WHICH TREATS OF THE DIFFERENT FORMS OF WATER
PREFACE
I am not unaware, my dear friend Lucilius, of the greatness of the 1
edifice whose foundations I am laying in my old age, when I resolve to
survey the universe, to unearth its motives and secrets, and to reveal
them to the knowledge of others. When shall I ever manage to cover
such a field, gather together such widely-spread material, behold with
clear vision such profound secrets? Old age presses hard on the rear,
upbraiding me with the years bestowed on vain pursuits. We must ply our
task all the more vigorously, and toil must now make good the loss of a
lifetime withdrawn from its true purpose. Night must be added to day,
engagements cut short, care abandoned of property that lies far away 2
from its owner. The mind must be wholly set free from other thoughts,
and at least at the moment of its flight from earth must bestow itself
in self-contemplation. It shall do so, and shall urge itself on, and
each day it shall measure the brief span of time left. What has been
lost shall be repaired by diligent use of the remainder of life. The
surest pledge of virtue is repentance and amendment. I may exclaim in 3
the words of an illustrious poet:
High is the courage that inspires me, great the work, but short
The time in which to plan.
I should say the same were I planning it in boyhood or in youth. No
period could be anything but narrow in face of such an undertaking. As
it is, when the midday of life is past, I have entered upon a task that
is serious, difficult, limitless. Let me act as people generally do 4
in a journey--those that are late in starting make up for the delay by
their speed. I must hurry on, and without further excuse on the score
of age proceed to tackle my problem--undoubtedly a vast, possibly an
insuperable, one. My mind swells with pride when I survey the magnitude
of my undertaking and reflect how much is unaccomplished of my plan,
though not of my life.
Some writers have wasted their efforts in narrating the doings of 5
foreign kings, and in telling, as the case may be, the sufferings
or the cruelties of nations. Surely it is wiser to try to end one’s
own ills than to record for a coming generation the ills of others.
How much better to make one’s theme the works of the gods than the
robberies of Philip, or Alexander, or the other conquerors who earned
their fame by the destruction of mankind! Such men were as truly
scourges of humanity as a flood by which a whole plain has been
inundated, or a conflagration by which the greater part of its living
creatures has been burnt up. The historians tell us how Hannibal 6
crossed the Alps, how he suddenly transferred into Italy a war rendered
more formidable by Roman disasters in Spain; how, when his fortunes
were shattered, more determined still, even though the fate of Carthage
was sealed, he wandered through all kingdoms, offering to be leader
against Rome, and begging for an army; how he never ceased even in
his old age to seek to rouse up war in every corner of the world. He
could, it was plain, endure to be without a country, but not without a
foe.
How much better is it to inquire what ought to be done than what 7
has been done, and to teach those who have entrusted their state to
fortune that nothing she gives is stable, but that all her gifts are
more fickle than the very air! For she cannot rest, her delight is to
match sadness with joy, and to mingle smiles with tears. Therefore in
the day of prosperity let no man exult, in the day of adversity let no
man faint: the successions of fortune alternate. Why should you boast
yourself? The wave meantime bears you aloft on its crest; but where 8
it may strand you, you cannot tell. Its end will be of its own choice,
not of yours. Or why, again, do you despond? You have been carried
down to the nadir; now is the chance of rising again. Adversity alters
for the better, success for the worse. Changes of the kind must be
anticipated, not merely in private families, which are affected by a
slight cause, but also in sovereign houses. Dynasties rising from the
gutter have ere now established themselves above the ruling powers,
while ancient empires have fallen when in the very heyday of their 9
power. The number cannot be reckoned of the kingdoms that have been
overthrown by other kingdoms. God now makes it His special aim to exalt
some and to overthrow others; nor does He let them gently down, but
dashes them from their pinnacle, so that no remnant of them is left. A
great sight it is; we think it so only because we are ourselves small.
There are many departments in which the standard is not derived from 10
the actual size of the objects, but from our own littleness.
What, I ask, then, is the principal thing in human life? Not to have
filled the seas with fleets, nor to have planted the standard of the
nation on the shores of the Red Sea, nor, when land has been exhausted,
to have wandered for the injury of others over the Ocean in quest of
the unknown. Rather it is to have grasped in mind the whole universe,
and to have gained what is the greatest of all victories, the mastery
over besetting sins. There are hosts of conquerors who have had cities
and nations under their power, but a very few who have subdued self.
What is the principal thing? I say again. To raise the soul above the
threats and promises of fortune; to consider nothing as worth hoping
for. For what does fortune possess worth setting your heart upon? 11
Why, as often as you lapse from converse with what is divine back to
what is human, your eyes will be blinded just like the eyes of those
who have returned from bright sunlight into gross darkness. What is
the principal thing? To be able to endure adversity with joyful heart;
to bear whatever betide just as if it were the very thing you desired
to happen. For you would have felt it your duty to desire it, had
you known that all things happen by God’s decree. Tears, complaints,
lamentation, are rebellion. What is the principal thing? A heart 12
in face of calamity resolute and invincible; an adversary, yea, a
sworn foe, to luxury; neither anxious to meet nor anxious to shun
peril; a heart that knows how to fashion fortune to its will without
waiting for her; which can go forth to face ill or good dauntless and
unembarrassed, paralysed neither by the tumult of the one nor the
glamour of the other. What is the principal thing? Not to admit evil 13
counsel into the heart, and to lift up clean hands to heaven; to seek
for no advantage which some one must give and some one lose in order
that it may reach you; to pray--a prayer that no one will envy--for
purity of heart; as for other blessings which are highly esteemed by
the world, even should some chance bring them to your home, to regard
them as sure to depart by the same door by which they entered. What
is the principal thing? To lift one’s courage high above all that 14
depends upon chance; to remember what man is, so that whether you be
fortunate, you may know that this will not be for long; or whether you
be unfortunate, you may be sure you are not so if you do not think
yourself so.
The principal thing is to have life on the very lips, ready to
issue when summoned. This makes a man free, not by right of Roman
citizenship, but by right of nature. He is the true freeman who has
escaped from bondage to self. That slavery is constant, from it there
is no deliverance; it presses us day and night alike, without pause,
without respite. To be a slave to self is the most grievous kind 15
of slavery; yet its fetters may easily be struck off, if you will but
cease to make large demands upon yourself, if you will cease to seek a
personal reward for your services, and if you will set clearly before
you your nature and your time of life, even though it be the bloom of
youth; if you will say to yourself, Why do I rave, and pant, and sweat?
Why do I ply the earth? why do I haunt the forum? Man needs but little,
nor needs that little long.
To this end it will be profitable for us to examine the nature of the
universe. In the first place we shall rise above what is base; in
the second, we shall set the spirit free from the body, imparting to
it that courage and elevation of which it stands in need. Besides,
subtlety of thought practised on the hidden mysteries of nature wil 16
prove no less efficacious in problems that lie more on the surface.
And nothing is more on the surface than these salutary lessons we are
taught as safeguards against the prevailing vice and madness--faults we
all condemn, but do not abandon.
I
Let us enter then on an investigation of forms of water, and let us 1
trace the causes that produce them; whether, as Ovid says:
There was a fountain silvery clear with gleaming wavelets;
or, as Virgil says:
Whence through nine mouths with mighty roar of the mountain
The sea issues in broken waves, overspreading the fields with its
resounding flood;
or, as I find it in your own poem, my dear Lucilius:
The stream of Elis wells up from Sicilian fountains.
Let us inquire by what method the waters are supplied; how it is that
day and night unceasingly so many huge rivers roll down their course; 2
why some are swollen by the rain of winter, some increase in summer
when all the other streams fail. Meantime let us separate the Nile
from the common crowd; it is a river of peculiar and unique character.
