[416] “Junonis quippe templum fulmine violatum ostendit non a Jove, non a Deis mitti fulmina.” Alexandre in Lemaire, i. 354. The consulate of Scaurus was in the year of Rome 638. Lucan, i. 155, and Horace, Od. i. 2. refer to the destruction of temples at Rome by lightning. [417] Obviously because faint flashes are more visible in the night. [418] We have an explanation of this peculiar opinion in Tertullian, as referred to by Hardouin, Lemaire. i. 355; “Qui de cœlo tangitur, salvus est, ut nullo igne decinerescat.” [419] Although it has been thought necessary by M. Fée, in the notes to Ajasson’s trans., ii. 384, 385, to enter into a formal examination of this opinion of the author’s, I conceive that few of our readers will agree with him in this respect. [420] Suetonius informs us, that Augustus always wore a seal’s skin for this purpose; Octavius, § 90. [421] The eagle was represented by the ancients with a thunderbolt in its claws. [422] There is strong evidence for the fact, that, at different times, various substances have fallen from the atmosphere, sometimes apparently of mineral, and, at other times, of animal or vegetable origin. Some of these are now referred to those peculiar bodies termed aërolites, the nature and source of which are still doubtful, although their existence is no longer so. These bodies have, in other instances, been evidently discharged from distant volcanoes, but there are many cases where the substance could not be supposed to have proceeded from a volcano, and where, in the present state of our knowledge, it appears impossible to offer an explanation of their nature, or the source whence they are derived. We may, however, conclude, that notwithstanding the actual occurrence of a few cases of this description, a great proportion of those enumerated by the ancients were either entirely without foundation or much exaggerated. We meet with several variations of what we may presume to have been aërolites in Livy; for example, xxiv. 10, xxx. 38, xli. 9, xliii. 13, and xliv. 18, among many others. As naturally may be expected, we have many narratives of this kind in Jul. Obsequens. [423] The same region from which lightning was supposed to proceed. [424] We have several relations of this kind in Livy, xxiv. 10, xxxix. 46 and 56, xl. 19, and xliii. 13. The red snow which exists in certain alpine regions, and is found to depend upon the presence of the Uredo nivalis, was formerly attributed to showers of blood. [425] This occurrence may probably be referred to an aërolite, while the wool mentioned below, i. e. a light flocculent substance, was perhaps volcanic. [426] Armorum sonitum toto Germania cœlo Audiit.—Virgil, Geor. i. 474, 475. “ ... in Jovis Vicilini templo, quod in Compsano agro est, arma concrepuisse.” Livy, xxiv. 44. [427] See Plutarch, by Langhorne; Marius, iii. 133. [428] See Livy, iii. 5 & 10, xxxi. 12, xxxii. 9, _et alibi_.