De mensibus

On the seventeenth day before the Kalends of May, the chief priests, having come into the theater, threw flowers upon the people, and they performed sacred rites around the sown fields for the sake of good harvest, and outside the city at fixed stations they prayed while serving as priests to Demeter; the name of the sacrifice was the Fordicalia. The stations, indeed, they called in their ancestral fashion "miles," from the thousand steps. Whence also the soldiers among them are "milites"; for Romulus stationed only a thousand guardsmen and called them "milites" from the number, as it were "thousand," though previously they were addressed as "satellites"; for antiquity counted the multitude in thousands, not in tens of thousands, as Homer himself says: "as many as nine thousand or ten thousand held." For the number "myriad" is capable of indefiniteness. On the eleventh day before the Kalends of May, Romulus founded Rome, having summoned all the neighboring peoples and instructed them to bring a clod of earth from their own land, thereby auguring that Rome would be mistress of every land; and he himself, taking up the priestly trumpet—it was the custom for the Romans to call it "lituus" in their ancestral fashion, from the "litē"—proclaimed the name of the city, having led the entire priestly rite. The city had three names: mystic, priestly, political. The mystic one was, as it were, Eros, so that all might be possessed by divine love for the city, wherefore the poet, in riddling bucolic fashion, calls the city Amaryllis; the priestly one was Flora, as it were "blooming," whence the festival of the Anthesteria is celebrated in accordance with it; the political one was Roma. And the priestly name was clear to all and was brought forth without fear, but the mystic name was permitted to be uttered only by the chief priests at the sacred rites.

And there is a story that a certain one of the magistrates once paid the penalty because he dared to utter openly before the crowd the mystic name of the city. And after the initiation at the proclamation of the city, he yoked a bull with a heifer and went around the wall, yoking the male on the side of the plain and the female on the side of the city, so that the males might be fearsome to those outside, and the females fertile for those within; and taking a clod of earth from the parts outside the city, together with those brought along by others, he hurled it toward the city, having taken this as an omen that it would be increased forever by the contributions of those outside, and shortly after. And when many foreigners had gathered in it, the picked men of Romulus yielded half of their own property to the newcomers, having persuaded them to dwell in Rome; these Romulus first proclaimed patricians because they were of noble birth and had given their own wealth to strangers for the sake of the fatherland. Ilia, the mother of Romulus. That against those who argue against providence and find fault with these living creatures—I mean locusts and gall-insects—and say that they appear to have been brought forth improperly, Apollonius says that it is ridiculous, or rather laughable, to bring a charge against providence on the grounds that fleas and bedbugs exist; for it would have been necessary, in order that fleas might not exist, that no living creature exist at all, nor, in order that bedbugs might not exist, that humans not exist; since bedbugs are generated from the rubbing of a human against certain woods, and fleas from any urine, and flies from dung or from some other warm moisture.

Rome Flora and the city of Constantine, that is, Anthusa. May. We showed no small power of the tetrad in numbers, which one might call both a tetractys and a pyramid: a tetractys according to the definition of the elements, but a pyramid according to the account in contemplation; for the pyramid, being alone enclosed by four bases and four angles, and first three-dimensionally extended according to the most elementary plane of the triangle, as Plato says in the Timaeus, displays the cohesive order of the whole as similar. There remains the fifth, which the Romans call May. Since, as we have often said, the number of the pentad is separated from the more divine things according to Hesiod, it was likely that it was assigned to the dead. For the pentad is dedicated to perceptible nature, for it is a sphere; for as often as one multiplies the number five, it will be restored to itself; for five, when multiplied along with numbers in a multitude, ends in the same quantity. And in another way the number five appears to have embraced a certain natural power in itself; for of the things in generation composed of even and odd, it is naturally such, being gathered from a triad and a dyad. Accordingly, the Romans referred the fifth month to the honors of their ancestors, honoring the dead by the even and those still preserved by the odd; for after the gods the ancients brought no less honor to their own ancestors; and calling their ancestors maiores in the ancestral manner, they named the month May from the honor of those men.

Those who claim that May is named from Maia, the daughter of Atlas and mother of Hermes, looking to another point, say as follows, but indeed also because of her sacred rite, since it is said that it was consecrated during this month. Concerning her, Proclus says thus: "Maia is she who brings the things hidden in the unseen into the visible, just like midwives here below; and Hermes is her child, the word that comes through all things, who first and eternally revealed the containment of beings in the unseen through the separation and providence of words, making a connection and continuity and interlinking, as one who brings to light the hidden affections of the soul within us." And Aquilinus in his commentary on numbers says thus: "Maia stands for the procession into the visible, the lord of the word that is naturally disposed through all things being the arranger of beings, wherefore indeed they call her the mother of Hermes. Such is intelligible matter, to adorn the procession into the visible and to bring about the generation of beings; for beings are from matter and form." Thus according to theology; but according to the manner of natural philosophy, most people wish Maia to be water; for among the Syrians, speaking barbarously, water is still even now called thus, as also water-bearing vessels are called meiouri. And Varro does not appear to be without reason, as he also assigned a month to her; for it seems to the philosophers that a swell arises from the motion of the water beneath. And the first festival of May among the Romans is the supplications concerning earthquakes.

For the mythographers make Maia the daughter of Atlas, and we receive that Hermes is the overseer of waters, and for this reason springs are dedicated to him or wells are dug. Some say that Hermes is allegorically the son of Zeus and Maia, hinting that Zeus is mind and Maia is prudence, and Hermes, the child of both, is reason. They made him the youngest of all, since reason does not grow old; and further they made him the swiftest, furnishing him with wings, hinting through this device at the sharpness of mind and the speed of reason. At any rate the poet says: "winged words," and "like a wing or a thought." Then the Greeks fashion him in a square shape, providing the greatest proof that this is reason, and true reason. For there are also shapes of reason: the false reason, the deceptive one is more many-sided, but the true one is equal to itself from all sides, and wherever it turns it is firmly fixed on all its bases without limit, which is precisely the square shape. If, then, he has been shown to be mind and reason, the Egyptians make the kerkops into his image, since beyond all other animals it is intelligent, and is receptive of understanding and knowledge. But indeed we know that the Egyptian ibis, the bird, is consecrated to him; for it resembles the heart, its body being white and blackened on both sides, which is the shape of reason according to thought; for before being spoken it is dark, but when spoken it is illuminated, and once uttered it departs into the unseen. The animal is nourished by the waters, just as in us the heart receives its power from moist substance.

Of all winged creatures, the ibis alone does not know how to swim, and it is the most sluggish when dragged down to a greater depth. The same must be observed in the case of the heart: for when the drink of moisture is applied in due measure, it naturally grows strong and is steadied in its reasonings, and does not depart from its proper seat, which they call the phren, and is sober; but when it is flooded by pulsations, it works up its own agitation through the whole body. Men suffer these things from drunkenness, having preferred unmixed wine to their own strength. And the ibis and the kerkops have been likened to be in sympathy with the moon: the ibis resembles it in its very shape, darkening at the extremities and whitening in the middle, just like the ethereal moon. For when the sky is moonless, the ibises too do not see, but close their eyes during this time and endure without food, awaiting their kindred element. The kerkops has more manifest effects: for when the moon waxes, the circle of its eyes is then widened, and when it wanes, the roundness of its eyes contracts. That Aristotle mocked Callisthenes, saying that the one had an excess of mind, while the other had cast off the human mind. That the river Alpheus is seen sinking in the Peloponnese and rising again in Sicily; and they say that the Tigris suffers this same thing, and the Lycus, and certain others.

