 18. Book VI. Part III. Water in wells, moreover, grows cooler in summer, and for this reason, that the earth is then rarefied by the heat, and emits rapidly into the air any atoms of warmth which it may happen to contain. The more, accordingly, the earth is exhausted of its heat, the cooler also does the water become, which is concealed underground. And on the contrary too, when the earth is contracted and condensed and congealed as it were with cold, it happens that, as it contracts, it discharges into the wells whatever heat it contains. Near the temple of Jupiter-Ammon there is said to be a fountain which is cold in the day and warm in the night. At the peculiarity of this fountain men greatly wonder, and imagine that the earth is heated in its turn by the power of the sun from beneath, during the time when night has covered the earth with its awful darkness, a supposition which is too much opposed to just reasoning. For since the sun striking on the uncovered body of water at noonday, when the rays from above are possessed of such violent heat, cannot make it warm even on the surface, how can this same sun act upon the water and infuse into it his quickening heat from beneath the earth, which is of so dense and solid a consistence, especially when he can scarce make his warmth by means of his glowing rays penetrate through the walls of houses? What then is the cause? It is evidently this, that certain ground, less dense than the rest of the ground, encircles this fountain, and that there are many atoms of heat near the body of water. Hence, when night covers the earth with its dewy shade, the ground underneath immediately becomes cold and contracts. By this process it happens that the soil, as if it were compressed with the hand, discharges into the fountain whatever atoms of heat it contains, which make the water warm to the touch, as well as the steam of it. Afterwards, when the sun with his morning rays has relaxed and rarefied the earth, as his active heat mingles with it, the atoms of heat return again into their former places, and all the warmth of the water passes into the ground. From this cause the fountain becomes cold in the daytime. Besides, the water is acted upon by the rays of the ground as the day comes on, and is rarefied by the tremulous heat of his beams. It accordingly happens that whatever particles of heat it contains, it disperses, as water often dispels the cold which it contains, and dissolves its ice, and relaxes its fetters. There is also a cold spring at Dodona, over which, when tow is placed, it frequently, catching fire at once, throws out flame, and in like manner a torch lighted at its waters casts a radiance wherever it swims or is impelled by the winds over the surface—the cause evidently being that there are in the water many atoms of heat, and particles of warmth must also arise from the earth itself over all the bottom of the fountain, and be exhaled and passed forth at the same time into the air. Yet these particles must not be so vivid as that the spring can be rendered hot by them. Besides, some powerful influence excites those atoms of heat, when dispersed abroad, to burst suddenly upwards through the water, and to combine on the surface, as in the sea around Arados there is a spring of fresh water which bubbles up through it, and puts aside the salt waves around it. And in many other places the sea affords a seasonable relief to thirsty mariners in as much as it casts up fresh water among the salt. Thus, too, those atoms of heat may burst up through that fountain of which we have spoken, and diffuse themselves abroad among the tow, which atoms, when they combine together or adhere to the substance of the tow or torch, easily take fire at once, because tow and torches contain likewise many particles of heat which may unite with those in the water to produce flame. Do you not observe also that when you hold the wick of a lamp recently extinguished to a night-taper, it takes fire before it touches the flame? And have you not noticed a torch catch fire in the like manner? Many other substances, too, affected by the mere heat, begin to burn at a distance from a fire before its flame closely involves them. Such, therefore, we must conceive to be the case with respect to that fountain. In the next place I shall proceed to show by what law of nature it happens that the stone which the Greeks call a magnet, from the name of the region that produced it, for it was first found in the country of the magnates, has the power to attract iron. At this stone men look with astonishment, for it often exhibits a chain of little rings suspended from it. Since you may, at times, see five or more hanging in a straight line oscillate in a gentle breeze whilst one depends from another attached to it underneath, and whilst they feel from each other the influence and attraction of the stone so thoroughly does its force pervade the whole succession of rings. In matters of this kind you must establish many points before you can state the principle of the thing itself, and I must accordingly approach the subject by a long circuit of introductory remarks, on which account I entreat your attendive ear and favourable regard. In the first place, from all bodies, whatsoever we behold, there must necessarily flow and be emitted and dispersed, certain substances