After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal - What Happened The Day Pompeii was Destroyed?

Episode Date: December 8, 2025

We all know the story of Pompeii: the Roman town reduced to ash when Mount Vesuvius erupted. Roughly two-thousand years later, archaeologists have been able to uncover the stories of its victims. What do we know of the lives of this city's inhabitants? Who were they? And what do we know about their terrible final moments?Today, Anthony and Maddy are joined by ancient historian Dr Jess Venner, whose book ‘The Lost Voices of Pompeii’ will be published in April 2026.Edited by Tim Arstall. Produced by Tomos Delargy. Senior Producer is Freddy Chick.You can now watch After Dark on Youtube! www.youtube.com/@afterdarkhistoryhitSign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  You can take part in our listener survey here.All music from Epidemic Sounds.After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal is a History Hit podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Beneath the rising sun, the streets of Pompeii come alive. People wander about as merchants shout over the clatter of cars. The smell of fresh bread and fish drift through the air. No one notices the faint tremor underfoot. No one sees the thin plume curling from the mountain above, Vesuvius, silent for generations, awakens with a colossal explosion. What comes next is unimaginable. A wall of fire and ash rushes toward the city unstoppable and merciless.

For us, in the modern day, Pompeii's name has become synonymous with terrifying apocalyptic imagery. And through the ruins and remains, the story of that fateful day can be relived again and again. Almost 2,000 years ago, Pompeii was an ordinary Roman city thriving and bustling with life. All in the shadow of a mountain, they believed to be harmless. But on the infamous day that Vesuvius awakened, the town and its inhabitants were burned into the history books forever. Who were the people of Pompeii? What happened to them as the horror unfolded? And what legacy has it left for the rest of us today?

Hello everybody. I'm Anthony. And I'm Maddie. And on After Dark today, we are talking about the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79C, which destroyed the Roman town, of course, of Pompeii. It reduced the city to an ash heap. But ironically, it's this very disaster that's allowed archaeologists to uncover the stories of its victims. Hundreds of human remains have been preserved in the ash and have allowed us to piece together what life. may have been like for them. To take us through this story, we're joined by ancient historian Dr. Jess Venner, whose book The Lost Voices of Pompeii, which is a great cover, by the way, Jess, will be published in April 26th. Together, we're going to explore what life may have been like for Pompey's inhabitants and outline the terrible events that brought the town's doom. Jess, welcome to After Dark. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited. Big fan of your podcast, so I'm really glad to be here. Thank you. We're so happy to have you, not least, because you're dialing in to us from Rome. And we were just saying before we started, it's about to bucket it down here in London.

It's cold, it's miserable, and I'm guessing it's slightly nicer in Rome. It's pretty nice, I'm sorry to say. I've just been for a really sunny, crisp autumn walk around the Borghese Gardens. Right, that's it. We're done with the interview. We're in East London eating dates on the side of the road, so somebody has it better. I'm not saying to you. Well, we are doing.

genuinely so excited to talk about this topic. We were saying as well, we can't believe we've not done Pompeii before on this. It's so weird. I'm so excited to do some Roman history. I feel like my GCSE in Latin and classics is going to come in real handy here. Yeah, it's absolutely going to get me through. Jess, before we go to the main events that we all know and love when it comes to Pompeii, can you tell us something about what life was like in this place in particular before the eruption, before this disaster takes place? What could you expect if you stepped out of a shop or a tavern or your own home in the town of Pompeii? So Pompeii was a particularly ordinary Roman town, and that's the main thing to understand about

Pompeii. It's extraordinary now because of the way it was preserved. But if you were walking around the city almost 2,000 years ago, you would have been surrounded by probably about 20,000 other citizens in the town and lots of merchants and different people coming in and out. So it was a big bustling melting pot in Pompeii. You'd have carts rattling over the stone paving. You would have shops spilling out onto the streets and the smell of stew and bread baking. And you'd hear workshops like blacksmiths all along the front of streets. You'd also hear street sellers and market stalls.

These were going on every single day in Pompeii. It was very much a very merchant town. But people like to have a nice time as well. So as the day got on and moved on and it got darker, you would see people spilling out of shops drunk and having had too much wine. But there was also quiet parts of Pompeii as well. So we've got vineyards and gardens in the city, particularly surrounding a huge amphitheater in the southeastern corner of the city. And of course there you would have birdsong and gardeners going in and out, pulling vegetables out of the ground. So there's lots of different parts to Pompeii.

But in the last sort of 17 years of the city, there had been lots of earthquakes, but particularly bad one in 62. And so you would be seeing lots of people repairing buildings as well, which not a lot of people realise about Pompeii, but it was actually in quite a bit of disrepair. That, I suppose, is one of the most amazing things about Pompeii is that we are able to reconstruct so much of it. And you painted such a beautiful picture there, Jess, of the soundscape, the smellscape, what this town would have felt like to be in. And so much of that, is maintained in the archaeological record because of the disaster that's coming. We know that this is a town on the one hand, as you say, it's very ordinary, it's very typical,

certainly for a town in Italy, and I guess in terms of its architectural setup, the way that it's designed, the activities that are going on there, I guess, typical of towns across the Roman Empire. But, of course, one of the unusual things about it is its geography, and you mentioned the earthquakes that have happened in the run-up to this disaster. Obviously, we've got Mount Vesuvius looming in the background. Now, I read somewhere, and I don't know where. So I don't know how accurate this is, but this is my opportunity to ask a specialist. Is it true that the people of Pompeii and the surrounding areas didn't actually realize that Vesuvius could erupt,

that it was understood just as a mountain, not as a volcano? Is that accurate? Yes, that's exactly accurate. Yes, they didn't have a clue that Vesuvius was a volcano. We have ancient writers talking about the possibilities of it, but nobody actually specifically says it. So we have, for example, an architect called Vitruvius, who was living around this time. And he sort of talks about this sponge stone that can be found around the volcano. And he links that back to Etna, which they did know was a volcano.

