PLINY'S

NATURAL HISTORY

Translated by

H. Rackham (vols. 1-5, 9)

and

W.H.S. Jones (vols. 6-8)

and

D.E. Eichholz (vol. 10)

From the 10 volume edition
published by Harvard University Press,
Massachusetts

and

William Heinemann,
London;
1949-54

[This work is in the public domain]

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION:
TEXT
DISEASES OF ITALY
REMEDIES AND DRUGS
BOTANY OF PLINY
NOTE ON THE MAGI
DRY MEASURES
LIQUID MEASURES
SEASONS, ETC.
MANUSCRIPTS AND EDITIONS
AUTHORITIES
MANUSCRIPTS OF THESE BOOK
LATER MANUSCRIPTS
SOME DIFFICULT WORDS
REFERENCES TO A THEORY
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
THE MANUSCRIPTS OF BOOKS
CONTENTS OF PLINY'S NATURAL HISTORY
PREFACE IN THE FORM OF A LETTER


BOOK:
1 |  2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 |  15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20
21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37
ADDITIONAL NOTES

INTRODUCTION

Rackham's Introduction to volume One (pages vii-xiv)

GAIUS PLINIUS SECUNDUS—usually called Pliny the Elder to distinguish him from his nephew and ward, Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, whose collected correspondence has preserved such a vivid picture of Roman life in the time of Trajan—belonged to a family of wealth and position in the North of Italy. He was born at Como in AD 23. After studying at Rome he started when twenty-three years old on an official career, serving in Germany under L. Pomponius Secundus, and rising to the command of a cavalry squadron. Seven or eight years later he came back to Rome and took up the study of law. During most of Nero's principate he lived in retire­ment, but towards the close of it he re-entered public life and became Procurator in Spain. He held this post until Vespasian won the principate, when he returned to Rome and was admitted to the Emperor's intimate circle; they had been acquainted in earlier days when at the front in Germany. He also launched into another field of activity, receiving a naval commission.

Throughout his busy career as a man of action he had kept up a constant practice of study and authorship. His interest in science finally cost him his life, at the age of 56. He was in command of the fleet at Misenum on the Bay of Naples in AD 79 when the famous eruption of Vesuvius took place on August 23 and 24, overwhelming the little towns of Herculaneum and Pompeii. Pliny as a man of science sailed across the bay to obtain a nearer view; he landed at Stabiae, and there was killed by poisonous fumes. The circumstances are recorded by his nephew in a letter to Tacitus (Pliny, Epp. VI. xvi). Vespasian had died and had been succeeded as Princeps by his son Titus two months before.

Pliny's earlier writings were on subjects suggested by his professional experiences, e.g., the use of the javelin by cavalry, a history of the German wars, the training of the orator. During his retirement he produced Dubius Sermo, a treatise on grammar, and later a continuation down to his own time of the history of Rome by Aufidius Bassus; and lastly Natural History, the largest and most important of his works and the only one that has survived, although his historical writings on the defence of the German frontier and on the events of his own period were clearly works of value, the loss of which is much to be regretted. The substance of both, however, is doubtless largely incorporated in the writings of Tacitus and Suetonius, the former indeed repeatedly citing Pliny as his authority both in Annals and in Histories.

Natural History is dedicated to Titus, who is referred to in the Preface, § 3, as 'sexies consul'; this dates the completion of the work at A.D. 77, two years before the author's death and the accession of Titus. It is an encyclopaedia of astronomy, meteorology, geography, mineralogy, zoology and botany, i.e. a systematic account of all the material objects that are not the product of man's manufacture; but among these topics, which are implied by the title, Pliny inserts considerable essays on human inventions and institutions (Book VII), as well as minor digressions on similar subjects inter­spersed in various other parts of the work. He claims in his Preface that the work deals with 20,000 matters of importance, drawn from 100 selected authors, to whose observations he has added many of his own; some of the latter he has indicated as they occur, and there are doubtless others not so labelled, but even so they form only a small fraction of the work, which is in the main a second-hand compilation from the works of others. In selecting from these be has shown scanty judgement and discrimination, including the false with the true at random; his selection is coloured by his love of the marvellous, by his low estimate of human ability and his consciousness of human wickedness, and by his mistrust of Providence. Moreover his compilations show little methodical arrangement, and are sometimes unintelligible because he fails to understand his authority, or else because he gives wrong Latin names to things dealt with by his authorities in Greek.

Nevertheless it is a mistake to underrate the value of his work. He is diligent, accurate, and free from prejudice. Though he had no considerable first­hand knowledge of the sciences and was not himself a systematic observer, he had a naturally scientific mind, and an unaffected and absorbing interest in his subjects. If he gives as much attention to what is merely curious as to what has an essential importance, this curiosity has incidentally preserved much valuable detail, especially as regards the arts; moreover anecdotes that used to be rejected by critics as erroneous and even absurd have now in not a few cases been corroborated by modern research. The book is valuable as an anthropological document: it is a storehouse of scattered facts exhibiting the history of man's reaction to his environment--the gradual growth of accurate observation, of syste­matic nomenclature and of classification, i.e. of Natural Science.

Pliny's own general attitude towards life, like that of other educated men of his day, may be styled a moderate and rational Stoicism.

A vivid account of his authorship written by his nephew may be appended here. The younger Pliny in reply to an enquiry from a friend, a great admirer of his uncle, gives (Epistles, III, v) a full list of his works, numbering seven in all and filling 102 libri or volumes. Of these the Naturae historiarum (libri) triginta septem is the latest. He calls it (§ 6) opus diffiusum, eruditum, nec minus vermin quam ipsa nature; and he goes on to describe by what means a busy lawyer, engrossed in important affairs and the friend of princes, contrived to find time for all this authorship (§ 7): 'He had a keen intelligence, incredible devotion to study, and a remarkable capacity for dispensing with sleep. His method was to start during the last week of August rising by candlelight and long before daybreak, not in order to take auspices but to study; and in winter he got to work at one or at latest two a.m., and frequently at 12 p.m. He was indeed a very ready sleeper, sometimes dropping off in the middle of his studies and then waking up again. Before dawn he used to wait on the Emperor Vespasian, who also worked during the night; and then he went off to the duty assigned to him. After returning home he gave all the time that was left to study. Very often after lunch—with him a light and easily digested meal, as the fashion was in old days—in the summer, if he had no engagements, he used to lie in the sun and have a book read to him, from which he made notes and extracts; he read nothing without making extracts from it—indeed he used to say that no book is so bad but that some part of it has value. After this rest in the sun he usually took a cold bath, and then a snack of food and a very short siesta, and then he put in what was virtually a second day's work, going on with his studies till dinnertime. Over his dinner a book was read aloud to him and notes were made, and that at a rapid pace. I remember that one of his friends, when the reader had rendered a passage badly, called him back and had it repeated; but my uncle said to him, "Surely you got the sense? and on his nodding assent continued, Then what did you call him back for? This interruption of yours has cost us ten more lines!"  Such was his economy of time. He used to leave the dinner table before sunset in summer and less than an hour after it in winter—this rule had with him the force of law. These were his habits when in the thick of his engagements and amid the turmoil of town. In vacation, only the time of the bath was exempted from study; and when I say the bath I mean the more central portions of that ritual, for while he was being shampooed and rubbed down he used to have something read to him or to dictate. On a journey he seemed to throw aside all other interests and used the opportunity for study only: he had a secretary at his elbow with book and tablets, his hands in winter protected by mittens so that even the inclemency of the weather might not steal any time from his studies; and with this object he used to go about in a chair even in Rome. Once I remember his pulling me up for going somewhere on foot, saying "You need not have wasted those hours! he thought all time not spent in study wasted. This resolute application enabled him to get through all those volumes, and he bequeathed to me 160 sets of notes on selected books, written on both sides of the paper in an extremely small hand, a method that multiplies this number of volumes! He used to tell how during his Lieutenant-governorship in Spain he had an offer of £3,500 for these notes, and at that date they were considerably fewer in number.'

TEXT

A large number of MS. copies of Pliny's Natural History have been preserved; the oldest date back to the 9th or possibly the 8th century A.D. Attempts have been made by scholars to class them in order of merit, but it cannot be said that even those that appear to be comparatively more correct carry any paramount authority, or indeed show much agreement on doubtful points, while the mass of scientific detail and terminology and the quantity of curious and unfamiliar erudition that the book contains has necessarily afforded numerous opportunities for copyists' errors and for the conjectural emendation of the learned. Many of the textual problems raised are manifestly insoluble. Only a few variants of special interest are given in this edition.

Many editions have been printed, beginning with that published by Spira at Venice, 1469, an edition by Beroaldus published at Parma, 1476, and that of Palmarius at Venice, 1499. Commentaries start with Hermolai Barbari Castigatianes Plinianae, Romae, 1492, 3.

The text of the present edition is printed from that of Detlefsen, Berlin, 1866; it has been checked by the Teubner edition of Ludwig von Jan re-edited by Karl Mayhoff in two volumes, 1905, 1909 (Volume I reissued 1933), which is admirably equipped with textual notes.

Useful are the commentary by C. Brotier in usum Delphini (1826); Pliny: Chapters on the Hist. of Art by K. Jex-Blake and B. Sellers (1896) and more recently Pliny's Chapters on Chemical Subjects by K. C. Bailey (1929); and D. J. Campbell's commentary on Book II (1936).

Jones' Introduction to volume Six (pages vii-xxiv)

DISEASES OF ITALY, AND THEIR NAMES IN PLINY

The chief diseases in Pliny's day were those of the chest, skin and eyes, together with the various forms, intermittent or remittent, of malaria (ague). The ordinary infectious fevers—smallpox, measles, scarlet fever, diphtheria, enteric, influenza—were apparently unknown. Luteric is doubtful, because it is so like certain types of remittent malaria, which was very prevalent, that only the microscope can distinguish between them. Plague (pestis, pestilentia) often appeared in epidemic form, and, when not malignant malaria, was probably typhus or bubonic plague. The main difficulty met when attempting to find modern equivalents for ancient diseases is due to the old method of diagnosis, that is, by general symptoms. Two cases superficially alike were usually called by the same name. Many things besides gout were included under podagra, many besides leprosy under lepra, many besides cancer under carcinoma.

Chest diseases.—There is little difficulty in identifying these. Pleurisy is generally referred to as laterum dolor, and consumption is phthisis, but the Romans did not often use the Greek word περιπνευμονία.
Skin diseases.—Vitiligo included more than one kind of psoriasis: alphos (dull white), melas (dark) and leuce (bright white).
Psora was a term for several diseases, including leprosy. Often our "itch."
Leprae (the singular is late) seems to refer to scaly conditions of the skin accompanied by pruritus.
Scabies was not our scabies, which is limited to the pustules caused by the itch insect. Celsus (V. 28, 16) describes it as a hardening of the skin, which grows ruddy, and from it grow pustules with itching ulceration. Probably several kinds of eczema are included under this term.
Impetigo.—The modern meaning of this term is rather vague, and the Romans apparently used it of some kind of eczema. Celsus (V. 28, 17) says that there are four kinds, increasing in severity, the fourth being incurable. He says that it is like scabies, the ulceration being worse.
Lichen was used of several sorts of eruption; very often it is ringworm. On the chin it was called mnentagra.
Epinyctis (night pustule) caused by fleas and bugs. It was also an ailment of the eyes.

Eye diseases.—The same overlapping of meanings, which makes so difficult the accurate identification of ancient descriptions of disease, meets as again when we come to complaints of the eyes. These were very common, because dust was everywhere, and hygienic rules for keeping it uncontaminated were unknown. Moreover, there were no mechanical aids, such as spectacles. Pliny mentions aegilops, albugo, argema, caligo, epinydis, epiphora, glaucoma, hypochgsis, inflammatio, lippitudo, nubeculae, nyctalops, prurigo, pterygium, scabritia, suffusio, as well as other disorders, nervous or functional. Some of these names, laying stress on a prominent symptom, which is common to more than one eye trouble, cannot be safely assigned to any particular modern disease, but a few identifications are fairly certain.

Aegilops.—This was a lacrimal fistula, at the angle near the nose.
Albugo.—Occurring only in Pliny, meant a white ulcer; it is uncertain of what kind. Albugines could occur on the head (XXVI. §160).
Argema.—A small white ulcer, partly on the cornea, partly on the sclerotic coat of the eye.
Caligo.—Any dimness, particularly that caused by ophthalmia.
Epinyctis.—A sore on the eyelid.
Epiphora.—Any flux from the eye.
Glaucoma.—An opaqueness of the crystalline lens.
Hypochysis.—Cataract.
Lippitudo.—Ophthalmia, inflammation of the eye.
Nubecula.—A cloudy film over the eye, perhaps sometimes a form of cataract.
Nyctalops.—One who is afflicted with night blindness.
Prurigo.—Chronic itching of the eye.
Pterygium.—Also called unguis, an inflammatory swelling at the inner angle of the lower lid. Also whitlow.
Scabritia.—Inflammation of the eyelid.

It will be seen that often a Latin name can be associated only with a symptom or symptoms. Moreover, Pliny's nomenclature does not altogether coincide with that of Celsus, so that the invaluable aid of the latter is not always available.

Abscesses are called by various names, such as carbunculus, collectio, furunculus, panus, parotis, tumor. The parotis received its name from its position by the ear, the panus was a superficial abscess in a hair follicle (Spencer on Celsus V. 18, 19), and the others probably denoted variations in size or severity.

There is much confusion in the use of Latin terms to denote conditions due to mortification and putrefaction of the tissues. We have the terms cancer, carcinoma, erysipeias, ignis sacer, phagedaena, and Pliny's favourite word ulcera, very often qualified by an adjective or participle like vetera, manantia, putrescentia, serpentia. On the other hand there are the modern terms sepsis, erysipelas, lupus, shingles, gangrene, cancer. Identifications are often difficult, or even impossible, and the medical historian, faced with the Latin names, can do little more than make probable guesses.

Pliny does not use the word erysipelas, but ignis sacer, and this may sometimes refer to lupus or to shingles (XXVI. §121). Phagedaena is certainly gangrene, and so perhaps are ulcera serpentia or putrescentia. Superficial malignant disease would be included under carcinoma, but neither Celsus nor Pliny says anything about internal cancer, though this was known to Hippocrates (Aphorisms VI. 38).

Podagra presents a problem to the translator. "Gout" is really too narrow an equivalent, for podagra and chiragra were used of any pain in the joints of the feet and hands. Usually, however, our gout is meant, unless Dr. Spencer is right when he says (Celsus I. 464) that chronic lead poisoning, which presents the symptoms of gout, may have been common at Rome owing to the extensive use of lead water-pipes.

Two terms are very troublesome to the translator—opisthotonus and orthopnoea, and a third, angina, is almost equally so. The diseases concerned are discussed by Celsus in IV. 6, 1, IV. 8, 1 and IV. 7, 1. These are translated by Dr. W. G. Spencer as follows:—

(a) "There is, however, no disease more distress­ing, and more acute, than that which by a sort of rigor of the sinews, now draws down the head to the shoulder-blades, now the chin to the chest, now stretches out the neck straight and immobile. The Greeks call the first opisthotonus, the next empros­thotonus, and the last tetanus, although some with less exactitude use these terms indiscriminately."—IV.6,1.
(b) "There is also in the region of the throat a malady which amongst the Greeks has different names according to its intensity. It consists alto­gether in a difficulty of breathing; when moderate and without any choking, it is called dyspnoea; when more severe, so that the patient cannot breathe without making a noise and gasping, asthma; but when in addition the patient can hardly draw in his breath unless with the neck outstretched, ortho­pnoea."—IV. 8, 1.
(c) "Whilst this kind of disease involves the region of the neck as a whole, another equally fatal and acute has its seat in the throat. We call it angina; the Greeks have names according to its species. For sometimes no redness or swelling is apparent, but the skin is dry, and breath drawn with difficulty, the limbs relaxed; this they call synanche. Sometimes the tongue and throat are red and swollen, the voice becomes indistinct, the eyes are deviated, the face is pallid, there is hiccough; that they call cynanche: the signs in common are, that the patient cannot swallow nor drink, and his breathing is obstructed."—IV. 7, 1.

According to Jan's Index, opisthotonus occurs in Pliny 24 times, tetanus 9 times, and emprosthotonus not at all. According to the same Index, dyspnoea is mentioned 4 times, asthma twice, orthopnoea 28 times, and suspiriosi (not apparently in Celsus) 34 times.

The first reaction of a. reader is to infer that Pliny was lax in his use of these terms, as Celsus says some people were in their use of the terms for the various forms of tetanus. But Pliny is not an original authority; he is merely a note-taker, borrowing his technical terms from other writers, whether Greek or Roman. The laxity (if laxity there is) is not Pliny's, but that of his sources. It is possible that suspiriosus is a word which was in general use, and not a technical term of the physicians. With the Latin text before his eyes, the reader should not be confused if I translate opisthotonus by "opisthotonic tetanus," and any of the breathing complaints "asthma."

It is curious that Pliny makes so few references to the common cold. Gravedo, according to Jan's Index, occurs 4 times, and destillatio 17 times. Of these some, e.g. XX. 122, refer to catarrh, not of the throat and nose, but of the stomach. It may be that in ancient times catarrhs were less troublesome than today, if not absolutely at least in comparison with other minor ailments.

The medical historian feels more confident when discussing the meaning of febris. This is sometimes just the symptom, high temperature, as we often call it, that accompanies so many serious illnesses. It can also denote, not a mere symptom, but a disease, and then it is almost always malaria that is meant. As has been said, the common infectious fevers of modern times cannot be identified with any described by the ancient medical writers, but malaria can be diagnosed with ease and certainty, owing to its periodicity, its habitat, its seasonal epidemics, and its effect upon the spleen.

Quartana febris, quartan ague, with attacks after intervals of two days;
tertiana febris, tertian ague, with attacks every other day;
cottidiana febris, quotidian ague, with attacks every day.

There were also, besides these impenitent fevers, remittent or sub continuous forms, which were much more serious. Pliny does not mention the καύσος and ήμιτριταίος which Hippocrates and Galen deal with so fully, but he often speaks of two other dangerous forms, phrenitis and lethargus, the former characterised by wild delirium, the latter by heavy coma. As we should expect, the terms are often used to describe, not the disease, but its characteristic symptom, even when that was not due to pernicious malaria.

Malaria is most common in marshy places, and is epidemic in summer and autumn. One of its usual sequelae is an enlarged spleen, which is not so often heard of in countries free from malaria. As the ancients thought that malaria was caused by black bile (μέλαινα χολή), μελαγχολία and μελαγχολικός were often used to describe the depressed mental condition that tends to accompany or to follow it. Pliny refers to melanchlolici about a dozen times, but we cannot be certain that he is speaking of malarial melancholia, and not of chronic biliousness.

REMEDIES AND DRUGS

 The remedies mentioned in Pliny's prescriptions are chiefly herbal, and the chemicals used are mostly for external application. Writing for laymen, he is concerned almost entirely with what may be called home medicines, but the number of these is enor­mous. The simple, often superstitious, remedies of the countryside were at an early date prepared for town dwellers by druggists (φαρμακοπώλαι), who are referred to by Aristophanes [Clouds 767. These druggists had their "sidelines," dyes, poisons and probably charms.] and other writers, although the contemporary physicians of the Hippocratic school made little use of drugs, relying on regimen and the vis naturae medicatrix to bring about cure. By the time of Pliny, however, the use of drugs was much more in favour with professional physicians, and very common indeed among the amateur doctors who treated themselves and their families when they fell sick. Sometimes modern medicine approves of the prescriptions given in the Natural History, but for the most part they are of little or no value, and occasionally even dangerous. Amulets and other charms, often mentioned, were evidently popular, but Pliny himself seems on the whole to be noncommittal as to their efficacy, although he condemns magic in the first chapters of Book XXX.

This faith in drugs and charms may be, at least in part, due to the probable increased prevalence of  malaria in the first century A.D. Ancient medicine was powerless against it, and its victims betook themselves to drugs, at the same time developing a timid inferiority complex with regard to the predisposing causes—chill, exposure and fatigue. Among the Moralia of Plutarch is an essay on keeping well (de sanitate tuenda praecepta). It consists chiefly of rules for avoiding "fever" by abstaining from excess or strain of all kinds. In fact it seems as though the old Greek cult of physical fitness and beauty—for there was a science of health as well as of healing—had been replaced by something very near to valetudinarianism.

There is at least one ingredient of the Plinian remedies that must have been of great value. Honey appears again and again in both potions and external applications, full use being made of its healing powers. The superseding of honey by sugar has been by no means an unmixed blessing.

THE BOTANY OF PLINY

The identification of plants mentioned in the Natural History is a difficult matter. Pliny was not a botanist, but derived his information from books, which were often read aloud to him while he took notes, and not studied at leisure. Naturally he made mistakes due to misunderstandings. Pliny's authorities again were sometimes inadequate or confused or even wrong. In addition to the difficulties caused by positive error, there is also another one due to the fact that the same name was often given to more than one plant, and the same plant was often called by more than one name. Accordingly even a trained botanist hesitates at times to give with any confidence the modern equivalent of an ancient name in some particular context. Sometimes, of course, there is no reasonable doubt; rosa is rose, and cepa onion. Often, however, even when certain that a Latin or Greek name is generally equivalent to an English one, the botanist is not sure that a variety included by Pliny, or Theophrastus, under the former should also be included under the latter. The degree of doubt may vary from a moral certainty to a slight suspicion. Typical difficulties are those facing the translator when he has to render into English asparagus, hyacinthus and strychnos. To keep the Latin name always would be consistent, but cumbersome and pedantic. It seems better to give the English name when the risk of error is slight, but to keep the Latin when the risk is great. An index of plants, with probable or possible identi­fications, should give most readers the information they require. But some inconsistencies and uncertainties are inevitable.

The resemblance of certain passages in the Materia Medica of Dioscorides to parts of the botanical books of Pliny—even to some parts outside these books—is so striking that there must be a close relation between them. Scholars without hesitation use the Greek text when passing judgment on the readings or emendations of the manuscripts of Pliny. Many times it is clear that Pliny either saw (or heard read) Greek identical, or almost so, with our Dioscorides, but blundered badly in translating his authority. Among the cases of such blundering mentioned in the footnotes to this volume there is a striking example in XXIII. §7, where Pliny has cicatricibus marcidis, ossibus puruleate limosis, but the text of Dioscorides reads (V. 5): πρός ... οΰλα πλαδαρά, ώτα πυορροούντα. Here are confused οΰλα (gums) and ούλή (scar), and (unless with some editors we read auribus for the ossibus of the manuscripts) ώτα and όστα.

Now Pliny does not include Dioscorides among his authorities. Is this an accidental omission? Pliny's pride in acknowledging the sources from which he derived his information makes this an almost impossible explanation of the relationship between the two authors. It is even more unlikely that Dioscorides copied Pliny; the discrepancies, for one thing, are obviously the result of a misunderstanding of Greek, not of Latin.

There remains a third possibility. Both authors may have a common source, from which each made large borrowings. It is thought that this common source may have been Crateuas, of the first century BC, a famous herbalist (ριζοτόμος) mentioned by both Pliny and Dioscorides. There is an interesting (and genuine) fragment of Crateuas that can fortunately be compared with Dioscorides II. 176 and Pliny XXI. §164 [See the German translation of Dioscorides by J. Berendes (Stuttgart, 1902), p. 8. See also Wellmann, Dioscorides Vol. III. pp. 144-48, especially fl. 4 of Crateuas on P. 144.]. Several phrases in Crateuas are exactly, or almost exactly, the same as the corresponding phrases in Dioscorides, so that it is certain that the latter made full use of the material collected by the former. It may be that Pliny, too, read Crateuas, but he is not as close to Crateuas as is Dioscorides in the passage under consideration, so that some hold that Pliny got most of his information from one Sextius Niger, who, as Pliny tells us, wrote in Greek. A yet earlier physician and herbalist, Diodes of Carystos, may be the original source of all the later writers on materia medica. Speculation on such a point is useless, but our knowledge is sufficient to show that Pliny had access to writings so similar to the work of Dioscorides that the resemblances between the two authors can be explained without supposing that Pliny was a deceitful plagiarist.

NOTE ON THE MAGI

The early history of the Magi is obscure, although modem research [See e.g. the article in Pauly s.v. magoi, and that in Hastings' Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics. See also the admirable summary in How and Wells' Commentary on Herodotus Vol. I. Appendix viii, pp. 407-10, and a most interesting note by A. D. Nock in The Beginnings of Christianity, Part I, by Foakes Jackson and Kirsopp Lake, pp. 164-88. The writer considers Apion to be Pliny's authority.] has done much to put the main outlines into clear relief. Originally they were a local tribe of the Medes, who became a priestly caste, thus presenting a curious parallel to the tribe of Levi among the Hebrews. Greek tradition had it that the Magian religion was introduced among the Persians by Cyrus, and there is nothing improbable in this belief. It certainly contained much esoteric knowledge and priestcraft, but whether any "magic" was employed is a matter of dispute; a fragment of Aristotle [Fr. 36] expressly denies it, but Herodotus [See e.g. VII. 191.] speaks of Magian incantations. This narrow denotation of Magi was gradually widened, resulting finally in the use of the word "magician."

By the beginning of the first century AD. the word had gone halfway on its journey. The Magi could be "wise men from the East," [See Matthew II. 1, 2.]  and Cicero speaks of them as "wise and learned men among the Persians," [De Div. I. 23, 46 and I. 41, 90. Cf. Juvenal III. 77.] but Ovid [Metamorphoses VII. 195.] mentions cantusque artesque magarum, that is, witches' spells and incantations.

Pliny devotes the first eighteen sections of his thirtieth book to a consideration of the Magi. His account of their origin is true in its outlines, though combined with much obvious fable. He speaks of their art as springing from medicina, reinforced by religio and artes mathematicae. [XXX. §1; by the last (artes mathematicae) is meant astrology.] Some of the Magian methods are given in XXVIII. §104 (luceruis, peivi, aqaa, pila) and at slightly greater length in XXX. §14 (aqua, sphaeris, aere, sinus, lucernis, pelvihus, securibus); they are curiously suggestive of modern fortune-telling. It does not surprise us that in several places Pliny speaks of Magian vanitas, so large was the element of witchcraft and sorcery.

By the time of Pliny, however, the word Magus had lost much of its association with the East. This is well illustrated by a sentence in XVI. §249: nihil habent Druidae—ita suos appellant magos—visco et arbore in qua gignatur, si modo sit robur, sacratius. Mayhoff has here a small "m," as though to mark that the word in this context is not a proper, but a common noun. Moreover, in §11 of Book XXX Pliny speaks of a magices factio a Mose et Ianne et Lotape ac Iudaeis pendens, words suggesting that magice in the first century AD included much that would be called today thaumaturgy. Incidentally, it may be noticed that in ancient times conjuring was not yet distinguished from "black magic." It is easier now to separate honest deception from dishonest; in ancient times they were hopelessly confused, as were also legitimate "suggestion" and witchcraft. A sceptical mind would regard all magice as fraud, a superstitious mind would accept it all as truly miraculous, and ordinary men were puzzled and uncertain. We can be sure, however, that on the whole credulity outweighed scepticism, as it did until the commonplaces of modern science leavened the popular mind. Witches are no longer burned alive, and those who entertain superstitious beliefs are laughed at. Unless we remember this difference between ancient and modern times we cannot fully appreciate the almost venomous attack of Lucretius on religio.

Pliny's mind was of a very ordinary type, and shows much of the uncertainty the ordinary man used to feel with regard to the arts of the Magi. He speaks of their vanitas and fraudes, but nevertheless gives details of their prescriptions and amulets, over sixty of them, in contexts dealing with everyday remedies and medicines. Perhaps the most interesting example of this uncertain attitude occurs in XXVIII. §85. id quoque convenit, quo nihil equidem libentius crediderim, iactis omnino menstruo postibus inritas fieri Magorum artes, generis vanissimi. Pliny would "like to believe" that by merely smearing the door-posts the arts of the Magi, "those arrant quacks," would be "made of no effect." The Magi were a genus vanissimum, and yet it would be a good thing to render their artes harmless! An ars which is not inrita, but must be made so, can scarcely be vanissima. In several other passages Pliny expresses his strong disapproval of Magism, which he thus dislikes, distrusts, and yet fears.

DRY MEASURES

Uncia, 1/12 of a libra or pondus, about 28 grammes.
Denarius or drachma, 1/7 of an uncia, 4 grammes.
Scripulum, 1/24 of an uncia, 1.16 gramme.
Obolus, 1/6 of a denarius, 0.66 gramme.

LIQUID MEASURES

Sextarius, about 1/2 litre or 500 c.cm.
Hemina, 1/4 litre or 250 c.cm.
Acetabulum, 1/8 sextarius, 63 c.cm.
Cyathas, 1/12 sextarius, 42 c.cm.

Pliny, while often giving the size of a dose, very rarely tell us the number of the doses or the interval between each.

SEASONS, ETC

The rising of the Pleiades (10 May) marked the beginning of summer. Their setting (11 Nov.) marked the beginning of winter. See II. §123, 125 and XVIII. §222, 223, 225, 248, 309, 313. The rising of Arcturus was "eleven days before the autumnal equinox " (II. §124), the setting was on 13 May (VIII. § 187).

MANUSCRIPTS AND EDITIONS

The chief manuscripts for Books XX-XXIII are:

F   Leidensis, Lipsii n. VII; XI century.
G    Parisinus latinus 6796; XI century or earlier.
V    Leidensis Vossianus fol. n. LXI; XI century or earlier.
G and V (with D) are supposed to have been once one codex.
d     Parisinus latinus 6797; XIII century.

These belong to one family; to the other family belong:

E     Parisinus latinus 6795; X or XI century.
R    Florentinus Riccardianus, written about A.D. 1100.
x,    the better parts of Luxemburgensis (X), a manuscript composed from two sources.

There are, besides these, one or two subsidiary authorities, for which see Mayhoff vol. III. pp. viii-xii. In the critical notes "codd." signifies that all, or very nearly all, the manuscripts have the reading just given; "vulg." the text of the oldest editions.

For Book XX the chief MSS. are FdE, with help from V from §186, and from G (§§162-86). For XXI the MSS. are VGdRE to §161, where E has a gap, and x begins. For XXII we have VdxR to § 65, VdRE to §71, VGdRE to §135, VdRE to §144 and VdE to the end. For XXIII we rely on V, d and B. For Book XX particularly, but also for some other parts of Pliny, the textual critic is helped by Dios­corides and Theophrastus, but most of all by the Medicina of Gargilius Martialis, published, with a book of prescriptions attributed to Plinius Iunior (Secundus), by Valentin Rose in 1875. Both are taken largely from the Natural History, or perhaps from its original sources, thus affording evidence that is independent of our MSS. Unfortunately, the prescriptions are not verbal quotations, but paraphrases or summaries, given without naming the sources. Rose's edition was the first to be published, and Detlefsen could make no use of it; Mayhoff tends to attach too much importance to both Plinius Iunior and Gargilius. The first sentence of the former is worth quoting, both because it explains why laymen in antiquity were seriously interested in medicine, and also because it presents some curious parallels to modern patent medicines. "Frequenter mihi in peregrinationibus accidit ut aut propter meam ant propter meorum infirmitatem varias fraudes medicorum experiscerer,' [Sic, with a v.l. experirer.] quibusdam vilissima remedia ingentibus pretiis veñdentibus, allis ea quae curare nesciebant cupiditatis causa suscipientibus."

The value of such excerptors from Pliny for the reconstruction of the text is stressed by D. J. Campbell in Classical Quarterly for 1932, pp. 116-19. See also L. Thorndike, Epitomes of Pliny's Natural History in the fifteenth century, in Isis 26 (1936, 7).

AUTHORITIES

Hermolaus Barbarus, Castigationes Plinianae, Rome, 1492.
*Hardouin, Paris, 1685.
Fee, A. L. A., Histoire Naturelle de Pline, 1826.
*Delphin Classics, London, 1826 (founded on G. Brotier).
M. Littré, Histoire Naturelle de Pline . . . avec traduction, Paris, 1850.
*Sillig, K. J., Hamburg and Gotha, 1851-8.
Urlichs, K. L., Viudiciae Pliniauae, Gryphiae, 1853.
*Jan, L. von (Teubner), 1854-65.
*Detlefsen, D., Berlin, 1868.
Wittstein, G. C., Die Naturgeschichte des Cajus Plinius Secundus, Leipzig, 1881.
Muller, J., Der Stil des Etlteren Plinius, Innsbruck, 1883.
*Mayhoff, C., Teubner edition, vols. III and IV, Leipzig, 1892.

Also,

Dioscorides, de materia medica, ed. M. Wellmann, Berlin, 1907.
  Theopbrastus, Loeb edition, by Sir Arthur Hort, London, 1916.
  Wethered, H. N., The Mind of the Ancient World, London, 1937.

* These are editions. For modern literature on Pliny, see also Bursian, Jahresbericht, Band 273 (1941), pp. 1-43.

Jones' Introduction to volume Seven (pages ix-xiv)

THE MANUSCRIPTS OF THESE BOOKS
(CHIEFLY FROM MAYHOFF)

N Nonantulanus (Sessorianus) 5th or 6th century, a palimpsest, now in Rome, once in a Benedictine Monastery at Nonantula, near Modena.

LATER MANUSCRIPTS

1st family

V    Leidensis Vossianus, 11th century or earlier.
R codex Florentinus Riccardianus, about 1100 A.D.
d eodex Parisinus latinus, 6797, 13th century.
F codex Leidensis, 11th century.
T codex Toletanus, 13th century.
x    the better parts of X, en exemplari prioris familiae (Mayhoff).

2nd family

E codex Parisinus latinus 6795, 10th or 11th century.
r corrections from an unknown MS. noted in R.
a codex Vindobonensis CCXXXIV.
X codex Luxemburgensis, the parts not iRcluded in x.

"Codd." in the apparatus criticus is usually the same as Mayhoff's ll., i.e., a consensus of VR(r)dE, sometimes only a consensus of several MSS. of the more reliable kind. Vulg. = the textus receptus of the early editions. Of FTx Mayhoff says: "lectiones ita tantum adnotatae sunt, ut e silentio nillit concludendum sit."

The edition of Dalecamp (1587) has in the margin:

(1) readings of a lost MS.;
(2) readings of a lost edition or conjectures of an unknown scholar.

In the critical notes (1) is called "cod. Dal." and (2) "vet. Dal."

As to the value of these MSS., I have generally followed Mayhoff. The method adopted in fixing the text has been to accept as correct the parts where Detlefsen and Mayhoff agree, except in a few places where internal evidence or the text of Dioscorides pointed to another reading. Where these two editors differ I have tried to choose the likelier of the two readings. If I felt that neither alternative could be accepted, I have sometimes ventured on an emendation suggested by a friend or thought out by myself, but never, I hope, where a reasonable reading is found in at least one MS. of fair authority. Such a method as this would be unsafe were it not for the fact that Mayhoff's apparatus criticus is both full and trustworthy.

Although one who has not collated, or at least personally examined, the MSS. in Mayhoff's apparatus, cannot claim to appreciate fully their relative importance, yet he must acquire, as he studies their various readings, some conception of the weight to be attached to them. Such a critic, however, should exercise even greater caution than the critic fully equipped for his task. For his judgment, however great his knowledge is of Plinian usage, of the parallel passages in Theophrastus and Dioscorides, and of the principles of textual criticism, is certain to be influenced unduly by the subjective element in his reasoning. A translator, however, although he would prefer to spend all his time and care on his proper task of translating, is sometimes compelled to defend a new reading or suggest an emendation, because in his opinion such a course is required by the sense of the passage. But the extra caution necessary in these cases has made me refrain from mentioning some emendations of my own that I thought possible or even likely. It is, moreover, often forgotten that an ancient author—and this perhaps applies especially to Pliny—may himself have made mistakes, even bad ones, that escaped the notice of his corrector, if he had one.

SOME DIFFICULT WORDS IN PLINY
THE ADJECTIVE PINGUIS APPLIED TO LEAVES

THERE are in Pliny few words more perplexing than pinguis when applied to leaves. Forcellini says "pinguia folia: crassa et veluti carnosa." Pliny, however, uses it to translate λιπαρός, which is very common in Dioscorides, and is rendered by fort "glossy" (leaves) in his edition of Theophrastus.

It is therefore tempting to use "glossy" to translate Pliny's pinguis (and the λιπαρός of Dioscorides) on all occasions, but there are difficulties. The latter has (IV 170): κλώνας λιπαρούς, and "glossy twigs" seems unlikely; while Pliny in XXV § 124 speaks of radicibus pinguuis, which is surely "juicy roots." It would appear that "juicy" is at least a possible translation of pinguis, especially as Pliny often speaks of leaves having a sucus. Examples are: sucus foliorum (XXIV § 47 and 131); folds erprimitur sucus (XXIV § 70); fit et folds sucus (XXIV § 109); sucus fronde (XXV § 68).

The claims of "fleshy" have to be considered. On the face of it, perhaps, it is a more natural epithet for leaves than either "glossy" or "juicy," and it is the only meaning given by Forcellini. Against the rendering must be put the frequent use of  σαρκώδης by our Greek authorities in this sense, often in close conjunction with λιπαρός.

In Pliny XXV §161 occurs a phrase which seems at first sight to settle the matter. He speaks of Jolla ... carnosa, pinguia, [Littre translates pinguia (into the French) "grasses" Bostock and Riley "unctuous."] larga suco. Does this mean "fleshy, glossy, juicy leaves"? The last two epithets, however, may be connected, which would give the sense: "rich with copious juice." This is perhaps unlikely, but cannot be ruled out as impossible. The parallel passage in Dioscorides (IV 88, 89) does not help in deciding the question.

Hort may be right in translating λιπαρός by "glossy," but what did Pliny take it to mean when applied to leaves? A consideration of all the pertinent passages suggests a combination of "glossy" and "fleshy," i.e., not necessarily large, but "sleek and plump." Perhaps, if a single word must be chosen to render pinguis whenever it occurs, which gets as near to Pliny's idea of the meaning as the English language will permit. But unfortunately modem botanists are opposed to this rendering.

It may seem that the best course would be to identify the leaf referred to, and to vary the translation to suit the actual facts. Botanists, however, point out (1) that identification is often uncertain; (2) that we may know the genus, but not the species of the plant mentioned, and (3) that a leaf is often both fleshy and glossy.

On the whole, perhaps "fleshy" is the best translation, except in cases where another rendering is obviously desirable.

Words signifying colours are very troublesome in the botanical parts of Pliny; niger, candidus, albus, parpurens, bewilder the translator nearly every time they occur.

I have used "black" and "white" unless there is something in the context that makes "dark" and "light" more appropriate; the comparative nigrior, for instance, is more likely to be "darker" than "blacker" when applied to leaves or stalks.

Pliny has quite a long section (IX, 124-141) dealing with purpura. It is plain from this that the colour referred to was usually a deep red tinged with more or less blue, our "purple" in fact, the most esteemed variety being like clotted blood. There were many shades of it, a common one being bright red.

The word purpureus covered a very wide range of meanings; Pliny applies it to the violet (XXI, 64), to plums (XX, 41), to figs (XV, 69) and to lettuce (probably a form of headed lettuce) (XIX, 126). The last suggests our "brown cos" and "continuity." In books XX-XXVII Pliny is mostly translating Greek, and πορφύρεος seems to be a somewhat wider term than purpureus, which is Pliny's equivalent. To these elements of uncertainty must be added the possibility that flowers may have varied their shades in the last two thousand years, so that modern plants are not an infallible guide.

On the whole it seems best to keep "purple" (Littré has regularly "pourpre") unless the context shows that such a rendering is impossible or absurd.

Vero in Pliny is often neither intensive nor adversative, neither "indeed" nor "however," but almost a mere connective particle equivalent to item. Sometimes, but by no means always, it introduces a climax. Usually, however, a slight, generally a very slight, adversative force remains, and I have always tried "however" and "indeed" before falling back on a purely connective word.

0leum, translated "oil," was usually, perhaps always, olive oil. When another kind of oil is indicated an epithet is added.

The Latin names of plants have been kept unless to do so would be absurd; I write for instance sideritis and ageraton, but "rose" and "plantain." In other words, English names are used only when they are familiar and also correct identifications. The Index of Plants should clear up most of the difficulties that may occur.

Eichholz's Introduction to volume Ten (pages ix-xviii)

THE text printed in this edition is largely identical with Mayhoff's, but differs from it in some 120 instances. Sometimes a different reading has been preferred, particularly if it improves the sense; and not infrequently Mayhoff's emendations have been rejected as superfluous or unsuitable. Several passages omitted or bracketed by Mayhoff as interpolations have been allowed to stand in the text. In this respect, Mayhoff appears to attach too much importance to B, which in spite of its superiority is sometimes careless or facile. He does not, however, refrain from curtailing even B. The present text is more conservative than Mavhoff's, and so conforms to recent tendencies. Nevertheless, some new readings have been offered in passages which seem to invite or demand a remedy.

The difficulty of identifying the stones mentioned by classical authors is well known. Nomenclature in itself is often misleading. In Pliny, for example, chrysoprasus is not chrysoprase, nor is toparus topaz or sappltirus sapphire. Basanites (v.1. basaltes) is probably never basalt. Smaragdas includes many stones that are not emeralds, and carbanculus some that may not be carbuneles. Iaspis embraces many stones that are not jaspers, while of genuine jaspers it includes at the most the green variety. For reasons such as these, Latin names of stones have usually been retained in the translation.

Interpretation is rendered even more difficult by Pliny's lax use of certain terms.

A perplexing word is pinguis and its derivatives (see Vol. VII, pp. xi-xii). In XXXVII. 66 pingui seems to mean 'rich' (in colour); in 69 and 70 pinguiter and pingues should mean 'massively,' 'massive'; in 105 pinguitudo must mean 'greasy appearance' (cf. III  94 pingues), while in 115 pingui is 'dull.'

Again in XXXVII. 79 crassitudine might be 'opacity,' but is probably just 'thickness,' whereas in 106 crassiores is 'opaque,' but crassius (with nitent) should mean 'with a duller lustre.' In 21 crassitudine is translated as 'bulk.'

Nitor and fulgor can be puzzling. Although both usually refer to lustre, they are sometimes used of brilliance in colour, as in XXXVII. 129 (nitor), and in 121, 125 and 156 (fuigor).

REFERENCES TO A THEORY OF THE FORMATION OF STONES

A few brief references to such a theory call for some explanation.

In XXXVI. 161, we are told that lapis specularis (selenite) is formed when a liquid is frozen and petrified 'by an exhalation in the earth' (Qerrae quudorn anima). In the first three books of the Meteorologica Aristotle describes the characteristics and manifestations of two exhalations (άναθυμιάσεις), one of which is dry, smoky and potentially fiery, while the other is moist, cool and potentially frosty (for it forms hoar-frost, 347a 12 ff.). At the end of the third book Aristotle describes the effects produced by the two exhalations when they are trapped underground. Under these conditions, the cool, moist exhalation, to which Pliny refers in the present passage, produces metals (378a 26 ff.), certainly as their material cause and probably (though this is not explicitly stated) as their effective cause as well.

Aristotle does not mention the formation and hardening of stones by the cool exhalation, but that such an idea eventually arose in the Lyceum is not improbable. For again at the end of Meteorologica III (378a 21 ff.) he states that the dry exhalation produces by combustion (έκπυρούσο) not only coloured earths, but also stones that cannot be fused, only to show later in Meteorologica IV (388b 26 ff.) that infusible stones can be produced also by cooling. This fact seems to have been accepted by Theophrastus, who asserts (de Lap. 3) that it is possible for some stones to be produced by heating or by cooling. He cautiously refrains from ascribing any particular stones to the latter process. Nor did he know of selenite, unless by chance he includes it under γύψος. Pliny's statement clearly originated with a later and more dogmatic thinker. It is preceded by a reference to Spain which immediately calls to mind the Stoic philosopher Posidonius (c. 135-50 BC), who studied Spanish mines (Strabo III. 2, 4) and who was keenly interested in the formation of stones, as is shown by a passage of Diodorus Siculus (II. 52, 1-4), which is probably derived from him. Seneca (N.Q. II. 54, 1) confirms that the two exhalations played a part in the physical theories of Posidonius. [For Diodorus and Seneca, see K. Reinhardt, Poseidonius, pp. 132-33, 172, where Reinhardt's comments do not seem to have been questioned in the controversies aroused by his book.]

The dry exhalation is at work in forming stones in XXXVII. 21, where Pliny records the view that myrrhine is a liquid compacted underground by heat (umorem sub terra putanl calore densari: in XXXVII. 48 the dry exhalation is called more precisely caloris anima). Aristotle, as we have seen, ascribed the formation of infusible stones and coloured earths to the dry exhalation, and Theophrastus mentions it explicitly in connection with coloured earths (de Lap. 50). Obviously both of them regarded the dry exhalation as a hardening and as a colouring agent. Whether they extended its colouring activities to brightly coloured gems and gem-like stones we cannot tell: there is no reason why they should not have done so, although the cautious Theophrastus might well have refused to commit himself. Posidonius was bolder, if we can trust the evidence of Diodorus in the passage already cited (II. 52, 1-4). Here the brilliantly coloured gemstones of India and neighbouring countries are envisaged as very pure rock-crystal compacted not by cold but by fire and 'tinted in many colours by an exhalation' (βαφήναι δέ πολυμόρφως άναθυμιάσει πνεύματος), which is especially strong in these regions. Diodorus does not mention myrrhine (fluor-spar), which during the greater part of Posidonius' lifetime was probably still a rarity in the western world, but Juba or Xenocrates or whoever was responsible for the view expressed by Pliny seems to have been influenced by the general theory of Posidonius, a theory which Pliny, had he cared to do so, might have applied widely to many brightly coloured stones. Pliny, however, was not greatly interested in such speculations. [He may also have been sceptical: his statement concerning the formation of rock-crystal (XXXVII. 23) is followed by certe, 'at any rate.' However, his view as to the formation of selenite leaves him with no doubts whatsoever (manifesto apperet, XXXVL 161) because observation seems to support it.] He introduces them only incidentally as isolated curiosities. In this instance he happens to have used a source which reflects an interest in the true nature of myrrhine. In general, when he is discussing stones, he is largely concerned with moral, practical and historical considerations, and does not fail to mention, however scornfully, the supposed magical properties of gem­like stones which claimed the attention of writers such as Sotacus from the 3rd century b.c. onwards.

Another passage which may ultimately owe something to Posidonius is XXXVII. 23, where rock-crystal is said to have been compacted by intense frost. [Reading concretum for concreto. Unless Pliny has misunderstood the idea, he must mean that the frost is the hardening agent, not the material that is subjected to hardening, for this latter is a umor (XXXVII. 26). Both Diodorus (l.c.) and Seneca (N.Q. III. 25, 10) agree that 'cold' is the effective cause of ordinary rock-crystal. With gelu vehementiore concretum compare Seneca's phrase longioris frigoris pertinacia spissatur.] This, however, was a common idea because κρύσταλλος means both ice and crystal, and the theme must have been frequently discussed, as is clear from the number of authorities cited by Pliny. In the Alps at least, rock-crystal was, it seems, thought to occur at or near the surface (XXXVII. 27). Hence the effective cause would be not the cool exhalation trapped underground, but the cold air above ground. That this topic interested Posidonius is suggested by a passage in Seneca (N.Q. III. 25, 10), which may well have been derived from him.

Seneca in this passage confronts us with a fresh point. He describes the material of rock-crystal as 'rain water containing a very little earthy matter' (aqua caelestis minimum in se terreni habens). Pliny, however, calls lapis specularis and myrrhine in their original state simply 'a liquid' (umor) and rock-crystal caelestis umor (XXXVII. 26). Similarly Diodorus states that the rock-crystals which are tinted by an exhalation are of 'pure water' (έξ ΰδατος καθαρού). We may suspect that Seneca's description is the more accurate, and that Diodorus and Pliny (or Pliny's authorities) are speaking loosely. A similarly loose use of language occurs already in Theophrastus, who in the first sentence of his book de Lapidibus states that all stones, including the more uncommon kinds (i.e., gemstones), are of earth, and later (de Lap. 27) describes a stone that was partly a smaragdus and partly an iaspis, 'as though the transformation from water (έξ ΰδατος) was not yet complete.' Pliny in his rendering (XXXVII. 75) translates έξ ΰδατος as umore. We can hardly suppose that Theophrastus was guilty of a flagrant inconsistency. Consequently by 'water in this context he must mean water in which earthy particles were suspended; [We may add in this connection that he was strangely impressed (probably through the influence of the physician Diocles of Carystus) by the belief that the lyncurium gemstone was formed by the urine of the lynx (de Lap. 28, quoted by Pliny XXXVII. 52). Theophrastus may have supposed that the raw material of gemstones in general was similarly compounded.] and even the 'pure water' of Diodorus is probably a rhetorical exaggeration which must be modified in this sense. It is, however, just conceivable that Posidonius did not accept the fundamental distinction made by Theophrastus (de Lap. 1) that stones are of earth and metals of water.

Thus we find in Pliny random allusions to a theory regarding the formation of transparent and semi­transparent stones. According to this theory, which appears to have been developed by Posidonius, the raw material of such stones was water, possibly impregnated with earthy particles; and this liquid was compacted either by cold in the atmosphere or by one or other of two exhalations, colours being imparted to coloured stones by the dry exhalation, which also hardened them. The theory as a whole must have been unknown to Pliny. Nevertheless, the interest in natural phenomena which Posidonius aroused was strong enough to flourish in succeeding generations [See A. D. Nock in the Journal of Roman Studies, vol. XLIX (1959), p. 14.], and thus left its mark on Pliny's sources.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

K.C. Bailey, The Elder Pliny's Chapters on Chemical Subjects, London 1932. (Part II includes the text, with a translation and notes, of N.H. XXXVI, 126-203.)
Sydney H. Ball, A Roman Book on Precious Stones, Los Angeles, 1950. (This contains a translation of N.H. XXXVII with introductory chapters and a commentary, but the commentary is affected by the translation, which is merely a modernization of Philemon Holland's version.)
C.E. N. Bromehead, 'Geology in Embryo,' Proceedings of the Geologists' Association, lvi, part 2 (1945), pp. 85-134.
A. Furtwangler, Die antiken Gemmen, Leipzig and Berlin, 1900.
K. Jex-Blake and E. Sellers, The Elder Pliny's Chapters on the History of Art, London, 1896. (This includes the text, with a translation and notes, of N.H. XXXVI. 9-44, 90, 95, 177, 184, and XXXVII. 8.)
C.W. King, Precious Stones and Gems, London, 1865.
A. Lucas, Ancient Egyptian Materials and Industries, 3rd edition, London, 1948.
G.F.H. Smith, Gemstones, 13th edition, revised by F. C. Phillips, London, 1958.
Theophrastus, On Stones, Introduction, Greek Text, English Translation and Commentary, by E. R. Caley and J. F. C. Richards, Columbus, Ohio, 1956.
L. Urlichs, Chrestomathia Pliniana, Berlin, 1857. (This includes the text with notes of N.H. XXXVI. 9-43, 64-125.)
E.H. Warmington, The Commerce between the Roman Empire and India, Cambridge, 1928.
Max Wellmann, Die Stein- und Gemmenbucher der' Antike,' Quellen and Stndien zur Geschichte der Natarmissenschaften und der Medizin, iv, part 4 (1935), pp. 86 ff.

THE MANUSCRIPTS OF BOOKS XXXVI-XXXVII (CHIEFLY FROM MAYHOFF)

'OLDER' MANUSCRIPT

B codex Bambergensis, 10th century, ends at XXXVII. 205 (the end of the work).

LATER MANUSCRIPTS

1st family

V     codex Leidensis Vossianus, 11th century or earlier, ends at XXXVI. 97.
F      codex Leidensis (Lipsii), 11th century, ends at XXXVII. 199.
R      codex Floreutinus Riccardianus, about A.D. 1100, ends at XXXVI. 157.
d      codex Parisinus latinus 6797, 13th century, ends at XXXVII. 199 (XXXVII having been added in a second hand).
T      codex Toktanus, 13th century, ends at XXXVI. 204.
h       codex Parisinus 6801, 15th century, ends at XXXVII.199.

2nd family

a       codex Vindobonensis CCXXXIV, 12th or 13th century, ends at XXXVII. 203.
L      codex Laurentianus pint. LXXXII. 1. 2 sive Slaglosianus, early 13th century, ends at xxxvii. 199.
man. Dal.      codex a Dalecampio in margine citains.
cod. Poll.      codex Monacensis Pollinganus, A.D. 1459, ends at XXXVII. 199.
Index.          The index of subject-matter and authors in Book I of the Historia Naiuralis.

CONTENTS OF PLINY'S NATURAL HISTORY
DIVIDED INTO THIRTY-SEVEN BOOKS

Preface:

This is in the form of a covering letter from Pliny, to accompany the gift of his treatise on Natural History to his friend Vespasian Caesar (i.e. the ruling Emperor Vespasian's son, Titus, his successor as Princeps, who had already been vested with Imperium and Tribunicia Potestas). The reference to him in §3 dates the passage: see above. The author goes on to say that this dedication places the work outside the class of books intended for the general reader, and invites serious criticism. The subject does not admit of an elevated style—the treatise is a plain record of the facts of Nature, designed for utility and not for entertainment. Its compilation has occupied the leisure left to the author by the claims of public duty. The authorities drawn upon are faithfully recorded. The matter-of-fact title, in place of some fanciful label, indicates the author's aim, and the practical object of the work is aided by the table of contents that forms Book I, enabling the reader to turn to any particular subject that he desires to look up.

