BOOK VI

WHICH TREATS OF EARTHQUAKES

I

We have just had news, my esteemed Lucilius, that Pompeii, the 1 celebrated city in Campania, has been overwhelmed in an earthquake, which shook all the surrounding districts as well. The city, you know, lies on a beautiful bay, running far back from the open sea, and is surrounded by two converging shores, on the one side that of Surrentum and Stabiae, on the other that of Herculaneum. The disaster happened in winter, a period for which our forefathers used to claim immunity from such dangers. On the 5th of February, in the consulship of Regulus 2 and Virginius, this shock occurred, involving widespread destruction over the whole province of Campania; the district had never been without risk of such a calamity, but had been hitherto exempt from it, having escaped time after time from groundless alarm.

The extent of the disaster may be gathered from a few details. Part of the town of Herculaneum fell; the buildings left standing are very insecure. The colony of Nuceria had painful experience of the shock, but sustained no damage. Naples was just touched by what might have proved a great disaster to it; many private houses suffered, but no public building was destroyed. The villas built on the cliffs 3 everywhere shook, but without damage being done. In addition, they say, a flock of six hundred sheep was destroyed, and statues were split open; some people were driven out of their minds, and wandered about in helpless idiotcy. The plan of my present work demands a discussion of the causes of this, and the disaster itself fits in with our present inquiries (_i.e._ our discussion is opportune in view of the recent disaster). We must seek solace for the anxious and dispel overmastering fear. For what can any one believe quite safe if the world itself is shaken, and its most solid parts totter to their fall? Where, indeed, can our fears have limit if the one thing immovably fixed, which 4 upholds all other things in dependence on it, begins to rock, and the earth lose its chief characteristic, stability? What refuge can our weak bodies find? whither shall anxious ones flee when fear springs from the ground and is drawn up from earth’s foundations? If roofs at any time begin to crack and premonitions of fall are given, there is general panic: all hurry pell-mell out of doors, they abandon their household treasures, and trust for safety to the public street.

But if the earth itself stir up destruction, what refuge or help can 5 we look for? If this solid globe, which upholds and defends us, upon which our cities are built, which has been called by some the world’s foundation, stagger and remove, whither are we to turn? What comfort, not to say help, can you gain when fear has destroyed all way of escape? Where, I say, is there any protection you can trust? what is there that will stand as sure defence either of oneself or of others? An enemy I can drive off from my city wall. The mere difficulties of approach to turrets set on the dizzy heights will stop the march even of great armies. From storm the harbour shelters us; our roofs are 6 able to withstand the whole force of clouds let loose, and the endless deluges of rain. Fire cannot pursue us if we run away from it. Against heaven’s threats in thunder refuges underground and caverns dug out in the depths of the earth are of avail--the fire of heaven does not pierce the ground, but is beaten back by the tiniest portion of the soil. In time of plague we may change our place of abode. No species of disaster is without some means of escape. Lightning has never consumed whole nations. A plague-laden sky has drained cities, but has never blotted them out.

But this calamity of earthquake extends beyond all bounds, 7 inevitable, insatiable, the destruction of a whole State. Nor is it only families or households or single cities that it swallows; it overthrows whole nations and regions. At one time it hides them in their ruins, at another consigns them to the deep abyss; it leaves not a wrack behind to witness that what no longer is, once was. The bare soil stretches over the site of the most famous cities, and no trace is left of their former existence. Nor are there wanting those who dread most of all this kind of death, in which they go down alive into the pit, houses and all, and are carried off from the number of the living: as if every form of death did not lead to the one goal. Among 8 nature’s righteous decrees this is the chief, that when we reach the end of life we are all on a level. It makes no difference, therefore, to me whether one stone wound me to death or I am crushed beneath a whole mountain; whether the weight of one house come down on me, and I expire beneath the dust of its humble mound, or whether the whole world descend upon my head; whether I yield up this breath in the open light of day or in the vast abyss of the yawning earth; whether I am borne down to those depths all alone or along with a great throng of perishing nations. To me it can make no difference how great is the 9 turmoil that accompanies my death; the thing is everywhere just the same.

Wherefore, let us raise high our courage against that disaster, which can neither be shunned nor yet foreseen. Let us cease to listen to the people that have bid adieu to Campania since the time of this disaster, and have removed to other districts, vowing they will never set foot in that quarter again! Who can guarantee them more solid foundations in whatever soil they choose? All the world is subject to the same 10 fate. If it has not yet suffered from earthquake, it may; perchance this spot on which you stand in full security will be rent this night, or even this day before night. How can one tell whether is better the state of the places on which fortune has already spent her force or of those which are upheld meantime, but only for some disaster to come? We do greatly err if we suppose any quarter of the world wholly exempt from this danger. All quarters are subject to the same law. Nature framed nothing to be immovable. Different things will fall at different times. Just as in large cities, now this house and now that leans 11 over and has to be shored up, so in the world as a whole, now this part contains a flaw, now that. Tyre was once notorious for a disaster of the kind. The province of Asia lost at a single stroke twelve of its cities. Last year calamity overtook Achaia and Macedonia, now the injury has fallen upon Campania, whatever be the nature of that force which thus assails us. Fate makes a circuit, paying a second visit to places she has long passed over. On some places her attacks are more rare, more frequent on some. Nothing is suffered to be quite exempt 12 from injury. Not merely we men, whose life is frail and fleeting, but cities too, and the earth’s coasts and shores, yea, the very sea falls under bondage to fate. And in face of this we promise ourselves permanence in the boons fortune bestows! we suppose there will be stability and endurance in happiness, whose fickleness is greatest of all things on earth! While men promise themselves all things 13 in perpetuity, it never enters their thoughts that the very earth on which we stand is not permanent. The flaws of the ground are to be found everywhere; they are not peculiar to Campania or Tyre or Achaia. The earth coheres imperfectly, it suffers breach from many causes; permanent as a whole, it is subject to collapse in its parts.

II

What am I doing? I had promised to offer comfort in face of danger, 1 and lo! I threaten its terrors on all sides. I tell you that there can be no assured peace in what can suffer or cause destruction. But that very fact I regard as a solace, and, indeed, the most powerful of all. Fear is but folly when there is no escape from it. Philosophy delivers the wise from fear; even the unlearned may derive great confidence from despair. You must, therefore, regard the words addressed to those amazed by sudden captivity amid fire and foe as addressed to the whole human race:

The one safety of the conquered is to hope for none.

If you wish to fear nothing, think that everything is to be feared; 2 consider by how slight causes our life is dissipated. Neither food nor drink, nor waking nor sleeping, is healthful, except in due measure. One may soon realise that we are but puny, insignificant bodies, weak and unstable, that small effort is needed to compass our destruction. The only sufficiency of danger, doubtless, would be the earth’s trembling, its sudden dissipation, the rending of its surface into chasms!