which strike the eye and excite vision. Odours, too, are perpetually flying off from some bodies, as cold is also diffused from rivers, heat from the sun, spray from the billows of the ocean, which consumes walls near the shore. Nor do various voices cease to flit through the air, moreover the moisture, so to speak, of a salt taste, comes often into the mouth when we are walking near the sea, and when we look at diluted wormwood being mixed, a bitterness affects our palate. So evident is it, that a certain substance is carried off perpetually from all bodies, and is dispersed in all parts round them, nor is there any delay or rest allowed to the efflux, since we constantly perceive it with our senses, and may see all objects at all times, and smell them, and hear them sound. Here I shall observe again that which is set forth in the first part of my poem, namely, of how porous a consistent's bodies are. For though to understand this is of importance to many subjects, it is especially necessary to establish with regard to the very matter immediately under our notice, concerning which I am proceeding to speak, that there is nothing in the whole of things before us but body intermingled with vacuity. It is apparent, first of all, that in caverns the overhanging rocks exude moisture, and distill running drops. From the whole of our bodies also perspiration trickles. Our beard springs forth from them, and hairs arise all over our limbs and members. The food which we take is distributed through all our veins, and swells and nourishes the extreme parts of the body, and even the very nails. We feel cold, too, and vivid heat penetrate through brass. We feel them likewise pass through gold and silver when we are holding full cups. Moreover, voices fly through the stone walls of houses. Odors and cold pervade them, as well as the heat of fire, which has power to penetrate even the substance of iron, as is felt with a corselet confined to the circuit of the neck. The infection of disease likewise penetrates walls, as it enters into houses from without. Philosophers, too, with reason, send far back again into the depths of heaven and earth, the tempest which has burst forth from the earth and the heaven, since they rightly consider that there is no combination of matter, ethereal or terrestrial, which is not of a consistence far from impenetrable to other atoms. To this is to be added that all atoms which are discharged from bodies are not possessed of the same power to affect the senses, nor are they all alike adapted to all substances. The sun, we may first observe, extracts the moisture from the earth and renders it dry, while it melts ice and forces the snows piled on the high mountains to dissolve in the heat of its rays. Wax, too, placed in the warmth of the sun, becomes liquid. Fire moreover melts brass and dissolves gold, but contracts and draws together the hides and flesh of animals. Water also hardens iron when fresh from the fire, but softens hides and flesh when hardened with heat. The wild olive tree, then which there is nothing that grows more bitter to the taste of man, delights the bearded goats as if it were flavoured with nectar and ambrosia. Swine, besides, shrink from ointment of Amaricus and dread every kind of perfume, for that which seems at times to restore us, as it were to life, is to bristly bores strong poison. But mud, on the contrary, which is to us most repulsive filth, seems clean and attractive to swine, so that they roll themselves over and over in it without being tired. There is this likewise which remains to be noticed, and which seems necessary to be stated before I proceed to speak of the exact subject before us. Since in various bodies are situated many pores, these pores must be distinguished by natures differing from one another, and have respectively their own forms and shapes. For there are various senses in animals, of which each perceives for itself its own peculiar object, since we observe that by one sense sounds penetrate into us by another taste from the juices of food, by another the smell of perfume. Besides, one thing seems to pass through stone, another through wood, another through gold. One substance seems to penetrate silver and another glass, for through the latter images seem to pass, and through the former heat. One thing, too, seems to penetrate through the same passages quicker than another. This difference you may be certain the nature of the passages obliges to exist, since it evidently varies, as we showed a little above, according to the different consistence and texture of bodies. For which reason, since all these points are established and laid down, and everything prepared and made ready for us, the principle of the magnet will hence, moreover, be easily shown, and the whole cause which attracts the substance of the iron will be made manifest. In the first place, many atoms, or effluvia, must necessarily fly off from the stone, which by their impact disperse the air that is situate betwixt the stone and the iron. When this space is emptied, and a large void is made between them, atoms of the iron, immediately darting forward, rush in a body into the vacuum, and the whole ring of necessity follows, and passes onward with its whole body. For no substance coheres and combines more closely, having its primary elements