[407] Alexandre remarks in this place, “An morbus aliquis fuit, qui primum in agros debacchatus, jam urbi minabatur, forsitan ab aëris siccitate natus, quem advenientes cum procella imbres discusserunt?” Lemaire, i. 350.
[408] For a notice of Piso, see Lemaire, i. 208.
[409] We have an account of the death of Tullus Hostilius in Livy, i. 31.
[410] “ab eliciendo, seu quod precationibus cœlo evocaretur, id nomen traxit.” This is confirmed by the following lines from Ovid, Fast. iii. 327, 328:—
“Eliciunt cœlo te, Jupiter: unde minores
Nunc quoque te celebrant, Eliciumque vocant.”
[411] “beneficiis abrogare vires.”
[412] “ictum autem et sonitum congruere, ita modulante natura.” This remark is not only incorrect, but appears to be at variance both with what precedes and what follows.
[413] The following remark of Seneca may be referred to, both as illustrating our author and as showing how much more correct the opinions of Seneca were than his own, on many points of natural philosophy; “... necesse est, ut impetus fulminis et præmittat spiritus, et agat ante se, et a tergo trahat ventum....;” Nat. Quæst. lib. ii. § 20. p. 706.
[414] “quoniam læva parte mundi ortus est.” On this passage Hardouin remarks; “a Deorum sede, quum in meridiem spectes, ad sinistram sunt partes mundi exorientes;” Lemaire, i. 353. Poinsinet enters into a long detail respecting opinions of the ancients on this point and the circumstances which induced them to form their opinions; i. 34 et seq.