... "He (Typhon) is fast bound by a pillar of the sky, even by snowy Etna, nursing the whole year's length her dazzling snow. Whereout pure springs of unapproachable fire are vomited from the inmost depths: in the daytime the lava-streams pour forth a lurid rush of smoke; but in the darkness a red rolling flame sweepeth rocks with uproar to the wide deep sea.... That dragon-thing (Typhon) it is that maketh issue from beneath the terrible fiery flood."[1] [1] Translated by Ernest Myers, M.A., 1874. Æschylus (B.C. 525-456) speaks also of the "mighty Typhon," (_Prometheus_ V.): . . . . . "He lies A helpless, powerless carcase, near the strait Of the great sea, fast pressed beneath the roots Of ancient Etna, where on highest peak Hephæstos sits and smites his iron red hot, From whence hereafter streams of fire shall burst, Devouring with fierce jaws the golden plains Of fruitful, fair Sikelia."[2] [2] Translated by E. Myers. Herein he probably refers to the eruption which had occurred a few years previously (B.C. 476). Thucydides (B.C. 471-402) alludes in the last lines of the Third Book to several early eruptions of the mountain in the following terms: "In the first days of this spring, the stream of fire issued from Etna, as on former occasions, and destroyed some land of the Catanians, who live upon Mount Etna, which is the largest mountain in Sicily. Fifty years, it is said, had elapsed since the last eruption, there having been three in all since the Hellenes have inhabited Sicily."[3] [3] Translated by E. Crawley. Virgil's oft-quoted description of the mountain (_Eneid_, Bk. 3) we give in the spirited translation of Conington: "But Etna with her voice of fear In weltering chaos thunders near. Now pitchy clouds she belches forth Of cinders red, and vapour swarth; And from her caverns lifts on high Live balls of flame that lick the sky: Now with more dire convulsion flings Disploded rocks, her heart's rent strings, And lava torrents hurls to-day A burning gulf of fiery spray." Many other early writers speak of the mountain, among them Theokritos, Aristotle, Ovid, Livy, Seneca, Lucretius, Pliny, Lucan, Petronius, Cornelius Severus, Dion Cassius, Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, and Lucilius Junior. Seneca makes various allusions to Etna, and mentions the fact that lightning sometimes proceeded from its smoke. Strabo has given a very fair description of the mountain. He asserts that in his time the upper part of it was bare, and covered with ashes, and in winter with snow, while the lower slopes were clothed with forests. The summit was a plain about twenty stadia in circumference, surrounded by a ridge, within which there was a small hillock, the smoke from which ascended to a considerable height. He further mentions a second crater. Etna was commonly ascended in Strabo's time from the south-west.