Читать книгу The Natural History of Pliny (Vol. 1-6) - Pliny the Elder - Страница 60

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We have accounts of many different kinds of thunder-storms. Those which are dry do not burn objects, but dissipate them; while those which are moist do not burn, but blacken them. There is a third kind, which is called bright lightning396, of a very wonderful nature, by which casks are emptied, without the vessels themselves being injured, or there being any other trace left of their operation397. Gold, copper, and silver are melted, while the bags which contain them are not in the least burned, nor even the wax seal much defaced. Marcia, a lady of high rank at Rome, was struck while pregnant; the fœtus was destroyed, while she herself survived without suffering any injury398. Among the prognostics which took place at the time of Catiline’s conspiracy, M. Herennius, a magistrate of the borough of Pompeii, was struck by lightning when the sky was without clouds399.