The scene of luxurious beauty[265] and tranquillity above described was doomed to cease, and the subterranean fire which had been from time immemorial extinct in this quarter, again resumed its former channel of escape. The long period of rest, which had preceded this event, seems to have augmented the energies of the volcano, and prepared it for the terrible explosion. The first intimation of this was the occurrence of an earthquake, in the year 63 after Christ, which threw down a considerable portion of Pompeii, and also did great damage to Herculaneum. In the year following, another severe shock was felt, which extended to Naples, where the Roman emperor Nero was at the time exhibiting as a vocalist. The building in which he performed was destroyed, but unfortunately the musician had left it. These presages of the approaching catastrophe were frequently repeated, until, in A.D. 79 (Aug. 24), they ended in the great eruption. Fortunately we are in possession of a narrative of the awful scene, by an eye-witness;--Pliny the younger, who was at the time at Misenum, with the Roman fleet, commanded by his uncle, Pliny the elder. The latter, in order to obtain a nearer view of the phenomena, ventured too far, and was suffocated by the vapours. His nephew remained at Misenum, and describes the appalling spectacle in a very lively manner. "You ask me the particulars of my uncle's death," says he, in a letter to Tacitus, "in order to transmit it, you say, with all its circumstances, to posterity. I thank you for your intention. Undoubtedly the eternal remembrance of a calamity, by which my uncle perished with nations, promised immortality to his name; undoubtedly his works also flattered him with the same. But a line of Tacitus ensures it. Happy the man to whom the gods have granted to perform things worthy of being written, or to write what is worthy of being read. Happier still is he who at once obtains from them both these favours. Such was my uncle's good fortune. I willingly therefore obey your orders, which I should have solicited. My uncle was at Misenum, where he commanded the fleet. On the 23d of August, at one in the afternoon, as he was on his bed, employed in studying, after having, according to his custom, slept a moment in the sun and drunk a glass of cold water, my mother went up into his chamber. She informed him that a cloud of an extraordinary shape and magnitude was rising in the heavens. My uncle got up and examined the prodigy; but without being able to distinguish, on account of the distance, that this cloud proceeded from Vesuvius. It resembled a large pine-tree: it had its top and its branches. It appeared sometimes white, sometimes black, and at intervals of various colours, according as it was more or less loaded with stones or cinders.