Page:The Natural History of Pliny.djvu/95

 Cliap. 28.] ACCOUNT OF THE WOELD. 01 more dreaded by mortals) which falls down upon tte eartli^, such as was seen in the third year of the 103rd olympiad, when King Philip was disturbing Grreece. But my opinion is, that these, like everything else, occur at stated, natural periods, and are not produced, as some persons imagine, from a variety of causes, such as their fine genius may suggest. They have indeed been the precursors of great evils, but I conceive that the e^'ils occiu-red, not because the prodigies took place, but that these took place because the evils were appointed to occur at that period^. Their cause is obscure in con- sequence of their rarity, and therefore we are not as well acquainted ^T.th them as we are with the rising of the stars, which I have mentioned, and with eclipses and many other things. CHAP. 28. (28.) — OF CELESTIAL COEON^. Stars are occasionally seen along with the sun, for whole days together, and generally round its orb, like wTeaths made of the ears of corn, or circles of various colours^ ; such as occurred when Augustus, while a very young man, was entering the city, after the death of his father, in order to take upon himself the great name which he assumed"*. (29.) The same covoikb occur about the moon and also about the principal stars, which are stationary in the heavens. 1 The meteor here referred to is probably a peculiar form of the aurora borealis, which occasionally assumes a red colour. See the re- marks of Fouche, in Ajasson, i. 382. 2 The doctrine of the author appears to be, that the prodigies are not the cause, but only the indication of the events which succeed them. This doctrine is referred to by Seneca ; " Yidebimus an certus omnium rerum ordo ducatur, et aha aliis ita complexa sint, ut quod antecedit, aut causa sit sequentium aut signura." Nat. Qusest. i. 1. 3 It would appear that, in this passage, two pha?nomena are confounded together ; certain brilhant stars, as, for example, Venus, which have been occasionally seen in the day-time, and the formation of different kinds of halos, depending on certain states of the atmosphere, which affect its transparency. ^ This occurrence is mentioned by Seneca, Nat. Quoest. i. 2 ; he enters into a detailed explanation of the cause ; also by V. Paterculus, ii. 59, and by Jul. Obsequens, cap. 128. We can scarcely doubt of the reahty of the occurrence, as these authors would not have ventured to relate what, if not true, might have been bo easily contradicted.