88 PLUfT's NATTJEAL HISTOET. [Book II. 



woimds that miglit come from above. In the consulship of 

 L. Paulus and C. Marcellus it rained wool, round the castle 

 of Carissanum, near which place, a year after, T. Annius Milo 

 was killed. It is recorded, among the transactions of that 

 year, that when he was pleading his own cause, there was a 

 shower of baked tiles. 



CHAP. 58. (57.) — Battling or aems and the soxnrD op 



TRUMPETS HEAED IN THE SKY. 



"We have heard, that during the war with the Cimbri, the 

 rattling of arms and the sound of trumpets were heard through 

 the sky, and that the same thing has frequently happened 

 befbre and since ^ Also, that in the third consulship of 

 Marius, armies were seen in the heavens by the Amerini and 

 the Tudertes, encountering each other, as if from the east and 

 west, and that those from the east were repelled*. It is not 

 at all wonderful for the heavens themselves to be in flames^, 

 and it has been more frequently observed when the clouds 

 have taken up a great deal of fire. 



CHAP. 59. (58.) — OF STOITES THAT HAVE FALLEN FSOM THE 

 CLOUDS^. THE OPINION OF ANAXAGOEAS BESPECTINQ 

 THEM. 



The Greeks boast that Anaxagoras', the Clazomenian, in 

 the second year of the 78th Ol^-mpiad, from his knowledge 

 of what relates to the heavens, had predicted, that at a certain 



wool mentioned below, i.e. a light flocculent substance, was perhaps 

 Tolcanic. 



1 Armorum sonitum toto Gbrmania coelo ^ 

 Audiit.— Vircil, Geor. i. 474, 475. 



« in Jovis Vicilini tempk), quod in Compsano agro est, anna con- 



crepuisse." Livy, xxiv. 44. 



2 See Plutarch, by Langhome ; Marius, iii. 133. 



3 See Livy, iii. 5 & 10, xxxi. 12, xxxii. 9, et alibi. 



4 I have already had occasion to remark, concerning this class of pha- 

 nomena, that there is no doubt of their actual occurrence, although their 

 origin is still unexplained. 



6 The life of Anaxagoras has been vrritten by Diogenes Laertius. We 

 have an ample accovmt of him by Enfield in the Greneral Biography, in 

 loco J he was bom B.C. 500 and died B.C. 428. 



