Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 69.djvu/563

Rh entering into the voluminous literature of the Plinian disaster, which belongs in a separate category. Note, however, that some of the titles included under it are luminous for an understanding of early Somma-Vesuvius history, and the same may be said of Cassius Dio's account of the second eruption (203 or 204), which also falls outside the period of our inquiry.

The whole history of Italy under the Goths is contained in Cassiodorus and Procopius, although the dry compendium of Marcellinus Comes is not without value for the chronology of certain facts. These three writers are our only informants of the eruption that fell at the beginning of the dark ages, in 472, and a word or two concerning them may not be inapt. Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus, a great Roman noble of wealth, learning and astute statesmanship, born in 480 and reputed to have lived nearly a century, occupies a position throughout the reign of Theodoric scarcely less prominent than that of the king himself, whose chief counsellor he was. His writings, especially the 'Variæ,' or collection of state papers, are of incalculable value for Italian history under Gothic rule, and contain a wealth of curious detail concerning political, social and moral conditions, and general life of the period. In these official papers, the secretary frequently intersperses comments, from an obviously personal point of view, upon any subject that interests him, often displaying remarkable erudition. One of his marked tendencies is a passion for natural history, which he touches upon with naïve ardor, yet displaying withal acute observation. Many a random note occurs relating to birds, beasts or fishes, as witness for example his excursus on the elephant, faintly suggestive of Ctesias, or his description of the 'exormiston,' identified by Dr. Theodore Gill with a Leptocephalus. Little wonder, is it, therefore, that we find in these 'Variæ' (iv., 50) an interesting digression on Vesuvius, apropos of an eruption commonly assigned to the year 512, but which, according to Mommsen, must have taken place from one to five years earlier. The date of this event is accordingly best written 507/511. Allusion is also made to the far more severe eruption of 472, remarkable for its heavy discharge of ashes, carried to an enormous distance. For years afterward at Constantinople a solemn fast was held on the sixth of November in memory of that day when the heavens were darkened, and the greater part of Asia Minor was rocking with frightful earthquake shocks. In another letter (iii., 47) he refers to an eruption of one of