Page:The Natural History of Pliny.djvu/121

 Chap. 57.] snowEES OF milk, etc. 87 tkis weapon In Italy, between Terracina and the temple of Ferouia, 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 or MILK, BLOOD, FLESH, lEON, 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. Yolumnius 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 anunal 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 natm-e, or the source whence they are derived. We may, however, conclude, that notwithstanding the actual occurrence of a few cases of tliis description, a great proportion of those enumerated by the ancients were either entirely Tithout fomidation or much exaggerated. We meet with several variations of what we may presmne to have been aerohtes in Livy ; for example, xxiv. 10, xxx. 38, xli. 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 lightning was supposed to proceed. 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 nivahs, waa formerly attributed to sliowers of blood.
 * We have several relations of tliis kind in Livy, xxiv. 10, xxxix. 46 and
 * This occurrence may probably be referred to an aerohte, while the