intimately involved, than the cold and rough consistence of stout iron. It is therefore the less wonderful if, as is stated, certain of its atoms starting forth in a body from the iron itself cannot rush into the void without the whole ring following, which it does, and continues to move until it has reached the stone itself, and has become fixed to it by secret attachment. The same process takes place on all sides, and wherever an empty space is formed, whether at the side of the iron or above it, the nearest atoms tend immediately into the void, for they are impelled by impacts from other surrounding atoms, nor can they of themselves rise upwards, or pass away from the magnet into the air. After this is to be added another reason why this motion of the atoms may still more certainly take place, namely, that as soon as the air before the ring has become thinner, and the space between it and the magnet more vacant and open, it immediately happens that the air which is situate at the back of the ring carries it forward as it were, and impels it from behind. For the air surrounding all bodies continually strikes upon them, but the air that surrounds the iron drives it forward at such times as it approaches the magnet, because the space on one side is empty, and receives it into itself. And this air, too, of which I am speaking, subtly conveying itself through the numerous pores of the iron into its small recesses, thrusts and pushes it forward. This substance of the iron accordingly is helped forward by this assistance and impulse, as ships and their sails are driven onwards by the wind. All bodies, moreover, must contain air in their substance, since their consistency is more or less porous, and air surrounds and is in contact with everything. This air then, which is concealed within the iron, is continually agitated with a restless motion, and thus doubtless strikes upon the ring, and moves it, as you may conceive, internally. And the whole air, within and without, tends in the same direction in which it has once started, and where it has found a vacuum to assist its efforts. It happens, too, at times, that the substance of the iron recedes from this stone, as if accustomed to start back from it, and to follow it, by turns. Thus have I seen iron rings of samathrace, as well as filings of iron, lying in brazen basins, thrown into agitation, and start up, when the magnet was applied underneath, so that it seems desirous to flee away from the lodestone, when the brass is interposed. For it is by the intervention of the brass that so great an aversion is produced, since, as is evident, when the effluvia of the brass have preoccupied and filled up the open pores of the iron, the effluvia of the stone follow, and find all parts of the iron, full, and have no way to pass through as they would have had before. They are therefore obliged to strike against the substance of the iron, and to drive it upward with their own stream, by which means the magnet repels from itself, and drives away through the brass, that metal which, without the interference of the brass, it most frequently attracts. But do not wonder, in the consideration of these subjects, that the effluvia from this stone cannot also repel other substances. For some substances remain unmoved as being sustained by their own weight, of which sort is gold, and others cannot be repulsed because they are of a porous consistent so that the effluvia pass through them unobstructed, of which kind would, appears to be. The substance of iron, however, is placed between these two, so that when it has admitted certain atoms of the brass, it is then possible for the stream of particles from the magnet to impel it. Nor are these mutual affinities of the magnet and iron so unlike the affections of all other substances, but that many instances of the kind occur to me, instances of bodies which I could mention as remarkably adapted to each other. In the first place you see stones cemented only with lime. Wood is joined together with glue prepared from certain parts of oxen, and with such strength that the veins of boards will open in cracks, sooner than the seams of ox glue will relax their fastenings. The juice of the vine is willing to mingle with spring water, while heavy pitch and light olive oil refuse to unite with it. The purple colour of the murex so blends in one body with wool that it can never be extracted from it, not even if you should strive to restore the wool to its whiteness with all the waves of the sea, not even if the whole ocean with all its floods should be disposed to cleanse it. Moreover one substance only couples gold with gold, and brass is united with brass only by pewter. How many other facts of this nature is it possible to produce? But to what purpose would it be? Neither are such long digressions necessary for you, nor does it become me to bestow so much labour on this one subject, but it is proper for me to comprise many matters in brief space and in few words. To conclude then, respecting the magnet, between those bodies whose textures so mutually correspond that the cavities of this answer to the prominences of that, and the cavities of that to the prominences of this, the best union is evidently formed. It is possible also we may observe that some bodies may be held united as if with rings and hooks, a