Surely he sets a high value on his life who dreads only lightning, 3 and earthquakes with their yawning abysses; won’t he allow himself to open his eyes to his frailty and be afraid of choking on his phlegm? Such, forsooth, is our constitution by birth, such the powerful frames we have obtained, such the size we have grown to, that we cannot perish unless the four quarters of the world are moved, the heavens thunder, and the earth subside! Why, a pain in a tiny nail, not even the whole 4 nail, but a little ragnail at the side, may finish us! And I must fear only the trembling of the world, when too thick a spittle will choke me! I am to await with dread the removal of the sea from its place, or the overflowing of an abnormal tide with its excess of water; why, some ere now have been strangled by a drink that took a wrong course down the throat! What folly to be afraid of the sea when you know that a single drop may kill you! There is no solace of death greater than 5 the very liability to death, no solace of all the terrors from without equal to the thought that there are countless dangers within our own bosom. What greater madness than to collapse at the sound of thunder, and through fear of lightning to creep under the ground? What greater folly than to stand in fear of the earth’s tottering and the sudden 6 fall of mountains, or inroads of the sea cast up beyond the shore, when death is everywhere present and meets us on every side? Nothing is so small as not to be strong enough to compass the destruction of the human race. Great or unusual dangers ought not to unnerve us, as if they implied more mischief than a common death; nay, rather when one must quit the world and at last resign life, it should be a positive joy to perish by some grand cause. Die we must somewhere, sometime. 7 The ground you tread may stand firm, it may confine itself within its own bounds and not be tossed about by any violence; yet some day I shall be beneath it. Does it really matter, then, whether I place it on myself or itself do? It is rent by the irresistible force of some disaster; it bursts and draws me into its immense depths. What then? Is death easier on the earth’s level surface? What reason for complaint have I if nature will not have me lie in a place unknown to fame? or if she lays on me a portion of herself? My friend, Vagellius,[77] in 8 that famous poem of his, says finely:

If fall I must, I should desire to fall from the height of heaven.[78]

[77] The name is doubtful, as is, indeed, the quotation also.

[78] The sense may be: I would have the heavens fall along with me; this meaning would suit the context better.

We may adopt the language. If fall I must, let the earth be shaken at my fall; not that one ought to pray for a public disaster, but it is a great solace of death to see that the earth is likewise subject to death.

III

It will be useful also to be assured that none of these things is the 1 doing of the gods, and that the moving of heaven or earth is no work of angry deities. Those phenomena have causes of their own. It is not by special command that they put forth their rage, but, just as in our own bodies, the disturbance arises from certain inherent imperfections; at the moment when they seem to inflict injury, they sustain it. Through our ignorance of the truth all these things are terrible, the more as their infrequency increases our alarm. Familiar occurrences seem less 2 serious; the unusual causes greater terror. But why is anything unusual in our estimation? The reason is that we grasp the meaning of nature only superficially, and not rationally; we dwell too exclusively on what she has done, and do not consider what she can do. Accordingly, we pay the penalty of this neglect in our terror of things that we suppose unprecedented, when they are not really unprecedented, but merely unusual. For instance, are not superstitious fears inspired both privately and even for the safety of the State, if either the sun has been seen in eclipse or if the moon, whose obscuration is more frequent, has partially or wholly been concealed? And is not this far 3 more so in the case of such sights as we have spoken of: torches driven athwart the heavens, the sky on fire over the greater part of its extent, comets, mock suns, stars appearing in the daytime, the sudden passage of stars that mark their trail with a bright light? Our wonder at these is in no case free from fear. As the cause of the fear is ignorance, is it not worth while to gain the knowledge that will dispel it? How much better it would be to inquire into the causes of the alarming sights, to bend, in fact, our whole mind to the task? Nothing, surely, could be found more deserving than that, of having the mind’s energies not only lent to it, but devoted to it.

IV

Let us ask ourselves, therefore, what it is that stirs the earth to 1 its foundation, what moves a mass of such weight, what it is that is stronger than the earth, and that in its violence can shake such a load. Let us inquire why at one time the earth trembles, at another is loosened and sinks, and again is divided into parts and opens a chasm; or why on some occasions the intervals of destruction are prolonged, on others are suddenly cut short. What is the cause why it now consigns to its depths rivers of renowned greatness, and now causes fresh rivers to issue? why does it sometimes open up springs of hot water, sometimes freeze them with cold? and why at times are fires 2 caused to shoot out through some hitherto unknown opening in mountain or crag, while sometimes well-known fires, that have been famous for centuries, are suppressed? The earthquake produces a thousand strange sights, changing the aspect of the ground, levelling mountains, elevating plains, exalting valleys, raising new islands in the deep. What are the causes that bring these things to pass? That is a subject well worthy our discussion. What, you say, will be the reward of our labour? That reward, I say, which surpasses all others, the knowledge of nature. Among the many serviceable lessons to be derived from 3 such researches, no feature is more commendable than this, that man is thereby made to dwell upon the sight of his own grandeur[79]; the study is pursued, not in hope of gain, but from the wonder it excites. Let us inquire, therefore, what it is that brings about all this. The inquiry is so fascinating to me that although long ago in my youth I published a volume on earthquakes, I am anxious to make another trial of my powers, and to see whether age has added anything to my knowledge, or, at any rate, to my industry.

[79] The meaning may rather be--the grandeur of the subject.

V

The cause of earthquakes has been assigned variously by different 1 authorities to water, fire, air, and to the earth itself; some assign it to a combination of several of the causes, others, to a union of them all. Certain writers have stated that it was plain to them that some one of these causes produced the earthquake, but it was not plain which. Let us look at the various opinions in detail. First of all, I feel bound to say in general terms that the old views are crude and inexact. As yet men were groping their way round truth. Everything was new to those who made the first attempt to grasp it; only later were the subjects accurately investigated. But all subsequent discoveries must nonetheless be set down to the credit of those early thinkers. It was a task demanding great courage to remove the veil that hid 2 nature, and, not satisfied with a superficial view, to look beneath the surface and dive into the secrets of the gods. A great contribution to discovery was made by the man who first conceived the hope of its possibility. We must, therefore, listen indulgently to the ancients. No subject is perfected while it is but beginning. The truth holds not merely of the subject we are dealing with, the greatest and most complicated of all, in which, however much may be accomplished, every succeeding age will still find something fresh to accomplish. It holds alike in every other concern; the first principles have always been a long way off from the completed science.

VI

Water is the first cause alleged: more authors than one adopt this 1 view, but it is not stated by all in the same terms. Thales of Miletus is convinced that the whole earth floats, and is upborne by moisture lying beneath it, which you may call either Ocean or the great sea, or still mere elemental water of a different character from the sea, the simple ingredient, moisture. In these waves, in his opinion, the globe is supported like some huge lumbering vessel in the water which bears it. It is unnecessary for me to reproduce his reasons for supposing 2 that the heaviest part of the world cannot be sustained in such a rare and nimble element as air: for the earth’s position is not the question here but its movement. By way of argument, to prove that water is the cause, he adduces the fact that in every considerable earthquake, as a rule, new springs burst out. So if a boat leans over to one side away from the straight, the result is that it ships water. And, generally speaking, in the case of all objects which water supports, if they are unduly sunk, the water either pours over them or at any rate rises to right and left above its ordinary height.

Now, no lengthened consideration is needed to prove the falsity of 3 this view. Why, if the earth were supported by water, and from time to time shaken by it, it would be in perpetual shock; the wonder would be not that it was tossed about sometimes, but that it was ever at rest. Then, again, it would be shaken all over and not at a single point: we never find only half the ship tossed by the waves. But, according to present experience, a shock never occurs over the whole earth simultaneously, but is always felt at some particular spot. How, then, can it be that what is carried as a whole is not shaken as a whole, if the shock comes from the body by which it is carried?

But, it may be urged, why do waters burst out at the time of earth- 4 quakes? Well, in the first place, there has often been earthquake without any fresh supply of water appearing. Secondly, if the supposed cause of the water rushing forth were the true one, it would pour all round the sides of the earth, as we see happening under similar circumstances in sea and rivers: when boats sink, the increase of water shows itself chiefly over the sides. Finally, the outburst of waters which Thales describes would not be so small as he says, nor would it ooze in like bilge-water through a chink, but from the exhaustless reservoir that upbears all creation, a mighty deluge would ensue.

