170 JOURNAL OF THE [july> 



Cumae, shed tears during three days and three nights. 

 A shower of milk is said by him to have fallen in Sinuessa in 

 B.C. 209; and he reports that a stream of milk flowed in the 

 river at Ariminum, in the year 194 B.C. Marvellous appear- 

 ances of blood, in one form or another, are subjects of frequent 

 record. Thus, in 217 B. C, two shields, in Sardinia, are said 

 to have sweated blood; in the same year, in Antium, and again 

 in B.C. 206, in the same place, reapers discovered the ears of 

 corn to be bloody as they gathered them. In the year 217 B. 

 C, at Caere, streams of water were mixed with blood, and the 

 Fountain of Hercules was tinged with bloody spots; in 214 a 

 stagnating piece of water, caused by the overflowing of the 

 River Mincius, in Mantua, appeared as of blood; in 213 the 

 river flowed in streams of blood at Amiternum; in 209 water 

 flowed in a bloody stream at Alba; and in 207 a stream of 

 blood flowed in at one of the gates of Minturna. Showers of 

 blood ?iYQ. reported as having occurred: in B.C. 214, in the cat- 

 tle-market, in the Istrian street, in Rome; in 194, in the Forum, 

 Comitium, and Capitol; in 183, for two days, in the area of 

 Vulcan's temple; in 181, in the courts of the temples of Vulcan 

 and Concord; in 172, during three successive days, in Saturnia; 

 and in B.C. 169, at Rome, in the middle of the day. And in 

 167 B.C., we are told, Marcus Valerius, a Roman citizen, in 

 Calatia, reported that blood had flowed from his hearth during 

 three days and two nights. 



I find in Livy but one reference to a shower of flesh. It is 

 said to have occurred in the year of the City 293, or B.C. 459, 

 and is recorded in these words : " Among other prodigies, a 

 shower of flesh fell, which, as was reported, was in a great meas- 

 ure intercepted in its fall by a vast number of birds flying about 

 the place, and what escaped them lay scattered on the ground 

 for several days, without any degree of putrefaction, or being 

 even changed in smell. The books were consulted by the duum- 

 viri presiding over sacred rites, and it was predicted that dan- 

 gers impended from a concourse of foreigners; that an attack 

 was to be made on the higher parts of the city, and lives lost in 

 .consequence;" &c., &c. 



Pliny, in his Natural History, refers to this same prodigy in 

 the following passage: "We finde recorded in monuments that 

 it rained milke and bloud, when M. Acilius and C. Porcius were 