Book I: Table of Contents of the remaining thirty-six Books, the contents of each Book being followed by a list of the previous writers used as authorities.
Book II (see Book I init.): Cosmology, astronomy, meteorology, geography, geology.
Book III: Southern Spain; Southern Gaul; Italy; the Western Mediterranean and Ionian and Adriatic Islands; the countries round the north of the Adriatic.
Book IV: Greece and the rest of the Balkan Peninsula; the islands of the Eastern Mediter­ranean; the Black Sea and the countries west of it; Northern Europe.
Book V: North Africa; the Eastern Mediter­ranean and Asia Minor.
Book VI: Countries from the Black Sea to India; Persia; Arabia; Ethiopia; the Nile valley.
Book VII: Treats of the human race—its biology, physiology and psychology.
Book VIII: Deals with various mammals, wild and domesticated; and among them are introduced snakes, crocodiles and lizards.
Book IX: Treats aquatic species, including Nereids, Tritons and the sea-serpent. There are considerable passages on their economic aspects—the use of fish as food, pearls, dyes obtained from fish, and on their physiology, sensory and reproductive.
Book X: Ornithology: hawks trained for fowling; birds of evil omen; domestication of birds for food; talking birds; reproduction. Appendix on other viviparous species, passing on to animals in general—their methods of reproduction, senses, nutrition, friendship and hostility between different species, sleep.
Book XI: Insects, their physiology and habits--especially bees, silk-worms, spiders. Classification of animals by varieties of bodily structure—animal and human physiology.
Book XII: Deals with trees—their various qualities.
Book XIII: Gives foreign trees and their use in supplying scent, fruit, paper and wood.
Book XIV: Discusses vine-growing and varieties of wine.
Book XV: Olives, olive-oil and fruit-trees.
Book XVI: Forest trees, their nature and varie­ties; their value for timber and other commodities. Longevity of trees. Parasitic plants.
Book XVII: Continues the subject of arboriculture from previous book.
Book XVIII: Deals with cereal agriculture.
Book XIX: With the cultivation of flax and other plants used for fabrics, and with vegetable gardening.
Book XX: Are concerned with the uses of trees, plants and flowers, especially in medicine. To understand his treatment of this subject it is necessary to examine the diseases he dealt with and the nature of the remedies he prescribed. [See introduction.]
Book XXI: ditto.
Book XXII: ditto.
Book XXIII: ditto.
Book XXIV: ditto.
Book XXV: ditto.
Book XXVI: ditto.
Book XXVII: ditto.
Book XXVIII: Treats of remedies and natural medicines.
Book XXIX: ditto.
Book XXX: ditto.
Book XXXI: ditto.
Book XXXII: ditto.
Book XXXIII: Treats of minerals.
Book XXXIV: Treats of Mining.
Book XXXV: Treats of the history of art.
Book XXXVI: Treats of gemstones and other precious stones.
Book XXXVII: ditto.

PLINY'S NATURAL HISTORY

 PREFACE IN THE FORM OF A LETTER

PLINIUS SECUNDUS TO HIS DEAR VESPASIAN, GREETING

MOST Gracious Highness (let this title, a supremely true one, be yours, while that of 'Most Eminent' grows to old age with your sire)—I have resolved to recount to you, in a somewhat presumptuous letter, The offspring of my latest travail, my volumes of Natural History (a novel task for the native Muses of your Roman citizens)—For 'twas e'er your way, To deem my trifles something worth—to give a passing touch of polish to my "opposite number"—you recognize even this service slang—Catullus (for he, as you know, by interchanging the first syllables made himself a trifle harsher than he wished to be considered by his `darling Veraniuses and Fabulluses') and at the same time that my present sauciness may effect what in the case of another impudent letter of mine lately you complained of as not coming off—that it may result in something getting done, and everyone may know on what equal terms the empire lives with you—you with a triumph to your name and censorial rank, six times consul, colleague in tribune's authority, and (a service that you have made more illustrious than these in rendering it equally to your father and to the equestrian order) commander of his bodyguard; and all this in your public life—and then what a good comrade to us in the companionship of the camp! Nor has fortune's grandeur made any change in you save in enabling you to bestow all the benefit you desire. Consequently as all those methods of paying you reverence are open to everybody else, to me is left only the presumption of treating you with more intimate respect. For that presumption therefore you will debit the responsibility to yourself, and will grant yourself pardon on the score of my offence. I have tried to put on a bold face, and yet have not succeeded, as your grandeur meets me by another route and the rods of office that your genius bears make me move on yet further: in no other person ever radiate more genuinely the dictatorial power of oratory and the tribunician authority of wit! How eloquently you thunder forth your father's praises and your brother's fame! How great you are in the poet's art! O mighty fertility of genius—you have contrived a way to imitate your brother also.

But who could judge the value of these compositions with confidence when about to submit to the verdict of your talent, especially when that verdict has been invited? for formal dedication of the work to you puts one in a different position from mere publication. In the latter case I could have said: 'Why does your Highness read that? It was written for the common herd, the mob of farmers and of artisans, and after them for students who have nothing else to occupy their time: why do you put yourself on the jury? You were not on this panel when I took the contract for this undertaking: I knew you to be too great for me to think you likely to descend to this! Moreover even in the court of learning there is an official procedure for challenging the jury: it is employed even by Marcus Cicero, who where genius is in question stands outside all hazard... It may surprise us, but Cicero calls in the aid of council—nor yet for the very learned; Manius Persius I don't want to read this, I want Junius Congus.

But if Lucilius, the originator of critical sniffing, thought fit to say this, and Cicero to quote it, especially when writing his Theory of the Constitution, how much more reason have we to stand on the defensive against a particular juryman? But for my part at the present I have deprived myself of these defences by my nomination, as it matters a great deal whether one obtains a judge by lot or by one's own selection, and one's style of entertainment ranks quite differently with a guest one has invited and one who has offered himself. The candidates in a hotly contested election deposited sums of money with Cato, that resolute foe of corruption, who enjoyed a defeat at the polls as an honour obtained free of charge; and they gave out that they did this in the defence of the highest among human possessions, their innocence. This was the occasion of that famous sigh of Cicero—'O happy Marcus Porcius whom no one dares to ask for something underhand!' Lucius Scipio Asiaticus by appealing to the tribunes, one of them being Gracchus, testified that his case could be made good even to an unfriendly judge: in fact a judge whom one chooses oneself one makes the supreme arbiter of one's case—this is the source of the term 'appeal.' You yourself indeed, I know, being placed on the loftiest pinnacle of all mankind, and being endowed with supreme eloquence and learning, are approached with reverential awe even by persons paying a visit of ceremony, and consequently care is taken that what is dedicated to you may be worthy of you. However, country folk, and many natives, not having incense, make offerings of milk and salted meal, and no man was ever charged with irregularity for worshipping the gods in whatever manner was within his power.

My own presumption has indeed gone further, in dedicating to you the present volumes—a work of a lighter nature, as it does not admit of talent, of which in any case I possessed only quite a moderate amount, nor does it allow of digressions, nor of speeches or dialogues, nor marvellous accidents or unusual occurrences—matters interesting to relate or entertaining to read. My subject is a barren one—the world of nature, or in other words life; and that subject in its least elevated department, and employing either rustic terms or foreign, nay barbarian, words that actually have to be introduced with an apology. Moreover, the path is not a beaten highway of authorship, nor one in which the mind is eager to range: there is not one person to be found among us who has made the same venture, nor yet one among the Greeks who has tackled single-handed all departments of the subject. A large part of us seek agreeable fields of study, while topics of immeasurable abstruseness treated by others are drowned in the shadowy darkness of the theme. Deserving of treatment before all things are the subjects included by the Greeks under the name of 'Encyclic Culture'; and nevertheless they are unknown, or have been obscured by subtleties, whereas other subjects have been published so widely that they have become stale. It is a difficult task to give novelty to what is old, authority to what is new, brilliance to the common-place, light to the obscure, attraction to the stale, credibility to the doubtful, but nature to all things and all her properties to nature. Accordingly, even if we have not succeeded, it is honourable and glorious in the fullest measure to have resolved on the attempt.

For my own part I am of opinion that a special in learning belongs to those who have preferred service of overcoming difficulties to the of giving pleasure; and I have myself done this in other works also, and I declare that I admire the famous writer Livy when he begins a volume of his History of Rome from the Foundation the City with the words 'I have already achieved enough of fame, and I might have retired to leisure, did not my restless mind find its sustenance in work.' For assuredly he ought to have composed his history for the glory of the world-conquering nation and of the Roman name, not for his own; it would have been a greater merit to have persevered from love of the work, not for the sake of his own peace of mind, and to have rendered this service to the Roman nation and not to himself. As Domitus Piso says, it is not books but storehouses that are needed; consequently by perusing about 2000 volumes, very few of which, owing to the abstruseness of their contents, are ever handled by students, we have collected in 36 volumes 20,000 noteworthy facts obtained from one hundred authors that we have explored, with a great number of other facts in addition that were either ignored by our predecessors or have been discovered by subsequent experience. Nor do we doubt that there are many things that have escaped us also; for we are but human, and beset with duties, and we pursue this sort of interest in our spare moments, that is at night—lest any of your house should think that the night hours have been given to idleness. The days we devote to you, and we keep our account with sleep in terms of health, content even with this reward alone, that, while we are dallying (in Varro's phrase) with these trifles, we are adding hours to our life—since of a certainty to be alive means to be awake. Because of these reasons and these difficulties I dare make no promise; the very words I am writing to you are supplied by yourself. This guarantees my work, and this rates its value; many objects are deemed extremely precious just because of the fact that they are votive offerings.

As for your sire, your brother and yourself, we have dealt with you all in a regular book, the History of our own Times, that begins where Aufidius's history leaves off. Where is this work? you will enquire. The draft has long been finished and in safe keeping; and in any case it was my resolve to entrust it to my heir, to prevent its being thought that my lifetime bestowed anything on ambition: accordingly I do a good turn to those who seize the vacant position, and indeed also to future generations, who I know will challenge us to battle as we ourselves have challenged our predecessors. You will deem it a proof of this pride of mine that I have prefaced these volumes with the names of my authorities. I have done so because it is, in my opinion, a pleasant thing and one that shows an honourable modesty, to own up to those who were the means of one's achievements, not to do as most of the authors to whom I have referred did. For you must know that when collating authorities I have found that the most professedly reliable and modern writers have copied the old authors word for word, without acknowledgement, not in that valorous spirit of Virgil, for the purpose of rivalry, nor with the candour of Cicero who in his Republic declares himself a companion of Plato, and in his Consolation to his daughter says 'I follow Crantor,' and similarly as to Panaetius in his De Officiis—volumes that you know to be worth having in one's hands every day, nay even learning by heart. Surely it marks a mean spirit and an unfortunate disposition to prefer being detected in a theft to repaying a loan—especially as interest creates capital.

There is a marvellous neatness in the titles given to books among the Greeks. One they entitled Κηρίον, meaning Honeycomb; others called their Kέρας 'Αμαλθείας, i.e. Horn of Plenty (so that you can hope to find a draught of hen's milk in the volume), and again Violets, Muses, Hold-alls, Hand­books, Meadow, Tablet, Impromptu—titles that might tempt a man to forfeit his bail. But when you get inside them, good heavens, what a void you will find between the covers! Our authors being more serious use the titles Antiquities, Instances and Systems, the wittiest, Talks by Lamplight, I suppose because the author was a toper—indeed Tippler was his name. Varro makes a rather smaller claim in his Satires A Ulysses-and-a-half and Folding-tablet. Diodorus among the Greeks stopped playing with words and gave his history the title of Library. Indeed the philologist Apion (the person whom Tiberius Caesar used to call 'the world's cymbal,' though he might rather have been thought to be a drum, advertising his own renown) wrote that persons to whom he dedicated his compositions received from him the gift of immortality. For myself, I am not ashamed of not having invented any livelier title. And so as not to seem a downright adversary of the Greeks, I should like to be accepted on the lines of those founders of painting and sculpture who, as you will find in these volumes, used to inscribe their finished works, even the masterpieces which we can never be tired of admiring, with a provisional title such as Worked on by Apelles or Polyclitus, as though art was always a thing in process and not completed, so that when faced by the vagaries of criticism the artist might have left him a line of retreat to indulgence, by implying that he intended, if not interrupted, to correct any defect noted. Hence it is exceedingly modest of them to have inscribed all their works in a manner suggesting that they were their latest, and as though they had been snatched away from each of them by fate. Not more than three, I fancy, are recorded as having an inscription denoting completion—Made by so-and-so (these I will bring in at their proper places); this made the artist appear to have assumed a supreme confidence in his art, and consequently all these works were very unpopular.

For my own part I frankly confess that my works would admit of a great deal of amplification, and not only those now in question but also all my publications, so that in passing I may insure myself against your 'Scourges of Homer' (that would be the more correct term), as I am informed that both the Stoics and the Academy, and also the Epicureans,—as for the philologists, I always expected it from them—are in travail with a reply to my publications on Philology, and for the last ten years have been having a series of miscarriages—for not even elephants take so long to bring their offspring to birth! But as if I didn't know that Theophrastus, a mortal whose eminence as an orator won him the title of 'the divine,' actually had a book written against him by a woman—which was the origin of the proverb about 'choosing your tree to hang from'! I am unable to refrain from quoting the actual words of Cato the Censor applying to this, to show that even the treatise on military discipline of Cato, who had learnt his soldiering under Africanus, or rather under him and Hannibal as well, and had been unable to endure even Africanus, who when commander-in-chief had won a triumph, found critics ready for it of the sort that try to get glory for themselves by running down another man's knowledge. 'What then?' he says in the book in question, 'I myself know that if certain writings are published there will be plenty of people to quibble and quarrel, but mostly people quite devoid of true distinction. For my part I have let these persons' eloquence run its course.' Plancus also put it neatly, when told that Asinius Pollio was composing declamations against him, to be published by himself or his children after Plancus's death, so that he might be unable to reply: 'Only phantoms fight with the dead!' This remark dealt those declamations such a nasty blow that in cultivated circles they are thought the most shameless things extant. Accordingly, being safeguarded even against quibble-quarrellers (Cato's nickname for them—a neat compound word, for what else do these people do but quarrel or seek a quarrel?) we will follow out the remainder of our intended plan. As it was my duty in the public interest to have consideration for the claims upon your time, I have appended to this letter a table of contents of the several books, and have taken very careful precautions to prevent your having to read them. You by these means will secure for others that they will not need to read right through them either, but only look for the particular point that each of them wants, and will know where to find it. This plan has been adopted previously in Roman literature, by Valerius Soranus in his books entitled Lady Initiates.

BOOK I

TABLE OF CONTENTS AND AUTHORITIES

Book II. Contents (i-iii) The world—is it finite? is it one? its shape; its motion; reason for its name. (iv) The elements. (v) God. (vi) The planets—their nature. (vii) Eclipses, solar and  lunar. Night. (viii-x) The stars—their magnitude; astronomical discoveries. (xi) The moon's motion.(xii-xvi). Motions of the planets; theory of their light; causes of apparent recession and approach; general properties of planets; reason for changes of colour. (xvii) The sun's motion; reason for inequality of days. (xviii) Thunderbolts, why attri­buted to Jove. (xix) The stars—their distances apart. (xx) Music from the stars. (xxi) Dimensions of the world. (xxii, xxiii) Shooting stars. Comets; their nature, position and kinds. (xxiv) Identification of stars--method of Hipparchus. (xxv-xxxv) Sky portents—recorded instances torches, shafts, sky­beams, sky-yawning, colours of the sky, sky-flame, sky-wreaths, sudden rings, prolonged solar eclipses, several suns, several moons, daylight at night, burning shield; an unique sky-portent. (xxxvi) Disruption of stars. (xxxvii) The `Castores.' (xxxviii) The air. (xxxix-xli). Fixed seasons. Rise of dog­star. Regular effect of seasons. (xlii, iii) Irregular seasons. Rain storms. Showers of stones, their reason. Thunderbolts and lightnings. (xliv-viii) Echo—its reason. Winds—their Winds, natures and behaviour. (xlix, i). Cloud-burst, typhoon, whirl­winds, presteres, tornadoes, other portentous kinds of storms. (li-vi) Thunderbolts—what countries im­mune from them and why; their kinds, their pecu­liarities; Tuscan and Roman observances connected with; method of calling down; general properties; what objects never struck. (lvii) Showers of milk, blood, flesh, iron, wool, bricks. (lviii) Portents.(lix) Stones falling from the sky—Anaxagoras as to. (lx) Rainbow. (lxi). Nature of hail, snow, frost, cloud, dew. (lxii) Local peculiarities of the sky. (lxiii-v) Nature of the earth; its shape; antipodes—do they exist? (lxvi-viii) Water—how linked with earth? Rivers--their reason. Is the earth surrounded by the ocean? What portion of the earth is inhabited? (lxix). The earth at the centre of the world. (lxx) Obliquity of zones. Inequality of climates. (lxxii) Eclipses—where invisible, and why? (lxxiii) Reason for daylight on earth; gnomonics of daylight. (xxv-vii). Absence of shadows—where and when? where twice yearly? where shadows travel in opposite direction? Where days are longest and shortest? (lxxviii) The first clock. (lxxix) How days are observed. (lxxx) Racial difference and latitude. (lxxxi-vi) Earthquakes. Chasms. Signs of impending earthquake. Precautions against impending earthquakes. Records of unique earth portents. Marvels of earthquake. (lxxxvii-xciv) treat of sea, where occurred? Emergence of islands reason for; instances and dates of. Dis­ruption of straits. Junction of islands with main­land. Total inundation. Shrinkage of land areas. Cities engulfed by sea. (xcv) Air-holes. (xcvi) Continuous earth-tremors. Islands in constant agitation. (xcvii) Places where rain does not fall. (xcviii) Collection of earth marvels. (xcix f.) Rise and fall of tides—reason for. Where do irregular tides occur? (ci-cv) Marvels of the sea: influence of the moon on earth and sea; of the sun; why is the sea salt? where is it deepest? (cvi) Remarkable properties of springs and rivers. (cvii-cx) Combined marvels of fire and water: mineral pitch; naphtha; regions constantly glowing. (cxi) Marvels of fire alone. (cxii) Dimensions of entire earth. (cxiii) Harmonic principle of the world.—Total: 417 facts, investigations and observations.

Authorities: Marcus Varro, Sulpicius Gallus, the Emperor Titus Caesar, Quintus Tubero, Tullius Tiro, Lucius Piso, Titus Livy, Cornelius Nepos, Sebosus, Caelius Antipater, Fabianus, Antias, Mucianus, Caecina On the Tuscan System, Tarquitius ditto, Julius Aquila ditto, Sergius Paullus. Foreign authorities; the Pythagorean writers, Hipparchus, Timaeus, Sosigenes, Petosiris, Nechepsus, Posidonius, Anaximander, Epigenes, Eudoxus, Democritus, Critodemus, Thrasyllus, Serapion On Sun-dials, Euclid, Coeranus the philosopher, Dicaearchus, Archimedes, Onesicritus, Eratosthenes, Pytheas, Herodotus, Aristotle, Ctesias, Artemidorus of Ephesus, Isidore of Charax, Theopompus.

Book III. Contents: sites, races, seas, towns, harbours, mountains, rivers, dimensions, present and past populations of (iii) Baetica, (iv) North-east Spain, (v) Province of Narbonne, (vi-x) Italy to the southernmost point, (ix the Tiber, Rome), (xi-xiv) 64 islands (including the Balearics, Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily), (xv-xxii) Italy from the south to Ravenna (the Po), Transpadane Italy, (xxiii) Istria, (xxiv) the Alps and Alpine races, (xxv-xxx) Illyria, Liburnia, Dalmatia, Noricum, Pannouia, Moesia, Ionian and Adriatic islands.—Totals: ... famous rivers; famous mountains; ... islands; ... extinct towns or races; ... facts, researches and observations.

Authorities: Turanius Gracilis, Cornelius Nepos, Livy, Cato the Censor, Marcus Agrippa, Marcus Varro, His Late Majesty Augustus, Varro of Atax, Antias, Hyginus, Lucius Vetus, Pomponius Mela, the elder Curio, Caelius, Arruntius, Sebosus, Licinius Mucianus, Fabricius Tuscus, Lucius Ateius, Ateius Capito, Verrius Flaccus, Lucius Piso, Gellianus, Valerian. Foreign authorities: Artemidorus, Alexander the Learned, Thucydides, Theophrastus, Isidorus, Theopompus, Metrodorus of Scepsis, Callicrates, Xenophon of Lampsacns, Diodorus of Syracuse, Nymphodorus, Calliphanes, Timagenes.

Book IV. Contents: sites, races, seas, towns, harbours, mountains, rivers, dimensions, present and past populations of (i-iv) Epirus, (v-x) Achaia, (xi-xiii) Greece, (xiv-xviii) Thessaly, Magnesia, Macedonia, Thrace, (xix-xxiii) islands off these coasts, including Crete, Euboea, the Cyclades, the Sporades, (xxiv) Dardanelles, Black Sea, Sea of Azoy, (xxv. f.) Dacia, Sarmatia, Seythia, (xxvii) Islands of black Sea, (xxviii f.) Germany, (xxx) North Sea Islands, 96 including Britain, (xxxi-xxxiii) Belgium, Lyonnaise, Aquitaine, (xxxiv) North-eastern Spain, (xxxv) Western Spain and Portugal. (xxxvi) Atlantic islands. (xxxvii) Dimensions of the whole of Europe.—Totals ... towns and races; ... famous rivers; ... famous mountains; ... islands; extinct towns or races; ... facts, investigations and observations.

Authorities: Cato the Censor, Marcus Varro, Marcus Agrippa, His Late Majesty Augustus, Varro of Atax, Cornelius Nepos, Hyginus, Lucius Vetus, Pomponius Mela, Licinius Mucianus, Fabricius Tuscus, Ateius Capito, Ateius the scholar. Foreign authorities: Polybius, Hecataeus, Hellanicus, Damastes, Eudoxus, Dicaearchus, Timosthenes, Eratosthenes, Ephorus, Crates the philologist, Serapion of Antioch, Callimachus, Artemidorus, Apollodorus, Agathocles, Timaeus of Sicily, Myrsilus, Alexander the Learned, Thucydides, Dosiades, Anaximander, Philistides of Mallus, Dionysius, Aristides, Callidemus, Menaechmus, Aglaosthenes, Anticides, Heraclides, Philemon, Xenophon, Pytheas, Isidore, Philonides, Xenagoras, Astynomos, Staphylus, Aristocritus, Metrodorus, Cleobulus, Posidonius.

Book V. Contents:—sites, races, seas, towns, harbours, mountains, rivers, dimensions, present and past populations of (i-viii) the Mauritanias, Numidia, Africa, the Syrtes, Cyrenaiea, African islands, remote parts of Africa, (ix-xi) Egypt—Chora, Thebaid, Nile, (xii) Arabian coast of Egyptian Sea, (xiii-xix) Idumea, Syria, Palestine, Samaria, Judaca, Phoenicia, Hollow Syria, Syria of Antioch, (xx-xxxiii) Euphrates, Cilicia and adjoining races, Isaurica, Omauadés, Pisidia, Lycaonia, Pamphylia, Taurus Mountain, Lycià, Caria, Ionia, Aeolid, Troad and adjoining races, (xxxiv-ix) Islands on Asiatic coast (212) including Cyprus, Rhodes, Cos, Samos, Chios, Lesbos, (xl-xliii) Dardanelles, Mysia, Phrygia, Galatia and adjoining races, Bithynia.—Totals: ... towns and races; ... famous dyers; ... famous mountains; 118 islands; ... extinct towns and races; facts, investigations and observations.

Authorities: Agrippa, Suetonius Paulinus, Marcus Varro, Varro of Atax, Cornelius Nepos, Hyginus, Lucius Vetus, Mela, Domitius Corbulo, Licinins Mucianus, Claudius Caesar, Arruntius, Livy junior, Sebosus, Triumphs—Official records. Foreign authorities: King Juba, Hecataeus, Hellanicus, Damastes, Dicaearchus, Baeto, Timosthenes, Philonides, Xenagoras, Astynomus, Staphylus, Dionysius, Aristotle, Aristocritus, Ephorus, Eratosthenes, Hipparchus, Panaetius, Serapio of Antioch, Callimachus, Agathocles, Polybius, Timaeus the mathematician, Herodotus, Myrsilus, Alexander the Learned, Metrodorus, Posidonius's Circumnavigation or Round Guide, Sotades, Pindar, Aristarchus of Sicyon, Eudoxus, Antigenes, Callicrates, Xenophon of Lampsacus, Diodorus of Syracuse, Hanno, Himilco, Nymphodorus, Calliphanes, Artemidorus, Megasthenes, Isidore, Cleobulus, Aristocreon.

Book VI. Contents:—sites, races, seas, towns, harbours, mountains, rivers, dimensions, present and past populations of (i) Pontus, Mariandyni, (ii) Paphlagonia, (iii, viii) Cappadocia, (iv) region of Themiscyra and its races, Heniochi, (v) Colic region and races, Achaean races, other races in the same area, (vi-xii) Cimmerian Bosphorus, Maeotis and adjacent races, Lesser Armenia, Greater Armenia, River Cyrus, River Araxes, Albania, Iberia and adjoining Gates of Caucasia, (xiii) Black Sea Islands, (xiv) races towards the Scythian Ocean, (xv-xix) Caspian and Hyrcanian Sea, Adiabene, Media, Caspian Gates, races round Hyrcanian Sea, Scythian races, (xx-xxxvi) regions towards the Eastern Sea, China, India (Ganges, Indus), Taprobane, Arians and adjoining races, voyages to India, Carmania, Persian Gulf, Parthian kingdoms, Mesopotamia, Tigris, Arabia, Gulf of Red Sea, Trogodyte country, Ethiopia, Islands of Ethiopian Sea. (xxxvii) The Fortunate Islands. (xxxviii f.) Lands compared by measure­ments, division of lands into parallels and equal shadows.—Totals: 1195 towns; 576 races, 115 famous rivers, 38 famous mountains, 108 islands, 95 extinct towns and races; 2214 facts and investigations and observations.

Authorities: Marcus Agrippa, Marcus Varro, Varro of Atax, Cornelius Nepos, Hyginus, Lucius Vetus, Pomponius Mela, Domitius Corbulo, Licinius Mucianus, Claudius Caesar, Arruntius, Sebosus, Fabricius Tuscus, Titus Livy junior, Seneca, Nigidius. Foreign authorities: King Juba, Hecataeus, Hellanicus, Damastes, Eudoxus, Dicaearchus, Baeto, Timosthenes, Patrocles, Demodamas, Clitarchus, Eratosthenes, Alexander the Great, Ephorus, Hipparchus, Panaetius, Callimachus, Artemidorus, Apollodorus, Agathocles, Polybius, Timaeus of Sicily, Alexander the Learned, Isidore, Amometus, Metrodorus, Posidonius, Onesicritus, Nearchus, Megasthenes, Diognetus, Aristocreon, Bion, Dalion, the younger Simonides, Basilis, Xenophon of Lampsacus.

Book VII. Contents: (ii f.) Remarkable racial bodily configurations; monstrous births. (iv-xi) Human generation: periods of pregnancy from 7 months to 13 shown by famous examples; significant prenatal indications of sex in the pregnant; monstrous births, cases of surgical delivery; meaning of vopiscus; human conception; human generation; cases of likeness; cases of very numerous progeny. (xii) Age-limit of procreation. (xiii) Exceptional periods of pregnancy. (xiv) Theory of generation. (xv) Investigation as to teeth; as to infants. (xvi f.) Instances of exceptional size. Premature births. (xviii-xxiii) Bodily distinctions, exceptional strength, remarkable speed, exceptional sight, marvellous hearing, bodily endurance. (xxiv-xxvi) Memory, mental rigour, clemency, magnanimity. (xxvii) Supremely distinguished exploits. (xxviii-xxxi) Three supreme virtues in the same person, supreme innocence, supreme bravery, exceptional talents. Who are the wisest men? (xxxii) The most useful rules of conduct. (xxxiii) Divination. (xxxiv-vi). The man deemed the best, the most chaste matrons; instances of extreme piety. (xxxvii-ix) Cases of eminence in the sciences and arts, astronomy, philology, medicine, geometry, architecture, painting, sculpture in bronze, in marble, in ivory; engraving. (xl-xlvi) Remarkable prizes of mankind; supreme happiness; rarity of its continuance in families; remarkable cases of change of fortune; twice proscribed; remarkable cases of honours; ten supremely happy things in the case of a single person; misfortunes of his late Majesty Augustus. (xlvii f.) Whom the gods have judged happiest; what man they have commanded to be worshipped as a god in his lifetime. A remarkable flash of lightning. (xlix) Cases of exceptional longevity. (l) Various modes of birth. (ii) Diseases in various cases. (lii-lvi) Death; cases of the dead coming to life again; instances of sudden death; burial; ghosts; the soul. (lvii-lx) Discoveries in life; matters on which there was the earliest agreement of the races; ancient literature; date of earliest barbers, earliest time-pieces.—Total: 747 facts, investigations and observations.

Authorities: Verrius Flaccus, Gnaeus Gellius, Licinius Mucianus, Masurins Sabinus, Agrippina wife of Claudius, Marcus Cicero, Asinius Pollio, Marcus Varro, Messala Rufus, Cornelius Nepos, Virgil, Livy, Cordus, Melissus, Sebosus, Cornelius Celsus, Valerius Maximus, Trogus, Nigidius Figulus, Pomponius Atticus, Pedianus Asconius, Fabianus, Cato the Censor, Official Records, Fabius Vestalis. Foreign authorities: Herodotus, Aristeas, Baeton, Isigonus, Crates, Agatharchides, Calliphanes, Aristotle, Nymphodorus, Apollonides, Phylarchus, Damon, Megasthenes, Ctesias, Tauron, Eudoxus, Onesicritus, Clitarchus, Duris, Artemidorus, the medical authors Hippocrates and Asclepiades, Hesiod, Anacreon, Theopompus, Hellanicus, Damastes, Ephorus, Epigenes, Berosus, Petosiris, Nechepsus, Alexander the Learned, Xenophon, Callimachus, Democritus, the historian Diyllus, Strato's Reply to Ephorus's 'Heuremata,' Heraclides of Pontus, the Tragoedumena of Asclepiades, Phulostephanus, Hegesias, Arche­machus, Thucydides, Mnesigiton, Xenagoras, Metrodorus of Scepsis, Anticides, Critodemus.

Book VIII. Contents: (i-xi) Elephants, their sense; when first harnessed; their docility; remarkable achievements of; instinctive sense of dangers in wild animals; elephants, when first seen in Italy; fights between elephants; modes of capture; modes of domestication; their propagation, and general physiology; native habitat; hostility between elephants and great snakes. (xii) Intelligence of animals. (xiii) Great snakes. (xiv) Serpents of remarkable size. (xv f.) Animals of Scythia; of the north; bisons, bears, the elk, the achlisf the varieties, their characteristics; with lions in the circus at Lions—their mode of with the largest number first harnessed lions to a among the exploits of lions. (xxii) Man recognised and rescued by a great snake. (xxiii f.) Panthers, resolution of senate and laws as to African; who first showed African panthers at Rome, and when? who showed the largest number? (xxv) Tigers; when was a tiger first seen at Rome? nature of tigers; tiger-cubs. (xxvi-xxx) Camels; their kinds. The giraffe; when first seen at Rome. The spotted lynx. The cephi. The rhinoceros. The lynx and the sphynxes. The crocottae [hyena?]. The long-tailed monkeys. (xxxi-iv) Land animals of India; ditto of Ethiopia; a creature the sight of which brings death; basilisk­snakes; wolves; source of the fabulous werewolf. (xzxv-xl) Snakes, species of; the ichneumon; the crocodile; the African lizard; the hippopotamus: who first showed this animal, and the crocodile at Rome. (xli-iii). Drugs obtained from animals; warnings of dangers from animals; races destroyed by animals. (xliv f.) Hyenas; corocottae; mantichorae. (xlvi) Wild asses. (xlvii-ix) Amphibious species: beavers, otters, the sea-calf, geckoes. (1) Stags. (ii f.) Chameleon; other species that change colour--reindeer, lycaon, jackal (liii) The porcupine, (liv) Bears; their reproduction. (lv-viii) Mice, Black Sea and Alpine; hedgehogs, lion-killer, lynxes, badgers, squirrels. (lix f.) Snails; lizards. (lx-lxiii). Dogs, nature of; instances of relation to masters; nations that have kept dogs of war; dog-breeding; cures for rabies. (lxiv-vii) Nature of horses—equine psychology; remarkable four-in-hands; horse-breeding; cases of conception by wind. (lxviii) Asses; breeding in their case. (lxix) Nature of mules and other draft-animals. (lxx f.) Oxen, breeding of. Apis in Egypt. (lxxii-v) Nature of sheep—their breeding; kinds of wool and of colours; kinds of cloth. (lxxvi f.) Goats, their nature and breeding; swine, ditto. (lxxviii f.) Wild pigs. Who originated menageries? (lxxx-ii) Apes. Hares, their kinds. Half-wild animals. (lxxxiii) What animals do not occur in what places? which in what places harm only strangers? which in what places only natives?—Total: 787 facts, investigations and observations.

Authorities: Mucianus, Procilius, Verrius Flaccus, Lucius Piso, Cornelius Valerianus, Cato the ex-Censor, Fenestella, Trogus, Official Records, Columella, Virgil, Varro, Lucilius, Metellus Scipio, Cornelius Celsus, Nigidius, Trebius Niger, Pomponius Mela, Mamilius Sura. Foreign authorities: King Juba, Polybius, Herodotus, Antipater, Aristotle, Demetrius's Natural History, Democritus, Theophrastus, Euanthes, Scopas's Olympic Victors, King Hiero, King Attalus, King Philometor, Ctesias, Doris, Philisto, Archytas, Phylarchus, Amphilochus of Athens, Anaxipolis of Thasos, Apollodorus of Lemnos, Aristophanes of Miletus, Antigonus of Cumae, Agathocles of Chios, Apollonius of Pergamum, Aristander of Athens, Bacchius of Miletus, Bio of Soil, Chaeareas of Athens, Diodorus of Priene, Dio of Colophon, Epigenes of Rhodes, Euagon of Thasos, Euphronius of Athens, Hegesias of Maronea, Menander of Priene and Menander of Heraclea, the poet Menecrates, Andro­tion On Agriculture, Aeschrion ditto, Lysinachus ditto, Dionysius's translation of Mago, Diophanes's summary of Dionysius, King Archelaus, Nicander.

Book IX. Subject—the nature of aquatic animals. (i) Extreme size of marine animals, reason for. (ii) Monsters of the Indian Sea. (iii) Which are the largest in each Ocean? (iv) Tritons and Nereids, shapes of. Sea elephants, shapes of. (v) Whales, grampuses. (vi) Do fishes breathe? do they sleep? (vii-x) Dolphins, persons loved by; places where they fish in partnership with men; other curious facts as to. (xi) Porpoises. (xii f.) Tortoises—kinds of water-tortoise; mode of capture; who invented cutting tortoise-shells (xiv) Aquatic animals arranged by species. (xv) Sea-calves or seals—which species are hairless? mode of reproduction. (xvi) How many kinds of fish? (xvii-xix). The largest fishes; tunny-fry, young tunny, full-grown tunny; tunny divided and pickled, salted tunny slices, chopped tunny; amia-tunny, mackerel-tunny. (xx) Fishes in the Black Sea—which species not found in it, which enter in from elsewhere, which leave it. (xxi) Why fishes leap out of the water. The sword-fish. (xxii) Augury from fishes a fact. (xxiii-v) Species of that have no males; that have a stone in the head; that hibernate in winter; that are only caught on certain days in winter; that hide in summer; that are liable to planet-stroke. (xxvi-xxx) Mullet, sturgeon, pike, cod, wrasse, lamprey; varieties of mullet; the sargus. (xxxi f.) Remarkable prices for fish. Different kinds popular in different places. (xxxiii) Gills in various species; scales ditto. (xxxiv f.) Fish with voice, fish without gills; fish that go ashore. Seasons for catching fish. (xxxvi) Classification of fish by shape. Difference between turbot and sparrow-turbot. Long fishes. (xxxvii) Fins and mode of swimming. (xxxviii) Eels. (xxxix) Lampreys. (xl) Kinds of flat-fish. (xli) The remora and how it operates. (xlii) What fish change colours. (xhii) Swallow-fish. The fish that shines by night. The homed fish. The weever. (xliv) The bloodless fishes. The so-called soft fishes. (xlv) The sepia­ fish. The cuttle-fish. The small scallops, flying fish. (xlvi-ix) The polyps, including the sailing polyp. The sailor-fish. (l-lii) Shell-fish: lobster, varieties of crab, the sea-pen's guard, sea-urchins, snails, scallops. Varieties of shell. (liii) Quantity of delicacies supplied by the sea. (liv-lix) Pearls—how do they grow and where, how found; varieties of large pearl—their remarkable features, their nature, instances of their occurrence, when first used at Rome. (lx-lxv) Nature of varieties of purple—the purple-fish; kinds of purple-fish; how used to supply dye for woollens; date of use of purple at Borne, date of purple stripe and purple-bordered robe; purple dyed dresses; dying amethyst; Tyrian, vegetable-scarlet, kermes-scarlet. (lxvi) The sea-pen sea-pen's guard. (lxvii) Perception of aquatic animals: the electric ray, stingray, scolopendrae, shad, ramming-fish. (lxviii f.) Species intermediate between animal and vegetable: sea-nettles; sponges, their kinds and habitat; sponges, living creatures. (lxx) Sea-bitches. (lxxi) Flint-shell fish; marine animals without senses; other low species. (lxxii) Venomous marine animals. (lxxiii) Diseases of fishes. (lxxiv-vii) Their reproduction curious, reproductive methods; species both oviparous and viviparous; delivery by rupture of the stomach, afterwards closing up; species possessing matrix; self-fertilizing species. (lxxviii) Longest life of fish. (lxxix-lxxxi) First inventor of fish-ponds; oysters; who invented lamprey-ponds. Notable fish-ponds; who first in­vented snail-ponds. (lxxxiii) Land fishes. (lxxxiv) Mouse-fish in the Nile. (lxxxv) Flower-fish, mode of catching. (lxxxvi) Starfish. (lxxxvii) Remarkable species of finger-fish. (lxxxviii) Instances of hostility and friendship between aquatic animals.—Total: 650 facts, investigations and observations.

Authorities: Turranins Gracilis, Trogus, Maecenas, Alfius Flavus, Cornelius Nepos, the Mimes of Laberius, Fabianus, Fenestella, Mucianus, Aelius Stilo, Sebosus, Melissus, Seneca, Cicero, Aemilius Macer, Corvinus Messala, Trebius Niger, Nigidius. Foreign authorities: Aristotle, King Archelaus, Callimachus, Democritus, Theophrastus, Thrasyllus, Hegesidemus, Sudines, Alexander the Learned.

Book X. Subject—the nature of birds. (i f.) The ostrich, the phoenix. (iii-vi) Eagles, their species; their nature; when adopted as regimental badges; self-immolation of eagle on maiden's funeral pyre. (vii) The vulture. (viii) Lámmergeier, sea-eagle (1) (ix-xi) Hawks: the buzzard; use of hawks by fowlers where practised; the only bird that is killed by its own kind; what bird produces one egg at a time. (xii) Kites. (xiii) Classification of birds by species. (xiv-xvi) Birds of ill-omen; in what months crows are not a bad omen; ravens; the horned owl. (xvii) Extinct birds; birds no longer known. (xviii) Birds hatched tail first. (xix) Night-owls. (xx) Mars's woodpecker. (xxi) Birds with hooked talons. (xxii-v) Birds with toes: peacocks; who first killed the peacock for food; who invented fattening peacocks; poultry—mode of castrating; a talking cock. (xxvi-xxxii) The goose who first introduced goose-liver (foie gras); Commagene goose; fox-goose, love-goose, heath-cock, bustard; cranes; storks; rest of reflexed-claw genus; swans. (xxxiii-v) Foreign  migrant birds: quails, tongue-birds, ortolan, horned owl; native migrant birds and their destinations—swallows, thrushes, blackbirds, starlings; birds that moult in retirement: turtle-dove, ring-dove. (xxxvi) Non-migrant birds: half-yearly and quarter-yearly visitors: wit.walls, hoopoes. (xxxvii-xl) Mernnon's hens, Meleager's sisters (guinea-hens), Seleucid hens, ibis. (xli) Where particular species not known. (xlii-v) Species that change colour and voice: the divination-bird class; nightingale, black-cap, robin, red-start, chat, golden oriole. (xlvi) The breeding season. (xlvii) Kingfishers: sign of fine weather for sailing. (xlviii) Remainder of aquatic class. (xlix-li) Craftsmanship of birds in nest-making; remarkable structures of swallows; sand-martins; thistle-finch; bee-eater; partridges. (lii f.) Pigeons—remarkable structures of, and prices paid for; (liv f.) Varieties of birds' flight and walk; footless martins or swifts. (lvi) Food of birds. Goat-suckers, spoon-bill. (lvii) Intelligence of birds; gold-finch, bull-bittern, yellow wagtail. (lviii-lxl) Talking birds: parrots, acorn-pies; riot at Rome caused by talking crow. (lxi) Diomede's birds. (lxii) What animals learn nothing. (lxiii) Birds, mode of drinking; the sultana hen. (lxiv) The long-legs. (lxv f.) Food of birds. Pelicans. (lxvii f.) Foreign birds: coots, pheasants, Numidian fowl, flamingos, heath-cock, bald crow or cormorant, Ted-beaked or Alpine crow, bare-footed crow or ptarmigan. (lxix) New species: small cranes. (lxx) Fabulous birds. (lxxi) Who invented fattening of chickens, and which consuls first prohibited? who first invented aviaries? Aesop's stewpan. (lxxiii-lxxx) Reproduction of birds: oviparous creatures other than birds; kinds and properties of eggs; de­fective hatching and its cures; Augusta's augury from eggs; what sort of hens the best? their diseases and remedies; kinds of small heron; nature of puff-eggs, addled eggs, wind-eggs; best way of preserving eggs. (lxxxi f.) The only species of bird that is viviparous and suckles its young. Oviparous species of land animals. Reproduction of snakes. (lxxxui-vii) Reproduction of all land animals; posture of animals in the uterus; animal species whose mode of birth is still uncertain; salamanders; species not reproduced by generation; species whose generated offspring is unfertile; sexless species. (lxxxviii-xc) Senses of animals: all have sense of touch, also taste; species with exceptional sight, smell, hearing; moles; have oysters hearing? which fishes hear most clearly? which fishes have keenest sense of smell? (xci-iii) Difference of food in animals: which live on poisonous things? which on earth? which do not die of hunger of thirst? (xciv) Variety of drink. (xcv f.) Species mutually hostile; facts as to friendship and affection between animals; instances of affection between snakes. (xcvii f.) Sleep of animals; which species sleep?—Total: 794 facts, investigations and observations.

Authorities: Manilius, Cornelius Valerian, Records, Umbricius Melior, Masurius Sabinus, Antistins Labeo, Trogus, Cremutius, Marcus Varro, Aemilius Macer, Melissus, Mucianus, Nepos, Fabius Pictor, Titus Lucretius, Cornelius Celsus, Horace, Deculo, Hyginus, the Sasernae, Nigidius, Mamilius Sura. Foreign authorities: Homer, Phemonoe, Philemon, Boethus's Ornithogonia, Hylas's Auguries, Aristotle, Theophrastus, Callimachus, Aeschylus, King Hiero, King Philometor, Archytas of Tarentum, Amphilochus of Athens, Anaxipolis of Thasos, Apollodorus of Lemnos, Aristophanes of Miletus, Antigonus of Cumae, Agathocles of Chios, Apollonius of Peruamum Aristander of Athens, Bacchius of Miletus, Bion of Soli, Chaereas of Athens, Diodorus of Priene, Dion of Colophon, Democritus, Diophanes of Nicaea, Epigenes of Rhodes, Evagon of Thasos, Euphronius of Athens, Juba, Androtion On Agriculture, Aeschrio ditto, Lysimachus ditto, Dionysius's translation of Mago, Diophanes's epitome of Dionysius, Nicander, Onesicritus, Phylarchus, Hesiod.

Book XI. Subject—the kinds of insects. (i) Nature's subtlety in this department. (ii) Do insects breathe? have they blood? (iii) Their bodies. (iv-xxiii) Bees—structure of their comb; its materials, gum, pitch-wax, bee-glue, bee-bread (sandarack, serintkus); flowers from which materials derived; instances of bee-lovers; drones; nature of honey; the best honey; unique local varieties of honey; test of varieties; heather (heath, sisyrus); reproduction of bees; their system of royalty; swarming sometimes actually a good omen; kinds of bees; diseases of bees; enemies of bees; beekeeping; replenishment of stock. (xxiv) Wasps and hornets. What animals reproduce from another species? (xxv-viii) Assyrian silkworm: chrysalis, larva; inventor of silk fabric; silkworm of Cos; manufacture of Coan silk. (xxviii f.) Spiders—which varieties make webs; material used in webs; mode of reproduction. (xxx ff.) Scorpions; geckoes; grass­hoppers—their lack of mouth and vent. (xxxiii) Insects' wings. (xxxiv-vi) Beetles; glow-worms; other kinds of beetle; locusts; ants. (xxxvii-ix) Chrysalises, gadflies, butterflies; animals born from wood or in wood; animals of human refuse; which is the smallest animal? summer animals. (xl) Ventless animal. (xli-iii) Moths, beetles, gnats; snow-animal; fire-animal (pyrallis or pyrotos); mayflies. (xliv-xcviii) Nature and account of all animals arranged according to the parts of the body: species possessing caps; crested species. (xlv-li) Varieties of horn—which species can move the horns; heads, headless species; hair; bones of head; brain; ears—which species have none, which hear without ears or apertures; face, brow, eyebrow. (lii-lvii) Eyes: what animals without eyes, what with only one eye; varieties of eyes; method of sight; species that see by night; structure of pupil; species that do not close the eyes; species whose eyes after being destroyed grow again; eyelashes—species that lack, species with lashes on only one lid; species with no eyelids. (lviii-lx) Cheekbones; nostrils; cheeks, lips, chin, jaws. (lxi-iv) Teeth—kinds of; species with teeth in one jaw only; with hollow teeth; snakes' teeth, snakes' poison; which bird has teeth; remarkable facts as to teeth; age of ruminants indicated by teeth. (lxv) Tongue—tongueless species; croaking of frogs; palate. (lxvi-viii) Tonsils; uvula, epiglottis, wind­pipe, gullet, nape, neck, backbone, throat, jaws, stomach. (lxix-lxxi) Heart, blood, life; which species has largest heart, which smallest, which two hearts; when inspection of heart of victims began; (lxxii) Lungs—which species has largest, which smallest, which no internal organ besides lungs; cause of speed in animals. (lxxiii-vi) Liver—head of internal organs; its inspection by augurs; species with two livers, and their habitats; gall—what species have two, and where; what animals have none, which have gall elsewhere than in liver; its function; species whose gall grows and shrinks in size with moon; observation of these species by augurs, and marvellous portents. (lxxvii) Diaphragm; nature of laughter. (lxxviii) Stomach; species that have none; the only species that vomit. (lxxix) Smaller intestines, entrails, stomach, great gut; why some animals have voracious appetites. (lxxx-iii) Caul, spleen—species without spleen. Kidneys; habitat of species with four kidneys—with none; chest; ribs; bladder—animals without bladder; entrails; membranes. (lxxxiv-viii) Belly—the 'parts,' the womb, sows' womb, paps; what species have suet, what tallow; nature of each; what species have no fat; marrow; species that have none; bones; prickles; species that have neither hones nor prickles; cartilages; sinews; species without sinews. (lxxxix-xcii) Arteries, veins; species with neither veins nor arteries; blood; sweat; species whose blood thickens most quickly, whose blood does not coagulate; which species has the thickest blood, the thinnest, none at all, none at certain seasons of the year; whether blood is dominant factor in body. (xciii f.) Back; hair and integument of back; species having hair inside mouth and under feet. (xcv-xcvii) Paps; which birds have paps; noteworthy points about animals' udders; milk; which the only animal that gives suck while in motion; biestings; cheese; species whose milk does not form cheese; curdled milk; kinds of food obtained from milk; kinds of cheese. (xcviii-cxiii) Differences in limbs between man and other animals; the fingers; arms; resemblance to monkeys; nails; knees and thighs; which parts of human body associated with ritual; dilated veins; gait, feet and legs; hooves; feet of birds; feet of animals, between 2 and 100 ; dwarfs ; genital organs; hermaphrodites; testicles; three kinds of half-man; tails; voices of animals; limbs of subsequent growth. (cxiv) Marks of vitality and character derived from conformation of limbs in man. (cxv) Respiration; nutrition; animals that from eating poison do not die, but kill those who taste them. (cxvii-ix) Causes of indigestion in man; remedies for indigestion; cause of corpulence, and mode of reduction; things whose taste allays hunger and thirst.—Total: 2700 facts, investigations and observations.

Authorities: Marcus Varro, Hyginus, Scrofa, Saserna, Cornelius Celsus, Aemilius Macer, Virgil, Columella, Julius Aquila's Eiruscan System, Tarquitius ditto, Umbricius Meior ditto, Cato the ex-Censor, Calvinus, Trogus, Melissus, Fabianus, Mucianus, Nigidius, Mamilius, Oppius. Foreign authorities: Aristotle, Democritus, Neoptolemus's Production of Honey, Aristomachus ditto, Philiscus ditto, Nicander, Menecrates, Dionysins's translation of Mago, Empedocles, Callimachus, King Attaius, Venomous Animals by Apollodorus, Hippocrates, Herophilus, Erasistratus, Asclepiades, Themiso, Posidonius the Stoic, Menander of Priene, Menander of Heraclea, Euphronius of Athens, Theophrastus, Hesiod, King Philometor.

Book XII. Contents: trees—their various qualities. (i, ii) In praise of trees. (iii-lxiii) Foreign trees. (iii-vi) Plane—when and whence first introduced into Italy; their nature; remarkable products; dwarf planes; who first introduced the pruning of garden trees. (vii) Assyrian apple, instructions for planting. (viii-xvii) Indian trees; ebony, when first seen at Rome; its kinds; Indian thorn; Indian fig; beautiful unnamed Indian trees; Indians' flax-trees; plantain tree, its fruit bananas; pepper trees, kinds of pepper, defective pepper, ginger, nut-leaf, wolf-plant or Chiron's box-thorn, macir, sugarcane. (xviii f.) Trees of the Arian race, ditto of Gedrosia, ditto of Ilyrcania, ditto of Bactria; myrrh plant or gain-plant (malacha, maldacum); germander. Modes of adulteration, tests and prices specified for all scents or spices. (xx f.) Trees of Persia; trees of islands in Persian Gulf; cotton-tree. (xxii-iv) Cynas tree; trees used in East for making linen; locality with no deciduous trees; modes in which trees form fruits. (xxv-xxix) Costus; nard, its 12 varieties; hazelwort; amomum, amomis, cardamon. (xxx-xxxii) The incense-producing district, incense-bearing trees; nature and kinds of incense. (xxxiii-v) Myrrh: trees that produce it; nature and kinds of myrrh. (xxxvi-xl) Mastic; ladanum, scorbus, styptic, bratus tree; stobrum tree. (xli) Arabia, why happy. (xlvi-xlvii) Cinnamon, cinnamomum, cinnamon-shrub; wild cinnamon, cancamum, aloe-wood; serichatuxn, gabalium; behen­nut; Egyptian date. (xlviii-lxi) Scented reed, scented rush; Hammonian gum-tree; fragrant moss; cyprus; calycotome or erysisceptrum; cat-thyme; balsam, balsam-juice, balsam-wood sigma; galbannm; all-heal; bear's-foot: cinnamon-leaf; grape-plant; moss, vine-flower, wild vine; fir or larch; cinnamon comacton.—Total: 468 facts, investigations and observations.

Authorities: Marcus Varro, Mucianus, Virgil, Fabianus, Sebosus, Pomponius Mela, Flavius Procilius, Hyginus, Trogus, Claudius Caesar, Cornelius Nepos, Greek Treatise on Medicine by Sextius Niger, Cassius Hemina, Lucius Piso, Tuditanus, Antias. Foreign authorities: Theophrastus, Herodotus, Callisthenes, Isogonus, Clitarchus, Anaximenes, Duris, Nearchus, Onesicritus, Polycritus, Olympiodorus, Diognetus, Nicobulus, Anticlides, Chares of Mitylene, Menaechmus, Dorotheus of Athens, Lycus, Antaeus, Ephippus, Dinon, Adimantus, Ptolemy son of Lagus, Marsyas of Macedon, Zoilus of Macedon, Democritus, Amphilochus, Aristomachus, Alexander the Learned, Juba, Apollodorus On Scents; the physicians Heraclides, Botrys, Archedemus, Dionysius, Democedes, Euphron, Mnesides, Diagoras and Jollas; Heraclides of Tarentum, Xenocrates of Ephesus.

Book XIII. Contents: On foreign trees. (i-v) Perfumes—when invented; 12 kinds and combinations; ointments, salves, testing of perfumes; perfume as promoting luxury; when first in use at Rome. (vi-ix) Palms—their nature; how planted; 18 kinds of fruit and noteworthy facts. (x-xii) Trees of Syria: pistachio, small fig, damson, Syrian plum; cedar; what trees carry three years' fruit at once; terebinth; sumac. (xiv-xvi) Trees of Egypt: Alexandrian fig; Cyprian fig; Carob.(xvii-xx) Persian tree; what trees produce a succession of fruit; cuci palm; Egyptian thorn; gum tree, 8 kinds; Persian gum. (xxi-vii) Papyrus; employment of paper; when begun; how manufactured; 9 kinds; mode of testing papers; defects of papers; paper-glue; Books of Numa. (xxviii) Trees of Ethiopia. (nix) Atlantic tree; citrus-tree ; citrus-wood tables, their merits and defects; citrus-fruit. (xxxii-iv) Lotus; trees of Cyrenaica, Christ's-thorn; pomegranate, 9 kinds, wild pomegranate. (xxxv-xlvii) Trees of Asia and Greece; helleborine, heath, seed of Cnidus or altar-plant or canine thistle or fire-foam or cnestor or mezereon; goat-plant, goat-thorn goat or scorpion, tamarisk or brya, hop-hornbeam; euonymus; lion-tree; purslane; cuckoo-plant, tare; fennel; Thapsas-shrub; caper-bush or dog's bush or snake-vine; sari ha; king's thorn; tree-medick. (xlviii-lvii) Trees and bushes of the Mediterranean; of the Red Sea; of the Indian Ocean; of Cave­dwellers' Sea—sea-weed, grasson or girdle-plant, sea-lettuce, plait of Isis, Graces' eyelid.—Total 468 facts, investigations and observations.

