There is an old saying: “Live every day like it’s your last.” We live in an unpredictable world and are threatened by everything from nuclear fallout to heart disease. But how many of us really live each day as if we’ll never get another? Late in the year 79 CE, the citizens of Pompeii and Herculaneum would have found this question extremely pressing. When the nearby stratovolcano Mount Vesuvius erupted, it set off a cycle of chaos that wiped out both towns and their citizens.