[425] This occurrence may probably be referred to an aërolite, while the wool mentioned below, i. e. a light flocculent substance, was perhaps volcanic.
Armorum sonitum toto Germania cœlo
Audiit.—Virgil, Geor. i. 474, 475.
“ ... in Jovis Vicilini templo, quod in Compsano agro est, arma concrepuisse.” Livy, xxiv. 44.
[427] See Plutarch, by Langhorne; Marius, iii. 133.
[428] See Livy, iii. 5 & 10, xxxi. 12, xxxii. 9, et alibi.
[429] I have already had occasion to remark, concerning this class of phænomena, that there is no doubt of their actual occurrence, although their origin is still unexplained.
[430] The life of Anaxagoras has been written by Diogenes Laërtius. We have an ample account of him by Enfield in the General Biography, in loco; he was born B.C. 500 and died B.C. 428.
[431] There is some variation in the exact date assigned by different authors to this event; in the Chronological table in Brewster’s Encyc. vi. 420, it is said to have occurred 467 B.C.