And he says, well, it's a bit weird, to be honest. It's suspicious. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And then Strabo says the same thing. So he's a Greek geographer and a historian. And he starts saying the same things. And he's like, wait a minute, there's some rocks that look like they've been eaten by fire around Vesuvius. It's a bit suspicious. And then we've got other people saying the same things, but nobody, you know, particularly Seneca the Younger, who was a stoic

philosopher, again, around this same time. He died in 65 AD. And he was talking about volcanoes and fascinated with earthquakes. And he said that there were sort of underground chambers under the earth that caused wind to move through them and create these earthquakes. And he starts talking about Pompeii having been hit by a huge one on the 5th of February in AD62. And he starts talking about why this might happen and says the people of Pompeii after the earthquake hit didn't know what to do with themselves. They were sort of walking around completely deranged from this traumatic event and that 600 sheep died from it. It's very specific. Yeah, it's very specific it is, yeah, and he was like, why is this? You know, so they're sort of piecing things together,

but it's not certain. We also have a fresco from the town, this beautiful fresco of Vesuvius covered in vines and trellises. It was a very beautiful place, and it looked very different because it didn't have two combs. It actually just had one. They were created in AD79. You mentioned there, Jess, the people of Pompeii. And actually, They're surprisingly dominant when we talk about Pompeii because to a certain extent they have, or the remains have survived because of this horrendous event that does take place. But when they were going about their daily lives, who are these people? What is the population composed of? Are there people that have been born and bred there?

I presume the answer is yes. Do people travel and stay there? Or is it somewhere that people are passing through? Who are the inhabitants of Pompeii at this time? Yeah, so it's a huge, huge mix of people. The history of Pompeii is not very Roman at all, actually. It was colonised quite a lot later. It was colonised in 80 BC, after its defeat in 89 BC by Sulla. And only then did it become a colony. And it became a colony because it had been going against the Roman state and rebelling. And so it was a little bit of a punishment. So we've got less than 200 years of Roman rule in Pompeii. So before this, we've got Oskins, Samnites, Greeks, Truskins. And And they're all bringing their own influences to the city, particularly the Greeks. The Oskins were sort of the native people to the area and thought to have given Pompey its name because they started five settlements, which is where Pomp comes from, Pompe.

Or it was Hercules, we're not sure, had a triumph through Italy and went via Pompeii, and that was the same sort of word for it. But yeah, we have such a melting pot. And then, of course, then the Romans came. and the amount of merchants coming through the city, particularly via the River Sano, which is right next to Pompeii, we've got people coming in and out all of the time. There's so many inns in the city, which makes a lot of sense. You don't see so many of them at Herculaneum, for example, which is interesting because that's also on the harbour, but it's more of a posh town. But Pompeii, we have so many people coming in and out.

We have different languages and inscriptions. We have things as diverse as an Indian statuette of a goddess, Lakshmi. but she may also be a tree spirit. She was found in Pompeii, and Egyptian influences were huge at this time in the first century AD as well in Pompey. That's given me an entirely different perspective immediately on what this town is like, actually. Jess, one of the things it would be remiss of me not to mention. And this is particularly famous, and it's something that I'm interested in, is the graffiti of the town. You know, that we have the voices of some of these inhabitants.

And graffiti that is written in domestic spaces, but also in public spaces, on street corners, in brothels, and there's a lot of attention, I suppose, that's been paid to this, because some of this graffiti is particularly impolite, let's say. I have an example that is in my production notes that the producers have included, which just says, lucky guy, you fuck well. Which is, you know, that's the tone, right? So I was saying GCSE Latin's going to come in handy. I'm not sure how to translate that back into Latin.

But what can the voices of the inhabitants, whether it's more informal graffiti or formal inscription in this place. What does that tell us about the people in their lives? The graffiti is the best, best part of Pompeii for me because we're actually hearing from them, you know, from the horse's mouth. And it's an incredible bit of access into real life, unfiltered life as well, like you've just shown. That was an excellent choice, by the way.

I have a particularly favourite piece of graffiti. I can read you a bit of it if you like. Please do. Yeah. Okay. So it starts by saying successus the weaver loves the barmaid of the inn called Iris, who doesn't care for him. But he asks, and she feels sorry for him, a rival wrote this, farewell.

So he's sort of like, he's outing this guy. Wow. And it goes on. This is the best bit. So now we've got like a comment board where somebody replies and says, you're jealous. Don't try to muscle in on someone who's better looking in as a wicked and charming man. And then they reply again.

For the first guy, Successors replies and says, I've written and I've spoken. You love Iris, who doesn't care for you, Severus, to Successors. Perfection. That's gorgeous. That's what I love so much about graffiti. And, you know, I work on much later graffiti. But this idea that it's just a snapshot of a moment, it's an argument or a moment of passion or a moment of anger or, you know, a moment of rebellion, whatever it is, is just caught.

