Looking from Cape Misenum towards Mt. Vesuvius in the far right distance
The Manuscripts.
This post begins a serialized translation and commentary of Pliny the Younger’s letters (6.16 and 6.20) to the historian Tacitus about the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. This was the disaster that buried Pompeii, Herculaneum, and other sites. These posts are part of a book project that intends to understand the scholarly and popular reception of those letters. I am teaching these letters for LAT 223 at DePauw in Fall 2012; it’s a good time to start.