Authorities: Marcus Varro, Mucianus, Virgil, Fabianus, Sebosus, Pomponius Mela, Flavius Procilius, Hyginus, Trogus, Ciaudius Caesar, Cornelius Nepos, Sextus Niger's Greek treatise On Medicine, Cassius Hemina, Lucius Piso, Tuditanus, Antias. Foreign authorities: Theophrastus, Herodotus, Callisthenes, Isogonus, Clitarchus, Anaxitnenes, Duris, Nearchus, Onesicritus, Polycritus, Olympiodorus, Diognetus, Nicobulus, Anticlides, Chares of Mitylene, Menaechmus, Dorotheus of Athens, Lycus, Antaeus, Ephippus, Dinon, Adimantus, Ptolemy son of Lagus, Marsyas of Macedon, Zoilus ditto, Democritus, Amphilochus, Aristomachus, Alexander the Learned, Juba, Apollodorus On Scents; the following medical writers—Heraclides, Botrys, Archedemus, Dionysius, Democedes, Euphron, Mnesides, Diagoras, Iollas; Heraclides of Tarentnm, Xenophon of Ephesus.

Book XIV. Contents: fruit-trees. (i-v) Vines, their nature; their ways of bearing; grapes, their nature and tending; 91 kinds of vines and grapes; viticulture and vineyards, noteworthy facts as to (vi-xi) Mead, its discovery; 50 wines of quality; 38 foreign vintages; Opimian wine; wine-cellars, notable facts as to; nature of wine; salt wine, 7 kinds; raisin-wine, must, sweet wine, 17 kinds. (xii) Inferior wines, 3 kinds. (xiii-xvii) Wines of quality, how recently begun to be made in Italy; remarks as to wine from reign of Romulus onwards; wines used in early periods; four kinds of wine, when first established. (xviii-xxi) Wild vine, 5 uses of; what juice by nature the coldest; artificial wine, 66 kinds; mead or honey-wine or water-mead; vinegar-honey. (xxii-v) Remarkable wines, 12 kinds; wines not permissible to use at sacrifices; substances used to flavour must—pitch, resins. (xxvi f.) Wine-jars, vinegar, lees, cellars. (xxviii f.) Intoxication; drinks made from water and fruit can be as potent as wine.—Total: 510 facts, investigations and observations.

Authorities: Cornelius Valerian, Virgil, Celsus, Cato the Censor, Saserna senior, Saserna junior, Scrofa, Marcus Varro, Decius Silanus, Fabius Pietor, Trogus, Hyginus, Verrius Flaccus, Graecinus, Julius Atticus, Columella, Masurius Sabinus, Fenestella, Tergilla, Maccius Plautus, Fabius Dossennus, Scaevala, Lucius Aelius, Ateius Capito, Cotta Messalinus, Lucius Piso, Pompeius Lenaens, Fabianus, Sextius Niger, Vibius Rufinus. Foreign authorities: Hesiod, Theophrastus, Aristotle, Democritus, King Hiero, King Attalus, King Philometor, Archytas, Xenophon, Amphilochus of Athens, Anaxipolis of Thasos, Apollodorus of Lemnos, Aristophanes of Miletus, Antigonus of Cumae, Agathocles of Chios, Apollonius of Pergamum, Aristander of Athens, Bacchius of Miletus, Bion of Soli, Chaereas of Athens, Chaeristus ditto, Diodorus of Priene, Dinon of Colophon, Epigenes of Rhodes, Evagon of Thasos, Euphronius of Athens, Androtion On Agriculture, Aeschrion ditto, Lysimachus ditto, Dionvsius's translation of Mago, Diophanes's Epitome of Dionysius, the medical writers Asclepiades and Erasistratus, treatises on The Making of Wine by Commiades, Aristomachus and Hicesius, Themiso on medicine, Onesicritus, King Juba.

Book XV. Contents: Fruit-bearing trees, their various natures. (i-viii) The olive tree—how long was it grown only in Greece; when first introduced into Italy, Spain, Africa; olive-oil, its kinds and valuable properties; nature of the olive and olive-oil when forming; 15 kinds of olives; nature of olive-oil; cultivation of olive-trees; storing of olives; manufacture of olive-oil; 48 kinds of artificial olive-oil; the kiki-tree or croto or sill or sesamum (castor-oil tree); olive-lees. (ix-xxxiv) The varieties of fruit, their kinds and nature: pine-cones, 4 kinds; quinces, 4 kinds; sparrow-apples, 4 kinds; pomegranate, 9 kinds; peach, 7 kinds; plum, 12 kinds; the persca-trea; apple, 30 kinds; foreign apples—dates and sources of introduction into Italy: most recent introduction; pears, 41 kinds; grafting of varieties, and expiation when struck by lightning; storage of fruit and grapes; figs, 29 kinds; researches as to; artificial ripening of; medlars, 3 kinds; service-berry, 4 kinds; nuts, 8 kinds; chestnuts, 18 kinds; carobs; fleshy fruits; mulberries; the arbutus; berries, varieties of; hard fruit, varieties; cherry, 9 kinds; cornel-cherries; mastic-trees; juices, 13 different sorts; (xxxv-viii) the myrtle, researches as to; 11 kinds. (xxxix f.) The bay-tree, 13 kinds.—Total: 520 facts, researches and observations.

Authorities: Fenestella, Fabianus, Virgil, Comelius Valerian, Celsus, Cato the Censor, the Sasernae, senior and junior, Scrofa, Marcus Varro, Decimus Silanus, Fabius Pictor, Trogus, Hyginus, Verrius Flaccus, Graecinus, Julius Atticus, Columella, Masurius Sabinns, Tergilla, Messalinus Cotta, Lucius Piso, Pompeius Lenaeus, Maccins Platens, Fabius Dossennus, Scaevola, Lucius Aelius, Ateius Capito, Sextius Niger, Vibius Rufinus. Foreign authorities: Hesiod, Theophrastus, Aristotle, Democritus, King Hiero, King Philometor, King Attalus, Archytas, Xenophon, Ampbuloehus of Athens, Anaxipolis of Thasos, Apollodorus of Lemnos, Aristophanes of Miletus, Antigonus of Cumae, Agathocles of Chios, Apollonius of Pergamum, Aristander of Athens, Eaechius of Miletus, Bion of Soli, Chaereas of Athens, Chaeristus ditto, Diodorus of Priene, Dinon of Colophon, Epigenes of Rhodes, Evagon of Thasos, Euphronius of Athens, Androtion On Agriculture, Aeschrion ditto, Dionysius's translation of Mago, Diophanes's summary of Dionysius, Asclepiades the physician, Erasistratus ditto, Commiades On Making Wine, Aristomachus ditto, Hicesius ditto, Onesieritus, King Juba.

Book XVI. Contents: forest trees, their various natures. (i f.) Races that have no trees; remarkable trees in the North. (iii-xiii) Acorn-bearing trees: the civic wreath; origin of wreaths; wreath of foliage, on whom bestowed; 13 kinds of acorns; the beech; the other acorn-bearing trees; charcoal; the oak-apple; how many fruits beside the acorn borne by the same trees; catkin, cochineal-berry, larch-fungus. (xiv) Trees whose bark is utilized. (xv-xx) Roof-shingles: stone-pine, wild pine, spruce, silver, larch, pitch-pine, yew. (xxi-iii) Liquid pitch, methods of making; cedar-oil, methods of making; wax-pitch, methods of making; resin, methods of boiling; thick-pitch. (xxiv-ix) Trees of value for timber: ash, 4 kinds; lime, 2 kinds; maple, 10 kinds; growth on the maple, maple-fungus; pistachio tree; box, 3 kinds; elm, 4 kinds. (xxx f.) Nature of trees classified by habitat those that grow on mountains, on plains, on dry soils, in water, in several habitats. (xxxii) Classification. (xxxiii-viii) Non-deciduous trees: rhododendron; partially deciduous trees; regions where all trees evergreen; nature of deciduous foliage; trees whose foliage changes colour: poplars, 3 kinds; foliage that changes shape of leaf; foliage that yearly turns round; palm-leaves, cultivation and use of; remarkable foliage. (xxxix) Process of growth in trees grown from seed. (xl) Non-flowering trees: the junipers. (xli-l) Conception, germination and parturition of trees; order of flowering; the husk; date of bearing of the various kinds, trees that bear yearly, three-yearly; trees that do not bear fruit; trees believed unlucky; trees that lose fruit or flower most easily; which kinds do not bear in which places; method of bearing of the various kinds; kinds that bear fruit before foliage; kinds that bear twice a year, thrice a year. (li) Which age most rapidly, which least rapidly; early ripening and late ripening fruits. (lii) Which kinds have products of more than one sort: the kernel of the box. (liii-vi) Differences of trees in trunks and boughs the lotus or date plum; boughs, bark, roots. (lvii f.) Instances of trees rising again of their own accord; spontaneous generation of trees, modes of. (lix-lxi) Differences of nature not generating all kinds everywhere; places where particular kinds do not grow; cypresses; growth from the earth of entirely novel kinds a fre­quent occurrence. (lxii) Ivy, its 20 kinds. (lxiii) Bindweed. (lxiv-lxxi) Water plants: canes; reeds, 25 kinds; reed arrows, reed pens, reed pipes; the bird-catcher's and fisherman's reed of Orchomenus; the vine-prop reed; the alder; the willow, its kinds; other plants useful for ties; bulrushes, rush-lights, canes, thatch; elders, brambles. (lxxi f.) Sap of trees. (lxxiv-vii) Nature of timbers; wood-cutting; sizes of trees; the pine; charcoal. (lxxvii-lxxxi) Trees exempt from rot—from splitting; researches as to durability of timbers; kinds of woodworms; wooden architecture. (lxxxii-iv) Wooden tools; gluing timber; sawn sheets of wood. (lxxxv-xc) Age of long-lived trees: tree planted by the elder Africanus; tree in Rome 500 years old; trees dating from the foundation of the city; trees in the suburbs older than the city; trees planted by Agamemnon; frees dating from first year of the Trojan War; trees at Troy shown from designation 'Ilion' to be older than the Trojan War; ditto at Argos; trees planted by Hercules; trees planted by Apollo; a tree older than Athens; what kinds of trees are least long-lived. (xci-iv) Trees celebrated for some occurrence; parasitic plants; plants parasitic on trees and able to grow in earth—9 kinds of these; cadytas, hyphear, stelis, hippophaestum; nature of mistletoe and similar plants; manufacture of bird-lime.—Total: 1135 facts, researches and observations.

Authorities: Marcus Varro, Fetialis, Nigidius, Cornelius Nepos, Hyginus, Masurius, Cato, Mucianus, Lucius Piso, Trogus, Calpurnius Bassus, Cremutius, Sextius Niger, Cornelius Bocchus, Vitruvius, Graccinus. Foreign authorities: Alexander the Learned, Hesiod, Theophrastus, Democritus, Homer, Timaeus the mathematician.

Book XVII. Contents: the natures of cultivated trees. (i) Remarkable prices for trees. (ii-iv) Effect of climate on trees; proper aspect for vines; best soil; soil enjoyed by Greece and the Gallic provinces—8 kinds. (v-viii) The use of ashes; dung; what crops enrich the soil, which impoverish it; methods of using manure. (ix-xxi) Methods of growing trees; kinds springing from seed; that never degenerate; kinds springing from settings, from a cutting, from a layer; seed-beds, transference of seed-beds; growing elms from seed; trenching; distances between trees; shade; droppings from leaves; slow-growing and quick growing kinds; kinds springing from layers. (xxii-viii) Grafting—how discovered; kinds of grafts; eye-grafting; budding; grafting of vines; grafts growing from boughs; kinds grafted by cuttings, and method. (xxix-xxi) Olive-growing; seasonal arrangement of propagating; trenching round and banking up vines. (xxxii-iv) The willow thicket; reed bed; other plants cut for poles and stakes. (xxxv f.) Arrangement of vineyards and plantations; prevention of injury to vines from animals. (xxxvii f.) Diseases of trees; remarkable products from trees. (xxxix-xlvii) Remedies for diseases of trees; method of watering; remarkable facts as to water-meadows; use of dung; method of hoeing round trunk; lopping of trees; how to dig round trees; pruning of trees; effect of gall-insect; mistakes in pruning; medicaments for trees. —Total: 1380 facts, researches and observations.

Authorities: Cornelius Nepos, Cato the censor, Marcus Varro, Celsus, Virgil, Hyginus, the Sasernae, senior and junior, Scrofa, Calpurnius Bassus, Trogus, Aemilius Macer, Graecinus, Columella, Julius Atticus, Fabianus, Mamilius Sura, Dessius Mundus, Gaius Epidius, Lucius Piso. Foreign authorities: Hesiod, Theophrastus, Aristotle, Democritus, Theopompus, King Hiero, King Philometer, King Attalus, Arehytas, Xenophon, Amphilochus of Athens, Anaxipolis of Thasos, Apollodorus of Lemnos, Aristophanes of Miletus, Antigonus of Cumae, Agathocles of Chios, Apollonius of Pergamum, Bacchius of Miletus, Bion of Soli, Chaereas of Athens, Chaeristus ditto, Diodorus of Priene, Dinon of Colophon, Epigenes of Rhodes, Evagon of Thasos, Euphronius of Athens, Androtion On Agriculture, Aeschrion ditto, Lysimachus ditto, Dionysius's translation of Mago, Diophanes's summary of Dionysius, Aristander On Portents.

Book XVIII. Contents: crops, their natures. (i) Devotion to agriculture in early times. (ii) The earliest wreath at Rome; the wreath of ears of corn; (iii) The acre. (iv) Number and dates of lowest falls; price of corn. (v) Distinguished authorities on agriculture. (vi) Rules for preparing the ground. (vii) Location of homesteads. (viii) Old authorities on methods of agriculture. (ix) Kinds of grain. (x-xxix) Properties of corn according to kinds; emmer, wheat, barley, pearl-barley; barley-groats porridge, starch, common wheat, wheat-flour, two grain wheat, seed; the remaining kinds in the east modes of grinding; sesame, erysimum or irio, clary, species of millet; yeasts; bread, methods of making and kinds of; when bakers began at Rome. (xxx-xxxvi) Leguminous plants: beans, kinds of chick­pea, calavance, pea; turnips, navews, lupin. (xxxvii-xliii) Fodder: vetch, pulse, fenugreek, secale or rye, mixed fodder, besil, bitter vetch; lucerne. (xliv f.) Oats; corn diseases, remedies. (xlvi) Proper crops to sow in various kinds of soil. (xliii) National differences in methods of sowing. (xlviii-l) Kinds of plough; method of ploughing; harrowing, weeding, hoeing; cross-harrowing. (li-liii) Greatest fertility of soil; method of cropping same field more than once a year; manuring. (liv-lxi) Seed-testing; amount of seed of different varieties of corn required per acre; seasons for sowing; position of stars from day to day and earthly signs as to agricultural operations. (lxii-xxiv) Agricultural operations proper to the several months; poppies; hay; causes of various kinds of Infertility; remedies; harvests, storage of corn, vintage and autumn operations. (lxxv f.) Conditions of the moon, of the winds. (lxxvii) Fixing of rounds of estates. (lxxviii-xc) Weather-forecasts: from the sun, moon, stars, thunderclouds, mists, earth-fires, waters; from the seasons themselves; from aquatic animals, from birds, from quadrupeds. Total 2060 facts, researches and observations.

Authorities: Masurius Sabinus, Cassius Hem­ma, Verrius Flaccus, Lucius Piso, Cornelius Celsus, Turranius Gracilis, Decimus Silanus, Marcus Varro, Cato the ex-Censor, Scrofa, the Sasernae senior and junior, Domitius Calvinus, Hyginus, Virgil, Trogus, Ovid, Graecinus, Columella, Tubero, Lucius Tarutius's Greek treatise On the Stars, Caesar the Dictator ditto, Sergius Pauilus, Sabinus Fabianus, Marcus Cicero, Calpurnius Bassus, Ateius Capito, Mamilius Sura, Accius's Praxidica. Foreign authorities: Hesiod, Theophrastus, Aristotle, Democritus, King Hiero, King Philometer, King Attains, King Archelana, Archytas, Xenophon, Amphilochus of Athens, Anaxipolis of Thasos, Apollodorus of Lemnos, Aristophanes of Miletus, Antigonus of Cumae, Agathocles of Chios, Apollonius of Pergamos, Aristander of Athens, Bacchius of Miletus, Bion of Soli, Chaereas of Athens, Chaeristus ditto, Diodorus of Priene, Dinon of Colophon, Epigenes of Rhodes, Evagon of Thasos, Euphronius of Athens, Androtion On Agriculture, Aeschrio ditto, Lysimachus ditto, Dionysius's translation of Mago, Diophanes's summary of Dionysius, Thales, Eudoxus, Philip, Calippus, Dositheus, Parmeniscus, Meto, Crito, Oenopides, Conon, Euctemon, Harpalus, Hecataeus, Anaximander, Sosigenes, Hipparchus, Aratus, Zoroaster, Archibius.

Book XIX. Contents: (i-vi) Flax, nature and remarkable properties of; 27 specially good kinds of; how grown and how made up; earliest employment of awnings in the theatre. (vii-ix) Esparto grass, nature of; how made up; when first used. (x) The wool-bearing bulb. (xi-xviii) Plants that spring up and live without root; plants that spring up and cannot be grown from seed: mushroom, iton, stork's bill; truffles, stalkless mushrooms; silphium plant, and its juice, leaf and stalk; madder; dyers' rocket, (xix-xxi) The charm of gardens; description of plants other than cereals and shrubs. (xxi-xxxvii) Nature and kinds and descriptions of 20 garden plants: roots, flowers, leaves of all these; deciduous garden plants; various periods of sprouting; nature of seeds; various modes of sowing; which of a single kind and which of several kinds. (xxxviii-lv) Nature and kinds and descriptions of 23 garden plants cultivated for condiments. (xlviii) Plants springing from an exudation; (lvi) Fennel-giant, 4 kinds; hemp. (lvii-lix) Diseases of garden plants; cures; modes of killing ants; modes of protecting against caterpillars, against green-fly what plants benefited by salt water. (lx) Method of watering gardens. (lxi f.) Juices and flavours of garden plants; pepperwort, rosemary, mint.—Total: 1144 facts, investigations and observations.

Authorities: Maccius Plautus, Marcus Varro, Decimus Silanus, Cato the Censor, Hyginus, Virgil, Mucianus, Celsus, Columella, Calpurnius Bassus,  Mamilius Sura, Sabinus Tiro, Licinius Macer, Quintus Birrius, Vibius Rufinus, Caesennius On gardening, Castritius ditto, Firmus ditto, Potitus ditto. Foreign authorities: Herodotus, Theophrastus, Democritus, Aristomachus, Menander's Things serviceable for life, Anaxilaus.

Book XX. Subject: medicines obtained from garden plants: (ii) from the wood-encumber 26, (iii) wild encumber 27; (iv) snake cucumber or wild cucumber 5, (v) garden encumber 9, (vi) pumpkin 11, (vii) gourd or somphus 1, (viii) eoloeynth 10, (ix) turnips 9, (x) wild turnip 1, (xi) navews or swede of two varieties 5, (xii C) garden radish 43, horseradish 1, (xiv) parsnip 5, marsh mallow or plistolochia or wild mallow 11, (xv) staphyhnus or wild parsnip 22, (xvi) French carrot 1, (xvii) skirwort 11, (xviii) hartwort 12, (xix) elecarnpane 11, (xx) onion 27, (xxi) cut leek (chives) 32, (xxii) headed leek 39, (xxiii) garlic 61, (xxiv) lettuce 42, goat-lettuce 4, (xxv) caesapum lettuce 1, isatis 1, wild lettuce 7, (xxvi) hawk-weed 17, (xxvii) beet 24, (xxviii) wild beet or neurois 3, (xxix) endive or wild succory 4, (xxx) chicory or worthy or championship 12, (xxxi) scented succory 4, (xxxii) endive 2 kinds, 7 medicines, (xxxiii) cabbage 87, (xxxv) sprouts, (xxxvi) wild cabbage 27, (xxxvii) charloek 1, (xxxviii) sea-cabbage 1. (xxxix) squill 23, (xl) onions 30, (xli) bulbine 1, emetic onion, (xlii f.) garden asparagus 17, wild asparagus or orminus or Libyan asparagus 24, (xliv) parsley 17, (xlv) wild parsley or bee-plant ; (xlvi) olusatrum or horse-parsley 11, mountain parsley 2, beg parsley 1, (xlvii) rock parsley 1, cow-parsley 1, (xlviii) basil 35, (xlix) colewort 12, (l) cress 42, (li) rue 84, (lii) wild mint 20 (liii) mint 41, (liv) fleabane 25, (lv) wild-bane 17, (lvi) cat-mint 9, (lvii) cumin 48, wild cumin 27, (lviii) ammi 10, (lix) caper-bush 18, (lx) lovage or all-heal 4, (lxi) ox-cunila 5, (lxii) cock-cunila or marjoram 5, (lxiii) cunilago 8, (lxiv) soft cunila 3, libanotis 3, (lxv) garden cunila 3, mountain cunila 7, (lxvi) pepperwort or Indian pepper 5, (vii-ix) wild marjoram or horehound 6, goat's-thyme 9, Heraclean marjoram, 3 kinds, 30 drugs; (lxx) pepperwort 3, (lxxi) git or cultivated fennel 23, (xii-iv) anise or anicetum 61,dill 9, (lxxv) sacopeniuxn sagapenum 13, (lxxvi-lxxx) white poppy 3, black poppy 8 (narcotic effect, opium, prophylactics called anodynes, peptic drugs, febrifuges and purges); poppy-juice 1, wild poppy 2, wild horned poppy or glaucous or shore poppy 6, Heracles poppy or foam poppy 4 (medicinal poppy-juice), spurge poppy or a poppy 3, (lxxxi) purslane, also called peplis, 25, (lxxxii-iv) coriander 21, orache 14, varieties of mallow—malope 13, malache 1, althaea or plistolochia 54, (lxxxv f.) wood-sorrel or oxalis or horse-sorrel or dock 1, water sorrel 2, horse-sorrel 6, bitter sorrel 4, cultivated sorrel 21, cow-sorrel 1, (lxxxvii-ix) mustard 3 kinds, 44 drugs, sedge-froth 48, hore­hound or prasiurn or flax-twist or lads-love or bilochares 29, (xc-xcix) wild thyme 18, wild mint or Thrynibraeum 23, flax-seed 30, blite 6, bear w­ort or Athanxas 7, fennel 22, horse-fennel or bay-fennel 5, hemp 9, fennel giant 8, edible thistle or cardoon 6. (c) Snakebite antidote, recipe for.—Total 1606 drugs, investigations and observations.

Authorities: Cato the Censor, Marcus Varro, Pompeius Lenaeus, Gaius Valgius, Hyginus, Sextius Niger's Greek writings, Julius Bassus ditto, Celsus, Antonius Castor. Foreign authorities: Democritus, Theophrastus, Orpheus, Menander's Things serviceable for life, Pythagoras, Nicander. Medical writers: Hippocrates, Chrysippus, Diodes, Ophion, Heraclides, Hicesius, Dionysius, Apollodorus of Citium, Apollodorus of Tarentum, Praxagoras, Pleistonicus, Medius, Dieuches, Cleophantus, Philistion, Asclepias, Crateuas, Petronius Diodotus, Iollas, Erasistratus, Diagoras, Andreas, Mnesides, Epicharmus, Damion, Dalion, Sosimenes, Tlepolemus, Metrodorus, Solon, Lycus, Olympias of Thebes, Philinus, Petrichus, Miccio, Glancias, Xenocrates.

Book XXI. Contents: the natures of flowers and of flowers for garlands. (ii-ix). Of wreaths; gar­lands; inventors of blending flowers; when first called 'floral crowns,' and why; who first bestowed crowns with silver and gold foliage; why called 'garland-gratuities'; of ribbons—who first reproduced them in carving; high value placed on crowns of honour among the ancients; simplicity of crowns among the ancients; who received a crown bestowed by the nation at Rome; plaited crowns; stitched crowns, nard-crowns, silk crowns; Queen Cleopatra's action with regard to crowns. (x-xil, lxxiii-v). Rose, 12 kinds, 32 drugs; lily, 3 kinds, 23 drugs; plant from an exudation; narcissus, 3 kinds, 16 drugs. (xiii) Flowers grown of special colours by dyeing the seed. (xiv-xxxvii) Mode of growing from cuttings, from seed, mode of cultivating various flowers, arranged under various kinds; the violet 3 colours (lxxvi, 17 drugs); yellow herb, 5 kinds (lxxvi, 10 drugs); marsh marigold; king flower; cyclamen (17 drugs); rush (1 drug); crocus (lxxxi, 20 drugs); where the best flowers are; what flowers were in vogue in Trojan times; nature of scents; the iris (41 drugs); wild nard (3 drugs); the hulwort or teuthrium (19 drugs); flowers with different colours in the morning, at midday, and at sunset; floral patterns in dress; amaranth; the cornflower (2 drugs); the all-gold (3 drugs); the petiliuin or ox-eye daisy; the goldy-locks or gilt lady (6 drugs); which plants' flowers provide wreaths, which plants' leaves; white byrony, privet, wild marjoram, mezereum or casia, 2 kinds, bee-leaf or balm (21 drugs), melilot, garland of Campama or honey-lotus (12 drugs); trefoil, 3 kinds (4 drugs) mouse bane; thyme, 3 kinds (28 drugs); plants springing from flower, not seed; elecampane; flower of Jupiter; martagon-lily (4 drugs) calamint (5 drugs); phlox; plant with scented stalk and leaves: southern-wood (22 drugs); flower of Adonis, 2 kinds; self-fertilizers; leucanthemum (1 drug); marjoram, 2 kinds (60 drugs); wake-by-night or chenamyche or see-by-night. (xxxviii f.) Time-series of birth of flowers; garland anemone or phrenion (xciv-ix 10 drugs); wine-flower grass (6 drugs); cultivated fennel (11 drugs), marigold (11 drugs), gladiolus, hyacinth (8 drugs), lychnis (7 drugs), narcissus, pothos, 2 kinds, crocus, 2 kinds, periwinkle or dwarf laurel (xl, 4 drugs); evergreen grass. (xli-ix) Length of life of various flowers; what kinds among flowers should be cultivated to attract bees; wax­flower; diet of bees; their diseases and remedies; poisonous honey and its remedies; honey that causes madness; honey that flies will not touch; apiaries, hives and care of hives; do bees feel hunger? manufacture of wax; the best kinds of wax; Carthaginian wax. (l-cviii) Self-grown vegetation, its use among certain races, its kinds, remarkable cases of; strawberries, wild grapes, butcher's broom (c, 4 drugs); samphire, 2 kinds (ci. 11 drugs), meadow parsnip, willow-hop, culcas (cii, 2 drugs) Oretan pitch plant, anthalium or anticellium or anthyllium (ciii, 6 drugs); oetum; roots with no growth above the surface of the earth; chickling vetch, aracos; candryala, hypochoeris, caucalis, anthriscum, chervil (also called goat's beard), maiden-flower or white blossom or marjoram or partridge-plant or wall-plant (civ, 8 drugs), nightshade or strychnos or halicacabus or calitha or dorycnion or mad-plant or surplus or sinew-plant or lack-wit or moly (cv, 8 drugs), wild pulse (cvi, 6 drugs), chick-pea, acynopus, rock-plant; non-flowering plants, plants perpetually in flower; safflower, 4 kinds (cvii, 3 drugs). (liv-viii) Plants of the prickly kind (erynge thistle, licorice root, land caltrop, rest-harrow, pheos or stoebe, horse-beam, nettle, 4 kinds, dead-nettle, scorpion-grass, acorna or murder-thistle, whitethorn, copper-wort, safflower, many-thorn, donkey-box, helxine, edible thistle, carline thistle, tetralix heath (thorny mastix, cactus, pternica, pappum, artichoke). (lix) Plants classed by stalks: hartshorn, alkanet, chamomile, phyllanthes, crepis, lotus. (lx) Plants distinguished by leaves: evergreens; plants flowering in sections; heliotrope, whose use for drugs will be stated in the Book. (lxi-v) Ear-bearing classes: stanyops, fox-tail, stelephuros, or quail-plant or plantain, thryallis, partridge-wort, bird's milk; plants of twelve-month growth, plants flowering from top, ditto from bottom; internal-sprouting burdock, Opus-plant making root from leaf; iasione, chondrilla, year-long flowering bitter-plant. (lxvi) Plants producing flower before stalk, stalk before flowers, thrice-flowering. (ixvii-lxxi) Gladiolus, 8 drugs; eorydalis; aspbodel or royal spear-grass (asphodel-stalk or bulb); rush, 6 kinds, 4 drugs; cyperus, 4 drugs, cyperis, cypira, holoschoenos. (lxxii) Drugs from scented rush or teuehites 10. (lxxviii-lxxxii) Drugs from hazelwort 8, drugs from Gallic nard 8, drugs from 'phu' grass 4; Syrian saffron-leas, 2 drugs, (cviii) pesoluta, 1 drug. (cix) Translation of Greek terms for weights and measures.—Total, 730 drugs, in­vestigations and observations.

Authorities: Cato the ex-Censor, Marcus Varro, Masurius, Antias, Caepio, Vestinus, Vibius Rufinus, Hyginus, Pomponius Mela, Pompeius Lenaeus, Cornelius Celsus, Calpurnius Bassus, Gaius Valgius, Licinius Macer, Sextius Niger's Greek treatise, Julius Bassus's ditto, Antonius Castor. Foreign authorities: Theophrastus, Democritus, Orpheus, Pythagoras, Mago, Menander's Things serviceable for life, Nicander, Homer, Hesiod, Musaeus, Sophocles, Anaxilaus. Medical writers: Mnesitheus On Wreaths, Callimachus ditto, Phardas the natural scientist, Simus, Timaristus, Hippocrates, Chrysippus, Diodes, Ophion, Heradides, Hicesius, Dionysius, Apollodorus of Citium, Apollodorus of Tarentum, Praxagoras, Plistonicus, Medius, Dieuches, Cleophantus, Phllistio, Asclepias, Crateuas, Petronius Diodotus, Iollas, Frasistratus, Diagoras Andreas, Mnesides, Epicharmus, Damio, Dalio, Sosimenes, Tlepolemus, Mctrodorus, Solon, Lycus, Olympias of Thebes, Philinus, Petrichus, Miecio, Glaueias, Xenocrates.

Book XXII. Contents: the importance of herbs. (i-vi) That nations use herbs because of their beauty; herbs used to dye clothes; dye made of vegetable oil, ditto; tufts of sacred grass, sacred branches and the ritual of demanding redress; wreath of grass, its rarity, its only recipients, the only centurion recipient. (vii) Drugs made from the remaining sorts of wreaths. (viii-xlv) Erynge or eryngion or hundred-heads, 30; acanos thistle, 1 sweet-root or licorice, 15; mouth-heal, 1.: caltrop, 2 kinds, 12 drugs; stoebe or pheos; horse-beam, 2 kinds, 2 drugs; nettle, 61; dead-nettle 7; scorpion-plant, 2 kinds, 1 drug; pellitory or phyllos or sciatiëa-plant or polygonaton, 4; helxine, 12; pellitory or maiden-herb or iron-wort (the same as pitcher-polish or astericum) 11; chamaeleon-plant or canine thistle or ulophytum or cynozo]on, 2 kinds, 12 drugs (gum mastic); hartshorn, alkanet, 14; bastard-bugloss or echis or doris, 3; donkey-lip or archebius or donkey-hoof or rhexia or euchrysa, 30; the plant whose roots make dye; chamomile or white anthemis or earth-apple. or fennel-flower, 3 kinds, 11 drugs; lotus grass, 4; lotometra, 2; heliotrope or turnsole or wartwort, 12; heliotrope or three-berry or scorpion's tail, 14; adiantum or maiden-hair or tnichomanes or many-hair or saxifrage, 2 kinds, 28 drugs, rootless stem; bitter lettuce 1, corydalis 1; asphodel 51; orach 14; bear's breech or lad's love or black-leaf 5; hare's ear 5, cow-nettle 1; wild parsnip 9; chervil 9; southern chevnil 2; bind-weed 4; caucalis 12; bur-parsley 11; sillybus thistle; cardoon or meadow thistle 5; sow-thistle, 2 kinds, 15 drugs; chondrilla 3. (xlvi) Mushrooms: peculiarity in their mode of reproduction. (xlvii-ix) Toadstools: signs of poisonous kinds; 9 drugs obtained from these; silphium 7; assafoetida plant 39. (l-lv) Bee-glue 5, honey 16, hydromel 18; reason for influence of diet on character; mead 6 honey-must, 3; wax, 8. (lvi) Warning against doctors' mixtures. (lvii-lxxvi). Drugs from various grains: common wheat 1, wheat 11, chaff 2, emmer 1, bran 1, arinca, rye-water 2; corresponding varieties of flour; 29 drugs; pearl­-barley 8; fine flour, pulse 1, paper flour 1; alica 6; millet 6; Italian millet 4; sesame 7; near-sesame 3, hellebore 3; barley 9, wild barley (Greek 'Phoenician barley') 1; pearl-barley 4; starch 8; oats 1; bread 21; bean 16; lentil 17; marsh-bean 3; elelisphacon or fragrant moss (sage) 13; chick-pea and small chick­pea 23; bitter vetch 20; lupine 35; winter-cress or erysimum (Gallic 'vela') 15; clary 6. (lxxvii-lxxx) Darnel 5, millet grass 1, oats 1, choke-weed or broom-rape 1. (lxxxi f.) Protection against maggots in vegetables. Foam from beer.—Total 906 drugs, investigations and observations.

Authorities—as in preceding book, also Chrysermus, Bratosthenes, Alcaeus.

Book XXIII. Contents: drugs obtained from cultivated trees: (ii-xxii) from vines 20; vine-leaves 7; tendrils 7; juice of unripe grape 14; wild vine 21; fresh grapes; varieties of stored grapes, 11 drugs; vine-shoots 1; grape-stones 6; grape-skins 8; treacle-grape 4; dried grape or raisin 14; wild raisin or staves-acre or taminia or phlegm-heal 12; claret-vine or wild vine 12; salicastrum wild vine 12; white grape or ampelos leuke or staphyle or white bryony or psilothrum or archezostis or cedrostis or madon 31; black grape or bryony or Chiron's plant or gynacanthe or apronia 35; must 15; Falernian 6, Alban 2, Surrentine 3; Setine 1, Statane 1, Signine 1; other wines 64. (xxiii-vi) observations about wines 61; what invalids to be given them, and when and how; observations on these points 91. (xxvii-xxxiii) Vinegar 28, squill­vinegar 17, vinegar-honey 7, must 7, wine lees 12, vinegar lees 17, must lees 4. (xxxiv-xxxix) Olive leaves 23; olive flowers 4, olive berries 6, white olives 4, black olives 3; olive lees 21, wild olive leaves 16, oil of unripe olives 3. (xl-l) Wild olive oil 8; castor oil 16; almond oil 16; bay oil 9; myrtle oil 20; oil of dwarf myrtle or prickly myrtle (butcher's room), of cypress, of citrus, nut-oil, Cnidian oil, mastic oil, oil of behen-nut, cyprus oil and cyprus flower 6; oil of must 1; of balsam 5; of betel 5, of henbane 2, of lupine 1, of narcissus 1, of radish 5, of sesame 3, of lily-seed 1, oil of Selga 1, of Iguvium 1; of olive-honey 2, of pitch 2. (li-liii) Palm-oil 9, palm-oil of behen-nut 3, of fir 17. (liv-lxxxiii) Drugs from flower, leaves, fruit, branches, bark, sap, wood, root, ash, of the different sorts of tree; observations as to apple-trees 6, as to quinces 22, as to soapworts 1, sweet apples 6, crab apples 4, citron apples 5, pomegranates 26; lip-salve 14; pomegranate blossom 8, wild pomegranate blossom 12. (lxii-lxix) Observations on pear trees, 13, on figs 111, on wild figs 42; erineus grass 3, plums 4, peaches 2, wild plums 2; tree lichen (lxx-lxxv) Mulberries 39; lip-salve or windpipe salve or all-heal 4; cherries 5, medlars 2, service­berries 2, pine-cones 13, almonds 29. (lxvi-lxxix) Greek nuts 1, walnuts 24 (antidote); filberts 3, pistachios 8, chestnuts 5, caroes 5, cornel-cherry 1, arbutuses. (lxxx-lxxxiii) Bay-trees 69. myrtles 60, myrtle-berry wine 13, Prickly myrtle or ground-myrtle or butcher's broom 6.—Total 1418 drugs, investigations and observations.

Authorities: Gaius Valgius, Pompeius Lenaeus, Sextins Niger's Greek writings, Julius Bassus's ditto, Antonius Castor, Marcus Varro, Cornelius Celsus, Fabianus. Foreign authorities: Theophrastus, Democritus, Orpheus, Pythagoras, Mago, Menander's Things serviceable for life, Nicander, Homer, Hesiod, Musaeus, Sophocles, Anaxilaus. Medical writers: Mnesitheus, Callimachus, Phanias's Natural Science, Timaristus, Simus, Hippocrates, Chrysippus, Diodes, Ophion, Heracides, Hicesius, Dionysius, Apollodorus of Citium, Apollodorus of Tarentum, Praxagoras, Plistonicus, Medius, Dieuches, Cleophantes, Philistion, Asclepiades, Crateuas, Petronius Diodotus, Iollas, Erasistratus, Diagoras, Andreas, Mnesides, Epieharmus, Damion, Dalion, Sosimenes, Tlepolemus, Metrodorus, Solon, Lyeus, Olympias of Thebes, Philinus, Petrichus, Miccio, Glaucias, Xenocrates.

Book XXIV. Contents: Drugs obtained from forest trees: (ii-ix) Egyptian water-lily 6, acorns 13, holm-oak berry 3, oak-apple 23, mistletoe 11, acorns of glandiferous trees 1, Turkey oak 8, cork 2, beech 4. (x-xix) Cypress 23, cedar 13, cedar-berry 10, galbanum 23, gum-tree 24, styrax gum-tree 10, bear's-foot 17, sphagnus or sphaeus or moss 5, turpentine 6, pitch-pine 8. (xx-xxix) Ground-pine 10, pityusa 6, resin 22, pitch 34, cedar-resin oil or twice-boiled pitch 16, earth-pitch 2, wax-pitch 1, pitch-pine 1, mastic-tree 22, plane 25. (xxx-xxxix) Beech 5, maple 1, poplar 8, elm 16, lime 5, elder 15, juniper 21, willow 14, Amerian apple 1, chaste-tree 33, heath 1. (xl-xlix) Broom 5, myrice, also called tamarisk 3, golden-rod 1, brya 29, brook-willow 3, privet 8, alder 1, ivies 39, cisthus 5, reddish-ivy 2, ground-ivy 2, yew 3, clematis 3. (l-lix) Reed 18, papyrus reed 3, ebony 5, rhodo­dendron 1, sumach 2 kinds, 8 drugs (mouth-heal), red sumach 9, madder 11, madwort 2, radicula or soapwort 13, dog's-bane 2, rosemary 18. (lx-lxix) Rosemary capsule 6, sabine grass 7, savin-tree 2, brookweed 2, cummin 11, Arabian thorn 4, white-thorn 2, bear's-foot 1, acacia 18, rosewood or erysi­sceptrum or adipsatheum or diaxylon 8. (lxx-lxxix) Barberry-bush 2, pyracanthus 1, Christ's-thorn 10, holly 10, yew 1, blackberries 51 (mouth-heal), dog-rose 3, Ida bramble 1; buckthorn 2 kinds, 5 drugs; Lycium thorn 18, Persian gum 2, oporice 2. (lxxx-lxxxix) Germander or dwarf oak or chamaerops or Teucrian plant 16; dwarf laurel 5, dwarf olive 6, dwarf fig 8, ground ivy 1, chamaeleuce or colt's-foot or farfugium 1, ground larch 5, ground cypress 2. field-garlic 6, horsemint 1, wild basil or cleopicetum or zopyrontium or ocimoides 3, knotweed clematis 3. clematis or aetis or cimoides. (xl-xlviii) Egyptian clematis or laurel clematis or polygonoides 2, wake-robin 13, tarragon 2, dragon-root 3, milfoil or varrow 7, bastard-bunion 4, sweet-cicely or myrra or myriza 7, oenobreche 3. (xcix-cii) Sorcery from herbs: coracesia and calicia; Minyad or Corinthian herb 1, aproxis (Pythagorean teachings as to recurrent diseases), aglaophotis or marble-quarry plant. Achaemenis or horse's-mane, theombrotion or semnion, uncrushable herb, Ariana plant, theronarca. Ethiopian plant or herb of Meroe, ophiusa, sea-ray or river-flash, theangelis, gelotophyllis, hestiateris or protomedia or casignetes or Dionysonymphas, helianthis or heliocallis, hermesiades, aeschynomenes, erocis, oenetheris, anacampseros. (ciii-cix) Eriphia, wool grass 1, milk-wort 1, soldier-grass 1, stratiotes 5, statue's head grass 1, river grass 1, tongue grass 1, sieve grass 1. (cx-cxx) Dung-hill grass 1, dog's water grass 1, rodarum 3, French everlasting 2, Venus's comb 1, exedum, southern-wood 2, goose-grass 1, dog-bur 2, hart-wort or syreon 3, couch-grass 17, lady's finger 5, Greek hay or fenugreek, our silicia, 31.—Total: 1176 drugs, investigations and observations.

Authorities: Gaius Valgius, Pompeius Lenaeus, Sextius Niger's Greek writings, Julius Bassos's, ditto, Antonius Castor, Cornelius Celsus. Foreign authorities: Theophrastus, Apollodorus, Democritus, Orpheus, Pythagoras, Mago, Menander's Things serviceable for life, Nicander, Homer, Hesiod, Musaeus, Sophocles, Anaxilaus. Medical writers: Mnesitheus, Callimachus, Phanias the scientific writer, Timaristus, Simus, Hippocrates, Chrysippus, Diodes, Ophion, Heradides, Hicesius, Dionysius, Apollodorus of Citium, Apollodorus of Tarentuxn, Praxagoras, Plistonicus, Mcdius, Dieuches, Cleophantus, Philistio, Asclepiades, Cratcuas, Petronius Diodotus, Iollas, Erasistratus, Diagoras, Andreas, Mnesides, Epicharmus, Damion, Sosimenes, Tlepolemus, Metrodorus, Solon, Lycus, Olympias of Thebes, Phulinus, Petrichus, Miccio, Glaucias, Xenocrates.

Book XXV. Contents: the natures of self-grown plants; value of plants. (i-vi) Origin of their use; Latin writers on uses of plants; when this knowledge reached the Romans; first Greek writers on the subject; herbal remedies, why comparatively little used; remarkable discoveries of plants. Dog-rose, 2 drugs, tarragon 1, water-clock 5. (vii-ix) The greatest pain. Discoverers of famous plants. Moly 3, shooting star 1, peony or pentorobus or glycysides 1, varieties of all-heal—Asclepion 2, Heraclion 3, Chironion 4, Centaurion or Pharnacion 3, iron-wort Heraclion 4, hyoscyamos or Apollo-plant or henbane, 2 kinds, 3 drugs; linozostis or maiden-hair or grass of Hermes or grass of Mercury, 2 kinds, 22 drugs; Achilles star-wort or all-heal of Heracles, our milfoil or king's-broom, 6 kinds, 3 drugs. (xx-xxix) Teucer's grass or hermione or spleenwort 2; Melampodium or hellebore, our veratrum 3 kinds, method of gathering, method of testing; drugs from black hellebore 24, how taken; ditto with white hellebore; drugs from the latter 23; to what patients not to be given: observations in regard to each kind 88. Grass of Mithridates 2, scordotis or water-germander 4, Polemonia or Philetaeria or thousand-virtues 6, Eupatoria 1. (xxx-xlii) Centaury or grass of Chiron 20, lesser centaury or libadion, our earth-gall (fumitory) 22, triorchis centaury 2, Clymenos 2, gentian 13, Lysimachia 8, Artemisia or maiden-herb or mag­wort or ambrosia 5, water-lily or rod of Heracles or rhopalon or mallos, 2 kinds, 14 drugs; Euphorbia .2 kinds, 4 drugs; plantain 2 kinds, 46 drugs; bugloss 3; hound's-tongue 3; ox-eye or cachla 1. (xliii-ix) Plants discovered by various races: Scythian grass 3, mare's-grass 3, styptic plant 2, cestros or psychotrophon, our Vettonica or betony, 48; Cantabrian bindweed 2, lung-wort 1, candy-tuft 7. (l-liii) Plants found from animals: swallow-wort 6, dog's-grass 1, dittany 8, sham-dittany or horehound. Localities where herbs most potent. Milk drunk for herbal contents in Arcady. (liv-lix) Aristolochia or clematis or Cretan plant or plistolochia or many-rooted lochia, our earth-bane, 22; agrimony 4, tinder-fungus 33; viper's-bugloss 3 kinds, 2 drugs; holy-wort or dove-wort, our vervain, 2 kinds 10 drugs; moth-mullein 11, molemony 1; pentapetes or pentaphyllon or chamaezelon, our cinquefoil, 33 drugs; bur-weed 1; wild carrot, 4 kinds, 18 drugs; theronarca 2; brown mullein or arcion 8; cyclamen, our mole-hill plant, 12; ivy-flower cyclamen 4; ground-ivy cyclamen 3. (lxx-xc) Sulphurwort 28, dwarf elder 6; phlomos, our mullein 15; phlornides 2, phlomis or wild lychnis or thryallis; thelyphonon or scorpion-grass (aconite) 1; phrynion or neuras or poterion 1; water-plantain or damnsoniurn or lyron 17; vervain 6; antirrhinum or anarrhinum or wild lychnis 3; euplia 1; pericarpum, 2 kinds; 2 drugs; Hercules water-lily 2; marsh crowfoot 1; colt's-foot or lion-wort 3; hair-dye plant 1; hyssop 10; satyrion 4; gladiolus or sword-lily 4; flea-bane or dog-wort or gold garlic or Sicilian grass or dog-fly 16; thryselinon 1. (xci-cv) Eye-salves: pimpernel or chickweed, our cat's-eye, 2 kinds, 3 drugs; aegilops 2, mandragora or Circe's herb or nightshade or white mandrake, 2 kinds, 24 drugs; hemlock 13; wild sea­fennel 1, leadwort 1; 'dwarfed smoke,' our chicken­feet (fumitory) 1; bush-smoke 3; acoron or sweet­flag 14; navelwort, 2 kinds 61 drugs; greater live­for-ever or ox-eye or zoophthalmon or love-charm or gutter-leek or immortal or care-free, our great houseleek or eye or little finger, 31 drugs; lesser live-for-ever or erithales or trithales or erysithales, our aye-green or stonecrop, 32 drugs; wild purslane, our decoy-bird 32. (cvi-x) Erigeron or pappos or groundsel, our old-man, 8; ephemeron 2; Venus's-lip 1, frog-weed, our ranunculus or buttercup, 4 kinds, 14 drugs; mouth-heal, 2 kinds. Total 1292 drugs, investigations and observations.

Authorities: Gaius Valgius, Pompeius Lenaens, Sextius Niger's Greek writings, Julius Bassus's ditto, Antonius Castor, Cornelius Celsus, Fabianus. Foreign authorities: Theophrastus, Apollodorus, Democritus, Juba, Orpheus, Pythagoras, Mago, Menander's Things serviceable for life, Nicander, Homer, Hesiod, Musaeus, Sophocles, Xanthus, Anaxilaus. Medical writers: Mnesitheus, Callimachns, Phanias the natural scientist, Timaristus, Simus, Hippocrates, Chrysippus, Diodes, Ophion, Heraclides, Hicesins, Dionysius, Apollodorus of Citium, Apollodorus of Tarentum, Praxagoras, Plistonicus, Medius, Dieuches, Cleophantus, Philistion, Asclepias, Crateuas, Petronius Diodotus, Iollas, Erasistratus, Diagoras, Andreas, Mnesides, Epicharmus, Damion, Sosimenes, Tlepolemus, Metrodorus, Solon, Lycus, Olympias of Thebes, Philinus, Petrichus, Miccio, Glaucias, Xenocrates.

Book XXVI. Contents: the remaining drugs by classes. (i) New diseases. (ii-vi) Ringworm—when first occurring in Italy; carbuncle ditto; elephantiasis ditto; colic ditto. (vii-ix) The new medicine; the physician Asclepias; reason for alteration of the old medicine; refutation of Magi. (x-xix) Lichen, 2 kinds, 5 drugs, Proserpinaca 1, ox-eye daisy 2, condurdum 1, bechfon or arcion or chamaeleuce, our white colt's-foot, 3; bechion, our sage, 4; molon or syron, balsam-shrub 3. (xx-xxix) Horse-tail or anabasis 3, geum 3, tripolion 3, amaranth. malundrum 2, chalcetum 2, molemonium 1; comfrey or black bryony 5, wall germander 1, French lavender 1, Spanish tragacanth 6. (xxx-xxxix) Ladanum 8; horehound or bastard dittany 1, cisthus-parasite or orobethron, 2 kinds, 8 drugs; layer or sion 2; pond-weed 8, statice 3; horn-weed 2, lentopodion or leuceoron or doribethron or thorybethron; hare's foot 3; thyme-flower or hippopheos 8; devil's-bit 4; polypody 3; scanimony 8; stake-spurge. (xl-xlvi) Myrtle-spurge or nut-spurge 21, sea-spurge or thymalis 4, heliotrope spurge 18, cyparissias-spurge 18, broadleaved spurge or corymbites or almond-spurge 3; tree-spurge or cobius or small-leaved spurge 18; sciatica-spurge or wild radish 2. (l-lix) Sea-fennel 11, sea-fennel kernel, pitch-plant 2, musk-ivy 2, portulaca 1, hypericon or ground-pine or corisson 9, ground-pine seed or hypericon 10, hair-dye plant 1, perpressa 1, marigold 1, chamomile 1, smallage 1, Fulvius-grass, groin-grass or argemo. (lx-lxix) Clirvsippus-grass 1, orchis or Serapia 5, ragwort 3, red ragwort 4, lappago­bin or mollugo 1, prickly bur 1, phvcos, our sea­weed, 3 kinds, 5 drugs; cattle-bur; crane's bill or geranium or myrtis, 3 kinds, 6 drugs; donkey-hunt or refreshment-plant 3, (lxxiii) Danewort or dwarf-elder, ground Dane-wort. (lxxxiii-xciii) Horse­tail or ephedron or anabasis, our horse-hair, 3 kinds, 18 drugs; stephanomeis; erysithales l, poly­cnemon 1, arsenogonon 1, thelygonon 1, mastos 1, ophrys. Total, 1019 drugs, investigations and observations.

Authorities: Marcus Varro, Gaius Valgius, Pornpeius Lenaeus, Sextius Niger's Greek writings, Julius Bassus's ditto, Antonius Castor, Cornelius Celsus. Foreign Authorities: Theophrastus, Apollodorus, Democritus, Juba, Orpheus, Pythagoras, Mago, Menander's Things serviceable for life, Nicander, Homer, Hesiod, Musaeus, Sophocles, Xanthus, Anaxilaus. Medical writers: Mnesitheus, Callimachus, Phanias the natural philosopher, Timaristus, Simus, Hippocrates, Chrysippus, Diodes, Ophion, Heraclides, Hicesius, Dionysius, Apollodorus of Citium, Apollodorus of Tarentum, Praxagoras, Plistonicus, Medius, Dieuches, Cleophantus, Philistion, Asclepiades, Crateuas, Petronius Diodotus, Iollas, Erasistratus, Diagoras, Andreas, Mnesides, Epicharmus, Damion, Sosimenes, Tlepolemus, Metrodorus, Solon, Lycus, Olympias of Thebes, Philinus, Petrichus, Miccio, Glaucias, Xenocrates.

