A great prodigy of the earth, which never happened more
than once, I have found mentioned in the books of the Etruscan
ceremonies, as having taken place in the district of Mutina,
during the consulship of Lucius Martius and Sextus Julius[1].
Two mountains rushed together, falling upon each other
with a very loud crash, and then receding; while in the daytime flame
and smoke issued from them; a great crowd of
Roman knights, and families of people, and travellers on the
Æmilian way, being spectators of it. All the farm-houses
were thrown down by the shock, and a great number of
animals that were in them were killed; it was in the year
before the Social war; and I am in doubt whether this event
or the civil commotions were more fatal to the territory of
Italy. The prodigy which happened in our own age was no
less wonderful; in the last year of the emperor Nero[2], as I
have related in my history of his times[3], when certain fields
and olive grounds in the district of Marrucinum, belonging
to Vectius Marcellus, a Roman knight, the steward of Nero,
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