litani. This fire, however, is internal[1], mild, and not burning the foliage of a dense wood which is over it[2]. There is also the crater of Nymphæum[3], which is always burning, in the neighbourhood of a cold fountain, and which, according to Theopompus, presages direful calamities to the inhabitants of Apollonia[4]. It is increased by rain[5], and it throws out bitumen, which, becoming mixed with the fountain, renders it unfit to be tasted; it is, at other times, the weakest of all the bitumens. But what are these compared to other wonders? Hiera, one of the Æolian isles, in the middle of the sea, near Italy, together with the sea itself, during the Social war, burned for several days[6], until expiation was made, by a deputation from the senate. There is a hill in Æthiopia called Θεῶν ὄχημα[7], which burns with the greatest violence, throwing out flame that consumes everything, like the sun[8]. In so many places, and with so many fires, does nature burn the earth!
CHAP. 111. (107.)—WONDERS OF FIRE ALONE.
But since this one element is of so prolific a nature as to produce itself, and to increase from the smallest spark, what must we suppose will be the effect of all those funeral piles
- ↑ "Internus." "In interiore nemore abditus." Hardouin in Lemaire, i. 435.
- ↑ If this account be not altogether fabulous, the appearance here described may be, perhaps, referred to the combustion of an inflammable gas which does not acquire a very high temperature.
- ↑ We have an account of this place in Strabo, vii. 310. Our author has already referred to it in the 96th chapter of this book, as a pool or lake, containing floating islands; and he again speaks of it in the next chapter.
- ↑ We have an account of this volcano in Ælian, Var. Hist. xiii. 16. It would appear, however, that it had ceased to emit flame previous to the calamitous events of which it was supposed to be the harbinger.
- ↑ This circumstance is mentioned by Dion Cassius, xli. 174. We may conceive that a sudden influx of water might force up an unusually large quantity of the bitumen.
- ↑ We have a full account of this circumstance in Strabo, vi. 277.
- ↑ "Currum deorum Latine licet interpretari." Hardouin in Lemaire, i. 456.
- ↑ "torrentesquc solis ardoribus flammas egerit;" perhaps the author may mean, that the fires of the volcano assist those of the sun in parching the surface of the ground.
