CHAP. 86. (81.)—WONDERFUL CIRCUMSTANCES ATTENDING
EARTHQUAKES.
Inundations of the sea take place at the same time with
earthquakes [Note]; the water being impregnated with the same
spirit [Note], and received into the bosom of the earth which
subsides. The greatest earthquake which has occurred in
our memory was in the reign of Tiberius [Note], by which twelve
cities of Asia were laid prostrate in one night. They occurred
the most frequently during the Punic war, when we had
accounts brought to Rome of fifty-seven earthquakes in the
space of a single year. It was during this year [Note] that the
Carthaginians and the Romans, who were fighting at the
lake Thrasimenus, were neither of them sensible of a very
great shock during the battle [Note]. Nor is it an evil merely
consisting in the danger which is produced by the motion;
it is all equal or a greater evil when it is considered as a
prodigy [Note]. The city of Rome never experienced a shock,
which was not the forerunner of some great calamity.
