The Art Archive/Museo Nazionale di San Martino Naples/Gianni Dagli Orti

ON THE COVER: Fire and ash spew from Mt. Vesuvius with almost wrathful force in this 19th-century painting by an unknown artist. In “The Destruction of Pompeii: God’s Revenge? Hershel Shanks asks whether the ancients drew a link between the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple and the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius.