A description of how death occurred to those unfortunate souls living in Pompeii and Herculaneum, from “Mortal Remains” that appeared in The Weekly Standard:
Anyone in the path of the fiery stream was incinerated; those still crouching in houses were roasted or choked by mephitic vapors; and those caught near the sea were parboiled.
I have a feeling that Professor J.E. Lendon’s history class at University of Virginia must be riveting and exciting, and he must bring old and stale stuff back to life! The Professor ends his review with a sad but sardonic description of the final dénouement:
…we happen to have an explanation independent of archaeology for why so many citizens of that city fled to the illusory safety of the docks rather than to real salvation inland. For we know from Pliny the Younger’s famous letter to the historian Tacitus about the death of his uncle in the disaster that the Roman fleet from nearby Misenum had been dispatched to evacuate the threatened coast. The people of Herculaneum, then, were waiting to be rescued by their government. Imagine their relief when they saw the swift quadriremes of Rome set forth from the military port only a few miles away. And imagine their feelings as they watched from their docks the fleet of their prayed-for salvation steer away across the ash-obscured bay of Naples. For Pliny’s uncle, the official in charge, had dispatched the ships not for the common succor, but instead to the spa town of Stabiae to fetch away his chum Pomponianus. And as the flaming rivers brought to them their deaths, the folk of Herculaneum discovered what every generation of men must learn about the real operation of government.
(Emphasis mine.)
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