Book XXVII. Contents: the remaining kinds of plants, drugs derived from them. (ii-x) Monk's-hood or lady-killer or cammoron or choke-leopard or scorpion, 4 drugs; Aetbiopic sage 4; never-grow-old 4; aloe 29; alcea-mallow 1; herb terrible 1; chickweed for the same uses as helxine 5; androsaces 6; man's-blood or St. John's-wort 6. (xi-xx) Ambrosia or mug-wort or Artemisia 3, rest-harrow or ononis 5, bean-trefoil or pain-killer 3, no-name 2, cleavers or grape-fruit or goose-grass 4, bear-weed or bear-ward 5, miltwort or spleenwort 2, swallowwort 2, aster or star-wort 3, St. John's wort and ascyroides 3. (xxi-xxx) Chick-pea 3, alcibium 1, alectoros Iophos, our cock's-comb 2, comfrey, our rock wallwort 14, red seaweed 1, herb Christopher 1, wild vine 4; wormwood, 4 kinds, 48 drugs; sea-wormwood or seriphum; horehound or black chives 3. (xxxi-xl) Mugwort or ambrosia or Artemisia 1, brabyla 1; sea bryon 5, hare's-ear 1, catanance 1, cemos 1, calyx 3, calyx or strangle-plant or rhinoclia 2, herb of Circe 3, cirsion thistle 1; crataegonon, 3 kinds, 8 drugs; (xli-l) crocodile plant 2, hound's-cod or orchis 4, garden orach, 2 kinds, 3 drugs, earth-bond 2, nightshade or strumus or strychnos 6, salve-herb 2, Cnidus berry 2, teasel 3, oak-wing 2, drabe 1, elatine 2. (li-lx) Harts-tongue, called in Latin break-stone, 4; epicactis or belle­borine 2, epimedion 3, nine-leaf 3, fern. 2 kinds called by the Greeks 'feather-fern' or blachnon, also female feather or bride's-feather, 11; ox-thigh; dead-nettle or galeobdoIon or galion 6; owl-plant 1; celandine 3 (pillar-plant, 2 drugs) glycysis or peony or pentorobon 20. (lxi-lxx) Cotton-grass or cudweed 6, hairy teasel 1, mouse-barley or aristis, black centaury, white plantain 3, hippophaeston 8, butcher's broom 1, humble-plant, grass of Ida 4, isopvron or phasiolon 2. (lxxi-Ixxx) Wolf's-milk 2, lion's-leaf (others call it 'rhapeion') 2, alkanet 2, lithospermon or exonychon or diospyron or grass of Hercules 2, stone-crop 1, arrow-poison 1, spotted dead-nettle or mesoleucium or leucas 3, St. Mary's thistle 5; medion 3, mouse-ear or forget-me-not 3. (lxxxi-xc) Mouse-hunter 1, nyma 1. water-snake 1, toothwort 1, othonna 1, onosma 1, St. Mary's thistle 5, goose-foot 4, wood sorrel 2, many-flowered crowfoot or frogwort 3. (xci-c) Knot-grass or polygonatum or sea-grass or carcinothron or clema or bayleaf (the same as blood­weed or orbs) 4 kinds, 40 drugs; succory 12, peplis or syce or meconion or foam-poppy 3, honeysuckle 5, hatchet-vetch 1, milkwort 1, tragacanth or frog-cup or tendon-plant 4; anthericum or spider-root or whitethorn 4; groundsel 1; phyllon 1. (ci-cx) Phellandrion 2, canary-grass 2, many-root 5, Proser­pinaca 5, rhecoma 36, reseda 2, French lavender 3, nightshade, Greek strychnon, 2; common alexanders 32, sinon 2, purslane 4. (cxi-cxvii) Mad-locks 5, meadow-rue 1, thlaspi or Persian mustard 4, herb of Trachis 1, tragonis or goatwort 1, goat-grass or scorpion-grass 4, goat's-beard or come 1. (cxviii-cxx) Length of life of herbs; means of increasing the potency of each kind. Different national maladies. Total, 602 drugs, investigations and observations.

Authorities: Gaius Valgius, Pompeius Lenaeus, Greek works of Sextius Niger, ditto of Julius Bassus, Antonius Castor, Cornelius Cclsus. Foreign authorities: Theophrastus, Apollodorus, Democritus, Aristo­giton, Orpheus, Pythagoras, Mago, Menander's Things serviceable for life, Nicander. Medical writers: Mnesitheus, Callimachus, Timaristus, Simus, Hippocrates, Chrysippus, Diodes, Ophion, Heraclides, Hicesius, Dionysius, Apollodorus of Citium, Apollodorus of Tarcntum, Praxagoras, Plistonicus, Medius, Dieuches, Cleophantus, Philistiou, Asclepiades, Crateuas, Petronius Diodotus, Iollas, Erasistratus, Diagoras, Andreas, Mnesides, Epicharmus, Damion, Sosimenes, Tlcpolemus, Metrodorus, Solon, Lycus, Olympias of Thebes, Philinus, Petrichus, Miccio, Glaucia, Xenocrates.

Book XXVIII. Contents: drugs obtained from animals. (iii) Whether there is any healing power in spoken charms. (iv-v) Portents ratified and rejected. (vi-xix) Remedies obtained from the human body; against magicians; 226 drugs and observations derived from an adult male, 8 from a boy; (xx-xxiii) 61 from a woman; (xxiv-xxxi) from foreign animals,—elephant 8, lion 10, camel 10, hyena 79, crocodile 19, crocodile's excrement 11, chameleon 15, lizard 4, hippopotamus 7, lynx 5. (xxxiii-xli) Drugs obtained: 1 equally from wild animals and tame animals of the same kind; milk, modes of using and remarks as to, 54; cheeses 12; butter 25; sour milk 1; fat, modes of using and observations as to, 52; suet; marrow; gall; blood. (xlii-lxxx) Special drugs derived from particular animals arranged according to diseases; from the boar 12, pig 60, stag 3, wolf 27, bear 24, wild ass 12, ass 76, ass's foal 3, wild horse 11, foal's rennet 1, horse 42, mare's milk cheese 1, wild oxen 2, ox 81, bull 53, calf 59, hare 64, fox 20, badger 2, cat 5, she-goat 116, he-goat 31, kid 21. (lxxi) On testing bull-glue, and 7 drugs from it. Total 1682 drugs, investigations and observations.

Authorities: Marcus Varro, Lucius Piso, Antias, Verrius, Fabianus, Cato the ex-Censor, Servius Sul­picius, Licinius, Macer, Celsus, Masurius, Greek works of Sextius Niger, Bythus of Durazzo, medical works of Rabirius, Ofilius and Granius. Foreign authorities: Democritus, Apollonius alias the Mouse, Meletus, Artemon, Sextilius Antaeus, Homer, Theophrastus, Lysimachus, Attalus, Xenocrates, Orpheus writer of ldiopkye, Archelaus ditto, Demetrius, Sotira, Lais, Elephantis, Salpe, Olympias of Thebes, Diotimus of Thebes, Jollas, Audreas, Marcio of Smyrna, medical works of Aeseliines, Hippocrates, Aristotle, medical works of Hicetidas and Apelles, Hesiod, Bialcon, Caecilius, Bion's On Potencies, Anaxilaus, King Juba.

Book XXIX. Contents: drugs obtained from animals. (i-viii) Origin of medicine; Hippocrates; first employment of clinic medicine, first employment of embrocations; Chrysippus the physician, Erasistratus; experimental medicine; Hierophulus; remaining famous physicians; how often the system of medicine has altered; the first physician at Rome, name and date; judgement of Romans as to ancient physicians; defects of medicine. (ix-xiii) Cures from wools 35 and in the next book 25, making 60; from wool-washings 32, next book 20, making 52; from eggs 22, next book 43, making 65; meaning of 'fattened' eggs; how to make eggs all yoke; snakes' eggs; how to make Commagene-cure; drugs from it 4, and in next book 5, making 9. (xiv-xl) Remedies from roaming or wild animals; ram 5 and next book 7 = 12, sheep 2 and next book 15 = 17, mules 1 and next book 5 = 6, horses 1 and next book 3 = 4, dog 16 and next book 41 = 57, mad dog 3 and next book 5 = 7, ichneumon 1, mouse 14 and next book 28 = 42, pygmymouse 4 and next book 1 = 5, dormouse 2 and next book 6 = 8, shrewmouse 1 and next book 2 = 3, weasel 19 and next book 25 = 44, gecko 4 and next book 12 = 16, hedgehog 5 and next book 13 = 18, porcupine 1 and next book 2 = 3, lizard 13 and next book 30 = 43, salamander 1 and next book 3 = 4, snail 27 and next book 19 = 46, asp 1 and next book 3 = 4, basilisk 4, serpent 4 and next book 6 10, viper 14 and next book 21 = 35 (xxi, salt antidote for viper-bite; xxxviii, adder-ash drug) snake 8 and next book 27 = 35, water-serpent 1, ox-snake 4 and next book 3 = 7, water-snake 1 and next book 2 = 3, the other serpents Sand next book 7 = 15, scorpion 4 and next book 2 = 6, spiders and poison-spiders, 12 kinds, drugs from these 9 and next book 27 = 36, cricket or bull-beetle 1 and next book 7 = 8, scolopendra or multipede or millepede or centipede or woodlouse or catkin 1 and next book 20 = 21 (xvii, admiration of nature who produces nothing useless), slug 1 and next book 3 = 4, caterpillar 1 and next book 2 = 3, earth-worm 2 and next book 20 = 22, tree-worm I and next book 4 = 5; from birds—eagle 4 and next book 3 = 7, vulture 9 and next book 7 = 16, cock 21 and next book 35 = 56, hen 10 and next book 22 = 32, goose 7 and next book 15 = 22, swan 1 and next book 5 = 6 (xiii manufacture of bird's lard); raven 2 and next book 4 = 6, crow 1 and next book 2 = 3, hawk 2 and next book 2 = 4, kite 2 and next book 6 = 8, goshawk 2, stork 2 and next book 1 = 3, duck 2 and next book 4 = 6, partridge 6 and next book 11 = 17, dove 7 and next book 25 = 32, pigeon 2 and next hook 14 = 16, Mars's woodpecker 1, turtle-dove 4 and next book 5 = 9, swallow 9 and next book 24 = 33, night-owl 4 and next book 5 = 9, screech-owl 1 and next book 1 = 2, horned owl 2 and next book 5 = 7, bat 4 and next book 9 = 13, bees 5 and next book 7 = 12, cow-fly 3 and next book 3 = 6, pine-grub 2 and next book 4 = 6, (xvii that the beneficence of nature has placed powerful remedies even in disgusting animals), hectic 1 and next book 7 = 8, cockroach 4 and next book 13 =17. (xxx) The genus Spanish fly—drugs from these 5 and next book 11 = 16, bug 9 and next book 5 = 14, house-fly 7 and next book 5 = 12, locusts 4 and next book 3 = 7, wingless locust 1, ants 3 and next book 5 = 8.—Total 621 drugs, investigations and observations.

Authorities: Marcus Varro, Lucius Piso, Verrius Flaccus, Antias, Nigidius, Cassius Hemina, Cicero, Plautus, Celsus, Sextius Niger (Greek works of), Caecilius the medical writer, Metellus Scipio, the  poet Ovid, Liciuius Macer. Foreign authorities: Palaephatus, Homer, Aristotle, Orpheus, Democritus, Anaxilaus. Medical writers: Botrys, Apollodorus, Archedemus, Aristogencs, Xenocrates, Democrates, Diodorus, Chrysippus, Philip, Orus, Nicander, Apollonius of Pitane.

Book XXX. Contents: drugs obtained from animals (concluded). (i-vii) Origin of magic—date and place of its commencement, by whom practised; whether carried on in Italy. Human sacrifice, when first prohibited by the senate; the Druids of the Gauls; kinds of magic; magicians' view as to moles; 5 drugs. (viii-liii) Remaining drugs, arranged according to diseases, found in animals not classed as tame or wild: cattle 2 and in last book 15 = 17, ram 7 and in last book 5 = 12, wool 25 and in last book 35 = 60, wool-washings 20 and in last book 32 = 52, mules 5 and in last book 1 = 6, horses 3 and in last book 1 = 4; dog 41 and in last book 16 = 57, mad dog 2 and in last book 3 = 5, ferret 1, mouse 28 and in last book 14 = 62, shrewmouse 1 and in last book 4 = 5, dormouse 6 and in last book 2 = 8, shrewmouse 2 and in last book 1 = 3, weasel 25 and in last book 19 = 44, newt 12 and in last book 4 = 16, hedgehog 13 and in last book 5 = 18, porcupine 2 and in last book 1 = 3, lizard 30 and in last book 13 = 43, salamander 3 and in last book 1 4, snail 19 and in last book 27 = 46 (xliii the drug everlasting), viper 3 and in last book 1 = 4, snake 6 and in last book 4 = 10, viper 21 and in last book 14 = 35, serpent 27 and in last book 8 = 35, bova 3 and in last book 4 = 7, water snake 2 and in last book 1 = 3, Libyan snake 3, remaining serpents 7 and in last book 8 = 15, scorpion 2 and in last book 9 = 36, cricket 3, phryganion 1, scolopendra or multipede or millepede or centipede or woodlouse or catkin 20 and in last book 1 = 21 (admiration for nature who produces nothing useless), slug 3 and in last book 1 = 4, caterpillar 2 and in last book 1 = 3, earth­worm 20 and in last book 2 = 22, tree-worm 4 and in last book 1 = 5, grass-worm 8, herpes 1, tick 3; from birds, eagle 3 and in last book 4 = 7, vulture 7 and eggs 43 and in last book 22 = 65, Syrian cock 5 and in last book 4 = 9, swan 5 and in last book 1 = 6, otis 2, raven 4 and in last book 2 = 6, crow 2 and in last book 1 = 3, hawk 2 and in last book 2 = 4, kite 6 in last book 2 = 8, crane 1, stork 1 and in last book 2 = 3, ibis 3, little heron 1, duck 4 and in last book 2 = 6, diver 2, partridge 11 and in last book 6 = 17, dove 14 and in last book 2 16, crested lark 4, cuckoo 1, Mars's woodpecker 1, turtledove 5 and in last book 4 = 9, thrush 3, blackbird 1, swallow 24 and in last book 9 = 33, night-owl 5 and in last book 4 = 9, screech-owl 1 and in last book 1 2, hoopoe 1, horned owl 5 and in last book 2 = 7, sparrow 5, galgulus 2, bat 9 and in last hook 4 13, tree cricket 1, bees 7 and in last book 5 = 12, wasps 2, cow-fly 3 and in last book 3 = 6, pine-grub 4 and in last book 2 = 6 (that the beneficence of nature has placed powerful remedies even in disgusting animals), beetle 7 and in last book 1 = 8, cockroaches 13 and in last book 4 = 17; the genus Spanish fly—drugs from these 11 and in last book 5 = 16, bug 5 and in last book 9 = 14, house-fly 5 and in last book 7 = 12, locusts 3 and in last book 4 = 7, ants 5 and in last book 3 = 8.—Total 854 drugs, investigations and observations.

Authorities: Marcus Varro, Nigidius, Marcus Cicero, Sextius Niger (Greek works of ), Licinius Macer. Foreign authorities: Eudoxus, Aristotle, Hermippus, Homer, Apion, Orpheus, Democritus, Anaxilaus. Medical writers: Botrys, Apollodorus, Menander, Archidemus, Aristogenes, Xenocrates, Diodorus, Chrysippus, Pbilippus, Orus, Nicander, Apollonius of Pitane.

Book XXXI. Contents: drugs obtained from aquatic animals. (i) Remarkable facts as to waters. (ii) Differences in waters. (iii-xvi) Medicinal properties: 266 observations; what sorts of waters are good for the eyes, what sorts produce fertility, what sorts cure insanity, what sorts gall-stone, what sorts wounds, what sorts protect the embryo, what sorts remove tetter, which make dye for wools, which for human beings, which produce memory, which forgetfulness, which keenness of sense, which slowness, which a musical voice, which dislike of wine, which intoxication, which fill the place of oil, which are salt and bitter; springs discharging rocks, springs that cause laughter or weeping, springs said to cure love. (xvii) Water keeping hot for three days after being drawn. (xviii-xx) Remarkable waters: waters in which all objects sink, in which no objects; waters that kill, poisonous fishes; waters that turn into stone, or produce stones. (xxi-iii) Health-giving property of waters; impurities of waters; mode of testing waters. (xxiv f.) The Marcian Spring, the Maiden Spring. (xxvi-ix) Method of finding water; signs of sprints; .differences of waters according to kinds of earth; variation of springs with the seasons. (xxx). Historical account of springs suddenly arising or stopping. (xxxi) Method of carrying water in pipes. (xxxii f.) Medicinal waters, mode of employing, for what kinds of illnesses; ditto sea-water, 29 kinds. Benefits of a voyage, 5. (xxxiv-vi) Sea-water at places inland, 1 method of producing, sea-water-honey 1, water-honey 1. (xxxvii f.) Remedy against foreign waters; 6 drugs from moss; drugs from sands. (xxxix-xlv) Salt, kinds of, preparations and drugs from, 204 observations; historical importance of salt 120; froth of salt; flower of salt 20; brine 2; fish-sauce 15; pickle 15; fish-brine 8; nature of salt. (xlvi f.) Native soda, kinds of, preparations and drugs from—221 observations; sponges, 92 drugs from and observations.—Total 924 drugs, investigations and observations.

Authorities: Marcus Varro, Cassius of Parma, Cicero, Mucianus, Caelius, Celsus, Trogus, Ovid, Polybius, Sornatius. Foreign authorities: Callimachus, Ctesias, Eudicus, Theophrastus, Eudoxus, Theopompus, Polyclitus, Juba, Lycus, Apion, Epigenes, Pelops, Apelles, Democritus, Thrasyllus, Nicander, comedies of Menander, Attalus, Sallustius, Dionysius, Andreas, Niceratus, Hippocrates, Anaxilaus.

Book XXXII. Contents—drugs from aquatic animals. (i-iv) Nature's supreme force in antipathy. The sucking-fish, 2 cases; the electric ray, 7 cases; the sea-hare, 5 cases; marvels of the Red Sea. (v-ix) Intellect of fishes; remarkable properties of fishes; places where oracles are given from fishes, where fishes eat out of the hand, where they recognize the voice, where they are bitter, where salt, where sweet, where not dumb; Their sympathy and also antipathy for localities. (x) Sea-fish when first used by the Roman nation. King Numa's regulation as to fish. (xi) Coral, drugs from and observations as to, 66. (xii) Discord between marine animals: sting-ray 9, dog-fish, mullet 15. (xiii-xx) Amphibious animals: beaver-castors, drugs from and observations as to, 56; tortoise, drugs and observations 66; gilt-bream 4, star-fish 7, sea-snake 3, salt fish 25, sardines 1, tunnies, sea-frog 6, river-frog 52, bramble-toad; observations about them 32; water-snake 6, river-crabs 14, sea-crabs 7, river-snails 7, crow-fish 4, pig-fish 2, sea-calf 10, lamprey 1, sea-horse 9, sea-urchins 11. (xxi-xxx) Shellfish: kinds, observations and drugs 1; purple dye 9; seaweed 2, sea-mouse 2, sea-scorpion 12, leeches 6, purple-fishes 13, mussels 5, fishes' fat 2, callyonymi 3, crow-fish's gall 1, cuttle-fish 24, huso sturgeon 5, batia 1, bacchus or myxon 2, sea-lice 2, sea-bitch 4, seal 1, dolphin 9, sea-snail or murex 3, sea-foam 7, tunny 5, maena 13, scolopendra 2, lizard 1, conchis 1, sheat-flsh 15, sea-snail or longniussel 6, sponge 5. (xxxi-lii) Sea-cabbage 1, myax mussel 25, sea-mussels 8, giant mussels 1, seriphus fish 2, sea-mullet 2, sole-fish 1, turbot 1, blendia 1, sea-nettle 7, sea-lung 6, scallops 4; from the water-snake 4, from the water-serpent 1, mullet 1, from the young tunny 4, grayling 1, perch 4, from the skate 3, zmarides 3, conger 1, beaver 4, moss 1, haddock 1, phager 1, from the whale 1, polypus 1, shad 1, blue-fish I, rudd 1, sea-grape 1, eel 1, river-horse 1, crocodile 1, adarca or sea-foam 3, rush 8. (liii) Names of all animals living in the sea 176.—Total: 990 drugs, investigations and observations.

Authorities: Licinius Macer, Trebius Niger, Sextius Niger (Greek writings of), the poet Ovid, Cassius Hemina, Maecenas, Iacchus, Sornatius. Foreign authorities: Juba, Andreas, Salpes, Apion, Pelops, Apelles, Thrasyllus, Nicander.

Book XXXIII. Contents: the properties of the metals. (ii-xii) Gold, what first caused it to be valued; origin of gold rings; limited amount of gold among the ancients; the equestrian order, its right of wearing gold rings; its panels of judges; how  often the title 'equestrian order' altered; gold and silver military gifts; gold wreath. When first bestowed; other uses of gold, its use by women. (xiii-xxv) Gold coinage; date of earliest coins, copper, silver, gold; method of using copper before introduction of stamping; highest money rating at first census; how often and at what dates value of copper and stamped coinage raised; the lust for gold; largest owners of silver and gold; date of earliest employment of silver ornaments in the arena, and on the stage; dates of largest accumulations of gold and silver in the national treasury; date of earliest gilded ceilings; reasons for special value of gold; method of gilding; discovery of gold; orpiment; synthetic amber; earliest gold statues; 8 drugs from gold. (xxvi-ix) malachite, method of employing it in painting; 7 drugs from malachite; goldsmith's malachite or mountain-green. (xxx) Remarkable natural facts as to the welding of metals and as to metal manufactures. (xxxi-v) Silver; quicksilver; antimony or stibis or alabaster or larbasis or platyopathalmus, drugs made of, 7; silver slag, drugs made of, 6; foam of silver, drugs made of, 7. (xxxvi-xli) Minimum, reverence for among the ancients; discovery and source of; cinnabar, method of using in medicine and in painting; kinds of red-lead; method of use in medicine and painting; watersilver. (xliii f.) Gilding of silver; touchstones for gold. (xliv-lv) Silver, its kinds and methods of testing; mirrors; Egyptian silver; immoderate wealth; who were the richest people; when did the Roman nation begin to squander money; luxury in silver vessels sparing use of silver in antiquity, instances of; date of earliest use of silver inlay on couches, of silver vessels of excessive size, of trays inlayed with silver, of making drums; excessive prices for silver; silver statuary ; famous works of art and artists in silver. (lvi-lviii) Of yellow ochre, who first used for painting and how. Steel blue; drugs made from, 2.—Total 288 drugs, investigations and observations.

Authorities: the Emperor Domitian, Junius Gracchanus, Lucius Piso, Marcus Varro, Corviuus, Pomponius Atticus, Licinius Calvus, Cornelius Nepos, Mneianus, Boeehus, Fetialis, Fenestella, Valerius Maximus, Julius Bassus, Greek medical writings of, Sextius Niger, ditto. Foreign authorities: Theophrastus, Democritus, Juba, the historian Timaeus's Mineral Drugs, Heraclides, Andreas, Diagoras, Botrys, Archedemus, Dionysius, Aristogenes, Demodes, Mnesides, Attaius the medical writer, Xenocrates ditto, Theomnestus Nymphodorus, Iollas, Apohlodorus, Pasiteles's Masterpieces, Antigonus On Graving, Menaechmus ditto, Xenocrates ditto, Duris ditto, Menander On Gravers, Heliodorus's Votive Offerings of Athens, Metrodorus of Scepsis.

Book XXXIV. Contents: (i) Copper metals. (ii-x) Kinds of copper--Corinthian, Delian, Aeginetan. On bronze dining-couches; on candelabra; on temple decorations of bronze; first bronze image of a god made at Rome; on the origin of statues and the reverence paid to them. (x-xix) Statues, their kinds and shapes. Ancient statues dressed in toga without tunic; the first statues at Rome, the first erected by the state, the first erected on a column; ship's beaks, when added; first foreigners to whom statues erected by the state at Rome; first women to whom statues so erected; first equestrian statue erected by the state at Rome; date of removal from public places of all statues erected by private donors; first statue publicly erected by foreigners; existence of sculptors from early times even in Italy; excessive prices for statues; the most celebrated colossal statues in the city; 366 famous instances of bronze statues and sculptors in bronze. (xx-xxix) Different kinds of bronze and alloy; gold-bronze, Capuan bronze; preservation of bronze; cadmia, 15 drugs made from; melted bronze, 10 medicinal products of; copper slag, copper blisters, copper scales, copper flakes, 47 drugs from these; copper rust, 18 drugs from; eye-salve; worm-eaten bronze, 18 drugs from; copper ore, 7 drugs from; itch-salve. (xxx-xxxviii) Ink-stone, 3 drugs from; copperas, 14 drugs from; copperas water or shoe-maker's blacking, 16 drugs from; pompholyx, slag, 6 drugs from these; slag-ashes, 15 kinds; skin-detergent; diphryx; the Servilian family's magic sixpence. (xxxix-xlvi) Iron mines; iron statues; chased iron; different kinds of iron; live iron; the tempering of iron; remedies for rust; 7 drugs from iron; 14 drugs from rust; 17 drugs from iron scale; wet plaster. (xlvii-lvi) Lead mines; white lead; silver­lead, stannum, black lead; 15 drugs from lead; 15 drugs from lead slag; dross from lead; inolybdaena, 15 drugs from; sugar of lead or cerussa, 6 dmgs from; sandaraeh, 11 drugs from; arsenic.—Total, 257 drugs, including remedies for dog-bite, for the head, fox-mange, eyes, ears, nostrils, ailments of the mouth, leprosy, gums, teeth, uvula, phlegm, throat, tonsils, quinsy, cough, vomiting, chest, stomaoh, asthma, pains in the side, spleen, stomach,  straining, dysentery, the seat, the private parts, blood-stanching, gout, dropsy, ulcers, 26 wounds, pus, bones, whitlows, erysipelas, haemorrhoids, ulcers, callus, pimples, mange, scars, infants, ailments of women, depilatory, sex restraint, for the voice, against attacks of frenzy.—Total, 915 facts, investigations and observations.

Authorities: Lucius Piso, Antias, Verrius, Marcus Varro, Cornelius Nepos, Rufus Messala, the poet Marsus, Bocchus, Julius Bassus's Greek treatise on medicine, Sextius Niger's ditto, Fabius Vestalis. Foreign authorities: Democritus, Metrodorns of Scepsis, Menaechmus's Art of Graving, Xenocrates ditto, Antigonus ditto, Duris ditto, Heliodorus's Votive Offerings of Athens, Pasiteles's Miasterpieces, Timaeus's Mineral Drugs, Nymphodorus, Iollas, Apollodorus, Andreas, Heraclides, Diagoras, Botrys, Archedemus, Dionysius, Aristogenes, Democles, Mnesides, Xenocrates son of Zeno, Theomnestus.

Book XXXV. Contents: (i-x) Praise of painting. Praise of sculpture. Shields with sculptured figures, when first instituted; when first set up in public; when in private houses. The commencement of painting; pictures in monochrome; the first painters. Antiquity of paintings in Italy. Roman painters. Painting—when first esteemed at Rome, and for what reasons, who first exhibited paintings of their victories. Foreign pictures, when first valued at Rome. (xi) Method of painting. (xii-xxx) Non-mineral pigments. Artificial colours; red ochre, 11 drugs from it; red chalk; Lemnian earth, 9 drugs from it; Egyptian earth; yellow ochre; 3 drugs from red ochre; gold size; Paraetonium white; Melian white; 6 drugs from it; burnt white-lead; earth of Eretria, 6 drugs from it; sandarach; vermilion; Syrian; black ink; dark purple ink; indigo, 4 drugs from it; ultramarine, 1 drug from it; Appian green; signet-ring white. (xxxi-iii) Colours that cannot be painted on a damp surface. Colours used by painters of early dates. When battles of gladiators were first painted and exhibited. (xxxiv-xli) The antiquity of painting; 405 celebrated cases of paintings and artists; earliest painting competition; painters that used the brush; how to check the song of birds; what painters used encaustic or waxes or graver or brush; inventors of successive improvements in painting the most difficult thing in painting; kinds of painting; first painter of panelled ceilings; vaulted roofs, when first painted; remarkable prices for pictures; the talent. (xliii-xlvi) The first discoveries of modelling; who first took a mould of a face; 14 celebrated cases of artists in modelling; works in pottery; Segni plaster. (xlvii-lix) Varieties of earth: Pozzuoli dust and other kinds of earth used for concrete; walls cast in moulds; brickwork and employment of brick; brimstone and its kinds; 14 drugs; bitumen and its kinds; 27 drugs; alum and its kinds; 38 drugs therefrom; Samian earth; 3 drugs therefrom; Eretrian earth, its kinds; on washing earth to make a drug; Chian earth; 3 drugs therefrom; earth of Selinunte; 3 drugs therefrom; potters' clay; 9 drugs therefrom; vine-earth; 4 drugs therefrom; chalks for use in connexion with clothes; earth of Kimolo; 9 drugs therefrom; earth of Sardis, of Umbria, rock; rotten-stone; what people and whose freedmen are excessively powerful; Galatian earth, Kalibian earth, Balearic earth, Iviza earth; 4 drugs from these.—Total 956 drugs, investigations and observations.

Authorities: the orator Messala, Messala senior, Fenestella. Atticus, Marcus Varro, Verrius, Cornelius Nepos, Deculo, Mucianus, Melissus, Vitruvius, Cassius Severus, Longulanus, Fabius Vestalis On Painting. Foreign authorities; Pasiteles, Apelles, Melanthius, Asclepiodorus, Euphranor, Parrhasius, Heliodorus's Votive offerings of Athens, Metrodorus's Science of Architecture, Democritus, Theophrastus, the philologist Apion's Mineral Drugs, Nymphodorus, Iollas, Apollodorus, Andreas, Heraclides, Diagoras, Botrys, Archedemus, Dionysius, Aristogenes, Democles, Mnesides, Xenocrates son of Zeno, Theomnestus.

Book XXXVI. Contents: the natures of stones. (i-xi) Luxury in use of marbles; first owner of foreign marble pillars at Rome; first exhibitor of marble in public works; first distinguished sculptors in marble, and their dates; (ix the Mausoleum of Caria); 225 famous works and artists in marble; date of first employment of marbles in buildings; what people first cut marbles, and at what date; who first used marble wall-panelling at Rome; at which periods did the various marbles come into use at Rome; method of cutting marble; sands employed in marble-cutting; Naxian marble, Armenian marble, marbles of Alexandria. (xii f.) Onyx, alabaster; 6 drugs therefrom; Parian marble, coral marble, Alabanda stone, Theban stone, Syene granite. (xiv f.) Obelisks: obelisk in Campus Martius serving as gnomon. (xvi-xxiii) Remarkable structures in various countries; Egyptian Sphinx, pyramids; Pharos lighthouse; labyrinths; hanging gardens, hanging town; temple of Diana at Ephesus; remarkable facts as to other temples; runaway stone; sevenfold echo; buildings constructed without clamps. (xxiv) Eighteen remarkable works at Rome. (xxv-xxx) Magnetic stone: 3 drugs therefrom; Syros stone; flesh-eating or Assos stone, 10 drugs therefrom; Chermtes marble; tufa; bone-stones, palm-branch stones, Taenarus stones, Cora stones, black marbles; mill­stones; pyritis, 7 drugs therefrom. (xxxi-xl) Oyster-shell stone, 4 drugs therefrom; asbestos, 2 drugs therefrom; earthstone, 3 drugs therefrom; honey-stone; 6 drugs therefrom; jet, 6 drugs therefrom; sponge-stone, 2 drugs therefrom; Phrygian stone; bloodstone, 5 drugs therefrom; schistose, 7 drugs therefrom; androdarnas bloodstone, 3 drugs therefrom; Arabian stone; minium bloodstone or liverstone, anthracite; eagle-stone, Taphiusian stone, callimus; Samos stone, 8 drugs therefrom. (xli-l) Arab stone; 6 drugs therefrom; pumicestone, 9 drugs therefrom; medicinal and other mortars; Etesius stone, hailstone stone; Siphnos stone; soft stones; muscovy-stone; selenite; whetstones; tufas; flints, nature of; other building stones. (li-lix) Kinds of building; cisterns; lime; kinds of sand; mixtures of sand and lime; faults in building; stuccos; pillars; kinds of pillars; 5 drugs from chalk; lime-cement; white lime plaster. (lx-lxx) Pavements: the Tesselated Hall; first pavement at Rome; terrace pavements; pavements in the Greek mode; date of first mosaic pavement; date of first glass ceilings; origin of glass; its kinds and mode of manufacture; obsidian panes; remarkable uses of fire; 3 drugs from fire and ash; marvels of the hearth.—Total: 89 drugs from these materials, 3 for serpents, animals' bites, for poisons, for the head, eyes, eyelid sores, teeth, tooth-powders, throat, scrofula, stomach, liver, phlegm, testicles, bladder, stone, tumours, piles, gout, remedy for bleeding, for vomiting blood, dislocation, eases of insanity, of lethargy, of epilepsy, of melancholy, of giddiness, ulcers, caustic and surgical treatment of wounds, sprains, bruises, moles burns, consumption, the breasts, diseases of women, car­buncles, plague.—Full total: 434 facts, investigations and observations.

Authorities: Marcus Varro, Gaius Galba, Cincius, Mucianus, Cornelius Nepos, Lucius Piso, Quintus Tubero, Fabius Vestalis, Annius Fetialis, Fabianus, Seneca, Cato the Censor, Vitruvius. Foreign authorities: Theophrastus, Pasiteles, King Juba, Nicander, Sotaeus, Sudines, Alexander the Learned, Apion Plistonicus, Duris, Herodotus, Euhemerus, Aristagoras, Dionysius, Artemidorus, Butoridas, Antisthenes, Demetrius, Demoteles, Lyceas.

Book XXXVII. Contents: (i-x) Origin of gems: the tyrant Polycrates's jewel; Pyrrhus's jewel; the best engravers; famous specimens of engraving; the first collection of signet-rings at Rome; jewels carried in the triumph of Pompey the Great; murrine vases, date of first importation; extravagance connected with; their nature; nature of rock-crystal, drug from it; extravagance in use of rock crystal. (xi-xx) Amber, erroneous statements about; kinds of amber, drugs from these; tourmaline, 2 drugs; diamond or ananeite, 6 kinds of diamonds, 2 drugs; emeralds, 12 kinds, their blemishes; the gem tanos; malachite; beryls, their 8 kinds, their blemishes. (xxi-xxx) Opals, their 7 kinds, their blemishes, tests of opals; sardonyx, its kinds, its blemishes; onyx, its kinds; carbuneles, their 12 kinds, their blemishes and tests; coal-carbuncle; sandastros or Garamantitis or sandacitis; sandaresus; lychnis, its 4 kinds; Carthaginian stone. (xxxi-xl) Carnelian, its 5 kinds; chrysolite, its 2 kinds; turquoise; leek-green stone, its 3 kinds; Nile-stone; malachite; jasper, its 4 kinds, their blemishes; lapis lazuli, its kinds; sapphire; amethyst, its 4 kinds; socondion, sapenos, pharanitis, Venus's eyelid or love-returned or lad's-love. (xli-l) Hya­cinth; chrysolite, its 7 kinds; golden-amber; chry­solite, its 4 kinds; golden ehrysolite; xuthis; lad's-love or sangenos or tenites; eat's-eye; adularia, astriotes, astolon. (li-lx) St. John's bread, its 4 kinds; bae­tvlos; rainbow-stone; holy-stone; agates, their kinds; crystalline quartz, drugs therefrom; alabaster-stone, drugs therefrom; cock-stones, androdamas, silver­stone, charm-coral, chalcedony, scented amber, asbestos-stone, aspisatis, atizoe, turquoise, amphidanes or chrysocolla, Aphrodisiaca, apsyctos, little-gypsy; acorn-stone, frog-stone, taptes, cat's eye, helus, baroptenus or baripe, grape-stone, lock-of-hair-stone, cow's-heart, thunder-stone, boloe, cadmitis, turquoise, smoke-stone, Cappadocian stone, turquoise-stone, catochitis, catoptritis, cepitis or cepolatitis, brick-stone, cinaedias (kinds of), wax-stone, top-stone, hair-stone, coral-agate, coral-stone, crateritis, crocallis, cyitis, brazen-voice, swallow-stones, tortoise-stones, tortoise-shell-stone, green­stone, Choaspes-stone, gold-gleam, golden-topaz, cepionides, Daphne-stone, diadochos, diphyes, Dionysus-stone, snake-stone, heart-stone or enariste, enorchis, exhebenus, erythallis, erotylos or amphicomos or stone of remembrance, eumeces, eumithres, eupetalos, eureos, Eurotas-stone, eusebes, epimelas; milk-stone, milky-stone or white-earth-stone or white graphite or cloud-stone, Galician-stone, gassinades, tongue-stone, Gorgon-stone, goniaea, striped-jasper, Vulcan-stone, Mercury's privates, sixty-colonr-stone, hawk-stone, hammitis, ammonite, hormiscion, hyena­stone, menion bloodstone or yellow-stone. (lxi-lx) Ida's fingers, ieterias, Jove-stone or dew-stone, Indian stone, violet-stone, scale-stone, Lesbian stone, white-eve, white-spot, myrrh-colour, emerald, Lipari-stone, lysimachos, white gold, Memnon­stone, Persian stone, poppy-stone, mithrnx, morochthos, mormorion or promnium or Alexandria stone, myrrh-stone, wart-stone, myrrh-stone, white-centre, black-centre, stone of Nasamon, fawn-stone, Nipparena, egg-stone, rain-stone or storm-stone, ass's-heart, mountain-stone or star-stone, hornstone or chalcedony, oyster-stone, ophicardelos, obsidian, all-colours, all-seeds, love-all or all-love, Black Sea stone, 4 kinds, flame-stone or gold-stone, purple-stone, sea-weed-stone, white-ring, Paeanite or gae­anita, sun-stone, green-stone, Samotliracian stone, lizard-stone, flesh-stone, moon-stone, iron-stone, variegated iron-stone, sponge-stone, bream-stone, Syrtian stone, reed-stone, tricolor, thelyrrizos, thelycardios or mucul, Thracian-stone (3 kinds), ash-stone, tecolithos, love-locks, Veii-stone, zathene, zmilampis, zoraniscaea. (lxxi-lxxvii) Liver-stone, soapstone, Adad's-kidney, Adad's-eye, Adad's-finger, three-eyed-stone, crab-stone, adder-stone, scorpion-stone, wrasse-stone, triglitis, goat's-eye, sow's-eye, crane-stone, eagle-stone, ant-stone, beetle-stone, wolf's-eye, peacock-stone, timiclonia; gold-sand-stone, millet-stone, oak-stone, ivy stone, narcissus-stone, bean-stone, pvren, purple-stone, hail-stone, pyritis, striped-stone, lightning-stone, flame-stone, coal-stone, enygros, hairy-stone, lion-stone, leopard-stone, dew-stone, honey-colour-stone, honey-yellow-stone, grey­stone, spartopolia, rose-stone, honey-stone, copper-stone, fig-stone, ringlet-stone, ivory-marble, anancitis, synochitis, tree-stone, snail-shell. Shape of precious stones; method of testing; natural properties compared in various countries; products compared in respect of price.—Total, 1300 facts, investigations and observations.

Authorities: Marcus Varro, Records of Triumphs, Maecenas, Iacchus, Cornelius Bocchus. Foreign authorities: King Juba, Xenocrates son of Zeno, Sudines, Aeschylus, Philoxenus, Euripides, Nicander, Satyrus, Theophrastus, Chares, Philemon, Demostratus, Zenothemis, Metrodorus, Sotacus, Pytheas, Timaeus of Sicily, Nicias, Theochrestus, Asaruba, Mnaseas, Theomenes, Ctesias, Mithridates, Sophocles, King Archelaus, Callistratus, Democritus, Ismenias, Olympicus, Alexander the Learned, Apion, Orus, Zoroaster, Zachalias.

BOOK II

I. THE world and this—whatever other name men have chosen to designate the sky whose vaulted roof encircles the universe, is fitly believed to be a deity, eternal, immeasurable, a being that never began to exist and never will perish. What is out­side it does not concern men to explore and is not within the grasp of the human mind to guess. It is sacred, eternal, immeasurable, wholly within the whole, nay rather itself the whole, finite and resembling the infinite certain of all things and resembling the uncertain, holding in its embrace all things that are without and within, at once the work of nature and nature herself.

That certain persons have studied, and have dared to publish, its dimensions, is mere madness; and again that others, taking or receiving occasion from the former, have taught the existence of a countless number of worlds, involving the belief in as many systems of nature, or, if a single nature embraces all the worlds, nevertheless the same number of suns, moons and other immeasurable and innumerable heavenly bodies, as already in a single world; just as if owing to our craving for some End the same problem would not always encounter us at  the termination of this process of thought, or as if, assuming it possible to attribute this infinity of nature to the artificer of the universe, that same property would not he easier to understand in a single world, especially one that is so vast a structure. It is madness, downright madness, to go out of that world, and to investigate what lies outside it just as if the whole of what is within it were already clearly known; as though, forsooth, the measure of anything could be taken by him that knows not the measure of himself, or as if the mind of man could see things that the world itself does not contain.

II. Its shape has the rounded appearance of a perfect sphere. This is shown first of all by the name of `orb' which is bestowed upon it by the general consent of mankind. It is also shown by the evidence of the facts: not only does such a figure in all its parts converge upon itself; not only must it sustain itself, enclosing and holding  itself together without the need of any fastenings, and without experiencing an end or a beginning at any part of itself; not only is that shape the one best fitted for the motion with which, as will shortly appear, it must repeatedly revolve, but our eyesight also confirms this belief, because the firmament presents the aspect of a concave hemisphere equidistant in every direction, which would be impossible in the case of any other figure.

III. The world thus shaped then is not at rest but eternally revolves with indescribable velocity, each revolution occupying the space of 24 hours: the rising and setting of the sun have left this not doubtful. Whether the sound of this vast mass whirling in unceasing rotation is of enormous volume and consequently beyond the capacity of our ears to perceive, for my own part I cannot easily say—any more in fact than whether this is true of the tinkling of the stars that travel round with it, revolving in their own orbits; or whether it emits a sweet harmonious music that is beyond belief charming. To us who live within it the world glides silently alike by day and night. Stamped upon it are countless figures of animals and objects of all kinds—it is not the case, as has been stated by very famous authors, that its structure has an even surface of unbroken smoothness, like that which we observe in birds' eggs: this is proved by the evidence of the facts, since from seeds of all these objects, falling from the sky in countless numbers, particularly in the sea, and usually mixed together, monstrous shapes are generated; and also by the testimony of sight—in one place the figure of a bear, in another of a bull, in another a wain, in another a letter of the alphabet, the middle of the circle across the pole being more radiant.

For my own part I am also influenced by the agreement of the nations. The Greeks have designated the world by a word that means 'ornament,' and we have given it the name of mundus because of its perfect finish and grace! As for our word caelum, it undoubtedly has the signification 'engraved,' as is explained by Marcus Varro. Further assistance is contributed by its orderly structure, the circle called the Zodiac being marked out into the likenesses of twelve animals; and also by the uniform regularity in so many centuries of the sun's progress through these signs.

IV. As regards the elements also I observe that they are accepted as being four in number: topmost the element of fire, source of yonder eyes of all those blazing stars; next the vapour which the Greeks and our own nation call by the same name, air—this is the principle of life, and penetrates all the universe and is intertwined with the whole; suspended by its force in the centre of space is poised the earth, and with it the fourth element, that of the waters. Thus the mutual embrace of the unlike results in an interlacing, the light substances being prevented by the heavy ones from flying up, while on the contrary the heavy substances are held from crashing down by the upward tendency of the light ones. In this way owing to an equal urge in opposite directions the elements remain stationary, each in its own place, bound together by the unresting revolution of the world itself; and with this always running back to its starting-point, the earth is the lowest and central object in the whole, and stays suspended at the pivot of the universe and also balancing the bodies to which its suspension is due; thus being alone motionless with the universe revolving round her she both hangs attached to them all and at the same time is that on which they all rest. Upheld by the same vapour between earth and heaven, at definite spaces apart, hang the seven stars which owing to their motion we call 'planets,' although no stars wander less than they do. In the midst of these moves the sun, whose magnitude and power are the greatest, and who is the ruler not only of the seasons and of the lands; but even of the stars themselves and of the heaven. Taking into account all that he effects, we must believe him to be the soul, or more precisely the mind, of the whole world, the supreme ruling principle and divinity of nature. He furnishes the world with light and removes darkness, he obscures and he illumines the rest of the stars, he regulates in accord with nature's precedent the changes of the seasons and the continuous rebirth of the year, he dissipates the gloom of heaven and even calms the storm-clouds of the mind of man, he lends his light to the rest of the stars also; he is glorious and pre-eminent, all-seeing and even all-hearing—this I observe that Homer the prince of literature held to be true in the case of the sun alone.

V. For this reason I deem it a mark of human weakness to seek to discover the shape and form of God. Whoever God is—provided there is a God—and in whatever region he is, he consists wholly of sense, sight and hearing, wholly of soul, wholly of mind, wholly of himself. To believe in gods without number, and gods corresponding to men's vices as well as to their virtues, like the Goddesses of Modesty, Concord, Intelligence, Hope, Honour, Mercy and Faith—or else, as Democritus held, only two, Punishment and Reward, reaches an even greater height of folly. Frail, toiling mortality, remembering its own weakness, has divided such deities into groups, so as to worship in sections, each the deity he is most in need of. Consequently different races have different names for the deities, and we find countless deities in the same races, even those of the lower world being classified into groups, and diseases and also many forms of plague, in our nervous anxiety to get them placated. Because of this there is actually a Temple of Fever consecrated by the nation on the Palatine Hill, and one of Bereavement at the Temple of the Household Deities, and an Altar of Misfortune on the Esquiline. For this reason we can infer a larger population of celestials than of human beings, as individuals also make an equal number of gods on their own, by adopting their own private Junos and Genii; while certain nations have animals, even some loathsome ones, for gods, and many things still more disgraceful to tell of—swearing by rotten articles of food and other things of that sort. To believe even in marriages taking place between gods, without anybody all through the long ages of time being born as a result of them, and that some are always old and grey, others youths and boys, and gods with dusky complexions, winged, lame, born from eggs, living and dying on alternate days—this almost ranks with the mad fancies of children; but it passes all bounds of shamelessness to invent acts of adultery taking place between the gods themselves, followed by altercation and enmity, and the existence of deities of theft and of crime. For mortal to aid mortal—this is god; and this is the road to eternal glory: by this road went our Roman chieftains, by this road now proceeds with heavenward step, escorted by his children, the greatest ruler of all time, His Majesty Vespasian, coming to the succour of an exhausted world. To enrol such men among the deities is the most ancient method of paying them gratitude for their benefactions. In fact the names of the other gods, and also of the stars that I have mentioned above, originated from the services of men: at all events who would not admit that it is the interpretation of men's characters that prompts them to call each other Jupiter or Mercury or other names, and that originates the nomenclature of heaven? That that supreme being, whatever it be, pays heed to man's affairs is a ridiculous notion. Can we believe that it would not be defiled by so gloomy and so multifarious a duty? Can we doubt it? It is scarcely pertinent to determine which is more profitable for the human race, when some men pay no regard to the gods at all and the regard paid by others is of a shameful nature: they serve as the lackeys of foreign ritual, and they carry gods on their fingers; also they pass sentence of punishment upon the monsters they worship, and devise elaborate viands for them; they subject themselves to awful tyrannies, so as to find no repose even in sleep; they do not decide on marriage or having a family or indeed anything else except by the command of sacrifices; others cheat in the very Capitol and swear false oaths by Jupiter who wields the thunderbolts—and these indeed make a profit out of their crimes, whereas the others are penalized by their religious observances.

Nevertheless mortality has rendered our guesses about God even more obscure by inventing for itself a deity intermediate between these two conceptions. Everywhere in the whole world at every hour by all men's voices Fortune alone is invoked and named, alone accused, alone impeached, alone pondered, alone applauded, alone rebuked and visited with reproaches; deemed volatile and indeed by most men blind as well, wayward, inconstant, uncertain, fickle in her favours and favouring the unworthy. To her is debited all that is spent and credited all that is received, she alone fills both pages in the whole of mortals' account; and we are so much at the mercy of chance that Chance herself, by whom God is proved uncertain, takes the place of God. Another set of people banishes fortune also, and attributes events to its star and to the laws of birth, holding that for all men that ever are to be God's decree has been enacted once for all, while for the rest of time leisure has been vouchsafed to Him. This belief begins to take root, and the learned and unlearned mob alike go marching on towards it at the double: witness the warnings drawn from lightning, the forecasts made by oracles, the prophecies of augurs, and even inconsiderable trifles—a sneeze, a stumble—counted as omens. His late Majesty put abroad a story that on the day on which he was almost overthrown by a mutiny in the army he had put his left boot on the wrong foot. This series of instances entangles unforeseeing mortality, so that among these things but one thing is in the least certain—that nothing certain exists, and that nothing is more pitiable, or more presnmptuous, than man! inasmuch as with the rest of living creatures their sole anxiety is for the means of life, in which nature's bounty of itself suffices, the one blessing indeed that is actually preferable to every other being the fact that they do not think about glory, money, ambition, and above all death.

But it agrees with life's experience to believe that in these matters the gods exercise an interest in human affairs; and that punishment for wickedness, though sometimes tardy, as God is occupied in so vast a mass of things, yet is never frustrated; and that man was not born God's next of kin for the purpose of approximating to the beasts in vileness. But the chief consolations for nature's imperfection in the case of man are that not even for God are all things possible—for he cannot, even if he wishes, commit suicide, the supreme boon that he has bestowed on man among all the penalties of life, nor bestow eternity on mortals or recall the deceased, nor cause a man that has lived not to have lived or one that has held high office not to have held it—and that he has no power over what is past save to forget it, and (to link our fellowship with God by means of frivolous arguments as well) that he cannot cause twice ten not to be twenty, or do many things on similar lines: which facts unquestionably demonstrate the power of nature, and prove that it is this that we mean by the word 'God.' It will not have been irrelevant to have diverged to these topics, which have already been widely disseminated because of the unceasing enquiry into the nature of God.

VI. Let us return from these questions to the remaining facts of nature. We have stated that the stars are attached to the firmament, not assigned to each of us in the way in which the vulgar believe, and dealt out to mortals with a degree of radiance proportionate to the lot of each, the brightest stars to the rich, the smaller ones to the poor, the dim to those who are worn out; they do not each rise with their own human being, nor indicate by their fall that someone's life is being extinguished. There is no such close alliance between us and the sky that the radiance of the stars there also shares our fate of mortality. When the stars are believed to fall, what happens is that owing to their being overfed with a draught of liquid they give back the surplus with a fiery flash, just as with us also we see this occur with a stream of oil when lamps are lit. But the heavenly bodies have a nature that is eternal—they interweave the world and are blended with its weft; yet their potency has a powerful influence on the earth, indeed it is owing to the effects that they produce and to their brilliance and magnitude that it has been possible for them to become known with such a degree of precision, as we shall show in the proper place. Also the system of the revolutions of the sky will be more appropriately stated when we deal with geography, since it is entirely related to the earth; only we must not postpone the discoveries that have been made as to the zodiac. Tradition says that Anaximander of Miletus in the fifty-eighth Olympiad was the first person to discover the obliquity of the zodiac, that is, to open the portals of science; and that next Cleostratus explained the signs in it, beginning with the Ram and the Archer; the firmament itself having been explained long before by Atlas.

Let us now leave the frame of the world itself and treat the remaining bodies situated between the sky and the earth. The following points are certain: (1) The star called Saturn's is the highest and consequently looks the smallest and revolves in the largest orbit, returning in thirty years at the shortest to its initial station. (2) The motions of all the planets, and among them the sun and moon, follow a course contrary to that of the world, namely to the left, the world always running to the right. (3) Although they are borne on by it and carried westward with an unceasing revolution of immeasurable velocity, nevertheless they travel with an opposite motion along their respective tracks. (4) Thus it comes about that the air is not massed in a dull lethargic ball by revolving in the same direction because of the eternal rotation of the world, but is scattered into separate portions by the opposite impact of the stars. (5) Saturn is of a cold and frozen nature. The orbit of Jupiter is much below it and therefore revolves much faster, completing one rotation every twelve years. The third star is Mars, called by some Hercules; owing to the proximity of the sun it has a fiery glow; it revolves once in about two years, and consequently, owing to its excessive heat and Saturn's frost, Jupiter being situated between them combines the influence of each and is rendered healthy. (6) Next, the sun's course is divided into 360 parts, but in order that an observation taken of the shadows that it casts may come round to the starting-point, five and a quarter days per annum are added; consequently to every fourth a year an intercalary day is added to make our chronology tally with the course of the sun.

Below the sun revolves a very large star named Venus, which varies its course alternately, and whose alternative names in themselves indicate its rivalry with the sun and moon—when in advance and rising before dawn it receives the name of Lucifer, as being another sun and bringing the dawn, whereas when it shines after sunset it is named Vesper, as prolonging the daylight, or as being a deputy for the moon. This property of Venus was first discovered by Pythagoras of Samos about the 42nd Olympiad, [612-609 BC] 142 years after the foundation of Rome. Further it surpasses all the other stars in magnitude, and is so brilliant that alone among stars it casts a shadow by its rays. Consequently there is a great competition to give it a name, some having called it Juno, others Isis, others the Mother of the Gods. Its influence is the cause of the birth of all things upon earth; at both of its risings it scatters a genital dew with which it not only fills the conceptive organs of the earth but also stimulates those of all animals. It completes the circuit of the zodiac every 348 days, and according to Timaeus is never more than 46 degrees distant from the sun. The star next to Venus is Mercury, by some called Apollo; it has a similar orbit, but is by no means similar in magnitude or power. It travels in a lower circle, with a revolution nine days quicker, shining sometimes before sunrise and sometimes after sunset, but according to Cidenas and Sosigenes never more than 22 degrees away from the sun. Consequently the course of these stars also is peculiar, and not shared by those above-mentioned: those are often observed to be a quarter or a third of the heaven away from the sun and travelling against the sun, and they all have other larger circuits of full revolution, the specification of which belongs to the theory of the Great Years.

