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c. 900 BC
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Some evidence of a tremendous eruption, with dust and ash falling to the east.
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c. 320 BC
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Vesuvius erupts. Before this, the mountain may have been up to 2,745 metres (9,000 feet) in height. During the four centuries before the next eruption, it is covered in forest and, eventually, the volcano is considered dormant.
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73 BC
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Spartacus and 70 other rebellious gladiators shelter on Vesuvius. They are soon joined by many runaway slaves.
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c. 30 BC
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In Virgil's Aeneid, the giant Enceladus, who rebelled against
the gods, is buried beneath Etna, the volcano on Sicily, by the
goddess Athena. Earthquakes are his tossing, rumblings his plaintive
voice and eruptions his burning, flaming breath. Mimas, his brother,
is buried under Vesuvius by Hephaistos, the god of fire and metal-working,
known to the Romans as Vulcan.
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c. AD 10
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Greek geographer Strabo writes of Vesuvius: 'It possesses craters of fire that only go out when they lack fuel.'
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AD 59
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Riot in Pompeii amphitheatre between rival Pompeiian and Nucerian
gladiator fans results in many deaths and injuries. Roman Senate
bans contests for 10 years.
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AD 62
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Severe earthquake (5 February) - a warning of the eruption to come. A flock of 600 sheep is swallowed in a chasm. Altitude of Vesuvius may be 1,830m (6,000ft).
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AD 64
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Another earthquake rocks the Naples area. Nero,
who has just made his singing debut in the theatre there, takes
it as a mark of divine respect that none of the spectators has
been killed.
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AD 79
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Vesuvius
erupts (24/25 August) - see Timetable
- 'perhaps the most violent and destructive ever described in
Europe'. Not only are Pompeii and Herculaneum (visited by the
emperor Titus only a month before) destroyed; the towns of Stabiae,
Oplontis, Sora, Tora, Taurania, Cossa and Leucopetra are also
devastated. Titus gives orders for some temple pictures and statues
to be salvaged. The top 700m (2,300ft) of the volcano is replaced
by a huge crater, and is now called Monte Somma, after Summanus,
the god of nocturnal lightning. The new cone that grows on the
collapsed side is properly known as Vesuvius.
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AD 91
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A Roman poet writes about Vesuvius's slopes - once the haunt of 'dancing satyrs' but now crowned by flames. This is thought to show the volcano's continued activity.
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203
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Roman historian Dio Cassius refers to an eruption of Vesuvius.
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306
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Vesuvius erupts.
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472
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An eruption of Vesuvius is so great that ash causes alarm in Constantinople.
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512
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Vesuvius erupts.
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533
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Vesuvius erupts.
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685
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Vesuvius erupts.
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993
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Vesuvius erupts.
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1036
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Vesuvius erupts - the first occasion when lava flow is recorded.
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1049
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Vesuvius erupts.
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1138
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Vesuvius erupts.
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1139
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Vesuvius erupts.
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1631
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Vesuvius erupts (16 December) with an explosion almost as violent as in AD 79. This is preceded by earthquakes and the drying up of springs. Between 4,000 and 18,000 die in torrens cineris - 'torrents of ash'. Vesuvius's crater enlarges from 1.6km (1 mile) to 4.8km (3 miles) across. The level of the Bay of Naples drops by 3m (10ft) before a wave nearly 5m (16ft) high breaks on the shore. The Spanish viceroy erects a tablet saying: 'As soon as an eruption begins, you must escape as quickly as you can. If you worry about your chattels, your greed and recklessness will be punished. Listen to the voice of this marble · flee without hesitation.'
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1660
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San Gennaro (St Januarius), patron saint of Naples, supposedly causes little black crosses to rain down on villages around Vesuvius. In fact, these are cross-shaped twinned pyroxene crystals torn from the magma and hurled out of the crater.
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1707
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Vesuvius erupts during the ceremonies marking the taking over of Naples by the Austrians from the Spanish.
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1737
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Vesuvius erupts. Sends out a lava stream a mile wide.
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1754
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Vesuvius erupts. Illustrations of this are included in Diderot's famous Encyclopédie.
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1760
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Vesuvius erupts. A new crater forms on the side of the mountain.
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1766
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Vesuvius erupts (28-31 March). Sir William Hamilton, British ambassador
to Naples (and, later, husband to Emma, the future lover of Lord
Nelson), spends two nights on the mountain: 'the lava had the
appearance of a river of red-hot and liquid metal forming a most
beautiful and uncommon cascade'.
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1767
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Vesuvius
erupts (29 October) so violently that the king of Naples has to
escape at 2am and the lava just misses the royal palace. There
is such panic in the city that the king arranges for a procession
of 20,000 people to march to the nearest point on the volcano,
where the head of San Gennaro is shown and Vesuvius is 'calm'd'.
In a series of engravings, Hamilton illustrates the gradual growth
of Vesuvius's cone from 8 July until the eruption.
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