Appendix G: The Eruption of Vesuvius

Silius Italicus (ce 26-101) says that the ashes produced by the eruption of Vesuvius reached east Asia (17.592-6), a statement seemingly hyperbolic but confirmed by Dio Cassius in the next century, who soberly reports that ashes affected Syria, Africa, and Egypt. Martial (ca. 40-104?) has an epigram mourning the destruction caused to the region (4.44). We find a direct and extended allusion in Statius (45-96 ce) in the Silvae (4.4.79-85). Pliny’s own accounts are, of course, famous (Epp. 6.16, 20); and Tacitus, although we have lost those sections of his work which deal extensively with the eruption—and we may assume that he intended to deal with it, for he asked Pliny to provide him with extensive information on the matter—mentions it twice (Histories 1.2; Annals 4.67). Valerius Flaccus (fl. A.D. 70) uses Vesuvius for a simile in his Argonautica (3.209). Plutarch (On the Pythian Oracle 9) mentions it; and Dio’s account (66.21 ff.) is very detailed. (The above authors are cited in A.N. Sherwin-White, The Letters of Pliny [The Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1966], notes on Epp. 6.16.)

For an ancient account of volcanic eruptions, see Diodorus Siculus V.7.