United States or Bulgaria ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
At the beginning of the Christian era., the heroes commemorated by Ossian still had in the centre of their shields a polished stone consecrated by the Druids, and a saga maintains that the CERAUNIA assured certain victory to their owners.
Pliny tells of a thunder-bolt having fallen into a lake, in which eighty-nine of these wonderful stones were soon afterwards found. Prudentius represents ancient German warriors as wearing gleaming CERAUNIA on their helmets; in other countries similar stones ornamented the statues of the gods, and formed rays about their heads.
His rival started out with the intention of carrying the war into Italy before they suspected his movements, but when he came to Corcyra and ascertained that the advance guard of ships sent to reconnoitre his position was hiding in the vicinity of the mountains of Ceraunia, he conceived the idea that Caesar himself with all his fleet had arrived; hence he would proceed no farther.
Yet Phocion had interest with him to recall many from banishment by his intercession, and prevailed also for those who were driven out, that they might not, like others, be hurried beyond Taenarus, and the mountains of Ceraunia, but remain in Greece, and plant themselves in Peloponnesus, of which number was Agnonides, the sycophant.
The name given to these flints recalls the origin attributed to them. The Romans call them CERAUNIA from keraun'oc, thunder, and in the catalogue of the possessions of a noble Veronese published in 1656, we find them mentioned under this name. Every one knows Cymbeline's funeral chant in Shakespeare's play: Fear no more the lightning flash Nor the all dreaded thunder-stone.
A subject so calculated to fire the imagination has of course not been neglected by the poets. Claudian's verses are well known: Pyrenaeisque sub antris Ignea flumineae legere ceraunia nymphae.
Ceraunia, engendered by the thunder, sparkled by the side of chalcedonies, which are a cure for poison. There were topazes from Mount Zabarca to avert terrors, opals from Bactriana to prevent abortions, and horns of Ammon, which are placed under the bed to induce dreams. The fires from the stones and the flames from the lamp were mirrored in the great golden shields.
Word Of The Day