie up to 3 m (9.8 ft) deep in the area now occupied by Naples.
  The volcano then entered a stage of more frequent, but less violent eruptions, until the most recent Plinian eruption, which destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum.
  The last of these may have been in 217 BC. There were earthquakes in Italy during that year and the sun was reported as being dimmed by gray haze or dry fog. Plutarch wrote of the sky being on fire near Naples and Silius Italicus mentioned in his epic poem Punica that Vesuvius had thundered and produced flames worthy of Mount Etna in that year, although both authors were writing around 250 years later. Greenland ice core samples of around that period show relatively high acidity, which is assumed to have been caused by atmospheric hydrogen sulfide.
  The volcano was then quiet (for 295 years, if the 217 BC date for the last previous eruption is true) and was described by Roman writers as having been covered with gardens and vineyards, except at the top, which was craggy. The volcano may have had only one summit at that time, judging by a wall painting, "Bacchus and Vesuvius", found in a Pompeian house, the House of the Centenary (Casa del Centenario).
  Several surviving works written over the 200 years preceding the AD 79 eruption describe the mountain as having had a volcanic nature, although Pliny the Elder did not depict the mountain in this way in his Naturalis Historia:
  The Greek historian Strabo (ca 63 BC–AD 24) described the mountain in Book V, Chapter 4 of his Geographica as having a predominantly flat, barren sum
caption: Fresco of Bacchus and Agathodaemon with Mount Vesuvius, as seen in Pompeii's House of the Centenary
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