Pliny had received from Emperor Vespasian, who had died two months earlier, the appointment of praefectus classis (fleet commander) in the Roman Navy. He was stationed at Misenum, at the time of the great eruption of Mount Vesuvius, which destroyed and buried Pompeii and Herculaneum. He was preparing to cross the Bay of Naples to observe the phenomenon directly when a message arrived from his friend Rectina asking to rescue Pomponianus and her. Launching the galleys under his command to the evacuation of the opposite shore, he himself took a fast-sailing cutter, a decision that may have cost him his life. His nephew, Pliny the Younger, provided an account of his death, obtained from the survivors. The nephew and his mother had decided not to go on the voyage across the bay.