Reconstructing the Menu of a Pub in Ancient Pompeii Eat like a first-century Roman, using recent archaeological discoveries as your guide. Reconstructing the Menu of a Pub in Ancient Pompeii Copy Link An ancient Pompeiian may have enjoyed this meal of braised duck. Farrell Monaco In This Story In the second century, Pliny the Younger wrote a letter to the Roman historian Tacitus, recounting the early stages of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.* From his villa in Misenum, across the Bay of Naples from the volcano, he remembered seeing a dark cloud, shaped like an umbrella pine tree, filling the sky over the mountains flanking the northern edge of Sarno River plain. What followed was something that no one in the region was prepared for. A day after Pliny observed that dark cloud, a small tavern in a northeastern section of Pompeii collapsed, along with the rest of the town, under the weight of pumice and ash. This was later followed by a fast-moving pyroclastic surge of hot gas, volcanic debris, and ash that signaled the volcano’s final devastating blow: Those who stayed behind in Pompeii and Herculaneum were killed instantly by this infernal wave of heat, estimated to have been as high as 900° Fahrenheit. The barkeep of this tavern was one of these poor souls. He didn’t make it out of the establishment in time and perished in the cot where he slept, along with a dog and a man who had taken refuge inside the tavern with them.