mode of union which seems to take place rather than any other between the lodestone and iron. I shall now explain what is the nature and origin of diseases, and how a morbid infection of the air suddenly arising may spread deadly destruction among the race of mankind and the tribes of inferior animals. In the first place I have already shown that there are in many substances atoms which tend to preserve our life, and on the other hand many must necessarily fly abroad which are productive of disease and death, and when these have by chance combined and disordered the air, the air when in this state consequently becomes unwholesome. And all these prevalence and pestilentialness of diseases arise either from without the earth as clouds and mist gather in the heaven above us, or spring as frequently happens from the earth itself, when drenched with immoderate and untimely rains, and acted upon by fierce rays of the sun, it has contracted a kind of putrescence. Do you not observe also how those who visit any place far from their country and their home are affected by the change in the air and water, and this happens because the substances in those elements greatly differ? For how much must we suppose that the air of the Britons varies from that which is in Egypt, where the north pole of the world fails to show itself? Or how much must we imagine that that which hangs over Pontus differs from that which stretches over Cadiz, and towards the races of men blackened by the parching heat of the sun? These four kinds of air which we observe to proceed from the four winds and four several quarters of the heaven we know to be different one from another, and the complexion and looks of the men also appear to differ widely, and peculiar diseases seem to affect each individual nation. There is the disease called leprosy, which has its rise on the River Nile in the middle of Egypt and in no other country. In Attica the feet are affected with the gout, and in the country of Achaea the eyes are afflicted with soreness. Hence various regions are unfavorable to various parts and members, and this affect the difference of the air produces. When that air therefore which to us is strong poison puts itself in motion, and an unwholesome atmosphere begins to spread, it creeps along by degrees like a mist or cloud, and disorders the whole heaven wherever it advances, and compels it to alter its nature. It happens accordingly that when this corrupt air has at length joined our air it infects it, and renders it like itself and unsuitable for us. This new malady and pest therefore either suddenly falls into the water, or penetrates into the very corn, or into other food of men and cattle. Or even as may be the case the infection remains suspended in the air itself. And when, as we breathe, we inhale the air mingled with it, we must necessarily absorb those seeds of disease into our body. By a similar process a pestilence often spreads among oxen and contagion among dull sheep. Nor does it make any difference whether we go into climates that are unfavorable to us, and change the atmosphere around us ourselves, or whether nature of our own accord brings upon us corrupt air, or any other affection which we are not accustomed to experience, and which, at its first approach, may infect us with disease. Such a cause of disease and such deadly vapour in the atmosphere formally rendered the fields poisonous throughout the territory of Attica. It both dispeopled the roads and exhausted the city of its inhabitants. For, having its rise in remote parts, proceeding from the coasts of Egypt, and having passed through a long tract of air, and over the liquid plains of the sea, it at length descended on the people of Pandion, and all were then consigned by troops to disease and death. They first found the head burning with heat, and the eyes red with an extraordinary brilliancy shed over them. The jaws also which looked black within exuded blood, and the passage of the voice was clogged and obstructed with ulcers. The tongue, the interpreter of the mind, was covered with drops of gore, and was enfeebled by the disease, slow in its motion, and rough to the touch. Then, when the pestilential influence descending through the jaws had filled the chest and gathered in the suffering stomach of the patients, all the defences of life at once gave way. The breath-central effeted odour from the mouth, such as putrid carcasses, cast out upon the earth, emit. The powers of the whole mind and the whole body grew languid, as if on the very threshold of death. On these intolerable sufferings was perpetually attendant an anxious distress of mind, and complaints mingled with moanings. A retching, too, frequently occurring both by night and by day, convulsed the nerves from time to time, and, contracting the limbs, rendered the sufferers powerless, exhausting those who were already wearied out with pain. Yet you could not perceive the surface of the body of any one externally inflamed with any extraordinary degree of heat, but rather offering a sensation of gentle warmth to the hand. At the same time, however, all the body looked red with ulcers as if it were burning in it, as it appears when the erycypillus spreads over the limbs. But the internal part of the patient was glowing with heat that penetrated even into the bones, a fire