Pompeii

The volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius is the setting for my Christian romance, Romans (Early Christians Book 1).

I based the Christian meetings in the book on the records of the early Christians Justin Martyr and Tertullian, as well as the later Clement, and Hippolytus of Rome. These men recorded what happened in the Christian assemblies of the time. Justin Martyr was born 21 years after this book's setting, but his account is one of the earliest accounts (that is, after the writers of the New Testament) of what happened when early Christians met.

The Apostle Paul wrote The Book of Romans in 57 A.D. The eruption of Vesuvius destroyed Pompeii 22 years later, in 79 A.D. The following photo shows Mount Vesuvius looming over the ruins of Pompeii.

Pompeii was a Roman city, and a popular tourist destination for wealthy Romans.
Here are some Pompeii streets.

The following photos show just how wealthy the houses were. This is obvious even from the ruins. You can see tourists' heads in the second photo, which gives you an idea of the ceiling height. (Attribution: By Wknight94 (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons.)

The following photo is of a dining room wall. (Attribution: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pompeji_Casa_Dei_Vettii_Hercules_Child.jpg#file)

Throughout Pompeii, the paintings were opulent.

Below is one of the many public drinking fountains in Pompeii. (Attribution: By Mentnafunangann (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)

The following photo is of another volcano erupting, but is a typical Plinian eruption. The Mount Vesuvius eruption of 79 AD. was a Plinian eruption.

A Plinian eruption does not have lava, but features a giant towering column filled with magma, ash, and super-heated gas which in Vesuvius' case, at its worst point reached over 20 miles into the air, at speeds greater over 400 miles an hour. 100,000 tons of magma, super-heated gas, and ash were released from the volcano every second.

The magma cooled and fell back to earth, along within the ash and lithics, which were rocks from inside the volcano, and this fell on people at speeds of up to 100 miles per hour. 
(Photo Attribution: By דקי [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons)