CHAPTER VII.

DESTRUCTION OF HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII.

State of Vesuvius before the eruption in the year 79 A.C.— Spartacus—Premonitory Earthquakes—Letter of Pliny the Younger to Tacitus, relating the death of his uncle, Pliny the Elder—Benevolence of the Emperor Titus— Herculaneum and Pompeii buried under a muddy alluvium— Herculaneum first discovered in 1713 81