And, the greater part of the temples and private houses might have been saved, and of the population as well, had not a sudden onrush of flames, sweeping over them for five days and nights, burned up whatever could be consumed.

I think the time has come to say a few words about the theories which the men of old have brought together about earthquakes; for the hidden depths of the truth itself have neither been sounded by this general ignorance of ours, nor even by the everlasting controversies of the natural philosophers, which are not yet ended after long study.

Hence in the books of ritualSee Cic., i. 33, 72; Festus, p. 285 M. and in those which are in conformity with the pontifical priesthood,The pontificales libri of Seneca, 108, 31. nothing is said about the god that causes earthquakes, and this with due caution, for fear that by naming one deity instead of another,The Roman ritual required that in addressing a god, the identity of the god must be made sure and he must be called by his proper name; cf. for example, Horace, ii. 6, 20, Matutine pater, seu lane libentius audis, and the altar at the foot of the Palatine, sei deo sei deivae sacrum. since it is not clear which of them thus shakes the earth, impieties may be perpetrated.

Now earthquakes take place (as the theories state, and among them Aristotle, ii. 8. is perplexed and troubled) either in the tiny recesses of the earth, which in Greek we call σύριγγαι,Subterranean passages. under the excessive pressure of surging waters; or at any rate (as Anaxagoras asserts) through the force of the winds, which penetrate the innermost parts of the earth; for when these strike the solidly cemented walls and find no outlet, they violently shake those stretches of land under which they crept when swollen. Hence it is generally observed that during an earthquake not a breath of wind is felt where we are,But compare the procellae of § 3, above. because the winds are busied in the remotest recesses of the earth.

Anaximander says that when the earth dries up after excessive summer drought, or after soaking rainstorms, great clefts open, through which the upper air enters with excessive violence; and the earth, shaken by the mighty draft of air through these, is stirred from its very foundations. Accordingly such terrible disasters happen either in seasons of stifling heat or after excessive precipitation of water from heaven. And that is why the ancient poets and theologians call Neptune (the power of the watery element) EnnosigaeosEarthshaker, Juv. x. 182 and Sisichthon.Earthquaker, Gell. ii. 28, 1.

Now earthquakes take place in four ways; for they are either brasmatiae,A Greek word from βράζειν. boil up. or upheavings, which lift up the ground from far within, like a tide and force upward huge masses, as in Asia Delos came to the surface, and Hiera, Anaphe, and Rhodes, called in former ages Ophiusa and Pelagia, and once drenched with a shower of gold;Cf. Claudian, iii. 226, Auratos Rhodiis imbres nascente Minerva indulsisse lovem perhibent: ii. 670; Pindar, 7, 59 ff. (L.C.L. pp. 72 f.) also EleusisAn ancient town of Boeotia near Lake Copais. It was not swallowed up by an earthquake, but destroyed by an inundation (Strabo, ix. 2, 18; Paus. ix. 24, 2); and it was not an island. in Boeotia, Vulcanus in the Tyrrhenian Sea, and many more islands. Or they are climatiaeMoving sidewise. which rush along to one side and obliquely, levelling cities, buildings, and mountains. Or they are chasmatiae, or gaping, which with their intensive movement suddenly open abysses and swallow up parts of the earth; as in the Atlantic Ocean an island more extensive than all Europe,Atlantis; see Plato, , pp. 24e-25a. and in the Crisaean Gulf,Salona Bay, a part of the Corinthian Gulf; see Diod. xiv. 48, 49. Helice and Bura; and in the Ciminian district of Italy the town of Saccumum;Its exact location is unknown: it was near Lago di Vico. these were all sunk into the deep abysses of Erebus, and lie hidden in eternal darkness.