Ancient Rome and Modern Italy 13 



as incombustible, and as of having value only when taken from 

 the nest of these birds. The stone has in it another one which 

 can be heard to rattle when shaken. An imaginative Roman 

 could think of it, therefore, as pregnant, as a sort of womb with 

 a fetus inside, and we read, indeed, of several other stones of a 

 similar nature which were said to have conceived and, in some 

 cases, to carry their contents for a specific period of time. 37 We 

 are probably concerned with a ferruginous geode "a globular mass 

 of clay iron-stone", 38 and Pliny actually mentions 39 a stone which 

 he calls geodes, as being useful as a remedy for the eyes, and for 

 the cure of diseases of the testicles and breasts, but just what this 

 was I do not dare to conjecture. 



It is quite in accord with ancient ways of thought that the 

 aetites, like other stones of strange origin, 40 should be valued as 

 a preventive of miscarriage. 41 We are assured that there were 

 always two of them in the nest, a male and a female stone, and 

 that, if they are not there, the birds cannot reproduce, and that, 

 being two, the young they have are always two. 42 Of four kinds 

 of eagle-stones which our author describes, one, the Taphusian, is 

 to be found in streams. If this be attached to a pregnant woman 

 or animal in a piece of skin which has been taken from an animal 

 that has been used in a sacrifice, and be kept in place to the time 

 of parturition, it prevents a miscarriage. If removed, however, 

 before that time, it causes falling of the womb; if not taken away 

 after parturition has begun, it prevents birth entirely. 43 To this 

 very day in Italy "pregnant stones", pietre gravide or pietre della 

 gravidenza,^ found, it is still reported, in the nests of eagles, are 

 let by midwives for a fee to women during pregnancy. 45 Fast- 

 ened to the left arm or hip, they are -expected to protect her 

 through the period of gestation, 46 nor does this blessing end with 

 the delivery of the baby. The nursing mother should wear one 

 suspended from her neck if she expects to insure her infant a good 

 supply of milk. 47 It is perhaps only an indication of an abnormal 

 ecclesiastical leniency when such obviously pagan amulets appear 

 among the ex-votos exhibited in a church. 48 



It was a usual belief in antiquity that the three chief times of 

 danger in the career of a man, so far as those which come from 

 sorcery and the spirit world are concerned, are birth, marriage, 

 and death. The natal hour seems to offer the maximum menace 



