The REAL date of the Pompeii eruption
And it's not the date you have been told.
In December of last year, the Director of Pompeii, Gabriel Zuchtriegel, announced that the site of Pompeii was officially going with the eruption date that Pliny the Younger originally told us in one of his letters to Tacitus. This date was the 24th of August, AD 79.
And I am here to say that I wholeheartedly disagree, and I have a number of reasons why.
Let’s first revisit Pliny’s letter to the Roman historian Tacitus in around 104-105 AD:
“My dear Tacitus. Your request that I would send you an account of my uncle's death, in order to transmit a more exact relation of it to posterity… he perished by a misfortune, which, as it involved at the same time a most beautiful country in ruins, and destroyed so many populous cities, seems to promise him an everlasting remembrance… On the 24th of August, about one in the afternoon, my mother desired him to observe a cloud which appeared of a very unusual size and shape… A cloud, from which mountain was uncertain, at this distance (but it was found afterwards to come from Mount Vesuvius), was ascending, the appearance of which I cannot give you a more exact description of than by likening it to that of a pine tree, for it shot up to a great height in the form of a very tall trunk, which spread itself out at the top into a sort of branches…”
Pliny the Younger, Letters, 6.16.
This is where we get the original date of the 24th of August, AD 79, from. Pliny’s uncle, the (then and now) very famous Roman naturalist and historian, Pliny the Elder, was a general of the Roman fleet at Misenum, just across the Bay, and was called upon to help with the rescue efforts during the eruption. It just so happened that he had been writing about volcanoes so was in fact rather pleased about being able to go and see it ‘close up’. Not his best idea, for he died of a suspected asthma attack during the eruption.
The fact that this was a letter brings me to my first issue.
Reason 1: The trouble with transcribed texts
Pliny’s letters survive only as a result of their transcription by monks in the Medieval period. The earliest of Pliny’s letters still remaining dates to the sixth century. The manuscript of six leaves resides in the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York. As such, the problem of transcription, often by incredibly exhausted monks who were forced to copy out full texts in gruelling copying sessions. The scribes often left little notes in the margins to express their disdain.
One especially amusing one said: “Now I’ve written the whole thing. For Christ’s sake, give me a drink.” (Greenblatt 2011, 40). So you can kind of understand why manuscripts, all copied by hand, sometimes skip words (or entire lines), make spelling mistakes, deliver false interpretations, or contain hypercorrections. These manuscripts would then be copied again, and again, thus perpetuating any mistakes already made.
Add to this the complication of Roman calendrical terminology, often expressed in relation to the kalends (the first day of the month) or other fixed points in the Roman calendar. These are typically the kalends (the first day of the month), nones (the ninth day before the ides), or ides (a day falling roughly in the middle of each month (the 15th day of March, May, July, and October, and the 13th of other months)). Each indicates how many days back from that fixed point the date falls, counting inclusively into the previous month. For example:
(Selection from Berry 2013, p. 20)
IX Kal. Septembris – 24th of August
III Kal. Novembris – 30th of October
Kal. Novembris – 1st of November
IX Kal. Decembris – 23rd of November
Or, the most famous, the Idus Martiae, or the Ides of March (15th of March)
While the Pompeii site may have cited the frequency of the date 24th August in the texts as the best argument for keeping this as the official date, I argue that it is precisely this which makes it risky to believe.
Reason 2: Plant remains from the AD 79 level
I am an archaeobotanist, which means I inspect plant remains from archaeological records to determine what ancient civilisations ate and cultivated. And there are a few things that have always stood out to me.
One is currently in the works with a Professor colleague of mine, and I can’t tell you about this yet (I can tell you, however, that it’s very compelling). What I can tell you is there are a few plants which give the game away:
Pomegranates (Punica granatum)
Typically harvested from late September to November in the Mediterranean.
Pomegranates were found carbonised in houses and shops in Pompeii, including Villa B at Oplontis in a HUGE pile (I have actually excavated here), indicating they were recently in season when the eruption occurred.
Figs (Ficus carica)
The second fig crop (the carmarine or autumn figs) ripens in September–October.
Archaeological evidence of fresh rather than dried figs suggests they were from this later seasonal crop.
Chestnuts (Castanea sativa)
Usually gathered between October and November.
