Res Gestae

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, De Cons. Stil. iii. 226, Auratos Rhodiis imbres nascente Minerva indulsisse lovem perhibent: Iliad ii. 670; Pindar, Olymp. 7, 59 ff. (L.C.L. pp. 72 f.)) also Eleusis[*](An 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 climatiae[*](Moving 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, Timaeus, 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.

Among these three sorts of earthquakes the mycematiae[*](Bellowing.) are heard with a threatening roar, when the elements break up into their component parts and clash of their own accord, or slide back when the ground settles. For then of necessity the crashing and rumbling of the earth must resound like the bellowing of a bull. But to return to the episode which we began.

Now Caesar, while wintering in Paris, hastened with the greatest diligence to forestall the Alamanni, who were not yet assembled in one body, but were all venturesome and cruel to the point of madness after the battle of Strasburg; and while waiting for the month of July, when the campaigns in Gaul begin, he was for a long time in much anxiety. For he could not leave until the grain supply was brought up from Aquitania during the mild summer season, after the breaking up of the cold weather and frost.