456 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



defeat,* some are still maintaining a sturdy resistance to the flames; in one 

 part the fiery foe is putting forth its whole strength and seems to pant with the 

 effort, elsewhere it is dying gradually down. The stones thrown out have a 

 different look. Some have a dirty and rugged-seeming surface, like the scoria 

 from smelted iron. Others that have fallen pyramidably upon each other burn 

 away as if in actual furnace. Gradually the inner substance of the stone 

 liquefies, assumes a more intense glow, and at last pours down the slopes of 

 the mountain, sometimes advancing to a distance of twelve Roman miles. . . . 

 But however far the lava-flood may be carried by its own impetus, crossing, for 

 instance, the river Simaethus and joining its banks, once cold and stiff, it is 

 almost immovable. 



(602-fin.) Once upon a time the volcano kindled into flame and spread 

 destruction over the surrounding country. So swift was its advance that the 

 Catinaeans had hardly begun to know the fire was on its way when it had 

 already reached their walls. Snatching up each what they thought most 

 precious — money, gold vessels, armour, poems — they fled for life in vain, the 

 flames surrounded and consumed them. Two only, Amphinomus and his brother, 

 seeing their parents too infirm to escape, lifted them on their shoulders, and with 

 this pious burden confronted the flames. power of pity unsurpassable! The 

 fire gave way on either side and would not assail them; they escaped with the 

 burden which to them was more than all treasures, their father and mother. 

 For this they are rewarded with eternal remembrance in poetry, and a special 

 mansion in Elysium, f 



* One may compare H. A. J. Munro's felicitous explanation of this passage 

 in his ' iEtna, Revised, Emended and Explained,' p. 35, (Cambridge, 1867) . 



f The names of the little village Pampiu, near Catania — supposed to be a 

 corruption of Campo pio — and one of Etna's lava-streams, called Fratelli pii, 

 commemorate this ancient legend even at the present day. 



