566 THE INTELLECTUAL RISE IN ELECTRICITY. 



of the Indian iron which dissipates clouds, hail and whirl- 

 winds. But they are all vague and shadowy. If one 

 attempts to follow the roads down which such stories 

 have come, he will find that they all lead, not to Rome, 

 but to her great rival, Btruria. 



As I'have already pointed out, in tracing the history of 

 the compass, the Etruscans were indefatigable students of 

 meteorology. Their augurs were weather-wise, and ex- 

 ceedingly skillful in recognizing impending changes, and 

 in predicting them. They distinguished three kinds of 

 lightning-flashes, according to the gravity of their effects; 

 and eleven different species of lightning itself. Certain 

 lightnings, they held, came out of the earth and rose 

 perpendicularly others shot from the sky and struck 

 obliquely. Under the guise of worship of Jupiter Klicius, 

 they claimed actually to bring down the lightning, and 

 taught the secret of it to King Num'a, whose successor, 

 Tullus Hostilius, seeking to repeat the ceremony from 

 the instructions left by Numa, made some error and 

 paid the penalty with his life. 1 Tarchon, the founder of 

 the ancient Etruscan theurgism, is said 'to have protected 

 his dwelling by surrounding it with white bryony a be- 

 lief in the efficacy of which plant, after the lapse of ages, 

 still prevails in modern India. 2 



Gradually there grew up a sort of pseudo-fulgural 

 science. Constantine the Great, several years after his 

 conversion to Christianity, made a law authorizing the 

 Romans to consult the aruspices when an edifice had been 

 struck by lightning. Later still (A. D. 408), when Rome 

 was besieged by Alaric the Goth, certain Etruscan magi- 

 cians offered to extract the lightning from the clouds and 

 direct it against the camp of the Barbarians. Innocent, 

 the bishop, was willing- that the experiment should be tried; 

 but the Senate here literally " more pious than the pope " 



1 Pliny, ii., 55. 



2 Columella: lib. x., 346, 7. Salverte. Phil'y of Magic. N. Y , 1847, ii., 

 152. "Fulinineo periit imitator fulniiuis ictu." Ovid: Met., xiv., 617, 618. 



