In this short course we will be looking at the destruction and preservation of two Roman towns, Pompeii and Herculaneum which were destroyed when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79AD. We will look at the evidence of the eruption itself, how it destroyed the two settlements and how their consequent preservation was consequently different. This will then allow us to look at daily life as it was lived in these two places in the first century AD, a period in which the Roman Empire was at its most successful.