flows.  Those whom you formerly knew are now dust and ashes!  A plague sent by angry Juno devastated the land.  She hated it because it bore the name of one of her husband’s female favorites.  While the disease appeared to spring from natural causes we resisted it, as we best might, by natural remedies; but it soon appeared that the pestilence was too powerful for our efforts, and we yielded.  At the beginning the sky seemed to settle down upon the earth, and thick clouds shut in the heated air.  For four months together a deadly south wind prevailed.  The disorder affected the wells and springs; thousands of snakes crept over the land and shed their poison in the fountains.  The force of the disease was first spent on the lower animals—­dogs, cattle, sheep, and birds The luckless ploughman wondered to see his oxen fall in the midst of their work, and lie helpless in the unfinished furrow.  The wool fell from the bleating sheep, and their bodies pined away.  The horse, once foremost in the race, contested the palm no more, but groaned at his stall and died an inglorious death.  The wild boar forgot his rage, the stag his swiftness, the bears no longer attacked the herds.  Everything languished; dead bodies lay in the roads, the fields, and the woods; the air was poisoned by them, I tell you what is hardly credible, but neither dogs nor birds would touch them, nor starving wolves.  Their decay spread the infection.  Next the disease attacked the country people, and then the dwellers in the city.  At first the cheek was flushed, and the breath drawn with difficulty.  The tongue grew rough and swelled, and the dry mouth stood open with its veins enlarged and gasped for the air.  Men could not bear the heat of their clothes or their beds, but preferred to lie on the bare ground; and the ground did not cool them, but, on the contrary, they heated the spot where they lay.  Nor could the physicians help, for the disease attacked them also, and the contact of the sick gave them infection, so that the most faithful were the first victims.  At last all hope of relief vanished, and men learned to look upon death as the only deliverer from disease.  Then they gave way to every inclination, and cared not to ask what was expedient, for nothing was expedient.  All restraint laid aside, they crowded around the wells and fountains and drank till they died, without quenching thirst.  Many had not strength to get away from the water, but died in the midst of the stream, and others would drink of it notwithstanding.  Such was their weariness of their sick beds that some would creep forth, and if not strong enough to stand, would die on the ground.  They seemed to hate their friends, and got away from their homes, as if, not knowing the cause of their sickness, they charged it on the place of their abode.  Some were seen tottering along the road, as long as they could stand, while others sank on the earth, and turned their dying eyes around to take a last look, then closed them in death.