VII

Some, who, like Thales, attribute earthquake to the effects of water, 1 give a different explanation of its operation. There are, they say, many kinds of waters running over the whole earth. In one place there are constant rivers whose size renders them fit for navigation, even without the aid of rains. There is the Nile, rolling down its huge volume all summer long: here are the Danube and the Rhine separating with their streams the peaceful from the hostile, the former checking attacks from the Sarmatians and forming the boundary between Europe and Asia, the latter keeping back the Germans, a nation ever keen for war. Then there are lakes of very wide extent, great pools surrounded 2 by tribes mutually ignorant of each other, marshes that no boat can struggle through, that cannot be passed even by the people that dwell on their borders. Add, then, the multitude of fountains, and of river sources that belch out of their recesses full-grown streams. Besides, there are many rushing torrents that gather only for a time, whose force is as shortlived as it is sudden. Now there are waters, in all this variety of form and character, within as well as above the 3 earth. Away there below some are borne along in vast bulk, and tumble their whole volume down the steep: others more sluggish are dammed back in shallows, and flow with gentle, quiet stream. And can any one deny that within those vast underground hollows waters are formed, and lie sluggish and inactive in many places? It needs no long proof to show that there must be many waters in the place where all waters are. The earth would not be able to produce so many rivers unless it poured them from a copious reserve.

This being so, sometimes below the earth a river must become swollen, 4 and leaving its banks assail with violence all obstacles that meet it. So there will be a movement of some point on which the river has made an onset, and which it will keep lashing until its waters fall. Or it may happen that the constant wear of a stream may eat away some quarter, dragging down thereby some mass above, by whose fall, in turn, the surface which rested on it is shaken. Now surely a man trusts too 5 much to the sight of the eyes and cannot launch out his imagination beyond, if he does not believe that the depths of earth contain a vast sea with winding shores. I see nothing to prevent or oppose the existence of a beach down there in the obscurity, or a sea finding its way through the hidden entrances to its appointed place. There, too, it occupies as much space as here, perhaps more, since the regions up on earth have had to be shared with so many living creatures; but the hidden regions being desert without inhabitant give freer scope to the waves of the nether ocean. And who is there to hinder the sea from 6 swelling there and being tossed by all the winds that every interstice of the earth, and every species of atmosphere can create? So, then, when a storm greater than ordinary has arisen, it may beat upon some one side of the earth with too great vehemence and move it. For on the surface likewise, many places which had been far from the sea have felt the violence of its sudden approach: villas almost out of sight of it have been invaded by the waves which used only to be heard in the distance. The nether sea, too, can approach and retire; neither of which movements can take place without shock to the earth that stands above it.

VIII

I do not, indeed, suppose that you will long hesitate to believe that 1 there are underground rivers and a hidden sea. From what other cause could the rivers burst out and come to the surface unless the source of the moisture were shut up within the earth? For instance, when one sees the Tigris interrupted and dried up in the middle of its course, not diverted as a whole, but gradually with imperceptible losses first lessen and then waste away, where do you suppose it goes to if not to the depths of the earth, especially as you see it emerge again not less in volume than its former stream? And what are you to say when you 2 see the Alpheus, so celebrated by the poets, sink in Achaia and, having crossed beneath the sea, pour forth in Sicily the pleasant fountain Arethuse? And don’t you know that among the explanations given of the occurrence of the inundation of the Nile in summer, one is that it bursts forth from the ground, and is swollen not by rain from above but by water given out from within the earth?

I have myself heard from their own lips the story told by the two 3 non-commissioned officers sent to investigate the sources of the Nile by our good Emperor Nero, a monarch devoted to virtue in every form, but especially solicitous for the interests of truth. The King of Ethiopia had supplied them with assistance and furnished letters of introduction to the neighbouring kings, and so they had penetrated into the heart of Africa and accomplished a long journey. “We came 4 indeed,” I give their own words, “to huge marshes, the limit of which even the natives did not know, and no one else could hope to know; so completely was the river entangled with vegetable growth,[80] so impassable the waters by foot, or even by boat, since the muddy overgrown marsh would bear only a small boat containing one person. There,” my informants went on, “we saw with our eyes two rocks from which an immense quantity of water issued.” Now whether that is the real source or only an addition to the river; whether it rises there 5 or merely returns to the surface after its previous course underground; don’t you think that, whatever it is, that water comes up from a great lake in the earth? The earth must contain moisture scattered in numerous places and collected at depth in order to be able to belch it out with such violence.

[80] The so-called “sudd.”

IX

Fire is the cause assigned by some for earthquakes, but they are not 1 agreed as to its method of action. First among them is Anaxagoras, who is of opinion that pretty much the same cause produces concussion in the earth as in the atmosphere. In the nether parts of earth, air (gas) causes explosions of thick atmosphere massed in clouds with the same violence as on earth clouds are wont to be burst. Fire is struck out by this collision of clouds and by the rush of the atmosphere that is forced out. This fire in seeking an exit meets obstructions and 2 bursts through all obstacles, until it has either found a way of escape to the light through the narrow passages, or has made one for itself by violence and destruction. Other writers who still believe the cause to lie in fire do not suppose that this is its method of action: they think the fire presents itself in more than one place and burns away everything in the vicinity. Then if the parts eaten away fall in at any time, a shock follows in the portions which are deprived of their supports; they first totter and then collapse; nothing encounters them to support their weight. Then chasms and vast gulfs are opened up, or 3 it may be, after hanging a long time in the balance, the ground settles down over what is still left standing. We see the same thing happen ordinarily as often as a part of the city suffers from a fire. The joists are burnt through, or what gave support to the upper part of the buildings is undermined. Then the roofs after tossing about for a long time fall in; their swaying and oscillating continue until they find a resting-place on solid ground.

X

Anaximenes affirms that the earth is itself the cause of the earth- 1 quake, and that nothing encounters it from without to give it a shock. Within it, he thinks, certain parts of its substance fall of themselves, either loosened by moisture, or eaten away by fire, or shaken off by the violence of air. But even in absence of such active cause there is not wanting sufficient to account for the loss or removal of some portion of the earth. In the first place, all things fall through age, for nothing is safe from the ravages of time, which waste even the solidest and strongest edifice. In old buildings parts fall without being knocked off, merely because they have more weight than strength. So in the earth’s body as a whole it comes to pass 2 that portions are loosened by age, and being loosened, fall, causing shock to the things above them. This they do primarily while they are leaving their place; for nothing, especially if it is large, can be wrenched off without movement of that to which it adhered. But further, when the objects have fallen, they meet the solid earth and rebound like a ball. When a ball falls, it jumps up and bounces repeatedly, just as often, in fact, as it recoils from the ground for a new flight. If the loosened objects within the earth are carried down into stagnant waters, this accident of itself causes a shock to the vicinity through the wave cast up by the weight of the objects shot suddenly down from a great height.

XI

Some attribute these earthquakes to fire, but give different explanations of its action. When fire causes intense heat at various points beneath the earth, it must roll up a great cloud of vapour, which can find no exit, and which dilates the air by its high temperature. If the pressure of the vapour is excessive, it scatters all obstructions; but if it is comparatively moderate, it merely causes movement of the earth. We observe water smoke when fire is applied. What the fire does to this water in a narrow pot, one may suppose is done on a much greater scale when a violent and wide-spreading fire causes immense extents of water to boil. It then by evaporation from the overflowing waters shakes violently whatever it strikes.