And that is, I suppose in some ways, the graffiti is part of this entire moment that's frozen at Pompeii, whereas at other sites, the graffiti is. the moment and we get, you know, everything else has been kind of changed over time or whatever in the archaeological record or the architecture of the building on which the graffiti has made has been altered in some way or eroded over time. But it just seems to me that Pompeii is just the most fantastically frozen thing. Even though it's so famous, I do find it hard to get my head around that. And what is it like to study that as a historian coming to this, is it sort of, is it delicious to find this world as it was left in that moment? Or does it

kind of start to feel like a little bit of a fantasy like a Disneyland where you have to not take it with a pinch of salt, I suppose, because it is an accurate kind of capture of that moment. But are there difficulties in studying it? Is it just, is it simply too exciting? I think I would just be, I would be giddy. I wouldn't be able to deal with it. I'd be no good. I am mostly giddy most of the time. But yes, there are definitely two sides to it. You can, there's, there's, there's, you're never going to stop learning about Pompeii. You know, I get asked so often, how can there still be things to find out? There are. We're still learning about how they lived. It's still telling us they're either abnormal or ordinary, you know, or ordinary. But there is

so much to learn, but you do have to be very careful about, particularly about the idea of it being frozen in time because we'll talk about the eruption, I'm sure, but it happened over an extended period of time. So we have different parts of the eruption being frozen is probably the best way to put it. But it is the only troubles we have, particularly for reconstructing, you know, material remains, is to consider the fact that these things were often left in panic. So sometimes context isn't always useful, but things that, you know, architecture can't be changed, gardens can't be changed. You know, there are certain elements to it that we can glean so much about Roman life just from this one town that happened to be perfectly preserved because of the

way the wind was blowing, the conditions of the eruption. You know, there's so many different things that came into it that caused it to be preserved in the way that it is. But yes, as historians, we always need to be careful about how we're interpreting things or putting our own ideas onto them. Let's talk about the eruption then. Let's kind of get to the meat of this part. of the conversation. Of course, there's a lot more to talk about in Pompeii than the eruption. But for us, we're interested in, take us through those beats, Jess, of when it starts to erupt, what that looks like. Do we have any idea of what they think is happening? You know, they didn't know this was coming. Is it they probably, I would imagine, thought it was just another earthquake based on what they had experienced previously generations before. But what does that beginning of the eruption look like? The beginning of the eruption, well, it was, as we've described, it was an incredibly normal day. They had been dealing with earthquakes for many years by this point. And Seneca, where he mentioned earlier, said the people of Campania were totally used to earthquakes.

So it was just a part of daily life. They weren't thinking something was going to happen. There were quakes on the day. But then, so obviously we need to mention the date as well. So I'm in the camp that thinks it's in October, the end of October, potentially very early November. It's traditionally been said that it was the 24th of August that this was happening, but we have lots of evidence to say otherwise. I'm thinking it might be the 24th of October.

So it's pretty normal. And then we have about midday or so, an eruption column goes up into the sky. Pliny the younger talks about this being like a stone pine, which is an umbrella pine. So if you go to Italy, they're absolutely everywhere. They literally look like an umbrella. So the column goes up. into the sky really straight and then it goes out sort of like as a ceiling basically that must

have been terrifying because that was honestly miles and miles and miles high. I think it's like multiple Birj Khalifers, the height at which this reached. So it's absolutely ridiculous. Yeah. And he's saying that the branches of it are spreading out. And initially people would have been watching and thinking, oh my God, what is going on? Of course, they were very religious people. So they were probably questioning whether this was the wrath of the gods. Some people, People said that they could see giants in the smoke because they used to think giants would live under the volcanoes and cause these things to happen. So people are starting to see things and like really freak out. And then it escalates.

Over the first few hours, we have pumice falling from the sky. So it's really light at first and quite white. And then it gets bigger and hotter and heavier. And this is starting to really layer on top of the surface. And is this essentially ash or an ash type substance, Jess, or have I gotten that completely wrong? So, yeah, there would have been ash as well, raining down, but the pumice is like very spongy, airy stone that's very, very light. You used to feel to buy it in like the body shop and stuff, right?

It's like to exfoliate, like a pumice stone, like to shave your feet with. I've never had to shave my feet. I'm very lucky. Tell me this, though, Jess, at this moment, are people already thinking about leaving the town? Because it's easy with our hindsight and our knowledge of what's coming next to think, this is the moment where you would presumably be like, right, I'm packing up the dogs, I've packed some pants and pyjamas, my toothbrush, I'm leaving. But people don't necessarily run en masse at this point, do they? No, they're completely confused. It's not dark at this point either. So they're like, okay, well, they're probably not carrying on their everyday business. I'd like to think this. So a lot of them were starting to hide. They were starting to hide in places that made sense from past experience of earthquakes that would be sturdy. So for example, the bars, public bars, which are quite sturdy structures. These are the sort of places they would start hiding. They're starting to gather their items from their house, like you said. Unfortunately, not dogs because usually they were guard dogs. So we found a lot of dogs in the city chained up.

Yeah, which is quite sad or trapped in gardens. But it's getting more and more difficult not only because the pumice is rising to metres deep, but also they're collapsing the roofs. So people are starting to get trapped inside rooms. So very recently they found a couple of people trapped in a room in the recent excavations because the pumice had got to such a height that they couldn't open the door anymore. So they were just trapped in there. So that's the sort of thing we're dealing with at this level.

