Chap. 111.] 
laKEOrS PHiETOMENA. 
141 
Htani. Tliis fire, however, is internaP, mild, and not burn- 
ing the foliage of a dense wood which is over it^. There is 
also the crater of Nymphseum^, which is always burning, in 
the neighbourhood of a cold fountain, and which, according 
to Theopompus, presages direful calamities to the inhabitants 
of Apollonia'*. It is increased by rain'\ and it throws out 
bitumen, which, becoming mixed with the fountain, renders 
it unfit to be tasted ; it is, at other times, the weakest of all 
the bitumens. But what are these compared to other 
wonders ? Hiera, one of the ^olian isles, in the middle of 
the sea, near Italy, together with the sea itself, during the 
Social war, burned for several days^, until expiation was 
made, by a deputation from the senate. There is a hill in 
Ethiopia called 0ewj^ ox^z/^a^ which burns with the greatest 
violence, throwing out flame that consumes everything, like 
the sun^. In so many places, and with so many fires, does 
nature burn the earth ! 
CHAP. 111. (107.) — WOl^PERS OP PIEE ALONE. 
But since this one element is of so prolific a nature as to 
produce itself, and to increase from the smallest spark, what 
must we suppose will be the efiect of all those funeral piles 
1 " Intemus." " In interiore nemore abditus." Hardouin in Lemaire, 
i. 455. 
2 If this account be not altogether fabulous, the appearance here de- 
scribed may be, perhaps, referred to the combustion of an inflammable 
gas which does not acquire a very high temperature. 
2 We have an account of this place in Strabo, vii. 310. Our author has 
already referred to it in the 96th chapter of this book, as a pool or lake, 
containing floating islands ; and he again speaks of it in the next chapter. 
^ We have an account of this volcano in ^han, Yar. Hist. xiii. 16. 
It would appear, however, that it had ceased to emit flame previous to 
the calamitous events of which it was supposed to be the harbinger. 
^ This circumstance is mentioned by Dion Cassius, xU. 174. We may 
conceive that a sudden influx of water might force up an unusually large 
quantity of the bitumen. 
^ We have a fuR account of this circumstance in Strabo, vi. 277. 
7 " Currum deorum Latine Hcet interpretari." Hardouin in Lemaire, 
i. 456. 
^ " torrentesque sohs ardoribus flammas egerit perhaps the author 
may mean, that the fires of the volcano assist those of the sun in parch- 
ing the surface of the ground. 
