Yeah, when the eruption happened that was years in the past, and the reconstruction for the quake damage was still underway here and there.
In a gymnasium (I think in Herculaneum), some Romans were getting ready to play a common Roman game, used small wood balls (each about the size of a softball) if memory serves, and these were stacked up and ready to go. When the eruption started the athletes bailed and presumably ran for their lives. Kinda hope they made it, but hey, ya gotta die of something. The gym and the equipment was buried by the volcano and in modern times was found right where they'd left it.