xxvi THE SEA NO PROTECTION 259 



given of the overthrow of the two cities Helice and 

 Buris, the most remarkable were the appearance of 

 a huge pillar of fire and the earthquake shock in 

 Delos. Yet he will have it that the island is com 

 paratively firm for the reason that it is placed on the 

 sea and has hollow crags and porous rocks, which 

 afford a way of escape to air imprisoned in them. 

 For this reason, too, islands have, he thinks, a 4 

 firmer soil, and cities are safer in proportion to 

 their proximity to the sea. The falsity of such an 

 opinion surely Pompeii and Herculaneum learned 

 to their cost. Add now the fact that every sea- 

 coast is particularly subject to earthquakes. Paphos, 

 for instance, was more than once ruined, and the 

 famous Nicopolis is already intimately acquainted 

 with this mischief. Cyprus is surrounded by a 

 deep sea, but is subject to shocks. Tyre is as 

 regularly shaken by earthquake as it is washed by 

 the waves. Such, then, are for the most part the 

 explanations that have been suggested for the 

 trembling of the earth. 



XXVII 



WE must now essay an explanation of certain i 

 peculiar features which are said to have occurred in 

 the recent Campanian earthquake. A flock of six 

 hundred sheep is asserted to have been killed in the 

 district near Pompeii, and there is no reason to 

 suppose that this happened to the sheep through 

 fright. We have said that after great earthquakes 

 it is usual for a pestilence to occur. And no 

 wonder, since in the depths of earth many deadly 

 poisons lurk. In fact, the very atmosphere there, 2 