We shall give it its turn by and by. At present we will confine our
treatment to the common waters, cold as well as hot. In regard to
the latter we must inquire whether the heat is due to natural or
artificial causes. We shall discuss other waters too which are rendered
remarkable by taste or some special virtue. Some, for example, I may
explain, alleviate affections of the eyes, some, those of the sinews, 3
some effect complete cure of chronic maladies given up by doctors as
hopeless. Some again heal sores, some by being drunk ease internal pain
and relieve complaints of the lungs and bowels. Some staunch the flow
of blood; in fact their individual uses are as varied as their taste.
II
All waters are classed as either standing or running; they are either
gathered in one or occupy different channels underground. Some of them
are sweet, others have pungent flavours of different kinds, among them
salt, bitter, medicinal. Belonging to the last class one may name
sulphur, iron, alum waters. The taste shows the quality. Waters of
different kinds have many other differences. First there is touch, hot
and cold; then weight, light and heavy; then colour, pure, muddy, dark
blue, yellowish; then wholesomeness, wholesome and useful, or deadly or
capable of petrifaction. Some waters are thin, some thick; some give
nourishment, others pass through the system without benefiting it at
all; the use of some removes barrenness.
III
The lie of the ground makes water either stand or run; on a slope it
flows down, a plain keeps it in, causing it to stagnate. Sometimes
under pressure of air it is forced uphill; it is then driven, it does
not flow. Surface water comes from rain; spring water from a natural
fountain. There is, however, nothing to prevent surface and spring
water in the same spot. This we see in Lake Fucinus, into which the
streams drain all the rainfall of the surrounding mountains, while
there are also large springs concealed under the surface of the lake
itself. So, even when the torrents discharge into it in winter, it
preserves its appearance unaltered.
IV
Let us inquire therefore, in the first place, how the earth can contain
sufficient water to maintain the unbroken flow of the rivers, and where
such a vast quantity of water comes from. We are surprised that the
ocean is not sensible of the additional water derived from rivers. It
is no less surprising that the earth is not sensible of the loss of all
the water that issues from it. What is it that has so filled it up that
it can from its hidden recesses furnish such quantities and continually
make good the loss as it does? Whatever explanation we give regarding a
river must apply also to streams and springs.
V
Some are of opinion that the earth receives back all the water it has
lost. The sea, therefore, does not get larger, because it does not
assimilate the water that runs into it, but forthwith restores it to
the earth. For the sea water returns by a secret path, and is filtered
in its passage back.[50] Being dashed about as it passes through the
endless, winding channels in the ground, it loses its salinity, and,
purged of its bitterness in such a variety of ground as it passes
through, it eventually changes into pure, fresh water.
[50] The ordinary text, as Koeller saw, is evidently wrong. It runs:
“For by a secret path the sea water enters the ground and becomes
visible, and returns stealthily, and is filtered, etc.” No author can
be supposed to have written such a sentence. The restoration must be
conjectural. I have adopted what seems simplest and most in keeping
with the context.
VI
Some suppose that all the water that the earth drinks in from rain is
sent out again into the rivers. They set down by way of proof the fact
that there are fewest rivers in the localities where there is least
frequent rain. On that account, they say, the deserts of Ethiopia are
destitute of streams, and few springs are found in the interior of
Africa, because there is always a blazing sky and almost perpetual
summer. Therefore there are ugly stretches of sandy waste, without tree
and without inhabitant, sprinkled at rare intervals by showers that
they immediately swallow up. On the other hand, it is well known that
there are abundant streams and rivers in Germany and Gaul and next to
them in Italy, because they enjoy a moist climate, and even the summer
is not without rainfall.
VII
A great deal can obviously be urged in reply to this. First of all, 1
as a diligent digger among my vines, I can affirm from observation
that no rain is ever so heavy as to wet the ground to a depth of
more than 10 feet. All the moisture is absorbed in the upper layer of
earth without getting down to the lower ones. How, then, can rain,
which merely damps the surface, store up a supply sufficient for
rivers? The greater part of it is carried off at once into the sea by
river-channels. But a small portion is absorbed by the ground, and even
that is not retained. For the ground is either dry and so uses up at 2
once the water poured into it; or else it is saturated and throws off
what of the rainfall it does not require. This is the reason why rivers
do not rise with the first rainfall; the thirsty ground absorbs it all.
And then, again, how are we to explain the fact that some rivers burst
out from rocks and mountains? What contribution can be made to them
by rains that are carried down over the bare crags and have no earth
into which to sink? Besides, wells sunk in the very driest localities 3
to a depth of 200 or 300 feet reveal rich springs of water at a depth
to which rain water does not penetrate. One may be sure there is no
rain water there nor any gathering of moisture, but living (= spring)
water as it is usually called. The opinion in question is disproved by
this other argument, too; some springs well up in the very summit of a
mountain. It is plain, therefore, that the water in them is forced up
or forms on the spot, since all the rain water runs off.
VIII
Some writers think there is an exact parallelism between the external
and the internal distribution of water in the earth. On the outer
surface are huge marshes, great navigable lakes, and seas covering
immense tracts of earth and pouring over its hollows. So in the
interior of the earth there is abundant store of fresh water, which
overflows great spaces no less than the Ocean and its gulfs above
ground; in fact, still more extensively, as the depth of the earth
extends farther down than that of the sea. From that supply in the
deeps, therefore, those rivers of which we have spoken issue. And
why should one be surprised that the earth is not sensible of their
withdrawal since the sea is not sensible of their addition?
IX
Some approve the following explanation: The earth contains, they 1
assert, many hollow recesses and a great quantity of air. This air,
under pressure of the gross darkness, of necessity freezes. Then
remaining sluggish and unmoved it ceases to circulate and turns into
water. Just as on earth a change in the density of the atmosphere
produces rain, so beneath the earth the change of density starts a
river or a stream. In the former case the air above our heads cannot
long remain sluggish and heavy; for sometimes it is rarefied by
the sun’s heat, sometimes expanded by the wind’s force. There are,
therefore, long intervals between falls of rain. But underground 2
the forces, whatever they are, that turn air into water, are
constant--perpetual darkness, everlasting cold, inert density; they
can, therefore, supply without a break the sources of fountain or
flood. We Stoics are satisfied that the earth is interchangeable in
its elements. So all this air that she has exhaled in her interior,
since it is not taken up by the free atmosphere, condenses and is
forthwith converted into moisture.
X
There you have the first cause of the origin of underground water. 1
You may add the more general principle that all elements arise from
all: air comes from water, water from air; fire from air, air from
fire. So why should not earth be formed from water, and conversely
water from earth? If the earth is capable of transmutation into other
elements, water must be one of them, in fact, the most suitable of
them. The two things are cognate; both are heavy, condensed, both
driven by nature down to the very confines of the universe. Earth is
formed from water; why not water from earth in like manner?
But, you say, the rivers are too large to be accounted for in this way.
Well, after you have considered the size of the rivers, just look at
the size of the reservoir whence they issue. Are you surprised that a 2
fresh supply of water is always forthcoming for them, since they flow
on for ever, some even rushing down their channel with impetuous haste?
Surely you might as well be surprised, when the winds drive hither
and thither the whole atmosphere, that the supply of air does not
fail, but flows on day and night unceasingly. And the wind, remember,
is not confined to a definite channel, as rivers are, but goes with
wide sweep over the broad expanse of heaven. You might well, too,
be surprised that after so many breakers have spent their force, any
succeeding wave is left. The truth is, nothing is ever exhausted that
returns upon itself (_i.e._ is self-supported). All the four elements 3
return alternately upon one another; what is lost in one is conserved
by passing into another. Nature, too, weighs her parts as if with
nice adjustment in the balance, lest their just proportion should be
disturbed and the world topple over into ruin (= lose its equilibrium).
