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The Absolute Horror of Pompeii; How Did This Ancient City Meet Its End? | 79 A.D. | Time Travels
Aug 14, 2025
We explore the mysterious and terrifying story of Pompeii, an ancient city that met its end when Mt. Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD. Subscribe to Time Travels Here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWTZNAGQxEW1NrZHtK6aAqw?sub_confirmation=1 Join Mike Brady as he tells us how this destroyed city came to be and see what might have happened if it had not been destroyed. From the rise of the Roman Empire to the devastating disaster of 79 AD, this video will give you a Behind the Scenes look at one of history's most spectacular and deadly disasters. More Time Travels With Michael Brady: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLaMfiT0fYh94DmwcZIV8CYNT3gNuL37gn Journey through time to uncover amazing, dramatic and bizarre stories from the past - but also ask the questions, what does it look like now? And what if things had happened differently? From ancient Rome and colonial Australia, to Victorian era London, early-settler New Zealand and beyond - come with us as we uncover the the pivotal turning points in history that changed the destiny of empires and transformed our world. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/historytimetravels/ Snapchat: https://story.snapchat.com/p/cc960ce1-9281-4450-b815-654114302d99/827084423782400 #History #TimeTravels #MikeBrady #Historylesson #pompeii #mtvesuvius #naples #volcano #MikeBrady
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One morning in 79 AD, the sun rose as normal over the bustling port city of Pompeii
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It was one of the jewels in the Roman Empire's Mediterranean crown, a hub of activity with merchants from dozens of nearby nations wheeling and dealing in the markets
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and life continued with the same rhythm as it had for decades. But looming over the city was a mountain that for days earlier had been steaming and venting gases
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The Romans called it Vesuvius, and its name might have come from an ancient Greek phrase meaning to hurl violence
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and that day it brought death to the people of Pompeii and nearby towns. Centuries later, the town had been all but forgotten about
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buried under tons of ash and rock and lost to the ages. But in the 19th century, archaeologists discovered unique ways of excavating the city
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and bringing the agonising final moments of the city's inhabitants back to vivid life and horrifying detail
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Hello, time travellers. It's your friend Michael Brady, and this is the true story of how they resurrected Pompey's dead
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Mount Vesuvius was formed when two plates collided, creating a weak spot in the Earth's surface
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The mountain grew and became a vent for the extreme pressures and heat of the Earth's mantle
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You'd wonder why anybody would settle there in the first place, but the soil from centuries of eruptions was extremely fertile
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and rich with minerals ideal for growing vines and crops. Volcanic rock, or tephra, provided ideal growing conditions
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and drainage for plants, and naturally settlements popped up. To residents around Vesuvius, its immense size was a familiar sight
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In fact, it had sat relatively quiet for up to 295 years
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covered in grapevines and gardens. For the people of Pompeii, its presence was easy to forget
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but the seemingly benign mountain held a deadly secret and below the surface, pressure began to build
2:08
One day, it just became too much and by a flash of blinding heat and light
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Vesuvius' side blew out in an enormous eruption that let millions of tonnes of solid rock out of the air
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Pompeii was directly in its path. The eruption had been foreshadowed by dozens of small tremors
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that took place in the days before, but they were ignored because small earthquakes in the region were common
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The city of Pompeii had experienced two major earthquakes in the 20 years before the eruption
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and neither had ever indicated a volcanic eruption was imminent. Life in the city then was likely continuing as it had done for decades
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until it was disrupted by rumbling from the volcano. Suddenly the volcano blew out
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millions of tonnes of volcanic material and earth were hurled into the sky
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and began to rain down on Pompeii. The sky turned dark, buildings began to shake apart
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and then rocks began raining from the sky. It was as if hell had suddenly opened up and begun to swallow the town
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Though Pompeii was, by the time of its destruction, and thoroughly Roman
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It had a history that dated back long before the Romans even arrived in the area. The city was probably founded by Greek colonists in around 700 BC
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but it was eventually conquered by the Samnites. The first mention of the city comes from 310 BC
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when a Roman fleet landed in the city to use it as a staging ground in an attack on a neighbouring nation
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The Romans conquered the city and gave the people citizenship in 89 BC
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but also established a colony in the region to Romanise the area. and Pompeii became a popular destination for wealthy Romans to travel to. It was a larger city
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than nearby Herculaneum but that also made it a little less exclusive. Herculaneum had villas that
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were larger and more elaborate and took up a larger portion of the city reserved only for the wealthy
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Pompeii was once a thriving metropolis with lots in common with the city from today
