432 
that might come from above. In the consulship of L. Paulus and C. Mar- 
cellus it rained wool, round the castle of Caripanum, near which place, a year 
after, T. Annius Milo was killed. It is recorded, among the transactions of 
that year, that when he was pleading his own cause, there was a shower of 
baked tiles. 
T ii yy gives an account of several sliowers of stones, and. 
states that it was the ancient custom of the Romans to expiate 
the fall of stones from heaven by a nine days' festival. 
After the defeat of the Sabines, when the government of Tullus and 
the whole Roman state was in high renown, and in a very flourishing con- 
dition, word was brought to the king and senators, that it rained stones on 
the Alban Mount. As this could scarcely be credited, on persons being sent 
to inquire into the prodigy, a thick shower of stones fell from heaven in their 
sight, just as when hail collected into balls is pelted down to the earth by 
the winds A festival of nine days was instituted publicly by the 
Romans also on account of the same prodigy, either in obedience to the 
heavenly voice sent from the Alban Mount (for that, too, is stated) or by the 
advice of the aruspices. Certain it is, it continued a solemn observance, 
that whenever the same prodigy was announced, a festival for nine days was 
observed. (. Livy , bk. i., ch. 31.) 
The accounts also of prodigies which arrived just at the time of the news 
of the revival of the war, had occasioned great alarm. At Cumse the orb of 
the sun seemed diminished, and a shower of stones fell ; and in the territory 
of Veliternum the earth sank in great chasms, and trees were swallowed up 
in the cavities. At Aricia the forum and the shops around it, at Frusmo a 
wall in several places, and a gate, were struck by lightning ; and in the 
Palatium a shower of stones fell. The latter prodigy, according to the custom 
handed down by tradition, was expiated by a nine days’ sacred rite ; the rest 
with victims of the larger sort. {Livy, bk. xxx., ch. 31.) 
Several prodigies were observed at Rome that year, and others reported 
from other places. In Forum, Comitium, and Capitol, drops of blood were 
seen, and several showers of earth fell, and the head of Vulcan was sur- 
rounded with a blaze of fire. It was reported that a stream of milk ran m 
the river at Interamna, that, in some reputable families at Ariminuin, 
children were born without eyes and nose ; and one in the territory of 
Picernum that had neither hands nor feet. These prodigies were expiated 
according to an order of the pontiffs ; and the nine days’ festival was cele- 
brated, because the Hadrians had sent intelligence that a shower of stones 
had fallen in their fields. {Livy, bk. xxxiv., ch. 45.) 
Before the consuls cast lots for their provinces, several prodigies were 
reported : that in the Crustumine territory a stone fell from the sky into 
the grove of Mars. {Livy, bk. xli., ch. 9.} 
I am well aware that, through the same disregard of religion, owing to 
which the men of the present day generally believe that the gods never give 
