question Renato Balera de Mello, Santo André, SP
illustrates Cassio Yoshiyaki
edition Felipe van Deursen
It was an explosion that destroyed several cities in the Bay of Naples, Italy, on August 24, 79. This port region and fertile agriculture is just 240 km from Rome, capital of the western world at the time. The frightening event was unprecedented in Roman culture, so much so that there wasn’t even a word for volcano. The name came from a festival, celebrated on the eve, for Vulcan, the god of fire (Hephaestus for the Greeks). Pompeii became the most famous of these cities because hundreds of bodies remained preserved. Thus, the city, which was in a special place and moment in history, became well known. It would be the equivalent of an unknown force of nature destroying an area near New York today. Over time, there were other eruptions from Vesuvius. The most recent, in 1944, in the midst of World War II, killed 28 people and destroyed 80 US aircraft. Little misfortune is silly.
day of fury
The chronology of the end of Pompeii
MORNING
It was hot that day, and the first tremor was felt in the late morning, when, on festive days, people used to gather in the stadium to watch the gladiator fights. People got up early (4:30 am). Shops opened at 7 am. At noon, they had bread, fish, fruit and cakes for lunch (Pompeii had more than 30 bakeries).
AFTERNOON
Commerce included laundries, banks and public baths, which filled up after 1 pm. Not that day: the sky was filled with a rain of ash, rocks and debris, which caused the first deaths. Corrosive, volcanic ash does not dissolve in water. They reach 300ºC, burning the throat and nasal passages.
NIGHT
By the end of the afternoon, when families retired and it was dangerous to go out into the alleys, the city was covered in rocks and ash. A good part of the buildings collapsed and many inhabitants were already dead when the lava started to flow from Vesuvius. It did not reach Pompeii, reaching only areas closer to the volcano.
HILLS AND HOLES
There are basically two types of volcanoes. The most common are large cracks, through which lava flows from the mantle, the extremely hot layer that lies beneath the Earth’s crust. Mountains with craters on top are rare. In them, the eruption is a sequence of rocks, soot and toxic gases. Lava is the final dose of terror
MENTOS WITH SODA
The eruption on land (remember that there are also submerged volcanoes) is a shaken soda bottle: first, a high jet, which even throws stones from the very top of the volcano. The explosion of 79 was so strong that it changed the face of Vesuvius. In place of the old top, higher and more pointed, two flat craters appeared. It’s like this until today
NO WAY OUT
To complete the tragedy, the eruption caused a tsunami in the Bay of Naples. Waves of up to 8 m rendered the port of Pompeii unusable. Those who survived and tried to escape by sea did not succeed. Many suffocated to death at dawn
DEATH BAY
Herculaneum, Stabia, Oplontis, Nuceria and Mycene were the other cities affected. Herculaneum was closer to Vesuvius than Pompeii. But it was evacuated in time: only 300 died there. Most died in Pompeii itself
PLASTER MUMMIES
More than a thousand bodies have been found in Pompeii since the 18th century. Many victims were buried under a layer of heated ash, which solidified over time. This created a negative mold of the corpses, already fully decomposed. Filled with plaster, the casts showed the position of the victims at the time of death.
Vesuvius in the top 5
Deadliest volcanic eruptions (in recorded deaths)
1.92 thousand
Tambora, Indonesia, 1815
2.36 thousand
Krakatoa, Indonesia, 1883
3.29 thousand
Pelee, Martinique, 1902
4.23 thousand
Nevado Del Ruiz, Colombia, 1985
5.16 thousand
Vesuvius, Italy, 79
ONE LAST CURIOSITY Pompeii was accidentally rediscovered in the 16th century. And the first body was only found in the 18th century
READ TOO:
– Have there ever been volcanoes in Brazil?
– What was the worst volcanic eruption in the world?
– How do volcanoes occur?
– Is it possible to stimulate a volcano to erupt?
Consultancy Penelope Allison, specialist in ancient history at the University of Leicester (UK)
Sources Books Everyday Life in Ancient Romeby Pedro Paulo Funari, and Secrets of Pompeiiby Emidio de Albentiis and Alfredo Foglia, film Pompeii – The Last DayBBC/ADVENTURES IN HISTORY