12. Anaximander says that the earth when burnt up by excessive heat and drought, and also after excessive rains, opens larger fissures than usual, which the upper air penetrates with great force and in excessive quantities, and the earth, shaken by the furious blasts which penetrate those fissures, is disturbed to its very foundations; for which reason these fearful events occur either at times of great evaporation or else at those of an extravagant fall of rain from heaven. And therefore the ancient poets and theologians gave Neptune the name of Earthshaker,[70] as being the power of moist substance. 13. Now earthquakes take place in four manners: either they are _brasmatiæ_,[71] which raise up the ground in a terrible manner, and throw vast masses up to the surface, as in Asia, Delos arose, and Hiera; and also Anaphe and Rhodes, which has at different times been called Ophiusa and Pelagia, and was once watered with a shower of gold;[72] and Eleusis in Boeotia, and the Hellenian islands in the Tyrrhenian sea, and many other islands. Or they are _climatiæ_,[73] which, with a slanting and oblique blow, level cities, edifices, and mountains. Or _chasmatiæ_,[74] which suddenly, by a violent motion, open huge mouths, and so swallow up portions of the earth, as in the Atlantic sea, on the coast of Europe, a large island[75] was swallowed up, and in the Crissæan Gulf, Helice and Bura,[76] and in Italy, in the Ciminian district, the town of Saccumum[77] was swallowed up in a deep gulf and hidden in everlasting darkness. And among these three kinds of earthquakes, _myæmotiæ_[78] are heard with a threatening roar, when the elements either spring apart, their joints being broken, or again resettle in their former places, when the earth also settles back; for then it cannot be but that crashes and roars of the earth should resound with bull-like bellowings. Let us now return to our original subject. VIII. § 1. Cæsar, passing his winter among the Parisii, was eagerly preparing to anticipate the Allemanni, who were not yet assembled in one body, but who, since the battle of Strasburg, were working themselves up to a pitch of insane audacity and ferocity. And he was waiting with great impatience for the month of July, when the Gallic campaigns usually begin. For indeed he could not march before the summer had banished the frost and cold, and allowed him to receive supplies from Aquitania.