Chap. 4.] FORMS OF THE TRITONS, ETC. 363 



represented. Nor yet is the figure generally attributed to the 

 nereids 23 at all a fiction ; only in them, the portion of the body 

 that resembles the human figure is still rough all over with 

 scales. For one of these creatures was seen upon the same 

 shores, and as it died, its plaintive murmurs were heard even 

 by the inhabitants at a distance. The legatus of Gaul, 24 too, 

 wrote word to the late Emperor Augustus that a considerable 

 number of nereids had been found dead upon the sea-shore. I 

 lave, too, some distinguished informants of equestrian rank, 

 who state that they themselves once saw in the ocean of Gades 

 a sea-man, 25 which bore in every part of his body a perfect re- 

 semblance to a human being, and- that during the night he 

 would climb up into ships ; upon which the side of the vessel 

 where he seated himself would instantly sink downward, and 

 f he remained there any considerable time, even go under 

 water. 



In the reign of the Emperor Tiberius, a subsidence of the 

 Dcean left exposed on the shores of an island which faces the 

 >rovince of Lugdunum 26 as many as three hundred animals or 

 more, all at once, quite marvellous for their varied shapes and 

 3normous size, and no less a number upon the shores of tho 



