Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, or Pliny the Younger, as he is better known by historians is considered to be one of the first known volcanologists, most famously witnessing the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. Pliny was the grandson of a Senator and was born in Novum Comum in 61 AD. He was first tutored at home but later moved to Rome to continue his education after the death of his father. He studied under the great teacher Quintilian, married three times, and died mysteriously in 112 AD, when he rose to the position of Imperial Governor of the Bithynia et Pontus province.
The reason he is so important to us, however, is his viewing and written account of of the Mount Vesuvius eruption.Pliny's uncle, Pliny the Elder, was in command of the Roman fleet at Misenum, and at the time of the eruption, led the fleet in for a rescue mission.
Pliny the Younger, still across the bay from Vesuvius watched as the ash cloud rose from the erupting volcano and as his uncle approached it: "I cannot give you a more exact description of its appearance than by comparing to a pine tree; for it shot up to a great height in the form of a tall trunk, which spread out at the top as though into branches". He described this pyroclastic flow as covering the whole mountain and the surrounding sea.
As Pliny's uncle tried to rescue his wife who was within the eruption's radius, he was unable to get any closer and the Uncle collapsed and died from sulphuric gases. Pliny the Younger watched in horror as the sun was blocked out, earth tremors were felt, and the sea was turned into turmoil in what was probably a tsunami.
He soon deduced the reason for the eruption: "I imagine because it was thrust upwards by the first blast and then left unsupported as the pressure subsided, or else it was borne down by its own weight so that it spread out and gradually dispersed."
Pliny was deeply saddened by his uncle's death, and wrote down his account in his Epistulae, a series of letters that was his life's work.
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