Book 2
22
Moreover, besides these which I have mentioned there are in various places other names of winds, of new coinage and each peculiar to its own region, for example the Atabulus of Horace; Serm. i. 5. 78. The wind corresponds to the sirocco. Porphyrio, ad loc. gives the fanciful derivation, a)po\ tou= e)s th\n a)/thn ba/llein pa/nta. The Thes. Ling. Lat. connects it with Atabuli, the name of an Aethiopian tribe. these too I intended to discuss; I would also have added those which are called etesiae Periodic, or trade winds, referring especially to the Egyptian monsoon, which blow from the north-west during the whole summer (Herodotus, ii, 20); used also of winds which blow from the north in the Aegean for forty days after the rising of the Dog-star. and prodromi, Preceding the etesiae, and blowing north-north-east for eight days before the rising of the Dog-star. which at a fixed time of year, namely when the dog-star rises, blow from one or another quarter of the heavens; and since I have drunk a good bit, I would have rated on about the meaning of all these terms, had I not already done a deal of talking while all of you have been silent, as if I were delivering 'an exhibition speech.' But for one to do all the talking at a large dinner-party," said he, is neither decent nor becoming.
