Page:The Natural History of Pliny.djvu/119

 Chap. 55.] LAWS OF LIGHTNIIfa. 85 quicker than the lightning^ on which account it is that every- thing is shaken and blcwTi up before it is struck, and that a person is never injui'ed Avheu he has seen the lightning and heard the thunder; Thunder on the left hand is supposed to be luckv, 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 tlie 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 dii'ection 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 tliis kind which, as we have heard, w as 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 Eome, during ting our author and as showing how much more correct the opinions of Seneca were than his ovm., on many points of natiu-al philosophy ; " necesse est, ut mipetus fulrainis et pra;mittat spirit us, et agat ante Be, et a tergo trahat ventum ....;" Nat. Qusest. hb. ii. § 20. p. 706. 2 "quoniam lava parte munch ortus est." On this passage Hardouin remarks ; " a Deoruin scde, quum in meridiem spectes, ad suiistram sunt partes mundi exoi'icntcs ;" Lemaire, i. 353. Poiusinet enters into a long detail respcctmg opinions of the ancients on tliis pomt and the circum- stances which induced them to form their opuiions ; i. 3 i et scq. •* See Cicero de Divui. il 42.
 * The following I'emark of Seneca may be referred to, both as illustra-