unfavourable situations elsewhere, the
patients, who in other healthy places might be cured by a different form
of treatment, will here be more quickly cured by the mildness that comes
from the shutting out of the winds. The diseases which are hard to cure
in neighbourhoods such as those to which I have referred above are
catarrh, hoarseness, coughs, pleurisy, consumption, spitting of blood,
and all others that are cured not by lowering the system but by building
it up. They are hard to cure, first, because they are originally due to
chills; secondly, because the patient's system being already exhausted
by disease, the air there, which is in constant agitation owing to winds
and therefore deteriorated, takes all the sap of life out of their
diseased bodies and leaves them more meagre every day. On the other
hand, a mild, thick air, without draughts and not constantly blowing
back and forth, builds up their frames by its unwavering steadiness, and
so strengthens and restores people who are afflicted with these
diseases.

4. Some have held that there are only four winds: Solanus from due east;
Auster from the south; Favonius from due west; Septentrio from the
north. But more careful investigators tell us that there are eight.
Chief among such was Andronicus of Cyrrhus who in proof built the marble
octagonal tower in Athens. On the several sides of the octagon he
executed reliefs representing the several winds, each facing the point
from which it blows; and on top of the tower he set a conical shaped
piece of marble and on this a bronze Triton with a rod outstretched in
its right hand. It was so contrived as to go round with the wind, always
stopping to face the breeze and holding its rod as a pointer directly
over the representation of the wind that was blowing.

5. Thus Eurus is placed to the southeast between Solanus and Auster:
Africus to the southwest between Auster and Favonius; Caurus, or, as
many call it, Corus, between Favonius and Septentrio; and Aquilo between
Septentrio and Solanus. Such, then, appears to have been his device,
including the numbers and names of the wind and indicating the
directions from which particular winds blow. These facts being thus
determined, to find the directions and quarters of the winds your method
of procedure should be as follows.

6. In the middle of the city place a marble amussium, laying it true by
the level, or else let the spot be made so true by means of rule and
level t