BOOK II. Lxxxv, 199-Lxxxvn. 201 



brought do-wTi all the country houses, and a great 

 many animals in the buildings were killed. It was in 

 thc year before the AlHes' War, which was perhaps 

 more disastrous to the land of Italy than the civil 

 wars. Our generation also experienced a not less 

 marvellous manifestation in the last year " of the 

 Emperor Nero, as we have set forth in our history 

 of his principate : meadows and ohve trees with a 

 public road running between then got over to the 

 opposite sides of the road ; this took place in the 

 Marrucinian territory,* on the lands of Vettius 

 Marcellus, Knight of Rome, Nero's estate-manager. 



LXXXVI. Earthquakcs are accompanied by conseiuem 

 inundations of the sea, Avhich is presumably caused to ?{> ,„„^a 

 flood the land by the same current of air, or drawn Hons; 

 into the bosom of the earth as it subsides. The 

 greatest earthquake in human memory occurred 

 when Tiberius Caesar was emperor, twelve Asiatie 

 cities being overthrown in one night ; the most 

 numerous series of shocks was during the Punic War, 

 when reports reached Rome of fifty-seven in a single 

 year ; it was the year « when a violent earthquake 

 occurring during an action between the Carthaginian 

 and Roman armies at Lake Trasimene '^ was not 

 noticed by the combatants on either side. Nor (Eanhria 

 yet is the disaster a simple one, nor does the danger r^rttmtou^ 

 coasist only in the earthquake itself, but equally or 

 more in the fact that it is a portent ; the city of Rome 

 was never shaken without this being a premonition of 

 something about to happen. 



LXXX\TI. The cause of the birth of new lands (2)new 

 is the same, when that same breath although powerful uons."' 

 enough to cause an upheaval of the soil has not been 

 able to force an exit. For lands are born not only 