All elements are in all. Air not only passes into fire, but it is never
without fire. Deprive it of its heat and it will grow stiff, stagnant,
hard. Air passes into moisture, but nevertheless contains moisture.
Earth yields both air and water, and is never at any time devoid 4
of water any more than it is of air. The mutual transition is the
easier, because there is already an admixture of the element to which
the transition is to be made. So (1)[51], then, the earth contains
moisture, which it forces out. (2)[51] It contains air, which the
darkness of its wintry cold condenses so as to form moisture. (3)[51]
By nature, too, it has itself the power of changing into moisture: this
power it habitually exerts.
[51] The numerals here have no counterpart in the original.
XI
You have still a difficulty, you say. If the causes giving rise to 1
rivers and fountains are constant, why are their waters sometimes
dried up? and why do they sometimes appear in places where they did
not exist before? Their routes, I should reply, are often disturbed by
earthquakes; the channel is cut off by a fall of rock or earth, and
the water being held back seeks a fresh exit, which it forces with a
certain measure of violence; or merely by the earth’s vibration the
course is shifted from one place to another. On the surface of the
earth one may observe that rivers that have lost their channels are
first of all dammed back, but afterwards, in lieu of the course they
have lost, force a new one. Theophrastus affirms that an incident of 2
the kind took place in the Corycian Mount,[52] where, after a slight
shock of earthquake, a fountain burst out from a fresh source.
[52] In Cilicia.
But some writers are of opinion that other causes too are at work to
call up water in other ways, or to drive or turn it from its course.
Mount Haemus was once destitute of water; but after a tribe of the
Gauls, being hard pressed by Cassander, took refuge there, and felled
the woods, an immense supply of water appeared. No doubt the woods had
attracted it for their nourishment previously. When they were uprooted,
the moisture, ceasing to be used up by their roots, overflowed.
Theophrastus affirms that the same thing happened near Magnesia. 3
But with all respect to Theophrastus, this is not a very likely story.
Everything that is most shady tends most to gather water. But that
would not be the case if trees drained off water. Roots draw their
nourishment from their immediate vicinity; but the volume of river
water flows from recesses far down, and is derived from a source deeper
than roots can penetrate. Besides, when trees are cut down, more
moisture than before is required; the stumps suck up a supply, not
merely for life, but for new growth.
Theophrastus tells us, too, that round Arcadia, which was a city in 4
the island of Crete, the wells and lakes disappeared, because the land
ceased to be tilled after the destruction of the city; but after it had
got back its tillers, it recovered its waters also. He sets down as the
cause of the dryness, that the earth had got hidebound and quite hard,
and not being stirred could not transmit to the underground reservoirs
the rain that fell. But if this is true, how comes it that we see
springs in great plenty in the most desert ground? In fact, one finds 5
a great deal more ground that began to be tilled on account of the
abundance of water than that began to have an abundant supply of water
because it was tilled. You may be quite sure that it is not mere rain
water that is carried down in our greatest rivers, navigable by large
vessels from their very source,[53] as is proved by the fact that the
flow from the fountain-head is uniform winter and summer. Rainfall may
cause a torrent, but it cannot maintain the steady, constant flow of a
full river. Rains cannot produce, they can only enlarge and quicken, a
river.
[53] The text seems to be at fault, but the argument is quite clear.
XII
Let us, if you please, go into the matter a little more deeply, and 1
you will soon see that you have no cause to put further questions, once
you reach the true origin of rivers. A river is, of course, formed by
a supply of water that is always constant. If you ask me, therefore,
how water is produced, I will ask in my turn how air or earth is
produced. If there are four elements in nature, you are not entitled
to ask where water, one of them, comes from; it _is_ the fourth part
of nature. Why, therefore, are you surprised that so great a portion 2
of nature can furnish a perpetual supply of liquid from itself? Just
as the atmosphere, which is likewise a fourth part of the universe, is
the source of winds and breezes, so is water, of streams and rivers.
If wind is atmosphere in motion, so is a river water in motion. I have
given it strength enough in saying that it is one of the four elements.
You must be aware that what has an element as its source can never run
short.
XIII
Water is, according to Thales, the most powerful of the elements. 1
He thinks it was the first of them, and that all the others sprang
from it. We Stoics, too, are also of the same opinion; or perhaps I
should rather say that we think it is the last.[54] For we say that it
is fire that lays hold upon the world and changes all things into its
own nature. We suppose that fire eventually fades and sinks, and that,
when the fire is quenched, nothing is left in nature save moisture, in
which lies the hope of the world that is to come. So fire is the end,
moisture the beginning, of the world. Can you wonder that rivers may
always issue from this, which was before all things, and from which all
things have been formed? In the separation of the elements [at the 2
beginning] the moisture was reduced to a fourth part, and was placed in
such a situation that it could furnish a sufficient supply for rivers,
streams, and fountains. The next opinion expressed by Thales is a
silly one. The whole earth, he says, is upborne by water, and floats
just like a boat; when it is spoken of as trembling, it is rolling by
the movement of the water. It is no wonder, then, that there should be
abundance of water to pour forth in rivers, since the world is itself
wholly set in water. You should put out of court such an antiquated,
unscientific idea. There is no ground for believing that the water
comes in through the chinks in the earth’s sides, and forms bilge-water
in her centre.
[54] _I.e._ that to which all others may be reduced: the text seems
corrupt, and the meaning is more or less conjectural. Gercke’s text
reads, “are also of the same or an analogous opinion.”
XIV
The Egyptians have recognised four elements also; and they then form
each into two, male and female. The atmosphere they consider male where
it is windy, female where it is cloudy and sluggish. They call the sea
manly water, every other kind of water they call womanly. Fire they
call masculine where a flame is burning, and feminine where there is
a glow that is harmless to touch. The firmer kinds of earth, such as
boulders and crags, they call male, reserving the term female for the
parts that are amenable to cultivation.
XV
There is but one sea, which has so existed no doubt from the 1
beginning of things. It has sources of its own, from which its impulses
and tides are derived. As with the raging sea, so with this gentler
kind of water, there is a vast supply[55] in secret, which no river
course can drain dry. The exact explanation of its reserve strength
has not yet been discovered. It is only the superfluous portion of
it that is released. Now, there are some of these beliefs to which 2
we may safely subscribe; but I hold this further opinion. My firm
conviction is that the earth is organised by nature much after the
plan of our bodies, in which there are both veins and arteries, the
former blood-vessels, the latter air-vessels. In the earth likewise 3
there are some routes by which water passes, and some by which air. So
exactly alike is the resemblance to our bodies in nature’s formation
of the earth, that our ancestors have spoken of veins (= springs) of
water. Again, in our bodies there is not merely blood, but many other
kinds of moisture, some essential to life, others tainted and somewhat
thick--brain in the head, marrow in the bones, mucus, saliva, tears,
and a kind of lubricating substance that suffuses the joints, and
enables them to turn more quickly (= synovial fluid).
[55] All the texts give _via_ = way. The obvious correction is _vis_
= amount, supply. Gercke confirms this correction.
So, too, in the earth there are several different kinds of moisture.
There are some kinds that grow hard when fully formed. Hence arises 4
all the metalliferous soil, from which our avarice seeks gold and
silver. Then there is the kind which turns from liquid into stone. In
some localities the earth and its moisture combine to form a liquid
like bitumen and other substances of the same kind. There, then, we
find the cause of waters produced according to the law and will of
nature. But as in our bodies, so in the earth, humours often contract 5
taints of various kinds. A blow, or some shock, or exhaustion of the
ground, or cold or heat injures the natural vigour. A vein of sulphur,
too, may solidify the moisture, lasting for a longer or shorter time.
