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On a bed of prehistoric lava,
Pompeii is founded in the second half of the VIIth century B.C. with an
organization effort that presupposes objectives of lookout and defence
connected to the nature of the relations between the Greeks and the
natives.
The natives, peaceful when first colonized, later matured notions of
armed action when the Chalcidenses, who held defensive posts along the
sea-coast, threatened to cut off for ever the peoples of Campania from
access to the sea. Despite the documented existence of a Doric temple
dating from the second half of the VIth century B.C. on the terrace of
the triangular forum, and other indications that were held valid until
only a few years ago, Pompeii was not a Greek city, even though it had
been influenced by Greek culture ever since the most archaic epoch. In
the light of the results obtained from the stratigraphic researches
carried out in these last years, it appears that Pompeii, at the time of
its foundation and its first development, was much more conditioned,
politically, by the Etruscans than by the Greeks.
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The eruption of the Vesuvius, which raged from the
afternoon of August 24th through to the 26th, were recorded, albeit a few years
later, by Gaius Plinius Secundus, who in 79 AD was seventeen years old and
staying with his uncle, an admiral in the imperial fleet and a keen naturalist.
He was persuaded to narrate the events by Tacitus in two letters when the latter
was acquiring material for the second part of his "Historiae".
Those last days of August had been preceded by earth tremors, a common enough
phenomenon in Campania that aroused no particular apprehension. But early in the
afternoon of the 24th an enormous cloud in the shape of a pine tree appeared and
it changed colour continuously.
The admiral was studying the cloud, not knowing its cause, when a call for help
arrived from Rectina, the wife of Tascio, who lived at the foot of Vesuvius. She
found herself hemmed in by the eruption, with only the sea offering a possible
route to safety.
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During the crossing the ships were covered in the ash
pouring out of the volcano, which as they drew nearer the coast became hotter
and denser, containing flaming pumicite and lapilli. The force of the eruption
was such that the ships could not land and had to sail on the port of Stabiae,
four miles to the south of Pompeii.
The admiral went ashore and had dinner as guest of Pomponiano, continuing to
scrutinising the spectacle that, with nightfall, had become truly awesome |