Pompeii was a city on the Southwestern coast of Italy. It was a city that was built with so many luxuries that a lot of people wanted to live there and experience perfection. A great earthquake had rattled the city of Pompeii in 63 A.D. The people of Pompeii were devastated that their city was greatly damaged. A few people died, and a few people were very shaken up by the earthquake. The city of Pompeii was in ruins. Buildings and homes had collapsed and were destroyed. The emperor of Pompeii thought it would be best if the townspeople would just abandon the city because it was thought to be bad luck. But the people had too much pride, and they started to rebuild the city immediately. Many people stayed at Pompeii because they thought that since they survived the earthquake, they could survive anything. Other people stayed because they did not want to leave their fortunes of the amazing city behind. The people had no idea that only seventeen years later, they would experience a more deadly and disastrous event.
About 2,000 people are thought to have died in the 79 A.D. eruption from ash flows and falls. Recently, Archaeologists found the preserves of the bodies that were killed due to the eruption. They began placing moldings in the shells of the bodies and waited for them to harden. After the moldings hardened, the full forms of the bodies appeared, even the expressions that the people had on their faces before they died had appeared.
The Roman writer Pliny the Younger, witnessed the eruption, and wrote in a letter how he led his mother to safety through the fumes and falling stones. He described the death of his uncle, the writer Pliny the Elder, who commanded a fleet that rescued many of the people. The "Plinian" which takes its term today, has been translated many times and has been updated. Because of Pliny the Younger's letter, it is the only link to finding out some of the exact information of what actually happened the day the Mt. Vesuvius erupted. The 79 A.D. eruption of Mt. Vesuvius was the first volcanic eruption ever to be described in full detail, thanks to Pliny t
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