Discover Vesuvius is well known for the explosion of 79 AD but during the ancient times writers described it covered with orchards and vineyards a flourishing mountain. At the Archaeological Museum of Naples, there are some pictures that show that Vesuvius as a single mountain peak, covered with vegetation. The year 73 BC, when the Third Servile War took place there is a flat land area where the army would camp. Also Spartacus and his followers took refuge on Vesuvius with armed rebels. Attacked by the army of Rome, slaves were able to evade capture, postponing the outcome of their bloody revolt: they used the branches of the vines that covered the slopes of the mountain to manufacture scales with which fled to the only passage unattended because impervious. It was undoubtedly an ancient crater, which today survives only one area, called Monte Somma. The fertility of the surrounding land, a prerogative of the volcanic soil, favored settlements osci and Sunnis of Pompeii, Herculaneum, Stabiae and Oplontis, although he was also known in ancient times the risk potential of the area. Strabo, in 18 A.D. (61 years before the devastating explosion that submerged Pompeii and Herculaneum) had described the Vesuvius in his Geography of Italy as a volcano dormant and just attributed to its presence surrounding soil fertility, compared to those areas of the foot 'Etna. The eruption of 79 AD The eruption, which profoundly changed the morphology of the volcano and the surrounding areas, has resulted in the destruction of the city of Herculaneum, Pompeii, Oplontis and Stabia, whose ruins were buried under layers of pumice, have been unearthed from from the eighteenth century under the Bourbon dynasty during the reign of Naples.

In 1631 there was another terrible eruption. After numerous events there where many small earthquakes that manifested for several months on December 16 Vesuvius returned to be active after being Dormant  for over  130 years, with the opening of a mouth Side on the South-East with an initial phase of strombolian activity and perhaps the issue of a lava flow (for many authors instead there was no lava flow). A first phase expelled ashes mixed water that came down to the valley at high speeds, in addition to columns of steam. Subsequently took place a violent explosive activity from the central crater with a high column of ash, pumice and gas. Durante the Kingdom of Naples.