Page:The Natural History of Pliny.djvu/170

 13^ Pliny's natueal history. [Book II. Atos Qeodncria Near Nonacris, in Arcadia, tlie Styx^, which' is not unlike it either in odour or in colour, instantly de- stroys those who drink it. Also in Librosus, a hill in the country of the Tauri, there are three springs which inevi- tably produce death, but without pain. In the territory of the Carrinenses in Spaing two springs burst out close together, the one of which absorbs everything, the other throws them out. In the same country there is another spring, which gives to all the fish the appearance of o-old, although, when out of the water, they do not differ in^any respect from other fish. In the territory of Como, near the Larian lake, there is a copious spring, which always swells up and subsides again every hour In the island of Cydo- nea^ before Lesbos, there is a warm fountain, which flows only during the spring season. The lake Sinnaus*', in Asia, is nnpreguated with wormwood, which grows about it. At Colophon, in the cave of the Clarian Apollo, there is a pool by the drinking of which a power is acquired of uttering wonderful oracles ; but the lives of those who drink of it are shortened^ In our own times, during the last years of Nero's life, we have seen rivers flowing backwards, as I have stated in my history of his times ^. And indeed who can be mistaken as to the fact, that all sprmgs are colder in summer than in winter^, as well as 1 LiteraUy, Jovis cultus ; as interpreted by Hardoum, "tanquam si dixeris, divmum Jovis muuus himc foutem esse." Lemaire, i. 447 2 Seneca affii^ms its poisonous nature ; Nat. Qua5st. iii. 25.' Q Curtius refers to a spring in Macedonia of the same name, " quo pestifarum vii-us emanat." x. 10. 3 There appears to be some uncertainty respecting the locality of this district ; see the remarks of Hardouin, Lemaire, i. 447. ^ "Hunc fontem describit exhnie Phnius jun. hb. iv. epist. ult. Est ad orientalem Larii laeus plagam, Lago di Como, x mill. pass, a Como." Hardouin, Lemaire, i. 448. » Our author, in a subsequent passage, v. 39, speaks of Cydonea, " cum fonte cahdo." 6 According to Hardouin, i. 448, there is a considerable variation in the MSS. with respect to this name : he informs us that " 'Svvads urbs est Magnse Phrygise Ptolemseo, v. 2." 7 Tacitus gives an account of this oracle as having been visited by Germanicus ; Ann. ii. 54. 8 Our author refers to this history in the First book of the present work. '' " Comparatos scihcet cimi aeris extemi temperie." Alexandre in Lemaii'e, i. 448.