But the wonder of everyone is vanquished by the last star, the one most familiar to the earth, and devised by nature to serve as a remedy for the shadows of darkness—the moon. By the riddle of her transformations she has racked the wits of observers, who are ashamed that the star which is nearest should be the one about which we know least--always waxing or waning, and now curved into the horns of a sickle, now just halved in size, now rounded into a circle; spotted and then suddenly shining clear; vast and full-orbed, and then all of a sudden not there at all; at one time shining all night and at another rising late and for a part of the day augmenting the light of the sun, eclipsed and nevertheless visible during the eclipse, invisible at the end of the month when she is not believed to be in trouble; again at one time low down and at another up aloft, and not even this in a uniform way, but sometimes raised to the sky and sometimes touching the mountain-tops, now borne up to the North and now carried down to the South. The first human being to observe all these facts about her was Endymion—which accounts for the traditional story of his love for her. We forsooth feel no gratitude towards those whose assiduous toil has given us illumination on the subject of this luminary, while owing to a curious disease of the human mind we are pleased to enshrine in history records of bloodshed and slaughter, so that persons ignorant of the facts of the world may be acquainted with the crimes of mankind.

The moon then is nearest to the pole, and therefore has the smallest orbit, completing the same distance every 27⅓ days that Saturn the highest star covers, as we have said, in 30 years. Then she lingers two days in conjunction with the sun, and after the 30th day at latest sets out again on the same course—being perhaps our teacher as to all the facts that it has been possible to observe in the heavens; (1) that the year is to be divided into twelve monthly spaces, because she herself that number of times follows the sun in his return to his starting point; (2) that she is governed by the sun's radiance as are the rest of the stars, as in fact she shines with a light entirely borrowed from him, like the light which we see flickering reflected in water; (3) that consequently she only causes water to evaporate with a rather gentle and imperfect force, and indeed increases its quantity, whereas the sun's rays dry it up; (4) also that the reason why she is seen to vary in her light is that she is full only when opposite to the sun, and on the remaining days shows as much light from herself to the earth as she herself conceives from the sun; though (5) she is indeed invisible when in conjunction with the sun, because being turned towards him she gives back the entire draught of light to the source from which she receives it; (6) but that the stars are undoubtedly nourished by the moisture of the earth, since she is sometimes seen spotted in half her orb, clearly because she has not yet got sufficient strength to go on drinking—her spots being merely dirt from the earth taken up with the moisture; (7) but that her eclipses and those of the sun, the most marvellous and indeed portentous occurrence in the whole of our observation of nature, serve as indications of their dimensions and shadow.

VII. It is in fact obvious that the sun is hidden by the passage across it of the moon, and the moon by the interposition of the earth, and that they retaliate on one another, the same rays of  the sun being taken away from the earth by the moon intervening and from the moon by the earth: at the transit of the former a sudden shadow passes over the earth, and in return the shadow of the latter dims the heavenly body (the moon), and the darkness is merely the earth's shadow, but the shape of the shadow is conical, resembling a spinning-top upside down, as it impinges only with its point and does not go beyond the altitude of the moon, because no other star is obscured in the same way, and a conical figure always tapers off into a point: that shadows are made to disappear by distance is proved when birds fly to extreme heights. Consequently the frontier between the moon and the other heavenly bodies is at the point where the air ends and the aether begins. All the space above the moon is clear and filled with continual light, but to us the stars are visible through the night in the same way as other lights in shadows. And these are the reasons why the moon wanes in the night-time; but both of her wanings are irregular and not monthly, because of the slant of the zodiac and the widely varying curves of the moon's course, as has been stated, the motion of the heavenly bodies not always tallying in minute fractional quantities.

VIII.  This theory leads mortal minds upward to heaven, and discloses to their observation from that height, as it were, the greatness of the three greatest parts of the universe; clearly it would not be possible for the whole of the sun to be eclipsed from the earth by the passage of the moon between them if the earth were larger than the moon. The vast size of the sun will be shown with the more certainty from the two bodies, so that there is no need to investigate its size by the evidence of the eyes and by logical inference, arguing that it is immeasurably large for the following reasons: (1) the shadow that it throws of rows of trees along the balks of fields are at equal distances apart for ever so many miles, just as if over the whole space the sun were in the centre; (2) during the equinoxes it reaches the vertical simultaneously for all the inhabitants of the southern region; (3) the shadows of the people living round the Tropic of Cancer fall northward at midday but westward at sunrise, which could not happen unless the sun were much larger than the earth; (4) when it is rising its breadth exceeds Mount Ida, overlapping it widely right and left—and that though it is separated from it by so great a distance.

The eclipse of the moon supplies indubitable proof of the size of the sun, just as the sun itself when it suffers eclipse proves the smallness of the earth. For shadows are of three shapes, and it is clear that, if the solid object that throws a shadow is equal in area to the shaft of light, the shadow projected is shaped like a pillar and is of infinite length, but if the solid body is larger than the light, the shadow has the shape of an upright spinning-top, so that it is narrowest at the bottom, and infinite in length as in the former case, while if the solid is smaller than the light the result is the figure of a cone narrowing down to end in a point, and this is the nature of the shadow observed during an eclipse of the moon; hence it is proved without any further possibility of doubt remaining that the sun exceeds the earth's size. Indeed, this is also proved by the silent testimony of nature herself; for why in the division of the turns of the year does the winter sun retire, so as to refresh the earth with the darkness of the nights? when otherwise it would unquestionably scorch up the earth, and even as it is does so in a certain part, so great is its magnitude.

IX.  The first person indeed of Roman nationality who published an explanation of both kinds of eclipse was Sulpicius Gallus—the colleague in the consulship of Marcus Marcellus, but at the time military tribune—who delivered the army from fear when on the day before the defeat a of King Perseus by Paulus he was brought before an assembly by the commander-in chief to foretell an eclipse; and later also by writing a treatise. The original discovery was made in Greece by Thales of Miletus, who in the fourth year of the 48th Olympiad (585 BC.) foretold the eclipse of the sun that occurred in the reign of Alyattes, in the 170th year after the foundation of Rome. After their time the courses of both stars for 600 years were prophesied by Hipparchus, whose work embraced the calendar of the nations and the situations of places and aspects of the peoples—his method being, on the evidence of his contemporaries none other than full partnership in the designs of nature. O mighty heroes, of loftier than mortal estate, who have discovered the law of those great divinities and released the miserable mind of man from fear, mortality dreading as it did in eclipses of the stars crimes or death of some sort (those sublime singers, the bards Stesichorus and Pindar, clearly felt this fear owing to an eclipse of the sun), or in the dying of the moon inferring that she was poisoned and consequently coming to her aid with a noisy clattering of cymbals (this alarm caused the Atheman general Nicias, in his ignorance of the cause, to be afraid to lead his fleet out of harbour, so destroying the Athenians' resources: all hail to your genius, ye that interpret the heavens and grasp the facts of nature, discoverers of a theory whereby you have vanquished gods and men! for who beholding these truths and the regularity of the stars' periods of trouble (for so it has pleased you to call them), would not forgive his own destiny for the generation of mortals?

Now I will briefly and summarily touch on facts that are admitted about the same matters, giving an account of them only at necessary points and in a cursory manner, because such theorizing does not form part of the task that I have set in hand, and also it is less surprising that explanations cannot be produced for all the facts than that agreement has been reached on some of them.

X. It is certain that eclipses recur in cycles of 223 months—eclipses of the sun only when the moon is in her last or first phase (this is called their 'conjunction'), eclipses of the moon only at full moon—and always within the period of their last occurrence; but that yearly at fixed days and hours eclipses of either star occur below the earth, and that even when they occur above the earth they are not visible everywhere, sometimes owing to clouds, more often because the earth's globe stands in the way of the world's curvature. Less than 200 years ago the penetration of Hipparchus discovered that an eclipse of the moon also sometimes occurs four months after the one before and an eclipse of the sun six months, and that the latter when above earth is hidden twice in thirty days, but that this eclipse is visible to different nations, and—the most remarkable features of this remarkable occurrence—that when it comes about that the moon is obscured by the shadow of the earth, this sometimes happens to it from the west side and sometimes from the east; and he also discovered for what exact reason, although the shadow causing the eclipse must from sunrise onward be below the earth, it happened once in the past that the moon was eclipsed in the west while both luminaries were visible above the earth. For the eclipse of both sun and moon within 15 days of each other has occurred even in our time, in the year of the third consulship of the elder Emperor Vespasian and the second consulship of the younger.

XI. It is unquestionable that the moon's horns are always turned away from the sun, and that when waxing she faces east and when waning west; and that the moon shines 47½ minutes longer daily from the day after new moon to full and 47½ minutes less daily to her wane, while within 14 degrees of the sun she is always invisible. This fact proves that the planets are of greater magnitude than the moon, since these occasionally become unble even on reaching 7 degrees' distance; but their altitude makes them appear smaller, just as the sun's radiance makes the fixed stars invisible in daytime, although they are shining as much as in the night, which becomes manifest at a solar eclipse and also when the star is reflected in a very deep well.

XII. The three planets whose positions we have stated to be above the sun travel with the sun when they set and are never more than 11 degrees separate from the sun at dawn when they rise. Afterwards they retire from contact with his rays, and make their morning or 'first' stations in a triangle 120 degrees away, and subsequently their evening risings opposite 180 degrees away, and again approaching from the other side, make their evening or 'second' stations 120 degrees away, till the sun overtaking them at 12 degrees obscures them—this is called their evening setting. The planet Mars being nearer feels the sun's rays even from its quadrature, at an angle of 90 degrees, which has given to his motion after each rising the name of 'first' or 'second ninety-degree.' At the same time Mars remains stationary in the signs of the zodiac for periods of six months (otherwise having a two-mouth period), whereas Jupiter and Saturn spend less than four months in each station. The two lower planets (Mercury and Venus) are similarly obscured at their evening conjunction, and when left by the sun make their morning rising the same number of degrees away, and from the further limits of their distance follow the sun and when they have overtaken him are hidden in their morning setting and pass away. Then they rise in the evening at the same distance apart, as far as the limits we have stated. From these they pass backward to the sun, and disappear in their evening setting. The planet Venus actually makes two stations, morning and evening, after each rise, from the furthest limits of her distance. Mercury's stations have too short a period to be perceptible.

XIII. This is the system of the shining and occultation of the planets: it is more complicated from their motion and involves many remarkable facts, inasmuch as they change their magnitude and their colours, and both approach the North and retire towards the South, and suddenly are seen closer to the earth or to the sky. And although our account of these matters will differ in many points from that of our predecessors, we confess that credit for these points also must be given to those who first demonstrated the methods of investigating them: only nobody must abandon the hope that the generations are constantly making progress.

All these occurrences are due to a plurality of causes. The first is the factor of the circles which in the case of the stars the Greeks designate apsides or arcs (it will be necessary to employ Greek terms). Each planet has its own circle, and these are not the same as those of the firmament, since the earth between the two vertices, named in Greek poles, is the centre of the sky, and also of the zodiac, which is situated on a slant between the poles. [All these facts are always established beyond doubt by the method of compasses.] Therefore the special arc of each is drawn from a different centre, and consequently they have different orbits and dissimilar motions, because the inner arcs must necessarily be shorter.

It follows that the points of the arcs highest above the centre of the earth are: in the case of Saturn in Scorpio, in that of Jupiter in Virgo, of Mars in Leo, of the sun in the Twins, of Venus in the Archer, of Mercury in Capricorn, of the moon in the Bull, at the middle of each, and the points lowest and nearest to the centre of the earth are opposite. The result of this is that they appear to move slower and to be smaller when they are travelling at the highest point of their circuit, but to be larger and travel faster when they have come nearer to the earth, not because they actually accelerate or reduce their natural motions, which are fixed and individual to them, but because lines drawn from the top of the arc to the centre necessarily converge like the spokes of a wheel, and the same motion at one time is perceived as faster and at another slower according to its distance from the centre.

Another reason of their elevations is because they have the points of their arcs highest from their centre in different signs—Saturn in the 20th degree of the Scales, Jupiter in the 15th of the Crab, Mars in the 28th of Capricorn, the sun in the 29th of the Ram, Venus in the 27th of the Fishes, Mercury in the 15th of Virgo, the moon in the 4th of the Bull.

A third explanation of their altitudes is explained by the dimensions of the firmament, not that of a circle, the eye judging them to rise or to sink through the depth of the air.

Linked with this is the cause of the latitudes of the zodiac and of its obliquity. The stars we have mentioned travel through the zodiac, and the only habitable part of the earth is what lies beneath it—all the other parts towards the poles are frost-bound. Only the planet Venus goes two degrees outside the zodiac; this is understood to be the reason that causes some animals to be born even in the desert places of the world. The moon also wanders through the whole of its breadth, but without going at all outside it. The planet Mercury diverges very widely from these, but without wandering over more than 6 of the 12 degrees of latitude of the zodiac, and these 6 not uniformly but two in the middle of the zodiac, four above it and two below it. Then the sun travels unevenly in the middle of the zodiac between the two halves with a wavy serpentine course, the planet Mars over 4 degrees in the middle, Jupiter one in the middle and two above it, Saturn two like the sun. This will be the principle of the latitudes of the planets when setting towards the South or rising towards the North. Most people have supposed that with this system agrees also the third mentioned above, that of their rising from the earth to the sky, and that this ascent also is made simultaneously; but this is a mistake. To refute them it is necessary to develop an extremely abstruse argument that embraces all the causes mentioned.

It is agreed that the planets are nearest to the earth in both altitude and latitude at their evening setting, and that their morning risings occur at the beginning of both altitude and latitude, while their stations occur in the middle sections of the altitudes, called 'ecliptics.' It is similarly admitted that their velocity increases as long as they are in the neighbourhood of the earth and decreases when they withdraw from it to a height: this theory is specially supported by the apogees of the moon. It is equally undoubted that the three higher ones moreover increase their motion in their morning risings and diminish it from their first (morning) stations to their second (evening) stations. In view of these facts it will be evident that the latitudes are ascended from their morning rising, because in that state their acceleration first begins to diminish, but in their first stations their altitude also is ascended, since then the numbers first begin to be reduced and the stars begin to recede. The reason for this must especially be given. When struck in the degree that we stated and by a triangular ray of the sun they are prevented from pursuing a straight course, and are lifted upward by the fiery force. This cannot be directly perceived by our sight, and therefore they are thought to be stationary, which has given rise to the term 'station.' Then the violent force of the same ray advances and compels them by the impact of the heat to retire. This occurs much more at their evening rising, when they are driven out to the top of their apsides by the full opposing force of the sun, and appear very small because they are at the distance of their greatest altitude and are moving with their smallest velocity—which is proportionately smaller when this occurs in the highest signs of their apsides. From their evening rise their altitude is descended with a velocity now decelerating less and less, but not accelerating before their second stations, when their altitude also is descended, the ray passing above them from the other side and pressing them down again to the earth with the same force as that with which it had raised them to the sky from the former triangle. So much difference does it make whether the rays come from below or from above, and the same things occur far more in the evening setting.

This is the theory of the higher stars; that of the rest is more difficult and has been explained by nobody before ourselves.

XIV.  First therefore let us state the reason why Venus never departs more than 46 degrees and Mercury never more than 23 degrees from the sun, and why they often retire and return towards the sun within those limits. As situated below the sun both have arcs that are the opposite of those of the other planets, and as much of their circle is below the earth as that of the planets mentioned before is above it; and they cannot be further from it than they are because the curve of their arcs does not allow greater elongation there; consequently the edges of their arcs put a limit on a similar principle for each, and compensate for the dimensions of their longitude by the enlargement of their latitude. But, it will be objected, why do they not reach 46 and 23 degrees always? As a matter of fact they do, but the explanation escapes the theorists. For it is manifest that even their arcs alter, because they never cross the sun; accordingly when the edges have fallen on one side or the other into the actual degree of the sun, then the stars also are understood to have reached their longest distances, but when the edges are short of that, they themselves too are compelled to return with proportionately greater velocity, since with each of them that is always the extreme limit.

This also explains the contrary principle of their motions. For the higher planets travel most quickly in their evening setting, whereas these travel most slowly, and the former are farthest from the earth when their pace is slowest but the latter are highest when their pace is quickest—the reason being that with the latter the circumference of the circle accelerates their pace in the same manner as proximity to the centre does in the case of the former; the former begin to decelerate from their morning setting, but the latter to accelerate. The former travel backward from their morning to their evening station, the planet Venus from her evening to her morning station. But she begins to climb her latitude after her morning rise, but after her morning station to ascend her altitude and follow the sun, being swiftest and highest at her morning setting; whereas she begins to descend in latitude and decelerate after her evening rising, and to turn back and simultaneously to descend in altitude after her evening station; on the other hand the planet Mercury begins to climb in both ways after his morning rising, but after his evening rising to descend in latitude, and following the sun at an interval of 15 degrees he stands motionless for almost four days. Afterwards he descends from his altitude and proceeds back from his evening setting to his morning rise. And only this planet and the moon set in as many days as they have risen in; Venus ascends in 15 times as many days as she sets in, while Saturn and Jupiter descend in twice as many, and Mars in actually four times as many. So great is the variety of nature; but the reason is evident—bodies that strain up into the heat of the sun also have difficulty in descending.

XV. Many more facts can be produced about these mysteries of nature and the laws that she obeys—for example, in the case of the planet Mars (whose course it is very difficult to observe) that it never makes its station with Jupiter at an angle of 120º, and very seldom with Jupiter separ­ated 60º (which amounts to 1/6th of the celestial sphere), and never makes its rises simultaneously with Jupiter except in two signs only, Cancer and Leo, whereas the planet Mercury rarely makes its evening rises in Pisces, and most frequently in Virgo, its morning rises in Libra, and also its morning rises in Aquarius, very rarely in Leo; it does not make its return in Taurus and in Gemini, and not below the 25th degree in Cancer; Gemini is the only sign in which the moon makes conjunction with the sun twice, Sagittarius the only one in which she does not meet him at all, Aries the only one in which the old moon and the new moon are visible on the same day or night (and this too it has happened to few mortals to see, hence Lynceus's reputation for keen sight); the longest period of invisibility for the planets Saturn and Mars is 170 days, for Jupiter 36 days; the shortest periods for all these are 10 days less; Venus's period is 69 days or at shortest 52, Mercury's 13 or at longest 17.

XVI. The colours of the planets vary with their altitudes, inasmuch as they are assimilated to the stars into whose atmosphere they come in rising, and the circuit of another's path modifies their colour in either direction as they approach, a colder circuit to pallor, a hotter one to redness, a windy one to a leaden colour, the sun and the intersection of its orbit with theirs, and also the extremities of their paths, changing them to black darkness. It is true that each has its own special hue—Saturn white, Jupiter transparent, Mars fiery, Lucifer bright white, Vesper glaring, Mercury radiant, the moon soft, the sun when rising glowing and afterwards radiant; with these being causally connected also the appearance of the fixed stars. For at one time there is a dense crowd of stars in the sky round the circle of the half-moon, a fine night giving them a gentle radiance, but at another time they are scarce, so that we wonder at their flight, when the full moon hides them or when the rays of the sun or the planets above-mentioned dim our sight. But the moon herself also is undoubtedly sensitive to the variations of the strength of impact of the rays of the sun, as moreover the curve of the earth dulls their impact, except when the impact of the rays meets at a right angle. And so the moon is at half in the sun's quadrature, and curved in a hollow circle in its trinal aspect, but waxes to full at the sun's opposition, and then waning exhibits the same configurations at corresponding intervals, on the same principle as the three planets above the sun.

XVII. The sun itself has four differences, as there are two equinoxes, in spring and autumn, when  it coincides with the centre of the earth at the eighth degree of Aries and Libra, and two changes of its course, in the eighth degree of Capricorn at midwinter when the days begin to lengthen and in the same degree of Cancer at the summer solstice. The variation is due to the slant of the zodiac, as at every moment an equal part of the firmament is above and below the earth; but the planets that follow a straight path at their rising keep their light for a longer tract and those that follow a slanting path pass in a swifter period.

XVIII. Most men are not acquainted with a truth known to the founders of the science from their arduous study of the heavens, that what when they fall to earth are termed thunderbolts are the fires of the three upper planets, particularly those of Jupiter, which is in the middle position—possibly because it voids in this way the charge of excessive moisture from the upper circle (of Saturn) and of excessive heat from the circle below (of Mars); and that this is the origin of the myth that thunderbolts are the javelins hurled by Jupiter. Consequently heavenly fire is spit forth by the planet as crackling charcoal flies from a burning log, bringing prophecies with it, as even the part of himself that he discards does not cease to function in its divine tasks. And this is accompanied by a very great disturbance of the air, because moisture collected causes an overflow, or because it is disturbed by the birth-pangs so to speak of the planet in travail.

XIX.  Many people have also tried to discover the distances of the planets from the earth, and have given out that the distance of the sun from the moon is 19 times that of the moon itself from the earth. The penetrating genius of Pythagoras, however, inferred that the distance of the moon from the earth was 15,750 miles, and that of the sun from the moon twice that figure, and of the sun from the twelve signs of the Zodiac three times. Our fellow-countryman Sulpicius Gallus also held this view.

XX. But occasionally Pythagoras draws on the theory of music, and designates the distance between the earth and the moon as a whole tone, that between the moon and Mercury a semitone, between Mercury and Venus the same, between her and the sun a tone and a half, between the sun and Mars a tone (the same as the distance between the earth and the moon), between Mars and Jupiter half a tone, between Jupiter and Saturn half a tone, between Saturn and the zodiac a tone and a half: the seven tones thus producing the so-called diapason, a universal harmony; in this Saturn moves in the Dorian mode, Jupiter in the Phrygian, and similarly with the other planets—a refinement more entertain­ing than convincing.

XXI. A stade is equivalent to 125 Roman paces, that is 625 feet. Posidonius holds that mists and winds and clouds reach to a height of not less than 5 miles from the earth, but that from that point the air is clear and liquid and perfectly luminous, but that the distance between the cloudy air and the moon is 250,000 miles and between the moon and the sun 625,000 miles, it being due to this distance that the sun's vast magnitude does not burn up the earth. The majority of writers, however, have stated that the clouds rise to a height of 111 miles. These figures are really unascertained and impossible to disentangle, but it is proper to put them forward became they have been put forward already, although they are matters in which the method of geometrical inference, which never misleads, is the only method that it is possible not to reject, were anybody desirous of pursuing such questions more deeply, and with the intention of establishing not precise measurement (for to aspire to that would mark an almost insane absorption in study) but merely a conjectural calculation. For since it appears from the sun's revolution that the circle through which its orb travels extends nearly 366 degrees, and since the diameter of a circle always measures a little less than ⅓ + 1/21 of the circumference, it appears that, as half the circle is subtracted by the interposition of the earth at the centre, the measure of the sun's altitude comprises about tth of this conjecturally estimated immense space of the solar circle round the earth, and the moon's altitude tth, since the moon runs in a circuit that is much shorter than the sun's; so that it comes between the sun and the earth. It is marvellous to what length the depravity of man's intellect will go when lured on by some trifling success, in the way in which reason furnishes impudence with its opportunity in the case of the calculations above stated. And when they have dared to guess the distances of the sun from the earth they apply the same figures to the sky, on the ground that the sun is at its centre, with the consequence that they have at their finger's ends the dimensions of the world also. For they argue that the circumference of a circle is us times its diameter, as though the measure of the heavens were merely regulated from a plumb-line! The Egyptian calculation published by Petosiris and Nechepsos infers that one degree of the lunar circle measures (as has been said) just over 4⅛ miles at the least, one degree of the widest circle, Saturn's, twice that size, and one of the sun's circle, which we stated to be in the middle, the mean between the other two. This computation is a most shameful business, since the addition of the distance of the zodiac itself to the circle of Saturn produces a multiple that is even beyond reckoning.

XXII. A few facts about the world remain. There are also stars that suddenly come to birth in the heaven itself; of these there are several kinds. The Greeks call them 'comets,' in our language 'long-haired stars,' because they have a blood-red shock of what looks like shaggy hair at their top. The Greeks also give the name of 'bearded stars' to those from whose lower part spreads a mane resembling a long beard. 'Javelin-stars' quiver like a dart; these are a very terrible portent. To this class belongs the comet about which Titus Imperator Caesar in his 5th consulship wrote an account in his famous poem, that being its latest appearance down to the present day. The same stars when shorter and sloping to a point have been called 'Daggers'; these are the palest of all in colour, and have a gleam like the flash of a sword, and no rays, which even the Quoit-star, which resembles its name in appearance but is in colour like amber, emits in scattered form from its edge. The 'Tub-star' presents the shape of a cask, with a smoky light all round it. The 'Horned star' has the shape of a horn, like the one that appeared when Greece fought the decisive battle of Salamis. The 'Torch-star' resembles glowing torches, the 'Horse-star horses' manes in very rapid motion and revolving in a circle. There also occurs a shining comet whose silvery tresses glow so brightly that it is scarcely possible to look at it, and which displays within it a shape in the likeness of a man's counten­ance. There also occur 'Goat comets,' enringed with a sort of cloud resembling tufts of hair. Once hitherto it has happened that a 'Mane-shaped' comet changed into a spear; this was in the 108th [348-345 BC] Olympiad, AUC 408 [346 BC]. The shortest period of visibility on record for a comet is 7 days, the longest 80.

XXIII. Some comets move, like the planets, but others are fixed and stationary, almost all of them towards the due North, not in any particular part of it, though chiefly in the luminous region called the Milky Way. Aristotle also records that several may be seen at the same time—a fact not observed by anyone else, as far as I am aware—and that this signifies severe winds or heat. Comets also occur in the winter months and at the south pole, but comets in the south have no rays. A terrible comet was seen by the people of Ethiopia and Egypt, to which Typhon the king of that period gave his name; it had a fiery appearance and was twisted like a coil, and it was very grim to behold: it was not really a star so much as what might be called a ball of fire. Planets and all other stars also occasionally have spreading hair. But sometimes there is a comet in the western sky, usually a terrifying star and not easily expiated: for instance, during the civil disorder in the consulship of Octavius, and again during the war between Pompey and Caesar, or in our day about the time of the poisoning which secured the bequest of the empire by Claudius Caesar to Domitius Nero, and thereafter during Nero's principate shining almost continuously and with a terrible glare. People think that it matters in what direction a comet darts, what star's strength it borrows, what shapes it resembles, and in what places it shines; that if it resembles a pair of flutes. It is a portent for the art of music, in the private parts of the constellations it portends immorality, if it forms an equilateral triangle or a rectangular quadrilateral in relation to certain positions of the fixed stars, it portends men of genius and a revival of learning, in the head of the Northern or the Southern Serpent it brings poisonings.

The only place in the whole world where a comet is the object of worship is a temple at Rome. His late Majesty Augustus had deemed this comet very propitious to himself; as it had appeared at the beginning of his rule, at some games which, not long after the decease of his father Caesar, as a member of the college founded by him he was celebrating in honour of Mother Venus. In fact he made public the joy that it gave him in these words: 'On the very days of my Games a comet was visible for seven days in the northern part of the sky. It was rising about an hour before sunset, and was a bright star, visible from all lands. The common people believed that this star signified the soul of Caesar received among the spirits of the immortal gods, and on this account the emblem of a star was added to the bust of Caesar that we shortly afterwards dedicated in the forum.' This was his public utterance, but privately he rejoiced because he interpreted the comet as having been born for his own sake and as containing his own birth within it; and, to confess the truth, it did have a health-giving influence over the world.

Some persons think that even comets are ever­lasting, and travel in a special circuit of their own, but are not visible except when the sun leaves them; there are others, however, who hold that they spring into existence out of chance moisture and fiery force, and consequently are dissolved.

XXIV. Hipparchus before-mentioned, who can never be sufficiently praised, no one having done more to prove that man is related to the stars and that our souls are a part of heaven, detected a new star that came into existence during his lifetime; the movement of this star in its line of radiance led him to wonder whether this was a frequent occurrence, whether the stars that we think to be fixed are also in motion; and consequently he did a bold thing, That would be reprehensible even for God—he dared to schedule the stars for posterity, and tick off the heavenly bodies by name in a list, devising machinery by means of which to indicate their several positions and magnitudes, in order that from that time onward it might be possible easily to discern not only whether stars perish and are born, but whether some are in transit and in motion, and also whether they increase and decrease in magnitude—thus bequeathing the heavens as a legacy to all mankind, supposing anybody had been found to claim that inheritance!

XXV. There are also meteoric lights that are only seen when falling, for instance one that ran across the sky at midday in full view of the public when Germanicus Caesar was giving a gladiatorial show. Of these there are two kinds: one sort are called lampades, which means torches, the other bolides (missiles),—that is the sort that appeared at the time of the disasters of Modena. The difference between them is that 'torches' make long tracks, with their front part glowing, whereas a 'boils' glows throughout its length, and traces a longer path.

XXVI. Other similar meteoric lights are 'beams.' in Greek dokoi, for example one that appeared when the Spartans were defeated at sea and lost the empire of Greece. There also occurs a yawning of the actual sky, called chasma,

XXVII and also something that looks like blood, and a fire that falls from it to the earth—the most alarming possible cause of terror to mankind; as happened in the third year [349BC] of the 107th Olympiad, when King Philip was throwing Greece into disturbance. My own view is that these occurrences take place at fixed dates owing to natural forces, like all other events, and not, as most people think, from the variety of causes invented by the cleverness of human intellects; it is true that they were the harbingers of enormous misfortunes, but I hold that those did not happen because the marvellous occurrences took place but that these took place because the misfortunes were going to occur, only the reason for their occurrence is concealed by their rarity, and consequently is not understood as are the risings and setting of the planets described above and many other phenomena.

XXVIII. Stars are also seen throughout the daytime in company with the sun, usually actually surrounding the sun's orb like wreaths made of ears of corn and rings of changing colour—for instance, when Augustus Caesar in early manhood entered the city after the death of his father to assume his mighty surname. Similar haloes occur round the moon and round The principal fixed stars.

XXIX. A bow appeared round the sun in the consulship of Lucius Opimius and Quintus Fabius, a hoop in that of Gaius Porcius and Manius Acilius, and a red ring in that of Lucius Julius and Publius Rutilius.

XXX. Portentous and protracted eclipses of the sun occur, such as the one after the murder of Caesar the dictator and during the Antonine war which caused almost a whole year's continuous gloom.

XXXI. Again, several suns are seen at once, neither above nor below the real sun but at an angle with it, never alongside of nor opposite to the earth, and not at night but either at sunrise or at sunset. It is also reported that once several suns were seen at midday at the Bosphorus, and that these lasted from dawn till sunset. In former times three suns have often been seen at once, for example in the consulships of Spurius Postumius and Quintus Mucius, of Quintus Marcius and Marcus Porcius, of Marcus Antonius and Publius Dolabella, and of Marcus Lepidus and Lucius Plancus; and our generation saw this during the principate of his late Majesty Claudius, in his consulship, when Cornelius Orfitus was his colleague. It is not stated that more than three suns at a time have ever been seen hitherto.

XXXII. Also three moons have appeared at once, for instance in the consulship of Gnaeus Domitius and Gaius Fannius.

XXXIII. A light from the sky by night, the phenomenon usually called 'night-suns,' was seen in the consulship of Gaius Caecilius and Gnaeus Papirius and often on other occasions causing apparent daylight in the night.

XXXIV. In the consulship of Lucius Valerius and Gaius Marius a burning shield scattering sparks ran across the sky at sunset from west to east.

XXXV. In the consulship of Gnaeus Octavius and Gaius Scribonius a spark was seen to fall from a star and increase in size as it approached the earth, and after becoming as large as the moon it diffused a sort of cloudy daylight, and then returning to the sky changed into a torch; this is the only record of this occurring. It was seen by the proconsul Silanus and his suite.

XXXVI. Also stars appear to shoot to and fro; and this invariably portends the rise of a fierce hurricane from the same quarter.

XXXVII.  Stars also come into existence at sea on land. I have seen a radiance of star-like appearance clinging to the javelins of soldiers on sentry duty at night in front of the rampart; and on a voyage stars alight on the yards and other parts of the ship, with a sound resembling a voice, hopping from perch to perch in the manner of birds. These when they come singly are disastrously heavy and wreck ships, and if they fall into the hold burn them up. If there are two of them, they denote safety and portend a successful voyage; and their approach is said to put to flight the terrible star called Helena: for this reason they are called Castor and Pollux, and people pray to them as gods for aid at sea. They also shine round men's heads at evening time; this is a great portent. All these things admit of no certain explanation; they are hidden away in the grandeur of nature.

XXXVIII. So much as to the world itself and the stars. Now the remaining noteworthy facts as to the heavens: for the name 'heaven' was also given by our ancestors to this which is otherwise designated 'air'—the whole of that apparently empty space which pours forth this breath of life. This region below the moon, and a long way below it (as I notice is almost universally agreed), blends together an unlimited quantity from the upper element of air and an unlimited quantity of terrestrial vapour, being a combination of both orders. From it come clouds, thunder-claps and also thunderbolts, hail, frost, rain, storms and whirlwinds; from it come most of mortals' misfortunes, and the warfare between the elements of nature. The force of the stars presses down terrestrial objects that strive to move towards the sky, and also draws to itself things that lack spontaneous levitation. Rain falls, clouds rise, rivers dry up, hailstorms sweep down; rays scorch, and impinging from every side on the earth in the middle of the world, then are broken and recoil and carry with them the moisture they have drunk up. Steam falls from on high and again returns on high. Empty winds sweep down, and then go back again with their plunder. So many living creatures draw their breath from the upper air; but the air strives in the opposite direction, and the earth pours back breath to the sky as if to a vacuum. Thus as nature swings to and fro like a kind of sling, discord is kindled by the velocity of the world's motion. Nor is the battle allowed to stand still, but is continually carried up and whirled round, displaying in an immense globe that encircles the world the causes of things, continually overspreading another and another heaven interwoven with the clouds. This is the realm of the winds. consequently their nature is here pre-eminent, and almost includes all the rest of the phenomena caused by the air, as most men attribute the hurling of thunderbolts and light­ning to the winds' violence, and indeed hold that the cause of the rain of stones that sometimes occurs is that the stones are caught up by the wind; and likewise many other things. On this account more facts have to be set out at the same time.

XXXIX. Storms and rain obviously have some regular causes, but some that are accidental, or at all events not hitherto explained. For who can doubt that summer and winter and the yearly vicissitudes observed in the seasons are caused by the motion of the heavenly bodies? Therefore as the nature of the sun is understood to control the year's seasons, so each of the other stars also has a force of its own that creates effects corresponding to its particular nature. Some are productive of moisture dissolved into liquid, others of moisture hardened into frost or coagulated into snow or frozen into hail, others of a blast of air, others of warmth or heat, others of dew, others of cold. But it must not be thought that the stars are of the size that they appear to the sight, since the consideration of their immense altitude proves that none of them is smaller than the moon. Consequently each of them exercises its own nature in its own motion, a fact which the transits of Saturn in particular make clear by their storms of rain. Nor does this power belong to the moving stars only, but also to many those that are fixed to the sky, whenever they are impelled forward by the approach of the planets or goaded on by the impact of their rays, as we observe occurring in the case of the Little Pigs, the Greek name for which is consequently the Hyades, a word denoting rain. Indeed some stars move of themselves and at fixed times—compare the rising of the Kids. But the rising of the constellation Arcturus is almost always accompanied by a hail-storm.

XL. For who is not aware that the heat of the sun increases at the rising of the Lesser Dog-star, whose effects are felt on earth very widely? At its rise the seas are rough, wine in the cellars ripples in waves, pools of water are stirred. There is a wild animal in Egypt called the gazelle that according to the natives stands facing this dog-star at its rise, and gazing at it as if in worship, after first giving a sneeze. It is indeed beyond doubt that dogs throughout the whole of that period are specially liable to rabies.

XLI. Moreover also the parts of some constellations have an influence of their own—for instance at the autumnal equinox and at midwinter, when we learn by the storms that the sun is completing its orbit; and not only by falls of rain and storms, but by many things that happen to our bodies and to the fields. Some men are paralysed by a star, others suffer periodic disturbances of the stomach or sinews or bead or mind. The olive and white poplar and willow turn round their leaves at the solstice. Fleabane hung up in the house to dry flowers exactly on midwinter day, and inflated skins burst. This may surprise one who does not notice in daily experience that one plant, called heliotrope, always looks towards the sun as it passes and at every hour of the day turns with it, even when it is obscured by a cloud. Indeed persistent research has discovered that the influence of the moon causes the shells of oysters, cockles and all shell-fish to grow larger and again smaller in bulk, and moreover that the phases of the moon affect the tissues of the shrewmouse, and that the smallest animal, the ant, is sensitive to the influence of the planet and at the time of the new moon is always slack. This makes ignorance all the more disgraceful to man, especially as he admits that with some cattle diseases of the eyes increase and diminish with the moon. His excuse is the heaven's vastness, being divided at an enormous height into 72 signs, that is, shapes of things or of animals into which the learned have mapped out the sky. In them they have indeed noted 1600 stars as being specially remarkable for their influence or their appearance, for instance the seven which they have named the Pleiades in the tail of the Bull and the Little Pigs in his forehead, and Bootes the star that follows the Seven Plough-oxen.

XLII. I would not deny that rain and wind can arise from other causes than these; it is certain that the earth exhales a damp mist and at other times a smoky one due to vapour, and that clouds are formed out of moisture rising to a height or air condensed into moisture. Their density and bulk are conjectured with certain inference from the fact that they obscure the sun, which is otherwise visible even to those diving into water to whatever depth.

XLIII. Consequently I would not go against the view that it is also possible for the fires of stars to fall from above into the clouds (as we often see happen. in fine weather, and the impact of these fires unquestionably shakes the air since even weapons when flung make a hissing noise); and that when they reach the cloud, a hissing steam is produced, just as when red-hot iron is plunged into water, and a coil of smoke whirls up. And I agree that these produce storms, and if there is wind or steam struggling in the cloud, it gives out claps of thunder, if it bursts out on fire, flashes of lightning, if it forces its way on a longer track, heat-lightning. The latter cleaves the cloud, the flashes burst through it, and thunder­claps are the blows of the fires colliding, causing fiery cracks at once to flash out in the clouds. It is also possible for breath emerging from the earth, when pressed down by the counter-impact of the stars, to be checked by a cloud and so cause thunder, nature choking down the sound while the struggle goes on but the crash sounding when the breath bursts out, as when a skin is stretched by being blown into. It is also possible for this breath, whatever it is, to be set on fire by the friction during its headlong progress. It is also possible for it to be struck out by the impact of the clouds, as by that of two stones, with heat-lightning flashing out like sparks. But all these occurrences are accidental—they cause mere senseless and ineffectual thunder-claps, as their coming obeys no principle of nature—they merely cleave mountains and seas, and all their other blows are ineffectual; but the former are prophetical and sent from on high, they come by fixed causes and from their own stars.

XLIV. Similarly I am not prepared to deny that it is possible for winds or rather gusts of air to be produced also by a dry and parched breath from the earth, and also possible when bodies of water breathe out a vapour that is neither condensed into mist or solidified into clouds; and also they may be caused by the driving force of the sun, because wind is understood to be nothing else than a wave of air; and in more ways as well. For we see winds arising both from rivers and bays and from the sea even when calm, and others, called altani, arising from the land; the latter when they come back again from the sea are called turning winds, but if they go on, offshore winds.

The windings of mountains and their clustered peaks and ridges curved in an elbow or broken off into shoulders, and the hollow recesses of valleys, cleaving with their irregular contours the air that is consequently reflected from them (a phenomenon that in many place causes words spoken to be endlessly echoed) are productive of winds. So again are caverns, like the one with an enormous gaping mouth on the coast of Dalmatia, from which, if you throw some light object into it, even in calm weather a gust like a whirlwind bursts out; the name of the place is Senta. Also it is said that in the province of Cyrenaica there is a certain cliff, sacred to the South wind, which it is sacrilege for the hand of man to touch, the South wind immediately causing a sandstorm. Even manufactured vessels in many houses if shut up in the dark have peculiar exhalations. Thus there must be some cause for this.

XLV. But there is a great difference between a gust of air and a wind. The latter, regular and blowing steadily, and felt not by some particular tract only but by whole countries, and not being breezes nor tempests but winds—even their name being a masculine word--whether they are caused by the continuous motion of the world and the impact of the stars travelling in the opposite direction or whether wind is the famous `breath' that generates the universe by fluctuating to and fro as in a sort of womb, or air whipped by the irregular impact of the planets and the non-uniform emission of their rays, or whether they issue forth from these nearer stars which are their own or fall from those stars which are fixed in the heaven—it is manifest that the winds too obey a law of nature that is not unknown, even if not yet fully known.

More than twenty Greek authors of the past have published observations about these subjects. This makes me all the more surprised that, although when the world was at variance, and split up into kingdoms, that is, sundered limb from limb, so many people devoted themselves to these abstruse researches; especially when wars surrounded them and hosts were untrustworthy, and also when rumours of pirates, the foes of all mankind, terrified intending travellers—so that now-a-days a person may learn some facts about his own region from the notebooks of people who have never been there more truly than from the knowledge of the natives—yet now in these glad times of peace under an emperor who so delights in productions of literature and science, no addition whatever is being made to knowledge by means of original research, and in fact even the discoveries of our predecessors are not being thoroughly studied. The rewards were not greater when the ample successes were spread out over made the discoveries in question with no other many students, and in fact the majority of these reward at all save the consciousness of benefiting posterity. Age has overtaken the characters of mankind, not their revenues, and now that every sea has been opened up and every coast offers hospitable landing, an immense multitude goes on voyages—but their object is profit not know­ledge; and in their blind engrossment with avarice they do not reflect that knowledge is a more reliable means even of making profit. Consequently in view of these thousands of persons who go on voyages I will give a more detailed account of the winds than is perhaps suited to the task I have set in hand.

XLVI. The ancients noticed four winds in all, corresponding to the four quarters of the world (this is the reason why even Homer mentions no more)—a dull-witted system, as it was soon afterwards considered; the following age added eight—this system on the other hand was too subtle and meticulous. Their successors adopted a compromise, adding to the short list four winds from the long one. There are consequently two winds in each of the four quarters of the heaven: Subsolanns blowing from the equinoctial sunrise (E.) and Vulturnus from the winter sunrise (S.E.)—the former designated by the Greeks Apeliotes, the latter Burns; Auster from the sun at midday (S.) and Afriens from the winter sunset (S.W.)—named in Greek Notus and Libs; Favonius from the equinoctial sunset (W.), Corus from the sunset at the solstice (N.W.)—these the Greeks call Zephyr and Argestes; Septentrio from the North and Aquilo between him and sunrise at the solstice (N.E.)—called in Greek Aparctias and Boreas. The more numerous scheme had inserted four between these: Thrascias (N.N.W.) in the space between Septentrio (N.) and the sunset at the solstice (N.W.) and also Caecias (E.N.E.) in the space between Aquilo (N.E.) and the equinoctial sunrise (B.) on the side of the sunrise at the solstice, and Phoenix (S.S.E.) in the space between winter sunrise (S.E.) and midday (S.), and also between Libs (S.W.) and Notus (S.) the combination of the two, Libonotus (S.S.W.), midway between midday (S.) and winter sunset (S.W.). Nor is this the end, inasmuch as others have also added one named Meses between Boreas (N.E.) and Caecias (E.N.E.), and Euronotus between Eurus (S.E.) and Notus (S.). There are also certain winds peculiar to particular races, which do not go outside a special region, e.g. the Athenians have Sciron, slightly diverging from Argestes (N.W.), a name unknown to the rest of Greece—elsewhere the same breeze is called Olympias: customarily all these names are taken to denote Argestni. Some people call Caecias (E.N.E.) Hellespontias, and others have other variants for these names. Similarly in the province of Narbonne the most famous of the winds is Circius (W.N.W.), which is inferior to none other at all in force and which usually carries a vessel right across the Ligurian Sea to Ostia; the same wind is not only unknown in the remaining quarters of the sky, but it does not even touch Vienne, a city of the same province, a few miles before reaching which this mighty wind is checked by the obstacle of a moderate ridge of hills. Fabianus asserts that South winds also do not penetrate Egypt—which reveals the law of nature that even winds have their prescribed limits as well as seasons.

XLVII. Accordingly the spring opens the seas to voyagers; at its beginning the West winds soften the wintry heaven, when the sun occupies the 25th degree of Aquarius; the date of this is Feb. 8. This also practically applies to all the winds whose positions I shall give afterwards, although every leap-year they come a day earlier, but they keep the regular rule in the period that follows. Certain persons give the name Chelidonias to the West wind on the 19th February, owing to the appearance of the swallow, but some call it Ornithias, from the arrival of the birds on the 71st day after the shortest day, when it blows for nine days. Opposite to the West wind is the wind that we have called Subsolanus (E.). The rise of the Pleiades in the same degrees of Taurus on May 10 brings summer; it is a period of South wind, Auster, the opposite of Septentrio. But in the hottest period of summer the Dog-star rises, when the sun is entering the first degree of Leo—this day is July 17. The Dog-star's rise is preceded for about eight days by North-east winds: these are called the Forerunners. But two days after his rising the North-east winds begin again, and continue blowing steadily for 30 days; these are called Etesian or Annual winds. They are believed to be softened by the sun's warmth being reinforced by the heat of the star; and they are the most regular of any of the winds. They are followed in turn by South winds, continuing to the rise of Areturus, which occurs 40 days before the autumnal equinox. With the equinox begins the North-west wind; this, the opposite of Volturnus, marks the beginning of autumn. About 44 days after the autumnal equinox the setting of the Pleiades marks the beginning of winter, which it is customary to date on November 11; this is the period of the winter Aquilo, which is very unlike the summer one mentioned above; it is opposite to the South-west wind. But for six days before the shortest day and six days after it the sea calms down for the breeding of the halcyons from which these days derive their name. The rest of the time there is wintry weather. However, not even the fury of the storms closes the sea; pirates first compelled men by the threat of death to rush into death and venture on the winter seas, but now avarice exercises the same compulsion.

XLVIII. The actually coldest winds are those that we have stated to blow from the North, and their neighbour Corus (N.W.); these check the other winds and also drive away the clouds. The South­west and especially the South are for Italy the damp winds; it is said that on the Black Sea the East-north-east also attracts clouds. The North-west and South-east are dry, except when they are falling. The North-east and North are snow winds; the North brings hailstorms, and so does the North-west. The South wind is hot, the South-east and West warm; the latter are also drier than the East wind, and in general all the northerly and westerly winds are drier than the southerly and easterly. The healthiest of all is the North wind; the South is harmful, and more so when dry, perhaps because when damp it is colder; living creatures are believed to be less hungry when it is blowing. Etesian winds usually cease at night and rise at eight o'clock in the morning; in Spain and Asia they are East winds, on the Black Sea North, and in other regions South. But they also begin to blow at midwinter then they are called the Bird-winds), but more gently and only for a few days. Two winds also change their nature with their geographical position: the South wind in Africa is fine and the North-east cloudy. All the winds blow in their own turns, usually the one opposite to the one that ceases beginning. When those next to the ones falling rise, they go round from left to right a like the sun. The fourth moon usually decides about the course of the winds for the month. Vessels by means of slacking sheets can sail in contrary direc­tions with the same winds, so that collisions occur, usually at night, between ships on opposite tacks. The South wind causes larger waves than the North­east because the former being below blows from the bottom of the sea but the latter from the top; consequently earthquakes following South winds are specially destructive. The South wind is more violent at night and the North-east wind in the day-time; and easterly winds continue longer than westerly. North winds usually stop after blowing an odd number of days, an observation that holds good in many other departments of nature also: this is why the odd numbers are thought to be masculine. The sun both increases and reduces the force of the wind—the former when rising and setting, the latter at midday in summer seasons; consequently the winds are usually lulled at midday or midnight, because either excessive cold or excessive heat makes them slack. Also winds are lulled by rain; but they are most to be expected from quarters where the clouds have broken, revealing a clear sky.

Eudoxus however thinks that (if we choose to study the minimal circuits) there is a regular re­currence of all phenomena—not only of winds but largely of other sorts of bad weather as well—in four-yearly periods, and that the period always begins in a leap-year at the rising of Sirius.

These are our observations with regard to the winds that are regular.

XLIX. Now as to sudden blasts, which arise as has been said from exhalations of the earth, and fall back again to the earth drawing over it an envelope of cloud; these occur in a variety of forms. The fact is that their onrush is quite irregular, like that of mountain torrents (as we have pointed out is the view of certain persons), and they give forth thunder and lightning. If travelling with a heavier momen­tum they burst a great gap in a dry cloud, they produce a storm called by the Greeks a cloudburst; but if they break out from a downward curve of cloud with a more limited rotation, they cause a whirl unaccompanied by fire—I mean by lightning—that is called a typhoon, which denotes a whirling cloudburst. This brings down with it a portion of heat torn from a cloud, which it turns and whirls round, increasing its own downward velocity by its weight, and shifting from place to place with a rapid whirl; it is specially disastrous to navigators, as it twists round and shatters not only the yards, but the vessels themselves, leaving only the slender remedy of pouring out vinegar in advance of its approach, vinegar being a very cold substance. The same whirlwind when beaten back by its very impact snatches things up and carries them back with it to the sky, sucking them high aloft.

L. But if it bursts out of a larger cavern of downward pressing cloud but not so wide a one as in the case of a storm, and is accompanied by a crashing noise, this is what they call a whirlwind, which overthrows everything in its neighbourhood. When the same rages hotter and with a fiery flow, it is called a rester, as while sweeping away the things it comes in contact with it also scorches them up. But a typhoon does not occur with a northerly wind, nor a cloudburst with snow or when snow is lying. If it flared up as soon as it burst the cloud, and had fire in it, did not catch fire afterwards, it is a thunderbolt. It differs from a fiery pillar in the way in which a flame differs from a fire: a fiery pillar spreads out its blast widely, whereas a thunderbolt masses together its onrush. On the other hand a tornado differs from a whirlwind by returning, and as a whiz differs from a crash; a storm is different from either in its extent—it is caused by the scattering rather than the bursting of a cloud. There also occurs a darkness caused by a cloud shaped like a wild monster—this is direful to sailors. There is also what is called a column, when densified and stiffened moisture raises itself aloft; in the same class also is a waterspout, when a cloud draws up water like a pipe.

LI. Thunderbolts are rare in winter and in summer, from opposite causes. In winter, owing to the thicker envelope of cloud, the air is rendered extremely dense, and all the earth's exhalation being stiff and cold extinguishes whatever fiery vapour it receives. This reason renders Scyrthia and the frozen regions round it immune from the fall of thunderbolts, while conversely the excessive heat does the same for Egypt, inasmuch as the hot and dry exhalations from the earth condense very rarely, and only form thin and feeble clouds. But in spring and autumn thunderbolts are more frequent, their summer and winter causes being combined in each of those seasons; this explains why they are frequent in Italy, where the milder winter and stormy summer make the air more mobile, and it is always somewhat vernal or autumnal. Also in the parts of Italy that slope down from the north towards the warmth, such as the district of Rome and the Campagna, lightning occurs in winter just as in summer, which does not happen in any other locality.

LII. Of thunderbolts themselves several varieties are reported. Those that come with a dry flash do not cause a fire but an explosion. The smoky ones do not burn but blacken. There is a third sort, called 'bright thunderbolts,' of an extremely remarkable nature; this kind drains casks dry without damaging their lids and without leaving any other trace, and melts gold and copper and silver in their bags without singeing the bags themselves at all, and even without melting the wax seal. Marcia, a lady of high station at Rome, was struck by lightning when enceinte, and though the child was killed, she herself survived without being otherwise injured. Among the portents in connexion with Catiline, a town-councillor of Pompei named Marcus Herennius was struck by lightning on a fine day.

LIII. The Tuscan writers hold the view that there are nine gods who send thunderbolts, and that these are of eleven kinds, because Jupiter hurls three varieties. Only two of these deities have been retained by the Romans, who attribute thunderbolts in the daytime to Jupiter and those in the night to Summanus, the latter being naturally rare because the sky at night is colder. Tuscany believes that some also burst out of the ground, which it calls 'low bolts,' and that these are rendered exceptionally direful and accursed by the season of winter, though all the bolts that they believe of earthly origin are not the ordinary ones and do not come from the stars but from the nearer and more disordered element: a clear proof of this being that all those coming from the upper heaven deliver slanting blows, whereas these which they call earthly strike straight. And those that fall from the nearer elements are supposed to come out of the earth because they leave no traces as a result of their rebound, although that is the principle not of a downward blow but of a slanting one. Those who pursue these enquiries with more subtlety think that these bolts come from the planet Saturn, just as the inflammatory ones come from Mars, as, for instance, when Bolsena, the richest town in Tuscany, was entirely burnt up by a thunderbolt. Also the first ones that occur after a man sets up house for himself are called 'family meteors,' as foretelling his fortune for the whole of his life. However, people think that private meteors, except those that occur either at a man's first marriage or on his birthday, do not prophecy beyond ten years, nor public ones beyond the 30th year, except those occurring at the colonization of a town.

LIV. Historical record also exists of thunderbolts being either caused by or vouchsafed in answer to certain rites and prayers. There is an old story of the latter in Tuscany, when the portent which they called Olta came to the city of Bolsena, when its territory had been devastated; it was sent in answer to the prayer of its king Porsina. Also before his time, as is recorded on the reliable authority of Lucius Piso in his Annals I, this was frequently practised by Numa, though when Tullus Hostilius copied him with incorrect ritual he was struck by lightning. We also have groves and altars and rites, and among the other Jupiters, the Stayers and Thunderers and Receivers of Offerings, tradition gives us Jupiter the Invoked. On this matter the opinion of mankind varies, in correspondence with our individual dispositions. It takes a bold man to believe that Nature obeys the behests of ritual, and equally it takes a dull man to deny that ritual has beneficent powers, when knowledge has made such progress even in the interpretation of thunderbolts that it can prophecy that others will come on a fixed day, and whether they will destroy a previous one or other previous ones that are concealed: this progress has been made by public and private experiments in both fields. In consequence although such indications are certain in some cases but doubtful in others, and approved to some persons but in the view of others to be condemned, in accordance with Nature's will and pleasure, we for our part are not going to leave out the rest of the things worth recording in this department.

