BOOK VIII. xxxiii. 78-xxxiv. 81 



by its breath, scorches up grass and bursts rocks. 

 Its efFect on other animals is disastrous : it is beheved 

 that once one was killed with a spear by a man on 

 horseback and the infection rising through the spear 

 killed not onlj' the rider but also the horse, Yet to 

 a creature so marvellous as this — indeed kings have 

 often wished to see a specimen when safely dead — 

 the venom of weasels is fatal : so fixed is the decree 

 of nature that nothing shall be without its match. 

 They tlu-ow the basihsks into weasels' holes, which are 

 easily known by the fouhiess of the ground, and the 

 weasels kill them by their stench and die themselves 

 at the same time, and nature's battle is accompHshed. 



XXXIV. But in Ital)^ also it is beHeved that the Thewoif; 

 sight of wolves is harmful, and that if they look at a '^o/J^^Ae 

 man before he sees them, it temporarily deprives ly^uc. 

 him of utterance. The wolves produced in Africa 

 and Egypt are feeble and small, but those of colder 

 regions are cruel and fierce. We are bound to 

 pronounce with confidence that the story of men 

 being turned into wolves and restored to themselves 

 again is false — or else we must beheve all the tales 

 that the experience of so many centuries has taught 

 us to be fabulous ; nevertheless we \n\\ indicate the 

 origin of the popular behef, which is so firmly rooted 

 that it classes werewolves " among persons under a 

 curse. Evanthes, who holds no contemptible position 

 among the authors of Greece, writes that the Ar- 

 cadians have a tradition that someone chosen out of 

 the clan of a certain Anthus by casting lots among 

 the family is taken to a certain marsh in that region, 

 and hanging his clothes on an oak-tree swims across 

 the water and goes away into a desolate place and is 

 transformed into a wolf and herds with the others 



59 



