Another late start, but still keeping up the tradition!
Please leave your feedback, I would really appreciate it, and your own responses to the prompt. If you like what you are reading here, check out my other writing exercises and my books!
Prompt: Write an epistolary story set during a major historical event. The event may be the subject of the letters directly, or be referenced in the background.
Genre: Historical Fiction
Source: Best Historical Fiction Writing Prompts of 2023
Time Spent: 30 minutes
Word Count: 711
Prompt: Write an epistolary story set during a major historical event. The event may be the subject of the letters directly, or be referenced in the background.
To my beloved wife, Gnaia,
I dispatch this letter to you in a hurry, in case I do not survive the Wrath of the Gods, for that is surely what I have witnessed. I was in Neapolis and just concluding my business there, having secured a very good price for olives, when the ground began to tremble and the sky darken. I exited the harbor warehouse, and beheld, across the bay, a towering cloud rising far into the sky from Vesuvius. Some around me cried for mercy from Neptune and others plead for daylight to be restored from Jupiter. Given the fire that I see atop the mountain, as if a great forge was being worked, I suspect we have angered the God Vulcan, and he is working his forge for our undoing. I cannot rule out Neptune and Jupiter aiding the God of the Forge.
I began scrawling this note hastily, when another tremor gripped us and I joined the throngs making their way to the temples, to offer sacrifice. The price was exorbitant, but I purchased a black calf and sacrificed it to Vulcan for preservation from his wrath. I am told the local magistrate, Plinius, has taken ship to the other side of the bay to see who might be rescued from the Godly wrath being visited upon them. I, and some others, fear that bringing those under such divine condemnation to safety might turn the wrath of Vulcan upon us.
Please, my love, whatever it costs, give sacrifice that I may be spared this Divine Ire and that our business is not wholly ruined. If I can, I shall write you as soon as possible, but the chaos is only growing and I am not sure when I will next be able to write, even if I do survive this.
You beloved husband, Marius Gracchus
To my loving wife, Gnaia,
I hope that my first letter, and the difficulty I have had in writing again, has not caused you undo stress. The tremors continued for more than a day, and much of the top of Vesuvius was destroyed by Vulcan. To further my theory that it was Vulcan who did this, I am told by those who saw it that ash has been raining down across the bay since this divine sanction against our neighbors started and building up in many places.
I got swept up in the chaos, and after several hours of prayer, I joined a group that was seeking to provide aid and support for those that were fleeing the type of destruction that only the gods can will. That has kept me busy, and unable to write, and I again I do apologize for any worry I have caused you.
Reports coming from across the bay have been inconsistent, but what is clear is that attempting to rescue who he could, and also make study of what he was seeing, Plinius collapsed and died suddenly. Divine judgment, I suspect, for attempt to help people escape the will of their gods. It seems a great rush of mud from the side of the mountain erased utterly the city of Herculaneum and upon the other side of the mountain, another great blast from Vulcan’s forge, covered the entirely of Pompeii in ash. Many were able, by the will of the god, to flee this destruction, but many also perished. I have thanked Vulcan, as well as our houshold gods that I was not only spared, but that the delay in departing Rome meant that I was not in Pompeii when the Vulcan decreed they be destroyed.
Augers and Oracles have been set to determining why the Wrath of Vulcan, and whatever other gods may have been involved, came upon our neighbors across the bay so quickly and so powerfully and without any kind of omen or warning from them. Perhaps we will never know what caused Vulcan to display such anger, but I have already vowed to make regular sacrifices to the God of the Forge. I love you and will be home to you as soon as I can hire transport to do so at a reasonable rate.
– Your beloved Husband, Marius Gracchus
For those of you who don’t know history, our knowledge of what the Vulcanic Eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79CE, is from a letter of Pliny the Younger (nephew of the Plinius mentioned here) to his friend, the historian Tacitus (the corresponding section of Tacitus’ Histories is lost), in which he provides the first (surviving anyway) attempt at a rational explanation for a Volcanic Eruption. I wrote this letter from the point of view of someone who very much has the more superstitious, I guess we would call it, view on the matter.
I might have mixed some facts around (I am going off of memory, I did not check specific information about the eruption): Earthquakes were felt across the bay of Naples (where sits Modern Day Naples, and ancient Neapolis) and the great ash column could be seen pretty clearly from Neapolis. The eruption of Mt. Vesuvius destroyed something like 1/3 of the mass of the mountain and like most large volcanic eruptions, it is actually a series of several different eruptions. Pliny the Elder, a magistrate in Naples, led the Roman Naval Squadron stationed there across the pay to try and rescue people. Pliny, a famed Natural Philosopher (which we would call Geologist/Biologist) attempt to study what he was seeing, but collapsed and died shortly after. It is generally believed that, due to his age and somewhat poor health, that he probably either asphyxiated or died of a heart attack form the effort of breathing. The first eruption sent basically a way of mud and ash that destroyed Herculaneum within minutes of the eruptions starting. The pyroclastic flow that buried Pompeii was from either the 2nd or 3rd eruption, several hours after it started. It is generally believed by Historians that a good percentage of the population of Pompeii escaped with only the elderly, ill/infirm, and those wanting to protect shops, etc. that stayed behind and died in the ashes. Our word, Volcano, is the ablative form of the name of the Roman God of the Forge, Vulcan, so Vulcano can be translated to ‘by Vulcan’.
Hope you enjoyed and that you are having a wonderful day and get to do, or experience, something creative.
– Jon
Leave a comment