The fall of meteors is noted frequently in Chinese records, the first instance dating from 644 B.C. Of a meteor that fell in 213 B.C., we are told that it descended as “a star which turned to a stone as it fell.”[144] A meteorite that fell in China in 211 B.C. is said to have been the indirect cause of many deaths. The event took place during the reign of the tyrannical emperor Chi Hoang-ti, who had incurred the resentment of all the Chinese litterati by his wholesale burning of books. Some believer in the power of sorcery caused an inscription to be cut on this stone predicting the death of the hated emperor within a year, and when news of the fact came to the monarch’s ears he gave orders to have the stone split up, and to put to death all the inhabitants of the place where it was found, this being no doubt looked upon as a most effective conjuration of the spell.[145] In 405 B.C., Lysander won his great victory over the Athenian fleet at Ægospotami in Thrace, and Plutarch writes, in his life of Lysander,[146] that a stone which fell from the heavens a short time before the battle was regarded by many as a portent predicting the dreadful slaughter that was to ensue. At the time Plutarch wrote (circa 150 A.D.) this stone could still be seen at Ægospotami, where it was regarded with great veneration by the Chersonites. The Greek philosopher Anaxagoras is said to have predicted the fall of this meteorite, as he had observed certain perturbations in the movements of the heavenly bodies. As Anaxagoras died in 428 B.C., his prediction must have long antedated the fall of the meteorite. A detail given in one of the early recitals might possibly have constituted the basis of a prediction by some contemporary physicist. In the latter part of his account of the phenomenon Plutarch quotes from a Treatise on Religion, by a certain Daimachus, to the effect that, for seventy-five days before the fall of the meteorite, a vast fiery body was seen in the heavens, in appearance “like a flaming cloud.” This well describes the appearance of a great comet, and might be regarded as significant when we consider the latest modern theory of the origin of meteors, according to which these bodies are detached particles of a cometary aggregation. Of this meteoric mass said to have fallen at Ægospotami, Pliny states that it was as large as a wagon and of a dusky hue, adding that a brilliant comet was visible at the time of its fall. Regarding the assertion that Anaxagoras predicted the occurrence, Pliny declares that this prediction, if true, was a greater miracle than the fall of the meteor. A portion of the stone was preserved as a venerated relic in the town of Potidæa.[147] The site of the city of Seleucia is said to have been determined by the fall of an aerolite, and this stone is figured on some of the coins of the Seleucidæ, a thunderbolt appearing in its stead on other coins.