How Pompeii Worked

This Stuff You Should Know episode takes listeners back to 79 CE to explore the catastrophic eruption of Mount Vesuvius that buried the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum in ash and pumice. Josh and Chuck walk through the lead-up to the disaster, the actual eruption with its mind-bending pyroclastic flows and tsunami, and the firsthand account from Pliny the Younger who witnessed it from a distance, before diving into how these cities were lost to history for 1,700 years and then rediscovered and excavated starting in the 1700s. The episode reveals fascinating details about Roman life preserved in ash, from explicit fertility art to the remarkably preserved plaster casts of victims captured in their final moments, offering an unprecedented window into everyday ancient Roman society that traditional historical records never provided.