You ask that I write to you of my uncle’s death so that you might pass the truth down to posterity. Thank you. For I can see that, if his death is recorded by you, then immortal glory is assured him. For although he died in an unforgettable disaster which destroyed the most beautiful parts of the earth, as well as cities and their people so, in a sense, he was bound to live on, and although he produced a great number of enduring works of his own, the inextinguishable nature of your writing may still do much to perpetuate his name. Lucky, I think, are those men with a god-given gift for doing what deserves to be written about or writing what deserves to be read – and very lucky are those who can do both. Through his own books and yours, my uncle will be one of these. I’m only too pleased to write this account, for in fact I’m eager for what you enjoin me to do.

My uncle was at Misenum where he was commander of the imperial fleet. On 24 August, at around midday, my mother alerted him to a cloud, both strange and enormous in appearance. He had taken some sun, had a cold bath, lunched while reclining and was then at his studies; he called for his shoes and made his way up to a spot from which he could obtain the best view of the phenomenon. The cloud was too far away from where we were watching for us to be certain of which mountain it was rising from (it was afterwards known to be Vesuvius), but its shape was closest to that of an umbrella pine tree quite specifically. For it was raised high on a kind of very tall trunk and spread out into branches, I suppose because it was freshly pushed out by air and then weakened as the air subsided or, overcome by its own weight, filtered out across the sky, white one moment, dirty and grey-spotted the next through the earth or ash it bore. To a scholarly man like my uncle, it was obvious that, to understand more about it, he needed to get closer.