That just as in our body one part flows away and another is exhaled—it flows away by the blood through the veins and is exhaled by the spirit through the arteries—so too in the earth one part flows away and is exhaled by the waters and another by the winds; and when a blockage or an obstruction or a compression occurs, the earth trembles like a human being. Aristotle, however, assigns the cause to what has been smoked and vapors up from the earth, if it finds an easy passage; but if not, it forces the earth. That Tages says in his Earthquake Observations that if an earthquake happens during the movements of wars, those among whom it occurs are altogether diminished; and he also records other marvels, about which I shall speak in another treatise. On the first day of this month the high priest proclaimed that no one should taste of the feet or head of any living creature throughout the whole month, for the prevention of the disease of arthritis. During this month too the festival of the Rosalia was celebrated among the Romans. And the merchants used to pray to Maia and Hermes that their profits be without danger. But all profits surely arise in matter and from it, and in it, as it were, Hermaia are found and granted, as they say, according to worth. Numenius the Roman wishes Hermes to be the progressive reason; for, he says, an infant would not utter speech before it has touched the earth, so that many rightly interpreted Maia as the earth.

And according to another sacred account, Phonteius says that the earth ought to be honored at the Kalends of May, because the earth, boiling up its innate heat to the surface, exults and, as it were, leaps up and, being drawn out, produces swellings for the most part during the month of May. They honor Maia at this time, that is, they serve the earth. They call celebrating "maiumizing," from which also comes "Maiumas"; for a festival was held in Rome during the month of May. Those holding the highest offices of Rome, arriving at the coastal city called Ostia, endured luxury in the sea waters, throwing each other in; whence also the season of such a festival was named Maiumas. The moon is the beginning of generation. That Empedocles judged substance to be the cause of necessity, serving as the practical cause of the principles and elements; but Democritus [judged it to be] the resistance and blow and motion of matter. Plato, however, referred some things to providence and some to necessity, at one time blaming matter, at another the disposition of the maker. Heraclitus wishes fate to be the same as necessity, but Plato adds also the cause that is in our power. The Stoics, then, say that necessity is immovable, but fate is the interweaving of ordered causes; in which interweaving are also the things in our power, so that some things are fated and others are co-fated. Heraclitus judged fate to be the substance—the reason that pervades all things. Chrysippus [judged it to be] the order of the universe or the reason of the things administered in the world. Posidonius makes a threefold account: for the first is Zeus, the second nature, and the third fate.

Plato [calls it] an eternal account of the nature of the whole. That on the eighth day before the Ides of May a festival was celebrated by the Romans called the Lemuria, as it were honors paid to images or phantoms or passionate daemons, which those who philosophize say are overseers implanted in bodies, and for this reason rejoice in tombs. That Aristotle and Heraclides say that the sun, moving and revolving most of the winds, and these being expelled and driven forward, makes the Atlantic sea swell and prepares the flood, and then again when they cease, being drawn back in the opposite direction, it subsides, and thus the ebbs occur. But Pytheas of Massalia holds that the floods occur at the filling of the moon, and the ebbs at its waning; and the same view is held by those who philosophize among the Romans. Plato, however, assigns the cause to the oscillation of the waters; for there is a certain natural oscillation through some mouth or vent that carries around the tide, by which the seas flow back in opposition. That Plato, by addition or subtraction or transposition or inflation

He says that monstrous births occur; but Empedocles blames the deficiency or excess of breath. Amelius says: The Muses are the souls of the spheres, which gather together into one harmony, appointed by the Demiurge, all the energies of the whole powers and essences that they send forth into the universe. There are four Hephaestuses: the first, son of Heaven and Day, father of Apollo the leader of the Athenians; the second, son of the Nile, whom the Egyptians call Phthas; the third, the Lemnian, son of Cronus and Hera, the smith; the fourth, Hephaestus the Sicilian, son of Manto, from whom the Hephaestiades islands are named. That Hephaestus, as Numenius says, is generative fire, the life-giving heat of the sun; and for this reason they make Hephaestus lame, in that the nature of fire is itself lame when it is not compounded with the other elements. But Cincius among the Romans says that Hephaestus is understood as lame in both feet because of the inequality of the sun's course. And the man of Chaeronea says that when they called the power of fire Hephaestus, they made his statue in human form, and put around him a dark blue cap as a symbol of the heavenly circuit, where the fire's principle-like and purest part is. And according to history, Manetho in the third volume of his Egyptian Records says that the first of men to reign among the Egyptians was Hephaestus, who also became the discoverer of fire for them; from him came Helios, from him Cronus, after whom Osiris, then Typhon, the brother of Osiris.

It should be known, as Manetho says in his work On Festivals, that a solar eclipse brings a baneful influence upon humans, affecting the head and the stomach. Junius. Since, then, the fifth month was appointed by King Numa in honor of the senate, it remained for the sixth to be ordained in honor of the youth—for they call the younger men "juniores"—since, as Plato says, a commonwealth is likely to be governed by the counsel of elders and the valor of the younger. Nor does he appear to assign the number six to this purpose without reason; for it is life-generating, being completed from itself from the monad in succession up to the triad and sufficing unto itself; and for this reason Pythagoras dedicated it to the first of the Fates. On the Kalends of June there is a festival of Hera and prayers on the Capitol, all Romans together partaking of cold water from early morning as a safeguard against every kind of disease and especially gout, as the oracle willed, and so that births might not be twin or monstrous. Such a custom was introduced under Hadrian, when an Egyptian woman was sent to him who reported that she had given birth to four children over four days at unequal intervals, and after forty days to a fifth, according to Aristotle, who says that in four births twenty were conceived; and Heraclides says this happens when a discharge is ejaculated twice or three times from continence through an opening, or when the womb is opened again after the former coagulation to the extent that the birth is counted. That the month of June is unsuitable for marriages, as the books of the priests among the Romans say.

The statement is true, and it is entirely necessary that the younger man lose the one he has married at this time; and I have experience of this outcome, having lost my dearest wife as quickly as possible. For three days women were not permitted either to cut their hair or to pare their nails. The name Sancus means "heaven" in the Sabine tongue. The Hebrews do not abstain from the hare, the Libyan ostrich, and the plover without reason: for the male hare is by nature able to give birth, in a monstrous manner, and the Libyan ostrich is neither a sparrow nor a four-footed beast nor a perfect bird; and no one who has eaten a plover has failed to mourn. Larinon means "fat," from which also lardos. Others say otherwise. They say the Fates are daughters of Necessity—Lachesis, Clotho, and Atropos; and Lachesis governs the past, Clotho the present, and Atropos the future. On the day before the fifth of the Ides of June is the festival of Hestia. On this day the bakers used to celebrate, because the ancients prepared bread in the sanctuaries of Hestia; and donkeys, crowned with garlands, led the procession, because grain is ground by them. The natural philosophers hold that Hestia is the earth, from "standing" (hestanai); but the theologians hold that she is what is called "being" (ontology). And Socrates in the Cratylus is a witness, saying that Hestia is the original substance and the cause of being for all things, established in the father; but Porphyry holds that after the intelligible Hestia—that is, being—there is also the guardian of the earth (they call her Chthon), who is Hestia homonymously with that one; and he speaks thus:

And the ruling principle of the divine power is called Hestia, whose virgin image is set upon a hearth; but insofar as the power is generative, they signify it in the form of a woman with a frontlet. But the hierophants of the Romans wish it to be nothing other than the earth alone. Before the great deluge they say that Sicily was not an island as it is today, but was a mainland joined to what was later Italy, and that from the rush of the streams of the inundation it was torn away from its roots and became an island, and for this reason that side of Italy from which it was broken off was named Rhegium, from the breaking. Previously Sicily was called Sicanía. Italy had these nine provinces: Campania, Apulia, Tuscany, Calabria, Umbria, Dalmatia, Lucania, Bruttium, Sicily. To Prusias king of Bithynia. Among the Pythagoreans the dyad, as giving a certain position and stepping-stone to number, is called Eleusine, as providing a procession toward the greater and the infinite.

