Chap. 47.] 
PEEIODS or THE WINDS. 
75 
have gone by tlie name of Argestes. In some places Csecias 
is named Hellespontia, and the same is done in other cases. 
In the province oT 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; Tet 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. Eabius 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 PEBIODS OE THE WIMS^. 
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 ^, Eavonius is called by some Che- 
hdonias^, from the swallows making their appearance. The 
wind, which blows for the space of nine days, from the seventy- 
first day after the winter solstice^, is sometifaes called Orni- 
thias, from the arrival of the birds ^. In the contrary direc- 
tion to Eavonius is the wind which we name Subsolanus, and 
^ THs wind must have been N.N.W. ; it is mentioned by Strabo, iv. 
182^ A. Grellius, ii. 22 ; Seneca, Nat. Qusest. v. 17 ; ai;id again by our au- 
thor, xvii. 2. 
2 We may learn the opinions of the Eomans on the subject of this 
chapter from Columella, xi. 2. 
' 3 corresponding to the 8th day of the month. 
^ . . . lustro sequenti . . . ; "tribus annis sequentibus.'* Alexandre, in 
Lemaire, i. 334. 
5 corresponding to the 22nd of February. ^ ^ ^eXt^wj^, hirundo. 
This will be either on March 2nd or on February 26th, according as 
we reckon from December the 21st, the real solstitial day, or thel7th, when, 
according to the Roman calendar, the sun is said to enter Capricorn. 
® " quasi Avicularem dixeris." Hardouin, in Lemaire, i. 334. ^ 