XII

Many of the greatest authorities are persuaded that earthquakes are 1 to be attributed to air. Archelaus, who is well versed in the records of antiquity, speaks thus: Winds are carried down into the earth’s hollows and recesses. When they are all full, and the atmosphere is condensed to the utmost extent, the air, which continues to come in, forces and thrusts the former air, and with frequent blows first compresses and then dislodges it. The air in its endeavour to find 2 room forces all the narrow passages and tries to burst its barriers. Through the struggle of the air as it seeks for an escape it comes to pass that the earth is moved. This explains why the approach of an earthquake is preceded by still and quiet of the atmosphere; the force of the air which is wont to rouse the winds is held in check in its nether abode. Even on the present occasion of the earthquake in 3 Campania, although the season was winter, the atmosphere was perfectly still and calm for several days before it.[81] Well, then, did an earthquake never take place when there was a wind blowing? On very rare occasions have there been two winds blowing simultaneously. Still, such a thing is possible, and is wont to occur. But if we admit it as an established fact that two winds can be in activity at one and the same time, why shouldn’t it happen that [at times] one of them agitates the upper air, the other the nether?[82]

[81] The text is uncertain, and the argument down to the end of the chapter rather obscure.

[82] The argument seems to be: Two winds can blow simultaneously. One may be beneath the earth (causing or during earthquake), one above. Therefore, stillness of the upper atmosphere is not a necessary concomitant of earthquake. The fact has at times been otherwise.

XIII

In this category you may rank Aristotle and his disciple Theo- 1 phrastus, a man of pleasant though not of superhuman eloquence, as the Greeks considered him, and of easy, polished style. Let me unfold in more detail what they hold in common: There is always evaporation of some kind going on from the earth, which is at one time dry, at another has an admixture of moisture. When this, rising from the lowest parts of earth, has been raised to the utmost extent, and has no place beyond into which to issue, it is borne back and returns upon itself. The struggle of the air in its ebb and flow tosses to and fro all obstructions it meets, and, whether its egress is stopped or whether it escapes through the narrow openings, it causes movement of the earth and uproar. To the same school of opinion belongs Strato, who 2 made a special study of this department of science, and was a diligent student of natural philosophy. His verdict on the matter is this: Cold and heat always move away from one another in opposite directions, and cannot remain in the same place. Cold flows into the spot whence the influence of heat has departed; and, conversely, there is heat in the place whence cold has been banished. The statement is beyond doubt, but the contrariety of the two may become plain to you from the following: In the winter season, when there is cold on the earth’s surface, the 3 wells are warm, and caves and all underground retreats equally so. The heat, yielding possession of the upper regions to the cold, retreats down there. When it reaches the lower regions, and is accumulated there to the utmost, the denser it is, the more powerful is it. To this a further supply is added, to which what has already gathered, and is compressed into a narrow space, of necessity gives way. The same thing happens from the opposite cause when a greater quantity of cold is borne down to these recesses. All the heat that lurks there gives way 4 to the cold, and retires to the narrow passages, and is driven onward with great impetuosity. The nature of the two, as I have said, does not allow agreement, or abode in the same place. In its flight, then, and eager haste to escape at all hazards the air pushes back and tosses about all that lies near it. This is why, previous to an earthquake, a roaring is usually heard, through the tumult of the winds in the earth’s bowels. For not otherwise, as our poet Virgil says, could 5

The earth bellow beneath our feet and the lofty peaks be moved,

were not this the work of the winds. In this contest again there are ups and downs. There are cessations in the massing of the heat and, in turn, in its emission. Then the cold, too, is restrained and gives way, but some day soon it will be more powerful again. While, therefore, the alternating forces rush to and fro, and the air moves hither and thither, the earth is shaken.

XIV

There are some who think that, while air and no other cause produces 1 earthquake, it operates in a different way from that which Aristotle supposed. Listen to what they say: Our body is irrigated with blood, and with air which courses everywhere along its own routes. We have some comparatively narrow vessels through which they cannot do more than pass; some wider, in which they accumulate, and from which they are distributed to the members. So this whole body of the earth at 2 large has passages alike for water, which performs the function of blood, and for wind, which might be called simply the breath of its life. These two encounter each other at some points, at some points they are stationary. While in our bodies good health is enjoyed, the movement of the veins preserves its rate undisturbed; but when there is malady the pulse beats more rapidly, the deep breathing and panting betoken laboured, wearied effort. In like manner the earth remains unshaken while it maintains its natural position. But if any 3 flaw occur in it, there is a shaking, just as of a body suffering from disease; for the air which flowed through it with regularity is violently smitten, and causes its veins to quiver; but not, let me add, in the way, described a little above,[83] imagined by those who will have it that the earth is a living creature. In that case the earth, just as an animal does, would feel the agitation equally all over. When a fever seizes any of us, it does not delay for a time its attack upon some parts, but with uniform regularity spreads over them all.

[83] There seems a slight lapse of memory here. Cf. pp. 126, 196.

Perhaps you had better assume, therefore, that air from the surround- 4 ing atmosphere enters the earth. As long as it has free egress, it glides through it without doing harm; but if it meet some obstacle to block its way, then it is, to begin with, weighted with the atmosphere that pours in on the rear; by and by it escapes with difficulty through some chink, and makes its way with the greater violence the narrower the opening is. That cannot take place without a struggle, and a struggle involves shaking of the earth. But if the confined air cannot find even a chink by which to issue, it is massed and 5 becomes furious, and is driven round in this direction and in that, overthrowing or bursting one thing after another. It is excessively subtle, and at the same time exceedingly powerful; it can worm its way into obstructions however great, splitting and scattering whatever it enters. When this occurs, then there is a regular tossing of the earth. For the earth either opens to give room to the wind, or, after giving room, is deprived of its foundation and subsides into the very cavern from which it allowed the wind to issue.

XV

Some entertain the following opinion: The earth is porous at many points, possessing not merely those first shafts which it received as ventilators at its creation, but many subsequently opened up by various changes. In some places water has washed away the soil that was on the surface; part has been eaten away by torrents, while parts have been exposed by the disruptive action of great tides. Through the interstices thus produced air enters. If it so happen now that the sea has shut it in and driven it deeper, and the waves prevent its escape by the same road, egress and regress being alike closed, the air rolls about within the earth. Its natural tendency is to hurry straight forward, but as that path is closed, it presses upward and lashes the earth, whose weight lies heavy upon it.

