Zero One has given us a chilling look at the last day of Pompeii in this amazing animation. The destruction on that fateful day is so complete that a few years later people would argue about where the city had actually stood. In a brief instance in 79 AD the Roman dwelling place of 11,000 simply ceased to be, staying hidden until its rediscovery in 1599. As Pliny the Elder put it,
You could hear the shrieks of women, the wailing of infants, and the shouting of men; some were calling their parents, others their children or their wives, trying to recognize them by their voices. People bewailed their own fate or that of their relatives, and there were some who prayed for death in their terror of dying. Many besought the aid of the gods, but still more imagined there were no gods left, and that the universe was plunged into eternal darkness for evermore.
