Purchase includes free access to book updates online and a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: Pliny the Elder, Harry Randall Truman, Katia and Maurice Krafft, Omayra Snchez, David A. Johnston, List of Volcanic Eruptions by Death Toll, Reid Blackburn, Harry Glicken, Caesius Bassus, List of Volcanic Eruption Deaths. Excerpt: Caesius Bassus was a Roman lyric poet, who lived in the reign of Nero . He was the intimate friend of Persius, who dedicated his sixth satire to him, and whose works be edited ( Schol. on Persius, vi. I). He is said to have lost his life in the eruption of Vesuvius (79). He had a great reputation as a poet; Quintilian ( Instit. x. I. 96) goes so far as to say that, with the exception of Horace, he was the only lyric poet worth reading. He is also identified with the author of a treatise De Metris, of which considerable fragments, probably of an abbreviated edition, are extant (ed. Keil, 1885). The work was probably originally in verse, and afterwards recast or epitomized in prose form to be used as an instruction book. An account of some of the metres of Horace (in Keil, Grammatici Latini, vi. 305), bearing the title Ars Caesii Bassi de Metris is not by him, but chiefly borrowed by its unknown author, from the treatise, mentioned above. References (URLs online) Websites (URLs online) A hyperlinked version of this chapter is at David A. Johnston David Alexander Johnston (December 18, 1949 May 18, 1980) was a volcanologist with the United States Geological Survey (USGS) who was killed by the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington. One of the principal scientists on the monitoring team, Johnston died while manning an observation post about 6 miles (10 km) from the volcano on the morning of May 18, 1980. He was the first to report the eruption, transmitting the famous message "Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!" before being swept away by t...