XVI

I must further mention a view held by the majority of writers, which 1 probably I shall myself support. The earth does not lack air within; that everybody knows. I do not mean merely the air which holds it together and unites its parts, which exists even in stones and dead bodies; but I mean that fresh vital air which supports all life. Unless the earth possessed this store of air, how could she infuse it into so many trees and crops, which derive their life from this and no other source? How could she nourish all the different roots that sink into 2 the soil in one place and another, some merely attached to the surface, others sunk deeper, had she not an abundant supply of the breath of life, which produces so many varied growths and rears them with its nourishing draught? These are the slighter arguments that I hitherto urge. Why, all the heaven we see, which is shut in by fiery ether, the highest portion of the universe, all these stars, whose number cannot be conceived, all this concourse of heavenly bodies, and, to mention only one more, this sun, that urges his course so close to us, many times larger than the whole circuit of the earth--all these draw their nourishment from materials of earth which they share among them, and are sustained, of course, by nothing else than the breath of the 3 earth. This is their nourishment, this their pasturage. Now the earth would be unable to nourish so many bodies of such size, larger even than itself, unless it were full of breath, which it exhales from every part of it day and night. For there must be a large reserve of that from which so much is sought and taken; in fact, the supply to be drawn from it is created for the occasion. The earth would not possess a 4 perennial supply of air sufficient for the wants of so many heavenly bodies, unless the elements issued and returned alternately and were transmutable into one another. But apart from this, it is necessary that the earth be abundantly filled with it, and be able to draw it forth from her hidden store. There is no doubt then that a great quantity of air lurks in the interstices of the earth, and a widely diffused atmosphere occupies the hidden spaces underground. If that is true, of necessity the earth must often be moved, since it is full of a most movable substance. No one, I suppose, can doubt that there is nothing so restless, so capricious, so fond of disturbance as air.

XVII

It follows, therefore, that air should obey the law of its being; 1 what is wont to be moved will sometimes move other things. And when? Whenever its free course is checked. As long as it is not hindered it flows quietly along. When it is opposed and held back it becomes furious, bursting all obstacles just like that

Araxes that ever spurned a bridge.

As long as the river has a free easy channel it rolls down its waters 2 in due and regular succession. But if through chance or by human agency rocks are placed in its way to check its course, then it gathers fresh strength from the barrier, and the more numerous the obstacles opposed to it, the greater the force that it musters to overcome them. For all the water that accumulates behind, constantly increases, and being at last unable to bear its own weight manifests its violence through the havoc it works in its descent, and escapes headlong down its channel, bearing the very obstacles that blocked its path. The same thing occurs with air, only that, in proportion to its greater strength 3 and mobility, it is the more rapidly carried onward, and bursts the more violently all that encloses it. From this, of course, there is a disturbance in the part of the ground under which the struggle has occurred. The truth of this assertion may be proved from the consideration that often when an earthquake has taken place, involving a breach of only some part of the earth, wind has issued from it for several days. This is recorded to have taken place in the earthquake 4 in which Chalcis suffered, as you will find in Asclepiodotus, Posidonius’ pupil, in his discussion of my own topic of Physical Inquiries. In other authors, too, you will find it stated that after a chasm had opened up at one spot, in no long time wind issued from it, having no doubt made for itself the way along which it travelled.

XVIII

The chief cause of earthquake, therefore, is air, an element 1 naturally swift and shifting from place to place. As long as it is not stirred, but lurks in a vacant space, it reposes innocently, giving no trouble to objects round it. But when any cause coming upon it from without rouses it, or compresses it, and drives it into a narrow space, in the first instance, to be sure, it merely retires and roams about its enclosure. But when opportunity of escape is cut off, and resistance meets it on all hands, then

... With deep murmur of the mountain It roars around the barriers;...

which, after long battering, it dislodges and tosses on high, growing the more fierce, the stronger the obstacle with which it has 2 contended. By and by, when it has traversed the whole space in which it was enclosed, and has failed to find a way of escape, it recoils from the side on which its impact was greatest. It is then either distributed through the secret openings which the earthquake of itself causes here and there, or escapes through a new rent. So uncontrollable is this mighty power. No bolt can imprison wind; it loosens every bond, bears with it every weight, and insinuating itself into the smallest crannies wins its release; for by the invincible power of nature it is free, especially when roused, and asserts its right for itself. Air is 3 a thing no man can tame; nothing will be found which,

When the winds struggle and the tempests roar, Can restrain them by its sway and rein them by bonds and prison.

Doubtless the poets wished the place in which the winds lay pent up underground to be considered a prison. But they did not perceive either that what was shut up is no longer wind, or that what is wind can no longer be shut up. What is shut up is at rest, and the atmosphere is at a standstill; whereas all wind is in flight. Besides these arguments, there is a consideration by which it becomes manifest that motion 4 is brought about by air, namely, that our bodies never tremble except when some cause produces disturbance of the internal air,[84] which is contracted by fear, grows sluggish in old age, languishes when the veins are numbed, is checked with cold, or after some attack of fever is quite driven from its wonted course. As long as it flows unimpeded, and moves in its wonted fashion, there is no quivering of the body. When anything intervenes to prevent its functioning, then being no longer able to maintain what it upheld by its vigour, it fails, causing a collapse of everything that it had sustained when unimpaired.

[84] Or spirit: there is almost a play upon the ambiguous meaning of the term.

XIX

We must now hear what Metrodorus of Chios desires to urge by way of 1 opinion. I do not allow myself the liberty of passing over unnoticed even opinions that I disapprove; it is better to have the largest possible variety of views, and to condemn rather than omit what we do not approve. Well, then, what has Metrodorus to say? He compares the 2 subterranean disturbances to the voice of a person who puts his head into a barrel and begins to sing out. In that case there is a kind of quavering as the voice extends and resounds through the whole hollow space; slight as the movement is, it passes all round the vessel in which it is enclosed, grazing its sides and causing disturbance all through. In the same way the vast empty caverns that stretch down beneath the earth have atmosphere of their own, on which other air coming from above falls with violence. The agitation produced differs in no wise from that of the empty vessels which I have just mentioned, when they resound through shouting into them.

XX

Let us now go on to consider the authors who have alleged as causes 1 all the different factors mentioned, or, at any rate, several of them. Democritus is one of those who think that several are concerned. He asserts that the earthquake is produced sometimes by air, sometimes by water, sometimes by both. He pursues the argument in the following way: Some portion of the earth is hollow, in which a large quantity of water has gathered. Part of this water is thinner and less dense than the rest. When it is driven back by a heavy mass descending upon it from above, it comes violently against the earth, causing a commotion of it. The fluctuating movement of the water cannot take place without corresponding movement of the body on which it impinges. Besides, what we said a little above regarding air must be repeated in regard 2 water. When it is accumulated at one place, which becomes too small to contain it, it inclines in some particular direction, and opens up a passage for itself, at first by its mere weight, afterwards by the gathering force of its current. Being long shut up it cannot escape except down an incline, and it cannot drop straight down with any gentleness, or without violent shaking of the parts through which and on which it falls. Now, if after it has begun its rapid downward 3 movement it is checked at any point, and the force of the current is thrown back upon itself, it is driven back on the earth which encounters it, and attacks the earth at the point where it is most insecure. Moreover, the ground is sometimes so saturated with the moisture it has received into its heart that it subsides to a lower level and its very foundation is destroyed. The pressure is then exerted on the part toward which the weight of the descending waters most inclines. Air, too, sometimes urges the water. If it presses with some degree of violence, it naturally moves the part of the earth toward which it has urged the gathering of the waters. Sometimes, again, the air is driven into passages through the earth, and in its 4 search for a way of escape causes a general movement. The earth, as we know, is pervious to wind; air is too subtle to be excluded, too violent to be resisted when excited to rapid movement.

