Changes

In a second letter to Tacitus, Pliny describes what happened to him and to his mother during the second day of the disaster, 20 miles away:   

In a second letter to Tacitus, Pliny describes what happened to him and to his mother during the second day of the disaster, 20 miles away:   

:"even the sea seemed to roll back on itself, pushed back by earth tremors. Many fish were beached on the sand. In the other direction gaped a horrible black cloud torn by zigzag flashes and masses of flames, like lightning but much larger...at night time we were enveloped, not a moonless night or one dimmed by cloud, but the darkness of a sealed room without a lamp. After a while we were reached by another cloud - Again the obscurity, again the ash, dense and heavy. We raised some time to shake away the ash as we could have been covered and choked by its weight.

{{cquote|"even the sea seemed to roll back on itself, pushed back by earth tremors. Many fish were beached on the sand. In the other direction gaped a horrible black cloud torn by zigzag flashes and masses of flames, like lightning but much larger...at night time we were enveloped, not a moonless night or one dimmed by cloud, but the darkness of a sealed room without a lamp. After a while we were reached by another cloud - Again the obscurity, again the ash, dense and heavy. We raised some time to shake away the ash as we could have been covered and choked by its weight.

:You could hear the shrieks of women, the wailing of infants, and the shouting of men; some were calling their parents, others their children or their wives, trying to recognize them by their voices. People bewailed their own fate or that of their relatives, and there were some who prayed for death in their terror of dying. Many besought the aid of the gods, but still more imagined there were no gods left, and that the universe was plunged into eternal darkness for evermore. <ref>http://www.bible-history.com/resource/ff_vesu.htm</ref>

You could hear the shrieks of women, the wailing of infants, and the shouting of men; some were calling their parents, others their children or their wives, trying to recognize them by their voices. People bewailed their own fate or that of their relatives, and there were some who prayed for death in their terror of dying. Many besought the aid of the gods, but still more imagined there were no gods left, and that the universe was plunged into eternal darkness for evermore. <ref>http://www.bible-history.com/resource/ff_vesu.htm</ref>}}

The bodies of those who did not escape were covered by the volcano's mineral deposits, which covered Pompeii in a layer more than 30 feet thick.<ref>http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/archaeology/sites/europe/pompeii.html</ref>  

The bodies of those who did not escape were covered by the volcano's mineral deposits, which covered Pompeii in a layer more than 30 feet thick.<ref>http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/archaeology/sites/europe/pompeii.html</ref>