Therefore, as in our bodies, when a vein is cut, the flow of blood
lasts till the blood is exhausted or the incision in the vein has
closed up and stopped it, or until some other cause has staunched the
blood; in like manner in the ground, when the seams have been loosened
and laid bare, a stream or river rushes forth. The way in which the 6
water is used up depends on the extent of the opening in the seam. At
one point its flow is checked by some obstacle; at another it heals up,
so to speak, into a scar and chokes the path it had made; at another
the power of transmutation, which we have said the earth possesses,
reaches its limit and cannot longer supply material that may be
liquefied: sometimes the exhausted source is replenished, now by energy
self-recruited, now by a supply drawn from external sources. For I
ought to say that often dry objects placed opposite to wet attract the
moisture to them. Earth itself, which easily assumes another form, 7
often wastes away, and is dissolved in moisture. The same phenomenon
occurs under the earth as above it in the clouds; becoming too dense
and heavy to retain longer its own character, solid begets liquid.
There is often a gathering of thin, scattered moisture like dew, which
from many points flows into one spot. The dowsers call it sweat,
because a kind of drop is either squeezed out by the pressure of the
ground or raised by the heat. This slender trickle scarce suffices to
form a spring. But if the sources are great and the gatherings great,
rivers issue. Sometimes they flow gently if the water merely descends
by its own weight, sometimes with violence and loud roar if air be
intermingled and eject the water.
XVI
Another peculiarity requires explanation: some wells are full for 1
six hours and dry for six alternately: why is this so? It is hardly
necessary to name the rivers individually which are at certain months
broad, at certain narrow, and to give separate causes of this, seeing I
can give a common explanation that applies to all. An ague returns at
the same hour, gout always keeps its appointment, the custom of women,
unless interrupted, observes its stated period, birth is ready at the
proper month. In like manner waters have their intervals of recurrence,
at which to withdraw and at which to return. Now, some intervals are
shorter, and the more striking on that account; some are longer, 2
but no less certain. And what is strange in that, when you see that
the succession of events, and all nature, by decree preserve their
appointed order? Winter has never mistaken its time. Summer has always
blazed forth in its season. The changes of spring and autumn have
occurred according to their wont. Solstice and equinox alike have kept
their appointed days.
Beneath the earth likewise there are laws of nature, less familiar to
us, but no less fixed. Be assured that there exists below everything
that you see above. There, too, there are antres vast, immense
recesses, and vacant spaces, with mountains overhanging on either
hand. There are yawning gulfs stretching down into the abyss, which 3
have often swallowed up cities that have fallen into them, and have
buried in their depths their mighty ruins. These retreats are filled
with air, for nowhere is there a vacuum in nature; through their
ample spaces stretch marshes over which darkness ever broods. Animals
also are produced in them, but they are slow-paced and shapeless; the
air that conceived them is dark and clammy, the waters are torpid
through inaction. Most of these creatures are blind, such as moles and
underground rats, which have no sense of sight, since it is unnecessary
for them. From these depths fish are, according to Theophrastus, dug up
in certain localities.
XVII
At this point many pleasantries will occur to you to apply to my 1
incredible narrative, which you will politely call a good story. A man
will no longer go to fish with net and hook, but with his mattock!
The next thing will be for some one to go out hunting at sea. Now
what reason is there, I ask, why fish should not cross the land if we
can cross the sea and change our abodes? You are surprised at this
happening. How much more incredible are the achievements of luxury
as often as it either counterfeits or vanquishes nature? Fish are to
be found swimming in the dining couch; one is caught right under the
table, to be transferred immediately to the table. A mullet is not
thought fresh enough unless it expires in the hand of the banqueter. 2
These fish are handed round enclosed in glass jars, and their colours
are observed while they expire; death paints many hues on them as they
draw their last struggling breath. Others are pickled alive and killed
in the sauce. These are the people who think one is romancing who
asserts that a fish can live underground and instead of being caught
can be dug up! How inconceivable it would sound to them to hear that a
fish swam in sauce and was killed during dinner, but not to be served
at dinner; that first it was long admired, and that the eyes were
feasted on it before the gullet was!
XVIII
Suffer me here to lay aside my subject, and to apply the scourge to 1
luxury! Commend me for a beautiful sight, says one, to an expiring
mullet. In the death-struggle, as its life ebbs away, first a ruddy
glow, then a pallor suffuses it. How symmetrical are the variations as
it changes from tint to tint between life and death! Our somnolent,
jaded luxury gets a long respite by means of this.[56] It was late
in waking up to find how cruelly it had been circumscribed in being
cheated of such a pleasure! Hitherto only fishermen have been able
to enjoy this grand and beauteous sight. But why should we at the 2
banquet be satisfied with a cooked, a lifeless fish? Let him expire
on the very tray. We used to be surprised at the fastidiousness of
our epicures in refusing to touch fish unless it had been caught on
the same day, when, as the saying goes, it smacked of the briny. It
used for that reason to be delivered post haste--way had to be made
for the breathless porters as they hurried along shouting. To what 3
lengths have refinements now been pushed? A fish killed to-day has
come to be considered as already stinking. “He was taken out of the
water this day, I assure you.” “I cannot trust you in a matter of such
moment. I must have the evidence of my own senses; let the creature be
brought here and breathe out his life before my eyes.” Such a pitch of
fastidiousness has the gourmands’ palate reached that they will not
taste a fish unless they have seen it swimming and throbbing in the
very banqueting room.
[56] The passage is almost hopelessly corrupt. The meaning of this
sentence seems to be that luxury gets some respite from the fatigues
of the table by watching the mullet’s death-struggle. Ruhkopf
suggests an emendation which would give the sense: Our somnolent,
jaded luxury has taken a long time to discover this new enjoyment.
That would certainly be well in keeping with the following sentence.
The more skill our jaded luxury has had placed at its disposal, 4
the more refined and elegant the devices that in its frenzy it day
by day invents; it spurns everything that is common. We used to hear
the remark, “Nothing can surpass a mullet caught on the rocks”; but
now it runs, “Nothing equals the beauty of an expiring mullet. Let
me hold in my own hands the glass vase, to see him jump and quiver.”
After long and fulsome praise has been lavished on him, he is taken 5
out of his transparent pond. Then each guest shows off his experience
of such scenes by pointing out the hues to his fellows. “Look how the
red bursts forth, deeper than any carmine; look at the veins he has
along his sides: see, you would think his belly was covered with blood;
what a gleam of dark blue shot forth just under the brow! Now he is
stretching himself out, and sinking to a uniform pallid hue!” Not one
of these selfish fellows would sit by a dying friend’s bedside, none
of them can endure the sight of a father’s death--a sight they have
dearly longed for. How few will attend the funeral of a relative! The 6
last hour of brothers and friends is shunned by them; they are all in a
hurry to be in at the death of a mullet! For he has a delicate beauty,
don’t you know, that nothing can surpass. My impatience makes me
sometimes exceed the bounds of decency and use words at random. These
drivellers are not satisfied to bring teeth, and palate, and stomach to
the revel; they make their very eyes partners in the gluttony.
XIX
But to return to my subject. Here is a proof I have to give you 1
that in the underground recesses are concealed great quantities of
water which abound in filthy fish. Any time that the water bursts
out, it brings in its train a huge crowd of creatures foul to sight,
disgusting and noxious to taste. At any rate, once, near the city of
Hydissus in Caria, a flood of underground water threw up to the light
of day a number of strange fishes, and all who ate them died. And no
wonder. Their bodies were full of oil from their long inactivity; 2
they had been fattened in the darkness without exercise, and deprived
of that light whence health is derived. A further proof that fish may
be produced in those depths of earth is afforded by the breeding of
eels in shady places; they also are a heavy diet through their want of
exercise, especially if a considerable depth of mud has hidden them
quite out of sight. So then the earth contains not only veins of water 3
by the union of which rivers may be formed, but also streams of very
great size. In some cases their channel is concealed throughout, until
they are swallowed up in some cavern; others of them well up in the
bottom of some lake. Everybody knows that some marshes have no bottom.