And the tremors are intensifying as well. Objects are falling. Walls are cracking. So, yeah, so they're all trying to hide, but some are heading out as well. And you mentioned that everyone heads to the bars because do you literally mean like a bar where you drink at, right? Oh, baths. That's probably my answer. I'm with you. Okay. I mean, I would do that in my last moments, probably. Yeah, I was thinking I would absolutely go to the pub. Okay, sorry, the baths, the baths. No, that makes more sense. But in terms of, you know, talking about people being trapped in rooms here

and not leaving at this early stage until it's very quickly, it's too late for people to leave, is there anywhere for them to go? Like if you were to be, if you were to time travel back to Pompeii, knowing what you know, where would be the best place to go? What's the best strategy at this moment? Or is it just a case of you're already there, you can't outrun it, this is your fate? Well, so it's interesting because somebody did a study on wind direction and the, I'm not a volcanologist, but apparently wind changes according to the seasons. When this happened,

the ash and the pumice was blown in a southeasterly direction. So that is towards Pompeii. And so they're getting everything on them. But if it had been another time of year, it would have been going the other way. So I would say, you know, if this happens, maybe have a look at the wind, God forbid. And that's what I weather up. Yeah. And just walk as far as possible. It's a very, very basic question. I just realize I don't know the answer to this. How far are they from Vesuvius? Yeah. So it's honestly like a few miles. I think Pompeii is about six miles away and Herculaneum isn't much. So Herculaneum is very close. I might be getting that the wrong way around. So I think Herculaneum is about six miles and Pompey's about 10. It's really not

far. When you're standing in the city, it's like the stuvius is big. Yeah. Yeah. Mooming. So we have the pumice falling meters deep now. People's roofs are collapsing. People are getting trapped. Presumably as well, if you're out in the street, if you are still trying to wade through the pumice, presumably at this point, the stones that are actually falling from the sky, you say they're getting bigger and hotter. I suppose, you know, those are essentially sort of flying missiles that could kill you or injure you as well. What is the next stage? of this then for the people who are not yet killed in this disaster? So obviously we mentioned Herculeanium being much closer. So the next stage, of course,

this column that's gone up is going to get so, so heavy over time that it's going to eventually collapse on itself. This is what we call pyroclastic flows. This type of eruption has now been named a Plinyan eruption because Pliny described it. So at about 7 p.m., Herculaneum was overtaken by a pyroclastic flow. And a pyroclastic flow is an incredibly fast, hundreds of miles per hour, flow of hot ash and pumice and gas that comes down, collapses down the column, and rushes down the side of volcano. Hercunanian was buried in 20 metres of volcanic material at this time. So it was completely, completely gone. And then it was later on that Pompeii was destroyed.

Pompeii was actually destroyed at about 6.30 the next morning. So, yes. So all this was going on. At first, actually, the first Pyroclassic flow hit the northern wall of the city of Pompeii, but it didn't quite make it over. So I like to imagine the fact that people were actually seeing this coming, and it's very, very dark, by the way, pitch black that you would have heard something and see it go over the wall a little bit.

And then about half an hour later, another one fell, and this one was even more forceful and it took out and killed everybody that was left. Yikes. Again, another silly question. I'm realizing how little I know about this when we're chatting to you just. So you talked about Herculaneum first.

I mean, obviously I've heard of it, but I haven't heard of it in the same terms as Pompeii in terms of this. Is there preservation there too, or was that destroyed in a different way? Or is this just something that, when people talk about Pompeii, they're also talking about Herculaneum.

What's the lay of the land there? Yeah, so Herculaneum's fascinating because it's so much smaller. I mean, we've got over 60 hectares of Pompeii, about 66. And Herculaneum is about a quarter of the size. It's not all been excavated. A lot of it's under people's houses still. But it was a posh city, really. It was sort of a resort, a harbour town.

People love to eat seafood there. They had very fancy houses that looked out over the see, it was very much a place to be seen. They had all of the same things, you know, bakeries and palestra and, you know, so on and so forth. But even from the streets, you can see that it's much nicer. But because of the way that it was preserved, so it was preserved so quickly, this sort of pyroclastic flow in certain places, if it's hot enough, causes the oxygen to be taken out of organic materials really quickly. And this causes the process of carbonisation. And so at Herculaneum, we don't have at Pompeii is like wood, organic materials that have been preserved, including

things like fruit and vegetables and things like that. So in a nearby villa, the villa of a Plontas, which was supposed to be the Emperor Nero's wife's house, which is very cool. I mean, you can go and visit it. But next door was a working villa and they have found hundreds of pomegranates, carbonized pomegranates, just perfect. So we're finding things like that in hercudanium, carbonized woods. We've got sort of shelves for wine. We've got staircases. We even have a baby's cot with a baby inside. God. Oh my God. That's so macab, isn't it? Just as thinking about that organic material, is that one of the ways that we can date the event itself? Thinking about, you know, you mentioned at the beginning there's a kind of debate around whether this took place in August or I think

you said October going into November. Is the organic material relevant to that? I'm thinking in particular of, you know, sort of flowers and fruit and that sort of thing. So relevant. So my speciality is archaeobotany, which is archaeology with botany. So, yeah, for a long time, I thought that there were too many, too many vegetables and fruits that were coming up in the carbonised material that wouldn't necessarily be around if the eruption had been in August. One of them is pomegranates.

