[585] “Spatium intelligit, fretumve, quo Sicilia nunc ab Italia dispescitur.” Hardouin in Lemaire, i. 419.
[586] See Strabo, ix.
[587] “Spiracula.”
[588] “Busta urbium.”
[589] “Suboriens,” as M. Alexandre explains it, “renascens;” Lemaire, i. 420.
[590] “Scrobibus;” “aut quum terra fossis excavatur, ut in Pomptina palude, aut per naturales hiatus.” Alexandre in Lemaire, i. 420.
[591] This circumstance is mentioned by Seneca, Nat. Quæst. vi. 28, as occurring “pluribus Italiæ locis;” it may be ascribed to the exhalations from volcanos being raised up into the atmosphere. It does not appear that there is, at present, any cavern in Mount Soracte which emits mephitic vapours. But the circumstance of Soracte being regarded sacred to Apollo, as we learn from our author, vii. 2, and from Virgil, Æn. xi. 785, may lead us to conjecture that something of the kind may formerly have existed there.
[592] The author may probably refer to the well-known Grotto del Cane, where, in consequence of a stratum of carbonic acid gas, which occupies the lower part of the cave only, dogs and other animals, whose mouths are near the ground, are instantly suffocated.
[593] Celebrated in the well-known lines of Virgil, Æn. vii. 563 et seq., as the “sævi spiracula Ditis.”
[594] Apuleius gives us an account of this place from his own observation; De Mundo, § 729. See also Strabo, xii.