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Of the approximately 1,130 private buildings that have been found since, 498 of them were private
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residences. Bear in mind that what the Romans considered a private residence was very different
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to what we'd be used to today. Houses also contained slaves and staff, and in fact the
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largest of these private residences could have housed between 30 and 40 people. Most of these
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residences had an atrium and revolve around their own private inner courtyard. 468 of the buildings
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are taberna, or small shops that would have served a variety of functions in the city, from selling
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food to housing small workshops. These shops could also have housed small families of around
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five people comfortably, so long as they didn't keep slaves. The Taberna would be what we in the
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modern world would think of as middle class. Excavations within the surviving Tabernae reveal
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a shift away from crude fish processing towards more advanced retail services, like food and drink
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as the population grew and the city became more of a destination. In fact, the city appears to
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have been in the process of reinventing itself, shifting towards a service economy as the price
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of fish fell, telling a story of a dynamic local economy that was willing to respond to a change
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in the market. Pompeii's remaining 133 rooms were apartments that would have been accessible from
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the streets from staircases. The other buildings cannot have a clear function identified but likely
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filled some role in the economy Using these numbers archaeologists have placed the likely number of inhabitants of Pompeii as being roughly between 8 and 12 people of all classes Now the agricultural land
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around Pompeii was capable of producing around 9,000 tons of wheat per year, with some of the
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land devoted to making wine and olives, and with meals for the township being supplemented by
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fishing in the bay. Assuming that the average person living at subsistence level would require
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200 kilograms of wheat per year to survive, even the highest estimate of population of Pompeii
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would have required only 2,400 tonnes of wheat. Thanks to this immense surplus, Pompeii became a natural trading hub
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and probably exported tonnes of wheat, olives and wine to other cities around the Mediterranean
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The population of Pompeii was living quite comfortably and it's no surprise then that the city became a haven
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for the well-to-do of Rome. Land prices west of the arterial city road via Stabiana
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were likely much higher than land prices in the eastern half of the city. The west of the city was built up and densely populated
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while the east was more sparsely built and even had some areas devoted to agriculture
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It's amazing that the class divide has survived even in the archaeological record
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Despite its success and the wealth of its population, Pompeii had a serious flaw
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It had been built at the foot of an active volcano. Of the thousands of people present in and around Pompeii and Herculaneum during the eruption
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only a few are known by name. Drusilla, a princess of Judea, and her son Agrippa, for example
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the poet Cassius Bassus is another. All three of these people were killed on the day of the eruption
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But most famous of all is probably Pliny the Elder, a Roman statesman and scholar who had
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been credited with writing the world's first encyclopedia. Despite not being in danger himself
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when the region was destroyed by Vesuvius, he sailed forth from his home across the bay
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in a doomed effort to rescue his friend, Rectina, and to study the eruption. Now, this was documented in a letter from his nephew
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Pliny the Younger, to the historian Tacitus, some 25 years after the eruption
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Rectina lived in the seaside resort of Stabiae, nearby to Pompeii, and home to a large concentration of luxurious Roman villas
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Now, little else is known of Rectina save that she was married to a man named Taskus
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and that Pliny was close enough with her to make a rescue mission. When a message arrived from Rectina asking for help
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Pliny the Younger wrote that his uncle changed plans at once and ordered the large galleys to be launched and set sail
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He steered bravely for the danger that everyone else was leaving in fear and haste from
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but still kept on noting his observations. Now, it's not written whether Pliny was able to find Rectina
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but when Pliny landed on the beach, he discovered a senator and was able to stay with him in his home until the next day
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By morning, the ash outside was becoming thick on the ground and the buildings were swaying back and forth from violent tremors
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With the wind preventing an evacuation by sea, the small group chose to tie pillows around their heads as masks
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and try to survive that way. And the darkness was so thick that they were forced to navigate by torchlight
