no rampart nor palisade were stout enough to withstand his cavalry’s wind-swift onset. Even now they[50] make ready to go aboard their ships, to dwell in Sardinia’s creeks and Corsica’s rocky, inhospitable coast, and to guard their lives behind the foaming main. Sicily herself, mistrusting the narrow strait, would fain retreat, did but Nature permit, and open a wider passage for the Ionian waves by withdrawing Pelorus. The rich, setting no store by their fretted golden ceilings, would rather have lived in greater security in an Aeolian cave. Soon, too, wealth was considered a burden, and greed of gain was curbed at last by reason of anxieties more overwhelming. Then--for that fear is by nature a babbler and allows all sorts of tales to be invented and believed--dreams, portents, and omens of ill were discussed on all sides. What, men asked, did that flight of birds portend, what message would heaven fain deliver to mortals by the thunderbolt, what did those prophetic books demand that guard the destiny of Rome? Constant eclipses of the moon alarmed us and night after night throughout the cities of Italy sounded wailings and the beating of brazen gongs to scare the shadow from off her darkened face. Men would not believe that the moon had been defrauded of her brother the sun, forbidden to give light by the interposition of the earth; they thought that Thessalian witches, accompanying the barbarian armies, were darkening her rays with their country’s magic spells. Then with these new portents their troubled minds link the signs of the past year and any omens that perchance peaceful days had neglected--showers of stones, bees swarming in strange places, furious [50] _i.e._ the inhabitants of Italy. * * * * * Page 144