To support his pretensions and overawe his
subjects, he constructed machines whereby he mimicked the clap of
thunder and the flash of lightning. Diodorus relates that in the
season of fruitage, when thunder is loud and frequent, the king
commanded his soldiers to drown the roar of heaven's artillery by
clashing their swords against their shields. But he paid the penalty
of his impiety, for he perished, he and his house, struck by a
thunderbolt in the midst of a dreadful storm. Swollen by the rain,
the Alban lake rose in flood and drowned his palace. But still, says
an ancient historian, when the water is low and the surface
unruffled by a breeze, you may see the ruins of the palace at the
bottom of the clear lake. Taken along with the similar story of
Salmoneus, king of Elis, this legend points to a real custom
observed by the early kings of Greece and Italy, who, like their
fellows in Africa down to modern times, may have been expected to
produce rain and thunder for the good of the crops. The priestly
king Numa passed for an adept in the art of drawing down lightning
from the sky.
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