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even in the middle of the day. The smoke eventually became too much for Pliny and he suffocated on the beach
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When his body was found three days later, his nephew wrote that he looked, more like a man asleep than dead. Pliny probably wasn't the only hero to be present on the day of
9:01
the eruption but he's the only one who has been remembered by history. Pliny the Younger himself
9:06
was present to witness the eruption of Mount Vesuvius from across the Bay of Naples in
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Messinum. Though he never mentioned Pompeii or Herculaneum by name he wrote two letters to the
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Roman historian Tacitus that described the eruption. One of them tells the story of his
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uncle Pliny the Elder and his doomed attempts to rescue survivors and another describing his own
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view of the eruption from his vantage point of relative safety. He said, night came upon us
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not such as we have when the sky is cloudy or when there is no moon, but that of a room when
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it is shut up and all the lights put out. You might hear the shrieks of women or the screams
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of children and the shouts of men, some calling for their children, others for their parents
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others for their husbands, and seeking to recognize each other by their voices that replied
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one lamenting his own fate, another that of his family, some wishing to die from the very fear of
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dying, some lifting their hands to the gods, but the greatest part convinced that there were now
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no gods at all and that the final endless night of which we have heard had come upon the world
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When the light finally returned, hours later the sun was shining wanly as during an eclipse and
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the earth was covered in a thick layer of ash that was like snow. Mount Vesuvius had buried
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Pompeii in a layer of ash three meters or almost 10 feet deep, collapsing many of the houses and
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killing the city's residents. The most devastating impact of the eruption was the pyroclastic flow
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a speeding cloud of superheated gas and ash. From this there could be no escape. The flow could hit
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speeds of up to 190 meters or 623 feet every second. The cloud was as hot as a thousand
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degrees celsius and anybody not crushed by falling buildings or volcanic rocks
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not asphyxiated by the ash, would have been boiled when the pyroclastic flow reached them
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It's truly horrible stuff. In Cassius Dio's history, it is written that news of Pompeii's destruction
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didn't reach Rome until days after the eruption. The ash cloud, however, caused a degree of panic in the city
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since people did not know and could not imagine what had happened. They believed that the whole world was being turned upside down
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This level of panic was potentially overstated as ancient historians were often closer to storytellers than academics
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and Cassius Dio was writing about the event a century after the fact It also prompted a direct response from Emperor Titus who sent two former consults to the affected region to oversee reconstruction and rehousing of survivors Titus apparently distributed gifts of money to the survivors of the disaster
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as well as the property of those who had died to those who were still alive. The scale of the disaster, as well as its proximity to Rome, probably had something to do with this
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Pompeii wasn't a distant imperial backwater, but a resort city popular with the Roman elite
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themselves. From what we can tell from Cassius Dio's writing, the disaster also prompted a
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response from the Roman citizens, with many people offering Emperor Titus money with which to help
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rebuild the region. Apparently he refused this and restored all the damaged regions from funds
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already on hand. Some materials from the city were removed in the following decades, but no attempt
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was made to rebuild either Pompeii or Herculaneum itself. At this point, the coastline remained open
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for travel as messages were sent along the road. The next day, another surge of heated gas and
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volcanic material reached the city and any of those who had not yet been killed by the
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superheated debris would have been suffocated. These waves of ash eventually covered the city
12:23
in a thick layer that was seven meters deep. Cassius Dio, the Roman historian, wrote that
12:28
the ash cloud reached as far as Rome, Tunisia and Syria, darkening the sky
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The city of Herculaneum was luckier than Pompeii. Wind currents kept the ash cloud on the day of
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the eruption directed towards Pompeii, and at first Herculaneum received only a light sprinkling
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despite the towering pillar of debris that covered the sky. This allowed the population an extra day
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to evacuate. The day after the initial eruption, the ash cloud collapsed and the same surge of
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heated gas and rock that had buried Pompeii overwhelmed the city, and it was completely
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buried, luckily with far fewer casualties. The remains of the city were slowly buried completely
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until even the tallest buildings had either collapsed or been covered. And it was all over
