431 
us, in all probability, a most truthful account of a real phe- 
nomenon. 
Pliny, though sceptical as to the prophecy of Anaxagoras, 
gives an account, not only of the fall of the stone at ^Egos 
Potamos, but of several others. 
The Greeks boast that Anaxagoras, the Clazomenian, in the 2nd year of 
the 78th Olympiad, from his knowledge of what relates to the heavens, had 
predicted that, at a certain time, a stone would fall from the sun. And the 
thing accordingly happened, in the daytime, in a part of Thrace, at the 
river iEgos. The stone is now to be seen, a waggofr-load in size and of a 
burnt appearance : there was also a comet shining in the night at that time. 
But to believe that this had been predicted would be to admit that the 
divining powers of Anaxagoras were still more wonderful, and that our 
knowledge of the nature of things, and indeed everything else, would be 
thrown into confusion, were we to suppose either that the sun is itself com- 
posed of stone, or that there was even a stone in it ; yet there can be no 
doubt that stones have frequently fallen from the atmosphere. There is a 
stone, a small one indeed, at this time, in the gymnasium of Abydos, which 
on this account is held in veneration, and which the same Anaxagoras pre- 
dicted would fall in the middle of the earth. There is another at Cassandria, 
formerly called Potidaea, which from this circumstance was built in that 
place. I have myself seen one in the country of the Yocontii, which had 
been brought from the fields only a short time before. (Pliny, bk. ii., 
ch. 59.) 
From the passage quoted by Plutarch, it is not clear that 
Anaxagoras predicted the precise day on which a stone would 
fall from heaven, but, believing that the stars were stony 
bodies, he predicted that at some time or other some of them 
would fall from the firmament. 
Pliny relates, in the second book of his Natural History, 
chap. 52, that M. Heremnius, a magistrate of Pompeii, was 
struck by lightning when the sky was without clouds. He 
also, in his 57th chapter, gives from ancient monuments 
several strange meteoric phenomena, not without interest to 
our subject. 
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. Yolumnius and Servius Sulpicius, 
and it is said, that what was not devoured by the birds did not become 
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 appearance of sponge ; the augurs warned the people against wounds 