Eudemus says that in Peltae in Phrygia there once was a four-footed stone, which, when the weather was calm, the farmers would set round sticks under and lift up, and so make winds; and to whatever extent the stone was lifted up, to that extent the winds rose violently; and again, when the stone was placed back on level ground, calm returned. The poets call intelligent thoughts "black," as being deep; for black follows upon depth; therefore Pindar calls "white" the thoughts that are not intelligent. Alas, how uneven are the fortunes of mortals; for some fare well, while harsh calamities come upon others who are pious toward God. The Romans call fortune Fortuna, from the inspired benefit of its motion. Aristotle: "If virtue exists, fortune does not; for the affairs of fortune are exercised up and down in human matters—in wealth, and especially in injustice. But those who are disposed toward virtue and mindful of God, and who keep unshaken their hopes for better things in the blessed and immaterial realm, despise the goods here below." For nothing is secure or decided in the realm of fortune, as Euripides says. Worse are those who desire wealth beyond measure; for wealth is more a servant of vice than of nobility of character, says the orator. Plato says that no one becomes master of the greatest wealth unless he has first been fined in his soul. The oracle says: Two daemons are with each man; and of these there are two tribes; these wander always over the teeming earth †to abide with mortals from the beginning, from Zeus; for Zeus

The giver of all good and evil things, who also marks out the time of life for those being born, mingling with base and noble things the mortal body. Whoever by his own wisdom would attach himself to those daimones, and have the understanding of what deeds they delight in, would surpass all others in mind and in noble actions, bringing noble gifts from a noble source and shunning base ones. Julius. One might take the month Julius as fifth from the civil year, but seventh from the sacred year; for from March—and that was the month established by Romulus as the beginning of the civil year—it is fifth, whence it was formerly called Quintilis; but it is seventh from January; and this is the sacred year according to Numa. Caesar, then, being adorned not only by fortune but also by priesthood—for he was pontifex, that is, as it were a bridge-priest or theurgist, on account of his descent from Aphrodite—found the month Quintilis and changed its name, not only because of the perfection of the number, but also because he himself was born on the fourth day before the Ides of this month. And he was named Caesar, not as the ancients say, from the cutting open of the belly of his mother Aurelia, on the pretext that when she died pregnant, he was taken out after she was cut open; but the truth, as determined by the historians concerning this appellation of his, is as follows:

In the Phoenician War, when Syphax was fighting alongside Hannibal, it is said that Gaius Rutilius—this man was an ancient ancestor of Caesar—fighting in that very battle line, hurled his spear against the Maurusian with such force that he struck down the elephant on which the enemy was riding, and from that he received the surname Caesar, since among the Phoenicians the elephant, that animal, is called caesar. Valerius, who himself also wrote the deeds of Caesar, says that he was excellent and most distinguished in stature, and moreover also long-haired; for the Romans in their ancestral tongue call hair caesaries, and he says that because of its beauty he was named Caesar. His proper name was Gaius, the name Julius signified his noble birth, from Iulus son of Aeneas son of Aphrodite, and Caesar signified his virtue. Theodosius the Younger, innovating, erased the name of the Olympiad from the reckoning of years. They say that Caesar, from excessive cold, fell into epilepsy, and that he was later cured by drawing down the juice of the herb hierakleion together with the rennet of a seal. And it is not yet wonderful that Caesar had a seal's rennet at his disposal; but Aretas, the phylarch of the tent-dwelling Arabs, writing a letter to Claudius Caesar about healing by means of birds, says that a vulture's liver roasted with its blood, given with honey for three weeks, delivers from epilepsy, and likewise also the heart of the vulture, when dried, given in water, is effective in the same way. Many of the historians say that Caesar was born at seven months, and that for this reason he changed the seventh month of the priestly year to his own name. No other man acted the man of valor as he did.

An oracle was given to the Romans by the Mother, that they should not engage in sexual intercourse at all throughout the entire month of July, if they were to remain healthy in body. The Nile overflows when the sun is in Leo. The Nile was formerly named Ilas, then Aegyptus after Aegyptus, then Chrysorrhoas, and thereafter Nile from a king so called; for the opinion of the grammarians that the Nile was named from the new silt (nea ilys) looks to etymology. Concerning the increase of its waters in summer, Anaxagoras says that the melting snows of Ethiopia send forth the Nile. And of this opinion are also Aeschylus and Sophocles and Euripides. But Seneca, the greatest among Roman philosophers, contradicts this, asserting that Ethiopia is the most scorched, whence also the bodies of the Troglodytes are burned up, who, unable to endure the sun, dwell beneath the earth, and silver in that region is smelted down like lead, and no material fails to melt; and besides, he says there are many rivers exposed to the south wind, none of which we see overflowing in summer, although mountains lie above them. Euthymenes of Massalia says that he sailed across the Atlantic Sea, and from there saw the Nile rushing out, and that it swells the more whenever the so-called Etesian winds blow; for then, he says, the sea is driven back by the winds, and when these cease, it grows calm. And the water of the Atlantic Sea is nearly sweet, and its creatures are similar to those of the Nile.

Seneca also contradicts this opinion, asserting that the sweet and thin water is snatched up by the sun and that by all manner of means every sea is salt, and that this is in no way true; for if this were so, the Nile would also increase in winter, and all the more in proportion as the rush of the winds is more violent; and further, it appears more muddy and dark blue, which is foreign to sea waters. After him Diogenes of Apollonia says that, since the sun snatches up the moisture, the Nile is drawn from the sea by the dry land; for being naturally full of channels and perforated, it draws the moisture to itself, and the drier the land of Egypt is, the more it draws the moisture to itself, just as oil in lamps rushes more in that direction where it is also consumed by the fire. Herodotus says that the sun draws the moisture from all rivers, running through the southern zone near the earth, and that in summer, inclining toward the north, it calls forth the Nile, and for this reason it overflows in summer. The Egyptians say that the etesian winds drive all the clouds from above toward the south, and from there, as heavy rain falls, the Nile gushes forth. Ephorus of Cyme, at any rate, in the first book of his Histories says that Egypt is naturally porous, and that with silt brought down each year by the Nile it is made watertight, and that the river, like sweat in the season of heat, flows down toward the lighter and more porous parts. But Thrasyalces of Thasos also says that the etesian winds drive the Nile forth.

