Plinian eruption
Pliny the Elder went to rescue some of the victims. He sailed across the Gulf of Naples to Stabiae (near the modern town of Castellammare di Stabia). Pliny the Younger wrote an account of his death, and suggested that he collapsed and died through inhaling poisonous gases emitted by the volcano. His body was found buried under the ashes of the Vesuvius with no apparent injuries on 26 August, after the plume had dispersed. This confirmed the death through asphyxiation or poisoning.