Pompey likewise making war against Cæsar, when he had called his allies together, he set his army in order as he went out of Dyrrachium, Bees met him and sate so thick upon his ensigns that they could not be seen what they were. Philistus and Ælian relate, that while Dionysius the tyrant did in vain spur his horse that stuck in the mire, and there at length left him, the horse quitting himself by his own strength, did follow after his master the same way he went with a swarm of Bees sticking on his mane; intimating by that prodigy that tyrannical government which Dionysius affected over the Galeotæ. In the Helvetian History we read, that in the year 1385, when Leopoldus of Austria began to march towards Sempachum with his army, a swarm of Bees flew to the town and there sate upon the tyles; whereby the common people rightly foretold that some forain force was marching towards them. So Virgil, in 7 Æneid: The Bees flew buzzing through the liquid air: And pitcht upon the top o’ th’ laurel tree; When the Soothsayers saw this sight full rare, They did foretell th’ approach of th’ enemie. That which Herodotus, Pausanias, Dio Cassius, Plutarch, Julius Cæsar, Julius Capitolinus, and other historians with greater observation then reason have confirmed. Saon Acrephniensis, when he could by no means finde the oracle Trophonius; Pausanias in his œticks saith he was lead thither by a swarm of Bees. Moreover, Plutarch, Pausanias, Ælian, Alex. Alexandrinus, Theocritus and Textor are authors that Jupiter Melitæus, Hiero of Syracuse, Plato, Pindar, Apius Comatus, Xenophon, and last of all Ambrose, when their nurses were absent, had honey dropt into their mouths by Bees, and so were preserved.”[616] In East Norfolk, England, if Bees swarm on rotten wood, it is considered portentous of a death in the family.[617] This superstition is as old at least as the time of Gay, for, among the signs that foreshadowed the death of Blonzelind, it is mentioned: Swarmed on a rotten stick the Bees I spy’d Which erst I saw when Goody Dobson dy’d.[618] In Ireland, the mere swarming of Bees is looked upon as prognosticating a death in the family of the owner. In parts of England it is believed, that if a swarm of Bees come to a house, and are not claimed by their owner, there will be a death in the family that hives them.[619] It is a very ancient superstition that Bees, by their acute sense of smell, quickly detect an unchaste woman, and strive to make her infamy known by stinging her immediately. In a pastoral of Theocritus, the shepherd in a pleasant mood tells Venus to go away to Anchises to be well stung by Bees for her lewd behavior. Now go thy way to Ida mount-- Go to Anchises now, Where mighty oaks, where banks along Of square Cypirus grow, Where hives and hollow trunks of trees, With honey sweet abound, Where all the place with humming noise Of busie Bees resound.