THE STORY OF PLINY 213 



nephew, left at Messina with his mother, was wit- 

 ness of what he relates to us. ' The night after my 

 uncle 's departure,' he tells us, 'the earth began to 

 tremble violently. My mother hastened in alarm to 

 waken me. She found me getting up to go and 

 waken her. As the house threatened to collapse, we 

 sat outside in the court, not far from the sea. With 

 the carelessness of youth I was then eighteen I 

 began to read. A friend of my uncle's came along. 

 Seeing my mother and me both of us seated, and me 

 with a book in my hand, he blamed us for our con- 

 fidence and induced us to look out for our safety. 

 Although it was seven o'clock in the morning, we 

 could hardly see, the air was so obscured. At times 

 buildings were so shaken that their fall was immi- 

 nent at any moment. We followed the example of 

 the rest and left the town. We stopped some dis- 

 tance off in the country. The wagons that were 

 brought away swayed continually with the shaking of 

 the ground. Even with their wheels blocked with 

 stones they could hardly be held in place. The sea 

 llrnved back on itself: driven from the shore by the 

 cart In |iiuke shocks, it receded from the beach and left 

 a multitude of fish dry on the sand. A horrible black 

 clnud came toward us. On its flanks were serpen- 

 tine lines of fire like immense flashes of lightning. 

 Sot ni the cloud descends, covering earth and sea. 

 Then my mother begs me to flee with all the speed 

 of my youth, and not to expose myself to imminent 

 death hy adapting my pace to hers, weighed down 

 as she was by years. She would die content if she 

 knew 1 was out of danger.' " 



