480 
pliot's kattoal histout. 
[Book XXXI. 
US, with the fountain of Plinthia in Sicily, as also a certain 
lake in Media, and the well of Saturn. The spring of Li- 
myra^^ not unfrequently makes its way through the neigh- 
bouring localities, and when it does so, is always portentous of 
[ some coming event. It is a singular thing too, that the fish 
always accompany its waters on these occasions ; the inha- 
bitants of the adjoining districts being in the habit of consult- 
ing them by oJffering them food. When the fishes seize it with 
avidity, the answer is supposed to be favourable ; but if, on the 
other hand, they reject the food, by flapping it with their tails, 
the response is considered to be unfavourable. The river 
Holcas, in Bithynia, runs close to Eryazus,^^ the name of a 
temple and of a divinity there worshipped ; persons guilty of 
perjury, it is said, cannot endure contact with its waters, 
which burn like flame."^^ 
The sources, too, of the Tamaricus,"''^ a river of Cantabria, 
are considered to possess certain powers of presaging future 
events : they are three in number, and, sep'arated solely by an 
interval of eight feet, unite in one channel, and so form a mighty 
stream. These springs are often dry a dozen times in the day, 
sometimes as many as twenty, without there being the slight- 
est trace of water there : while, on the other hand, a spring 
close at hand is flowing abundantly and without intermission. 
It is considered an evil presage when persons who wish to see 
these springs find them drj : a circumstance which happened 
very recently, for example, to Lartius Licinius,'^'^ who held the 
office of legatus after his prsetorship ; for at the end of seven 
days after his visit he died. 
In Judsea there is a river^^ that is dry every Sabbath daj^ 
CHAP. 19. DEADLY WATEKS. POISOls^OTJS PISHES. 
There are other marvels again, connected with water, but of 
Kalouga Kouffoua, or the Dead Lake, the surface of which is covered with 
bitumen and naphtha, which contains no fish, has oleaginous waters, and 
presents all the phsenomena of the Dead Sea. 
68 In Lycia. 
^ Hardouin is of opinion that a river also was so called. See B. y. 
c. 43. Of the divinity of this name, nothing further is known. 
A story evidently connected with a kind of ordeal. 
71 See B. iv. c. 34. Intermittent springs are not uncommon. See B. 
ii. c. 106. '^2 See B. xix. c. 11. 
73 According to Elias of Thishe this river was the Goza j but Holstenius 
says that it was the Eleutherus, or one of its tributaries. Josephus says 
that it flowed on the Sabbath day, and was dry the other six. 