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The bustling seaside port town was gone, completely buried along with most of its inhabitants
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frozen in time beneath tons and tons of rock and ash. The days after turned to months, then years
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but elsewhere life continued on. Pompeii was a dead city. It had simply ceased to exist
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Surprisingly, though, neither Pompeii nor Herculaneum were completely forgotten, or at least not forgotten in the academic world. Despite being
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buried for centuries, the cities both appeared on a 13th century map. This was a copy of an ancient
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Roman one, so it might seem as though it's obvious that these lost cities were present, as if the cartographer was copying someone else's homework. But also appearing on the map is the city
13:52
of Constantinopolis, which was not called this until the 4th century. This tells us that the
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Romans were carefully marking the locations of Pompeii and Herculaneum for at least two centuries
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after they were destroyed and that other societies continued to carry on the tradition for another
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thousand years. The ruins of Pompeii were finally rediscovered in the 1500s while an aqueduct was
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being dug, but proper excavations would not begin until the beginning of the 19th century
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Excavations at Pompeii uncovered a dizzying array of buildings and people frozen in time
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Luxurious villas and houses remain in the city as they were 2,000 years ago. A forum and an
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amphitheatre a present, as well as a brothel. Bakeries with bread still in their ovens and
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street vendors that would have operated like an ancient fast food drive-thru. The buildings, however, are not all that remains. Graffiti and street signs have also survived the
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passage of centuries and offer a far more casual, street-level look at the society that inhabited
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those ancient towns. In fact, graffiti found on the streets of Pompeii would often not look too
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out of place on the walls of a modern city. It ranges from advertisements for businesses
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to doodles drawn by passers-by, proclamations of love, to pieces of advice and even vulgar insults
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Thousands of these pieces of graffiti have been found throughout Pompeii and Herculaneum
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and far too many to try to list them all. But some notable examples of the sort of thing that was written on the walls and preserved for millennia
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are Philoros is a eunuch, and Gaius Prometheus Dipulus was here, and Figulus loves Idiae
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There are also dozens of profanity-ridden, crude examples, which you'd expect to find today on the back of a bar's bathroom door
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but I won't go into those. One man, Seccasus, wrote that he was a weaver who loved the innkeeper's
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slave Iris. Iris, it seems, did not love him back and instead loved a different man
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Seccasus and this romantic rival apparently had an exchange of graffiti preserved forever
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on the wall of the building and it finished with his rival writing, I have spoken, I have written all there is to say, you love Iris but she does not love you
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Though it's only a small part of the surviving record, the graffiti written at Pompeii lends
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insight to the sort of cultural life that existed among the lower classes of Roman society
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This is a part of history that is often ignored and forgotten. We have the rare opportunity in
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Pompeii to see it preserved. Admittedly, what we have learned is that people back then were just as
16:08
juvenile as people are today, but that's valuable in and of itself. Even when excavations did take
16:14
place though, the state of archaeology at the time was closer to looting than actual research
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The rough history of real excavations in the region began with the discovery of Herculaneum
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in 1709 and the start of excavation in 1739. Work at Pompeii began in 1748, but it was unclear to
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the workers what exactly was being dug up. They knew there was a settlement there, but not that
16:33
it was Pompeii. And it was in 1763, after years of treasure hunting, that an inscription reading
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Repubblica Pompeianorum was found that identified the city to the diggers as actually being Pompeii
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The King of Naples ordered a military engineer, Carl Weber, to conduct an excavation of the site
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This was not, however, an academic exercise. The king was merely looking to acquire antiquities
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to increase his own prestige Small excavations continued in this way for the next century being only briefly interrupted by French occupation during the Napoleonic Wars Archaeology as a discipline
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didn't really exist at the time, and the items that were being recovered weren't being studied
17:11
or examined beyond what was really required to sell them. This was the manner in which excavations
17:16
were conducted for almost a century at Pompeii. Finally, in 1845, the now famous archaeologist
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Giuseppe Fiorelli became involved in the excavations. He noticed that the method that was being used to
17:28
excavate was destructive to the ruins. The antiquarians working on the site found the roads
17:33
and dug down to ground level before digging outwards and into the buildings. Over the years
17:37
