Chap. 65.] 
LAWS or LiaHTisriKa, 
85 
quicker tlian tlie lightning \ on which account it is that every- 
thing is shaken and blown up before it is struck, and that a 
person is never injured when he has seen the lightning and 
heard the thunder. Thunder on the left hand is supposed 
to be lucky, because the east is on the left side of the hea- 
vens^. We do not regard so much the mode in which it comes 
to us, as that in which it leaves us, whether the fire rebounds 
after the stroke, or whether the current of air returns when 
the operation is concluded and the fire is consumed. In rela- 
tion to this object the Etrurians have divided the heavens into 
sixteen parts ^. The first great division is from north to east ; 
the second to the south ; the third to the west, and the fourth 
occupies what remains from west to north. Each of these has 
been subdivided into four parts, of which the eight on the east 
have been called the left, and those on the west the right divi- . 
sions. Those which extend from the west to the north have 
been considered the most unpropitious. It becomes therefore 
very important to ascertain from what quarter the thunder 
proceeds, and in what direction it falls. It is considered a 
very favourable omen when it returns into the eastern divi- 
sions. But it prognosticates the greatest felicity when the 
thunder proceeds from the first-mentioned part of the heavens 
and falls back into it ; it was an omen of this kind which, as we 
have heard, was given to Sylla, the Dictator. The remaining 
quarters of the heavens are less propitious, and also less to 
be dreaded. There are some kinds of thunder which it is 
not thought right to speak of, or even to listen to, unless 
when they have been disclosed to the master of a family or 
to a parent. But the futility of this observation was de- 
tected when the temple of Juno was struck at Borne, during 
1 The following remark of Seneca may be referred to, both as illustra- 
ting our author and as showing how much more correct the opinions of 
Seneca were than his own, on many points of natural philosophy; 
" necesse est, ut impetus fulminis et prsemittat spiritus, et agat ante 
se, et a tergo trahat ventum Nat. Qusest. Hb. ii. § 20. p. 706. 
2 " quoniam Igeva parte mundi ortus est." On this passage Hardouin 
remarks ; " a Deorum sede, quum in meridiem spectes, ad sinistram sunt 
partes mundi exorientes Lemaire, i. 353. Poinsinet enters into a long 
detail respecting opinions of the ancients on this point and the circum- 
stances which induced them to form their opinions ; i. 34 et seq^, 
3 See Cicero de Divin. il ^2i. 
