Pliny the Younger: The Man Who Watched Vesuvius
He watched fire rain down on Pompeii—then wrote it all down, detail by terrified detail.
Gustave Moreau — "Oedipus and the Sphinx" (1864), public domain
He Stared Down the Volcano
Flames rise from Vesuvius. Ash blots out the sun. Pliny the Younger stays on the shore, parchment in hand, eyes wide open. He is not a hero—he is a witness.
He Wrote As the World Ended
Where others fled or froze, Pliny described disaster as it swallowed his world. He sent letters to Tacitus, sketching the panic, the darkness, the silent shapes buried in ash. Two thousand years later, we still see the red glow through his eyes.
Pliny the Younger didn’t run when he saw Vesuvius erupt. He sat on the bay and recorded every cloud, every tremor, every scream. His letters still give us a front-row seat to one of history’s deadliest days.
