page_title: Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD
section_title: The Two Plinys
hierarchical_section_title: Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD / The Two Plinys
caption_attribution_description: English: Pompeii, with Vesuvius towering above.
context_page_description: Of the many eruptions of Mount Vesuvius in Italy, the most famous is the eruption in 79 AD. This eruption is one of the deadliest in European history.
  Mount Vesuvius violently spewed forth a deadly cloud of super-heated tephra and gases to a height of 33 km, ejecting molten rock, pulverized pumice and hot ash at 1.5 million tons per second, ultimately releasing 100,000 times the thermal energy of the Hiroshima-Nagasaki bombings. The event gives its name to the Vesuvian type of volcanic eruptions, characterised by eruption columns of hot gases and ash exploding into the stratosphere, although the event also included pyroclastic flows associated with Pelean eruptions.
  Several Roman cities were obliterated and buried underneath massive pyroclastic surges and ashfall deposits, the best known being Pompeii and Herculaneum. After archaeological excavations revealed much about the lives of the inhabitants, the area became a major tourist attraction, and is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and part of Vesuvius National Park.
  The total population of both cities was over 20,000.
context_section_description: The only surviving eyewitness account of the event consists of two letters by Pliny the Younger, who was 17 at the time of the eruption, to the historian Tacitus and written some 25 years after the event. Observing the first volcanic activity from Misenum across the Bay of Naples from the volcano, approximately 29 kilometres (18 mi) away, Pliny the Elder (Pliny the Younger's uncle) launched a rescue fleet and went himself to the rescue of a personal friend. His nephew declined to join the party. One of the nephew's letters relates what he could discover from witnesses of his uncle's experiences. In a second letter, the younger Pliny details his own observations after the departure of his uncle.
caption: Pompeii, with Vesuvius towering above
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