AP Latin Translation - The Eruption of Mount Vesuvius

Full Translation (English)

Gaius Plinius writes his best wishes to Tacitus.

You seek that I will write about the death of my maternal uncle to you, who will truly be able to surrender to posterity. I drive pleasantness, for I see to his death if he is honored by you, he is displayed everlasting glory.
For although he perished in the destruction of the most beautiful lands, with peoples and cities in a memorable disaster, as though he were going to live, and although he himself founded many works destined to endure, yet the eternity of your writings will greatly add to his lasting renown.
Indeed, I think those blessed to whom by the gift of the gods it has been given either to do things worthy of writing about or to write things worthy of reading; but most blessed are those to whom both have been granted. Of these will be my maternal uncle, both through his own books and yours. Therefore I undertake what you enjoin all the more willingly; indeed, I even claim for myself.
He was in command ruling the fleet for the Misenum empire. On the ninth day of the September Kalends my mother indicates fully in the seventh hour that a cloud appears to it in extraordinary magnitude and appearance.
That profited by the sun, soon cold water, was pursuing lying and had tasted; she demands a sandal, she ascends to a place out of which she was able to perceive that very miracle. The cloud, unsettled in the distance to look upon from that mountain;- it was acquainted with Vesuvius afterwards- it was rising, of which no other tree than a pine more pressed out likeness and form.
For the one having been removed was being poured out like by the longest trunk into the high sky with a certain branch, I believe since a fresh breath has been carried out then abandoned by it decaying or it still was disappearing in having been conquered by its weight in width, sometimes clear, sometimes dirty and spotted had risen as earth or ashes.
The great thing must be learned nearer so that it is seen by the most educated man. He orders that a fast ship is called; he makes an abundance to me if I, at once, wish to come; I responded that I prefer to be eager and he himself had given what I would have written by chance.
He was going out from home; he receives the notebooks of Tascus and Rectina from an overhanging risk of those frightened– for her house was lying under, how anyone except the flight to ships she was begging– so that it might tear him out with such great division.
That man turned up a plan, which he had begun with an eager soul, and went with a very great one. He leads away quadriremes, he himself climbs not solely to Rectina, but to many people– for he was the frequent pleasantness of the border–about to bear help.
He hastens thither from those others; he holds a straight course and straight rudders into danger so much, unfettered by fear that he had caught all motions, all shapes of that evil that he was saying and nothing down with his eyes.
Now ash was falling to the ships which were drawing nearer, the ash warmer and thicker; now pumice stones are still dark and, stones are both scorched and broken by fire; now a sudden shallow, falling, and beacher of the mountain obstructing. After wondering a little whether he should turn back, he soon advised the pilot to do so, "You are brave," said he, "fortune helps you: seek Pomponianus."
He was freed from the anchorages in the middle of the gulf--for the sea is poured in by gradually rounding and curved shores--there, although the danger was not yet approaching, yet when it was visible and growing nearer, he had loaded his baggage into the ships, certain of flight if the contrary wind should prevail. Where then my uncle, having been carried with the most fortunate, embraces, encourages, and urges the trembling man, and, in order that he may soften his fear with their security, he orders to be carried to a bath; he having been washed lies down, dines, either lively or–which is equally great–similar to lively.
Meanwhile the wide flames and high fires were glowing from more places in Mount Vesuvius, of which the lightning and brightness was brought out from the darkness of the night. That countryman was saying that the fire having been left behind and the villas having been deserted burns in loneliness and in a cure of terror. Then he gave himself to rest and relaxed in indeed the truest sleep; for a motion of air, which was heavier and noisier because of the breadth of a body, which they were observing to a threshold was heard by them.
But the yard from which his room was reached had already become so filled and piled with ash and pumice that, if he had delayed any longer in the room, escape would’ve been impossible. Now awake, he went out to Pomponianus and others who remained awake.
They consulted together whether to stay inside the buildings or to wander about in the open; for the houses were shaking with frequent and enormous tremors and seemed, as though torn from their very foundations, to sway now this way, now that, and to be tossed to and fro.
A falling of light pumice stone having been consumed was again being feared although under the sky, that a collision of dangers was nevertheless rooted out; and on account of that reason indeed, the fear conquered another fear. They shackle pillows, with a linen cloth having been attached to their heads; the defense was against those having been struck.
Now the day is elsewhere, and the night was darker and denser than all other nights there; that many different torches and lights were nevertheless releasing. It was pleasing to go out onto the beach, and to look out nearby, now was the sea sending anything, the sea that was staying empty and opposite until now.
There, lying on top a thrown towel, he demanded again and again cold water and drank. Then fires and an omen of flames and another smell of sulfur turns up in a flight, they wake that.
He, supporting to two young slaves, rose up and immediately fell down, as I gather, his breath was obstructed by a thick fog, and his stomach, which by nature was weak and narrow and frequently heated, was closed.
When the day was returned– he who had last seen the third–the body was found whole, unharmed, and covered, as it had been clothed, more like that of a body at rest than of a dead body.
Meanwhile, my mother and I went to Miseni–but nothing to the story, and neither did you want to know anything but the outcome. So I will make an end.
I will add one thing to all that I attended, and all I immediately heard, when things are remembered best. You’ll select the most important; for it is one thing to write a letter, another to write a story, one to a friend, another to all. Farewell.