An intriguing look at contemporary views regarding the casts of victims from Mt. Vesuvius' eruption

A simple look at the tragedy in Pompeii.

“A wonderfully rich, witty, insightful, and wide-ranging portrait of the two Plinys and their world.”—Sarah Bakewell, author of How to Live When Pliny the Elder perished at Stabiae during the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD, he left behind an enormous compendium of knowledge, his thirty-seven-volume Natural History, and a teenaged nephew who revered him as a father. Grieving his loss, Pliny the Younger inherited the Elder’s notebooks—filled with pearls of wisdom—and his legacy. At its heart, The Shadow of Vesuvius is a literary biography of the younger man, who would grow up to become a lawyer, senator, poet, collector of villas, and chronicler of the Roman Empire from the dire days of terror under Emperor Domitian to the gentler times of Emperor Trajan. A biography that will appeal to lovers of Mary Beard books, it is also a moving narrative about the profound influence of a father figure on his adopted son. Interweaving the younger Pliny’s Letters with extracts from the Elder’s Natural History, Daisy Dunn paints a vivid, compellingly readable portrait of two of antiquity’s greatest minds.

One peaceful August day in A.D. 79, the people of Pompeii were going about their business—baking bread, eating lunch, lounging in the afternoon heat. Suddenly there was a great explosion, and tons of rock, ash, and gas were spewed into the air. Mount Vesuvius was erupting! In just 19 hours, most of the inhabitants were dead, and a layer of ash had buried the city. This is the story of what happened to the advanced city of Pompeii on that fateful day—and how we’ve learned about its people and culture thousands of years later by digging through the deadly ash.

Pompeii was one of most advanced cities of its time; it had a complex water system, gymnasium, and an amphitheater. Despite it's advancements, there was one thing it wasn't ready for: Mount Vesuvius—the volcano that led to its ultimate doom. The 79 AD eruption of Mount Vesuvius was one of the worst disasters in all of European history. In a near instant, over 15,000 people were dead and a city was completely destroyed. This book looks at the rise, fall, and rediscovery of the great city of Pompeii.

***Please note that this ebook does not contain the photo insert that appears in the print book.*** The ash of Mt. Vesuvius preserves a living record of the complex and exhilarating society it instantly obliterated two thousand years ago. In this highly readable, lavishly illustrated book, Alex Butterworth and Ray Laurence marshal cutting-edge archaeological reconstructions and a vibrant historical tradition dating to Pliny and Tacitus; they present a richly textured portrait of a society not altogether unlike ours, composed of individuals ordinary and extraordinary who pursued commerce, politics, family and pleasure in the shadow of a killer volcano. Deeply resonant in a world still at the mercy of natural disaster, Pompeii recreates life as experienced in the city, and those frantic, awful hours in AD 79 that wiped the bustling city from the face of the earth.