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 Vesuvius; between the spot where now stands the royal palace of Portici, and the village of Resina. If this tract of country is so pleasant now, after so many repeated eruptions of Vesuvius, we may well suppose it to have been much more so, when the Romans retired to it, either from triumphs or business, and ornamented it with their villas. We need not wonder, therefore, if so small a city as Herculaneum was should contain a theatre, and other magnificientmagnificent [sic] buildings, adorned with a great profusion of paintings and sculptures, many of them certainly in a good taste, among a much larger number of bad ones.

Herculaneum was overwhelmed by a violent eruption of Mount Vesuvius, on the 1st of November, in the year of Christ 79, and the first of the reign of Titus. Before this, Pompeii had been entirely, and Herculaneum in great part, destroyed by a terrible earthquake, which happened about sixteen years before, and lasted several days.

That eruption of Vesuvius, in which Herculaneum was destroyed, is the first upon record. Dio Cassius relates, that this eruption was accompanied by violent earthquakes and tremendous noises; that the ashes, flames, and fiery stones, filled the air,