For Ethiopia, being girded about with mountains high beyond those among us, receives the clouds that are driven by the etesian winds and gives forth the Nile; as also Callisthenes the Peripatetic says in the fourth book of his Hellenica, that he campaigned with Alexander the Macedonian, and being in Ethiopia found the Nile rushing down from countless rains that had occurred in that region. But Dicaearchus too, in his Circuit of the Earth, wishes the Nile to flow forth from the Atlantic sea. Various, then, are the opinions concerning it, but the truth, so far as men are concerned, is for the time being nowhere; for according to the oracle, the truth is in the deep. But Chrestus the Roman says: "In the west there are very great and very high mountains, which separate Libya from Ethiopia; against their outermost roots the Atlantic sea falls, and from there Ethiopia takes its beginning from the west. Beneath these mountains, then, are lakes spread out to boundless breadth; and there dwells beside them a race of men called the Fish-Eaters, which from the first hour until the setting of the sun spends its time in the water and feeds on fish. Bordering on these are those called the Man-Eaters, a race of men most courageous, using round noses, curved faces, and nails nearly like lions'. From those lakes, then, the river takes its sources; for the streams issuing from them make their way covered over.

From these very lakes, which those people call Chaas, flows a very fine and barely visible stream, which, falling into narrow places and part by part from different parts into its own bed, takes on the appearance of a river. This would be the Nile, which, winding through various climes, passes through thick and trackless regions, of which the... from there it pours out into level ground and is again gathered into a river's bed, and is thereafter navigable by ships, borne toward Meroe through the uninhabited parts of the south, and flowing around it makes it an island; for it is entirely level. And from there the whole river, being confined thereafter, bends toward the east and toward Egypt, and from there into the sea, when a more violent wind blows down; for by the force, as has been said, of the north wind the river is driven back and, being more abundantly poured out, floods all Egypt into a lake. But when the east wind from the east blows against the etesian winds, or the south wind from the south drives out the Nile, reasonably the river runs down toward the sea—the north wind having gently lulled. And that is also a proof that it is not increased by the melting of snows, that it is not cold but warm, and for this reason, when the water subsides, certain living creatures are found in the mud, partly molded and partly beasts. For such things are naturally engendered by heat and moisture, which is not the case with other waters; for they have only fish. And the others, conjecturing, say this, but I—says Chrestos—having been at the promontory of Maurousia at the mouth of the Ocean.

That wherever a distribution of fire burns, the earth in its depth must necessarily be cavernous, and from this cause come the hot waters. Therefore the nature of such waters is also slimy, since they are also of the sea; and fire, changing the saltness into the foul, makes them at once bituminous and full of alum and sulphur. †It does not cleanse so much as dry out, since the vapors of asphalt are sunk by the greater moisture of the waters. Cestius, the consular governor of Jerusalem, set up the image of Nero by night in the temple of the Hebrews, so that Nero might share in the honor with God; but they, indignant, killed both Cestius himself and all the Romans found in the East, and openly proclaimed war against their rulers. The Romans call wanderers and vagabonds Errousaloi; but private individuals, from ignorance, call them Erroulloi. Augustus. The sixth follows from spring, and the eighth from the so-called Auxiphotia festival. That it is the sixth from March can be gathered from the ancient name of this month itself; for it was called Sextilis after Quintilis; whence those after it up to the tenth draw not a proper name but one derived from numbers. It was later renamed Augustus, as some say, by Augustus Caesar, because in this month he ended the civil wars, which Rome then had many of, and brought the Romans already into concord; and since it is the eighth from January, to this eighth they dedicated the name of the cause of their concord. For according to the Pythagoreans, eight is called agreement and persuasion.

For first it is a cube, containing the idea of the whole perceptible universe, in length and breadth and depth, and it would rightly be called by the name "agreement"; for in it the odd numbers have come into agreement with the even. But as others say, since Augustus Caesar died in this month, the Romans named the month August in his honor. And this Augustus Caesar, son of Octavius, was formerly called Octavian, having become son-in-law through his sister to Gaius Julius Caesar; and after that man's many and great trophies he was honored with many names; for some called him Quirinus, as it were Romulus, others Caesar, but by the common vote of the high priests and the senate he was surnamed Augustus. And the Romans, according to their ancestral meaning, call "Augustus" the one who is advanced to kingship by auspicious omen and the testimony of the gods. That after as many excellent deeds as he performed, Augustus introduced the fifteen-year cycle from the autumn equinox, following in this the philosophers, who say that the equinoctial period consists of fifteen degrees. That the Romans named the month August in honor of Augustus Caesar, who died, as they say, on the sixteenth day of this month.

That Augustus translated the Ajax of Sophocles into his native tongue; then, when his excellence in letters too was at its peak after his practical excellence, since he judged his own tragedy unworthy by comparison with Sophocles, he erased it. Then, when asked by Cicero, under whom he had earnestly been educated: "Where is that Ajax written by you?" he answered wittily and at the same time sensibly that his own Ajax had fallen upon it with a sponge, just as Sophocles' had with iron. And so great was his concern for letters that, when an uneducated magistrate dared to write a public letter to him, he was so indignant that he relieved the uneducated man of his office. And he set a measure and limit both on feasts and on gifts, being the first to do this in the case of his own daughter. And he cared so much for the freedom of his subjects that, when one of his flatterers in the senate called him "master" as if in a manner of superiority, he himself rose and said: "But I have learned to converse with free men, not with slaves.

That Chares says: Never admit untimely expenditure, and try to hold every rein over the belly. That the Gauls, coming up through the underground passages, seized the Capitol by night; for Servius Tullius the king built such underground passages of Rome that a wagon full of hay could be carried through them. And when the geese in the sacred precinct saw the enemy and clamored—for their nature is wakeful—the commander, roused up, drove the barbarians out of the sacred precinct; then, when forces had been gathered, he laid them low. Hence there is a festival and honors for the geese, in return for which they guarded the city, and destruction for the dogs. For on the day three days before the Nones of August they used to kill dogs in Rome without hindrance in honor of the geese, because the dogs betrayed the Capitol by sleeping, while the geese kept watch and saved it. But some say that they did this so that they might not become troublesome to the sick by night; and others, so that raging mad they might not harm people; for at that time the Dog Star rises, which is thought to be the cause of their madness.

That the subterranean fire, creeping about deep in the earth, consumes the fatty substance; and this is alum or sulfur; for asphalt is sulfur burned in the earth and being quenched there. For of this, the part that is burned for a little while, as being quenched at once, makes the asphalt more moist and more fatty, such as floats upon the surface at Etna and at the lake in Judaea; but burned more violently it petrifies, such as is the gagates stone around Babylon. Whenever, then, the fire creeping beneath consumes the underlying places, it shows us no affection of the earth; but whenever, having worked upon and rarefied a great place, it is then compressed in the hollows and cavernous places, if it finds a way of escape, it produces no more than a sign of earth's boiling and bellowing; but if again it remains embodied, either overlying a mountain or land or sea—a mountain, as Vesuvius in Italy and that in Lipara and the one overlying the city of the Catanians in Sicily; a sea, which Panaetius records between Lipara and Italy; land, such as happens near Corycus in Lycia. And it not only bursts apart mountains and land, but also makes exhalations of the sea, as happened in the regions about Thera and Therasia; and if the opened mouths are continuously breathing forth fire, they are called fountains and craters of fire, such as are those about the same Lipara and Strongyle and Vesuvius; but if it closes up, like the plain at Philadelphia in Lydia and the foothills at Mazaca—that is, the Cappadocians—and the plain of Hephaestus at Dicaearchia, once so called.

