Through the first two weeks of August AD 79, the residents of Pompeii were increasingly woken in the night by rumblings emanating from a nearby mountain. The air became thick with floating ash, which people dealt with as best they could by clearing it off roadways and digging it into the soil of their gardens and orchards. Then, on August 24, the mountain blew its top, releasing a river of molten lava that swallowed the city, sealing it off from the rest of the world for the next 1,600 years.
The spectre of the events of that day is evident from the moment you enter the excavations at Pompeii, and not just because Vesuvius looms close by. The city is so well preserved that the hum of a normal day's activity seems to echo in the stone streets as you wander the houses, temples, public buildings and amphitheatres.
Estimates of both the population at the time (10,000-20,000) and the number of people killed (2,000-3,500) vary, but it's generally agreed that a fifth of Pompeii's inhabitants lost their lives that day. Human tragedy notwithstanding, archaeologists and historians have been left with this perfectly preserved city from the days when the Roman empire was at its zenith.
Most visitors spend only a few hours in Pompeii, but it's worth lingering over what was - even by modern standards - a large town. After thumbing through a booklet describing some of the site's more distinctive buildings, I settled on an itinerary that would take in those with the most intriguing names. First stop was the House of the Wild Boar, complete with a lurid hunting scene featuring a pair of ferocious-looking pigs. Nearby, the Villa of Mysteries was named after a mural that depicts a woman's mysterious initiation into marriage, though the house is thought to have been a weekend retreat for an upper-class family.
The House of the Dioscuri made my list too, on the basis of its booklet description: "This is one of the largest and most sumptuous houses from the latter period of Pompeii" - which just goes to show you can be struck by an urge to see how the other half lives even when they've been dead for nearly 2,000 years. The house's open-plan Corinthian atrium, complete with 12 splendid columns, still reeks of gracious living, and with the addition of a roof and some updated plumbing would make a fine summer retreat today.
In the same high-rent neighbourhood is the House of the Surgeon, but here your imagination has to do most of the work as its bizarre cache of surgical probes, catheters and gynaecological forceps was removed long ago to the National Museum of Archaeology in Naples (a must-see after you've done the rounds of Pompeii).
The most-visited house of all, however, is the one that bears the most romantically evocative name: the House of the Tragic Poet. A painting found here showed a choir of satyrs enacting a "tragic" theatre scene, but what actually pulls in the crowds is an extraordinary floor mosaic of a chained dog, complete with the warning Cave Canem (Beware of the Dog). Few mosaics left at the site are in such good condition, with the best of these also on display at the museum in Naples.
Like any Roman town worth its salt, Pompeii also had plenty of public spaces for sporting and theatrical performances, among them a superb 20,000-seat Anfiteatro - built around 70 BC - one of the world's oldest and best-preserved amphitheatres.
So much of Pompeii is in similarly pristine condition that the devastation wrought here seems less than real - until you wander into a tiny, tranquil vineyard known as the Garden of the Fugitives. At the rear of the vineyard is a glass case containing seven prostrate figures, positioned much as they were when found by excavators. Each one is a plaster cast made from the cavity left by a decomposed body.
Why hadn't they fled? Partly because besides disgorging lava and ash, volcanoes produce something called a "pyroclastic flow", an airborne mixture of hot gasses, volcanic crystals and pumice capable of travelling at up to 100mph. Anyone who stayed behind to take their chances would have been overwhelmed by toxic gas and then buried under tons of debris long before the lava flow entombed them in their homes.
It is hardly surprising that Mount Vesuvius is still closely monitored and ancient records studied for information about its behaviour. The volcano erupted regularly every 100 years or so until about AD 1037, after which it remained relatively quiet until 1631, when a sudden and massive explosion rocked the Bay of Naples and killed 4,000 people. The most recent major eruption occurred in March 1944, but recent studies suggest Vesuvius is not done with yet. A 260-square mile magma lake has been discovered beneath the mountain - a reservoir far larger than anyone had imagined might exist. Of course, with all the latest high-tech seismic gadgetry we should have ample warning before the next eruption turns this underground lake into a deadly above-ground river. But if you do visit Pompeii, I'd keep one eye on the mountain, just in case.