What is the point of my argument? It shows plainly that mighty rivers
have here unending supplies whose limits are incalculable, just as is
the duration of rivers and fountains themselves.
XX
For the variety of taste in water there are four causes. The first is 1
the kind of soil through which it flows. The second also depends on the
soil when the water arises from transmutation of it. The third is from
air which has been transformed into water. The fourth comes from some
taint which water often contracts when injuriously affected by foreign
bodies. These causes impart to water, first, variety of taste, then 2
medicinal power, its heavy pestilential smell, its lightness and
heaviness, its heat and its excessive astringency. It is affected by
its passage through ground full of sulphur, or nitre (= saltpetre),
or bitumen. If the water is tainted in this way, the drinking of it
endangers life. This is the explanation of a passage in Ovid:
The Ciconians have a river a draught of whose waters turns into stone.
The bowels; which mantles in marble all that it touches.
The river in question has medicinal properties, its mud being of 3
the kind that glues together and hardens the bodies it encounters.
Just as the dust at Puteoli becomes stone if it touches water, so,
contrariwise, if the water of this river touches a solid body, it
adheres and gets firmly affixed to it. This is the reason why objects
thrown into the same lake[57] are constantly found to be turned to
stone when they are taken out. This occurs at several places in Italy;
you may put into the water a twig or bough and a few days after you
can take out a stone. The mud surrounds the object and gradually 4
coats it over. This will seem the less surprising if you have remarked
that the Albula, and, generally speaking, all water charged with
sulphur, deposit a coating of it on the banks of their channels and
streams. Some one or other of the foregoing causes accounts for the
peculiarities of those lakes, whereof who tastes with the lips, in the
words of the same poet,
[57] The allusion is not quite evident.
Goes raving mad or endures a sleep of wondrous depth.
The effect is like that of strong drink, only more violent. Drunken- 5
ness is madness until its effects pass off; with a weight like lead
it bears down its victim into sleep. In the like manner the strong
infusion of sulphur in this water contains a sort of poison that is
more potent owing to the noxious atmosphere, and either goads the mind
to madness or weighs it down in deep sleep. The river in Lyncestis
likewise possesses this baleful power:
For whoso with intemperate lips has drained a draught,
Staggers as if having drunk deep of wine undiluted.
XXI
There are certain caves a glance down into which has cost people their
life. So swift is their destructive power that it kills in flight the
birds that cross them. That is the kind of air and the kind of place
from which waters of death escape. If the infection of the air and
place is less severe, the damage is less fatal too, merely affecting
the sinews like men overpowered by intoxication. I am not at all
surprised that place and air infect water and render it similar in
character to the tract through which and from which it proceeds.
Similarly, milk shows the taste of the cow’s fodder, the quality of
the wine comes out even in the vinegar it yields. There is, in fact,
nothing that does not bear marks of its origin in the same way.
XXII
There is another species of water which we Stoics are satisfied must be
coeval with the world. If the latter has existed from all eternity, so
must it too. If the world has had some beginning, then the water was
assigned its place at the creation. You want to know what kind of water
I mean? I mean the Ocean and all its seas that wash the continents of
the earth. Some philosophers are convinced that the rivers likewise
whose nature is inexplicable, date from the creation of the world; such
are the mighty rivers Danube and Nile, too remarkable to be supposed by
any possibility to have the same origin as other rivers.
XXIII
Such is the division of various kinds of water, as it presents itself
to some minds. After that come waters of the sky, which the clouds pour
down from the upper regions. Of terrestrial waters, they say, there are
some that overflow, so to speak, and creep along the surface; others
are concealed underground. I have already explained all these.
XXIV
Several explanations are given of the temperature of water. Some- 1
times it is hot, sometimes it boils so fiercely that it cannot be
used until it has given off its steam in the open, or is tempered
by mixing cold water with it. Empedocles is of opinion that as there
are fires concealed in many places beneath the earth, water is heated
when they happen to lie beneath the ground through which it has to
flow. Let me use an illustration. We are in the habit of constructing
serpentines,[58] and cylinders, and vessels of several other designs in
which thin copper pipes are laid in descending spiral coils. The object
is to make the water meet the same fire over and over again, and flow
through a space sufficient for heating it up; so, entering as cold it
comes out hot. Empedocles supposes something of the same kind to take 2
place underground. People who have their baths heated without fire may
well believe that he is right. In this case air from the heated furnace
is introduced. The air glides along the passages, warming up the walls
and vessels of the bathroom just as if fire had been directly applied.
In short, all the cold water in these instances is changed into hot by
merely passing through a heated medium; and inasmuch as it is conveyed
in an enclosure there is no evaporation to impart a flavour to it.[59]
Others, again, suppose that the water contracts heat by issuing from
or passing through ground charged with sulphur; the heat is imparted
by the properties of the material, to which also smell and taste bear
witness. All substances, I may say in general terms, tend to reproduce
the qualities of the medium by which they have been warmed. If you are
surprised at sulphur warming water, you have only to pour water over
quicklime; it will at once evolve heat.
[58] The technical name is “worm.”
[59] There is considerable doubt regarding the correct text and
meaning.
XXV
Some waters are fatal, although they give no indication of this 1
either by smell or taste. In Arcadia, near Nonacris, the river called
by the people there the Styx lures strangers to ruin, as its appearance
and smell rouse no suspicion. This is like the drugs of accomplished
poisoners, which cannot be detected save by their fatal effects. The
water I mentioned a little above brings destruction with amazing
swiftness, and allows no opportunity of applying a remedy. It hardens
immediately it is drunk, and, much like chalk under the influence ofcccc 2
water, it sets and binds fast the bowels. There is a poisonous water
in Thessaly, near Tempe, shunned by all cattle and wild beasts. It
comes out through seams of iron and copper, and contains the power of
softening the very hardest material. It does not nourish any trees
either, and it kills grass. Certain rivers possess a peculiar and
strange power. Some there are whose draught dyes whole flocks of
sheep. Within a short time those that were black have white fleeces;
in other cases those that came white go away black. This is what two
rivers in Boeotia do, one of which from its effect is called Melas
(Blackwater). Both the rivers issue from the same lake, to go on their
opposite missions. So, too, in Macedonia, Theophrastus asserts there 3
is a river to which shepherds who desire to turn their sheep white
bring them. If the sheep drink it for any length of time, their colour
changes as if they had been dyed. But if those people want a dark wool,
they have a dyer ready at hand who charges nothing; they have merely
to drive the same flock to the river Peneus. I have recent authorities
for the statement that there is a river in Galatia that has the same
power of changing the colour in all animals, while in Cappadocia there
is one which if drunk changes the colour of horses but not of any other
animal; their skin is dappled with white spots.
It is well known that there are lakes whose waters bear up those 4
who cannot swim. There used to be a pool in Sicily, there still is
one in Syria, in which brickbats float, and no objects thrown in,
however heavy, will sink. The cause of it is obvious. Weigh any object
and compare it with water while they are equal bulk for bulk. If the
water is the heavier, it will bear the object that is lighter than
itself, and will raise it above its surface to a height proportionate
to its lightness; objects heavier than the water will sink in it.
But if the weight of water and of the object compared with it in 5
respect of weight be equal, the object will neither go to the bottom
nor yet will it stick up; it will just be in equipoise with the water.