That there are nine kinds of comets according to Aristotle, but ten according to the Roman Apuleius: the hippias, the xiphias, the pogonias, the dokias, the pithos, the lampadias, the kometes, the diskus, the typhon, the kerastes. And the hippias is so named from its course and swiftness, and it scatters slanting and faint rays. The xiphias appears extended like a sword or a long spear, and is pale and cloud-like. The pogonias scatters its crest not on top of its head but below, like a beard. The dokias is similar and close to the xiphias, but it does not have sharp beginnings, rather blunt ones. The pithos is named from its shape. The lampadias is fiery and naturally shines through like the pyropus stone or a burning tree. The kometes is broad in form and, as it were, cheerful, drawing out certain silvery locks. The diskus, from its very name, appears like a disc, not bright nor red but as it were amber. The typhon appears fiery and blood-red and scatters certain slender locks. The kerastes is horned like the moon, which is said to have appeared when Xerxes came against Attica. Ptolemy, in what he wrote to Syrus, adds also another kind of comet called the salpinx, and it appears in the northern region. The natural philosophers say that comets are formed in the hollows beneath the moon, displaying a certain star-like nature; for they are not stars, but certain clottings produced from the exhalation of the earth, whose generation is from the air that is enclosed at its conjunction with the aether; whence they are carried around at equal speed with it until their fall.

And whenever the air, having its flow borne downward, is enclosed, bearded comets and jars are produced, but whenever obliquely, comets. The bearded ones fall out more swiftly, but far more swiftly than these do jars and beams. They say there are two Pans. Some say that Pan was born from Cronus and Rhea, meaning from mind and moist substance, as it were material infinity, this whole universe. Julian, being turned aside from the war against the Persians by Libanius and many other augurs, is said to have uttered the Homeric line: I am ashamed before the Trojans and the Trojan women with trailing robes. But after crossing the Tigris and subduing many cities and fortresses of the Persians, he was thereafter unbearable to the barbarians; yet nevertheless he perishes by treachery, and with a great multitude. For two Persians, having mutilated themselves of their ears and nostrils, came and deceived Julian, lamenting that the Persians had suffered such things from their king, and that it was possible nevertheless, if Julian followed them, to set him up as conqueror at the very Gorgos, the queen of the Persians. But he, with fate urging him on and having forgotten both Zopyrus of Herodotus and Sinon of Virgil, burned the ships by which he was ferrying across the Euphrates, so as not to give the Persians any license to use them, while the army brought only moderate expense, and followed those who deceived him; and they, having led him into a dry and waterless difficult region, revealed the trick, and they themselves—for what more was there?—

they perished, and the king, finding no way either to advance further or to turn back for the rest, was miserably destroyed. And when the greater part of the army had fallen, the Persians came upon him in his weakness, and though diminished even so they attacked again, when he had not even twenty thousand, he who formerly led seventeen myriads. And Julian fought most excellently; but one from the Persian phalanx of those called Saracens, supposing him to be king from the purple robe, cried out in his native tongue "malchan," as it were king; and rushing on with a whizz he drove the so-called rhomphaia through him into his belly. And when Oribasius brought him into the camp and urged him to settle his last affairs, he himself, having voted Jovian to rule, died. The winds that flow from the great beginning are divided into twelve parts of the horizon, whose names we know elsewhere, and those flowing from the Bears themselves and the pole corresponding to them are called aparctiai, those from the equinoctial west zephyroi, those from the unseen south notoi, those from the equinoctial east apeliotai; of those between the said, the one next to the aparctias is caicias, which some also call thrascias, the one next to the zephyros is argestes, which some call olympias, others iapyx; of those between zephyros and notos, the one next to zephyros is lips, the one next to notos is libonotos; of those between notos and euros, the one borne near notos is called eurotonos, the one near apeliotes euros; similarly also between apeliotes and aparctias, the one next to apeliotes is called caicias, the one next to aparctias boreas.

Of those not from a great origin, one is a squall from a small cloud's rush, another a bay-wind from certain bays and defiles, another a mist from earth and a gathering of air. For these are breezes and flows of air, and not unreasonably are they called winds, when they are borne either from marshes or from rivers; and the land-winds are similar to these, whence reasonably, when the air is still, its condition is called a calm. In the month of August, the oracle decrees that those who wish to be healthy in their joints should abstain from mallow. September. We were speaking a true account, that the Romans appointed the month of March as the beginning of the year, as one may grasp from the name of the present month; for they named it September, as it were the seventh from spring—for septem is seven and ver is spring—that is, from the month of March, at whose twenty-fourth day the sun, being in Aries, gives nature the beginning of spring. And then there will be no need to speak at length about the names of the following months; for October is the eighth from the Auxiphotia, and November and December likewise.

Divine is the number of the ennead, being fulfilled from three triads, and preserving the summits of theology according to the Chaldean philosophy, as Porphyry says. On the new moon Metrodorus says that Andromeda rises and, when the other winds cease, the east wind prevails. On the fourth day before the Nones of September Augustus conquered the Egyptians with Antony and Cleopatra near Leucas; and for this reason he introduced that the cycle of the so-called indiction be counted from the beginning of the month of September. On this day Democritus says that a change of winds occurs and a prevalence of rain. More numerous are the differences of juices according to Apollonius, but generic are nine: sweet, bitter, sharp, pungent, brinchy, astringent, mucous, harsh, salty. Whence indeed also in this ninth month the Romans prayed concerning health. On the eighth day before the Ides of September Eudoxus notes that the Horse sets and that the west wind or the north-west wind blows. We know that a worm called a caterpillar grows in the cabbage. This one, when the cabbage dries up in spring, is naturally changed into a winged worm like an ant, and somewhat larger, with white triangular wings bearing it up, and it flies around the gardens with a low and easily caught flight; and it happens that such a worm is called a soul.

Eighteen days before the Kalends of October, Dositheus records that Arcturus rises. Twelve days before the Kalends of October, Caesar says that the swallows depart. Of Nicomedes, the tyrant of Bithynia. That when fire abounds, fever arises; the quotidian from air, the tertian from water, the quartian from earth. And rigor is wont to precede these. For whenever by the cold—since this is proper to water and earth—the aforesaid humors are thickened, then, being carried through the pores, they cannot expel the denser parts, but falling into their seats they produce a constriction and pressure, until, driven by the fire and cut apart, they are dispersed, which necessarily produces a certain disturbance and shaking, a condition which is called tremor and chill. That the Romans, after conquering the Africans, also brought the beasts from there to Rome and slew them in the sand, so that not even the beasts of that land might remain unenslaved. That the standing column of Fortune in Byzantium was set up by Pompey the Great; for there, having hemmed in Mithridates along with the Goths and scattered them, he took Byzantium. And the inscription on the base of the column in Latin letters bears witness, which declares the following: To Fortune the Restorer, on account of the conquered Goths. And the place later became a tavern. The Goths are Getae.... But the common people call it a dolphin.

The oracle advises drinking milk throughout the whole month of September for health. October. The Macedonians hold October as their first month, but the Romans as the eighth from spring, whence they also call it October, meaning eighth. It was formerly called September, from the sowing—for thus the Romans call sowing. On the Kalends of October the priests declared to the people that they ought not to pay attention to dreams, on account of the phantasies arising from the moist swelling of the autumn fruits; but from the Auxiphotia, that is, January, they should pay attention as much as possible, according to the opinion of Herophilus, who also approved dreams as sent by god, while Democritus judged them according to the impressions of images. On the Kalends of October, Varro says that the Pleiades rise from the east. It seemed good to the Romans, from some ancient tradition, to eat leeks throughout the whole month, to avoid the disease of arthritis. Six days before the Nones of October, Eudoxus supposes that there will be rain toward evening.

