Others, who were overwhelmed by the sudden magnitude of the disaster, are still hidden under the same ruins; some who with fractured skulls or amputated arms or legs hovered between life and death, imploring the aid of others in the same case, were abandoned, despite their pleas and protestations.Some refer this to the disabled, others to those who were fleeing. I think it refers to both; of. in a parallel case Curtius iv. 16, 12 qui sequi non poterant inter mutuos gemitus deserebantur.

And, the greater part of the temples and private houses might have been saved, and of the population as well, had not a sudden onrush of flames, sweeping over them for five days and nights, burned up whatever could be consumed.

I think the time has come to say a few words about the theories which the men of old have brought together about earthquakes; for the hidden depths of the truth itself have neither been sounded by this general ignorance of ours, nor even by the everlasting controversies of the natural philosophers, which are not yet ended after long study.