LV. It is certain that when thunder and lightning occur simultaneously, the flash is seen before the thunderclap is heard (this not being surprising, as light travels more swiftly than sound); but that Nature so regulates the stroke of a thunderbolt and the sound of the thunder that they occur together, although the sound is caused by the bolt starting, not striking; moreover that the current of air travels faster than the bolt, and that consequently the object always is shaken and feels the blast before it is struck; and that nobody hit has ever seen the lightning or heard the thunder in advance. Flashes on the left are considered lucky, because the sun rises on the left-hand side of the firmament; and their approach is not so visible as their return, whether after the blow a fire springs from it or the breath returns when its work is done or its fire used up.

In making these observations the Tuscans divided the heaven into sixteen parts: the first quarter is from the North to the equinoctial sunrise (East), the second to the South, the third to the equinoctial sunset (West), and the fourth occupies the remaining space extending from West to North; these quarters they subdivided into four parts each, of which they called the eight starting from the East the left-hand regions and the eight opposite ones the right-hand. Of these the most formidable are those lying between West and North. Hence the line of approach and the line of retirement of thunderbolts is of very great importance. It is best for them to return to parts in the region of sunrise. Accordingly it will be a portent of supreme happiness when they come from the first part of the sky and retire to the same part—a sign that history records to have been vouchsafed to the dictator Sulla; but all the others are less fortunate or actually direful, in accordance with the division of the actual firmament where they occur. Some people think it wrong to give or to listen to reports of thunderbolts, except if they are told to a guest or a parent.

The great folly of paying attention to these occurrences was discovered when the Temple of Juno at Rome was struck by lightning in the time of Scaurus, who was afterwards head of the state.

Lightning unaccompanied by thunder occurs more often by night than in the daytime. Man is the one creature that is not always killed when struck—all others are killed on the spot; nature doubtless bestows this honour on man because so many animals surpass him in strength. All things (when struck) fall in the opposite direction to the flash. A man does not die unless the force of the blow turns him right round. Men struck from above collapse. A man struck while awake is found with his eyes shut; while asleep, with them open. It is not lawful to cremate a man who loses his life in this manner; religious tradition prescribes burial. No living creature can be burnt by lightning without being killed. The temperature of the wound of those struck is lower than that of the rest of the body.

LVI. Among things that grow in the ground, it does not strike a laurel bush. It never penetrates more than five feet into the earth; consequently when in fear of lightning men think caves of greater depth are the safest, or else a tent made of the skin of the creatures called sea-calves, because that alone among marine animals lightning does not strike, just as it does not strike the eagle among birds; this is why the eagle is represented as armed with a thunderbolt as a weapon. In Italy in the time of the Caesarian war people ceased to build towers between Terracina and the Temple of Feronia, as every tower there was destroyed by lightning.

LVII. Besides these events in the lower sky, it is entered in the records that in the consulship of Manius Acilius and Gaius Porcius it rained milk and blood, and that frequently on other occasions there it has rained flesh, for instance in the consulship of Publius Volumnius and Servius Sulpicius, and that none of the flesh left unplundered by birds of prey went bad; and similarly that it rained iron in the district of Lucania the year before Marcus Crassus was killed a by the Parthians and with him all the Lucanian soldiers, of whom there was a large contingent in his army; the shape of the iron that fell resembled sponges; the augurs prophesied wounds from above. But in the consulship Lucius Paullus and Gaius Marcellus it rained wool in the vicinity of Compsa Castle, near which Titus Annius Milo was killed a year later. It is recorded in the annals of that year that while Milo was pleading a case in court it rained baked bricks.

LVIII. We are told that during the wars with the Cimbri a noise of clanging armour and the sounding of a trumpet were heard from the sky, and that the same thing has happened frequently both before then and later. In the third consulship of Marius the inhabitants of Ameria and Tuder [Todi] saw the spectacle of heavenly armies advancing from the East and the West to meet in battle, those from the West being routed. It has often been seen, and is not at all surprising, that the sky itself catches fire when the clouds have been set on fire by an exceptionally large flame.

LIX. The Greeks tell the story that Anaxagoras of Clazomenae in the 2nd year [467 BC] of the 78th Olympiad was enabled by his knowledge of astronomical literature to prophecy that in a certain number of days a rock would fall from the sun; and that this occurred in the daytime in the Goat's River district of Thrace (the stone is still shown—it is of the size of a wagon-load and brown in colour), a comet also blazing in the nights at the time. If anyone believes in the fact of this prophecy, that involves his allowing that the divining powers of Anaxagoras covered a greater marvel, and that our understanding of the physical universe is annihilated and everything thrown into confusion if it is believed either that the sun is itself a stone or ever had a stone inside it. But it will not be doubted that stones do frequently fall. A stone is worshipped for this reason even at the present day in the exercising ground at Abydos—one of moderate size, it is true, but which the same Anax­agoras is said to have prophesied as going to fall in the middle of the country. There is also one that is wor­shipped at Cassandria, the place that has been given the name of potidaea, and where a colony was settled on account of this occurrence. I myself saw one that had recently come down in the territory of the Vocontii.

LX. The common occurrences that we call rainbows have nothing miraculous or portentous about them, for they do not reliably portend even rain or fine weather. The obvious explanation of them is that a ray of the sun striking a hollow cloud has its point repelled and is reflected back to the sun, and that the diversified colouring is due to the mixture of clouds, fires and air. Rainbows certainly do not occur except opposite to the sun, and never except in semi-circular shape, and not at night time, although Aristotle does state that a rainbow has been sometimes seen at night, though he also admits that it cannot happen except on the 14th day of the lunar month. Rainbows in winter occur chiefly when the day is drawing in after the autumnal equinox; when the day draws out again after the vernal equinox they do not occur, nor in the longest days about the solstice, but they occur frequently in midwinter; also they are high in the sky when the sun is low and low when it is high; and smaller but of wider breadth at sunrise or sunset, and narrow but of large circumference at midday. In summer they are not seen during mid­day, but after the autumn equinox they are seen at any hour; and never more than two are seen at once.

LXI. I observe that the facts as to the other phenomena of the same kind are generally familiar: viz., that hail is produced from frozen rain and snow from the same fluid less solidly condensed, but hoar frost from cold dew; that snow fall during winter but not hail; and hail itself falls more often in the daytime than at night, and melts much faster than snow; that mists do not occur in summer nor in extremely cold weather, nor dew in frosty or very hot or windy weather, and only on fine nights; that liquid is reduced in bulk by freezing, and when ice is thawed the bulk produced is not the same; that variations of colour and shape are seen in the clouds in propor­tion as the fire mingled with them gains the upper hand or is defeated;

LXII. and moreover that particular places have particular special qualities: the nights of Africa are dewy in summer, in Italy rainbows are seen every day at Locri and at the Veine Lake, at Rhodes and Syracuse there is never such a thick curtain of cloud that the sun is not visible at some hour of the day. Such special features will be more suitably related in their places.

So much on the subject of the air.

LXIII. Next comes the earth, the one division of the natural world on which for its merits we have bestowed the venerable title of mother. She belongs to men as the sky belongs to God: she receives us at birth, and gives us nurture after birth, and when once brought forth she upholds us always, and at the last when we have now been disinherited by the rest of nature she embraces us in her bosom and at that very time gives us her maternal shelter; sanctified by no service more than that whereby she makes us also sacred, even bearing our monuments and epitaphs and prolonging our name and extending our memory against the shortness of time; whose divinity is the last which in anger we invoke to lie heavy on those who are now no more, as though we did not know that she is the only element that is never wroth with man. Water rises in mist, freezes into hail, swells in waves, falls headlong in torrents; air becomes thick with clouds and rages with storms; but earth is kind and gentle and indulgent, ever a handmaid in the service of mortals, producing under our compulsion, or lavishing of her own accord, what scents and savours, what juices, what surfaces for the touch, what colours! how honestly she repays the interest lent her! what produce she fosters for our benefit! since for living creatures that are noxious the breath of life is to blame—she is compelled to receive them when their seed is sown and to maintain them when they have been born; but their harm lies in the evils of those that generate them. When a serpent has stung a man she harbours it no more, and she exacts retribution even on the account of the helpless; she produces medicinal herbs, and is ever fertile for man's benefit; nay, even poisons she may be thought to have invented out of compassion for us, lest, when we were weary of life, hunger, the death most alien to earth's beneficence, should consume us with slow decay, lest precipices should scatter in fragments our lacerated body, lest departure it is seeking; lest if we sought death in the deep our burial should serve for fodder; lest the torture of the steel should cleave our body. So is it! in mercy did she generate the potion whereof the easiest draught—as men drink when thirsty—gifts might painlessly just blot us out, without injury to the body or loss of blood, in such wise that when dead no birds nor beasts should touch us, and one that had perished for himself should be preserved for the earth. Let us own the truth: what earth has produced as a cure for our ills, we have made into a deadly poison; why, do we not also put her indispensable gift of iron to a similar use? Nor yet should we have any right to complain even if she had engendered poison to serve the purpose of crime. In fact in regard to one of nature's elements we have no gratitude. For what luxuries and for what outrageous uses does she not subserve mankind? She is flung into the sea, or dug away to allow us to let in the channels. Water, iron, wood, fire, stone, growing crops, are employed to torture her at all hours, and much more to make her minister to our luxuries than our sustenance. Yet in order to make the sufferings inflicted on her surface and mere outer skin seem endurable, we probe her entrails, digging into her veins of gold and silver and mines of copper and lead; we actually drive shafts down into the depth to search for gems and certain tiny stones; we drag out her entrails, we seek a jewel merely to be worn upon a finger! How many hands are worn away with toil that a single knuckle may shine resplendent! If any beings of the nether world existed, assuredly even they would have been dug up ere now by the burrowings of avarice and luxury. And can we wonder if earth has also generated some creatures for our harm? since the wild animals, I well believe, are her guardians, and protect her from sacrilegious hands; do not serpents infest our mines, do we not handle veins of gold mingled with the roots of poison? Yet that shows the goddess all the kinder towards us, because all these avenues from which wealth issues lead but to crime and slaughter and warfare, and her whom we besprinkle with our blood we cover with unburied bones, over which nevertheless, when at length our madness has been finally discharged, she draws herself as a veil, and hides even the crimes of mortals.

I would reckon this too among the crimes of our ingratitude, that we are ignorant of her nature.

LXIV. But her shape is the first fact about which men's judgement agrees. We do undoubtedly speak of the earth's sphere, and admit that the globe is shut in between poles. Nor yet in fact do all these lofty mountains and widely spreading plains comprise the outline of a perfect sphere, but a figure whose circuit would produce a perfect sphere if the ends of all the lines were enclosed in a circumference. This is the consequence of the very nature of things, it is not due to the same causes as those we have adduced in the case of the heaven; for in the heaven the convex hollow converges on itself and from all sides rests upon its pivot, the earth, whereas the earth being a solid dense mass rises like an object swelling, and expands outward. The world converges to its centre, whereas the earth radiates outward from its centre, the ceaseless revolution of the world around her forcing her immense globe into the shape of a sphere.

LXV. Here there is a mighty battle between learning on one side and the common herd on the other: the theory being that human beings are distributed all round the earth and stand with their feet pointing towards each other, and that the top of the sky is alike for them all and the earth trodden under foot at the centre in the same way from any direction, while ordinary people enquire why the persons on the opposite side don't fall off—just as if it were not reasonable that the people on the other side wonder that we do not fall off. There is an intermediate theory that is acceptable even to the unlearned crowd—that the earth is of the shape of an irregular globe, resembling a pine cone, yet nevertheless is inhabited all round. But what is the good of this theory when there arises another marvel, that the earth herself hangs suspended and does not fall and carry us with it? As if forsooth there were any doubt about the force of breath, especially when shut up inside the world, or as if it were possible for the earth to fall when nature opposes, and denies it any place to fall to For just as the sole abode of fires is in the element of fire, and of waters in water, and of breath in breath, so earth, barred out by all the other elements, has no place except in itself. Yet it is surprising that with this vast level expanse of sea and plains the resulting formation is a globe. This view has the support of Dicaearchus, a savant of the first rank, who with the support of royal patrons took the measurement of mountains, and published that the highest of them was Pelion, with an altitude of 1250 paces [above 6000 feet] inferring that this was no portion of the earth's general sphericity. To me this seems a questionable guess, as I know that some peaks of the Alps rise to a great height, not less than 50,000 paces.

But what the crowd most debates is if it must believe that the conformation of the waters also rises in a curve. Nevertheless nothing else in the natural world is more visibly manifest. For (1) hanging drops of liquid always take the shape of small round globes; (2) when dropped on dust or placed on the downy surface of leaves they are seen to be absolutely spherical; (3) in goblets when filled the surface curves upward most at the centre, though owing to the transparency of the liquid and its fluidity tending to find its own level this is more easily discovered by theory than by observation; and (4) a still more remarkable fact is that when a very little additional liquid is poured into a cup that has already been filled the surplus overflows, but the opposite happens when weighty solids, often as many as 20 coins, are put into it, presumably because these pass inside the liquid and raise its surface to a peak, whereas liquids poured on to the upward curving surface slip off. (5) The same cause explains why the land is not visible from the deck of a ship when in sight from the masthead; and why as a vessel passes far into the distance, if some shining object is tied to the top of the mast it appears slowly to sink and finally it is hidden from sight. Lastly (6) what other conformation could have caused the ocean, which we acknowledge to be at the extreme outside, to cohere and not fall away, if there is no boundary beyond to enclose it? The very question as to how, although the sea is globular in shape, its edge does not fall away, itself ranks with the marvellous. On the other side the Greek investigators, greatly to their delight and to their glory, prove by subtle mathematical reasoning that it cannot possibly be the case that the seas are really flat and have the shape that they appear to have. For, they argue, while it is the ease that water travels downward from an elevation, and this is its admitted nature, and nobody doubts that the water on any coast has reached the farthest point allowed by the slope of the earth, it is manifest beyond doubt that the lower an object is the nearer it is to the centre of the earth, and that all the lines drawn from the centre to the nearest bodies of water are shorter than those drawn from the edge of these waters to the farthest point in the sea: it therefore follows that all the water from every direction converges towards the centre, this pressure inward being the cause of its not falling off.

LXVI. The reason for this formation must be thought to be the inability of earth when absolutely dry to cohere of itself and without moisture, and of water in its turn to remain still without being held up by earth; the intention of the Artificer of nature must have been to unite earth and water in a mutual embrace, earth opening her bosom and water pene­trating her entire frame by means of a network of veins radiating within and without, above and below, the water bursting out even at the tops of mountain ridges, to which it is driven and squeezed out by the weight of the earth, and spurts out like a jet of water from a pipe, and is so far from being in danger of falling down that it leaps upward to all the loftiest elevations. This theory shows clearly why the seas do not increase in bulk with the daily accession of so many rivers. The consequence is that the earth at every point of its globe is encircled and engirdled by sea flowing round it, and this does not need theoretical investigation, but has already been ascertained by experience.

LXVII. Today the whole of the West is navigated from Cadiz and the Straits of Gibraltar all round Spain and France. But the larger part of the Northern Ocean was explored under the patronage of his late Majesty Augustus, when a fleet sailed round Germany to the promontory of the Cimbri, and thence seeing a vast sea in front of them or learning of it by report, reached the region of Scythia and localities numb with excessive moisture. On this account it is extremely improbable that there is no sea in those parts, as there is a superabundance of the moist element there. But next, on the Eastward side, the whole quarter under the same star stretching from the Indian Ocean to the Caspian Sea was navigated throughout by the Macedonian forces in the reigns of Seleucus and Antiochus, who desired that it should be called both Seleucis and Antiochis after themselves. And many coasts of Ocean round the Caspian have been explored, and very nearly the whole of the North has been completely traversed from one side to the other by galleys, so that similarly also there is now overwhelming proof, leaving no room for conjecture, of the existence of the Maeotic Marsh, whether it be a gulf of that Ocean, as I notice many have believed, or an overflow from it from which it is separated off by a narrow space. On the other side of Cadiz, from the same Western point, a great part of the Southern gulf is navigated today in the circuit of Mauretania. Indeed the greater part of it Alexander the Great's eastern conquests also explored as far as the Arabian gulf; in which, when Augustus's son Gaius Caesar was operating there, it is said that figureheads of ships from Spanish wrecks were identified. Also when the power of Carthage flourished, Hanno sailed round from Cadiz to the extremity of Arabia and published a memoir of his voyage, as did Himileo when despatched at the same date to explore the outer coasts of Europe. Moreover we have it on the authority of Cornelius Nepos that a certain contemporary of his named Eudoxus when flying from King Lathyrus emerged from the Arabian Gulf and sailed right round to Cadiz; and much before him Caelius Antipater states that he had seen someone who had gone on a trading voyage from Spain to Ethiopia. Nepos also records as to the northern circuit that Quintus Metellus Celer, colleague of Afranius in the consulship hut at the time pro-consul of Gaul, received from the King of the Swabians a present of some Indians, who on a trade voyage had been carried off their course by storms to Germany. Thus there are seas encircling the globe on every side and dividing it in two, so robbing us of half the world since there is no region affording a passage from there to here or from here to there. This reflexion serves to expose the vanity of mortals, and appears to demand that I should display to the eye and exhibit the extent of this whole indefinite region in which men severally find no satisfaction.

LXVIII. In the first place it is apparently reckoned as forming one half of the globe—just as if no part were cut off for the ocean itself, which surrounding and encircling the whole of it, and pouring forth and reabsorbing the waters and pasturing and all the moisture that goes to form the clouds, the stars themselves with all their numbers and their mighty size, can be supposed to occupy a space—of what extent, pray? The freehold owned by that mighty climatic mass is bound to be enormous—without limit! Add that of what is left more than half is taken by the sky. For this has five divisions called zones, and all that lies beneath the two outermost zones that surround the poles at either end—both the pole named from the Seven Oxen and the one opposite to it called after Auster—is all crushed under cruel frost and everlasting cold. In both regions perpetual mist prevails, and a light that the invisibility of the milder stars renders niggardly and that is only white with hoarfrost. But the middle portion of the lands, where the sun's orbit is, is scorched by its flames and burnt up by the proximity of its heat: this is the torrid zone. There are only two temperate zones between the torrid one and the frozen ones, and these have no communication with each other because of the fiery heat of the heavenly body.

Thus the sky has stolen three quarters of the earth. The extent of the trespass of ocean is unascertained; but even the one portion left to us suffers perhaps an even greater loss, inasmuch as the same ocean, spreading out, as we shall describe, into a number of bays, advances with its threatening roar so close to the inner seas that there is only a distance of 115 miles between the Arabian Gulf and the Egyptian Sea and of 375 between the Caspian and the Black Sear; and also with its inner channels through so many seas whereby it sunders Africa, Europe and Asia, it occupies—what area of the land? Calculate moreover the dimensions of all those rivers and vast swamps, add also the lakes and pools, and next the ridges too that rise into the heaven and are precipitous even to the eye, next the forests and steep glens, and the deserts and areas for a thousand reasons left deserted; subtract all these portions from the earth or rather from this pinprick, as the majority of thinkers have taught, in the world--for in the whole universe the earth is nothing else: and this is the substance of our glory, this is its habita­tion, here it is that we fill positions of power and covet wealth, and throw mankind into an uproar, and launch even civil wars and slaughter one another to make the land more spacious! And to pass over the collective insanities of the nations, this is the land in which we expel the tenants next to us and add a spade-full of turf to our own estate by stealing from our neighbour's—to the end that he who has marked out his acres most widen and banished his neighbours beyond all record may rejoice in owning--how small a fraction of the earth's surface? or, when he has stretched his boundaries to the full measure of his avarice, may still retain—what portion, pray, of his estate when he is dead?

LXIX. That the earth is at the centre of the universe is proved by irrefragable arguments, but the clearest is the equal hours of day and night at the equinox. For if the earth were not at the centre, it can be realized that it could not have the days and nights equal; and binoculars confirm this very powerfully, since at the season of the equinox sunrise and sunset are seen on the same line, whereas sunrise at midsummer and sunset at midwinter fall on a line of their own. These things could not occur without the earth's being situated at the centre.

LXX. But the three circles intertwined between the zones aforesaid are the cause of the differences of the seasons: the Tropic of Cancer on the side of the highest part of the zodiac to the northward of us, and opposite to it the Tropic of Capricorn towards the other pole, and also the equator that runs in the middle circuit of the zodiac.

LXXI. The cause of the remaining facts that surprise us is found in the shape of the earth itself, which together with the waters also the same argu­ments prove to resemble a globe. For this is undoubtedly the cause why for us the stars of the northern region never set and their opposites of the southern region never rise, while on the contrary these northern stars are not visible to the antipodes, as the curve of the earth's globe bars our view of the tracts between. Cave-dweller Country [Abyssinia/Somaliland] and Egypt which is adjacent to it do not see the Great and Little Bear, and Italy does not see Canopus and the constellation called Berenice's Hair, also the one that in the reign of his late Majesty Augustus received the name of Caesar's Throne, constellations that are conspicuous there. And so clearly does the rising vault curve over that to observers at Alexandria Canopus appears to be elevated nearly a quarter of one sign above the earth, whereas from Rhodes it seems practically to graze the earth itself, and on the Black Sea, where the North Stars are at their highest, it is not visible at all. Also Canopus is hidden from Rhodes, and still more from Alexandria; in Arabia in November it is hidden during the first quarter of the night and shows itself in the second; at Meroe it appears a little in the evening at midsummer and a few days before the rising of Areturus is seen at daybreak. These phenomena are most clearly disclosed by the voyages of those at sea, the sea sloping upward in the direction of some and downward in the direction of others, and the stars that were hidden behind the curve of the ball suddenly becoming visible as it were rising out of the sea. For it is not the fact, as some have said, that the world rises up at this higher pole—or else these stars would be visible everywhere; but these stars are believed to be higher the nearer people are to them, while they seem low to those far away, and just as at present this pole seems lofty to those situated on the declivity, so when people pass across to yonder downward slope of the earth those stars rise while the ones that here were high sink, which could not happen except with the conformation of a ball.

LXXII. Consequently inhabitants of the East do not perceive evening eclipses of the sun and moon, nor do those dwelling in the West see morning eclipses, while the latter see eclipses at midday later than we do. The victory of Alexander the Great is said to have caused an eclipse of the moon at Arbela at 8 p.m. while the same eclipse in Sicily was when the moon was just rising. An eclipse of the sun that occurred on April 30 in the consulship [59 AD] of Vipstanus and Fonteius a few years ago was visible in Campania between 1 and 2 p.m. but was reported by Corbulo commanding in Armenia as observed between 4 and 5: this was because the curve of the globe discloses and hides different phenomena for different localities. If the earth were flat, all would be visible to all alike at the same time; also the nights would not vary in length, because corresponding periods of 12 hours would be visible equally to others than those at the equator, periods that as it is do not exactly correspond in every region alike.

LXXIII. Consequently also although night and day are the same thing all over the world, it is not night and day at the same time all over the world, the intervention of the globe bringing night or its revolution day. This has been discovered by many experiments—that of Hannibal's towers in Africa and Spain, and in Asia when piratical alarms prompted the precaution of watchtowers of the same sort, warning fires lit on which at noon were often ascertained to have been seen by the people farthest to the rear at 9 p.m. Alexander above mentioned had a runner named Philonides who did the 1200 stades from Sicyou to Elis in 9 hours from sunrise and took till 9 p.m. for the return journey, although the way is downhill; this occurred repeatedly. The reason was that going his way lay with the sun but returning he was passing the sun as it met him travelling in the opposite direction. For this reason ships sailing westward beat even in the shortest day the distances they sail in the nights, because they are going with the actual sun.

LXXIV. Travellers' sundials are not the same for reference everywhere, because the shadows thrown by the sun as they alter alter the readings at every 300 or at farthest 500 stades. Consequently in Egypt at midday on the day of the equinox the shadow of the pin or 'gnomon' measures a little more than half the length of the gnomon itself, whereas in the city of Rome the shadow is 1/9th shorter than the gnomon, at the town of Ancona 1/35th longer, and in the district of Italy called Venezia the shadow is equal to the gnomon, at the same hours.

LXXV. Similarly it is reported that at the town of Syene, 5000 stades South of Alexandria, at noon in midsummer no shadow is cast, and that in a well made for the sake of testing this the light reaches to the bottom, clearly showing that the sun is vertically above that place at the time; and this is stated in the writings of Onesicritus also to occur at the same time in India South of the river Hypasis. It is also stated that in the Cave-dwellers' city of Berenice, and 4820 stades away at the town of Ptolemais in the same tribe, which was founded on the shore of the Red Sea for the earliest elephant hunts, the same thing occurs 45 days before and 45 days after midsummer, and during that period of 90 days the shadows are thrown southward. Again in Meroe—this is an inhabited island in the river Nile 5000 stades from Syene, and is the capital of the Aethiopian race—the shadows disappear twice a year, when the sun is in the 18th degree of Taurus and in the 14th of Leo. There is a mountain named Maleus in the Indian tribe of the Oretes, near which shadows are thrown southward in summer and northward in winter; the northern constellation is visible there on only 15 nights. Also in India at the well-known port of Patala the sun rises on the right and shadows fall southward. It was noticed when Alexander was staying at this place that the Great and Little Bears were visible only in the early part of the night. Alexander's guide Onesicritus wrote that this constellation is not visible at the places in India where there are no shadows, and that these places are called Shadeless, and no reckoning is kept of the hours there.

LXXVI. But according to Eratos­thenes in the whole of Cave-dweller Country on 90 days once a year shadows fall the wrong way.

LXXVII. Thus it comes about that owing to the varied lengthening of daylight the longest day covers 12 8/9 equinoctial hours at Meroe, but 14 hours at Alexandria, 15 in Italy, and 17 in Britain, where the light nights in summer substantiate what theory compels us to believe, that, as on summer days the sun approaches nearer to the top of the world, owing to a narrow circuit of light the underlying parts of the earth have continuous days for 6 months at a time, and continuous nights when the sun has withdrawn in the opposite direction towards winter. Pytheas of Marseilles writes that this occurs in the island of Thule, 6 days' voyage N. from Britain, and some declare it also to occur in the Isle of Anglesea, which is about 200 miles from the British town of Colchester.

LXXVIII. This theory of shadows and the science called gnomonics was discovered by Anaximenes of Miletus, the pupil of Anaximander of whom we have spoken; he first exhibited at Sparta the time-piece they call 'Hunt-the-Shadow.'

LXXIX. The actual period of a day has been differently kept by different people: the Babylonians count the period between two sunrises, the Athenians that between two sunsets, the Umbrians from midday to midday, the common people everywhere from dawn to dark, the Roman priests and the authorities who fixed the official day, and also the Egyptians and Hipparchus, the period from midnight to mid­night. But it is obvious that the breaks in daylight between sunset and sunrise are smaller near the solstice than at the equinoxes, because the position of the zodiac is more slanting around its middle points but straighter near the solstice.

LXXX. We must deal next with the results connected with these heavenly causes. For it is beyond question that the Ethiopians are burnt by the heat of the heavenly body near them, and are born with a scorched appearance, with curly beard and hair, and that in the opposite region of the world the races have white frosty skins, with yellow hair that hangs straight; while the latter are fierce owing to the rigidity of their climate but the former wise because of the mobility of theirs; and their legs themselves prove that with the former the juice is called away into the upper portions of the body by the nature of heat, while with the latter it is driven down to the lower parts by falling moisture; in the latter country dangerous wild beasts are found, in the former a great variety of animals and especially of birds; but in both regions men's stature is high, owing in the former to the pressure of the fires and in the latter to the nourishing effect of the damp; whereas in the middle of the earth, owing to a healthy blending of both elements, there are tracts that are fertile for all sorts of produce, and men are of medium bodily stature, with a marked blending even in the matter of complexion; customs are gentle, senses clear, intellects fertile and able to grasp the whole of nature; and they also have governments, which the outer races never have possessed, any more than they have ever been subject to the central races, being quite detached and solitary on account of the savagery of the nature that broods over those regions.

LXXXI. The theory of the Babylonians deems that even earthquakes and fissures in the ground are caused by the force of the stars that is the cause of all other phenomena, but only by that of those three stars to which they assign thunderbolts; and that they occur when these are travelling with the sun or are in agreement with him, and particularly about the quadratures of the world. On this subject a remarkable and immortal inspiration is attributed (if we can believe it) to the natural philosopher Anaximander of Miletus, who is said to have warned the Spartans to be careful of their city and buildings, because an earthquake was impending; and subsequently the whole of their city collapsed, and also a large part of Mount Taygetus projecting in the shape of a ship's stern broke off and crashing down on it added to the catastrophe. Also another conjecture is attributed to Pherecydes the teacher of Pythagoras, this also inspired: he is said to have foretold to his fellow-citizens an earthquake, of which he had obtained a premonition in drawing water from a well. Assuming the truth of these stories, how far pray can such men even in their lifetime be thought to differ from a god? And though these matters may be left to the estimation of individual judgment; I think it indubitable that their cause is to be attributed to the winds; for tremors of the earth never occur except when the sea is calm and the sky so till that birds are unable to soar because all the Breath that carries them has been withdrawn; and never except after wind, doubtless because then the blast has been shut up in the veins and hidden bob lows of the sky. And a trembling in the earth is not different from a thunderclap in a cloud, and a fissure is no different from when an imprisoned current of air by struggling and striving to go forth to freedom causes a flash of lightning to burst out.

LXXXII. Consequently earthquakes occur in a variety of ways, and cause remarkable consequences, in some places overthrowing walls, in others drawing them down into a gaping cleft, in others thrusting up masses of rock, in others sending out rivers and sometimes even fires or hot springs, in others diverting the course of rivers. They are however preceded or accompanied by a terrible sound, that sometimes resembles a rumble, sometimes the lowing of cattle or the shouts of human beings or the clash of weapons struck together, according to the nature of the material that receives the shock and the shape of the caverns or burrows through which it passes, proceeding with smaller volume in a narrow channel but with a harsh noise in channels that bend, echoing in hard channels, bubbling in damp ones, forming waves in stagnant ones, raging against solid ones. Accordingly even without any movement occurring a sound is sometimes emitted. And sometimes the earth is not shaken in a simple manner but trembles and vibrates. Also the gap sometimes remains open, showing the objects that it has sucked in, while sometimes it hides them by closing its mouth and drawing soil over it again in such a way as to leave no traces; it being usually cities that are engulfed, and a tract of farmland swallowed, al­though seaboard districts are most subject to earthquakes, and also mountainous regions are not free from disaster of the kind: I have ascertained that tremors have somewhat frequently occurred in the Alps and Apennines.

Earthquakes are more frequent in autumn and spring, as is lightning. Consequently the Gallic provinces and Egypt suffer very little from them, as in the latter the summer is the cause that prevents them and in the former the winter. Similarly they are more frequent by night than in the daytime. The severest earthquakes occur in the morning and the evening, but they are frequent near dawn and in the daytime about noon. They also occur at an eclipse of the sun or moon, since then storms are lulled, but particularly when heat follows rain or rain heat.

LXXXIII. Sailors at sea can also anticipate an earthquake and forecast it with certainty when a sudden wave swells up without there being a wind, or a shock shakes the vessel. Even in ships posts begin to tremble just as they do in buildings, and foretell an earthquake by rattling; nay more, birds of timid kinds perch on the rigging. There is also a sign in the sky: when an earthquake is impending, either in the daytime or a little after sunset, in fine weather, it is preceded by a thin streak of cloud stretching over a wide space.

LXXXIV. Another sign is when the water in wells is muddier and has a somewhat foul smell, just as in wells there is also a remedy for earthquake such as frequently caves too afford, as they supply an outlet for the confined breath. This is noticed in whole towns: buildings pierced by frequent conduits for drainage are less shaken, and also among these the ones erected over vaults are much safer—as is noticed in Italy at Naples, the solidly built portion of the city being specially liable to collapses of this nature. The safest parts of buildings are arches, also angles of walls, and posts, which swing back into position with each alternate thrust; and walls built of clay bricks suffer less damage from being shaken. There is also a great difference in the actual kind of movement, as the earth shakes in several ways; there is least danger when it quivers with a trembling rattle of the buildings, and when it rises in a swell and settles back again, with an alternating motion; also no harm is done when buildings collide and ram against each other, as the one motion counteracts the other. A waving bend and a sort of billowy fluctuation is dangerous, or when the whole movement drives in one direction. Earthquakes stop when the wind has found an outlet, or else, if they go on, they do not stop before forty days, and usually even longer, some in fact having gone on for one or two years' time.

LXXXV. I find in the books of the lore of Tuscany that once a vast and portentous earthquake occurred in the district of Modena; this was during the consulship of Lucius Marcius and Sextus Julius. Two mountains ran together with a mighty crash, leaping forward and then retiring with flames and smoke rising between them to the sky; this took place in the daytime, and was watched from the Aemilian road by a large crowd of Knights of Rome with their retinues and passers by. The shock brought down all the country houses, and a great many animals in the buildings were killed. It was in the year before the Allies' War, which was perhaps more disastrous to the land of Italy than the civil wars. Our generation also experienced a not less marvellous manifestation in the last year of the Emperor Nero, as we have set forth in our history of his principate: meadows and olive trees with a public road running between then got over to the opposite sides of the road; this took place in the Marrucinian territory, on the lands of Vettius Marcellus, Knight of Rome, Nero's estate-manager.

LXXXVI. Earthquakes are accompanied by inundations of the sea, which is presumably caused to flood the land by the same current of air, or drawn into the bosom of the earth as it subsides. The greatest earthquake in human memory occurred when Tiberius Caesar was emperor, twelve Asiatic cities being overthrown in one night; the most numerous series of shocks was during the Punic War, when reports reached Rome of fifty-seven in a single year; it was the year when a violent earthquake occurring during an action between the Carthaginian and Roman armies at Lake Trasimene was not noticed by the combatants on either side. Nor yet is the disaster a simple one, nor does the danger consist only in the earthquake itself, but equally or more in the fact that it is a portent; the city of Rome was never shaken without this being a premonition of something about to happen.

LXXXVII. The cause of the birth of new lands is the same, when that same breath although powerful enough to cause an upheaval of the soil has not been able to force an exit. For lands are born not only through the conveyance of soil by streams (as the Echinades Islands when heaped up from the river Achelous and the greater part of Egypt from the Nile—the crossing from the island of Pharos to the coast, if we believe Homer, having formerly taken twenty-four hours) or by the retirement of the sea as once took place at Circei; such a retirement is also recorded to have occurred to a distance of 10,000 paces in the harbour of Ambracia, and to a distance of 5,000 at the Athenian port of Piraeus; and at Ephesus, where once the sea used to wash up to the temple of Diana. At all events if we believe Herodotus, there was sea above Memphis as far as the mountains of Ethiopia and also towards the plains of Arabia, and sea round Ilium, and over the whole territory of Teuthras and where the Maeander has spread prairie-land.

LXXXVIII. New lands are also formed in another way, and suddenly emerge in a different sea, nature as it were balancing accounts with herself and restoring in another place what an earthquake has engulfed.

LXXXIX. The famous islands of Delos and Rhodes are recorded in history as having been born from the sea long ago, and subsequently smaller ones, Anaphe beyond Melos, Neae between Lemnos and the Dardanelles, Halone between Lebedos and Teos, Thera and Therasia among the Cyclades in the 4th year of the 145th Olympiad; also in the same group Hiera, which is the same as Automate, 130 years later; and 2 stades from Hiera, Thia 110 years later, in our age, on July 8 in the year of the consulship of Marcus Junius Silanus and Lucius Balbus.

Before our time also among the Aeolian Islands near Italy, as well as near Crete, there emerged from the sea one island 2500 paces long, with hot springs, and another in the 3rd year [126 BC] of Olympiad 163 in the bay of Tuscany, this one burning with a violent blast of air; and it is recorded that a great quantity of fish were floating round it, and that people who ate of them immediately expired. So also the Monkey Islands are said to have risen in the bay of Campania, and later one among them, Mount Epopos, is said to have suddenly shot up a great flame and then to have been levelled with the surface of the plain. In the same plain also a town was sucked down into the depths, and another earthquake caused a swamp to emerge, and another overturned mountains and threw up the island of Procida.

XC. For another way also in which nature has made islands is when she tore Sicily away from Italy, Cyprus from Syria, Euboea from Boeotia, land. Atalantes and Macrias from Enboea, Besbicus from Bithynia, Leucosia from the Sirens' Cape.

XCI. Again she has taken islands away from the sea and joined them to the land—Antissato Lesbos, Zephyrius to Halicarnassus, Aethusa to Myndus, Dromiscos and Pernes to Miletus, Narthecusa to Cape Parthenius. Hybanda, once an Ionian island, is now 25 miles distant from the sea, Ephesus has Syria as part of the mainland, and its neighbour Magnesia the Derasides and Sapphonia. Epidaurus and Oricum have ceased to be islands.

XCII. Cases of land entirely stolen away by the first of all (if we accept Plato's story [Tim. 24 E]), the vast area covered by the Atlantic, and next, in the inland seas also, the areas that we see submerged at the present day, Acarnania covered by the Ambracian Gulf, Achaea by the Gulf of Corinth, Europe and Asia by the Sea of Marmora and the Black Sea. Also the sea has made the channels of Leucas, Antirrhium, the Dardanclles and the two Bospori.

XCIII. And to pass over bays and marshes, the earth is eaten up by herself. She has devoured the highest mountain in Caria, Cibotus, together with the town of that name, Sipylus in Magnesia, and previously the very celebrated city in the same place that used to be called Tantalis, the territories of Galene and Galame in Phoenicia with the cities themselves, and the loftiest mountain range in Ethiopia, Phegium—just as if the coasts also did not treacherously encroach!

XCIV. The Black Sea has stolen Pyrra and Antissa in the neighbourhood of Lake Maeotis, the Gulf of Corinth Helice and Bura, traces of which are visible at the bottom of the water. The sea suddenly snatched away more than 30,000 paces together with most of the human beings from the Island of Ceos, and half the city of Tyndaris in Sicily, and all the gap in the coast of Italy, and similarly Eleusis in Boeotia.

XCV. For let earthquakes not be mentioned, and every case where at least the tombs of cities survive, and at the same time let us tell of the marvels of the earth rather than the crimes of nature. And, I will swear, not even the heavenly phenomena could have been more difficult to recount: the wealth of mines so varied, so opulent, so prolific, brought to the surface in so many ages, although every day all over the world so much devastation is wrought by fires, collapse of buildings, shipwrecks, wars, frauds, and so great is the consumption of luxury and of the multitudes of mankind; such a variety of patterned gems, such many-coloured markings in stones, and among them the brilliance of a certain stone a that only allows actual daylight to penetrate through it; the profusion of medicinal springs; the flames of fire flickering up in so many places, unceasing for so many centuries; the lethal breaths either emitted from chasms or due to the mere formation of the ground, in some places fatal only to birds, as in the region of Soracte near Rome, in others to all living creatures except man, and sometimes to man also, as in the territory of Sinuessa and of Pozzuoli—the places called breathing holes, or by other people jaws of hell—ditches that exhale a deadly breath; also the place near the Temple of Mephitis at Ampsanctus in the Hirpinian district, on entering which people die; likewise the hole at Hierapolis in Asia, harmless only to the priest of the Great Mother; elsewhere prophetic caves, those intoxicated by whose exhalations foretell the future, as at the very famous oracle at Delphi. In these matters what other explanation could any mortal man adduce save that they are caused by the divine power of that nature which is diffused throughout the universe, repeatedly bursting out in different ways?

XCVI. In some places, the earth trembles when trodden on--for instance in the Gabii district not from the city of Rome about 200 acres shake when horsemen gallop over them, and similarly in the Reate district. Certain islands are always afloat, as in the districts of Caecubum and of Reate mentioned above and Modena and Statonium, and in Lake Vadimo, the dense wood near the springs of Cutilia which is never to be seen in the same place by day and by night, the islands in Lydia named the Reed Islands which are not only driven by the winds, but can be punted in any direction at pleasure with poles, and so served to rescue a number of the citizens in the Mithridatic war. There are also small islands at Nymphaeum called the Dancing Islands, because they move to the foot-beats of persons keeping time with the chanting of a choral song. On the great lake of Tarqainii in Italy two islands float about carrying woods, their outline as the winds drive them forward now forming the shape of a triangle and now of a circle, but never a square.

XCVII. Paphos possesses a famous shrine of Venus on a certain court in which rain does not fall, and the same in the case round an image of Minerva at the town of Nea in the Troad; in the same town also sacrifices left over do not go bad.

XCVIII. Near the town of Harpasa in Asia stands a jagged rock that can be moved with one finger, but that also resists a push made with the whole body. On the peninsula of Tanri in the state of Parasinum there is some earth which heals all wounds. But in the neighbourhood of Assos in the Troad a stone is produced that causes all bodies to waste away; it is called the Flesh-eater. There are two mountains near the river Indus, the nature of one of which is to hold all iron and that of the other to reject it; consequently if a man has nails in his shoes, on one of the mountains at each step he is unable to tear his foot away from the ground and on the other he cannot set it down on the ground. It is recorded that at Locri and Croton there has never been a plague or earthquake, and that in Lycia an earthquake is always followed by forty days' fine weather. Corn sown in the Arpi district does not come up, and at Mncian Altars in the district of Veil and at Tuscumin and in the Ciminian Forest there are places where stakes driven into the ground cannot be pulled out. Hay grown in the Crustninium district is noxious on the spot but healthy when conveyed elsewhere.

XCIX. About the nature of bodies of water a great deal has been said. But the rise and fall of  the tides of the sea is extremely mysterious, at all events in its irregularity; however the cause lies in the sun and moon. Between two risings of the moon there are two high and two low tides every 24 hours, the tide first swelling as the world moves upward with the moon, then falling as it slopes from the mid­day summit of the sky towards sunset, and again coming in as after sunset the world goes below the earth to the lowest parts of the heaven and approaches the regions opposite to the meridian, and from that point sucking back until it rises again; and never flowing back at the same time as the day before, just as if gasping for breath as the greedy star draws the seas with it at a draught and constantly rises from another point than the day before; yet returning at equal intervals and in every six hours, not of each day or night or place but equinoctial hours, so that the tidal periods are not equal by the space of ordinary hours whenever the tides occupy larger measures of either diurnal or nocturnal hours, and only equal everywhere at the equinox. It is a vast and illuminating proof, and one of even divine utterance, that those are dull of wit who deny that the same stars pass below the earth and rise up again, and that they present a similar appearance to the lands and indeed to the whole of nature in the same processes of rising and setting, the course or other operation of a star being manifest beneath the earth in just the same way as when it is travelling past our eyes.

Moreover, the lunar difference is manifold, and to begin with, its period is seven days: inasmuch as the tides, which are moderate from new moon to half-moon, therefrom rise higher and at full moon are at their maximum; after that they relax, at the seventh day being equal to what they were at first; and they increase again when the moon divides on the other side, at the union of the moon with the sun being equal to what they were at full moon. When the moon is northward and retiring further from the earth the tides are gentler than when she has swerved towards the south and exerts her force at a nearer angle. At every eighth year the tides are brought back at the hundredth circuit of the moon to the beginnings of their motion and to corresponding stages of increase. They make all these increases owing to the yearly influences of the sun, swelling most at the two equinoxes and more at the autumn than the spring one, but empty at mid­winter and more so at midsummer. Nevertheless this does not occur at the exact points of time I have specified, but a few days after, just as it is not at full or new moon but afterwards, and not immediately when the world shows or hides the moon or slopes it in the middle quarter, but about two equinoctial hours later, the effect of all the occurrences in the sky reaching the earth more slowly than the sight of them, as is the case with lightning, thunder and thunderbolts.

But all the tides cover and lay bare greater spaces in the ocean than in the rest of the sea, whether because it is more furious when moved in its entirety than when in part, or because the open extent feels the force of the star when it marches untrammelled with more effect, whereas narrow spaces hinder the force, which is the reason why neither lakes nor rivers have tides like the ocean (Pytheas of Marseilles states that north of Britain the tides rise 120 ft.) But also the more inland seas are shut in by land like the water in a harbour; yet a more untrammelled expanse is subject to the tidal sway, inasmuch as there are several instances of people making the crossing from Italy to Utica in two days in a calm sea and with no wind in the sails when a strong tide was running. But these motions are observed more round the coasts than in the deep sea, since in the body too the extremities are more sensitive to the pulse of the veins, that is of the breath. But in most estuaries owing to the different risings of the stars in each region the tides occur irregularly, varying in time though not in method, as for instance in the Syrtes.

C. And nevertheless some tides have a special nature, for instance the channel at Taormina that ebbs and flows more frequently, and the one at Euboea that has seven tides in twenty-four hours. The tide at Buboea stops three times a month, on the seventh, eighth and ninth day after the new moon. At Cadiz the spring nearest the shrine of Hercules, which is enclosed like a well, sometimes rises and sinks with the ocean and sometimes does both at the contrary periods; a second spring in the same place agrees with the motions of the ocean.

There is a town on the banks of the Guadalquivir whose wells sink when the tide rises and rise when it falls, remaining stationary in the intervening periods. At Seville there is one well in the actual town that has the same nature, though all the others are as usual. The Black Sea always flows out into the Sea of Marmora—the tide never sets inward into the Black Sea.

CI. All seas excrete refuse at high tide, some also periodically. In the neighbourhood of Messina and Mylae scum resembling dung is spat out on to the shore, which is the origin of the story that this is the place where the Oxen of the Sun are stalled. To this (so that I may leave out nothing that is within my knowledge) Aristotle adds that no animal dies except when the tide is ebbing. This has been widely noticed in the Gallic Ocean, and has been found to hold good at all events in the case of man.

CII. This is the source of the true conjecture that the moon is rightly believed to be the star of the breath, and that it is this star that saturates the earth and fills bodies by its approach and empties them by its departure; and that consequently shells increase in size as the moon waxes, and that its breath is specially felt by bloodless creatures, but also the blood even of human beings increases and diminishes with its light; and that also leaves and herbage (as will be stated in the proper place) are sensitive to it, the same force penetrating into all things.

CIII. Consequently liquid is dried by the heat of the sun, and we are taught that this is the male star, which scorches and sucks up everything; and that in this way the flavour of salt is boiled into the wide expanse of the sea, either because the sweet and liquid, which is easily attracted by fiery force, is drawn out of it, but all the harsher and denser portion is left (this being why in a calm sea the water at a depth is sweeter than that at the top, this being the truer explanation of its harsh flavour, rather than because the sea is the cease1ess perspiration of the land), or because a great deal of warmth from the dry is mixed with it, or because the nature of the earth stains the waters as if they were drugged. One instance is that when Dionysius the tyrant of Sicily was expelled from that position, he encountered the portent that on one day the sea-water in the harbour became fresh water.

CIV. The moon on the contrary is said to be a feminine and soft star, and to disengage moisture at night and attract, not remove it. The proof given for this is that the moon by her aspect melts the bodies of wild animals that have been killed and causes them to putrefy, and that when people are fast asleep she recalls the torpor and collects it into the head, and thaws ice, and unstiffens everything with moistening breath: thus (it is said) nature's alternations are held in balance, and there is always a supply, some of the stars drawing the elements together while others scatter them. But the nutriment of the moon is stated to be contained in bodies of fresh water as that of the sun is in seawater.

CV. According to the account of Fabianus, the deepest sea has a depth of nearly two miles. Others report an immense depth of water (called the Black Sea Deeps) off the coast of the Coraxi tribe on the Black Sea, about 37 miles from land, where soundings have never reached bottom.

CVI. This is rendered more remarkable by springs of fresh water bubbling out as if from pipes on the seashore. In fact the nature of water also is not deficient in marvels. Patches of fresh water float on the surface of the sea, being doubtless lighter. Consequently also seawater being of a heavier nature gives more support to objects floating upon it. But some fresh waters too float on the surface of others; cases are the river carried on the surface of Lake Fucino, the Adde on the Lake of Como, the Ticino on Maggiore, the Mincio on Garda, the Ohio on Lago d'Iseo, the Ithone on the Lake of Geneva (the last north of the Alps, but all the rest in Italy), after a passing visit that covers many miles carrying out their own waters only and no larger quantity than they introduced. This has also been stated in the case of the river Orontes in Syria and many others. But some rivers so hate the sea that they actually flow underneath the bottom of it, for instance the spring Arethusa at Syracuse, in which things emerge that have been thrown into the Alpheus which flows through Olympia and reaches the coast in the Peloponnese. Instances of rivers that flow under ground and come to the surface again are the Lycus in Asia, the Erasmus in the Argolid and the Tigris in Mesopotamia; and obj ects thrown into the Spring of Aesculapius at Athens are given back again in Phaleron Harbour. Also a river that goes under­ground in the Plain of Atinas comes out 20 miles further on, as also does the Timavus in the district of Aquileia. In Lake Asphaltis in Judea, which produces bitumen, nothing can sink, and also in the Aretissa in Greater Armenia; the latter indeed is a nitrous lake that supports fish. A lake near the town of Manduria in the Salentine district is full to the brim, and is not reduced when water is drawn out of it nor increased when water is poured into it. In the river of the Cicones and in the Veline Lake of Picenum, wood thrown into the water gets covered with a film of stone, and in the river Surius in Colchis this goes so far that the stone in most cases is covered with bark still lasting. Similarly in the Sele beyond Sorrento not only twigs but also leaves immersed in the river become petrified, though apart from this its water is healthy to drink. Rock forms in the outlet of the marsh at Rieti, and olive trees and green bushes grow in the Red Sea.

But the nature of a great many springs is of remarkably high temperature, and this is found even on the ridges of the Alps, and actually in the sea, for instance in the Gulf of Baiae between Italy and the Island of Ischia, and in the river Garigliano and many others. In fact fresh water may be drawn from the sea in a great many places, as at the Swallow Islands and at Aradus and in the Gulf of Cadiz. Green grass grows in the hot springs of Padua, frogs in those of Pisa, fishes at Vetulonia in Tuscany near the sea. A river in the district of Casino called the Bubbling Water is cold, and is fuller in summer; water voles are born in it, as they are in the Stymphalis of Arcadia. The Fountain of Jupiter at Dodona, though it is cold and puts out torches dipped in it, sets them alight if they are brought near to it when they are out. The same spring always stops flowing at noon, on account of which it is called the Wait-a-bit; later it rises again and towards midnight flows abundantly, thereafter gradually ceasing again. A cold spring in Illyria sets fire to clothes spread out above it. The swamp of Jupiter Ammon is cold by day and hot at night. A spring in the Cave-dwellers' territory called the Fountain of the Sun is sweet and very cold at midday, but then gradually warming, towards the middle of the night it becomes spoilt owing to its heat and bitter taste. The source of the Po always dries up at midday in summer as if taking a siesta. A spring on the island of Tenedos after midsummer always overflows from 9 to 12 p.m.; and the spring Inopus on the island of Delos sinks or rises in the same way as the Nile and at the same times. On a small island in the sea at the mouth of the river Timavus there are hot springs that grow larger and smaller with the rise and fall of the tide. In the Pitino district across the Apennines the river Novanus is always hot at midsummer and dried up at midwinter. In the district of Falerii all the water makes oxen that drink it white. The Blackwater in Boeotia makes sheep black, the Cephisus flowing from the same lake makes them white, the Peneus again makes them black, and the river Xanthus at Ilium red, which gives the river its name. Mares pastured on the plains watered by the river Astaces on the Black Sea suckle their foals with black milk. The spring called Neminie in the district of Reate rises now in one place and now in another, indicating a change in the price of corn. A spring in the harbour at Brindisi always supplies pure water for mariners. The slightly acid spring called Lyncestis makes men tipsy, like wine; the same occurs in Paplilagonia and in the territory of Cales.

It is accredited by the Mucianus who was three times consul that the water flowing from a spring in the temple of Father Liber on the island of Andros always has the flavour of wine on January 5th: the day is called God's Gift Day. To drink of the Styx near Nonacris in Arcady causes death on the spot, although the river is not peculiar in smell or colour; similarly three springs on Mount Liberosus in Taurica irremediably but painlessly cause death. In the territory of Carrina in Spain there are two adjacent springs of which one rejects all objects and the other sucks them down; another in the same nation makes all the fish in it look of a golden colour, although except when in that water there is nothing peculiar about them. In the district by the Lake of Como a copious spring always swells up and sinks back again every hour. A hot spring on the island of Cydonea off Lesbos flows only in the springtime. Lake Sannaus in Asia is dyed by the wormwood springing up round it. In the cave of Apollo of Claros at Colophon there is a pool a draught from which causes marvellous oracular utterances to be produced, though the life of the drinkers is shortened. Even our generation has seen rivers flow backward at Nero's last moments, as we have recorded in our history of that Emperor.

Again everybody is aware that all springs are colder in summer than in winter, as well as of the following miracles of nature that bronze and lead sink when in mass form, but float when flattened out into sheets; that among objects of the same weight some float, and others sink; that heavy bodies are more easily moved in water; that stone from Scyros in however large a mass floats, and the same stone broken into small pieces sinks; that bodies recently dead sink to the bottom but rise when they begin to swell; that empty vessels cannot be drawn out of the water more easily than full ones; that rain water is more useful than other water for salt-works, and that fresh water has to be mixed with sea water for the salt to he deposited; that sea water freezes more slowly, and boils more quickly; that the sea is warmer in winter and salted in autumn; that all sea water is made smooth by oil, and so divers sprinkle oil from their mouth because it calms the rough element and carries light down with them; that on the high sea no snow falls; that though all water travels downward, springs leap upwards, and springs rise even at the roots of Etna, which is so hot that it belches out sands in a ball of flame over a space of 50 to 100 miles at a time.

CVII. (For we must also report some marvels connected with fire, the fourth element of nature, but first those arising from water.)

