CHAP. 57. (56.)—SHOWERS OF MILK, BLOOD, FLESH, IRON,
WOOL, AND BAKED TILES[1].
Besides these, we learn from certain monuments, that from
the lower part of the atmosphere[2] it rained milk and blood,
in the consulship of M'Acilius and C. Porcius, and frequently
at other times[3]. This was the case with respect to flesh, in
the consulship of P. Volumnius and Servius Sulpicius, and it
is said, that what was not devoured by the birds did not become
putrid. It also rained iron among the Lucanians, the
year before Crassus was slain by the Parthians, as well as all
the Lucanian soldiers, of whom there was a great number in
this army. The substance which fell had very much the appearance of
sponge[4]; the augurs warned the people against
wounds that might come from above. In the consulship of
L. Paulus and C. Marcellus it rained wool, round the castle
of Carissanum, near which place, a year after, T. Annius Milo
was killed. It is recorded, among the transactions of that
year, that when he was pleading his own cause, there was a
shower of baked tiles.
1. 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.
2. The same region from which lightning was supposed to proceed.
3. 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.
4. This occurrence may probably be referred to an aërolite, while the
wool mentioned below, i.e. a light flocculent substance, was perhaps
volcanic.