It will float, it is true, but almost submerged and without any part
projecting. The differences in weight give the reason why some logs
float almost entirely above water, while some sink to their centre, and
some go down until they are in equipoise with the water. For it always
holds good that, when the weights of the two are equal, neither yields
to the other; but objects heavier than water sink, those lighter are
upborne.
Now heavy and light do not refer to our judgment of weight, but are 6
relative to the medium by which an object is to be supported. So when
water is heavier than the human body or than a stone, it does not allow
the inferior weight to sink. So it comes to pass that in some lakes
even stones will not go to the bottom; I mean hard solid stones. There
are many light pumice stones, of which in Lydia whole islands that
float are composed. Theophrastus is my authority for the statement. I
have myself seen a floating island in the lake near Cutiliae. Another
is carried about in the Vadimonian Lake, another in the lake by
Statonia. The island at Cutiliae contains trees and grows grass, and 7
yet it is borne up by the water, and is wafted now in this direction,
now in that, not merely by wind, but even by a mere air. So light the
breath that moves it that night and day it never remains stationary in
one spot. There are two reasons for it: first, there is the weight of
the water, which is medicated and therefore heavy; and then there is
the portable material of the island itself, which contains no solid
body, although it supports trees. Perhaps in the first instance the 8
thick liquid laid hold upon and made fast light trunks and boughs
scattered over the surface of the lake. So also whatever rocks are
in the island, you will find porous and hollow. They resemble those
formed of moisture that has hardened especially near the banks of
medicinal springs; in such cases the scourings of the spring coalesce
and the foam is solidified. It is necessarily light, being formed by
concretions of windy, empty material.
There are other peculiarities attaching to waters of different kinds, 9
of which no explanation can be offered. For example, why should Nile
water make women more fruitful? So effective is it in this respect that
in some instances wombs shut up in prolonged barrenness have relaxed
so as to render conception possible. Or why should certain waters in
Lycia prevent miscarriage, being sought after by ladies who are subject
to this frailty? For my own part I set these down among vulgar errors.
It is firmly believed by people that certain waters, whether applied
outwardly or taken inwardly, affect the body with scab, certain with
leprosy and foul blotches over the skin. Water gathered from dew,
they say, has this fault. Wouldn’t any one suppose that water that 10
turns into ice is the heaviest of all? The truth is just the opposite
of this. The change takes place in the thinnest water, which for that
very reason is most easily congealed by the cold. The origin of the
stone that resembles ice is plain from the very name used for it by
the Greeks. They apply the term crystal (κρύσταλλος) equally to the
transparent stone and to the ice from which the stone is supposed to be
formed. Rain water, which contains very little solid matter, once it is
frozen becomes more and more condensed through the persistence of the
longer cold until all the air is expelled, and it is compressed to the
last degree; then what was once moisture is changed into stone.
XXVI
Some rivers rise in summer like the Nile, of which I will give an 1
account later on. Theophrastus makes himself responsible for the
statement that in Pontus likewise certain rivers rise in the summer
season. Four different causes are assigned for this. First, the earth
is at that period most readily changed into moisture. Second, there are
in the remote districts heavier rains, the water from which, finding
its way by secret channels, comes unnoticed to swell the volume of the
rivers. A third explanation is that the estuary is exposed to more
frequent winds, and is lashed by the sea waves; the river is checked
and seems to increase because it cannot discharge freely. The fourth
reason connects itself with the heavenly bodies. These bodies by 2
their more severe pressure during certain months drain the rivers; when
they retire to a greater distance, the waste and drain are less. What
was previously lost now accrues by way of increase. Certain rivers
fall visibly into some grotto or other, and thus are withdrawn from
sight; some are gradually wasted and disappear. They return, however,
at some distance off and recover their name and course. The reason is
plain enough. There is vacant space underground. All liquid naturally 3
is carried to the lower level and to the unoccupied space. The rivers
received into these recesses have run their course there in secret. But
as soon as any solid obstacle blocks the way, they burst through the
part that offers the slightest obstruction to their escape and regain
their channel above ground.
So when Lycus has been swallowed up by the yawning earth,
He comes forth far thence, and is born from another source.
So is now drunk up, now gliding with silent stream,
Is restored to its Argolic waves the mighty Erasinus.
In the East as well as the West this happens. The Tigris is absorbed 4
by the earth and after long absence reappears at a point far removed,
but undoubtedly the same river. Some fountains cast out their scourings
at a fixed period; the fountain Arethuse does so every fifth summer
during the Olympic festival. Thence comes the belief that the Alpheus
makes its way right from Achaia to Sicily, stealing under sea by secret
sluice, and reappearing only when it reaches the coast at Syracuse. On
that account, during the days on which the Olympic festival is taking
place, the dung of the victims offered in sacrifice being thrown into
the stream of the river (Alpheus) turns up in quantity away in Sicily.
You have yourself told the story, my dear Lucilius, in your own poem, 5
and so has Virgil, who says in his address to Arethuse:
So when thou glid’st beneath Sicilian seas,
Never may sea nymph mingle bitter salt waves with thine.
In the Carian Chersonese there is a fountain of the Rhodians which at
long intervals sends up from its depths certain foul excretions of mud,
until it is set free of them by being cleaned out. At certain places 6
wells throw up not merely mud but also leaves, and bits of crockery
and any other filthy things that have accumulated in them. The sea
does the same everywhere, its nature being to drive ashore all filthy
impurities. In the neighbourhood of Messana and Mylae as it boils and
tosses in storms it throws up on the beach something actually like
ordure, which has a vile smell too. Whence comes the fable that the
oxen of the sun are stalled in that neighbourhood. In certain cases of
this kind it is difficult to reach the true explanation, especially
when the time of the occurrence in question has not actually been
observed and is therefore doubtful. But though the immediate and 7
special cause cannot be discovered, there is a general one worth
mentioning; all waters when standing and enclosed tend to throw off
impurities. In water that has a current the impurities cannot settle,
as they are carried down and expelled by the mere force of the stream.
The waters which do not throw off foreign bodies that settle in them
always boil more or less. As for the sea, it drags from its lowest
depths dead bodies, refuse of vegetation, and all kinds of wreckage,
and purges itself of them, not merely when its billows rage in a storm
but likewise in its calm and peaceful moments.
XXVII
The occasion reminds me of a wider question. When the fated day of 1
deluge comes, after what fashion will the earth for the most part
be overwhelmed by the waves? Will it be by the strength of Ocean
and the rise of the outer sea against us? Or will the rain descend
uninterruptedly, and will summer be cut out of the year while
persistent winter bursts its clouds and pours down endless masses of
water? Or will earth herself open new reservoirs and shed forth 2
rivers more abundantly? Or will a single cause be insufficient to
produce such a catastrophe, and all the methods conspire together, the
rains descending and the river floods rising, and the seas hurrying
in hot haste from their place--all agencies in concert bent upon the
one aim, the destruction of the human race? The last is the truth.
Nature finds no difficulties in compassing her ends, especially when
she hastens to make an end of herself. At the creation of things she
economises her efforts, putting forth her energy in small imperceptible
increase: for destruction she comes with sudden and irresistible might.
How long a time is needed to bring the embryo child to the birth! How 3
great the toil called for in rearing the tender infant! How careful the
nurture through which the frail body is at length brought to manhood!
But how insignificant the effort needed to undo it all! Cities take
centuries to establish: an hour brings their ruin. Ages rear the
forest: a moment turns it to ashes. To its stability and vigour this
universe of things calls for great and constant protection; quickly and
suddenly dissolution comes. Deviation by nature from her established 4
order in the world suffices for the destruction of the race.
