BOOK II. LV. 145-LV11. 147 



creature that is not ahvays killed when struck — all 

 others are killed on the spot ; nature doubtless 

 bestows this honour on man beeause so many animals 

 surpass him in strength. All things (when struck) 

 fall in the opposite direction to the flash. A man 

 does not die unless the force of the blow turns him 

 right round. Men struck from above collapse. A 

 man struck while awake is found with his eyes shut ; 

 while asleep, with them open. It is not lawful to 

 eremate a man who loses his life in this manner ; re- 

 ligious tradition prescribes burial. No Hving creature 

 can be burnt by lightning without being killed. The 

 temperature of the wound of those struck is lower than 

 that of the rest of the body. LVI. Among things 

 that grow in the ground, it does not strike a laurel 

 bush. It never penetrates more than five feet into 

 the earth ; consequently when in fear of lightning 

 men think caves of greater depth are the safest, or 

 else a tent made of the skin of the creatures called 

 sea-calves, because that alone among marine animals 

 hghtning does not strike, just as it does not strike 

 the eagle among birds ; this is why the eagle is 

 represented as armed with a thunderbolt as a 

 weapon. In Italy in the time of the Caesarian war 

 people ceased to build towers between Terracina 

 and the Temple of Feronia, as every tower there was 

 destroyed by hghtning. 



LVII. Besides these events in the lower sky, it is Ratn of 

 entered in the records that in the consulship " of *'""''' '"''^* 

 Manius Acilius and Gaius Porcius it rained milk and 

 blood, and that frequently on other occasions there it 

 has rained flesh, for instance in the consulship * of 

 PubHus Volumnius and Ser^dus Sulpicius, and that 

 none of the flesh left unplundered by birds of prey 



283 



