We have heard, that during the war with the Cimbri, the rattling of arms and the sound of trumpets were heard through the sky, and that the same thing has frequently happened before and since[426]. Also, that in the third consulship of Marius, armies were seen in the heavens by the Amerini and the Tudertes, encountering each other, as if from the east and west, and that those from the east were repelled[427]. It is not at all wonderful for the heavens themselves to be in flames[428], and it has been more frequently observed when the clouds have taken up a great deal of fire. CHAP. 59. (58.)—OF STONES THAT HAVE FALLEN FROM THE CLOUDS[429]. THE OPINION OF ANAXAGORAS RESPECTING THEM. The Greeks boast that Anaxagoras[430], the Clazomenian, in the second year of the 78th Olympiad, from his knowledge of what relates to the heavens, had predicted, that at a certain time, a stone would fall from the sun[431]. And the thing accordingly happened, in the daytime, in a part of Thrace, at the river Ægos. The stone is now to be seen, a waggon-load in size and of a burnt appearance; there was also a comet shining in the night at that time[432]. But to believe that this had been predicted would be to admit that the divining powers of Anaxagoras were still more wonderful, and that our knowledge of the nature of things, and indeed every thing else, would be thrown into confusion, were we to suppose either that the sun is itself composed of stone, or that there was even a stone in it; yet there can be no doubt that stones have frequently fallen from the atmosphere. There is a stone, a small one indeed, at this time, in the Gymnasium of Abydos, which on this account is held in veneration, and which the same Anaxagoras predicted would fall in the middle of the earth. There is another at Cassandria, formerly called Potidæa[433], which from this circumstance was built in that place. I have myself seen one in the country of the Vocontii[434], which had been brought from the fields only a short time before. CHAP. 60. (59.)—THE RAINBOW.