Turning from Democritus to Epicurus, we find the latter to assert that all the foregoing may be causes of earthquake, but he tries to introduce some additional ones. He criticises other authors for affirming too positively that some particular one of the causes is responsible, as it is difficult to pronounce anything as certain in matters in which conjecture must be resorted to. As he says, then, 5 water is capable of producing earthquake by washing and rubbing off certain portions, the weakening of which removes the support of what was upborne by them when unimpaired. The force of air is also capable of moving the earth. Perhaps the air within the earth is set in violent agitation by other air entering from without. Or, perchance, it may be that the earth receives an internal blow from the sudden fall of some portion of it, and derives thence the shock. Or, perchance, some portion of the earth is upheld, as it were, by certain pillars and stakes, the injury or withdrawal of which causes a tremor to run through the mass they support. Or, perchance, a quantity of hot air 6 turning to fire and assuming the character of lightning courses along to the widespread destruction of all obstacles it encounters. Or, perchance, some wind stirs the sluggish marshy waters, whose stroke in consequence shakes the earth; or the tossing of the air, increasing to violence through the mere movement, is carried from the lowest depths right up to the surface of the earth. Still, Epicurus is satisfied that there is no more potent cause of earthquake than air.

XXI

We Stoics also are convinced that it is only air that can attempt 1 such a feat as the production of an earthquake, for than it nothing in the whole realm of nature is more powerful, more energetic; in absence of it even the elements that are most violent lose their force. It is by air that fire is kindled; if you withdraw wind, water is sluggish. Water becomes impetuous only when the blast tosses it with violence. This force it is that has power to scatter vast spaces of earth, to raise from the depths new mountains, and to set in mid-ocean islands hitherto unseen. Can any one doubt that There and Therasia and this 2 island which in our days under our very eyes rose out of the Aegean Sea, were carried up to the light by the force of air?

Posidonius will have it that there are two different varieties in the movements of the earth, each with its distinctive name. The one is a quaking when the earth is shaken and moves up and down; the other is a tilting when, like a ship, it leans over to one or other side. I am of opinion that there is still a third variety, which we have a 3 special term to denote. Our forefathers had good reason for speaking of a trembling of the earth, for it is unlike either of the other kinds of movement. On such an occasion things are neither all shaken nor all tilted, but they quiver. In a case of this kind no great damage is usually done; while, on the other hand, a tilting is far more destructive than a shock; for unless a contrary movement set in very quickly from the other side to restore the level, downfall follows of necessity.

XXII

These movements being dissimilar, their causes are likewise 1 different. Let us deal first with the shaking movement. If great loads are being conveyed by a row of many waggons, and the wheels, under the unusual strain, fall into the ruts of the road, one feels the earth shaken. Asclepiodotus has put it on record that on one occasion the fall of a rock that was torn off from the mountain-side caused by the tremor the collapse of some houses in its vicinity. Just the same thing may occur beneath the earth; parts of the overhanging crags may be loosened and fall with great weight and noise upon the floor of the cavern beneath, and with a violence proportionate to the weight of the mass and the height of the fall. The whole roof of the subterranean valley is disturbed by an occurrence of this kind. It is conceivable, too, that rocks are not always wrenched off by their own weight; 2 when rivers roll over them, the constant moisture weakens the joints of the stone, and day by day bears away part of its fastening, causing abrasion, so to speak, of the skin in which the stone is enclosed. The long waste of ages, through constant daily rubbing, by and by so weakens the fastenings that they cease to be able to sustain their burden. Then blocks of vast size fall down, then the crag hurled 3 headlong will not suffer anything to stand that it strikes in the rebound from its fall, but

Comes away with a roar; and all things seem suddenly to rush headlong,

as our countryman Virgil says. Such must be the cause of the earthquake that shakes the ground beneath. Now I must pass on to the second kind.

XXIII

The earth is naturally full of cavities, containing much empty 1 space. Through these cavities air roams. When an excessive quantity has entered and cannot escape it shakes the earth. This explanation is approved by others, too, as mentioned a little above. Perhaps the crowd of witnesses will impress you. The view has the adhesion of Callisthenes, and he is a man not lightly to be set aside. He was endowed with a lofty intellect, and he dared to brave the wrath of a king. His death is an eternal blot on the memory of Alexander, which no valour and no success in war can ever remove. As often as it is said, Alexander slew many thousands of the Persians, the retort will 2 be, And Callisthenes too. As often as it is said, He slew Darius, in whose hands there was then a mighty kingdom, the retort will be, Yes, and Callisthenes too. As often as it is said, He conquered all lands right up to the Ocean, the Ocean likewise he essayed with fleets strange to its waters, from a corner of Thrace he extended his empire to the bounds of the East; it will also be said, Yes, but he slew Callisthenes. Granted that he surpassed all former precedents of 3 generals and kings, yet of all that he did, nothing will match his guilt in slaying Callisthenes.

Well, this Callisthenes, in the treatise in which he gives details of the sinking of Helice and Buris, and discusses the disaster which sent them into the sea, or the sea into them, says what I have said at a previous point. Air, he says, enters the earth by hidden openings under the sea, just as everywhere else. By and by, when the path is 4 blocked by which it had descended, and the resistance of the water in the rear has cut off its retreat, it is borne hither and thither, and encountering itself in its course it undermines the earth. That is the reason why land over against the sea is most frequently harassed by earthquakes; and hence it is that Neptune has been assigned this power of moving the earth.[85] Any one who has learned the elements of Greek knows that he is called among the Greeks Earthshaker (Ἐνοσίχθων).

[85] The usual reading, _maris_ = sea, contradicts the argument; it cannot surely be right.

XXIV

I shall be ready to allow that air is the cause of this form of 1 destructive earthquake. But I shall have some criticism to offer as to the method by which it enters the ground. Does it enter by fine openings that the eye cannot detect, or by larger and more evident ones? Does it come from the depths of the earth, or does it pass through the surface too? The last-mentioned view seems inconceivable. In our bodies the skin keeps out air, which finds no entrance except that through which it is inhaled. And even when taken in by us, it cannot settle except in the looser portion of the body. It does not remain among the sinews or muscle, but in the bowels and the open 2 vessels of our internal organs. The same arrangement may be suspected in regard to the earth’s interior from the very fact that the movement in an earthquake is not on the surface of the earth or about the surface, but beneath in the lowest parts. A proof of this is that seas of immense depth are tossed up, no doubt from the movement of the ground over which they spread. It is therefore probable that the earth 3 is moved in its depths, and that the air is formed there in the immense caverns. Nay, says some critic, but just as when we shiver from cold a trembling follows, so, too, the earth is shaken by air affecting it from without. This I deny can by any possibility occur. Why, the earth must get a chill in order to have the same happen to it as to us, whom an external affection drives into a shuddering fit. I should quite allow that the earth shows symptoms of much the same kind as 4 we do, but the cause is wholly different. An injury of a deeper kind, more toward its centre, must affect it, the very strongest proof of which may be found in the fact that when through violent earthquake the soil is laid open in wide destruction, the chasm sometimes takes in and buries whole cities. Thucydides tells us that, about the time of the 5 Peloponnesian War, the island of Atalanta, either wholly, or, at any rate, for the most part, was swallowed up. You may take Posidonius for witness that the same thing happened to Sidon. But we do not require evidence of this. Within our own memory the earth has been torn by internal movement, adjoining places have been rent asunder, whole plains have disappeared. I will now explain how I suppose this sort of thing to occur.

