Be prepared

I'd like you to imagine yourself in the first century of the common era.  You're a Roman citizen, fairly well off.  You wear the best silks against your skin, are fairly well educated in the "classics", can speak both Latin and Greek.  You've just kissed your newly cleaned child, breathing in the scent of the oils used to keep his skin in good condition, and sent him off with his nurse.  Now is a time when you can relax with your light evening meal, bread and dates, figs and a bit of meat, wines perfectly matching.  Life in your city was perfect.  You glance out the window, only in that split second seeing Vesuvius before being frozen in time, dying in superheated gasses and volcanic ash.  The explosion of Mt. Vesuvius was so sudden, the citizens in both the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum were perfectly preserved in time, as shown in National Geographic's May 1984 issue.  The saddest part is that these people did not have to die. Scientists confirm what ancient Roman writers record–weeks of rumblings and shakings preceded the actual explosion. Even an ominous plume of smoke was clearly visible from the mountain days before the eruption. If only they had been able to read and respond to Vesuvius’s warning!