SONG FACTS
Cities in Dust is a song written by British band
Siouxsie and the Banshees. It was
released in 1986 as part of their album Tinderbox.
The song refers to the volcanic eruption of the Vesuvius
on 24th August, AD 79 with the subsequent disappearance of the
nearby cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii under the lava as well as the
suffering and death of the victims whose remains were discovered some centuries
later.
Lyrics Video
Lyrics Video
YOUR FORMER GLORIES
AND ALL THE STORIES
Historians have learned about the Vesuvius
eruption from the account of Pliny the Younger, a Roman lawyer and magistrate,
nephew of Pliny the Elder, the natural philosopher and navy commander who died
near Pompeii on the day of the eruption while he was observing the natural
disaster. This event is described in the two letters that he sent to the
historian Tacitus who was interested in the details of the death of Pliny the
Elder.
Eyewitness reports are great help to visualise
what really happened but animation technology provides a more striking impression.
Such is the case with the following.
A Day in Pompeii -
Full-length animation
YOUR CITY LIES IN
DUST
Vulcanologists found some relevant information in
Pliny’s description and that’s the reason why this kind of eruption is known as
Plinian.
The eruption of Mount Vesuvius was the most
catastrophic in the European continent. The thermal energy released was 100,000
times bigger than the energy released by the Hiroshima-Nagasaki bombings.
In this video you have a brief guide of volcanoes
and their different types.
WERE YOU PRAYING AT
THE LARES SHRINE?
Roman religion was pantheistic. This means both
that Romans adored a great number of deities and that their doctrine regarded
the universe as a manifestation of God. God was thought to be everywhere, even
in objects. This is exemplified by the cult of the Dii Familiaris or Lares.
These protector spirits were assigned to different parts of the house such as
the door, the threshold, even the hinge.
Some deities were related to nature like Ceres,
goddess of agriculture or Neptune, god of freshwater and the sea. Vulcan was
the god of the fire, including the fire of the volcanoes. An annual festival,
the Vulcanalia, was held in his honour– by a strange coincidence on August 23,
just a day before the eruption of the Vesuvius.
CAUGHT IN THE THROES
A death throe is an intense and violent pain
accompanying death, in other words, the agony of death. Hundreds of years after
the eruption archaeologists found cavities in the hardened ash were the
decomposed bodies had lain for centuries. These cavities were filled with
plaster to form figures of victims at the very moment of their deaths, that is
to say, caught in the throes.
In the following video you can see how this work
was made and what brought to light.
Reconstructing the
Faces of Pompeii Victims
The cause of the death of most of the victims was
presumably suffocation but in recent years a new theory has arisen.
Investigating How Mt.
Vesuvius's Victims Died
ROBERT HARRIS’ POMPEII
The author Robert Harris published the book Pompeii in 2003. It tells the story of
the aquarius Attillius trying to find the place where the Aqua Augusta, the
aqueduct supplying water to the region, has broken and the reasons for his
predecessor’s disappearance. On the way he discovers a corrupted Pompeii and
the threat of an imminent disaster.
The story
shows historical credibility and is inspired by actual events, such as the
previous earthquake that the city had endured seventeen years before; and
people, describing the last hours of Pliny the Elder up to the time of his
death.
