12 On the supposed Change - 



Virgil, in his first Georgic, speaks of the Zephyrs 

 dissolving the earth, and bringing moisture from the 

 whitened hills. 



Horace, in his ninth Ode, mentions deep snow on 

 mount Soracte, in Etruria, about twenty-six miles north 

 of Rome. 



Pliny, in the nineteenth book of his Natural History, 

 is more explicit on this subject. Speaking of the luxu- 

 ry of his days, he says, " Hi nives, illi glaciem potant ; 

 pCEnasque montium in voluptatem guise vertunt.".... 

 *' Some drink snow, others ice ; and the evil or scourge 

 of the mountains is converted into a gratification of the 

 palate." This passage leaves no room to question, that 

 the ice and snow used in Rome were ordinarily brought 

 from the mountains ; where they were considered as a 

 calamity ; and the expression " poenasque montium," 

 clearly indicate that they were almost peculiar to the 

 mountains. 



Virgil directs the husbandman to plow in the first 

 months in the year, and to pray for moist summers, and 

 serene winters ; for, says the author, the winter'' s dust 

 increases the crop. This passage is no inconsiderable 

 proof that the earth in some parts of Italy was not usual- 

 ly covered with snow in winter. 



The winters described by Livy, Vvdien the Tiber was 

 covered with solid ice ; when the snow lay in the streets 

 of Rome for forty days ; and in Spain, was four feet deep 

 for thirty days; when men, cattle and trees perished, 

 were singularly severe, like our modern winters of 

 1642, 1709, 1741, 1780, which happen but two or three 

 times in a century. Any man will be convinced of this, 

 who attends to the description of them in the original 

 authors. I find they happen in modern days, as fre- 

 quently as at any former period. Scarcely three or four 

 such winters are described in the whole history of Rome, 

 down to the age of Julius Cesar ; though many others 

 happened, as may be collected from circumstances. 



The severe winter of the year of Rome 354, is ex- 

 pressly declared by Livy to be a remarkable event. " In- 

 signis annus hieme gelida ac nivosa fuit ; adeo ut vice 

 clausae, Tiberis innavigabilis fuerit"....Lib. 5. 13. He 



