If you could go back and witness any historical event, which one would you pick?

I would like to witness the historical events before Mount Vesuvius destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum.

I’ve actually thought about this so many times. Trying to warn those people would be a massive headache. Regular folks in Pompeii might listen, but the rich snobs vacationing in Herculaneum would just get mad that I ruined their holiday.

It’s like how upset people became when WestJet went on strike, causing passengers , like myself, to cancel their trips to Vegas or wherever else. So. You see. I get it.

Not belonging to this time period and not knowing a word of Latin would be a huge problem. But if I could figure it out, I would…

I picture it all the time.

I’m standing right in the middle of a Roman military courtyard, tracking the creeping shadow on the stone sundial mounted by the garrison wall. Ten days. That’s all the time the ancient dial gives me before Mount Vesuvius completely loses its mind and buries everything under miles of boiling rock.

Try explaining that to a local merchant. To them, a few little earthquakes are just the ground growling from the gods. They would have laughed me straight out of the forum.

So I had to play a crazy high-stakes game. I hired ten tough-as-nails Roman soldiers out of Capua—guys with scarred knuckles, iron-studded sandals, and zero interest in asking questions once heavy gold coins hit their hands.

We rode hard into town at high noon, kicking up dust, and marched straight into the local military headquarters. I pulled a forged scroll from my tunic. The wax seal had a crisp imperial stamp I printed back in the twenty-second century.

“By direct decree of Emperor Titus,” I said. My voice cracking nervously, “ An unholy plague is rising from the earth. Read it yourselves.”

The chief magistrate snatched the parchment. His hands were shaking so bad he could barely read the fake Latin text. I leaned right in and dropped the ancient words on him, making it sound super official:

“Ex praecepto Imperatoris: Omnes civitates maritimae evacuandae sunt. Pestis nigra terram corrupit; ite ad mare, fugite ad montes altos, antequam ira deorum descendat.”

The poor guy went as white as a marble statue. Nobody dares question an order from the emperor himself. Instantly, the massive gears of Rome started turning. My ten hired soldiers fanned out across the streets, slamming wooden bars across alleyways and barking orders that got thousands of people moving at once.

We had to split them up to beat the clock.

Some of the crowds streamed out by the northern roads, shouting and shoving as they fled the shadow of the mountain. Others sprinted down to the docks, cramming onto every fishing boat, galley, and cargo ship in sight to get across the bay to Misenum before the water turned to poison and fire.

Yes! Those exact same docks we see today, dug up by Italian archeologists. That creepy place where you can see real skeletons of people who were desperately waiting for ships that never came.

I would have my soldiers help my own ancestors onto those wooden ships and push them out into the blue water before history repeated itself.

It is the weirdest, scariest feeling trying to save people who think you’re totally nuts. But as those sails caught the wind, ten days ticked down to eight.

Vesuvius is getting angry, and nobody down here knows the truth except me. Can I save them all before time runs out? I don’t know. But I could try…

Bari Marcus Anthony