They are usually harvested around between September and November in the area. We've also got figs, which are September to October. We've got chestnuts. again, it's also an autumnal sort of winter nut, walnuts, a grape. So one of the, one of the big ones was the fact that the Vanalia Rustica, which is the wine harvest festival, is held on the 19th of August. And we actually have containers, so Dolya, which are large terracotta jars that you ferment wine in in the Roman period.

They are filled with fresh must, which is how you make wine. And they've been sealed, the lids are on. so for you to be able to harvest the grapes, press them, and put them in there within a week, it's pretty much impossible. So, yeah, I'm completely sold. Me too. I didn't even know there was a debate, but now there is no debates. I have very strong feelings about the debate now.

Exactly. Heated debates, yes. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Just talking about the sort of the freezing in time of everything, or rather the absolute boiling of everything in time, I suppose, thinking about this lava that's coming. obviously you have these amazing moments where these gardens are saved you mentioned as well like the cradle with the baby

and I mean that's just horrifying to think about I suppose one of the things that a moment like this can tell us is what people not only how they were trying to escape and where they were trying to get to the kinds of places they're hidden and we can talk a little bit about that but about the sort of behaviours of people in a moment of crisis like this because we have people frozen you

there's the famous two lovers supposedly of Pompeii and you know we can all picture the plaster casts of the people who have been sort of archaeologically preserved, I suppose, and maybe you can tell us a little bit about what that process looked like, because it's been going on for a long time. But I'm thinking about how people gathered together in the city, but also what they were taking with them, because we have objects as well as bodies, don't we, of people taking things like jewels with them or treasures of some kind. To what extent can we learn about this culture and people's values in this moment of crisis

in their lives, their last few minutes. It's such a lovely question because it's so human to consider how you would react. It sort of like makes you question that yourself. So, yes, so of course everybody was in panic but also didn't realize that they wouldn't be able to go back. So a lot of people are carrying pouches around their waist or on their person. That was common anyway, pouches that would contain coins. But a lot of them seemed to have a lot more than they, you would expect.

most people have keys on them a lot of people have almost too much jewelry on them so there's a family that was found on this main shopping street which is we've called the Via de la Bonanza and they're hiding inside a house so they've been there as we've established almost a day during this eruption

and they're still in this house we don't know that it's their house they've probably run in there but they're all wearing like immense amounts of jewelry so it just stands out as a bit weird really people were also trying to move stuff so we find statues in really bizarre places so either they were like renovating and putting stuff away or they were trying to hide them from the eruption material the volcanic material which is most likely and I suppose also hiding them from potential robbers in this moment as well if there's an idea that you're you know leaving your home in a rush you mentioned

that people left their dogs as guard dogs in gardens and chained up in the house and things so I guess there's a sense of whatever we can't carry with us to escape, hide it in the house somewhere just in case we can't get back in time and someone steals it, I guess. Exactly. Yeah. And sadly, I mean, knowing the Romans, they probably did leave slaves there as well to protect because that's, that was often a role of a slave was to protect property. So being property themselves. So yeah, definitely. But you can also see the way that humans moved as well from the remains. So if we go back to Herculaneum, there are, as we mentioned, it's on the beach. It's a harbour town. And we've got loads of boat sheds along the front. These are these

cavernous sort of semi-circular entryways where you'd store boats. In 1982, archaeologists were excavating the beach of Hercunanium and found over 300 skeletons inside those boat sheds. But there's a particularly heart-wrenching reconstruction of where these skeletons were found. You can literally see them all spilling out or in onto the beach. So we've got sort of a soldier who has fallen on his brunt and he's got the, he's got his sword around his waist. He's got like tools to, you know, make things because that's what soldiers would do on the move. He's got coins and things. And he's right next to a boat, which is actually preserved. It's a wooden boat that's been preserved. There was a horse on the beach as well. And mostly the people found on

the beach were men and soldiers, and mostly the people found in the boat sheds were women, children and the elderly. So they were clearly wasting to be rescued but didn't have enough time. So that gives us some idea of how much time they thought they had. It gives me the shivers that. It gives such an impression of how this disaster was being managed. The way that people work together or try to and try and organize things in that moment, you know, you can just imagine that soldier sort of ushering the boat up the beach. or, you know, or indeed trying to escape on it. And the patience and the fight for calm, I suppose,

that you'd be trying to have if you were one of the people inside the boathouse is waiting for your boat to come and that, you know, trying to comfort people there, everyone trying to remain as sort of still and, yeah, and quiet as possible. Obviously, there are a lot of hundreds, if not thousands, I suppose, of bodies that are preserved or remains that are preserved across Herculaneum and Pompeii.

Tell us a little bit about how that is done and if that is still the practice with remains that are found today because it's something that I think has been going since the 19th century, is that right? They have a long history that people have been working out how to preserve what are really delicate remains.

So we don't do it anymore. Some people think that it's a bit of an uncomfortable practice which it probably is, particularly because of the graphic detail that you're able to preserve when you create a plaster cast So the way that it works is a person is hit by a pyroclastic flow. They fall where they were or they are frozen in the last moments. So you have some people leaning up on their elbows and lying down but leaning up and looking over.

