Wrath of the Gods

A very modern-sounding excerpt from Pliny the Younger's letter to Tacitus in which he recounts the destruction of Pompeii. The reactions of the people described compare very closely with the modern day reactions the world heard after the destruction wrought by the tsunami or the terror of September 11th. Human nature and instinct obviously hasn't changed markedly in 2000 years:

I looked round: a dense black cloud was coming up behind us, spreading over the earth like a flood. Let us leave the road while we can still see,' I said, 'or we shall be knocked down and trampled underfoot in the dark by the crowd behind.' We had scarcely sat down to rest when darkness fell, not the dark of a moonless or cloudy night, but as if the lamp had been put out in a closed room. You could hear the shrieks of women, the wailing of infants, and the shouting of men; some were calling their parents, others their children of their wives, trying to recognize them by their voices. People bewailed their own fate or that of their relatives, and there were some who prayed for death in their terror of dying. Many besought the aid of the gods, but still more imagined there were no gods left, and that the universe was plunged into eternal darkness for evermore...

...I could boast that not a groan or cry of fear escaped me in these perils, had I not derived some poor consolation in my mortal lot from the belief that the whole world was dying with me and I with it.