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The city of Stabiae was at the foot of Mount Vesuvius, and therefore was the most severely damaged by its eruption in 79 AD. Some few people got away from the initial lava, and told others of the coming erruption, but succumbed to the ash as it started to fall. The intensity of the heat probably bogged them down to let the ash overcome them.
The Roman statesman and naturalist (and General) Pliny the Elder ended his failed rescue mission to Herculaneum at Stabiae. He died there in his sleep, having choked on the ash he had inhaled during his navigation around the Bay of Naples during the eruption of Vesuvius. His nephew Pliny the Younger left behind a detailed record of the Vesuvius eruption that became in essence the first modern scientific description. Geologists now describe a type of subaerial volcanic eruption as "Plinian".
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