You have other people that are lying on their front because they've been hit from behind and fallen forwards, the force of it. But you have other people with their hands up in a boxer pose. And this is because of the heat. It's contracted to their muscles so quickly that their muscles of a contract. contracted into this typical boxer pose that you see. So this obviously happened for animals as well. But in 1860, Giuseppe Fiorelli was creating, he was the first sort of strategic archaeologist

that really changed how we excavated Pompeii. And we've got a lot to thank him for because he gave us the grid system and addresses and things in Pompeii. So he's a really cool guy. And he developed this plaster cast method. So when the body's there, it's decayed. And it's obviously still got the skeleton inside. but the volcanic material around it solidifies quite quickly and it's like cement it's really,

really hard. So the body decays, it leaves a cavity. And when archaeologists find a cavity, they would fill it with plaster of Paris. Wait for that to dry. Then they would take the material around it away and they'd be left with a plaster cast. So a lot of the plaster cast that we have have been replicated. So when there's travelling exhibitions and stuff, you may not be looking at the original one. You can usually tell because you can see a skeleton poking through in some way or another, which is really horrific. But we have about 100 plaster casts. Some, I think, were damaged in bombing during the World War II. But in the most case, we have most of them. But there's about 100 of them. Do you know, that's, again, it's one of those things. I often had that question.

What is inside that material, in terms of the original material, not the plaster cast? I wasn't sure exactly the extent of preservation of the human remains that were in there. And then where are these casts coming from? I didn't know if something had been put on over the material or, as you say now, gone into it. I have some images of some of those examples in front of me. So I have what were, you know, known as the two lovers of Pompeii, which is really interesting because it says something about our need to story tell on top of history, right, in terms of what's here. So initially these are two people who were found embracing. They were once thought to be two women or two maidens, now believed to be two young men. They're curled next to each other.

intimately, my notes say, and they could be lovers. Now, I, as a historian of gender and sexuality, I'm looking at this, and I'm kind of going, okay, I mean, the world is ending, as far as they know, regardless of their sex and gender, I'm going to find as much comfort and, you know, masking or shelter is the world I'm looking for, as I possibly can in this situation. But it's just very interesting that we need to tell ourselves, actually, they were doomed lovers and they're just wanted to be together in that final moment. And it's something about narrativeising tragedy and bringing history to life, but possibly a life that had never had. So inventing this other life.

I also have an image here of a mule driver. I haven't seen this one myself. Found by a mule, it says. A man found praying on his knees. Are you familiar with the mule driver one? Jess. Can you tell us a little bit about him? I can. I'm very familiar with him because he is someone that I've adopted as a character in my book, which you mentioned at the beginning. It's called The Lost Voices of Pompeii. And I have been so interested in this character because he's a working class person. We know that because of the context in which he was found. So he was found sitting down his back against a wall in the large palaestra, which is where you would exercise. It's right near the amphitheatre. And he was found near his mule, which would have been attached to a cart. He has all these

objects of daily life around him. So like cookers and pots and pans and even a trance. from a gladiator. He's sitting there with his knees up. He's got his hands over his face. It does kind of look like he's praying, but he's actually trying not to suffocate probably, or he's just in disbelief and complete an utter fear. And he's covering his nose and mouth because it was so suffocating. This ash was absolutely everywhere. And you can just imagine what he was hearing before his last moments, the noise of this pyroclastic flow coming down. He can't see anything. There's, you know, fire in the sky and lightning and it's so noisy. So I've been fascinated by him for very many years. And now I've tried to recreate his story and many other

people's in the city from, you know, composites of what we know from the archaeological records about how they would have lived their last 24 hours so we can do what we're doing now and vividly reimagined what they might have been doing or thinking or feeling like we might. It's so amazing to have a record like that. The, the plan. mastercast of someone in those moments. And I suppose it's a really hard thing for anyone to look at, but particularly just as a historian, you know, to spend a lot of time with and to really, this is one snapshot of someone's life. And I applaud and excited by your desire to kind of build backwards from that horrific moment and to give him back something of his life and

dignity, I suppose. But also the amazing thing about Pompeii is that we have, the archaeological record, including the human remains, or at least the plaster casts of some of those. And we have this wealth of information. This is an incredibly rich archive, much of it still in the ground or in situ. But we also do have written records as well. I'm thinking in particular about Pliny, and this does take me back to my GCSE Latin, because I remember having to sit and translate some of his account of Pompeii. Am I right in thinking that he is encouraged by his uncle, the elder to be there. He gets on a boat or something and he watches a lot of this from the sea. Is that right? So if I am correct, how useful is his account? He's, I think he's

a teenager at the time. It's about 17 or something, isn't he? And like, why is he the main chronicler we have of this? And how useful is he compared to the archaeological record? Is he worth looking at at all? Yeah, it's such a good question. Because yeah, he's our main, you know, first-hand account. It's worth remembering that he wrote what he did about 20 years later in a letter to Tacitus, the historian. So, you know, how much do you remember? Yeah. I mean, I don't remember what I did last week. So I'm not sure how much I would remember 20 years later, although it is a traumatic experience. So to be fair to him. And that was their job. Their jobs as elite Romans was to remember things. They could remember the whole speeches that could go on for ages. So, you know, to some

extent this is understandable. But yes, so we've got Pliny the younger and we've got Pliny the Elder. Pliny the Elder wrote the Natural Histories, which is an encyclopedia about the natural world. It's extensive. There are very many books of it. And it's an incredibly important source for people like myself who are trying to reconstruct what the Romans understood about their world. So he was also a leader of the ship fleet at Missonam, which used to protect the south of Italy. So Pliny the Elder receives, he's got a villa on the side of the Bay of Naples. He's looking across from Mizanum and he's looking and seeing this volcanic eruption happening and he's fascinated.

