He gave orders for a galley to be fitted out; he asked if I wanted to come with him. I replied that I would prefer to study, for he himself happened to have given me something to write. He was on the point of leaving the house when he received a written message from Tascius’ wife Rectina, who feared imminent danger, for her villa lay beneath Vesuvius and there was no escape, except by boat. She urged him to rescue her from this grave situation. He changed his plan and what he had begun as an intellectual pursuit he completed with all he had. He had the quadriremes drawn up and embarked with the intention of bringing help not only to Rectina, but to many people, for the exquisite coast was highly populated. He pushed forward in the direction from which others were fleeing, and held course, steering straight into the danger zone, so fearless as he went that he described and noted down every movement, every shape of that evil thing, as it appeared before his eyes.

Now ash began to fall on the ships, hotter and thicker the nearer they got; now pumice and even black stones, burned and broken by fire; now, suddenly, in the shallows, the waste the mountain had ejected was blocking the way to the shore. Having hesitated briefly as to whether to turn back, my uncle said to the helmsman who favoured this course: “Fortune favours the brave: make for Pomponianus”.

He was cut off at Stabiae by the curve of the bay (for a gently rounded shore surrounds it and is filled by the sea); although the danger was not yet approaching there, it was nonetheless clear that it would get nearer as it intensified in size. Pomponianus had stowed his baggage aboard a ship, set on flight if the opposing wind settled.