There was a certain power in the seeds cast into the earth, which the sun draws down as it travels through the lower hemisphere at the winter solstice. This seed-bearing power is Kore, and Plouton is the sun beneath the earth, who is said to carry off Kore, whom Demeter seeks when she is hidden beneath the earth. In Aitne in Sicily they mythologize the seizure of Kore; for there, it is said, the seed of wheat was first cast down. On the fifth of the month of October the regionarchs and the Augustiani danced in the Gusteion, that is, in the fish market, in honor of Tiberius; and private citizens now call such a place the Augusteion. In the open court of Daphne, in the small courtyard, Constantine the Great set up a statue of his own mother, from which he named the place Augusteion. On the day before the Nones of October, Democritus maintains that the kids rise and that the north wind blows, while Eudoxos says that the middle of the Ram sets. On the Nones of October, Varro says that in the evening the Pleiades rise and the west wind blows, and then he also foretells the southwest wind. Concerning the wooden horse, Euphorion says that it was a ship called the Horse for the Greeks; but others say that it was a gate so named in Troy, through which the Greeks entered. On the day before the Ides of October, Euktemon considers it to be the very middle of autumn. On the fifteenth day before the Kalends of November, the sun is in the Scorpion, as Kallippos says. On the fourteenth day before the Kalends of November, Metrodoros says that the Hyades rise in the evening and that there is a violent wind. There are said to have been three Asklepioi: the first, son of Apollo the son of Hephaistos, who discovered the probe.

Second, Ischys son of Elatos and Koronis, who was buried in the borders of Kynosoura; third, Arsippos and Arsinoe daughter of Leukippos; this one discovered surgery and the tooth-forceps, and his tomb is in Arcadia; but the astronomers say that he is the Ophiuchus standing upon the Scorpion. On the day before the Kalends of November, Varro says that the Lyre rises together with the sun. November. Cincius in his work On Festivals says that November was called Merkedinos among the ancients, as it were "wage-bringer"; for in it the hired laborers brought in the revenues of the past cycle to the property owners, since other fruits were coming in again. But it was later named November from its number; for it is the ninth from March. That a oracle from the Sibylline books indicated that the kingship was preserved for the Romans until then, until they should take care of the statues of the city; which oracle has indeed been fulfilled; for when Avitus, the last to reign over Rome, dared to melt down the statues, the kingship was far from Italy. That the Colchians, who are also called Lazoi, are the Alains. That Marius the Great, warring against the Cimbri and Teutones, saw in a dream that he would prevail over the enemy if he sacrificed his own daughter to the averting deities; and preferring the citizens to nature, he did this and prevailed over the enemy. But Erechtheus, the leader of Attica, persuaded not by a dream but by an oracle, did this and conquered the enemies.... a maiden, through the benevolence of the deity, passed through the whole habitation and roused them, as the Roman Varro says. A similar thing is said to have happened to the Lacedaemonians, Aristides, who in the fifth book says:

When this plague was afflicting Lacedaemon and many were perishing, the Pythian god declared that the disease would cease if each year a maiden in her prime and of noble birth were sacrificed to the gods who avert evil. When this lawless superstition was being carried out every autumn, it once fell by lot to Helen, and Tyndareus brought his daughter, crowned, to the altars; and as he was beginning the lawless sacrifice, an eagle swooped down and snatched the king's sword and let it fall beside a certain white heifer. His guards, following behind and becoming eyewitnesses of what had happened, brought the cow to Tyndareus; and he, marveling at the providence, ceased from the man-slaying custom, and having sacrificed the heifer he was delivered from the plague-like affliction. On the fourth day before the Nones of November, in the temple of Isis, is the conclusion of the festivals; and there was also celebrated the so-called Drepan...—on which festival Metrodorus says that the south wind blew. And it seemed good to the multitude, as the account goes, to abstain from bathing until the end, for the avoidance of disease. On the eighth day before the Ides of November, honors were paid by the women to Demeter and Eileithyia; and Eileithyia is the overseer of women in childbirth... as Plutarch says... in such a way she shakes herself; and they say that Artemis too is such toward pregnant women in their suffering. And Artemis, according to the arithmetical account, is she who casts out the generation that comes into the even and hastens to proceed into it; wherefore it is also mythically told that Apollo, when he was being born from Leto and was shown forth, she, acting as midwife to her mother, ... to the same ... both herself and Apollo ...

On the day before the seven Ides of November, it is said that the number ten of the... is substituted... according to the Egyptian Hermes, who in the so-called Perfect Discourse speaks thus: "But the souls that transgress the canon of piety, when they are released from the body, are handed over to the daemons and are borne through the air, slung about, and through the fiery and hail-like zones which the poets call Pyriphlegethon and Tartarus." And Hermes speaks concerning only the purification of souls, but Iamblichus in the first book of his treatise On the Descent of the Soul mentions also their restoration, assigning the region above the moon up to the sun to Hades, where he says the purified souls also stand, and that Pluto himself is that region, and Persephone the moon. So much for the philosophers. But the sacred rites of the festival were performed with blessings over the unquenchable fire of Hestia, concerning which Porphyry speaks thus: "Honoring with this sacrifice the visible heavenly gods, and by fire making their honors immortal for them, they kept for them in the temples an immortal fire, as being the thing most like them." From this day Eudoxus says winter begins. On the following day is the remembrance of Remus and Romulus: when Amulius, tyrannically disposed toward Numitor, killed the latter's son and ordered his daughter to serve as a priestess; and when she had given birth, as they say, from Mars, he in fear ordered the infants to be drowned; but when his guards had exposed them beside the banks of the Tiber, a she-wolf came and offered her teats to them.

The shepherd, seeing this, took up the boys and raised them as his own, and they founded Rome. The same is also found in Zopyrus of Byzantium... From the fifteenth of November until the whole of December the Romans were at leisure, occupied only in feasting because of the shortness of the days. On the day before the seven Kalends of December, Democritus says that the sun enters Sagittarius. The Romans thought fit to call the bean dish faba, from the west wind (zephyros), at whose first blowing such a crop naturally sprouts; and the west wind is called by them Favonius; whence also March is called Zephyrites, just as January is called Monias from the unit (monas), and October Semetilius from the seed (sporos), as antiquity has handed down. That the year established by Numa begins from January, but the one established by Romulus from March. The chronological beginning according to Numa agrees directly with the beginning according to Romulus; for Romulus took his beginning from spring, but kept watch over the month of Ares, and Numa, observing the sun wholly at the middle of Capricorn, seems to agree with Romulus; for the exaltation of Ares is Capricorn. December. December, as the tenth, also from March thus

It was named. Since harmony is divided up... all things... and the suffering of Phaethon is guarded, and the dramas of the water in the time of Deucalion hint at a certain idea of the sufferings that have been ordained concerning the whole. But the Phoenicians, in the manner of homonymy, or in some other way according to a kind of allegory, hold concerning Cronus, as one can take from the second book of the Phoenician History of Herennius Philo. And history hands down that he also reigned, as I recounted earlier, both over Libya and Sicily and the western regions, and that he founded a city, as Charax says, which was then called Cronia but now is called the Sacred City, as Isigonus in his work On the Palician Gods and Polemon and Aeschylus in his Aetna relate, or as all history is embellished according to Euhemerus, wisely concealing the theory of the so-called gods by sketching it out; ... divine things ... so that P... in his work On Dionysus rightly says that the just among kings and priests were honored by the gods themselves with equal honors and titles, and in this way were called gods in mythical fashion, while the history was handed down in a fabricated form. But there are those who say that Cronus, or by correspondence Chronus (Time), is a child of Uranus; for time comes from the motion of the heaven. And in the temple sacred to him, as Phylarchus says in the seventeenth book and Menander in the first, neither woman nor dog nor fly entered. Such things, then, have been said by those outside; but the sacred account—for we shall use the very words of the great Proclus—speaks word for word as follows:

