Res Gestae

The greater number were killed at one blow, and where there were just now human beings, were then seen confused piles of corpses. Some were imprisoned unhurt within slanting houseroofs, to be consumed by the agony of starvation. Among these was Aristaenetus, vice-governor of the recently created diocese which Constantius, in honour of his wife, Eusebia, had named Pietas; by this kind of mishap he slowly panted out his life amid torments.

Others, who were overwhelmed by the sudden magnitude of the disaster, are still hidden under the same ruins; some who with fractured skulls or amputated arms or legs hovered between life and death, imploring the aid of others in the same case, were abandoned, despite their pleas and protestations.[*](Some refer this to the disabled, others to those who were fleeing. I think it refers to both; of. in a parallel case Curtius iv. 16, 12 qui sequi non poterant inter mutuos gemitus deserebantur. )

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 ritual[*](See Cic., De Div. i. 33, 72; Festus, p. 285 M.) and in those which are in

Now earthquakes take place (as the theories state, and among them Aristotle[*](Meteorologica, 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) Ennosigaeos[*](Earthshaker, Juv. x. 182) and Sisichthon.[*](Earthquaker, Gell. ii. 28, 1.)