raged in the stomach as in a furnace, so that you could have rendered no garment, however light and thin, of use to the person of any one. They constantly exposed their limbs burning with the disease to the wind and the cold, and some threw themselves into cool rivers, precipitating their bodies naked into the waters. Many, approaching the brink with open mouths, hurled themselves headlong down into the water in wells, for a parching thirst raging insatiably, and driving them to plunge their bodies into the flood, made vast showers, seem only as small drops. Nor was there any intermission of the malady. The bodies of men lay exhausted. Medicine spoke in low tones with a secret dread. So incessantly did the patients roll their eyes which remained wide open, burning with disease, and unvisited by sleep. Many other signs of death at the same time showed themselves. The mind was distracted with anguish and dread. The brow was gloomy. The look, wild and fierce. The ears disturbed and filled with noises. The breathing was either fast or thick or drawn but seldom. There was a moist dew of perspiration shining upon the neck. The saliva was thin, scanty, and tinged with the colour of saffron. It was also salt, and expelled with difficulty from the horse's throat by coughing. In the hand the nerves contracted, and the whole arm shook. From the feet a coldness rose quickly yet gradually over the body. The nostrils towards the closing hour of life were compressed. The point of the nose was sharp. The eyes were hollow, the temples sunk, the skin cold and hard, a distortion over spreading the mouth, the forehead tense and prominent, and not long after these appearances the limbs lay stretched in rigid death, and for the most part when the eighth light of the sun shone or at far this at his ninth rising they yielded up their life. Of which sufferers if any one for a time escaped death, as was possible either by reason of the foul ulcers breaking, or by means of a black discharge from the intestines, yet consumption and destruction awaited him at last, or, as was often the case, an excessive flux of corrupt blood attended with violent pains in the head, issued from the obstructed nostrils, and by this outlet the whole strength and substance of the man passed away. He, moreover, who had escaped this violent flux of foul blood, was not certain wholly to recover, for still the disease was ready to pass into his nerves and joints, and into the very genial organs of the body. And of those who suffered thus some, fearing the gates of death, continued to live, though deprived by the steel of the virile part, and some, though without hands and feet, and though they had lost their eyes, yet persisted to remain in life so strong a dread of death had taken possession of them. Upon some, too, came forgetfulness of all things, so that they knew not even themselves. And though numerous corpses, heaped upon corpses, lay extended over the ground, yet the tribes of birds and of wild beasts either ran off to a distance to avoid the repulsive stench, or, after having tasted the flesh, sickened with instant death. But, indeed, during those days scarcely any bird appeared in the sky, nor did the destructive tribes of savage beasts leave the woods during the nights. Most of them suffered from the disease, and died. The faithful spirit of the dog especially stretched along all the streets, unwillingly relinquished life. The force of the disease, however, rested the vital power from his limbs. Funerals, unattended and solitary, were eagerly hurried over. Nor was there any certain mode of cure common and efficient for all. For that which had secured to one the privilege of breathing the vital air, and of beholding the regions of the sky, was mere poison to others, and hastened their death. But that which in these circumstances was preeminently deplorable and wretched, was that when anyone found himself seized with the pestilence, he lay down, as if he were condemned to death, sunk in spirit and with a despairing heart, thinking only of death, and gave up the ghost on the same spot on which he fell. At no time, however, did the contagion of the insatiable disease cease to spread itself from one man to another, as a morren is disseminated among woolly sheep and horned cattle. And this circumstance, even above all others, heaped death upon death. For on those who shrunk from visiting their sick friends, fatal neglect soon took vengeance, as having been too fond of life and too apprehensive of death, causing them to perish by a squalid and miserable end, deserted by their relatives, and destitute of relief. But those who had been ready to give assistance fell into the malady from infection, and by reason of the duty which shame and the moving entreaties of the sufferers mingled with sounds of reproach compelled them to undergo. The most excellent characters accordingly incurred this kind of death most frequently. Those moreover who strove to bury the multitude of their dead one after another returned home overcome with weeping and mourning. Hence men were stretched on their beds in great numbers through sorrow and despondency, nor could anyone be found whom, in such time of calamity, neither disease nor death nor mourning for the loss of friends had affected. Besides, as the pestilence now spread, every shepherd and