i WHOLESALE DESTRUCTION 223 



From storm the harbour shelters us ; our roofs are 6 

 able to withstand the whole force of clouds let loose, 

 and the endless deluges of rain. Fire cannot pur- 

 sue us if we run away from it. Against heaven's 

 threats in thunder refuges underground and caverns 

 dug out in the depths of the earth are of avail 

 the fire of heaven does not pierce the ground, 

 but is beaten back by the tiniest portion of the 

 soil. In time of plague we may change our place 

 of abode. No species of disaster is without some 

 means of escape. Lightning has never consumed 

 whole nations. A plague-laden sky has drained 

 cities, but has never blotted them out. 



But this calamity of earthquake extends beyond 7 

 all bounds, inevitable, insatiable, the destruction of a 

 whole State. Nor is it only families or households 

 or single cities that it swallows ; it overthrows 

 whole nations and regions. At one time it hides 

 them in their ruins, at another consigns them to the 

 deep abyss ; it leaves not a wrack behind to witness 

 that what no longer is, once was. The bare soil 

 stretches over the site of the most famous cities, 

 and no trace is left of their former existence. 

 Nor are there wanting those who dread most of 

 all this kind of death, in which they go down alive 

 into the pit, houses and all, and are carried off 

 from the number of the living : as if every form 

 of death did not lead to the one goal. Among 8 

 nature's righteous decrees this is the chief, that 

 when we reach the end of life we are all on a level. 

 It makes no difference, therefore, to me whether 

 one stone wound me to death or I am crushed 

 beneath a whole mountain ; whether the weight of 

 one house come down on me, and I expire beneath 

 the dust of its humble mound, or whether the whole 