XXV

When air has completely filled a large vacant space within the earth, 1 and has begun to struggle and meditate escape, it lashes again and again the sides of the enclosure within which it lurks, and right over which, as it happens, cities are sometimes situated. The shaking is at times so violent that buildings standing above the area of disturbance are thrown down. Sometimes it goes to such lengths that the walls by which the whole roof of the cavern is supported fall right down into that vacant underground space, and cities sink entire into the unfathomed depths. Long ago, if one may believe the story, Ossa and 2 Olympus were united; subsequently they were separated by an earthquake, and the one great mountain was split into two. Then the Peneus made its escape, draining the marshes with which Thessaly was overspread, and drawing off the waters, which from want of exit had hitherto formed a lake. It was an earthquake that let loose Ladon, the river which flows between Elis and Magalenopolis. What, it is asked, do these facts go to prove? Simply that air gathers in the spacious caves--for what 3 other name can I apply to the empty places under the earth? Were this not so,[86] great spaces of the earth would be convulsed, and many of them would totter to ruin at one and the same time. As it is, only small portions suffer, nor does a shock ever extend as much as two hundred miles. Look at the recent one, the marvellous tales of which have filled the whole world; it did not pass beyond Campania. Need I say that when Chalcis felt the earthquake shock Thebes did not fall? 4 when Aegium suffered, Patras, which is quite close by, only learned by report about the earthquake? That mighty shock, which swallowed up the two cities Helice and Buris, stopped short of Aegium. Plainly, then, the movement extends only such distance as the empty space underground stretches.

[86] _I.e._ were the air distributed all through the earth.

XXVI

To prove my point I might have used, somewhat unfairly perhaps, the 1 authority of the great writers who relate that Egypt never experienced an earthquake shock, the reason they allege for it being that it is all composed of mud. If one may believe Homer, Pharos used to be as far from the mainland as a ship under full sail could reach in a day’s voyage; but it has now become attached to the mainland. The Nile’s swollen stream brings down great quantities of mud, and by adding it from time to time to the existing land it has by an annual increase constantly carried forward the coast of Egypt. The country thus is 2 composed of rich loamy soil without interstices, as it has become solid just by the drying up of the mud. The composition of the mud was close and firm, the particles of it being stuck together; no vacant space could intervene, since the solid was always being added to by the liquid and soft slime. But Egypt is, as a matter of fact, subject to earthquake; and Delos, too, though Virgil bade it stand fast,

And granted that it should be a settled land of tillage, and should laugh the winds to scorn.

The philosophers, too, a credulous set of people, relying on Pindar’s authority, said that it did not experience movement. Thucydides asserts that in former times it was unshaken, but sustained a shock about the time of the Peloponnesian War. Callisthenes asserts that the same thing happened on another occasion also. Among the numerous portents--these 3 are his words--by which warning was given of the overthrow of the two cities Helice and Buris, the most remarkable were the appearance of a huge pillar of fire and the earthquake shock in Delos. Yet he will have it that the island is comparatively firm for the reason that it is placed on the sea and has hollow crags and porous rocks, which afford a way of escape to air imprisoned in them. For this reason, too, islands have, he thinks, a firmer soil, and cities are safer in proportion 4 to their proximity to the sea. The falsity of such an opinion surely Pompeii and Herculaneum learned to their cost. Add now the fact that every sea-coast is particularly subject to earthquakes. Paphos, for instance, was more than once ruined, and the famous Nicopolis is already intimately acquainted with this mischief. Cyprus is surrounded by a deep sea, but is subject to shocks. Tyre is as regularly shaken by earthquake as it is washed by the waves. Such, then, are for the most part the explanations that have been suggested for the trembling of the earth.

XXVII

We must now essay an explanation of certain peculiar features which 1 are said to have occurred in the recent Campanian earthquake. A flock of six hundred sheep is asserted to have been killed in the district near Pompeii, and there is no reason to suppose that this happened to the sheep through fright. We have said that after great earthquakes it is usual for a pestilence to occur. And no wonder, since in the depths of earth many deadly poisons lurk. In fact, the very atmosphere there, 2 being stagnant through some fault in the earth or the sluggish movement and the everlasting darkness that prevails, is dangerous to breathe. Or being poisoned by the fumes of the internal fires, when it is released from its long inactivity, it taints and pollutes this pure clear air above, and brings new forms of disease to those who inhale the unwonted draught. You remember, too, that we found the water lurking in the secret depths to be useless and even pestilential, since activity never stirs it, and the free breath of heaven never ruffles it. Being therefore thick and covered beneath gross eternal darkness 3 it contains only elements that are pestilential and injurious to our bodies. So, too, the atmosphere, which mingles with it and lies amid these marshes, scatters far and wide its poison when it issues out, and kills those who breathe it. The flocks, which the pestilence is wont to attack, feel the poisonous effects more readily, because they are more greedy in feeding. They live for the most part in the open, and they drink a great deal of water, which is chiefly responsible for the pestilence. Sheep are of rather delicate constitution, and, as 4 they keep their heads close to the earth, I am not surprised at their being attacked by the infection; they receive the blasts of tainted air just as it issues from the ground. If it had issued in greater volume, it would have injured man too. But the abundant supply of pure air counteracted it before it could rise high enough to be breathed by any human being.

XXVIII

Now you may infer that the earth contains many deadly elements from 1 the mere fact that so many poisons grow of themselves without being sown; the soil no doubt contains seeds of evil as well as of good. Is it not the case that, earthquakes apart, in several places in Italy a pestilential steam is emitted through certain openings, which it is not safe for either man or beast to breathe? Even birds, if they meet it before it is neutralised by the purer breath of heaven, fall in mid-flight; their bodies become livid, and their jaws swell just as if they had been strangled. As long as this air is contained in the 2 earth and escapes by a narrow opening, it has no greater power than to kill creatures that look down into, or voluntarily approach too near, it. But when for centuries darkness has brooded over it, and the gloom of the place has increased the infection, it becomes more dangerous through mere lapse of time; the more sluggish it is, all the more deadly does it become. Then when it has gained an exit it lets loose all that mischief conceived in the cold shades through endless ages of nether darkness, tainting with it the atmosphere of our realms of earth. The better is ever conquered by the worse. Even that purer 3 air of heaven then changes to pestilential. Thence come sudden and continuous deaths, and portentous forms of disease that spring from unexampled causes. The disaster is long or short lived, according to the strength of the sources of infection. Nor does the plague cease until the freedom of heaven and the tossing of the winds have banished[87] that fatal air.

[87] Or purified.

XXIX

Through fear some people have run about as if distracted or mad. For 1 fear, even when in moderation and confined to individuals, shatters the mind’s powers. But when there is public alarm through fall of cities, burying of whole nations, and shaking of earth’s foundations, what wonder that minds in the distraction of suffering and terror should have wandered forth bereft of sense? It is no easy matter in the midst of overmastering evils not to lose one’s reason. So it is, as a rule, the feeblest souls that reach such a pitch of dread as to become unhinged. No one, indeed, has suffered extreme terror without 2 some loss of sanity; one who is afraid is much like a madman. But some quickly recovering from the alarm regain self-possession. Others it more violently disturbs and reduces to sheer madness. Hence during times of war lunatics are to be met wandering about. On no occasion will one find more instances of raving prophets than when mingled terror and superstition have struck men’s hearts.

I am not surprised that a statue is split by an earthquake, after I have recounted that mountains have been separated from mountains and the ground itself burst asunder down to its depths.

These places, once convulsed by the force of vast ruin-- 3 Such the power of change in the lapse of lengthened ages! Leaped asunder, they tell us, whereas hitherto both lands Were one; into their midst rushed the deep with its mighty billows, Cutting off the Italian from the Sicilian side; fields and cities Were parted in sea-line and washed by the narrow tide that flowed between.

One sees whole regions torn from their place, and what was once contiguous, now lying beyond the sea. One sees a separation of cities and nations when a part of nature is roused by internal motion, or the sea or fire or air has assailed some point; for their force is marvellous, since it has a boundless reserve from which to draw. Though its rage is vented at but one point, yet it has the world’s whole 4 strength to reinforce its wrath. Thus it was that the sea tore away Spain from the mainland of Africa. Thus it was by the flood, which the greatest of poets have celebrated, that Sicily was cut away from Italy. The movements that proceed from depth have much more force. They are more energetic, as their effort is concentrated upon a narrow area. Enough has now been said to show what mighty deeds these earthquakes have wrought and what wondrous sights they have displayed.

XXX

Why, then, should one be amazed that the bronze of a single statue 1 is burst, and that, not even solid, but hollow and thin? as likely as not air in seeking an escape has got enclosed in it. And does not every one know that buildings are sometimes observed in time of earthquake to split at the corners and be united again? Other things badly set upon their base, and loosely and carelessly put together by the workmen, have been known to be welded firmly together by the repeated shaking of the earthquake. If it splits whole walls and whole houses, and rends 2 the sides of great towers, which are constructed of solid masonry, and scatters the piles that support the foundations of great works, why should one think it worthy of remark that a statue had been cut equally into two from base to summit? But why, it may be asked, did the shock last for several days? For Campania went on trembling continuously, 3 more gently it is true, but still causing great damage, because what it shook was already shaken and crushed. Things stood so insecurely as to require only a slight shake, but not a push, to bring them down. The explanation of the prolonged shaking is no doubt that all the air had not yet escaped, but though the greater part was discharged, a remnant was still roaming about here and there.

XXXI

There is yet a further proof that you may unhesitatingly add to the 1 others that go to show that all these phenomena are the outcome of air. After the most violent shock that cities and provinces can experience has spent itself, another of like violence cannot immediately follow; after the crisis there are only slight shocks, just because the most violent one has opened a way of escape for the struggling winds. The remains of the air that is left have not the same power, nor do they require to struggle; they have now found a way of escape, and follow the path by which the first and greatest shock issued.

I am of opinion, too, that the observations of a certain learned and 2 grave philosopher of my acquaintance deserve to be put on record; he happened to be taking a bath when the earthquake occurred. He asserted that he saw the tiles with which the floor of the bathroom was paved, separate one from another and unite again. At one moment, when the pavement opened, the water was taken in through the joints, the next, when the pavement closed, it was forced out all bubbling. I have heard the same learned man relate that he had seen soft materials undergo more frequent but more gentle shocks than materials naturally hard.

XXXII

So much, my esteemed Lucilius, with respect to the mere causes of 1 earthquakes. Now we must adduce some considerations that will tend to reassure us in face of the perils of earthquakes. After all, it concerns us more closely to acquire resolution of mind than erudition, and yet the former cannot be had without the latter. Assurance comes to the mind from no source but elevating studies and the contemplation of nature. Is there any one, I say, that reflects upon causes, who will not be reassured and emboldened by this late catastrophe in Campania to face disasters of all kinds? Why should I fear man or beast, bow or 2 lance? Far greater perils are ever lurking for me. Lightning and earth shock, and all the great forces of nature, aim their blows at us. Death must therefore be resolutely[88] challenged whether its attack be with vast[88] overpowering onset or by ordinary means of daily occurrence. It is of no moment how threatening its approach, or how great the engine it brings up against us. The life it asks of us is a very little thing. It will be taken from us by old age, or by a little pain in 3 the ear, or by a superabundance of tainted moisture within, by food that the stomach cannot assimilate, or by a slight injury to one’s toe. Man’s life is a paltry affair, but a mighty affair is the contempt of life. He who can despise life may look unmoved upon the tossing of the sea, even though all the winds have roused it, even though by some upheaval of the world the tide has turned the whole Ocean bodily upon the land. Unmoved he will behold the fierce forbidding aspect of the 4 thundering heavens, yes, though heaven itself be crushed and unite its fires for the destruction of mankind and of itself first of all. Unmoved he will behold earth’s framework rent and earth’s foundations yawning beneath. Though the realms of the nether world be uncovered, he will stand over the abyss still dauntless, and into the pit into which he is doomed to fall he will perhaps leap. What is it to me how great the powers by which I perish? To perish is itself no great matter.

[88] It would seem that _ingenti_ and _aequo_ have by some means got transposed in the ordinary texts. Gercke reads _saevo_ for _aequo_.

Wherefore, if we desire to be happy, to be harassed by no fear 5 either of men, or gods, or circumstance, to despise fortune with her superfluous promises and her contemptible threats, if we desire to live the peaceful life, and to vie with the very gods in happiness, then we must carry our life in our right hand. Whether snares or diseases attack it, the swords of foes or the crash of falling tenements, or the downfall of earth itself, or the violence of widespread fire enveloping city and field in common disaster, let who will take it. What more do I owe life than to encourage it on its journey, and to despatch it 6 with good wishes? _Go resolutely, go prosperously!_ There must be no hesitation in rendering back life. It is merely a question of time, not of fact. What you are doing must be done some day. Beseech not nor fear, nor draw back as if starting to face some peril. Nature, who bore you, waits your coming to a place better and safer than earth. There is no earthquake there, friend, no winds clashing with loud noise of 7 cloudy sky, no fires to waste province and city, no fear of shipwreck swallowing up whole fleets, no armies arrayed with opposing banners, or common fury of hosts prepared for mutual destruction, no plague, no pyres lit up around the promiscuous resting-place of slaughtered nations. If death is a light affair, why fear it? If it is heavy, then rather let it fall once for all than be always hanging over us. Should _I_ fear to perish when earth must perish before me, when the powers 8 that shake are shaken, when they hasten to our destruction only through their own? The sea received Helice and Buris entire; shall I fear for one poor body? Ships sail over the site of two towns, aye, towns that we know well, that the record preserved by letters has brought to our intimate knowledge. How many others have been sunk in other places? how many nations has either earth or sea engulfed? Shall I rebel against my end when I know that I am not endless? nay, when I am fully assured 9 that all things come to an end, shall I fear my latest sigh?

Wherefore steel yourself, Lucilius, with all your might against fear of death. This fear it is that drags us down; this it is that torments and destroys the life it tries to preserve. It magnifies all those dangers, earthquakes and lightnings, and the rest. You will be able to bear them all resolutely if you but reflect that short and long in life make no difference. It is but hours we lose. But suppose it is days, 10 or months, or years, what we lose is, surely, bound to perish. What difference, pray, is it whether I manage to reach them or not? Time flows on; it leaves behind those most eager to seize it. Neither what is to be is mine, nor what was. I am poised upon a point of fleeting time; it is a great thing to have been moderate in one’s ambitions. Laelius the Wise made a neat retort once to a person who said, I am sixty years old: you mean, said he, the sixty you no longer 11 _are_.[89] We show our failure to grasp the terms of this elusive life of ours, and the conditions of time that is never our own, in reckoning up as ours years that are now lost. Let us fix this in our minds, and constantly remind ourselves, I must die. When? What matter is that to you? Death is a law of nature; death is a tribute and a duty imposed on mortals; it is the remedy of all ills. Whoever now fears it will one day long for it. Giving up all else, Lucilius, make this your one meditation, not to dread the name death. By long reflection make death an intimate friend, that, if so required, you may be able even to go forth to welcome it.

[89] It is almost impossible to express in English the play on _habeo_ = have; French is more amenable. “J’ai soixante ans! Parlez-vous des soixante ans que vous n’avez plus?”--NISARD.