Chap. 57.] 
SHOWEES OF MILK, ETC. 
87 
this weapon \ In Italy, between Terracina and the temple 
of Eerquia, the people have left off building towers in time 
of war, every one of them having been destroyed by thunder- 
bolts. 
CHAP. 57. (56.) — SHOWEES CP MILK, BLOOD, ELESH, IRON", 
WOOL, AND BAKED TILES^. 
Besides these, we learn from certain monuments, that from 
the lower part of the atmosphere^ it rained milk and blood, 
in the consulship of M'Acilius and C. Porcius, and frequently 
at other times'*. This was the case with respect to flesh, in 
the consulship of P. Volumnius and Servius Sulpicius, and it 
is said, that what was not devoured by the birds did not be- 
come putrid. It also rained iron among the Lucanians, the 
year before Crassus was slain by the Parthians, as well as all 
the Lucanian soldiers, of whom there was a great number in 
this army. The substance which fell had very much the ap- 
pearance of sponge^ ; the augurs warned the people against 
^ The eagle was represented by the ancients with a thunderbolt in its 
claws. 
2 There is strong evidence for the fact, that, at different times, various 
substances have fallen from the atmosphere, sometimes apparently of mi- 
neral, and, at other times, of animal or vegetable origin. Some of these 
are now referred to those pecuhar bodies termed aerohtes, the nature and 
source of which are still doubtful, although their existence is no longer 
so. These bodies have, in other instances, been evidently discharged from 
distant volcanoes, but there are many cases where the substance could not 
be supposed to have proceeded from a volcano, and where, in the present 
state of our knowledge, it appears impossible to offer an explanation of 
their nature, or the source whence they are derived. We may, however, 
conclude, that notwithstanding the actual occurrence of a few cases of 
this description, a great proportion of those enumerated by the ancients 
were either entirely without foundation or much exaggerated. We meet 
with several variations of what we may presume to have been aerohtes in 
Livy ; for example, xxiv. 10, xxx. 38, xU. 9, xliii. 13, and xhv. 18, among 
many others. As naturally may be expected, we have many narratives of 
this kind in Jul. Obsequens. 
3 The same region from which hghtning was supposed to proceed. 
* We have several relations of this kind in Livy, xxiv. 10, xxxix. 46 and 
56, xl. 19, and xliii. 13. The red snow which exists in certain alpine re- 
gions, and is found to depend upon the presence of the Uredo nivalis, was 
formerly attributed to showers of blood. 
* This occurrence may probably be referred to an aeroHte, while the 