So when that day of fate comes, many causes will be at work in
fulfilling its decrees; and as some, including Fabianus, think, such
a change will not come without a shock to the whole universe. In the
first instance there will be excessive rainfall, a dull leaden sky with
never a glimpse of the sun. The clouds will be unbroken, the gathering
moisture will cause thick darkness, and there will be no winds to lick
it up. Hence the crops will be diseased, the grain ere it be grown 5
will wither without fruit. All tillage of man’s hand will be ruined;
marsh grass will spring up over all the plains. Presently the stronger
plants feel the strain; their roots are loosened, and the pollard elms
fall forward, carrying their vines with them. All shrubs lose their
hold on the soil, which has become soft and flabby. Soon the ground is
so saturated that it can support neither grain nor fruitful pasture.
The stress of famine is felt, and recourse is had to the ancient
sustenance of berries. The fruit is shaken from ilex and oak, and any
other tree that has been able to keep its ground by the support of the
clefts of the rocks in the mountains. Roofs are sodden and rickety;
the rain has penetrated to the depths, and the foundations sink. The 6
ground is all a marsh. It is vain to seek supports to the tottering
houses; every foundation is set on slippery ground, and in the muddy
soil nothing is firm. After the storm-clouds have more and more densely
massed, and the accumulated snows of centuries have melted, a cataract
sweeps down from the lofty mountains carrying before it the woods now
insecure in their place, tearing off boulders from their fastenings,
and whirling them down in fierce career. It washes off the country 7
houses, and takes down with it flocks of sheep among the _débris_. The
smaller hamlets it carries off as it passes, but at length it leaves
its course and rushes in fury upon the larger homesteads. It draws in
its career whole cities, inhabitants, and buildings all mixed together:
people know not whether to complain of a catastrophe or a shipwreck. So
utterly crushed are they and at the same time submerged by its coming.
By and by, as it advances, the cataract is swollen by the absorption
of other torrents, and in devastating course roams through the whole
plain. Finally, it holds universal sway; it has earned a title by the
widespread destruction of the world which it carries as its burthen.
The rivers, too, originally large, have been so hurried down by 8
the storms that they have left their channels. The Rhone, the Rhine,
the Danube, even when confined within their banks, have an impetuous
torrent. What, suppose you, are they now that they have overflowed
and made themselves new banks, and, cutting through the soil have all
wandered from their wonted course? With what headlong rush they roll
down! The Rhine overspreads the plains, but the wideness of the space
causes no slackening of its energy; it pours its waters in full force
over the whole extent as if it were rushing through a gorge. The Danube
no longer washes the base, or even the middle, of the mountains; it 9
lashes the very summits, bearing down with it the mountain sides it has
flooded, the crags it has overturned, the beetling promontories through
whole provinces; it undermines their foundations, and carries them far
off from the mainland. And, after all, the river finds no exit--for it
had closed up every passage against itself--but returns in a circuit,
and envelops in one vast whirlpool the huge expanse of lands and cities.
Meantime the rains continue, the sky becomes still more threatening,
and thus, for long, disaster is heaped upon disaster. What was once
cloud is now profound night, and that, too, dread and terrible, with 10
gleams of lurid light between. For frequent flashes show, and squalls
disturb the sea. Then for the first time, feeling the increase from
the rivers, and too narrow to contain itself, the main advances its
shores. Its own bounds cannot contain it, and yet the torrents from
land prevent its escape, and drive back its waves. Still, the greater
part of the torrents detained by their narrow mouth recoil in pools,
reducing the fields to the aspect of a continuous lake. Now everything,
far as the eye can reach, is a waste of waters. Every hill is hidden
in the abyss, everywhere is fathomless depth of water. Only in the 11
highest mountain tops are there shallows. To these heights men have
fled with wives and children, and have driven up their cattle. All
intercourse and communication have been cut off among the wretched
survivors; for all the lower ground has been filled by the waves. The
remnants of the human race cling to every lofty peak. Brought to the
last shift, they have this one solace, that apprehension has passed
into stupor. Astonishment so fills them that there is no room for
fear. Even grief finds no place; for it loses its force in one 12
whose wretchedness has passed beyond perception of suffering. So there
are only mountain tops that appear like islands above the water, and
increase the number of the scattered Cyclades, as that accomplished
poet finely says; with an exaltation of language too in keeping with
his theme, he exclaims:
All was sea; to the sea there was no shore.
It is a pity he reduced that burst of genius and his splendid subject
to childish twaddle by adding:
The wolf has to swim among the sheep, the wave carries tawny lions.
There is too little seriousness in making sport in this way when the 13
earth has been swallowed up. He expressed a fine thought and caught a
vivid picture of the utter confusion when he said:
Through the open plains the rivers wander at their will,
... The towers totter and sink beneath the flood.
That was splendid, if he had not minded what the wolf and the sheep
were doing. Could anything, in fact, swim amid such deluge and
destruction? Was not every hoof drowned in the same torrent as carried
it off? You conceived a worthy image, Ovid, when all the world was
overwhelmed, and the sky itself descended upon earth. Keep it up. You
will know what it ought to be if you reflect that the whole world was
afloat. Now we must return to our discussion.
XXVIII
There is a section of philosophers who hold that while the earth may 1
be greatly harassed by excessive rains, it cannot be overwhelmed by
them. By a mighty blow this mighty earth must be smitten. Rain will
spoil the crops, hail will knock off the fruit; but the rivers will
only be swollen above their banks, and will subside again. Some, again,
are satisfied that the cause of the widespread destruction will be
derived from the movements of the sea. The great shipwreck of the world
cannot, they think, arise from injury by cataract, river, or rain. I am
willing to grant that when that day of destruction is at hand, and 2
Heaven is resolved to create a new race of men, the rain will pour down
incessantly, and there will be no limit to the floods, the north and
other dry winds will cease to blow; the south will bring up in plenty
clouds and rain and stream.
But hitherto only damage has been inflicted.
The crops are laid low, and to the grief of the farmer,
All hope of increase is abandoned; the toil of the long year is
wasted and vain.
But for our purpose the earth must be more than damaged, it must be
submerged. In fact, the disasters described are merely the prelude
to destruction. After that, the seas swell far beyond their wonted
bounds, sending out their waves far above the farthest high-water
mark of the most violent tempest. The winds will urge them on from
the rear, rolling up huge billows that will break far inland out of 3
sight of the highest shore. In course of time the shore will thus be
shifted forward, the deep will be established in a realm that is not
its own; the mischief will come nearer, and from its new base the tide
will issue still from the deepest recesses of the main. For just like
atmosphere and ether, this element, sea, has a large reserve, and in
its depth is far more copious than appears to the eye. This reserve,
moved by fate, not merely by tides--for tides are but the agency of
fate--raises and drives before it a gulf of vast extent. Then in 4
wondrous wise it rears its crest, and overtops all man’s refuges
of safety. Nor do the waters find this a hard task, since, if the
heights were calculated, it would be found that the sea mounts from an
elevation equal to that of earth. The surface of the sea is of uniform
level; for the earth itself as a whole is uniformly level. Hollows and
plains are everywhere below the general level.
But the whole globe is as a matter of fact formed into a regular
sphere, while in part of it is the sea, which unites to form the unity
of a single ball. But just as when one looks out across a plain, the 5
ground that sinks gradually deceives the eye, so we are not aware of
the sea’s curvatures, and all that is visible is a plain. But being on
a level with the earth, the sea does not require to raise itself to
any great height in order to overflow. In order to overtop what is on
a level with it, it need make only a slight rise. Besides, the flow
of it does not proceed from the shore where it is lower, but from mid
ocean where the heap in question stands. Therefore, as the tide at the
equinox soon after the conjunction of moon and sun rises to a height 6
greater than at any other time of year; in like manner this one that is
sent out to seize upon the earth must exceed in violence the highest
of ordinary tides, and bear a far greater volume of water; nor does
it begin to ebb until it has swollen above the peaks of the mountains
that are its objective. Some localities have at present a tide that
runs up inland for a hundred miles in ordinary course harmlessly. It
flows up to its normal limit and then ebbs again. But when the time of
deluge comes, the tide, freed from all restraint, will set no limit 7
to its advance. In what way? you say. Just in the same way as the great
conflagration is destined to take place. Both will take place when God
has seen fit to end the old order, and bring in a better. Fire and
water are lords of the earth. From these it took its rise, and in these
it will find its grave. So when a new creation of the world has been
resolved upon by Heaven, the sea will be let loose on us from above;
or it may be the raging fire, if another variety of destruction is
Heaven’s will.
