On the Art of Building

...where constant lightning bolts are cast, Servius says the poets granted this so that they might say Vulcan fell in that place. At the Bosphorus and the Issedones, they attest that thunder and lightning are never seen. In Egypt, it is considered a portent if it rains. Near the Hydaspes, continuous rains flow at the beginning of summer. In Libya, they say that winds are stirred so rarely that, because of the thickness of the sky, various species congealed by vapors through the air are observed. But on the contrary, in the greater part of Galatia during the summer, such a force of wind blows through that it carries stones through the heights instead of sand. In Spain, near the Ebro, they predict wagons of the sky loaded by the Circius wind. It is indeed known that it does not blow through Ethiopia; but historians affirm that this wind, near the Arabs and Troglodytes, burns up all green things. Thucydides writes that Delos was never vexed by earthquakes, but always remained on the same rock, while the surrounding areas fell by earthquakes. We see that that part of Italy which is from Algidus below Rome, through the entire tract of the Hernican hills as far as Capua, is shaken by frequent earthquakes and nearly devastated. There are those who believe Achaia was so named from the frequent flooding of waters. I find that Rome has been eternally feverish; and Galen thinks these fevers are a new kind of emitted humors, for which varied and nearly conflicting remedies must be applied at varied hours. Among the poets, there is an ancient fable that Typhon, buried on the island of Procida, stirs himself, not being fully buried, from which it happens that the island trembles to its foundations. This, indeed, the poets sang in such a way because the island was vexed by earthquakes and eruptions, to such an extent that the Aetrians and Chalcidians were once forced to flee as inhabitants; and again, those who were sent after some time by Hiero of Syracuse, so that they might found a new city there, fled from the fear of constant danger and calamity. And so, all things of this kind must be gathered from long observation and compared with the similarities of other places, so that the whole method may be held more completely.

Furthermore, it must be inquired whether that region has been accustomed to be offended by no more hidden inconveniences. Plato thought that in some places, a certain divine power is sometimes inspired and thrives, and the termination of demons is either propitious to the inhabitants or, on the contrary, hostile. There are indeed places in which men...