# History of Monsters. 147

in the one hundred and twelfth year before Christ, a young maiden, the daughter of Pompeius Helnus, was struck by lightning while riding a horse. Witnesses observed that her tongue had been forced out through her rear parts, between her thighs. Consequently, as Julius Obsequens records, the interpreters of omens predicted that the city's virgins would suffer a great disgrace that year. This prophecy proved true: three Vestal Virgins were eventually put to death with severe punishments for the crime of unchastity.

In the fifth year of Emperor Constantine’s reign, a strange phenomenon occurred in Calabria and Sicily: small crosses, appearing as if they had been drawn in oil, manifested on people’s clothing. That same year, a devastating plague broke out. It did not merely plague Sicily and the other Mediterranean islands but swept across the entirety of Greece. An illustration of this omen is provided.

Illustration of a woman vomiting ears of grain.