parts of the earth; so that to behold it is a sight for the
blessed. There are also many other animals and men upon it, some
dwelling in mid-earth, others about the air, as we do about the sea, and
others in islands which the air flows round, and which are near the
continent; and, in one word, what water and the sea are to us, for our
necessities, the air is to them; and what air is to us, that ether is to
them. 138. But their seasons are of such a temperament that they are
free from disease, and live for a much longer time than those here, and
surpass us in sight, hearing, and smelling, and every thing of this
kind, as much as air excels water, and ether air, in purity. Moreover,
they have abodes and temples of the gods, in which gods really dwell,
and voices and oracles, and sensible visions of the gods, and such-like
intercourse with them; the sun, too, and moon, and stars, are seen by
them such as they really are, and their felicity in other respects is
correspondent with these things."

"And, such, indeed, is the nature of the whole earth, and the parts
about the earth; but there are many places all round it throughout its
cavities, some deeper and more open than that in which we dwell; but
others that are deeper have a less chasm than our region, and others are
shallower in depth than it is here, and broader. 139. But all these are
in many places perforated one into another under the earth, some with
narrower and some with wider channels, and have passages through, by
which a great quantity of water flows from one into another, as into
basins, and there are immense bulks of ever-flowing rivers under the
earth, both of hot and cold water, and a great quantity of fire, and
mighty rivers of fire, and many of liquid mire, some purer, and some
more miry, as in Sicily there are rivers of mud that flow before the
lava, and the lava itself, and from these the several places are filled,
according as the overflow from time to time happens to come to each of
them. But all these move up and down, as it were, by a certain
oscillation existing in the earth. And this oscillation proceeds from
such natural cause as this; one of the chasms of the earth is
exceedingly large, and perforated through the entire earth, and is that
which Homer[43] speaks of, 'very far off, where is the most profound
abyss beneath the earth,' which elsewhere both he and many other poets
have called Tartarus. For into this chasm all rivers flow together,