Carbonised chestnuts found in Pompeii indicate they were already being collected, pointing to a later eruption date. Though to play devils advocate: nuts don’t typically ‘go off’…
Walnuts (Juglans regia)
Typically harvested in September and October.
Walnuts found in the ruins suggest they were fresh, reinforcing the idea of a post-August eruption. However, same counter-argument above.
Grapes (Vitis vinifera)
The vintage season for wine grapes in Campania typically falls between September and October.
The Vinalia Rustica, or wine harvest festival, was held on the 19th of August. This festival, celebrating the grape harvest, vegetable growth and fertility, and the harvest itself, would have had an incredibly fast turnaround for dolia to be filled with processed wine and sealed at the time of the eruption, as they were in many villas in Campania.
Olives (Olea europaea)
Olive harvesting generally begins in late autumn.
Some evidence suggests that olives had already been gathered, implying the eruption happened closer to October.
Naysayers say that climate change may have altered the dates of these harvests, but these are recorded in the ancient texts, and still remain aligned with practices in the local area today.
Reason 3: Coins minted in September AD 79
This is perhaps one of the most compelling reasons for the October (or later in the year) date.
In the 1970s, excavators working the Insula Occidentalis, a very wealthy block in Pompeii with large properties looking out over the sea, found a hoard of coins in the House of the Golden Bracelet.
Within this hoard, two coins were dated to the early months of Titus' reign (June 79 - September 81 AD). On the obverse, IMP XV was found. This is a reference to Titus’ acclamatio, a military honour often included in imperial coin inscriptions. Historical sources show that Titus received his 15th acclamation in September 79 AD, not before, meaning this coin could only have been minted after September.
While the exact minting dates remain debated, British Museum numismatist Richard Abdy says more specifically that it was struck sometime between the 24th of June (Titus’ accession) and the 1st of September 79 AD. It would be remarkable for both coins to have been minted, circulated, and arrived in Pompeii within a week of their minting, by the 24th of August. Richard Abdy thought that two months was still a stretch, so think what an unlikely thing it would be to have two arrive within one week of their being minted.
Reason 4: Winter clothes and heating
This is a good reason, but a (partially) less compelling one, in my opinion.
Many of the victims found in Pompeii, who were later made into plaster casts, appear to have been wearing thick clothes (likely wool, rather than linen) and cloaks.
Now what would people in the Italian heat of August want with these? If you’ve ever been to Italy during the month of August, you’ll know what I mean. Add to this the fact that excavators have found many braziers in hallways and rooms as a result of their recent use (instead of being tucked away in a cupboard).
This is the more compelling reason of the two as there would be very little need for these in the heat. However, one could argue that grabbing your cloak to leave town is a reasonable thing to do, and the weather today in late October is still very warm and pleasant, and ranges quite a bit (between 12°C (54°F) to 23°C (73°F)).
Reason 5: The charcoal graffiti
Another excellent, yet very controversial, piece of evidence for a new (later) date is the charcoal graffiti found in Region V in 2018.
The charcoal graffiti read: XVI K Nov. This means the 16th day before the kalends (first) of November, equating to the 17th of October.
The graffiti was written on a wall in a property which appeared to be undergoing restoration at the time of the eruption in AD 79. It may have been written there as a note by one of the builders or decorators.
Because it is written in charcoal, an impermanent material, it is reasonable to argue that this notice wasn’t written to last a long time. However, the site of Pompeii has argued that charcoal lasts a long time and therefore this is not a good case for arguing that this was written sometime in October in AD 79.
I’ll once again argue against this and state that the wall was unlikely to have been left bare, with this piece of impermanent graffiti on it (versus the very deliberate, painted graffiti we see around the town), for more than a year. Plus, writing a random date like this with no context seems to be a record, rather than a reference to a time in the future (at the time it was written). Pompeii was in a time of commercial boom in AD 79, and properties were undergoing renovations, re-workings, extensions, and redevelopment all over the town as a result of elite commercial opportunism. I find it hard to believe this room just went unused for any long period of time.
In summary, I’m sticking with the date of the Pompeii eruption as the 24th October AD 79.
And there will have to be some pretty compelling evidence to make me believe otherwise.
I wasn’t planning on having an imaginary debate in my head today about this topic but here we are 😂 Especially when the director of the site prides himself on being “open minded” and using new technologies etc etc! C’MON MAN!