But Cronus, being fourth, also receives his father's scepter by force and, being compelled, hands it over to his son, according to the guise of the myth. The mythical writers seem to have taken the cause of such a contrivance from the peculiar nature of the god; for since he presides over the Titanic order of the cosmos by reason of the divisive principle and the utmost extremity of the intelligible beings, in which otherness shone forth—for these reasons they say that he both receives and gives the kingship, as it were bringing in the power that strives with the secondary things against the primary in a warlike and violent manner. For truly the race of otherness is hostile and hard to share, as Plato's account says. Hence the son of the father is said to separate himself, and the son again to seize the rule, having forcibly subdued the concord toward each of the two by reason of the Titanic peculiarity. Such things he too says in the unfolding of the sacred myths. On the new moon of the month, abstaining from cabbage, they prayed to Poseidon and Aphrodite and Amphitrite, and moreover the powers to Cronus on behalf of the coming winter; likewise also to Tyche as overseer, to Temperance and to Eros, whom the mythical writers deem to be the child of Zephyrus the giant, as Eurytus the Lacedaemonian lyric poet says; and he begins thus: "Eros, image-like." And Plato in the Symposium says that Poverty, begging at the birthday feast of Aphrodite, went up and secretly plotted against Poros when he was drunk with nectar, and thus Eros was conceived; whence Moses, the great one, allegorizes about the origin of mankind. On this day, Varro says, the Hyades set and the rest of the winter follows.

Next, Eudoxus says that the Archer rises and foretells winter. They also celebrated a festival called the Agonalia to the laurel-bearing and ancestral Sun, just as at Athens the rite at the Daphnephoria. At this festival the so-called Septimontium was also celebrated by them, that is, the circuit of the city, because the walls of Rome extend over seven hills. Their names are: Palatium, Esquilinum, Tarpeium, Aventinum, Tiburtium, Praenestium, Viminalium. But among the ancients they are otherwise as follows: Aventinus, Caelius, Esquilius, Capitolinus, Velinensis, Quirinalis, Palatinus. On the day before the third of the Nones of December there is an unsanctioned day, on which Euctemon says the Dog sinks and winter begins. And a horse race was held, at which... The dupondii, as it were new recruits, whom the Italians call tirones from their serving as soldiers through lack of food. They called them dupondii from those just enlisted in military service; for they called them dupondii from their being content to serve as soldiers with only two coins; for the Romans customarily call the diobolon a dupondium. It was the custom of the Romans to divide their citizen body into three parts and to assign some to arms, some to farming, some to hunting. The winter season brings these to their end; for in it they neither arm themselves nor farm, because of the cold of the season and the shortness of the day; whence they also named it in their native tongue bruma, as it were breve hiems; and Brumalia, as it were winter festivals.

So the Romans, idling at this time until the Auxiphotia, would greet one another at night with auspicious cries, saying in their ancestral tongue "bibes annous," meaning "may you live for years." The farmers, for the service of Kronos and Demeter, slaughtered pigs; whence even now the pig-slaughter is observed in December. The vine-dressers slaughtered goats in honor of Dionysus—for the goat is hostile to the vine—and flaying them, they filled the skins with air and leapt upon them. The city-dwellers, moreover, took the first-fruits of the fruits that had been stored up—wine and oil, grain and honey, and all things from trees that endure and are preserved—and made loaves without water, and brought these to the priests of the Mother; and this custom is observed even now, and in November and December until the Auxiphotia they bring them to the priests. For the greeting by name at the Brumalia is a recent innovation; but more truly—and it is from this that the church also turns away from them—they call them the festivals of Kronos. They take place at night, because Kronos is in darkness, as having been cast into Tartarus by Zeus; and they hint at the grain from its being sown in the earth and thereafter not appearing. But this is more true, as has been said, that the zeal concerning them is a night-wandering, so that in truth the Brumalia are festivals of the subterranean daimones.

That the natural philosophers say this universe was once formless matter before the ordering of the world, whence those who have philosophized say that matter is Hades and Tartarus, as being disturbed and not at rest according to nature because of its formlessness. It is timeless but not without beginning, yet it is generated and caused, awaiting from eternity the activity of the Father himself, having received its wholly timeless existence from his will; whence the Chaldean in the Oracles calls matter father-begotten. And how Iamblichus in the first book of the Chaldean [work] speaks, it is worth hearing: "Matter is eternal, since it subsists together with the very first causes from eternity, and with them and along with them it has its being; but it never departs from itself, because by the homonymous and unitary power it is established in the common [principles]; and it is not imperfect and boundless, but it partakes of a certain perfection, since nothing proceeds from the paternal triad imperfect, but it is brought forth by it into perfection and limit. When, therefore, the elements were thus produced after it and yet were confounded, the Demiurge took the whole, which was disorderly, not keeping quiet but moving irregularly, and brought it into order, according to the Timaeus. And as the elements were being separated, and fire showed itself upward because of its natural lightness, while water fell into the depth because of its natural weight, the myth-makers cast Cronus down to Tartarus, as it were when the fire runs back up while the water

He lurks in the hidden recesses of the earth. Yet they call him the father of Zeus because of the moist substance, which is handed down as older than all the elements, according to the poet, who says: "Ocean, the origin of gods, and mother Tethys." And they named the water Tethys similarly, from its lying according to nature, being held together by the dry part of the earth and the dense part of the air. And so the natural philosophers speak about Cronus. But we find him nonetheless also reported in the books as a child of Uranus, as the rain begotten from the air, whence also rain is called as it were a son, or because after the heaven comes the cold zone, then the hot one. Concerning the casting down of Cronus into Tartarus, Ammonius says that Cronus is the intellect, or rather the soul—for they are not the same—and Zeus is generation; and that before generation the soul was confined in the body, and for this reason the body is called a body instead of a bond; and the castration is the last and generative and creative principle of all things; such is the nature of the genitals; and these Cronus cast away, the father of the Cronian nature, so that the power of the eternity of heaven might exist also in the sea, that is, in the world beneath the moon, which is likened to the unstable and much-turning sea, where are murder and wrath and the tribes of other death-spirits. Such are the teachings of the Greeks. Dionysus is the spirit that comes to be in fire, that is, the hot, whence he was called fire-born and thigh-reared and male-female by the Greeks, since those men were ignorant of the philosophy concerning him, and what he happens to be.