CVIII. In Samosata the capital of Commagene there is a marsh that produces an inflammable mud called mineral pitch. When this touches anything solid it sticks to it; also when people touch it, it actually follows them as they try to get away from it. By these means they defended the city walls when attacked by Lucullus: the troops kept getting burnt by their own weapons. Water merely makes it burn more fiercely; experiments have shown that it can only be put out by earth.

CIX. Naphtha is of a similar nature—this is the name of a substance that flows out like liquid bitumen in the neighbourhood of Babylon and the parts of Parthia near Astacus. Naphtha has a close affinity with fire, which leaps to it at once when it sees it in any direction. This is how Medea in the legend burnt her rival, whose wreath caught fire after she had gone up to the altar to offer sacrifice.

CX. But among mountain marvels—Etna always glows at night, and supplies its fires with fuel sufficient for a vast period, though in winter cloaked with snow and covering its output of ashes with hoar frost. Nor does nature's wrath employ Mount Etna only to threaten the lands with conflagration. Mount Chimaera in the country of Phaselis is on fire, and indeed burns with a flame that does not die by day or night; Ctesias of Cnidos states that water increases its fire but earth or dung puts it out. Also the Mountains of Hephaestus in Lycia flare up when touched with a flaming torch, and so violently that even the stones of the rivers and the sands actually under water glow; and rain only serves to feed this fire. They say that if somebody lights a stick at it and draws a furrow with the stick, streams of fire follow it. At Cophantium in Bactria a coil of flame blazes in the night, and the same in Media and in Sittacene the frontier of Persia: indeed at the White Tower at Susa it does so from fifteen smoke-holes, from the largest in the daytime also. The Babylonian Plain sends a blaze out of a sort of fishpool an acre in extent; also near Monnt Hesperius in Ethiopia the plains shine at night hke stars. Like­wise in the territory of Megalopolis: for if that agree­able Bowl of Nymphaeus, which does not scorch the foliage of the thick wood above it and though near a cold stream is always glowing hot, ceases to flow, it portends horrors to its neighbours in the town of Apollonia, as Theopompus has recorded. It is augmented by rain, and sends forth asphalt to mingle with that unappetizing stream, which even without this is more liquid than ordinary asphalt. But who would be surprised by these things? During the Allies' War Holy Island and Lipari among the Aeolian Islands near Italy burnt in mid sea for several days, as did the sea itself, till a deputation from the senate performed a propitiatory ceremony. Nevertheless the largest volcanic blaze is that of the ridge in Ethiopia called the Gods' Carriage, which discharges flames that glow with truly solar heat.

In so many places and by so many fires does nature burn the countries of the earth.

CXI. Moreover, as this one element has a fertile principle that engenders itself and grows out of the smallest sparks, what must be expected to happen in future among all these funeral pyres of the earth? What is the natural principle that pastures a most voracious appetite on the whole world while itself unimpaired? Add thereto the innumerable stars and the mighty sun, add the fires of man's making and also those implanted in the nature of stone and of timber rubbing against itself, and again the fire of clouds, and the sources of thunderbolts—and doubtless all marvels will be surpassed by the fact that there has ever been a single day on which there has not been a universal conflagration, when also hollow mirrors facing the sun's rays set things alight more easily than any other fire. What of the countless small but natural eruptions of fire? In the river Nymphaeus a flame comes out of a rock that is kindled by rain; also one comes out at the Scantian Springs, not a strong one, it is true, as it passes away, and not lasting long on any substance which it touches—an ash tree shading this fiery spring is everlastingly green; one comes out in the district of Modena on the days appointed as sacred to Vulcan. It is found in the authorities that in the fields lying under Arezzo if charcoal is dropped on the ground, the earth is set on fire; that in the Sabine and Sidicine district a stone flames up when oiled; that in the Sallentine town of Egnatia, if wood is put on a certain sacred rock, a flame at once shoots up; that ashes on the altar of Juno at Lacinium, which stands in the open air, remains motionless when stormy winds sweep over it in every direction. Moreover, it is recorded that sudden fires arise both in pools of water and in bodies, even human bodies: Valerius Antias tells that the whole of Lake Trasimene once was on fire; that when Servius Tullius was a boy a flame flashed out from his head while he was asleep; and that a similar flame burnt on Lucius Marcius in Spain when he was making a speech after the death of the Scipios and exhorting the soldiers to revenge. Later we shall give more instances, and more in detail; for at the present we are displaying a sort of medley of marvels of all the elements. But leaving the interpretation of nature our mind hastens to lead the reader's attention by the hand on a tour of the whole world.

CXII. Our own portion of the earth, which is my subject, swims as it were in the ocean by which, as we have said, it is surrounded; its longest extent is from East to West, i.e. from India to the Pillars consecrated to Hercules at Cadiz, a distance of 8,568 miles according to Artemidorus, but 9,818 according to Isidore. Artemidorus adds in addition from Cadiz round Cape St. Vincent to Cape Finisterre the longest projection of the coast of Spain, 890½ miles. The measurement runs by a double route; from the river Ganges and its mouth where it flows into the Eastern Ocean, through India and Parthyene to the Syrian city of Meriandrus situated on the Gulf of Scanderoon 5,215, from there by the shortest sea-route to the Island of Cyprus, from Patara in Lycia to Rhodes, to the island of Astypalaea in the Carpathian Sea, to Taenarus in Laconia, Lilybaeum in Sicily, Caralis in Sardinia, 213, thence to Cadiz 1,250, the total distance from the Eastern Sea making 8,568. Another route, which is more certain, extends mainly overland from the Ganges to the river Euphrates 5,169, thence to Mazaca in Cappadocia 244, thence through Phrygin and Caria to Ephesus 499, from Ephesus across the Aegean Sea to Delos 200, to the Isthmus 202½, thence by land and the Alcyonian Sea and the Gulf of Corinth to Patras in the Peloponnese 102½, to Leucas 87½, to Corfu ditto, to Acroceraunia 82½, to Brindisi 87½, to Rome 360, across the Alps to the village of Suze 518, through France to the Pyrenees at Granada 456, to the Ocean and the coast of Spain 832, across to Cadiz 7½—which figures by Artemidorus's calculation make 8,995 miles.

But the breadth of the earth from the south point to the north is calculated by Isidorus as less by about one half, 5,462 miles, showing how much the heat has abstracted on one side and the cold on the other. As a matter of fact I do not think that there is this reduction in the earth, or that it is not the shape of a globe, but that the uninhabitable parts on either side have not been explored. This measurement runs from the coast of the Ethiopic Ocean, where habitation just begins, to Meroe 705 miles, thence to Alexandria, 1,250, Rhodes 584, Cnidus 86½, Cos 25, Samos 100, Chios 94, Mitylene 65, Tenedos 49, Cape Sigeum 12½, Bosphorus 312½, Cape Carambis 350, mouth of Lake Maeotis 312½, mouth of the Don 266,—a route that by cutting down the crossings can be shortened. From the mouth of the Don to the Canopic mouth of the Nile the most careful authorities have made the distance 2,110 miles. Artemidorus thought that the regions beyond had not been explored, though admitting that the tribes of the Sarmatae dwell round the Don to the northward. Isidorus added 1,250 miles right on to Thule, which is a purely conjectural estimate. I understand that the territory of the Sarmatae is known to an extent not less than the limit just stated. And from another aspect, how large is the space bound to be that is large enough to hold innumerable races that are continually migrating? This makes me think that there is an uninhabitable region beyond of much wider extent; for I am informed that beyond Germany also there are vast islands that were discovered not long ago.

These are the facts that I consider worth recording in regard to the earth's length and breadth. Its total circumference was given by Bratosthenes (an expert in every refinement of learning, but on this point assuredly an outstanding authority—I notice that he is universally accepted) as 252,000 stades, a measurement that by Roman reckoning makes 31,500 miles—an audacious venture, but achieved by such subtle reasoning that one is ashamed to be sceptical. Hipparchus, who in his refutation of Eratosthenes and also in all the rest of his researches is remarkable, adds a little less than 26,000 stades.

Dionysodorus (for I will not withhold this outstanding instance of Greek folly) has a different creed. He belonged to Melos, and was a celebrated geometrician; his old age came to its term in his native place; his female relations who were his heirs escorted his obsequies. It is said that while these women on the following days were carrying out the due rites they found in the tomb a letter signed with his name and addressed to those on earth, which stated that he had passed from his tomb to the bottom of the earth and that it was a distance of 42,000 stades. Geometricians were forthcoming who construed this to mean that the letter had been sent from the centre of the earth's globe, which was the longest space downward from the surface and was also the centre of the sphere. From this the calculation followed that led them to pronounce the circumference of the globe to be 252,000 stades.

CXIII. To this measurement the principle of uniformity, which leads to the conclusion that the nature of things is self-consistent, adds 12,000 stades, making the earth the 1/96th part of the whole world.

BOOK III

I. SO much as to the situation and the marvels of land and water and of the stars, and the plan and dimensions of the universe.

Now to describe its parts, although this also is considered an endless task, not lightly undertaken without some adverse criticism, though in no field does enquiry more fairly claim indulgence, only granting it to be by no means wonderful that one born a human being should not possess all human knowledge. For this reason I shall not follow any single authority, but such as I shall judge most reliable in their several departments, since I have found it a characteristic common to virtually all of them that each gave the most careful description of the particular region in which he personally was writing. Accordingly I shall neither blame nor criticise anyone. The bare names of places will be set down, and with the greatest brevity available, their celebrity and its reasons being deferred to their proper sections; for my topic now is the world as a whole. Therefore I should like it to be understood that I specify the bare names of the places without their record, as they were in the beginning before they had achieved any history, and that though their names are mentioned, it is only as forming a portion of the world and of the natural universe.

The whole circuit of the earth is divided into three parts, Europe, Asia and Africa. The starting point is in the west, at the Straits of Gibraltar, where the Atlantic Ocean bursts in and spreads out into the inland seas. On the right as you enter from the ocean is Africa and on the left Europe, with Asia between them; the boundaries are the river Don and the river Nile. The ocean straits mentioned are fifteen miles long and five miles broad, from the village of Mellaria in Spain to the White Cape in Africa, as given by Turranius Gracilis, a native of the neighbourhood while Livy and Cornelius Nepos state the breadth at the narrowest point as seven miles and at the widest as ten miles: so narrow is the mouth through which pours so boundless an expanse of water. Nor is it of any great depth, so as to lessen the marvel, for recurring streaks of whitening shoal-water terrify passing keels, and consequently many have called this place the threshold of the Mediterranean. At the narrowest part of the Straits stand mountains on either side, enclosing the channel, Ximiera in Africa and Gibraltar in Europe; these were the limits of the labours of Hercules, and consequently the inhabitants call them the Pillars of that deity, and believe that he cut the channel through them and thereby let in the sea which had hitherto been shut out, so altering the face of nature.

To begin then with Europe, nurse of the race that has conquered all the nations, and by far the loveliest portion of the earth, which most authorities, not without reason, have reckoned to be not a third part but a half of the world, dividing the whole circle into two portions by a line drawn from the river Don to the Straits of Gibraltar. The ocean, pouring the Atlantic sea through the passage I have described, and in its eager progress overwhelming all the lands that shrank in awe before its coming, washes also those that offer resistance with a winding and broken coast­line: Europe especially it hollows out with a succession of bays, but into four chief gulfs, of which the first bends in a vast curve from the Rock of Gibraltar, which, as I have said, is the extremity of Spain, right to Locri on Cape Spartivento.

The first land situated on this gulf is called Further Spain or Baetica, and then, from the frontier at Mujacar, Hither Spain or the Department of Tarragon, extending to the chain of the Pyrenees. Further Spain is divided lengthwise into two provinces, Lusitania extending along the north side of Baetica and separated from it by the river Anas. This rises in Hither Spain, in the territory of Laminium and now spreading out into meres, now contracting into narrows, or burrowing entirely underground and gaily emerging again several times over, discharges itself into the Atlantic Ocean. The Department of Tarragon adjoin the Pyrenees, running down along the whole of one side of the chain and also extending across from the Iberian Sea to the Gallic Ocean, and is separated from Baetica and Lusitania by Mount Solorius and by the ranges of the Oretani and Carpentani and of the Astures.

Baetica, named after the river Baetis which divides it in two, stands first among the whole of the provinces in the richness of its cultivation and in a sort of peculiar fertility and brilliance of vegetation. It comprises four jurisdictions, those of Cadiz, Cordova, Ecija and Seville. Its towns number in all 175, of which 9 are colonies, 10 municipalities of Roman citizens, 27 towns granted early Latin rights, 6 free towns, 3 bound by treaty to Rome and 120 paying tribute. Worthy of mention in this district, or easily expressed in Latin, are: on the ocean coast beginning at the river Guadiana, the town Ossonoba, surnamed Aestuaria, at the con­fluence of the Luxia and the Urium; the Hareni Mountains; the river Guadalquivir; the winding bay of the Coast of Curum, opposite to which is Cadiz, to be described among the islands; the Promontory of Juno; Port Vaesippo; the town of Baelo; Mellaria, the strait entering from the Atlantic; Carteia, called by the Greeks Tartesos; Gibraltar. Next, on the coast inside the straits, are: the town of Barbesula with its river; ditto Salduba; the town of Suel; Malaga with its river, one of the treaty towns. Then comes Maenuba with its river; Firmum Julium sumamed Sexum; Sel; Abdara; Murgi, which is the boundary of Baetica. The whole of this coast was thought by Marcus Agrippa to be of Carthaginian origin; but beyond the Guadiana and facing the Atlantic Ocean is the territory of the Bastuli and Turduli. Marcus Varro records that the whole of Spain was penetrated by invasions of Hiberi, Persians, Phoenicians, Celts and Carthaginians; for he says that it was the sport (lusus) of Father Liber, or the frenzy (λύσσα) of those who revelled with him, that gave its name to Lusitania, and that Pan was the governor of the whole of it. The stories related of Hercules, Pyrene or Saturn I regard as absolutely mythical.

The Guadalquivir rises in the province of Tarragon, not at the town of Mentesa, as some authorities have said, but in the Tugiensian Forest bordered by the river Segura that waters the territory of Cartagena; at Lorea it avoids the Sepolero de Scipion and, turning westward, makes for the Atlantic Ocean, giving its name to the province; it is first of moderate size, but it receives many tributaries, from which it takes their glory as well as their waters. It first enters Baetica at Ossigetania, gliding gently in a picturesque channel past a series of towns situated on both its banks.

Between this river and the Ocean coast the most famous places inland are: Segida surnamed Augurina; Julia or Fidentia; Urgao or Alba; Ebura or Cerialis; Iliberri or Liberini; Ilipula or Lans; Artigi or Julienses; Vesci or Faventia; Singili, Ategua, Arialdunum, Agla Minor, Baebro, Castra Vinaria, Cisimbrium, New Hippo, Illurco, Osea, Oscua, Sucaelo, Unditannm, Old Tucci—all of which are places in that part of Bastetania which stretches towards the sea. In the jurisdiction of Cordova in the neighbourhood of the actual river are Ossigi surnamed Latonium, Iliturgi or Forum Julium, Ipra, Isturgi or Trintuphale, Sucia, and 17 miles inland Obulco or Pontificense, then Ripa, Epora (a treaty town), Sacili Martialium, Onuba, and on the right bank the colony of Cordova surnamed Patricia. At this point the Guadalquivir first becomes navigable, and there are the towns of Carbula and Detunda, the river Xenil flowing into the Guadalquivir on the same side.

The towns of the jurisdiction of Hispalis are Celti, Axati, Arua, Canama, Evia, Ilipa surnamed Ilpa Italiea; on the left bank is the colony Ilispal surnamed Romulensis, while on the opposite side are the towns Osset surnamed Julia Constantia, Ver­gentum or Juli Genius, Orippo, Caura, Siarum, and the river Maenuba, a tributary of the Guadalquivir on its right. Between the estuaries of the Guadalquivir are the towns of Nabrissa, surnamed Veneria, and Colobana, with two colonies, Hasta, which is called Itegia, and inland Asido, which is called Caesarina.

The river Xenil, joining the Guadalquivir at the place in the list already mentioned, washes the colony of Astigi, surnamed Augusta Firma, from which point it becomes navigable. The other colonies in this jurisdiction exempt from tribute are Tucci, surnamed Augusta Gemella, Iptuci or Virtus Julia, Ucubi or Claritas Julia, Urso or Genetiva Urbanorum; and among these once was Munda, which was taken with the younger Pompey. The free towns are Old Astigi and Ostippo, with the tributary towns of Callet, Callicula, Castra Gemina, Ilipula Minor, Marruca, Sacrana, Obulcula, Oningis, Sabora and Ventippo. At no great distance, on the Maenuba, another navigable river, are the settlements of Olontigi, Laelia and Lastigi.

The region stretching from the Guadalquivir to the river Guadiana beyond the places already mentioned is called Baeturia, and is divided into two parts and the same number of races, the Celtici bordering on Lusitania, of the jurisdiction of Seville, and the Turduli, who dwell on the borders of Lusitania and the Tarragon territory, but are in the jurisdiction of Cordova. That the Celtici came from the Celtiberi in Lusitania is proved by their religion, their language, and the names of their towns, which in Baetica are distinguished by surnames: Seria has the additional name of Fama Julia, Nertobriga that of Concordia Julia, Segida that of Restituta Julia, Ugultunia that of Contributa Julia (in which now is also included the town of Curiga), Lacimurga that of Constantia Julia, and Stereses the surname of Fortunales and Callenses that of Aeneanici. Besides these places there are in Celtica Acinipo, Arunda, Arunci, Turobriga, Lastigi, Salpesa, Saepone, Serippo. The other part of Baeturia, which we have said belongs to the Turduli and to the jurisdiction of Cordova, contains the not undistinguished towns of Arsa, Mellaria, Mirobriga Regina, Sosintigi and Sisapo. To the jurisdiction of Cadiz belong Regina, with Roman citizens, Laepia Regia with Latin citizens, Carisa surnamed Aurelia, Urgia surnamed Castrum Julium, and also Caesaris Salutariensis; the tributary towns of Besaro, Beippo, Barbesula, Blacippo, Baesippo, Callet, Cappacum, Oleastro, Iptuci, Ibrona, Lascuta, Saguntia, Saudo, Usaepo.

The total length of Baetica according to Marcus Agrippa is 475 miles, and its breadth 258 miles, but this was when its bounds extended as far as Cartagena: such extensions comparatively often give rise to great errors in the measurements of distances, as they sometimes cause alterations in the boundary of provinces and sometimes an increase or reduction of the mileage of roads. During so long a period of time the seas have been encroaching on the land or the shores have been moving forward, and rivers have formed curves or have straightened out their windings. Moreover different persons take different starting-points for their measurements and follow different lines; and the consequence is that no two authorities agree.

II. At present the length of Baetica from the frontier of the town of Cazlona to Cadiz is 250 miles, and from the sea-front of Murgi 25 miles more; its breadth from Carteia along the coast to the Guadiana is 234 miles. Agrippa was a very painstaking man, and also a very careful geographer; who therefore could believe that when intending to set before the eyes of Rome a survey of the world he made a mistake, and with him the late lamented Augustus? for it was Augustus who completed the portico containing a plan of the world that had been begun by his sister in accordance with the design and memoranda of Marcus Agrippa.

III. The old shape of Hither Spain has been considerably altered, as has been that of several provinces, in as much as Pompey the Great on his trophies which he set up in the Pyrenees testified that he had brought into subjection 876 towns between the Alps and the borders of Further Spain. Today the whole province is divided into seven jurisdictions, namely those of Cartagena, Tarragon, Saragossa, Clunia, Astorga, Lugo, Braga. In addition there are the islands which will be mentioned separately, but the province itself contains, besides 293 states dependent on others, 189 towns, of which 12 are colonies, 13 are towns of Roman citizens, 18 have the old Latin rights, one is a treaty town and 135 are tributary.

The first people, on the coast, are the Bastuli, and after them in the following order proceeding inland come the Mentesani, the Bretani, the Carpetani on the Tagus, and next to them the Vaccaei, the Vettones and the Celtiberian Arevaci. The towns nearest the coast are Urci and Barea that belongs to Baetica, then the district of Bastitania, next after which comes Contestania and the colony of New Carthage, from the promontory of which, called the Cape of Saturn, the crossing to Caesarea, a city of Mauretania, is 197 miles. There remain to be mentioned on the coast the river Tader and the tax-free colony of Ilici, from which the Ilicitan Gulf takes its name; to this colony the Icositani are subordinate. Next come Lucentum, with Latin rights, Dianium, a tributary town, the river Sucro and in former days a town of the same name, forming the boundary of Contestania. The district of Metania comes next, with a lovely expanse of lake in front of it, and reaching back to Celtiberia. The colony of Valencia three miles from the sea, the river Turium, Saguntum, also three miles from the sea, a town with Roman citizenship, famous for its loyalty, and the river Udiva. The district of the Ilergaones, the river Ebro, rich in ship-borne trade, rising in the district of the Cantabri not far from the town of Juliobrica, with a course of 450 miles, for 260 of which from the town of Vareia it is navigable for ships, and because of it the Greeks have called the whole of Spain by the name of Iberia. Next the district of Cessetania, the river Subi, the colony Tarragon, which was founded by the Scipios, as Cartagena was by the Carthaginians. The district of the Ilergetes comes next, the town of Subur and the river Rubricatum, after which begin the Lacetani and the Indigetes. After them in the following order proceeding inland from the foot of the Pyrenees are the Ausetani,  the Jacetani, the Cerretani along the Pyrenees, and then the Vaseones. On the coast is the colony of Lareclonia, surnamed Faventia, the Roman towns of Badalona and Iluro, the River Arnuni, Blandae, the river Alba, Amporias, one part of which is inhabited by the original natives and the other by Greeks descended from the Phocaeans, and the river Ticer. From it Cabo de Cruz on the other side of the promontory is 40 miles distant.

We will now take the jurisdictions in order and give noteworthy facts about them in addition to those mentioned above. Forty-two peoples are subject to the jurisdiction of the courts of Tarragona; of them the best known are—with the rights of Roman citizens, the people of Tortosa and the Bisgargitani; with Latin rights, the Ausetani, the Cerretani surnamed Juliani, and those surnamed Augustani, the Edetani, Gerundenses, Gessorienses, and Teari or Julienses; tributaries, the Aquicaldenses, Aesonenses and Baeculonenses.

Caesaraugusta, a colony that pays no taxes, is washed by the river Ebro; its site was once occu­pied by a town called Salduba, belonging to the district of Edetania. It is the centre for 55 peoples; of these with the rights of Roman citizens are the Bilbilitani, the Celsenses (once a colony), the Calagurritani (surnamed Nasici), the Ilerdenses belonging to the race of the Surdaones next to the river Sicoris, the Oscenses of the district of Suessetania, and the Turiassonenses; with the old Latin rights are the Cascantenses, Ergavicenses, Graceurritani, Leoni­censes and Osieerdenses; bound by treaty are the Tarracenses; tributary are the Arcobrigenses, Andelonenses, Aracelitani, Bursaonenses, Calagurritani surnamed Fibularenses, Conplutenses, Carenses, Cincienses, Cortonenses, Damanitani, Ispallenses, Ilursenses, Iluberitani, Jacetani, Libienses, Pom­pelonenses and Segienses.

At Cartagena assemble sixty-five peoples, not including inhabitants of islands: from the colony of Accitana Gemellensis and from Libisosana named Foroaugustana, to both of which Italic rights have been given, from the colony of Salaria; townsmen with the rights of old Latium, the Castulonenses, also called Caesarii Iuvenales, the Saetabitani or Augustani, and the Valerienses. Of the tributary peoples the best known are the Alabanenses, Bastitani, Consaburrenses, Dianenses, Egelestani, Iloreitani, Laminitani, Mentesani or Oretani, Mentesani or Bastuli, the Oretani surnamed Germani, and the people of Segobriga, capital of Celtiberia, the people of Toletum on the Tagus, the capital of Carpetania, and then the Viatienses and the Virgilienses.

To the jurisdiction of Corunna the Varduli bring fourteen peoples, of whom we would mention only the Alabanenses, and the Turmogidi bring four, including the Segisamonenses and the Segisamajulieuses. To the same jurisdiction go the Carietes and the Vennenses with five states, of whom the Velienses form one. Thither too go the Pelendones of the Celtiberians with four peoples, of whom the Numantines were once famous, as among the seventeen states of the Vaccaei were the Intercatienses, Palantini, Lacobrigenses and Caucenses. Then among the Cantabriei, seven peoples, one state only, Juliobriga, need be mentioned, and Tritimn and Virovesea among the ten states of the Autrigones. The Arevaei got their name from the river Areva; to them belong six towns, Secontia and Uxama, common names in other regions, also Segovia and Nova Augusta, with Hermes and Corunna itself, the end of Celtiberia. The rest of the country stretches towards the ocean, and here are the Varduli of those already mentioned and the Cantabri.

Adjoining these are twenty-two peoples of the Astures, divided into the Augustani and the Tram­montani, with the splendid city of Asturiea; these include the Gigurri, Peseii, Lancienses and Zoelae. The total number of the population amounts to 240,000 free persons.

The jurisdiction of Lucus contains 15 peoples, unimportant and bearing outlandish names, excepting the Celtici and Lemavi, but with a free population amounting to about 166,000.

In a similar way the twenty-four states of Braga contain 286,000 persons, of whom besides the Bracari themselves may be mentioned, without wearying the reader, the Biballi, Coelerni, Callaeci, Equaesi, Limici and Querquerni.

The length of Hither Spain from the Pyrenees to the frontier of Cazlona is 607 miles, and a little more along the coast; its breadth from Tarragon to the shore of Olarson is 307 miles, starting from the foot of the Pyrenees, where the country forms the shape of a wedge between the two seas; then gradually it widens out, and where it touches Further Spain it adds more than as much again to its breadth.

Nearly the whole of Spain is covered with mines of lead, iron, copper, silver and gold, Hither Spain with muscovite mines also; Baetica abounds in cinnabar as well. There are besides quarries of marble. His Majesty the Emperor Vespasian bestowed the rights of Latium on the whole of Spain when it had been storm-tossed by civil disorders. The frontier between the Spanish and the Gallic provinces is formed by the mountains of the Pyrenees, with headlands projecting into the two seas on either side.

IV. The part of the Gauls washed by the Mediterranean is entitled the province of Narbonne, having previously had the name of Bracata. It is divided from Italy by the river Var, and by the ranges of the Alps, a very secure protection for the Roman Empire, and from the rest of Gaul on the north by the Cevennes and Jura mountains. Its agriculture, the high repute of its men and manners and the vastness of its wealth make it the equal of any other province: it is, in a word, not so much a province as a part of Italy. On the coast there is the district of the Sordones, and more inland that of the Consuarani; the rivers are the Tech and the Verdouble, and the towns Elne, the mere shadow of what was once a mighty city, and Castel Roussillon, which has Latin rights. Then come the river Aude, which flows from the Pyrenees through the lake Rubrensis. Narbonne, a colony of the tenth legion twelve miles from the sea, and the rivers Ildrault and Lea. Apart from those mentioned there are but few towns, owing to the marshes that fringe the coast. There is Agde, formerly belonging to Marseilles, the district of the Volcae Tectosages, and the former site of Rhoda, a colony of Rhodes, that has given its name to the Rhone, the most fertile river of the two Gauls, which rushes from the Alps though the Lake of Geneva, bringing along the sluggish Saône and the Isère and Durance which are as rapid as itself. Of its mouths the two smaller are called Libica, one the Spanish, the other the Metapinian; the third and largest is the Massaliotic. Some authorities state that at the mouth of the Rhone there was once a town called Heraclea. Beyond are the canals leading out of the Rhone, famous as the work of Gaius Marius whose distinguished name they bear, Lake Mastromela and the town of Maritima of the Avatici, and above are the Stony Plains, where tradition says that Hercules fought battles, the district of the Anatilii, and inland those of the Dexivates and Cavares. Returning to the sea we have the districts of the Tricores and inland those of the Tritolli, Vocontii and Segovellauni, and after them the Allobroges. On the coast is Marseilles, founded by the Greeks of Phocaea and now a confederate city, then the promontory of Zao, the harbour of Citharista, the district of the Camactulici, then the Suelteri and above them the Verucini. On the coast too are Athenopolis of the Massilians, Fréjus, a colony of the eighth legion, called Pacensis and Classica, a river named Argenteus, the district of the Oxubii and Ligauni, beyond whom come the Suebri, Quariates and Adunicates. On the coast is the town of Antibes with Latin rights, the district of the Deciates and the river Var, which rises in Mont Genis in the Alps.

The colonies in the interior are: Aries, the station of the sixth legion, Béziers of the seventh, Orange of the second, Valence in the territory of the Cavares, and Vienne in that of the Allobroges. The towns with Latin rights are Aix in the territory of the Salluvii, Mignon of the Cavares, Apt of the Vulgientes, Pies of the Reii Apollinares, Alba of the Helvi, Augusta of the Tricastinf, Anatilia, Aetea, the Bormani, the Comani, Cavaillon, Carcassonne of the Volcae Tectosages, Cessero, Carpentras of the Memini, the Caenicenses, the Camboleetri surnamed Atlantici, Forum Voconi, Glanum Libii, the Lutevani also called Foroneronienses, Nimes of the Arecomici, Pézenas, the Ruteni, the Samnagenses, the Tolosani of the Tectosages on the border of Aquitania, the Tasgoduni, the Tarusconienses, the Umbranici, the two capitals of the confederate state of the Vocontii, Vasio and Lucus Augusti; and also unimportant towns to the number of 19, as well as 24 assigned to the people of Nimes. The Emperor Galba added to the list two peoples dwelling in the Alps, the people of Avançon and the Bodiontici, whose town is Digne. According to Agrippa the length of the province of Narbonne is 370 miles and the breadth 248.

V. After this comes Italy, the first people of it being the Ligurians, after whom come Etruria, Umbria and Latium, where are the mouths of the Tiber and Rome, the capital of the world, sixteen miles from the sea. Afterwards come the coast of the Volsci and of Campania, then of Picenum and Lucania and the Bruttii, the southernmost point to which Italy juts out into the sea from the almost crescent-shaped chain of the Alps. After the Bruttii comes the coast of Magna Graecia, followed by the Sallentini, Paediculi, Apuli, Paeligni, Frentani, Marrueini, Vestini, Sabini, Picentes, Gauls, Umbrians, Tuscans, Venetians, Carni, Iapudes, Histri and Liburni. I am well aware that I may with justice be considered ungrateful and lazy if I describe in this casual and cursory manner a land which is at once the nursling and the mother of all other lands, chosen by the providence of the gods to make heaven itself wore glorious, to unite scattered empires, to make manners gentle, to draw together in converse by community of language the jarring and uncouth tongues of so many nations, to give mankind civilisa­tion, and in a word to become throughout the world the single fatherland of all the races. But what am I to do? The great fame of all its places—who could touch upon them all—and the great renown of the various things and peoples in it give me pause. In that list even the city of Rome alone, a countenance and one worthy of so glorious a neck, what elaborate description it merits! In what terms to describe the coast of Campania taken by itself, with its blissful and heavenly loveliness, so as to manifest of that there is one region where nature has been at work in her joyous mood! And then again all that invigorating healthfulness all the year round, the climate so temperate, the plains so fertile, the hills so sunny, the glades so secure, the groves so shady! Such wealth of various forests, the breezes from so many mountains, the great fertility of its corn and vines and olives, the glorious fleeces of its sheep, the sturdy necks of its bulls, the many lakes, the rich supply of rivers and springs flowing over all its surface, its many seas and harbours and the bosom of its lands offering on all sides a welcome to commerce, the country itself eagerly running out into the seas as it were to aid mankind. I do not speak of the character and customs of its people, its men, the nations that its language and its might have conquered. The Greeks themselves, a people most prone to gushing self-praise, have pronounced sentence on the land by conferring on but a very small part of it the name of Great Greece! The truth is that in this part of my the heavens—touch upon particular points and only a few of the stars. I merely ask my readers to remember that I am hastening on for the purpose of setting forth in detail all the contents of the entire world.

In shape, then, Italy much resembles an oak leaf, being far longer than it is broad, bending towards the left at its top and ending in the shape of an Amazon's the projection in the centre being called Cocynthos, while it sends out two horns along bays of crescent shape, Leucopetra on the right and Lacinium on the left. Its length extends for 1020 miles, beginning from Aosta at the foot of the Alps and passing through Rome and Capua in a winding course to the town of Reggio situated on its shoulder, where begins the curve, as it were, of the neck. The measure would be much greater if the line were carried on to Lacinium, but with that bend the line would seem to diverge to one side. The breadth varies, being four hundred and ten miles between the rivers Var and Arsa where they flow into the Mediterranean and the Adriatic, but about at the middle, in the neighbourhood of the city of Rome, from the mouth of the river Pescara, which flows into the Adriatic Sea, to the mouths of the Tiber, its breadth is 136 miles, and a little less from Castrum Novum on the Adriatic Sea to Palo on the Tuscan Sea, in no place exceeding a width of 200 miles. The circuit of the entire coast from the Var round to the Ama is 2049 miles. Its distances from the countries that surround it are as follows: from Istria and Liburnia in certain places 100 miles, from Epirus and Illyricum, 50 miles, from Africa, according to Marcus Varro, less than 200, from Sardinia 120, from Sicily 1½, from Corcyra less t.han 80, from Issa 50. It stretches through the seas in a southerly direction, but a more careful and accurate calculation would place it between due south and sunrise at midwinter. We will now give an account of a circuit of Italy, and of its cities. Herein it is necessary to premise that we intend to follow the authority of his late Majesty Augustus, and to adopt the division that he made of the whole of Italy into eleven regions, but to take them in the order that will be suggested by the coast-line, it being indeed impossible, at all events in a very cursory account, to keep the neighbouring cities together; and so in going on to deal with the inland districts we shall follow the Emperor's alphabetical arrangement, adopting the enumeration of the colonies that he set out in that list. Nor is it easy to trace their sites and origins, the Ligurian Ingauni, for example—not to mention the other peoples—having received grants of land on thirty occasions.

Therefore starting from the river Var we have Nice, founded by the people of Marseilles, the river Paghone, the Alps and the Alpine tribes with many names, of which the chief is the Long-haired; Cimiez, the town of the state of the Vediantii, the port of Hercules of Monaco, and the Ligurian coast. Of the Ligurians beyond the Alps the most famous are the Sallui, Deciates and Oxubi; on this side, the Veneni, Turn, Soti, Vagienni, Statielli, Binbelli, Maielli, Cuburniates, Casmonates, Velleiates, and the tribes whose towns on the coast we shall mention next. The river Royas, the town of Ventimiglia, the river Merula, the town of Alhenga, the port of Vai or Savona, the river Bisagna, the town of Genoa, the river Fertor, Porto Fino, Tigulia inland, Sestri di Levante, and the river Magra, which is the boundary of Liguria. Behind all the above-mentioned lie the Apennines, the largest range of mountains in Italy, extending in an unbroken chain from the Alps to the Straits of Messina. On one side of the range, along the Po, the richest river of Italy, the whole country is studded with famous and flourishing towns: Libama, the colony of Dertona, Iria, Vardacas, Industria, Pollenza, Correa snrnamed Potentia, Forum Fulvi or Valenza, Augusta of the Bagienni, Mba Pompcia, Aste, Acqui. Under the partition of Augustus this is the ninth region. The coast of Liguria extends 211 miles between the rivers Var and Magra.

The adjoining region is the seventh, in which is Etruria, beginning at the river Magra, a district that has often changed its name. From it in ancient times the Umbri were driven out by the Pelasgi, and these by the Lydians, who after a king of theirs were styled Tyrrheni, but later in the Greek language Tusci, from their ritual of offering sacrifice. The first town in Etruria is Luni, famous for its harbour; then the colony of Lucca, some way from the sea and nearer to Pisa, between the rivers Auser and Arno, which owes its origin to the Pelopidae or to the Greek tribe of the Teutani; then come the Marshes of Volterra the river Cecina and Piombino, once the only Etruscan town on the coast. After these is the river Prile, and then the navigable river Ombrone, at which begins the district of Umbria, the port of Telamone, Cosa of the Volcientes, founded by the Roman people, Graviscae, Castrum Novum, Pyrgi, the river and the town of Caere, seven miles inland, called Agylla by the Pelasgians who founded it, Alsium, Fregenae, and the river Tiber, 284 miles from the Magra. Inland are the colonies of Falisca, founded according to Cato by the Argives and surnamed Falisca of the Etruscans, Lucus Feroniae, Rusellana, Siena and Sutria. The remaining people are the Arretini Veteres, Arretini Fidentiores, Arretini Julienses, Amitinenses, Aquenses surnamed Taurini, Blerani, Cortonenses, Capenates, Clusini Novi, Chisini Veteres, the Florentini on the bank of the Arno that flows by, Faesulae, Ferentinum, Fescennia, Hortanurn, Herbanum, Nepi, Nine Villages, the Claudian Prefecture of Foroclodiurn, Pistoriuni, Perugia, the Suanenses, the Saturnini formerly called the Aurini, the Subertani, Statonenses, Tarquinienses, Tuscanienses, Vetulonienses, Veientani, Vesentini, Volaterrani, the Volcentani surnamed Etrusci, and Volsinienses. In the same district the territories of Crustumium and Caletra still keep the names of the ancient towns.

The Tiber, the former name of which was Thybris, and before that Albula, rises in about the middle of the Apennine chain in the territory of Arezzo. At first it is a narrow stream, only navigable when its water is dammed by sluices and then discharged, in the same way as its tributaries, the Tinia and the Chiana, the waters of which must be so collected for nine days, unless augmented by showers of rain. But the Tiber, owing to its rugged and uneven channel, is even so not navigable for a long distance, except for rafts, or rather logs of wood; in a course of 150 miles it divides Etruria from the Linibrians and Sabines, passing not far from Tifernum, Perugia and Ocriculum, and then, less than 16 miles from Rome, separates the territory of Veii from that of Crustumium, and afterwards that of Fidenae and Latium from Vaticanurn. But below the confluence of the Chiana from Arezzo it is augmented by forty-two tributaries, the chief being the Nera and the Severone (which latter is itself navigable, and encloses Latiurn in the rear), while it is equally increased by the aqueducts and the numerous springs carried through to the city; and consequently it is navigable for vessels of whatever size from the Mediterranean, and is a most tranquil trafficker in the produce of all the earth, with perhaps more villas on its banks and overlooking it than all the other rivers in the whole world. And no river is more circumscribed and shut in on either side; yet of itself it offers no resistance, though it is subject to frequent sudden floods, the inundations being nowhere greater than in the city itself. But in truth it is looked upon rather as a prophet of warning, its rise being always construed rather as a call to religion than as a threat of disaster.

Old Latium has preserved the original limits, extending from the Tiber to Cerceii, a distance of 50 miles; so exiguous at the beginning were the roots of the Empire. Its inhabitants have often changed: at various times it has been occupied by various peoples—the Aborigines, the Pelasgi, the Arcades, the Siculi, the Aurunci, the Rutuli, and beyond Circello the Volsci, Osci and Ausones, owing to which the name of Latium came to be extended as far as the river Garigliano. To begin with there is Ostia, a colony founded by a Roman king, the town of Laurentum, the grove of Jupiter Indiges, the river Numicius, and Ardea, founded by Danaë the mother of Perseus. Then comes the site of what was once Aphrodisium, the colony of Antium, the river and island called Astura, the river Ninfa, the Roman Bulwarks, Circello, once an island surrounded by a boundless sea, if we are to believe Homer, but now surrounded by a plain. The facts that we are able to publish for the information of the world on this matter are remarkable. Theophrastus, the first foreigner to write with special care about the Romans—for Theopompus, before whom nobody mentioned them, merely states that Rome was taken by the Gauls, and Clitarchus, the next after him, only that an embassy was sent to Alexander—Theophrastus, I say, relying on more than rumour, has actually given the measurement of the island of Circello as 80 furlongs in the volume that he wrote in the archonship of Nicodorus at Athens, which was the 440th year [314 BC] of our city. Whatever land therefore has been joined to the island beyond the circumference of 10 miles was added to Italy after that year. Another marvel not far from Circello is the Pomptine Marsh, a place which Mucianus, who was three times consul, has reported to be the site of 24 cities. Then comes the river Aufentum, above which is the town of Tarraeina, called Anxur in the dialect of the Volsci, and the site of Amyclae, or Amynclae, the town destroyed by serpents, then the place called the Grottoes, Lake Fundanus, the port of Gaeta, the town of Formiae, called also Hormiae, the ancient abode, it has been thought, of the Laestrygones. Beyond this formerly stood the town of Pirae, and still exists the colony of Minturnae, through which runs the river Liris, once called Clanis; and Sinuessa, the last town in the Extension of Latium, and stated by some authorities to have been once styled Sinope.

Then comes the favoured country of Campania; in this valley begin those vine-clad hills with their glorious wine and wassail, famous all the world over, and (as old writers have said) the scene of the severest competition between Father Liber and Ceres. From this point stretch the territories of Sezza and Caecubum, with which march the Falernian and those of Calvi. Then rise up Monte Massico, Monte Barbaro and the hills of Sorrento. Here spread the plains of Leborium, where the spelt crop is sedulously tended to produce delicious frumity. These shores are watered by hot springs, and are noted beyond all others throughout the whole of the sea for their famous shell and other fish. Nowhere is there nobler olive oil—another competition to gratify man a pleasure. Its occupants have been Oscans, Greeks, Umbrians, Tuscans and Campanians. On the coast are the river Saove, the town of Volturno with the river of the same name, Liternum, the Chalcidian colony of Cumae, Miseno, the port of Baiae, Bacolo, the Lucrine lake, Lake Averno near which formerly stood the town of Cimmerium, then Pozzuoli, formerly called the Colony of Dicaearchus; after which come the plaim of Salpatara and the Lago di Fusaro near Comae. On the coast stands Naples, itself also a colony of the Chalcidians, named Parthenope from the tomb of one of the Sirens, Herculaneum, Pompei with Mount Vesuvius in view not far off and watered by the river Sarno, the Nucerian territory and nine miles from the sea Nocera itself, and Sorrento with the promontory of Minerva that once was the abode of the Sirens. From this place the distance by sea from Cerceii is 78 miles. This region, beginning from the Tiber, under the partition made by Augustus is regarded as the first region of Italy.

Inland are the following colonies: Capua, so named from its forty miles of plain (campus), Aquino, Suessa, Venafro, Sora, Teano surnamed Sidicinum, and Nola; and the towns of Abellinum, Aricia, Alba Longa, the Acerrani, the Allifani, the Atinates, the Aletrinates, the Anagnini, the Atellani, the Aefulani, the Arpinates, the Auximates, the Abellani, the Alfaterni (both those that take their surname from the Latin territory, and from the Hernican, and from the Labican), Bovillae, Caiatiae, Casinum, Calenum, Capitulum of the Hernici, the Cereatini who have the surname of Mariani, the Corani descended from the Trojan Dardanus, the Cubulterini, the Castrimoenienses, the Cingulani, the Fabienses on Mount Albanus, the Foropopulienses from the Falernian district, the Frusinates, the Ferentinates, the Freginates, the Old Fabraterni, the New Fubraterni, the Ficolenses, the Fregellani, Forum Appi, the Forentani, the Gabini, the Interamnates Sucasini, also called the Lirenates, the Ilionenses, the Lanivini, the Norbani, the Nomentani, the Praenestini with their city once called Stephane, the Privernates, the Setini, the Signini, the Suessulani, the Telesini, the Trebulani surnamed Ballienses, the Trebani, the Tusculani, the Verulani, the Veliterni, the Ulubrenses, the Urbanates; and besides all these Rome itself, whose other name it is held to be a sin to utter except at the ceremonies of the mysteries, and when Valerius Soranus divulged the secret religiously kept for the weal of the state, he soon paid the penalty. It seems pertinent to add at this point an instance of old religion established especially to inculcate this silence: the goddess Angerona, to whom sacrifice is offered on December 21, is represented in her statue with a sealed bandage over her mouth.

Romulus left Rome possessing three or, to accept the statement of the authorities putting the number highest, four gates. The area surrounded by its walls at the time of the principate and censorship of the Vespasians, in the 826th [73 AD] of its foundation, measured 13 miles and 200 yards in circumference, embracing seven hills. It is itself divided into fourteen regions, with 265 crossways with their guardian Lares. If a straight line is drawn from the milestone standing at the head of the Roman Forum to each of the gates, which today number thirty-seven (provided that the Twelve Gates be counted only as one each and the seven of the old gates that exist no longer be omitted), the result is a total of 20 miles 765 yards in a straight line. But the total length of all the ways through the districts from the same milestone to the extreme edge of the buildings, taking in the Praetorians' Camp, amounts to a little more than 60 miles. If one were further to take into account the height of  the buildings, a very fair estimate would be formed, that would bring us to admit that there has been no city in the whole world that could be compared to Rome in magnitude. On the east it is bounded by the Dyke of Tarquinius Superbus, a work among the leading wonders of the world, for he made it as high as the walls where the approach was flat and the city lay most open to attack. In other directions it had the protection of lofty walls or else of precipi­tous hills, except for the fact that the increasing spread of buildings has added a number of cities to it.

The first region formerly included the following celebrated towns of Latium besides those mentioned: Satricum, Pometia, Scaptia, Politorium, Tellena, Tifata, Caenina, Ficana, Crustumerium, Ameriola, Medullum, Corniculum, Satuxnia on the site of the present Rome, Antipolis, which today is Janiculum and a part of Rome, Antemnae, Camerium, Collatia, Amitinum, Norbe, Sulmo; and together with these the Alban peoples who were accustomed to receive flesh on the Alban Hill, namely the Albani, Aesolani, Accienses, Abolani, Bubetani, Bolani, Cusuetani, Coriolani, Fidenates, Foreti, Hortenses, Latinienses, Longulani, Manates, Macrales, Munienses, Numinienses, Olliculani, Octulani, Pedani, Polluscini, Querquetulani, Sicani, Sisolemes, Toleri­enses, Tutienses, Vimitellari, Velienses, Venetulani, Vitellenses. Thus 53 peoples of Old Latium have perished without leaving a trace.

In the Campanian territory the town of Stabiae existed right down to April 29 in the consulship of Gnaeus Pompeius and Lucius Cato, when Lieutenant-General Lucius Sulla in the Allies' War destroyed the place that has now been reduced to a farmhouse. Here also was Taurania, which has now perished; and the remains of Casilinum are in process of disappearance. Furthermore, Antias records that the Latin town of Apiolae was captured by King Lucius Tarquinius, who used the spoils of it to begin building the Capitol. The 30 miles of Picentine territory between the district of Sorrento and the river Silaro belonged to the Etruscans; it sins famous for the temple of Argive Juno founded by Jason. Further inland was Picentia, a town of Salerno.

At the Silaro begins the third region, the Lucanian and Bruttian territory; in this too there have been frequent changes of population. It has been occupied by Pelasgi, Oenotri, Itali, Morgetes, Siculi, and mostly by peoples of Greece, and most recently by the Lucani, Samnite in origin, whose leader was Lucius. The town of Paestum (called Posidonia by the Greeks), the bay of Paestum, the town of Thea, now Velia, Cape Palinuro, from which across the bay that here stretches inland the distance to the Royal Pillara is 100 miles. Next is the river Melpes, the town of Buxentum (the Greek name of which is Pyxus) and the river Laus—there was once a town also of the same name. Here begins the coast of the Bruttii, with the town of Blanda, the river Baletum, the port of Parthenius, founded by the Phocians, the Bay of Vibo, the site of Clampetia, the town of Tempsa (the Greek name of which is Temese), and Terina, founded by the people of Croton, and the extensive Bay of Terina; and inland the town of Cosenza. On a peninsula is the river Acheron, which gives its name to the township of the Acherontians; Hippo, which we now call Vibo Valentia; the Port of Hercules, the river Metaurus, the town of Tauroentum, the Port of Orestes, and Medma; the town of Scyllaeum and the river Crataeis, known in legend as the Mother of Scylla; then the Royal Pillar, the Straits of Messina and the two opposing headlands, Caenus on the Italian and Pelorum on the Sicilian side, the distance between them being 1½ miles; Reggio is 11½ miles away. Next comes the Apennine forest of Sila, and the promontory of Leucopetra 15 miles from it, and Epizephyrian Locri (called after the promontory of Zephyrium) 51 miles; it is 303 miles from the river Silaro. And this rounds off the first gulf of Europe.

The names of the seas that it contains are as follows: that from which it makes its entrance is the Atlantic, or as others call it, the Great Sea; the strait by which it enters is called by the Greeks Porthmos and by us the Straits of Cadiz; after it has entered, as far as it washes the coast of the Spains it is called the Spanish Sea, or by others the Iberian or the Balearic Sea; then the Gallic Sea as far as the Province of Narbonne, and afterwards the Ligurian Sea; from that point to the Island of Sicily the Tuscan Sea, which some of the Greeks call the Southern Sea and others the Tyrrhenian, but most of our own people the Lower Sea. Beyond Sicily, as far as the south-eastern point of Italy Polybius calls it the Ausonian Sea, but Eratosthenes calls all the part between the ocean inlet and Sardinia the Sardoan Sea, from Sardinia to Sicily the Tyrrheuian, from Sicily to Crete the Sicilian, and beyond Crete the Cretan.

The first of all the islands scattered over these seas are called with the Greeks the Pityussae, from the pine trees that grow on them; each of these islands is now named Ebusus and in treaty with Rome, the channel between them being narrow. Their area is 46 miles, and their distance from Denia 871 miles, which is the distance by land from Denia to New Carthage, while at the same distance from the Pityussac out to sea are the two Balearic islands, and opposite the River Xucar lies Colubraria. The Balearic islands, formidable in warfare with the sling have been designated by the Greeks the Gymnasiae. The larger island, Majorca, is 100 miles in length and 475 in circumference. It contains towns of Roman citizen colonists, Palma and Pollenza, towns with Latin rights, Sineu and Tucis; a treaty town of the Bocchi, no longer existing. The smaller island, Minorca, is 30 miles away from Majorca; its length is 40 miles and its circumference 150; it contains the states of Iamo, Sanisera and Port Mahon. Twelve miles out to sea from Majorca is Cabrera, treacherous for shipwrecks, and right off the city of Palma lie the Malgrates and Dragonera and the small island of El Torre.

The soil of Iviza drives away snakes, but that of Colubraria breeds snakes, and consequently that land is dangerous to all people except those who bring earth from Iviza; the Greeks called it Snake Island. Iviza does not breed rabbits either, which ravage the crops of the Balearics. The sea is full of shoals, and there are about twenty other small islands; off the coast of Gaul at the mouth of the Rhone is Metina, and then the island named Brescon, and the three which the neighbouring people of Marseilles call the Row of Islands because of their arrangement, their Greek names being First Island, Middle Island, also called Pomponiana, and the third Hypaea; next to these are Iturium, Phoenica, Lero, and opposite Antibes Lerina, on which according to local tradition there was once a town called Berconum.

VI. In the Ligurian Sea, but adjoining the Tuscan, is the island of Corsica, the Greek name of which is Cyrnos it lies in a line from north to south, and is 150 miles long and at most points 50 miles broad: its circumference measures 325 miles; it is 62 a miles from the Shallows of Volterra. It contains 32 states, and the colonies of Mariana founded by Gaius Marius and Aleria founded by Sulla when Dictator. Nearer the mainland is Oglasa, and inside that, and 60 miles from Corsica, Pianosa, so named from its appearance, as it is level with the sea and consequently treacherous to vessels. Then La Gorgona, a larger island, and Capraia, the Greek name of which is Aegilion, and also Giglio and Gianuto, in Greek Artemisia, both opposite the coast at Cosa, and Barpana, Menaria, Columbaria, Venaria, Elba with its iron mines, an island 100 miles round and 10 miles from Populonium, called by the Greeks Aethalia; the distance between Elba and Pianosa is 28 miles. After these beyond the mouths of the Tiber and off the coast of Antium is Astura, then Palmarola, Senone, and opposite to Formiae Ponza. In the gulf of Pozzuoli are Pandateria, Prochyta (so called not after Aeneas's nurse but because it was formed of soil deposited by the current from Aenaria), Aenaria (named from having given anchorage to the fleet of Aeneas but called Inarime in Homer) and Pithecusa (named not from its multitude of monkeys, as some people have supposed, but from its pottery factories). Between Posilippo and Naples is Megaris; then, 8 miles from Sorrento, Capri, celebrated for the Emperor Tiberius's castle—the island is 11 miles round; Leucothea; and out of sight, being on the edge of the African Sea, Sardinia, which is less than 8 miles from the end of Corsica, and moreover the channel is narrowed by the small islands called the Rabbit Warrens, and also by the islands of Caprera, and Fossa, from which comes the Greek name of the Straits themselves, Taphros.

VII. The east coast of Sardinia is 188 miles long, the west coast 175, the south coast 77 and the north coast 125; its circumference is 565 miles; and at Cape Carbonara its distance from Africa is 200 miles and from Cadiz 1400. It also has two islands off Capo IFalcone called the Islands of Hercules, one off La Puuta dell'Alga called Santo Antiocho, and one off Cape Carbonara called Coltelalzo. Near it some authorities also place the island sof Berelis, Callodes and the one called the Baths of Hera. The best-known peoples in Sardinia are the Ilienses, Balari, Corsi (who occupy 18 towns), Sulcitani, Valentini, Neapolitani, Vitenses, Caralitani (who have the Roman citizenship), and the Norenses; and one colony called At Libiso's Tower. Sardinia itself was called by Timaeus Sandaliotis, from the similarity of its shape to the sole of a shoe, and by Myrsilus Ichnusa, from its resemblance to a footprint. Opposite to the Bay of Paestum is La Licosa, called after the Siren buried there; and opposite Velia are Pontia and Isacia, both included under the one name of the Oenotrides, which is evidence that Italy was once in the possession of the Oenotri; and opposite to Vibo are the small islands called the Isles of Ithaca, from the watch-tower of Ulysses that stands there.