he worked on the site, however Fiorelli became convinced that there was a better way available
17:42
He put a stop to the disorganized treasure hunting of the others working in Pompeii and
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organized the city into nine regions, each of which contained numerous blocks of houses and
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each house being given a number. Fiorelli also pioneered a new method of systematic excavation
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in which the archaeologists would dig down uniformly taking careful note of the placement
17:59
of the artifacts within. Under the leadership of Fiorelli the excavations at Pompeii were finally
18:04
being conducted using methods that would be recognizable today to modern archaeologists
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While excavating at Pompeii Fiorelli also noticed a peculiar feature of the site
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Often the dig teams would encounter small pockets of air being buried in the rock and dirt
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No one was really sure what they were or what had caused these voids in the pumice and the ash that had fallen onto the city
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There seemed to be no real explanation for it. Despite the fact that Herculaneum was located nearby and had been destroyed in exactly the same disaster
18:34
it didn't share this feature with Pompeii. What Fiorelli did notice, however, was that these gaps in the rock all seemed to be formed around the skeletons of the victims of the disaster
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Rather than risk destroying a valuable piece of information through careless digging
18:47
the idea occurred to him to try pouring plaster into the gaps around the skeletons that remained
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Once the plaster had dried, Fiori and his team carefully dug it out, and what emerged was extraordinary
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These were not simply gaps of air that had been formed around corpses, but the space the corpse itself had once taken up in the ground
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The pyroclastic flow that had engulfed the city after the eruption had completely buried the bodies of the remaining citizens in an instant
19:12
and trapped them in their final pose. Though the flesh had long since rotted away
19:16
the outlines of the bodies, their final expressions and even their clothing and jewellery
19:20
were clearly visible to the excavators now set in plaster. The last terrifying, gasping moments of the people of Pompeii
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were preserved for thousands of years in the rock and ash that had killed them
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Of these bodies, a few are perhaps more famous than others. The so-called two maidens are a couple
19:38
hugging one another for comfort as they died. Initially thought to be two women
19:42
recent study has found that these two maidens are in fact men, one aged 18 and the other 20
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The image of these two providing comfort to one another in their last moments is particularly moving
19:53
Another is the guard dog, whose collar had kept it chained to the ground, even as the burning ash buried it
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Its last moments are preserved forever as it desperately contorted itself, trying to unsuccessfully break free of its chains
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Others are the slaves of the city, whose chains can still be seen around their ankles thousands of years after their death
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The youngest victim of the eruption is the so-called farmer's daughter found buried in the ruins of a house alongside her family
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She appears to have been only a year old. Many of the bodies are twisted and contorted from the heat of the pyroclastic flow that buried them
20:36
though hopefully they didn't have to endure the heat. They're frozen in their last moments
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so well preserved that facial features and even expressions can be made out
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It's a haunting sight and vividly tells the story of these people's final moments
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These are just a few of the thousands that were killed in Pompeii, but there are hundreds of body casts that have been recovered
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and excavations on Pompeii continue to this day. Every week, new discoveries are made that shed new light
21:04
into the life of Romans and the city of Pompeii itself. but we haven't always been so careful to preserve the city's remains
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In the Second World War, German troops retreated into the city safe in the assumption that Allied bombers wouldn't dare to attack them there
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But they were wrong. They did and a big chunk of the ruins was badly damaged
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Today, Mount Vesuvius is a mere shadow of its former self with most of the mountains top missing
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but it can still pack a punch. It erupted in 1944 during the Second World War
21:32
seemingly in an act of retribution at the Allies for having bombed Pompeii's ruins
21:35
A nearby airfield with parked B-25 bombers on it was right in its path
21:40
and some 80-odd aircraft were destroyed. Vesuvius now sits fairly quiet in a state of inactivity
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but this isn't likely to be permanent. A Pompeii-sized eruption is thought to happen every few thousand years
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as the pressure builds up and the cycle repeats again. Today, the Italian government has an emergency evacuation plan
21:58
in place for surrounding towns, and it would take seven days to pull off, which is no mean feat
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Pompeii's destruction was an apocalypse for the town's citizens, but today it provides
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an invaluable window into how they lived and died. Ironically, if not for the eruption, today Pompeii's site just wouldn't exist at all
22:15
It would have been developed over the centuries, Roman buildings would have been cleared away
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and today it would just be another suburb of the sprawling city of Naples
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and don't forget to subscribe to the channel. Until next time, remember, history doesn't repeat, it certainly echoes
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