herdsman, as well as every stout driver of the crooked plough languished under the infection. Their bodies lay cooped up within narrow huts consigned to death from the effects of want and disease. You might have seen the dead corpses of parents stretched on their dead children, and sometimes again children expiring on the bodies of their mothers and fathers. And this affliction was brought in no small portion into the city from the country. Affliction which a sick and infected multitude of rustics flocking together from all parts introduced. They crowded all places of reception and of shelter, for which reason, as they were thus crammed together, death the more easily strewed them in heaps by the force of contagion. Many bodies from the effects of thirst lay stretched at the public conduits, prostrate and extended along the road, their breath having been stopped by two great indulgence in the deliciousness of the water. And everywhere along the open and public roads you might have seen powerless limbs with half-dead bodies of men, horrible with squalor, covered with rags and perishing for want of dressing. There was skin only on the bones, which was itself now almost sunk away by reason of disease of the viscera and overspreading filth. All the sacred temples of the gods, moreover, death had now crowded with carcasses. All the shrines of the divinities in every part stood filled with corpses, for these were places which the attendants of the temples had thronged with strangers. Nor indeed was the worship of the gods or their divinities much regarded, for present suffering overcame religious considerations. Nor was the custom of sepulchre with which that pious people had always been accustomed to berry observed longer in the city. For the whole people in perturbation ran hither and thither, and each in his sorrow buried his friend according to his means. Dire poverty too with sudden impulse prompted men to many impious deeds, for they were relatives with loud outcries on the funeral piles raised for others, and applied torches to them, often even quarrelling with great bloodshed, rather than the bodies should be left unconsumed. Thus abruptly ends the description of the plague and the poem of Lucretius. Much of the account of the pestilence, as is observed above, is taken from Thucydides. I have not thought it necessary to transcribe in the notes the passages of Thucydides which Lucretius imitates. The English reader may refer to the whole description in Mr. Dale's Thucydides, and the scholar has ample references in Lambinus and Creech. Procopius has given a full account of the plague which began to spread through the world and devastated the city of Constantinople in the reign of Justinian. An account in which Gibbon says that he has emulated the skill and diligence of Thucydides in his description of the plague at Athens. It is observable that he represents it, like that of Athens, as taking its rise from Egypt. Ethiopia and Egypt, says Gibbon. Chapter forty-three, Subphin, have been stigmatized in every age as the great source and seminary of the plague. In a damp, hot, stagnating air this African fever is generated from the putrefaction of animal substances and especially from the swarms of locusts, not less destructive to mankind in their death than in their lives. The assertion of Macrobius, Saturnalia six-two, that Virgil took the principal colouring and features of his description of a pestilence among cattle, Georgics three four seven eight to five six six, from Lucretius's picture of the Athenian plague, rests on very slight foundation. Virgil may have been induced to write his description in emulation of that of Lucretius, but very little that is actually copied will be found in it. In Ovid's description of the same Athenian pestilence, metamorphosis seven five two three to six thirteen, the attentive reader will find far more marks of imitation. Silius Italicus fourteen five eighty to six seventeen, also, like his great predecessors, gives a description of the plague which attacked the Roman army at the siege of Syracuse. Many of his points are taken from Lucretius, as in the following passage. Helpless the victims sunk, the tongue was parched, cold perspiration of the trembling frame flowed copious, while the tumoured throat forbade the food's half-forced descent, a vehement cough shook the vexed lungs and from the arid mouth fumed fiery breath that ceaseless thirst proclaimed. The eyes that scarce the oppressive light could bear, sunk in deep ghastly hollows by the side of the sharp nose, foul bile come mixed with blood forth gushes from the stomach, the weak limbs, fleshless and wasted, shrink to skin and bone. The general features of pestilential destruction are also carefully detailed by Seneca in his Edbus Act I. Thompson has a passage on the effects of pestilence, summer verse 1026, and following. Boccaccio in his description of the plague at Florence seems to have had its usidities in view. If the reader wished to see more accounts of pestilence in imaginative matters, he may consult Defoe's History of the Plague, Wilson's City of the Plague, Brockton Brown's Arthur Mervin, Horace Smith's Bramble Tie House, Mrs. Shelley's Last Man, Ainsworth's Old St. Paul's. End of Section 18 End of On the Nature of Things by Lucretius Translated by John Selby Watson