The Roman History · Amm. 19.8.11

This example showed us that what men call indigenous people are not sprung from the bowels of the earth, but merely appear unexpectedly by reason of the speed of their movements: and because they were seen unexpectedly in various places, they got the name of Sparti, and were believed to have sprung from the ground, antiquity exaggerating their renown in a fabulous manner, as it does that of other things.

Ammianus Marcellinus · translated by C. D. Yonge · 1911 reprint
C. D. Yonge translation (preface dated February 1862); G. Bell and Sons, 1911; Project Gutenberg #28587
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