Fatal
Eruption
by Victoria
A.
Pastels and
charcoal on paper. This drawing, which took 12 tissues, a box of pastels, a box
of charcoal, a pink eraser, a kneadable eraser, a pencil sharpened 1,000 times
and five drafts (including the final) to make what I imagine the eruption of
Mt. Vesuvius may have looked like. Below it is an excerpt from the letters of
Pliny the Younger, which gives us an amazing window into the life of Pompeii on
that horrid day, August 24, 74 AD.
From the second letter of Pliny the Younger to Cornileius
Tacitus, regarding the details of Pliny’s day after the eruption.
“At best the darkness thinned and dispersed like smoke or a
cloud; then there was genuine daylight, and the sun actually shone out, but
yellowish as it is during an eclipse. We were terrified to see everything
changed, buried deep in ashes like snowdrifts. We returned to Misenium where we
attended to our physical needs as best we could, and then spent an anxious
night altering from hope to fear. Fear predominated, for the earthquakes, went
on, and several hysterical individuals made their own and other peoples
calamities seen ludicrous in comparison with their frightful predictions. But
even then, in spite of the dangers we had been through and were still
expecting, my mother and I still had no intention of leaving until we heard
news of my uncle.” [paragraph 6]
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