[295] The terms “faces,” “lampades,” “bolides,” and “trabes,” literally torches, lamps, darts, and beams, which are employed to express different kinds of meteors, have no corresponding words in English which would correctly designate them. [296] From this account it would appear, that the “fax” was what we term a falling star. “Meteora ista, super cervices nostras transeuntia, diversaque a stellis labentibus, modo aërolithis ascribenda sunt, modo vaporibus incensis aut electrica vi prognata videntur, et quamvis frequentissime recurrant, explicatione adhuc incerta indigent.” Alexandre in Lemaire, i. 302. [297] Seneca refers to this meteor; “Vidimus non semel flammam ingenti pilæ specie, quæ tamen in ipso cursu suo dissipata est ... nec Germanici mors sine tali demonstratione fuit;” Nat. Quæst, lib. i. cap. 1. p. 683. [298] This meteor is mentioned by Dion Cassius, lib. xlv. p. 278, but is described by him as a lampas. [299] We may presume that the _trabes_ are, for the most part, to be referred to the aurora borealis. _The chasma_ and the appearances described in the twenty-seventh chapter are probably varieties of this meteor. On these phænomena we have the following remarks by Seneca: “Lucem in aëre, seu quamdam albedinem, angustam quidem, sed oblongam, de noctu quandoque visam, sereno cœlo, si parallelo situ sit, Trabem vocant; si perpendiculari, Columnam; si, cum cuspide Bolida, sive Jaculum.” Nat. Quæst. vii. 4, and again, vii. 5, “Trabes autem non transcurrunt nec prætervolant, ut faces, sed commorantur, et in eadem parte cœli collucent.” [300] Seneca describes this meteor, _ubi supra_, i. 14. “Sunt chasmata, cum aliquando cœli spatium discedit, et flammam dehiscens velut in abdito ostentat. Colores quoque horum omnium plurimi sunt. Quidam ruboris acerrimi, quidam evanidæ et levis flammæ, quidam candidæ lucis, quidam micantes, quidam æquabiliter et sine eruptionibus aut radiis fulvi.” Aristotle’s account of chasmata is contained in his Meteor. lib. i. cap. 5. p. 534. [301] The meteor here referred to is probably a peculiar form of the aurora borealis, which occasionally assumes a red colour. See the remarks of Fouché, in Ajasson, i. 382. [302] The doctrine of the author appears to be, that the prodigies are not the cause, but only the indication of the events which succeed them. This doctrine is referred to by Seneca; “Videbimus an certus omnium rerum ordo ducatur, et alia aliis ita complexa sint, ut quod antecedit, aut causa sit sequentium aut signum.” Nat. Quæst. i. 1. [303] It would appear that, in this passage, two phænomena are confounded together; certain brilliant stars, as, for example, Venus, which have been occasionally seen in the day-time, and the formation of different kinds of halos, depending on certain states of the atmosphere, which affect its transparency.