Lachlan Cerdd @lachlancerddmelb - Tumblr Blog

A lone borehole windmill in South Australia’s Flinders Ranges. Unedited. Taken on a Canon EOS 1500D. 15 July 2022

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Pliny the Elder, a Roman aristocrat who wrote an immense description of the world and its peculiarities (he was killed in 79 CE, too fascinated by the eruption of Vesuvius to run away from the lava), did bring himself to mention the annual departure of a merchant fleet from Egypt's Red Sea coast for Sri Lanka, and one actual merchant document survives, a rough contemporary Greek text called The Voyage on the Red Sea.

"Why the West Rules – For Now: The patterns of history and what they reveal about the future" - Ian Morris

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It wasn’t lava that was the problem for old Pliny, and it wasn’t that he was too fascinated to run away. He boated from Misenum to Stabiae in an attempt to save a friend but couldn’t return because the wind was in the wrong direction, and he likely asphyxiated on toxic gases or died of a heart attack. The rest of the group fled on foot but Pliny was too fat to run and possibly also had asthma.