Pliny the Younger’s comparison of an eruption cloud
In letter LXV of the inspected Melmoth–Bosanquet translation, Pliny the Younger compares the eruption cloud to a pine tree and says its mountain of origin was initially uncertain at his viewing distance.
What this does and does not establish
This is the wording of a historical English translation of a retrospective letter. The original Latin was not checked, and no absolute eruption date is established here.
- Quoted from a published English translation, not from the original-language text.
- Not listed under any year on this site.
- Region
- Mediterranean
- Theme
- Environment, health and technology
- Kind of record
- What a document says. The wording of a document, which is not proof of what happened in practice.
How it is dated
- Date reference
- 24th of August: the cloud sighting in letter LXV; no year in the inspected passage
- How we use it
- No absolute AD placement. A date for one scene in the letter is not a date for every scene.
The date reference is this project’s reading of the source’s date. It may give an era name, a reign or a calendar in a normalised form rather than in the source’s own words; the dating notes say what the source prints.
Dating notes from the research record
No absolute year adopted; the date is retained only as expressed in this historical translation.
File names and line numbers in these notes, and in the limits above, refer to the project’s retained copies of the cited sources. Names such as calendar_headers are the project’s calendar look-ups, and “the investigator” is the research step that prepared the record.
Sources and quoted text
Line and character numbers under “Location” refer to the project’s retained copy of the source. For database rows, “Edition” names the batch of rows that was fetched together.
Source 1 · Supports the statement
Letters of Pliny, LXV–LXVI
Pliny the Younger; translated William Melmoth; revised F. C. T. Bosanquet
Historical English translation
A cloud, from which mountain was uncertain, at this distance (but it was found afterwards to come from Mount Vesuvius), was ascending, the appearance of which I cannot give you a more exact description of than by likening it to that of a pine tree, for it shot up to a great height in the form of a very tall trunk, which spread itself out at the top into a sort of branches;Source credit and reuse conditions recorded for this source: Source: Pliny, Letters LXV–LXVI, William Melmoth translation revised F. C. T. Bosanquet, Project Gutenberg 2811. This excerpt is whitespace-normalized; qualifications and translation attribution must remain. No Gutenberg logo or licence endorsement implied.
Exact source version
2d21d8aa3a57ba7b4b4d7c2c313ce405f8ccff9dd44b9ec668cd0257c0ca5d4eChecks and changes
Source checked 2026-11-04. An independent AI evidence review supports this bounded, attributed wording. That review does not guarantee historical truth. How records are checked
Before the first public release: clarified the date context and the limits of the historical translation.
Revision p05_01_1_r3
Exact revision fingerprint
652212b8159eb6e01b5e6be4c10af42b8ab962c29f0fc09c10441263e550a84f