He's like, I must go and look at this. But he also receives a letter, a plea for help from Rectina, who's the wife of someone that he knows. And they say that, you know, you need to go and rescue these people. This is getting out of hand. So he sails straight towards the volcano, straight towards the danger. and bear in mind there's all these quakes happening again so we've got little mini tsunamis and it's just chaos

there's falling debris as well and the sea keeps receding as it does in these situations so it's just complete chaos so he diverts to stabbi eye and he has a friend there and his friend's trapped and he's waiting for the wind to change so that he can escape so they've got all these like very deep understanding of nature but they're also just completely baffled by what's going on

even someone that's written a whole encyclopedia on nature is like, I don't know what to do here. This is new, guys. Didn't see this coming. So he gets there, he reassures his friend. He tries to keep everyone calm and composed. So Pliny the Younger, his nephew, is trying to present Pliny the Elder as this, very stoic, important Roman that wouldn't ever get flustered in such a situation.

How ridiculous would that be? So he tells us that Pliny the Elder has a little nap. He sort of chills for the afternoon. And then he gets up and he's like, oh, it's pretty bad, actually. I should probably go and do something. So he ends up on a beach and he ends up, we think, having an ASA attack and passing away. Oh, wow. Yeah.

So the next morning, supposedly people went back to see what was going on when it had calmed down a bit and they found his body just lying there as if he was asleep. What is remarkable about this is that there's a certain maybe popular perception that this happens in one go, that there is almost a lava spill that comes down over this town and that suddenly it's gone. They barely knew that it was coming. But actually, what you're describing is hours of preparation, panic, chaos, and And, you know, there's a build-up here. Do we know, though, Jess, if there is a moment or a series of cataclysmic moments, they're all

cataclysmic? But, like, is there a crescendo to this? Is there something that goes, right, that's taking it out now? What is that point if it exists? And is that really the end of Pompeii? They knew it. So people like Pliny were experiencing the eruption from a distance and seeing, apart from the fact that it's so incredibly dark, when the columns start collapsing, that would definitely have been

one of those moments. And we've seen situations like that in modern life where you just absolutely do not know what to do. Your mind cannot process the trauma of this. So Pliny the younger is with his family in the bay, still watching this as his uncle is over there now. And eventually he starts to describe what it's like being there. And it's horrific. And it's horrific. He's saying it's like, you know, it suddenly goes dark and it's like being in a room where all the lights are put out and the doors are shut. And he's saying that all he can hear is people calling to the gods but not knowing whether they're listening. They're trying to find one another in the dark. And he sort of, they create this chain to walk out, you know, to try and get away

because they're initially thinking, okay, we'll go by boat. And then they realize, oh, no, we're seeing all these sea creatures on the beach because the sea's going to. gone back again. So we can't go there. So now we're going to have to go by the road. So he and his family are putting pillows on their head and tying them around their necks and to stop all the pumice coming on their heads. This is all they can do. And they're leaving together and they're chaining so they don't lose each other and that's how pitch black it is. So absolutely petrifying. It is unthinkable, isn't it? It's hard to imagine being in that scenario. And then of Of course, I suppose the end point, is it fair to say, Jess, is the lava itself destroying Pompeii and parts of Herculaneum?

And I suppose once that's happened, what does the immediate aftermath look like? Because Pompeii is never, luckily for us, it's never rebuilt. It's sort of left as this strange monument frozen in time. What are people's reactions in the hours, days afterwards? and why do they never return to that site again? So the main thing is that there's no lava actually in this area. Yeah, I didn't think, yeah, I was like, oh, I nearly died. So hold on, so what?

I was like, there's no lava, is there? And my six-year-old nephew, Danny, is going to be absolutely distraught by this? Because he is always about the lava when he talks about Pompeii and he talks about Pompey a lot. So hold on. So let me get this right then. So when people are sort of frozen, what is causing that? Is that just heat? Yeah.

So when they're frozen, it's the pyroclastic flow. So the volcanic material that's solidified around them. Okay. So it's not lava. It's something else. Oh my God. They're literally, they're their own ovens. Yes, that's exactly it.

They become their own ovens. They do. I don't love it. Danny's going to actually like that even more if he's told. Sorry, but Maddie had asked an actual interesting question, which was about the legacy. you know, why are the dannies of this world so fascinated by this? Why does this continue to hold the imagination? I mean, there's so many reasons. But I'd just be interested to hear what you have to say about that just in terms of somebody who lives with this on a more in-depth way than most people would. I think we've seen it in this podcast, actually, and it's like the biggest joy that I get because there's so many misconceptions about Pompeii. And when you go and see it or you talk about, it, you realize that there's so many more layers to it and actually it almost becomes more

human, the more you learn about it, the more you get away from Hollywood and start learning about these real people that live there, you know, the business women and, you know, these brand dealers that were, you know, offering in the city. It's a fascinating place and we can learn so much about ourselves. I think for me, particularly as a historian, it puts a lot of my life into perspective, you know, our everyday anxieties and worries sort of don't seem as big anymore because they dealt with so many challenges in life anyway, natural disaster, you know, famine, war, and then and also child death as well. And then we've got this natural disaster and all these people that were just completely displaced during the eruption.