For this is the warm spirit, which from every seed of every living, spiritual creature is deposited for the generation and growth of all things in the world. And he was called "thigh-nurtured" because such substance of every living creature, from which all things were constituted, has its dwelling in the membranes and the generative swellings and the veins in the thighs. And he was called "male-female" because the male-female seeds become two, a masculine and a feminine nature, and it is not possible for one apart from the other to generate, unless they come together; and they will bring to life the living creatures made by him. And they have supposed that he is dissolved and again generated, since the things generated from him are likewise ceaselessly consumed and again brought to life. That the circle is the most perfect of shapes; whence the Egyptians, when they depict the world, engrave a rounded, airy and fiery circle and, stretched through the middle, a hawk-shaped serpent, as it were a cohesive good daimon; and the whole shape is like our Θ. That the number of the ogdoad is female and infinite and imperfect; whence also in Nicomachus it is called "born too soon"; for the eight-month period appears to have no ratio to any of the harmonic numbers. Whence eight-month births are not brought to completion; for being intermediate among the perfect numbers, it is itself found imperfect. For partaking of every material power, it has received the powers concerned with matter.

That a certain licentious soldier in Dadastana attacked a modest woman, forcing her to intercourse; and when she refused, since the corrupter was pressing hard upon her, the woman said to him that, if he would refrain from her, she would supply him with a drug that would save him unharmed from the sword, and she deigned to persuade him, dying for the sake of her modesty, to make the trial upon her own neck; and he, striking her, deprived himself of his desire and her of her life; so that time knows, after Stheneboea's Bellerophon, and Tennes the son of Alphesiboea, and Peleus the son of Astydameia, and the much-enduring Hippolytus, also the modest woman of our own day. That Tages holds that, in accordance with those called climarchs, demons are implanted in things that come to be everywhere, subject to those, displaying the power of the overseers over human affairs: for instance, Thracians are rapacious and savage through the dominion of Ares, while those toward the east are somewhat hot and lovers of gold and wakeful over the passage of it, as being subject to solar demons and carried up toward the matter consecrated to the sun. That Augustus, having overthrown Antony and Cleopatra, set Gaius Cornelius Gallus over the land formerly called Aeria, then Potamia, and now called Egypt, ordaining that he be called Augustalis from his own name, and by this custom the deputies of the prefects are also called Augustalii. That in the orders at the Palace there were also Augustalii, whom the Greeks call sebastophoroi, guarding the shrines of the gods and the images of the kings and the toga.

That Euripides in the Helen speaks thus concerning the Sirens: "Winged maidens, virgin daughters of Earth, the Sirens"; but Aristotle in the Peplos says they are named Thelxipeia, Aglaophemê, and Pasinoê. That Fabius the Roman, having been wounded at a critical moment in the first Phoenician war, was carried in anger against Hannibal, and seizing his diadem, died upon him. And in the Persian War, Aristeides says that Leonidas the general, having seen the multitude of the Persians at Thermopylae, advanced against the enemy from the opposite side, and pierced by countless spears, went against Xerxes and, snatching away his diadem, breathed his last; and the Persian, cutting him open, found his heart covered with hair from its innate heat. That Numa dedicated ten virgins to Hestia for the guarding of the immortal fire kept with her, just as in Athens it is said that immortal fire was once dedicated in the sanctuary of Athena Polias by Deucalion. If, then, it happened that the fire was suddenly extinguished, the high priest would strike the virgins with rods wrapped around, and by the crushing of evergreen wood, but not by fire, the fire was again kindled, with certain incantations. And the oracles lie open to those who wish for them in Tagês and Capito and Piso. Here ended the things once spoken by Fontêius the Roman; for he reports certain verses supposedly given to Romulus once in ancestral words, which openly foretell that the Romans will then abandon their fortune when they themselves forget their ancestral tongue. And the so-called oracle we have inserted among those who write about the months. That Asonides, having fallen in love with her (Niobe), when she would not yield, set fire to her house.

But she who fled prayed to be turned to stone and was turned to stone. That poems are called carmina among the Romans, and prophecy Carmenia. That the Romans call slanderers and informers delatores. Fortuna among the Romans is prosperity. Sporta among them is the basket, which is also called fiscus, although they differ in that fiscus is the name for the plaited basket of twigs, while sporta is the one made of bark. There is also another construction of basket, placed on the head in place of a cap, and it is called camela by the Italians, whence also camelaucia. The philosophers say that thunderbolts, as it were lightning strokes, come into being when there is a bursting of clouds; for when the earthy substance lying near them is set on fire, that which has been kindled is borne to the earth with a rushing sound by the impulse. And if the clouds happen to be moist, it is quenched together with its descent, but if they are more earthy, fiery bolts are squeezed out. They say there are two kinds of thunderbolts, of which the one, sharp and thin and fiery, is called arges, and the other, slow and smoky, psoloeis; and the one, on account of its fineness, is carried away with speed even before it sets anything on fire, so as not even to scorch any of the more porous things, while the slower one is capable of

to smear over as if from soot and to burn some of the things that fell under it, while bulbs, figs, seals, and hyenas remain unharmed; and it is said that the masts of ships are smeared with their hides as protection against thunderbolts. The ancients left the bodies of those struck by lightning unburied, since they remained incorrupt; for when the moisture in them is snatched away by the fire, they are naturally preserved as if baked through. The learned men of the Hebrews divide the doctrine of foreknowledge into two kinds, into signs and wonders; and they hold that signs are those that occur in the heavens, while wonders are those that appear on earth contrary to nature, such as that which is recorded in the so-called Exodus of the Hebrews concerning Moses himself: "And he saw that the bush was burning, but the bush was not consumed." And again: "Moses threw the staff upon the ground and it became a serpent." And again: "Moses brought his hand into his bosom, and his hand became like snow." Then again: "And God said to Moses: You shall take from the water of the river upon the dry land and it shall be blood." Then further on: "And the Lord said to Moses: If Pharaoh speaks to you, saying, Give a sign or a wonder, take your staff and throw it upon the ground, and it shall be a dragon." And not only these, but another wonder still more fearful: the change of all the water of Egypt into blood, and the multitude of frogs, and the so-called lice and the myopes, which they themselves call dog-flies, and the destruction of the cattle, and the ulcerous dust, the pustules, and the locusts—all these would rightly be called wonders.

And the signs that appear from on high, such as that which is recorded in the same writing: "And the Lord rained hail upon all the land of Egypt; there was hail, and fire flaming within the hail." And again: "And Moses stretched forth his hand toward heaven, and there came darkness, thick gloom and tempest upon all the land of Egypt." Such, then, is the Hebrews' account concerning signs, from which, I think, the other nations also came to call these marks diosemeiai; for Zeus is said by the natural philosophers to be the air, because it is life-giving, so that diosemeia is the sign of the air, just as fair weather is the name for the mild and calm condition of the air. It is necessary, then, that the simpler folk not be disturbed by names and shrink back from learning; for "I will give," he says, "signs in the heaven above, and wonders on the earth below, blood and fire and vapor of smoke; the sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood." Sabaoth, of the Creator; for thus among the Phoenicians the creative number is named. Thunder occurs when wind is enclosed in a thick and rather moist cloud and is forcibly driven out through it, whereby the continuous compactions of the cloud are burst asunder, and they produce a roar, that is, a sound and a great crash, which is called thunder, just as when wind is violently driven through water; and at the bursting of the cloud the wind, being heated, shines forth and is called lightning. That February, out of envy, accused Camillus of plotting tyranny.

And when the persecuted man had obtained a return again, because in his exile he had helped his besieged fatherland, February is brought to examination and is persecuted, and Camillus also cut short the month named after him beyond the others. For they say that Nemesis turns the polished affairs of life to the opposite by the excesses of fortune, as Numenius says, bringing equality upon the same wheel; whence Mesomedes speaks thus to her: beneath your unstable, untrodden wheel the bright fortunes of mortals are turned.