Pompeii - Box

In the autumn of 79, a violent eruption of Vesuvius caused the rich Roman city of Pompeii to be buried under a rain of volcanic ash. On the same day, the neighbouring port of Herculaneum, with its more working-class housing, was crushed under a flow of rocks and lava. Rising from oblivion 1700 years later, these two cities have allowed us, thanks to their sudden misfortune, to know Roman civilisation at its peak with as much precision as if it had died out yesterday.

"The cloud rushed into the air, without it being possible to distinguish from such a great distance from which mountain it came." Nearly 2,000 years ago, Pliny the Younger gave the first historical description of the eruption, preceded by several days of earthquakes, sketching a cloud in the shape of an elongated trunk "before unfolding like a branch."

The sky soon darkened, obstructed by volcanic material and ash escaping from the volcano. "The sea seemed to turn over on itself...", "a black and horrible cloud, burst by fires that rushed out in a serpentine fashion", "I turned my head and saw behind us a thick smoke that followed us, spreading over the earth like a torrent".