SURVIVING VESUVIUS

A lightly dramatized view of life in the ancient settlements near Mt. Vesuvius and the devastating eruption of 79 C.E. that covered them beneath ash and rock.

Despite the title and one scene of a few dazed survivors wandering over an ashy plain, this book is more about the catastrophe’s course and victims than its aftermath. Waters sets the stage with a general picture of a typical day in Pompeii for a small cast of actual residents—some enslaved and anonymous, others whose names and occupations were preserved either in the physical record or the long letter written decades later by Pliny the Younger, an eyewitness. Along with simplified elevated and subsurface maps paired with an explanation of the geological processes at work, the account offers a detailed replay of the eruption’s successive explosions of pumice and ash, pyroclastic flows of rock, and clouds of toxic gas. Centuries later, interest in the long-undisturbed site was sparked by an early discovery of artifacts in 1592; systematic excavations began in 1748 and continue to this day, with much yet to be uncovered. In the stodgy illustrations, light- and dark-skinned figures in increasingly smudged ancient dress peer worriedly toward the volcano’s slopes and lament as dark clouds descend. In a final scene, modern people wander about blocky, clean-looking ruins taking photos and selfies. In a closing source note, the author carefully distinguishes fact from invention in his tale.

A solidly researched account of a long-ago tragedy.