The city of Stabiae was at the foot of Mount Vesuvius, and therefore was one of the communities damaged by its eruption in 79 AD. Some few people got away from the initial lava, and told others of the coming erruption, but succumbed to the ash as it started to fall. The intensity of the heat probably bogged them down to let the ash overcome them. Stabiae was actually some miles south of Pompeii, a seaside resort like Baiae. It survived the eruption but was almost destroyed when the surge column, or most of the airborn mass ejected by the volcano, collapsed.

The Roman statesman and naturalist (and General) Pliny the Elder ended his failed rescue mission to Herculaneum at Stabiae (some sources are taken to indicate he simply went to Stabiae to observe the eruption, giving no heed to those stuck on the shore at Herculaneum). He died there having choked on the poisonous volcanic gasses he had inhaled during his stay there during the eruption of Vesuvius. His nephew Pliny the Younger left behind a detailed record of the Vesuvius eruption that became in essence the first modern scientific description. Geologists now describe a type of subaerial volcanic eruption as "Plinian".