I want to tell you a story.
Herculaneum 24 October 79 AD seventh hour.
Lucio Cornelio Rufus is a tall, robust 45-year-old man with very short red hair.
A year ago he retired from the army with the rank of centurio primus pilus and keeps the golden plaque of the honesta missio in a shrine.
He had a good severance pay and settled in Herculaneum, a city full of every kind of entertainment.
He has recently finished training in the gym and now wants to go to the spa.
Suddenly he hears a roar and sees an imposing column of fire and smoke rising from the top of Vesuvius.
Terrified people flee towards the beach where numerous boats are moored.
Lucio runs home, dons his sword and pugio and grabs a bag full of gold and silver.
He then runs to the beach and makes his way through the crowd. The boatmen ask for a lot of money but the people of
herculaneum is rich and can pay.
Lucio goes to take the money but sees three hundred women, elderly people and children without means on the beach.
He then goes back, gathers them, cheers them up and tells them to take shelter under the arches of the port.
All the boats have left and Lucio runs onto the beach waving a torch but no one arrives. Meanwhile, the column of smoke and fire, weighed down by its own weight, bends towards the ground and an incandescent pyroclastic cloud hits the beach, killing everyone in a fraction of a second.
Lucio falls prone and claws at the sand in a desperate attempt to save himself.
So the centurion Lucius Cornelius Rufus or whatever you prefer to call him dies in an attempt to save defenseless people.
An unsung hero emerged from the past.
"During archaeological excavations on what had been the beach of Herculaneum, the skeleton of a tall man was found, lying prone, with his arms facing forward and his hands clawing at the sand.
Next to him is a finely chiselled sword, a pugio, a belt with silver studs and a melted hoard of gold and silver coins.








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