Chap. 57.] snowEES OF milk, etc. 87 



tkis weapon\ In Italy, between Terracina and the temple 

 of Ferouia, the people have left off building towers in time 

 of war, every one of them having been destroyed by thunder- 

 bolts. 



CHAP. 57. (56.) — SHOWEES or MILK, BLOOD, FLESH, lEON, 

 WOOL, AND BAKED TILES^. 



Besides these, we learn from certain monuments, that from 

 the lower part of the atmosphere^ it rained milk and blood, 

 in the consulship of M'Acilius and C. Porcius, and frequently 

 at other times'*. This was the case with respect to flesh, in 

 the consulship of P. Yolumnius and Servius Sulpicius, and it 

 is said, that what was not devoured by the birds did not be- 

 come putrid. It also rained iron among the Lucanians, the 

 year before Crassus was slain by the Parthians, as well as all 

 the Lucanian soldiers, of whom there was a great number in 

 this army. The substance which fell had very much the ap- 

 pearance of sponge^ ; the augurs warned the people against 



^ The eagle was represented by the ancients with a thunderbolt in its 

 claws. 



2 There is strong evidence for the fact, that, at different times, various 

 substances have fallen from the atmosphere, sometimes apparently of mi- 

 neral, and, at other times, of anunal or vegetable origin. Some of these 

 are now referred to those pecuhar bodies termed aerohtes, the nature and 

 source of which are still doubtful, although their existence is no longer 

 so. These bodies have, in other instances, been evidently discharged from 

 distant volcanoes, but there are many cases where the substance could not 

 be supposed to have proceeded from a volcano, and where, in the present 

 state of our knowledge, it appears impossible to offer an explanation of 

 their natm-e, or the source whence they are derived. We may, however, 

 conclude, that notwithstanding the actual occurrence of a few cases of 

 tliis description, a great proportion of those enumerated by the ancients 

 were either entirely T\ithout fomidation or much exaggerated. We meet 

 with several variations of what we may presmne to have been aerohtes in 

 Livy ; for example, xxiv. 10, xxx. 38, xli. 9, xliii. 13, and xhv. 18, among 

 many others. As naturally may be expected, we have many narratives of 

 this kind in Jul. Obsequens. 



3 The same region from wliich lightning was supposed to proceed. 



* We have several relations of tliis kind in Livy, xxiv. 10, xxxix. 46 and 

 56, xl. 19, and xliii. 13. The red snow which exists in certain alpine re- 

 gions, and is found to depend upon the presence of the Uredo nivahs, waa 

 formerly attributed to sliowers of blood. 



* This occurrence may probably be referred to an aerohte, while the 



