[Footnote 367: In the eruption of 472 (apparently the last great eruption previous to 512), the ashes were carried as far as Byzantium, the inhabitants of which city instituted a yearly religious service in memory of the event: 'Vesuvius mons Campaniae torridus intestinis ignibus aestuans exusta evomuit viscera, nocturnisque in die tenebris incumbentibus, _omnem Europae faciem minuto contexit pulvere_. Hujus metuendi memoriam cineris Byzantii annue celebrant VIII Idus Novembris.' The eruption was accompanied by widespread earthquake: 'In Asia aliquantae civitates vel oppida terrae motu collapsa sunt' (Marcellinus Comes, sub anno).] 'Go nearer: you will see as it were rivers of dust flowing, and glowing streams of barren sand moving over the country. You see and wonder: the furrows of the fields are suddenly lifted to a level with the tops of the trees; the country, which but now was dressed in a robe of gladsome greenness, is laid waste by sudden and mournful heat. And yet, even those sandy tracts of pumice-stone which the mountain vomits forth, dry and burnt up as they appear, have their promise of fertility. There are germs within them which will one day spring to life, and re-clothe the mountain side which they have wasted. 'How strange that one mountain alone should thus terrify the whole world! Other mountains may be seen with silently glowing summits; this alone announces itself to distant lands by darkened skies and changed air. So it still goes on, shedding its dusty dews over the land; ever parting with its substance, yet a mountain still undiminished in height and amplitude. Who that sees those mighty blocks in the plain would believe that they had boiled over from the depths of that distant hill, that they had been tossed like straws upon the wind by the angry spirit of the mountain? 'Therefore let your Prudence so manage the enquiry that those who have really suffered damage shall be relieved, while no room is left for fraud.' 51. KING THEODORIC TO SYMMACHUS, PATRICIAN[368]. [Footnote 368: The father-in-law of Boethius.] [Sidenote: Commends the public spirit of Symmachus, as shown in the restoration of Pompey's theatre.] Commends him for the diligence and skill with which he has decorated Rome with new buildings--especially in the suburbs, which no one would distinguish from the City except for the occasional glimpses of pleasant fields; and still more for his restoration of the massive ruins of past days[369], chiefly the theatre of Pompeius. [Footnote 369: We have here a striking description of the massive strength of the public buildings of Rome: '[Videmus] caveas illas saxis pendentibus apsidatas ita juncturis absconditis in formas pulcherrimas convenisse, ut cryptas magis excelsi montis crederes quam aliquid fabricatum esse judicares.']