They did try and operate relief efforts afterwards, the amputitis, but they pretty much went. And he sent some senators and they said there's nothing we can do. You can't, you can tunnel down. We'll try and get some material, and they did. but people started living on top of it a little bit but really it was sort of like this cement layer over the city you can sort of see it's like a graveyard you could see different pieces

of the city poking else you kind of work out where the amphitheatre was kind of work out where the forum was but for everyone else that had escaped and come back they've lost their whole life they've lost people that they loved and knew they've lost their whole community they've lost their occupation so for me yes it's it sort of puts things into perspective And I think that's why it captures our imagination so much. Can I ask one thing, well, first of all, one thing I have to tell you, Maddie,

and I forgot to tell you this earlier. So my nephew is six. He's in primary school and they have their own independent research learning time online where they look up certain topics. And the teacher called, well, the teacher was talking to my sister about it and everyone else in the class was like, oh, I'm looking up rainbow pencils. I'm looking at whatever else. And Danny's looking at the dead of Pompey.

Oh, my God. Danny had been looking up, the dead of Pompeii, the Black Plague, whether the rats were... He's so your nephew. I was like, what? And Michelle was like, he doesn't even listen to your podcast, but it's literally all this dark history. And I'm just like, okay, good, we're genetically linked. But I just, for the Danes out there and for the Antonies as well, actually, because I have learned a lot in this episode, what is one thing that you would like people to stop saying about Pompeii?

And what is one thing that you wish people knew more clearly if you could, if you could, if you could, push this information. It's going to be the pomegranates, isn't it? Maybe I'll try and come to something else. Because that's like my thing. Okay, here's a little whimsical one.

The penises in Pompeii don't necessarily point to the brothels. That's one that I'm always like. I've never heard of this. We should maybe explain this, right? No. So, Jess, is this the idea that there are penises carved or drawn

on various parts of the town? And the idea was that these were literally signposting where the brothels were. So that's not true. Oh. No. No, I can't find any correlation.

I'm sorry. But there are penises all over on page. There are penises, right? They do exist, yeah. There are. Yeah, they were very obsessed with the fallists in the way that it was a protective symbol that would keep away the evil eye. And so they would put it particularly on crossroads.

They would have wind chimes of them. They would wear them on their rings and necklaces. Yeah, I know. It's really good. Go and look up the wind chimes. I love those. I don't know if I should. The mini ones as well, yeah.

Okay. So that's one. So that didn't happen, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I would say the frozen in time thing we were talking about is understanding that there's so many different events happened over this 24 hours of the eruption. And it was continuing after this.

You know, the last pyroclastic flow here didn't stop there. Other towns were destroyed as well. And it's not just Pompeii. Yeah. So there's so much, so much going on in the other areas. And I think particularly when people come to Pompey to visit, they forget that there's all these other places to go and see that are beautiful and eye-opening like a pontus that we spoken about earlier. But I would also say to try and appreciate the ordinary people more.

So people like Julia Felix, who was a female businesswoman who owned a whole estate and hired out apartments and shops and baths and put an advert on her house about that. People like that are great. Inkeepers, like there's a calpona, which is an inn of eucinus. And he had a vineyard in his back garden. He basically had a pub garden. So he had a bar and then you could go through and go and eat and drink in the vineyards. And he sort of developed all of this in response to the earthquake as well. So he was like, okay, how can we make some money out of this? So it's people like that. And there's a garum cellar, so fish sauce, which is like the ketchup of the Roman world. And he was the first, he's the first evidence, this owlus and bricius scouris who has branded

a product in the ancient world that we can find. So these characters I talk about, about in my book, but the point I'm making is that we must pay more attention to these ordinary people because they will make this place feel alive instead of remembering it as a place that was destroyed. Jess, you've completely changed my perspective on this. I will absolutely be reading your book after this episode. If people want to go and purchase that, where can they find it? Yep. So it is on all of the normal bookshops that you would find it. So Waterstones, Amazon. So yes, and I will be going around and meeting lots of people when it comes out. So hopefully I get to meet some people.

And when is it out, by the way? So we're out on April 23rd of 2026. So you can pre-order it now. Pre-orders are very important. We know this. Go and pre-order justice. I mean, I am definitely, this is, oh, I'm going to get it for Danny as well. Stop talking about Danny.

Jesus. Danny's been a star. No, you should. Get a hobby. Oh, my God. No, 100% do that. Yes. Jess, thank you so, so much.

If you have enjoyed listening to this, podcast. Then let us know what other ancient Pompeian related history. To be honest, I feel like we now need to visit the other townships and like look at the distinctions between those things. But anyway, let us know in the comments either on YouTube or on Spotify or wherever you're listening to your podcasts. What else you'd like us to cover related to this topic? Leave us a five-star review wherever you get your podcasts. And one thing that we always try and remind you, if you have an idea for a topic, Maddie, what should they not do? They should not DM us on social media because we don't see it. We don't necessarily have my DMs now. You can't DM me anymore.

Oh, I can DM you still. Yeah, because, well, yes. Not everyone can DM me. Because I'm special. Yes. So it's just like, yes, it's too much. It's too, yeah, we just... We love you, but it's too much. We don't get a chance to write them down

and we don't pass them to the producers enough. So you can get in touch with our producers directly at afterdark, history hit.com.