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45During this delay, then, he won over Oricum and Apollonia and other points there which had been abandoned by Pompey’s garrisons. This Corinthian Apollonia is well situated as regards the land and as regards the sea, and most excellently in respect to rivers. 2What I have marvelled at, however, above all else, is that a huge fire issues from the ground near the Aoüs river and neither spreads to any extent over the surrounding land nor sets on fire even the place where it abides nor makes it at all dry, but has grass and trees flourishing very near it. In pouring rains it increases and towers aloft. 3For this reason it is called Nymphaeum, and in fact it furnishes an oracle, of this kind. You take incense and after making whatever prayer you wish cast it in the fire as the vehicle of the prayer. 4At this the fire, if your wish is to be fulfilled, receives it very readily, and even if the incense falls somewhere outside, darts forward, snatches it up, and consumes it. But if the wish is not to be fulfilled, the fire not only does not go to it, but, even if it falls into the very flames, recedes and flees before it. 5It acts in these two ways in all matters save those of death and marriage; for concerning these two one may not make any inquiry of it at all. Such is the nature of this marvel.
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