XXIX
Some suppose that in the final catastrophe the earth, too, will be 1
shaken, and through clefts in the ground will uncover sources of
fresh rivers which will flow forth from their full source in larger
volume. Berosus, the translator of [the records of] Belus, affirms
that the whole issue is brought about by the course of the planets. So
positive is he on the point that he assigns a definite date both for
the conflagration and the deluge. All that the earth inherits will, he
assures us, be consigned to flame when the planets, which now move in
different orbits, all assemble in Cancer, so arranged in one row that a
straight line may pass through their spheres. When the same gathering
takes place in Capricorn, then we are in danger of the deluge.
Midsummer is at present brought round by the former, midwinter by the
latter. They are zodiacal signs of great power seeing that they are 2
the determining influences in the two great changes of the year. I
should myself quite admit causes of the kind. The destruction of the
world will not be determined by a single reason.
But I should like to apply in this connection as well, a principle
which we Stoics adopt in regard to a conflagration of the universe.
Whether the world is a soul, or a body under the government of nature,
like trees and crops, it embraces in its constitution all that it is
destined to experience actively or passively from its beginning right
on to its end; it resembles a human being, all whose capacities are
wrapped up in the embryo before birth. Ere the child has seen the 3
light the principle of beard and grey hairs is innate. Albeit small
and hidden, all the features of the whole body and of every succeeding
period of life are there. In like manner the creation of the world
embraces sun and moon, stars with their successive phases, and the
birth of all sentient life; and no less the methods of change in all
earthly things. Among the latter is flood, which comes by a law of
nature just as winter and summer do. So, that catastrophe will not be
produced simply by rain, but rain will contribute: nor by inroads 4
of the sea, but these inroads will contribute: nor by earthquake, but
earthquake will contribute. All elements will aid nature, that nature’s
decrees may be executed. The chief cause of its inundation will be
furnished by the earth herself, which, as has been already said, is
subject to transmutation, and may dissolve in moisture.
Therefore, there will one day come an end to all human life and 5
interests. The elements of the earth must all be dissolved or utterly
destroyed in order that they all may be created anew in innocence, and
that no remnant may be left to tutor men in vice. There will be more
moisture then than there ever was before. At present the elements are
all carefully adjusted to the parts they have to fulfil. To destroy
the equipoise in which the balance stands, there must be some addition
to one or other of them. The addition will be to moisture. It has,
at present, power to surround, but not to overwhelm the earth. Any
addition to it must of necessity overflow into ground that does not now
belong to it.[60] So the earth as the weaker is bound to yield to sea
which has gathered unnatural strength. So it will begin to rot, then
to be loosened and converted into moisture, and to waste away by the 6
continuous drain. Rivers will then issue forth beneath mountains,
shaking them to the foundations by their fury; then they will flow on
in silence without a breath of air. The soil will everywhere give forth
water; the tops of mountains will pour it out, just as disease corrupts
what is sound, and an ulcer taints its whole vicinity. The nearer the
part is to the soil that is being liquefied, the more quickly will
it be washed off, dissolved, and finally carried away. The rock will
everywhere gape in fissures, and the fresh supplies of water will leap
down into the gulfs, and unite in forming one great sea. There will be
no Adriatic any longer, no strait in the Sicilian Sea, no Charybdis, no
Scylla. All the fabulous dangers will be swallowed up in the new sea; 7
the existing Ocean which surrounds the fringes of the earth will come
into the centre.
[60] The text is uncertain, but the meaning fairly obvious.
Nor will this be all. As if this were not enough, winter will seize
upon months that are not his, summer will be stopped, the heat of
every heavenly body that dries up earth’s moisture will be quenched
and cease. All these names will be obliterated--Caspian and Red
Sea, Ambracian and Cretan Gulfs, the Pontus and the Propontis. All
distinctions will disappear. All will be mixed up which nature has 8
now arranged in its several parts. Nor will walls and battlements
afford protection to any. Temples will not save their worshippers, nor
citadels their refugees. The wave will anticipate the fugitives, and
sweep them down from their very stronghold. Some enemies will hasten
from the west, others from the east. A single day will see the burial
of all mankind. All that the long forbearance of fortune has produced,
all that has been reared to eminence, all that is famous and all that
is beautiful, great thrones, great nations--all will descend into the
one abyss, will be overthrown in one hour.
XXX
Nature, as I have said, finds no task hard, and especially one 1
resolved upon from the beginning, to which she does not come of a
sudden, but of which long warning has been given. From the world’s
first morning, when out of shapeless uniformity it assumed this form it
wears, nature’s decree had fixed the day when all earthly things should
be overflowed. Nay, from of old the seas have practised their strength
for this purpose, lest at any time destruction as a strange work might
be found difficult to compass. Do you not see how the breaker dashes
against the beach as if it wished to leave its element? Do you not
see how the tide sometimes crosses its bounds and instals the sea in
possession of the land? Do you not see how unceasing is the war it 2
wages against its barriers? But what special apprehension need there
be of the sea, the place where you see such turmoil, and of the rivers
that burst forth in such fury? Where has nature not placed water? She
can attack us on all sides the moment she chooses. I can give my own
word of honour for it that water meets us as we turn up the soil; every
time our avarice sends us down a mine, or any other motive induces us
to sink a shaft deep in the earth, the end of the excavation is always
a rush of water.
Remember, too, that there are huge lakes hidden deep in the earth, 3
great quantities of sea stored up, and many rivers that glide through
the unseen depths. On all sides, therefore, will be causes of deluge;
for some waters flow in beneath the earth and others flow round it.
Though long restrained they will at last prevail, and will join stream
to stream and pool to marsh. The sea will fill up the mouth of every
fountain, and will open it out to wider extent. Just as the bowels
drain the body in the draught, or as the strength goes off into 4
perspiration, so the earth will dissolve, and though other causes
are inactive, it will find within itself a flood in which to sink.
All the great forces will thus, I should suppose, combine. Nor will
destruction tarry. The harmony is assailed and broken when once the
world has relaxed aught of its needed care. At once, from all sides,
open and hidden, above and beneath, will rush the influx of waters.
There is nothing like the letting loose of the sea’s full force, 5
for violence and ungovernable fury; it rises in rebellion and spurns
every restraint. It will make full use of its permitted liberty; as
its nature prompts, what it rends and surrounds it will soon fill
up. Just as fire that breaks out at different points will speedily
unite the flames and make one grand blaze, so the overflowing seas
will join forces in an instant. But the waves will not enjoy their
unrestrained liberty for ever. When the destruction of the human race 6
is consummated, and when wild beasts, whose nature men had come to
share, have been consigned together to a like fate, the earth will once
more drink up the waters. Nature will force the sea to stay its course,
and to expend its rage within its wonted bounds. Ocean will be banished
from our abodes into his own secret dwelling-place. The ancient order
of things will be recalled. Every living creature will be created 7
afresh. The earth will receive a new man ignorant of sin, born under
happier stars. But they, too, will retain their innocence only while
they are new. Vice quickly creeps in; virtue is difficult to find;
she requires ruler and guide. But vice can be acquired even without a
tutor.