ica, was walking one day in a
colonnade after sunset, when a gigantic woman appeared before him. She
announced that she was Africa, and was able to predict the future, and
told him that he would go to Rome, hold office there, return to the
province with the highest authority, and there die. Her prophecy was
fulfilled to the letter, and as he landed in Africa for the last time
the same figure is reported to have met him.

So, again, at the time of the conspiracy of Callippus, Dion was
meditating one evening before the porch of his house, when he turned
round and saw a gigantic female figure, in the form of a Fury, at the
end of the corridor, sweeping the floor with a broom. The vision
terrified him, and soon afterwards his only son committed suicide and he
himself was murdered by the conspirators.[105]

A similar dramatic story is related of Drusus during his German
campaigns.[106] While engaged in operations against the Alemanni, he was
preparing to cross the Elbe, when a gigantic woman barred the way,
exclaiming, "Insatiate Drusus, whither wilt thou go? Thou art not fated
to see all things. Depart hence, for the end of thy life and of thy
deeds is at hand." Drusus was much troubled by this warning, and
instantly obeyed the words of the apparition; but he died before
reaching the Rhine.

We meet with the same phenomenon again in Dio Cassius, among the
prodigies preceding the death of Macrinus, when "a dreadful gigantic
woman, seen of several, declared that all that had happened was as
nothing compared with what they were soon to endure"--a prophecy which
was amply fulfilled by the reign of Heliogabalus.

But the most gigantic of all these gigantic women was, as we should only
expect from his marvellous power of seeing ghosts, the one who appeared
to Eucrates in the _Philopseudus_.[107] Eucrates has seen over a
thousand ghosts in his time, and is now quite used to them, though at
first he found them rather upsetting; but he had been given a ring and a
charm by an Arab, which enabled him to deal with anything supernatural
that came in his way. The ring was made from the iron of a cross on
which a criminal had been executed, and doubtless had the same value in
Eucrates' eyes that a piece of the rope with which a man has been hung
possesses in the eyes of a gambler to-day. On this particular occasion
he had left his men at work in the vineyard, and was resting quietly at
midday, when his dog began to bark. At first he t