Pliny the Younger (lived c. AD 61–⁠113)

In AD 79 he stayed at Misenum with his mother when his uncle sailed toward the cloud. At night he read Livy; in the morning he led his mother out of the town through the crowd and the darkness.

A quarter of a century later, at Tacitus’s request, he described his uncle’s death (Letters 6.16) and his own experiences (Letters 6.20). It is the only surviving eyewitness account of the eruption. In those same years he was a senator and a well-known advocate.