Works Cited
Letters of Pliny the Younger to the Historian Tacitus
Secundus, Gaius Plinius Caecilius. "Pliny the Younger." Letters and Panegyrics, ed. EH Warmington, English trans. Betty Radice 2.
"The Destruction of Pompeii, 79 AD," EyeWitness to History, www.eyewitnesstohistory.com (1999).
Textual Evidence
Importance
- Historical Value
- Accurate
- Volcanologists utilize details
- Plinian Eruption
- A volcanic eruption in which a stream of gas and ash is violently ejected to a height of several miles
- Also shows human reactions
What?
"The buildings were being rocked by a series of tremors, and appeared to have come loose from their foundations and to be sliding this way and that. Outside, however, there was danger from the rocks that were coming down, light and fire-consumed as these bits of pumice were" (1).
"Behind us were frightening dark clouds, rent by lightening twisted and hurled, opening to reveal huge figures of flame. These were like lightening but bigger" (2).
"You could hear women lamenting, children crying, men shouting. Some were calling for parents, others for children or spouses; they could only recognize them by their voices" (2).
- Wrote about Vesuvius eruption August 24, 79 A.D.
- Age: 18
- First written account of explosive eruption
- Letters discovered in 16th century
- Written to Tacticus a few years after eruption
- 2 Letters - topics
Who?
- Pliny the younger
- Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus
- Born 61 CE
- Studied Rhetoric - Qintilian
- Known for writings
- Letters and inscriptions