VIII. But before all the islands of the Mediterranean in renown stands Sicily, called by Thucydides Sicania and by a good many authors Triuacria or Trinacia from its triangular shape. The measure­ment of its circumference, according to Agrippa, is 528 miles. In former times it was attached to the southern part of Italy, but later it was separated from it by an overflow of the sea, forming a strait 15 miles long and 1½ miles wide at the Royal Pillar: this monument of the formation of the gap is the origin of the Greek name of the town situated on the Italian coast, Rhegium. In these Straits is the rock of Scylla and also the whirlpool of Charybdis, both notoriously treacherous. Sicily itself is triangular in shape, its points being the promontory mentioned before named Pelorum, pointing towards Italy, opposite Scylla, Pachynum towards Greece, the Morea being 440 miles away, and Lilybaenm towards Africa, at a distance of 150 miles from the Promontory of Mercury and 190 from Gape Carbonara in Sardinia. The following are the distances of these promontories from one another and the length of the coast lines: from Pelorum to Pachynum by land is 186 miles, from Pachynum to Lilybaeum 200 miles, and from Lilybacum to Pelorum 142 miles.

Sicily contains five colonies and sixty-three cities and states. Starting from Pelorum, on the coast facing the Ionian Sea is the town of Messina, whose denizens called Mamertines have the Roman citizenship, the promontory of Trapani, the colony of Taormina, formerly Naxos, the river Alcantara, and Mount Etna with its wonderful displays of fire at night: the circuit of its crater measures 21 miles; the hot ashes reach as far as Taormina and Catania. and the noise to Madonia and Monte di Mele. Then come the three Rocks of the Cyclopes, the Harbour of Ulysses, the colony of Catania, and the rivers Symaethum and Terias. Inland are the Laestrygonian Plains. Then there are the towns of Lentini, Megaris, the river Porcaro, the colony of Syracuse with the Spring of Axethusa (although the territory of Syracuse is also supplied with water by the springs of Temenitis, Archidemia, Magea, Cyane and Milichie), the harbour of Naustathmus, the river Elorum, the promontory of Pachynum. On this side of Sicily are the river Hyrminus, the town of Camarina, the river Gelas; the town of Acragas, called Agrigentmn in our language; the colony of Thermae; the rivers Achates, Mazara, Hypsa and Selinus; the town of Lilybacum and the promontory to which it gives its name; Trapani, Mount Eryx, the towns of Palermo, Solunto, Himera with its river, Cephaloedis, Alintium, Agathyrnum; the colony of Tindari, the town of Melazzo, and the district of Pelorum from which we began.

In the interior the towns having Latin rights are those of the Centuripini, Netini and Segestani; tributaries are Asaro, Nicolosi, Argiro, the Acestaei, the Acrenses, the Bidini, the peoples of Cassaro, Trapani, Ergetium, Orchula, Bryn, Butella, Castro Giovanni, Gangi, Gela, Galata, Tisa, Hermae, Hybla, Nicosia, Pantalica, Ilerbitenses, Saleni, Aderno, Imacara, Ipana, Iato, Mistretta, Magella, Mandri, Modica, Mineo, Taormina, Noara, Petra, Colisano, Alicata, Semelita, Scheria, Selinunte, Symaethus, Talaria, Itandazza, Troccoli, Tyracinum and Zancle, a Messenian settlement on the Straits of Sicily.

The islands on the side towards Africa are Oozo, adjacent Malta (which is 87 miles from Camerina and 113 from Lilybaeum), Pantellaria, Maretino, Limosa, Calata, Lampedosa, Aethusa (written by others Aegusa), Levanzo, Alicus (75 miles from Solunto), and Ustica opposite to Paropus. On the Italian side of Sicily facing the river Metaurus, at a distance of nearly 25 miles from Italy, are the seven islands called the Aeolian and also the Liparean: their Greek name is the Hephaestiades, and the Roman Vulcan's Islands; they are called Aeolian from King Aeolus who reigned there in the Homeric period.

IX. Lipari, with a town possessing rights of Roman citizenship, takes its name from King Liparus, who succeeded Aeolus—it was previously called Milogonis or Meligunis; it is 25 miles from Italy, and its circumference measures a little less than 5 miles. Between it and Sicily is another island formerly called Therasia, and now Holy Island because it is sacred to Vulcan, on it being a hill that vomits out flames in the night. The third island is Stromboli, six miles to the east of Lipari; here Aeolus reigned. It differs from Lipari only in the fact that its flame is more liquid; the local population are reported to be able to foretell from its smoke three days ahead what winds are going to blow, and this is the source of the belief that the winds obeyed the orders of Aeolus. The fourth of the islands, Didyme, is smaller than Lipari. The fifth, Eriphusa, and the sixth, Phoenicusa, are left to provide pasture for the flocks of the neighbouring islands; the last and also the smallest is Euonymus. So far as to the first gulf of Europe.

X. At Locri begins the projection of Italy called Magna Graecia, retiring into the three bays of the Ausonian Sea, so called from its first inhabitants the Ausones. According to Varro its length is 86 miles, but most authorities have made it 75. On this coast are rivers beyond count; but the places worthy of mention, beginning at Locri, are the Sagriano and the ruins of the town of Caulon, Monasteraci, Camp Consilinum, Punta di Stilo (thought by some to be the longest promontory in Italy), then the gulf and city of Squillace, called by the Athenians when founding it Scylletium. This part of the country is made into a peninsula by the Gulf of Santa Eufemia which runs up to it, and on it is the harbour called Hannibal's Camp. It is the narrowest part of Italy, which is here 20 miles across, and consequently the elder Dionysius wanted to cut a canal across the peninsula in this place, and annex it to Sicily. The navigable rivers in this district are the Corace, Alli, Simari, Crocchio and Tacina; it contains the inland town of Strongolo, the range of Monte Monacello, and the promontory of Lacinium, off the coast of which ten miles out lies the Island of the Sons of Zeus and another called Calypso's Island, which is thought to be Homer's island of Ogygia, and also Tyris, Ernnusa and Meloessa. According to Agrippa the distance of the promontory of Lacinium from Caulon is 70 miles.

XI. At the promontory of Lacinium begins the second Gulf of Europe; it curves round in a large bay and ends in Acroceraunium, a promontory of Epirus; the distance from cape to cape is 75 miles. Here are the town of Crotona, the river Neto, and the town of Turi between the river Crati and the river Sibari, on which once stood the city of the same name. Likewise Heraclea, once called Sins, lies between the Sins and the Aciris. Then the rivers Salandra and Bassiento, and the town of Torre di Mare, at which the third region of Italy ends. The only inland community of the Bruttii are the Aprus­tani, but in the interior of Lucania are the Atinates, Bantini, Eburini, Grumentini, Potentini, Sontini, Sirini, Tergilani, Ursentini and Volcentani adjoining whom are the Numestrani. Moreover it is stated by Cato that the town of Thebes in Lucania has dis­appeared and Theopompus says that there was once a city of the Lucanians named Mardonia, in which Alexander of Epirus died.

Adjoining this district is the second region of Italy, embracing the Hirpini, Calabria, Apulia and the Sallentini with the 250-mile bay named after the Laconian town of Taranto (this is situated in the Nipnermost recess of the bay and has had attached to it the sea-board colony that had settled there, and it is 136 miles distant from the promontory of Lacinium),—throwing out Calabria which is opposite to Lacinium to form a peninsula. The Greeks called it Messapia from their leader Messapus, and previously Peucetia from Peucetius the brother of Oenotrius, and it was in the Sallentine territory.

The distance between the two headlands is 100 miles; and the breadth of the peninsula overland from Taranto to Brindisi is 35 miles, and considerably less if measured from the port of Sasine. The towns inland from Taranto are Uria, which has the surname of Messapia to distinguish it from Uria in Apulia, and Sarmadium; on the coast are Senum and Gallipoli, the present Anxa, 75 miles from Taranto. Next, 33 miles farther, the promontory called the Iapygian Point, where Italy projects farthest into the sea. Nineteen miles from this point are the towns of Vaste and Otranto, at the boundary between the Ionian Sea and the Adriatic, where is the shortest crossing to Greece, opposite to the town of Apollonia, separated by an arm of the sea not more than 50 miles wide. King Pyrrhus of Epirus first conceived the plan of carrying a causeway over this gap by throwing bridges across it, and after him Marcus Varro had the same idea when commanding the fleets of Pompey in the Pirate War; but both were prevented by other commitments. After Otranto comes the deserted site of Soletum, then Fratuertium, the harbour of Taranto, the roadstead of Miltope, Lecce, Baleso, Cavallo, and then Brindisi, 50 miles from Otranto, one of the most famous places in Italy for its harbour and as offering a more certain crossing albeit a longer one, ending at the city of Durazzo in Illyria, a passage of 225 miles.

Adjacent to Brindisi is the territory of the Paediculi, whose twelve tribes were the descendants of nine youths and nine maidens from the Illyrians. The towns of the Paediculi are Ruvo, Agnazzo and Ban; their rivers are the Iapyx, named from the son of Daedalus, the king who also gives his name to the lapygian Point, the Pactius and the Aufidus, which runs down from the Hirpini mountains and past Canossa.

Here begins Apulia, called Apulia of the Daunii, who were named after their chief, the father-in-law of Diomede; in Apulia is the town of Salpi, famous as the scene of Hannibal's amour with a courtezan, Sipontum, Uria, the river Cervaro marking the boundary of the Daunii, the harbour of Porto Greco, the promontory of Monte Gargano (the distance round Gargano from the promontory of Sallentinum or Iapygia being 234 miles), the port of Varano, the lake of Lesina, the river Frento which forms a harbour, Teanum of tile Apuli and Larinum of the Apuli, Cliternia, and the river Biferno, at which begins the district of the Frentani. Thus the Apulians comprise three different races: the Teani, so called from their chief, of Graian descent; the Lucanians who were subdued by Calchas and who occupied the places that now belong to the Atinates; and the Daunians, including, beside the places mentioned above, the colonies of Lucera and Venosa and the towns of Canossa and Arpa, formerly called Argos Hippium when founded by Diomede, and afterwards Argyripa. Here Diomede destroyed the tribes of the Monadi and Dardi and two cities whose names have passed into a proverbial joke, Apina and Trica. Besides these there are in the interior of the second region one colony of the Hirpini formerly called Maleventum and now more auspiciously, by a change of name, Beneventum, the Ausculani, Aquiloni, Abellinates snrnamed Protropi, Compsani, Candini, Ligurians with the surnames Baebiani, Vescellani, Aeclani, Aletrini, Abellinates surnamed Marsi, Atrani, Aceani, Alfellani, Atinates, Arpani, Boreani, Collatini, Corinenscs, Cannae celebrated for the Roman defeat, Dirini, Forentani, Genusini, Herdonienses, Irini, Larinates surnamed Frentani, the Merinates from Monte Gargano, Mateolani, Neretini, Natini, Rubustini, Silvini, Strapellini, Turnantini, Vibinates, Venusini, Ulurtini. Inland Calabrian peoples are the Aegetini, Apamestini, Argentini, Butuntinenses, Deciani, Grumbestini, Norbanenses, Palionenses, Stulnini and Tutini; inland Sallentini are the Aletini, Basterbint Neretini, Uzentini and Veretini.

XII. There follows the fourth region, which includes the very bravest races in Italy. On the coast, in the territory of the Frentani, after Tifernum are the river Trigno, affording a harbour, and the towns of Histonium, Buca and Hortona and the river Aternus. Inward are the Anxani surnamed Frentani, the Upper and Lower Caretini and the Lanuenses; and in the Marrucine territory Chieti; in the Paelignian, the people of Corfinium; Subequo and Sulmona; in the Marsian, those of Lanciano, Atina, Fucino, Lucca and Muria; in the Albensian region the town of Alba on Lake Fucino; in the Aequicuian, Cliternia and Carsoli; in the Vestinian, Sant Angelo, Pinna and Peituina, adjoining witch is Ofena South of the Mountain; in the region of the Samnites, who once were called Sabelli and by the Greeks Saunitae, the colony of Old Bojano and the other Bojano that bears the name of the Eleventh Legion, Alfidena, Isernia, Fagifulani, Ficolea, Supino, and Terevento; in the Sabine, Amiternum, Correse, Market of Decius, New Market, Fidenae, Ferano, Noreia, La Mentana, Rieti, Trebula Mutuesca, Trebula Suffena, Tivoii, Tarano. In this district, of the tribes of the Aequicoli the Comini, Tadiates, Caedici and Alfaterni have disappeared. It is stated by Gellianus that a Marsian town of Arehippe, founded by the Lydian com­mander Marsyas, has been submerged in Lake Fucino, and also Valerian says that the town of the Vidicini in Picenum was destroyed by the Romans. The Sabines (according to some opinions called Sebini from their religious beliefs and ritual) live on the lush dewy hills by the Lakes of Velino. Those lakes drain into the river Nera, which from these derives the river Tiber with its sulphurous waters, and they are replenished by the Avens which runs down from Monte Fiscello near the Groves of Vacuna and Rieti and loses itself in the lakes in question. In another direction the Teverone rising in Mount Trevi drains into the Tiber three lakes famous for their beauty, from which Subiaco takes its name. In the district of Rieti is the lake of Cutilia, which is said by Marcus Varro to be the central point of Italy, and to contain a floating island. Below the Sabine territory lies Latium, on one side of it Picenum, and behind it Umbria, while the ranges of the Apennines fence it in on either side.

XIII. The fifth region is that of Picenum, which formerly was very densely populated: 360,000 Picentines took the oath of allegiance to Rome. They derived their origin from the Sabines, who had made a vow to celebrate a Holy Spring. The territory that they took possession of began at the river Aterno, where are now the district and colony of Adria, 6 miles from the sea. Here is the river Vomanus, the territories of Praetutia and Palma, also the New Camp, the river Batinus, Tronto with its river, the only Liburnian settlement left in Italy, the river Albula, Tessuinum, and Helvinum where the region of the Praetutii ends and that of Picenum begins; the town of Cupra, Porto di Fermo, and above it the colony of Ascoli, the most famous in Picenum. Inland is Novana, and on the coast Cluana, Poteatia, Numana founded by the Sicilians, and Ancona, a colony founded by the same people on the promontory of Cunerus just at the elbow of the coast where it bends round, 183 miles from Monte Gargano. Inland are Osimo, Beregra, Cingula, Cupra surnamed Montana, Falerona, Pausnla, Plalina, Iticinum, Septempedum, Tollentinum, Treia, and the people from Pollentia settled at Urbisaglia.

XIV. Adjoining to this will come the sixth region, embracing Umbria and the Gallic territory this side Rimini. At Ancona begins the Gallic coast named Gallia Togata. The largest part of this district was occupied by Sicilians and Liburnians, especially the territories of Palma, Praetutia and Adria. They were expelled by the Umbrians, and these by Etruria, and Etruria by the Gauls. The Umbrians are believed to be the oldest race of Italy, being thought to be the people designated as Ombrii by the Greeks on the ground of their having survived the rains after the flood. We find that 300 of their towns were conquered by the Etruscans. On this coast at the present time are the river Esino, Sini­gagha, the river Meturo and the colonies of Fano and Pesaro with the river of the same name and inland those of Spello and Todi. Besides these there are the peoples of Amelia, Attiglio, Assisi, Ama, Iesi, Camerino, Casuentillum, Carsulae; the Dolatcs surnamed Sallentini; Foligno, Market of Flaminius, Market of Julius, surnamed Concupium, Market Brenta, Fossombrone, Gubbio, Terni on the Nera, Bevagna, Mevanio, Matilica, Narni (the town formerly called Nequinum); the people of Nocera surnamed Favonienses and those surnamed Camellani; Otricoli, Ostra; the Pitulani surnamed Pisuertes and others surnamed Mergentini; the Plestini; Sentinum, Sassina, Spoleto, Suasa, Sestino, Sigello, Tadina, Trevi, Tuficum, Tifernum on the Tiber, Tifernum on the Meturo; Vesinica, Urbino on the Meturo and Urbino of the Garden, Bettona, the Vindinates and the Visuentani. Peoples that have disappeared in this district are the Felighates and the inhabitants of Clusiolum above Interainna, and the Sarranates, together with the towns of Acerrae surnamed Vafriae and Turocaelum surnamed Vettiolum; also the Solinates, Suriates, Falinates and Sappinates. There have also disappeared the Arinates with the town of Crinivolum and the Usidicani and Plangenses, the Paesinates, the Caelestini. Ameria above-mentioned is stated by Cato to have been founded 963 years before the war with Perseus.

XV. The boundaries of the eighth region are marked by Rimini, the Po and the Apennines. On its coast are the river Conca, the colony of Rimini with the rivers Ariminum and Aprusa, and the river Rubicon, once the frontier of Italy. Then there are the Savio, the Bevano and the Roneone; the Sabine town of Ravenna with the river Montone, and the Umbrian town of Butrium 105 miles from Ancona and not far from the sea. Inland are the colonies of Bologna (which at the time when it was the chief place in Etruria was called Felsina), Bres­cello, Modena, Parrna, Piacenza, and the towns of Cesena, Quaderna, Fornocchia, Forli, Forli Piccolo, Bertinoro, Cornelius Market, Incino, Faenza, Fidentia, Otesini, Castel Bondino, Reggio named from Lepidus, Città di Sole, Groves of Gallius surnamed Aquinates, Tenedo, Villac in old days surnamed Regias, Urbana. Peoples no longer existing in this region are the Boiip said by Cato to have comprised 112 tribes, and also the Senones who captured Rome.

XVI. The source of the Po, which well deserves a visit, is a spring in the heart of Monte Viso, an extremely lofty Alpine peak in the territory of the Ligurian Vagienni; the stream burrows underground and emerges again in the district of Vibius Market. It rivals all other rivers in celebrity; its Greek name was Eridanus, and it is famous as the scene of the punishment of Phaethon. The melting of the snows at the rising of the Dogstar causes it to swell in volume; but though its flooding does more damage to the fields adjacent than to vessels, nevertheless it claims no part of its plunder for itself, and where it deposits its spoil it bestows bounteous fertility. Its length from its source is 300 miles, to which it adds 88 by its windings, and it not only receives navigable rivers from the Apennines and the Alps, but also immense lakes that discharge them­selves into it, and it carries down to the Adriatic Sea as many as 30 streams in all. Among these the best-known are: flowing from the Apennine range, the Jactum, the Tanaro, the Trebbia (on which is Piacenza), the Taro, the Euza, the Secchia, the Panaro and the Reno; flowing from the Alps, the Stura, Orco, two Doras, Sesia, Ticino, Lambra, Adda, Oglio and Mincio. Nor does any other river increase so much in volume in so short a distance; in fact, the vast body of water drives it on and scoops out its bed with disaster to the land, although it is diverted into streams and canals between Ravenna and Altino over a length of 120 miles; nevertheless where it discharges its water more widely it forms what are called the Seven Seas.

The Po is carried to Ravenna by the Canal of Augustus; this part of the river is called the Padusa, nearest to Ravenna forms the large basin called the Harbour of the Santerno; it was here that Claudius Caesar sailed out into the Adriatic, in what was a vast palace rather than a ship, when celebrating his triumph over Britain. This mouth was formerly called the Eridanus, and by others the Spineticus from the city of Spina that formerly stood near it, and that was believed on the evidence of its treasures deposited at Delphi to have been a very powerful place; it was founded by Diomede. At this point the Po is augmented by the river Santerno from the territory of Cornelius Market.

The next mouth to this is the Caprasian month, then that of Sagis, and then Volane, formerly called Olane; all of these form the Flavian Canal, which was first made from the Sagis by the Tuscans, thus discharging the flow of the river across into the marshes of the Atriani called the Seven Seas, with the famous harbour of the Tuscan town of Atria which formerly gave the name of Atriatic to the sea now called the Adriatic. Next come the deep-water mouths of Carbonaria and the Fosses of Philistina, called by others Tartarus, all of which originate from the overflow of the Philistina Canal, with the addition of the Adige from the Trentino Alps and of the Bacchiglione from the district of Padua. A part of these streams also forms the neighbouring harbour of Brondolo, as likewise that of Chioggia is formed by the Brenta and Brentella and the Clodian Canal. With these streams the Po unites and flows through them into the sea, according to most authorities forming between the Alps and the sea-coast the figure of a triangle, like what is called the Delta formed by the Nile in Egypt; the triangle measures 250 miles in circumference. One is ashamed to borrow an account of Italy from the Greeks; nevertheless, Metrodorus of Scepsis says that the river has received the name of Padus because in the neighbourhood of its source there are a quantity of pine-trees of the kind called in the Gallic dialect padi, while in fact the Ligurian name for the actual river is Bodincus, a word that means 'bottomless.' This theory is supported by the fact that the neighbouring town of Industria, where the river begins to be particularly deep, had the old name of Bodincomagum.

XVII. The eleventh region receives from the river the name of Transpadana; it is situated entirely ­inland, but the river carries to it on its bounteous channel the products of all the seas. Its towns are Seluzzo and Susa, and the colony of Turin at the roots of the Alps (here the Po becomes navigable), sprung from an ancient Ligurian stock, and next that of Aosta Praetoria of the Salassi, near the twin gateways of the Alps, the Graian pass and the Pennine, history says that the latter was the pass crossed by the Carthaginians and the former by Hercules—and the town of Ivrea, founded by the Roman nation by order of the Sibylline Books—the name comes from the Gallic word for a man good at breaking horses—Vercelli, the town of the Libicii, founded from the Sallui, and Novara founded from Vertamacon, a place belonging to the Vocontii and nowadays a village, not (as Cato thinks) belonging to the Ligurians; from whom the Laevi and Manici founded Ticinum not far from the Po, just as the Boians, coming from the tribes across the Alps, founded Lodi and the Insubrians Milan. According to Cato, Como, Bergamo, Incino and some surrounding peoples are of the Orumbivian stock, but he confesses that he does not know the origin of that race; whereas Cornelius Alexander states that it originated from Greece, arguing merely by the name, which he renders 'those who pass their lives in mountains.' In this locality a town of the Orumbivii named Parra, said by Cato to be the original home of the people of Bergamo, has perished, its remains still showing its site to have been more lofty than advan­tageous. Other commnnities that have perished are the Caturiges, an exiled section of the Insubrians, and the above-mentioned Spina, and also the exceptionally wealthy town of Melpum, which is stated by Cornelius Nepos to have been destroyed by the Insubrians, Boii and Senones on the day on which Camillus took Veii.

XVIII. Next comes the tenth region of Italy, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. In it are Venetiay the river Silo that rises in the mountains of Treviso, the town of Altino, the river Liquenzo rising in the mountains of Oderzo, and the port of the same name, the colony of Coneordia, the river and port of Rieti, the Greater and Lesser Tagliamento, the Stella, into which flows the Revonchi, the Aba, the Natisone, with the Torre that flows past the colony of Aquileia situated 15 miles from the sea. This is the region of the Carni, and adjoining it is that of the Iapudes, the river Timavo, Castel Duino, famous for its wine, the Gulf of Trieste, and the colony of the same name, 33 miles from Aqnileia. Six miles beyond Trieste is the river Formio, 189 miles from Ravenna, the old frontier of the enlarged Italy and now the boundary of Istria. It has been stated by many authors, even including Nepos, who lived on the banks of the Po, that Istria takes its name from the stream called Ister flowing out of the river Danube (which also has the name of Ister) into the Adriatic, opposite the mouths of the Po, and that their currents, colliding from contrary directions, turn the interven­ing sea into a pool of fresh water; but these state­ments are erroneous, for no river flows out of the Danube into the Adriatic. I believe that they have been misled by the fact that the ship Argo came down a river into the Adriatic not far from Trieste, but it has not hitherto been decided what river this was. More careful writers say that the Argo was portaged on men's shoulders across the Alps, but that she had come up the Ister and then the Save and then the Nauportus, a stream rising between Emona and the Alps, that has got its name from this occurrence.

XIX. Istria projects in the form of a peninsula. Some authorities have given its breadth as 40 miles and its circuit as 125 miles, and the same dimensions for the adjoining territory of Liburnia and the Flanatic Gulf; others make it 225 miles, and others give the circuit of Liburnia as 180 miles. Some carry Iapudia, at the back of Istria, as far as the Flanatic Gulf, a distance of 130 miles, and then make the circuit of Liburnia 150 miles. Tuditanus, who conquered the Istrians, inscribed the following statement on his statue there: From Aquileia to the river Keriko 2000 furlongs. Towns in Istria with the Roman citizenship are Aegida, Parenzo and the colony of Pola, the present Pietas Julia, originally founded by the Colehians, and 105 miles from Trieste. Then comes the town of Nesactium and the river Arsa, now the frontier of Italy. The distance across from Ancona to Pola is 120 miles.

In the interior of the tenth region are the colonies of Cremona and Brescia in the territory of the Cenomani, and Este in that of the Veneti, and the towns of Asolo, Padua, Oderzo, Belluno, Vicenza and Mantua, the only remaining Tuscan town across the Po. According to Cato, the Veneti are descended from a Trojan stock, and the Cenomani lived among the Volcae in the neighbourhood of Marseilles. There are also the Rhaetic towns of Feltre, Trent and Berua, Verona which belongs to the Rhaeti and Euganei jointly, and Zuglio which belongs to the Carni; then peoples that we need not be concerned to designate with more particularity, the Alutrenses, Asseriates, Flamonienses Vanienses and other Flamonienses surnamed Curici, the Forojulienses surnamed Transpadani, Foretani, Nedinates, Quarqueni, Tarvisani, Togienses, Varvari. In this district there have disappeared, on the coast-line, Irrnene, Pellaon, Palsiciurn, Atina and Caelina belonging to the Veneti, Segesta and Ocra to the Carni, Noreia to the Taurisci. Also Lucius Piso states that a town 12 miles from Aquileia was destroyed by Marcus Claudius Marcehlus, although against the wish of the Senate.

This region also contains eleven famous lakes and the rivers of which they are the source, or which, in the case of those that after entering the lakes leave them again, are augmented by them—for instance the Adda that flows through Lake Como, the Ticirio through Maggiore, the Mincio through Garda, the Seo through the Lago di Seo, and the Lambro through Lago di Pusiano--all of these streams being tributaries of the Po.

The length of the Alps from the Adriatic to the Mediterranean is given by Caelius as 1000 miles; Timagenes puts it at 25 miles less. Their breadth is given by Cornelius Nepos as 100 miles, by Livy as 375 miles, but they take their measurements at different points; for occasionally the Alps exceed even 100 miles in breadth, where they divide Germany from Italy, while in the remaining part they are as it were providentially narrow and do not cover 70 miles. The breadth of Italy at the roots of the Alps, measured from the river Var through Vado, the port of Savo, Turin, Como, Brescia, Verona, Vicenza, Oderzo, Aquileia, Trieste and Pola, to the river Arsa, amounts to 745 miles.

XX. The Alps are inhabited by a great many nations, but the notable ones, between Pola and the district of Trieste, are the Fecusses, Subocrini, Catali and Menoucaleni, and next to the Carni the peoples formerly called Taurisci and now Norici; adjoining these are the Raeti and Vindelici. All are divided into a number of states. The Raeti are believed to be people of Tuscan race driven out by the Gauls; their leader was named Raetus. Then, on the side of the Alps towards Italy, are the Euganean races having the Latin rights, whose towns listed by Cato number 34. Among these are the Triumpilini, a people that sold themselves together with their lands, and then the Camunni and a number of similar peoples, assigned to the jurisdiction of the neighbouring municipal towns. Cato before mentioned considers the Lepontii and Salassi to be of Tauriscan origin, but almost all other authors give a Greek interpretation to their name and believe that the Lepontii are descended from companions of Hercules `left behind' because their limbs had been frostbitten in crossing the Alps; and that the inhabitants of the Graian Alps were also Grai from the same band, and that the Euganei were of specially distinguished family, and took their name from that fact; and that the head of these are the Stoeni. The Raetian tribes Vennones and Sarunetes live near the sources of the river Rhine, and the Lepontian tribe called the Uberi at the source of the Rhone in the same district of the Alps. There are also other native tribes that have received Latin rights; for instance, the Octodurenses and their neighbom the Centrones, the Cottian states and the Turi of Ligurian descent, the Ligurian Vagienni and those called the Mountain Ligurians, and several tribes of Long-haired Ligurians on the borders of the Ligurian Sea.

It seems not out of place to append here the inscription from the triumphal arch erected in the Alps, which runs as follows:

To the Emperor Caesar, son, of the late lamented Augustus, Supreme Pontiff in his fourteenth year of office as Commander-in-chief and seventeenth year of Tribunitial Authority—erected, by the Senate and People of Rome, to commemorate that under his leadership and auspices all the Alpine races stretching from the Adriatic Sea to the Mediterranean were brought under the dominion of the Roman people. Alpine races conquered—the Triumpilini, Camunni, Venostes, Vennonetes, Isarehi, Breuni, Genaunes, Focunates, four tribes of the Vindelici, the Cosuanetes, Rucinates, Licates, Catenates, Ambisontes, Rugusci, Suanetes, Calucones, Brixentes, Leponti, Uberi, Nantuates, Seduni, Varagri, Salassi, Acitavones, Medulli, Ucenni, Caturiges, Brigiani, Sobionti, Brodicenti, Nemaloni, Edenates, Vesubiani, Veamini, Gallitae, Trizdlati, Ecdini, Vergunni, Eguituri, Nematuri, Oratelli, Nerusi, Felauni, Suetri.

This list does not include the 15 states of the Cottiani which had not shown hostility, nor those that were placed by the law of Pompeius under the jurisdiction of the municipal towns.

This then is Italy, a land sacred to the gods, and these are the races and towns of its peoples. Moreover this is that Italy which, in the consulship of Lucius Aemilius Papas and Gaius Atilius Regulus, on receipt of news of a rising in Gaul, single-handed and without any alien auxiliaries, and moreover at that date without aid from Gaul north of the Po, equipped an army of 80,000 horse and 700,000 foot. She is inferior to no country in abundance of mineral products of every kind; but mining is prohibited by an old resolution of the Senate forbidding the exploitation of Italy.

XXI. The race of the Liburni stretches from the Arsa to the river Tityus. Sections of it were the Mentores, Himani, Eneheleae, Buni, and the people called by Callimachus the Peucetii, all of whom are now designated collectively by the one name of Illyrians. Few of the peoples are worthy of mention, nor are their names easy to pronounce. To the jurisdiction of Scardona resort the Iapudes and the 14 communities of the Liburni, of which it may not be tedious to name the Lacinienses, Stulpini, Burnistae and Olbonenses. In this jurisdiction states having Italic rights are the Alutae, the Flanates from whom the gulf takes its name, the Lopsi, the Varvarini, the Asseriates who are exempt from tribute, and of the islands Berwitch and Karek. Moreover along the coast starting from Nesactium are Albona, Fianona, Tersaet, Segna, Lopsico, Ortoplinia, Viza, Argyruntum, Carin, Nona, the city of the Pasini and the river Zermagna, at which Iapudia terminates. The islands of the gulf with their towns are, besides the above specified, Absortium, Arba, Cherso, Gissa, Portunata. Again on the mainland is the colony of Zara, 160 miles from Pola, and 30 miles from it the island of Mortero, and 18 miles from it the mouth of the river Kerka.

XXII. At the city of Scardona on the Kerka, 12 miles from the sea, Liburnia ends and Dalmatia begins. Then comes the ancient region of the Tariotares and the fortress of Tariona, the Promontory of Diomede, or as others name it the Peninsula of Hyllis, measuring 100 miles round, Tragurium, a place possessing Roman citizenship and famous for its marble, Siculi where the late lamented Claudius sent a colony of ex-service men; and the colony of Spalato, 112 miles from Zara. Spalato is the centre for jurisdiction of the Delmataei whose forces are divided into 342 tithings, Deuri into 25 tithings, Ditiones into 239, Maezaei 269, Sardeates 52. In this district are Burnum, Andetrium and Tribulium, fortresses that are famous for battles. Island peoples also belonging to the same jurisdiction are the Issaeans, Colentini, Separi and Epetini. After these come the fortresses of Pegunthim, Nareste and Onium, and the colony of Narenta, the seat of the third centre, 85 miles from Spalato, situated on the river also called Narenta 20 miles from the sea. According to Marcus Varro 89 states used to resort to it, but now nearly the only ones known are the Cerauni with 24 tithings, the Daursi with 17, Desitiates 103, Docleates 33, Deretini 14, Deraemestae 30, Dindari 33, Gun­ditiones 44, Melcumani 24, Naresi 102, Scirtari 72, Sicnlotae 24, and the Vardaei, once the ravagers of Italy, with not more than 20 tithings. Besides these this district was occupied by the Ozuaei, Partheni, Hemasini, Arthitae and Armistae. The colony of Epidaurume is 100 miles distant from the river Naron. After Epidaurum come the following towns with Roman citizenship—Risine, Cattaro, Budua, Duleigno, formerly called Colchinium because it was founded by the Colehians; the river Drino, and upon it Scutari, a town with the Roman citizenship, 18 miles from the sea; and also a number of Greek towns and also powerful cities of which the memory is fading away, this district having contained the Labeatae, Endirudini, Sasaei and Grabaei; and the Taulanti and the Pyraei, both properly styled Illyrians. The promontory of Nymphaeum on the coast still retains its name. Lissum, a town having the Roman citizenship, is 100 miles from Epidaurum.

XXIII. At Lissum begins the Province of Macedonia. Its races are the Partheni and in their rear the Dassaretae. The mountains of Candavia are 78 miles from Durazzo, and on the coast is Denda, a town with Roman citizenship, the colony of Epidamnum which, on account of the ill-omened sound of that name, has been renamed Dyrrachium by the Romans, the river Aous, called by some Aeas, and the former Corinthian colony of Apollonia 4 miles distant from the sea, in the territory of which is the famous Shrine of the Nymphs, with the neighbouring native tribes of the Amantes and Buliones. Actually on the coast is the town of Ericho, founded by the Colchians. Here begins Epirus, with the Acroceraunian mountains, at which we fixed the boundary of this Gulf of Europe. The distance between Ericho and Cape Leuca in Italy is 80 miles.

XXIV. Behind the Carni and Iapudes, along the course of the mighty Danube, the Raetians are adjoined by the Norici; their towns are Wolk-Markt, Cilley, Lurnfelde, Innichen, Juvavum, Vienna, Clansen, Solfeld. Adjoining the Norici is Lake Peiso, and the Unoccupied Lands of the Boii, now however inhabited by the people of Sarvar, a colony of his late Majesty Claudius, and the town of Sopron Julia.

XXV. Then come the acorn-producing lands of the province of Pannonia, where the chain of the Alps gradually becomes less formidable, and slopes to the right and left hand with gentle contours as it traverses the middle of Illyria from north to south. The part looking towards the Adriatic is called Dalmatia and Illyria mentioned above, while 139 the part stretching northward is Pannonia, terminating in that direction at the Danube. In it are the colonies of Aemona and Siscia. Famous navigable rivers flowing into the Danube are the Drave from Noricum, a rather violent stream, and the Save from the Carnian Alps which is more gentle, there being a space of 120 miles between them; the Drave flows through the Serretes, Sirapilli, Iasi and Andizetes; the Save through the Colapiani and Breuci. These are the principal peoples; and there are besides the Arviates, Azali, Amantini, Belgites, Catari, Cornacates, IEravisci, Hercuniates, Latovici, Oseriates and Vareiani, and Mount Claudius, in front of which are the Scordisei and behind it the Taurisci. In the Save is the island of Zagrabia, the largest known island formed by a river. Other noteworthy rivers are the Culpa, which flows into the Save near Siscia, where its channel divides and forms the island called Segestica, and another river the Bossut, flowing into the Save at the town of Sirmich, the capital of the Sirmienses and Amantini. From Sirmich it is 45 miles to Tzeruinka, where the Save joins the Danube; tributaries flowing into the Danube higher up are the Walpo and the Verbas, themselves also not inconsiderable streams.

XXVI. Adjoining Pannonia is the province called Moesia, which runs with the course of the Danube right down to the Black Sea, beginning at the confluence of the Danube and the Save mentioned above. Moesia contains the Dardani, Celegeri, Triballi, Timachi, Moesi, Thracians and Scythians adjacent to the Black Sea. Its famous rivers are the Morava, Bek and Timoch rising in the territory of the Dardani, the Iscar in Mount Rhodope and the Vid, Osma and Jantra in Mount Haemus.

Illyria covers 325 miles in width at its widest point, and 530 miles in length from the river Ama to the river Drin; its length from the Drin to the Promontory of Glossa is given by Agrippa as 175 miles, and the entire circuit of the Italian and Iulyrian Gulf as 1700 miles. This gulf, delimited as we described it, contains two seas, in the first part the Ionian and more inland the Adriatic, called the Upper Sea.

There are no islands deserving mention in the Ausonian Sea besides those already specified, and only a few in the Ionian—those lying on the coast of Galabria off Brindisi and by their position forming a harbour, and Diomede's Island off the coast of Apulia, marked by the monument of Diomede, and another island of the same name but by some called Teutria.

On the coast of Illyricum is a cluster of more than 1000 islands, the sea being of a shoaly nature and divided into a network of estuaries with narrow channels. The notable islands are those off the mouth of the Timavo, fed by hot springs that rise with the tide of the sea; Cissa near the territory of the Histri; and Pullaria and those called by the Greeks the Absyrtides, from Medea's brother Absyrtus who was killed there. Islands near these the Greeks have designated the Electrides, because amber, the Greek for which is electrum, was said to be found there; this is a very clear proof of Greek unreliability, seeing that it has never been ascer­tained which of the islands they mean. Opposite to the Zara are Lissa and the islands already mentioned; opposite the Liburni are several called the Crateae, and an equal number called the Liburnicae and Celadussae; opposite Surium Bavo and Brattia, the latter celebrated for its goats, Issa with the rights of Roman citizenship and Pharia, on which there is a town. Twenty-five miles from Issa is the island called Corcyra Melaena, with a town founded from Cnidos, and between Corcyra Melaena and Illyricum is Meleda, from which according to Callimachus Maltese terriers get their name. Fifteen miles from Meleda are the seven Stag Islands,* and in the Ionian Sea twelve miles from Oricum is Sasena, notorious as a harbour for pirates.

* So called from their combined outlines, Giupan forming the head, Ruda the neck, Mezzo the body, Calemotta the haunches and Grebini or Petini the tail.

BOOK IV

I. THE third gulf of Europe begins at the Mountains of Khimarra and ends at the Dardaneiles. Its coast-line measures 1925 miles not including smaller bays. It contains Epirus, Acarnania, Aetolia, Phocis, Locris, Achaia, Messenia, Laconia, Argolis, Megaris, Attica and Boeotia; and again, on the side of the other sea, Phocis and Locris before-mentioned and Doris, Phthiotis, Thessaly, Magnesia, Macedonia and Thrace. All the legendary lore of Greece and likewise its glorious literature first shone forth from this gulf; and consequently we will briefly dwell upon it.

Epirus in the wide sense of the term begins at the Mountains of Khimarra. The peoples that it contains are first the Chaones who give their name to Chaonia, and then the Thesproti and Antigonenses; then comes the place called with exhalations that are noxious to birds, the Cestrini, the Perrhaebi to whom belongs Mount Pindus, the Cassiopaei, the Dryopes, the Selloi, the Hellopes, the Molossi in whose territory is the temple of Zeus of Dodona, famous for its oracle, and Mount Talarus, celebrated by Theopompus, with a hundred springs at its foot. Epirus proper stretches to Magnesia and Macedonia, and has at its back the Dassaretae above mentioned, a free race, and then the savage tribe of the Dardani. On the left side of the Dardani stretch the Triballi and the Moesic races, and joining them in front are the Medi and the Denseletae, and joining these the Thracians who extend all the way to the Black Sea. Such is the girdle that walls in the lofty heights of Despoto Dagh and then of the Great Balkan. On the coast of Epirus is the fortress of Khimarra on the Aeroceraunians, and below it the spring named the Royal Water and the towns of Maeandria and Cestria, the Thesprotian river Thyamis, the colony of Butrinto, and the very celebrated Gulf of Arta, whose inlet, half a mile wide, admits an extensive sheet of water, 37 miles long and 15 miles broad. Into it discharges the river Acheron flowing from the Acherusian Lake in Thesprotia, a course of 35 miles, and remarkable in the eyes of people who admire all the achievements of their own race for its 1000-foot bridge. On the gulf lies the town of Ambracia, and there are the Molossian rivers Aphas and Arta, the city of Anactoria and the place where Pandosia stood.

The towns of Acarnania, which was previously called Curetis, are Heraclia, Echinus, and, on the actual coast, the colony founded by Augustus, Actium, with the famous temple of Apollo, and the free city of Nicopolis. Passing from the Gulf of Ambracia into the Ionian Sea we come to the coast of Leucadia and Capo Ducato, and then to the gulf and the actual peninsula of Leucadia, formerly called Neritis, which by the industry of its inhabitants was once cut off from the mainland and which has been restored to it by the mass of sand piled up against it by the violence of the winds; the place has a Greek name meaning 'canalized,' and is 600 yards long. On the peninsula is the town of Leucas, formerly called Neritus. Then come the Acarnanian cities of Alyzia, Stratos, and Argos surnamed Amphilochian, and the river Achelous flowing from Mount Pindus and separating Acarnania from Aetolia; the continual deposits of earth that it brings down are linking the island of Artemita to the main land.

II. The Aetolian peoples are the Athamanes, Tymphaei, Ephyri, Aenienses, Perrhaebi, Dolopes, Maraces and Atraces in whose district is the source of the river Atrax that flows into the Ionian Sea. The towns of Aetolia are Calydon on the river Evenus seven miles and a half from the sea, and then Macynia and Molycria, behind which are Mount Chalcis and Taphiassus. On the coast is the Promontory of Antirrhium, at which is the mouth of the Gulf of Corinth, less than a mile broad, whose channel separates the Aetolians from the Morca. The promontory that juts out opposite is called Rhium. Aetolian towns on the Gulf of Corinth are Lepanto, Eupalimna, and inland Pleuron and Halicarna. Notable mountains are Tomarus in the district of Dodona, Crania in Ambracia, Aracynthus in Acarn­ania, and Achaton, Panaetolium and Macynium in Aetolia.

III. Next to the Aetolians are the Locrians, surnamed Ozolae, who are exempt from tribute. Here are the town of Oeanthe, the harbour of Apollo Phaestius and the gulf of Salona; and inland the towns of Argyna, Eupalia, Phaestum and Calamisus. Beyond are the Cirrhaean Plains of Phocis, the town of Cirrha and the port of Chalaeon, seven miles inland from which is Delphi, a free town at the foot of Mount Parnassus and the seat of the oracle of Apollo, the most famous in the world. Here are the Castalian Spring and the river Cephisus flowing past Delphi; it rises at the city of Lilaea. There was also formerly the town of Crisa, and together with the people of Bulis there are Anticyra, Naulochus, Pyrrha, the tax-free town of Salona, Tithrone, Tithorea, Ambrysus and Mirana, the district also called Daulis. Then right up the bay is the sea-board corner of Boeotia with the towns of Siphae and Thebes surnamed the Corsian, near Mount Helicon. The third town of Boeotia up from this sea is Pagae, from which projects the neck of the Morea.

IV. The Peloponnese, which was previously called Apia and Pelasgia, is a peninsula inferior in celebrity to no region of the earth. It lies between two seas, the Aegean and the Ionian, and resembles in shape the leaf of a plane-tree on account of the angular indentations the circuit of its coast-line, according to Isidore, amounts to 563 miles, and nearly as much again in addition, measuring the shores of the bays. The narrow neck of land from which it projects is called the Isthmus. At this place the two seas that have been mentioned encroach on opposite sides from the north and east and swallow up all the breadth of the peninsula at this point, until in consequence of the inroad of such large bodies of water in opposite directions the coasts on either side have been eaten away so as to leave a space between them of only five miles, with the result that the Morea is only attached to Greece by a narrow neck of land. The inlets on either side are called the Gulf of Lepanto and the Gulf of Egina, the former ending in Lecheae and the latter in Cenchreae. The circuit of the Morca is a long and dangerous voyage for vessels prohibited by their size from being carried across the isthmus on trolleys, and consequently successive attempts were made by King Demetrius, Caesar the dictator and the emperors Caligula and Nero, to dig a ship-canal through the narrow part—an undertaking which the end that befell them all proves to have been an act of sacrilege! In the middle of this neck of land which we have called the Isthmus is the colony of Corinth, the former name of which was Ephyra; its habitations cling to the side of a hill, 7½ miles from the coast on either side, and the top of its citadel, called the Corinthian Heights, on which is the spring of Pirene, commands views of the two seas in opposite directions. The distance across the Isthmus from Leucas to Patras on the Gulf of Corinth is 88 miles. The colony of Patras is situated on the longest projection of the Peloponnese opposite to Aetolia and the river Evenus, separated from them at the actual mouth of the gulf by a gap of less than a mile, as has been said; but in length the Gulf of Corinth extends 85 miles from Patras to the Isthmus.

V. At the Isthmus begins the province named Achaia. It was previously called Aegialos on account of the cities situated in a row on its coast. The first place there is Lecheae the port of Corinth, already mentioned, and then come Olyrus the fortress of the people of Trikala, and the towns of Helice, and Bura, and those in which their inhabitants took refuge when the former towns were swallowed up by the sea, namely Basilica, Palaeokastro, Vostitza and Artotina. Inland are Klenes and Hysiae. Then come the port of Tekieh and Rhium already described, the distance between which promontory and Patras which we have mentioned above is five miles; and then the place called Pherae. Of the nine mountains in Achaia the best known is Scioessa; and there is also the spring of Cyrnothoe. Beyond Patras is the town of Kato-Achaia, the colony of Dyme, the places called Buprasium and Llyrmine, the promontory of Capo Papa, the Bay of Cyllene, the promontory of Cape Tornese 5 miles from Cyllene, the fortress of Phlius, the district round which was called Araethyrea by Homer and afterwards Asopis.

Then begins the territory of the Eleans, who were formerly called the Epioi. Elis itself is in the interior, and 13 miles inland from Pilo is the shrine of Zeus of Olympus, which owing to the celebrity of its Games has taken possession of the calendar of Greece; here once was the town of Pisa on the banks of the river Thifla. On the coast are the promontory of Katakolo, the river Rufla, navigable for 6 miles, the towns of Aulon and Leprium, and the promontory of Platanodes, all these places lying west­ward. Southward are the Gulf of Cyparissus with the city of Cyparissus on its shore, which is 75 miles round, the towns of Pilo and Modon, the place called Helos, the promontory of Capo Gallo, the Asinaean Gulf named from the town of Asine and the Coronaean named from Corone; the list ends with the promontory of Cape Matapan. Here is the territory of Messenia with its 18 mountains, and the river Pyrnatza; and inland, the city of Messene, Ithome, Oechalia, Sareni, Pteleon, Thryon, Dorion and Zancle, all of them celebrated at different periods. The gulf measures 80 miles round and 30 miles across.

At Cape Matapan begins the territory of the free nation of Laconia, and the Laconian Gulf, which measures 106 miles round and 38 miles across. The towns are Kimaros, Amyclae, Chitries, Levtros, and inland Sparta, Therapne, the sites of the former Cardamyle, Pitane and Anthea, the place called Thyrea, Gerania, the mountain range of Pente Dactyli, the river Niris, the Gulf of Scutari, the town of Psamathus, the Gulf of Gytheum called from the town of that name, from which is the safest crossing to the island of Crete. All these places are bounded by the promontory of Capo Sant' Angelo.

The bay that comes next, extending to Capo Skyli, is called the Gulf of Nauplia; it is 50 miles across and 162 miles round. The towns on it are Boea, Epidaurus surnamed Limera, Zarax, and the port of Cyphanta. The rivers are the Banitza and the Kephalari, between which lies Argos surnamed Hippium, above the place called Lerne, two miles from the sea, and nine miles further on Mycenae and the traditional site of Tiryns and the place called Mantinea. The mountains are Malvouni, Fuka, Asterion, Parparus and others numbering eleven; the springs, Niobe, Amymone and Psamathe.

From Capo Skyli to the Isthmus of Corinth is 80 miles. The towns are Hermione, Troezen, Coryphasium and Argos, sometimes called Inachian Argos and sometimes Dipsian; then comes the harbour of Schoenitas, and the Saronic Gulf, formerly encircled with oak woods from which it takes its name, this being the old Greek word for an oak. On it is the town of Epidaurus famous for its shrine of Aesculapius; the promontory of Capo Franco; the ports of Anthedus and Bucephalus, and that of Cenchreae mentioned above, on the south side of the Isthmus, with the temple of Poseidon, famous for the Isthmian Games celebrated there every four years.

So many are the bays that pierce the coast of the Peloponnese, and so many seas howl round it, inasmuch as it is invaded on the north by the Ionian Sea, lashed on the west by the Sicilian, and beset by the Cretan on the south, by the Aegean on the south-east and on the north-east by the Myrtoan which starting at the Gulf of Megara washes the whole coast of Attica.

VI. Most of the interior of the Peloponnese is occupied by Arcadia, which on every side is remote from the sea; it was originally called Drymodes, and later Pelasgis. Its towns are Psophis, Mantinea, Stymphalus, Tegea, Antigonea Orchomenus, Pheneus, Pallantium (from which the Palatium at Rome gets its name), Megalopolis, Gortyna, Bucohum, Camion, Parrhasia, Thelpusa, Melaenae, Heraea, Pylae, Pallene, Agrae, Epium, Cynaethae, Lepreon in Arcadia, Parthenium, Alea, Methy­drimn, Enispe, Macistum, Lampia, Clitorium and Cleonae. Between the last two towns is the district of Nemea commonly called Bembinadia. The mountains in Arcadia are Pholoe, with a town of the same name, Cyllene also with a town, Lycaeus on which is the shrine of Zeus Lycaeus, Maenalus, Artemisius, Parthenius, Lampeus, Nonacris, and also eight others of no note. The rivers are the Landona flowing from the marshes of Fonia and the Dogana flowing down from the mountain of the same name into the Alpheus. The remaining states in Achaia deserving of mention are those of the Alipheraei, Abeatae, Pyrgenses, Paroreatae, Paragenitae, Tortuni, Typanei, Thriusi and Tritienses. Freedom was given to the whole of Achaia by Domitius Nero. The Peloponnese measures 190 miles across from Cape Malea to the town of Vostitza on the Gulf of Corinth, and in the other direction 125 miles from ills to Epidauros and 68 miles from Olympia through Arcadia to Argos. (The distance between Olympia and Pylos has been given already.) Nature has compensated for the inroads of the sea by the mountainous character of the entire region, there being 76 peaks in all.

VII. At the narrow part of the Isthmus begins HelIas, called in our language Greece. In this the first region is Attica, named in antiquity Acte. It touches the Isthmus with the part of it named Megaris, from Megara, the colony on the opposite side of the Isthmus from Pagae. These two towns are situated where the Peloponnese projects, and stand on either side of the Isthmus, as it were on the shoulders of Hellas, Pagae and also Aegosthena, being assigned to the jurisdiction of Megara. On the coast are the harbour of Porto Cocosi, the towns Leandra and Cremmyon, the Scironian Rocks six miles in length, Gerania, Megara and Levsina; formerly there were also Oenoe and Probalinthos. There now are the harbours of Piraeus and Phaleron, 55 miles from the Isthmus, and joined by wall to Athens 5 miles away. Athens is a free city, and requires no further advertisement here as her celebrity is more than ample. In Attica are the springs of Cephisia, Larine, and the Nine Wells of Callirrhoe, and the mountains of Brilessus, Aegialeus, Icarius, Hymettus and Lycabettus; the place called Hissus; the promontories of Capo Colonna, 45 miles from Piraeus, and Thoricos; the former towns of Potamos, Steria and Brauron, the village of Rhamnus, the place called Marathon, the Thriasian Plain, the town of Melita, and Ropo on the border of Boeotia.

To Boeotia belong Anthedon, Onchestus, the free town of Thespiae, Livadhia, and Thebes, surnamed Bueotian, which does not yield even to Athens in celebrity, and which is reputed to be the native place of two deities, Liber and Hercules. The Muses also are assigned a birthplace in the grove of Helicon. To this city of Thebes also are attributed the forest of Cithaeron and the river Ismenus. Besides these Boeotia contains the Springs of Oedipus and those of Psamathe, Dirce, Epicrane, Arethusa, Hippocrene, Aganippe and Gargaphie; and in addition to the mountains previously mentioned, Myealesus, Hadylius and Aeontius. The remaining towns between the Megarid and Thebes are Eleutherae, Haliartus, Plataea, Pherae, Aspledon, Hyle, Thisbe, Erythrae, Glissa, Copae, Lamiae and Anichiae on the river Cephisus, Medeon, Phlygone, Acraephia, Coronea and Chaeronea. On the coast below Thebes are Ocalee, Heleon, Scolos, Sehoenos, Peteon, Hyrie, Mycalesos, Ireseum, Pteleon, Olyarum, Tanagra Free State, and right in the channel of the Euripus, formed by the island of Euboea lying opposite, Aulis famous for its spacious harbour. The Boeotians had the name of Hyantes in earlier days. Then come the Locri surnamed Epicnemidii, and formerly called Leleges, through whose territory the river Cephisus flows down to the sea; and the towns of Opus, which gives its name to the Opuntian Bay, and Cynus. The only town of Phocis on the coast is Daphnus, but inland are Larisa, Elatea, and on the banks of the Cephisus, as we have said, Lilaea, and, facing Delphi, Cnemis and Hyampolis. Then there is the Locrian coast, on which are Larumna and Thronium, near which the river Boagrius flows into the sea, and the towns of Narycum, Alope and Scarphia. Afterwards comes the Malian Gulf named from its inhabitants and on it are the towns of Halcyone, Aeconia and Phalara.