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Driven by a defiant Hades, erupting volcanoes at will, the gently smoking cone blows its top, belching flames and molten debris high into the sky. Suffocating rains of ash, pumice, and blistering hot gases shower down on the unfortunate luxury resort, amid rivers of lava. Breaking news, with the byline of climate change, Live from CNN, 21st century — No, this is 79 A.D., around midday. Residents are taking their noonday nap. Vesuvius, the sacred mountain of Hercules, engulfs the Roman city of Pompeii, burying everything and everyone: bejewelled aristocrats, ragged beggars, voluptuous prostitutes, bourgeois merchants, entwined lovers, horses and dogs as well — all damned, now morbid statues, encased in volcanic detritus, frozen in time forever. Miraculously, a hoard of papyrus scrolls, carbonized but still intact, lies buried under the ruins of a collapsed seaside villa…...and one scroll in particular. Cited by ancient authors, the object of countless searches in medieval libraries, given up as lost forever, the fabled ‘Epicuriana’ was recovered and returned to its rightful place in the history of ideas. The Epicuriana is remarkably, also a riveting tale of adventures, loves and losses — told firsthand by the esteemed Master himself, the ‘peoples’ philosopher’, Epicurus of Samos. This is his human story, at once endearing and provocative, warts and all.