Diatribe de Prodigiosis Crucibus

which they have embraced under the name of prodigies or portents, we also call θείας ὀπτάσεις [divine visions], or divine spectacles, because there is none of this kind which does not display a clear indication of a present Deity or of some Divinity. And such are, indeed, in the heavens, the generation of new stars and the appearances of comets under multiple variations; in the aerial element, the unusual violence of winds and whirlwinds, and prodigious rains of blood, grain, stones, and animals; in the waters, the unusual swelling of lakes, portentous deluges, and sudden inundations of the sea and rivers, which, having burst their embankments, we read in some places left nothing behind but the tops of towers still standing as indicators of a mournful spectacle, with great ruin of men, animals, and fields. On the earth, prodigious and sudden gushings or cessations of springs, the absorption of mountains and the generation of new ones, and the formidable fires of the sea, the lands, and of Vvlcanorum [volcanoes]. In the lesser world, the progeny of unheard-of diseases and monsters. In the political world, horrendous and unseen perturbations.

Various classes of prodigies