Chap. 47.] PEEIODS Or THE WINDS. 75 



have gone by the name of Argestes. In sone places Caecias 

 is named Hellespontia, and the same is done in other cases. 

 In the province df Narbonne the most noted wind is Circius ; 

 it is not inferior to any ot the winds in violence, frequently 

 driving the waves before it, to Ostia\ straight across the Li- 

 gurian sea. Yet this same wind is unknown in other parts, 

 not even reaching Vienne, a city in the same province ; for 

 meeting with a high ridge of hills, just before it arrives at 

 that district, it is checked, although it be the most violent of 

 all the winds. Fabius also asserts, that the south winds 

 never penetrate into Egypt. Hence this law of nature is 

 obvious, that winds have their stated seasons and limits. 



CHAP. 47. — THE PEEIODS OF THE WINDS^ 



The spring opens the seas for the navigators. In the be- 

 ginning of this season the west winds soften, as it were, the 

 winter sky, the sun having now gained the 25th degree of 

 Aquarius; this is on the sixth day before the Ides of February^. 

 This agrees, for the most part, with all the remarks that I 

 shall subsequently make, only anticipating the period by one 

 day in the intercalary year, and again, preserving the same 

 order in the succeeding lustrum''. After the eighth day be- 

 fore the Calends of March*, Favonius is called by some Che- 

 lidonias^, from the swallows making tlieir appearance. The 

 wind, which blows for the space of nine days, from the seventy- 

 first day after the winter solstice^, is sometimes called Omi- 

 thias, from the arrival of the birds ^. In the contrary direc- 

 tion to Favonius is the wind which we name Subsolanus, and 



1 This wind must have been N.N.W. ; it is mentioned by Strabo, iv. 

 182 J A. Gkllius, ii. 22 j Seneca, Nat. Qnsest. v. 17 j and again by our au- 

 thor, xvii. 2. 



* We may learn the opinions of the Komans on the subject of this 

 chapter from Columella, xi. 2. 



* corresponding to the 8th day of the month. 



4 . . . lustro sequenti . . . j " tribus annis sequentibus." Alexandre, in 

 Lemaire, i. 334. 



5 corresponding to the 22nd of February. ^ a xeXi^wr, hirando. 

 ^ This will be either on March 2nd or on February 26th, according as 



we reckon from December the 2l8t, the real solstitial day, or the 17th, when, 

 accordiag to the Roman calendar, the sun is said to enter Capricorn. 

 8 " quasi Avicularem dixeris." Hardouin, in Lemaire, i. 334, 



