Such are sights from which the veil of time has at last been lifted. How many perished in that fearful outbreak we shall never know. Seven hundred skeletons have been found in one-third of the city of Pompeii. Perhaps two thousand perished there. But of the scores who fled from the city, from suburban villas, from villages along the mountain, and who were overtaken by the fiery storm ere they reached a place of safety, who shall tell? Who may declare the fate of the lady who appealed to the Roman admiral Pliny for relief? Such questions each may determine for himself. History will preserve an eternal silence. Such are the facts concerning the first great historic eruption of Vesuvius. That volcanic phenomena were known to the ancients we have already seen; but the character of Vesuvius seems to have been unsuspected. The Greeks knew of the mountain top as a depressed plain, covered with groves and wild vines. Spartacus and his gladiators, with their thousands of followers, had their fortified camp there. Strabo called it a volcanic mountain, but Pliny the elder did not include it in his list of volcanoes. The fertile, rounded slopes were covered with well-tilled fields. But the neighboring regions were active, though Vesuvius was not. Pithecusa, the modern Ischia, was often and terribly shaken, and various attempts to settle upon it were in consequence abandoned. Poisonous gases poured forth, even when there was no active eruption. Still nearer Vesuvius lay the noted lake Avernus, which in Roman mythology was the gateway of hell. It was said to exhale noxious vapors so powerful that birds could not cross it. At the present day it is only a pretty lake, without any unusual properties. It appears to cover an extinct crater. In the year 63 a great earthquake was felt in the Vesuvian region. Hundreds of lives were lost, and great damage was done in many cities; and numerous lighter shocks occurred during the next sixteen years. No one seems to have apprehended any danger from the mountain. How long it had remained dormant is unknown. But Pompeii and Herculaneum are both built upon lava beds. That Pompeii itself was a very old city is clearly established. In general outline it is elliptical, nearly two miles in circuit, the entire area being one hundred and sixty acres. Characters upon many of the foundation stones would seem to indicate a period earlier than the Etruscan occupation; while other portions, especially the towers, are certainly of later date. It is quite fair to suppose that Vesuvius, from these facts, had lain quiet for a thousand years or more. One effect of this first eruption of Vesuvius was to break down the western wall of the crater and destroy the entire side of the mountain next the sea, leaving as the only remains of the ancient crater a little ridge on the south flank, and that portion, which under the name of Somma, still encircles the present cone.