Why need I also relate, out of the history of Persia by Dinon, the interpretations which the Magi gave to the cele- brated prince, Cyrus? For he dreamed that beholding the sun at his feet, he thrice endeavoured to grasp it in his hands, but the sun rolled away and departed, and escaped from him. The Magi (who were accounted sages and teachers in Persia) thus interpreted the dream, saying, that the three attempts of Cyrus to catch the sun in his hands, signified that he would reign thirty years; and what they predicted really came to pass; for he was forty years old when he began to reign, and __—he reached the age of seventy. Among all barbarous nations, indeed, we meet with proof that they likewise possess the gift of divination and presentiment. The Indian Calanus, when led to execution, said, while ascending the funeral pile, “ O what a glorious departure from life! when, as happened to Hercules, after my body has been consumed by fire, my soul shall depart to a world of light.” And when Alexander asked him if he had anything to say to him; “ Yes,” replied he, “ we shall soon meet again;” and this prophecy was soon __ fulfilled, for a few days afterwards Alexander died in Babylon.
I will quit the subject of dreams for awhile, and return to them presently. On the very night that Olympias was ON DIVINATION. 165: delivered of Alexander, the temple of Diana of the Ephesians was burned; and when the morning.dawned, the Magi declared that the ruin and destroyer of Asia had been born that night. So much for the Magi and the Indians. Now let us return to dreams.
XXIV. Coelius relates that Hannibal, wishing to remove a golden column from the temple of Juno Lacinia, and not knowing whether it was solid gold or merely gilt, bored a hole in it; and as he had found it solid, he determined to take it away. But the following night Juno appeared to him in a dream, and warned him against doing so, and threatened him that if he did, she would take care that he should lose an eye with which he could see well. He was too prudent a man to neglect this threat; and therefore, of the gold which had been abstracted from the column in boring it, he made a little heifer, which he fixed on the capital.
And the same story is told in the Grecian history of Silenus, whom Ccelius follows. And he was an author who was particularly diligent in relating the exploits of Hannibal. He says that when Hannibal had taken Saguntum, he dreamed in his sleep that he was summoned to a council of the gods, and that when he arrived at it, Jupiter commanded him to carry the war into Italy, and one of the deities in council was appointed to be his conductor in the enterprise. He therefore began his march under the direction of this divine protector, who enjoined him not to look behind him. Hannibal, however, could not long keep in his obedience, but yielded to a great desire to look back, when he immediately beheld a huge and terrible monster, surrounded with ser- pents, which, wherever it advanced, destroyed all the trees, and shrubs, and buildings. He then, marvelling at this, inquired of the god what this monster might mean; and the god replied, that it signified the desolation of Italy; and com- manded him to advance without delay, and not to concern himself with the evils that lay behind him and in his rear.
In the history of Agathocles it is said, that Hamilcar the Carthaginian, when he was besieging Syracuse, dreamed that he*heard a voice announcing to him, that he should sup on the succeeding day in Syracuse.. When the morning dawned a great sedition arose in his camp between the Carthaginian and Sicilian soldiers. And when the Syracusans found this 166 ON DIVINATION.
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out, they made a vigorous sally and attacked the camp un- expectedly, and succeeded in making Hamilcar prisoner while alive, and thus his dream was verified. All history is full of similar accounts; and the experience of real life is equally rich in them.
That illustrious man, Publius Decius, the son of Quintus Decius, the first of the Decii who was a consul, being a’ military tribune in the consulship of Marcus Valerius and Aulus Cornelius, when our army was sorely pressed by the Samunites, and being accustomed to expose himself to great personal danger in battle, was warned to take greater care of himself; on which he replied (as our annals report), that he.
had had a dream, which informed him that he should die with the greatest glory, while engaged in the midst of the enemy. For that time he succeeded in happily rescuing our army from the perils that surrounded it. But three years after, when he was consul, he devoted himself to death for his country, and threw himself armed among the ranks of the Latins; by which gallant action the Latins were defeated and destroyed: and his death was so glorious that his son desired a similar fate. | XXV. But let us now come, if you please, to the dreams of philosophers. We read in Plato that Socrates, when he was in the public prison at Athens, said to his friend Crito that he. should die in three days, for that he had seen in a dream a.
woman of extreme beauty who called him by his name, and -quoted in his presence this verse of Homer— On the third day you'll reach the fruitful Phthia.”!
And it is said that it happened just as it had been foretold.
~~ Again, what a man, and how great a man, is Xenophon the pupil of Socrates! He, too, in his account of that war in which he accompanied the younger Cyrus, relates-the dreams which he saw, the accomplishment of which was marvellous. Shall we then say that Xenophon was a liar or dotard?
What shall we say, too, of Aristotle, a man of singular and almost divine genius? Was he deceived himself, or does he wish others to be deceived, when he informs us that _ Eudemus of Cyprus, his own intimate friend, on his way to Macedonia, came to Phere, a celebrated city of Thessaly, “"Huarl kev tpirdre@ &0inv épiBwrov ixoiuny.
, ne ee Te ON DIVINATION. 167 which was then under the cruel sway of the tyrant Alexander. In that town he was seized with a severe illness, so that he was given over by all the physicians, when he beheld in a dream a young man of extreme beauty, who informed him that in a short time he should recover, and also. the tyrant Alexander would. die in a few days; and that Hudemus himself would, after five years’ absence, at length return home. Aristotle relates that the first two predictions of this dream were immediately accomplished; for Eudemus speedily recovered, and the tyrant perished at the hands of his wife’s brother; and that towards the end of the fifth year, when, in consequence of that dream, there was a hope that he would return into Cyprus from Sicily, they heard that he had been slain in a battle near Syracuse; from which it appeared that his dream was susceptible of being interpreted as meaning, that when the soul of Eudemus had quitted his body, it would then appear to have signified the return home.
—. To the philosophers we may add the testimony of Sopho- cles, a most learned man, and as a poet quite divine, who, when a golden goblet of great weight had been stolen from the temple of Hercules, saw in a dream the god himself’ appearing to him, and declaring who was the robber. Sopho- cles paid no attention to this vision, though it was repeated - more than once. When it had presented itself to him several times, he proceeded up to the court of Areopagus, and laid the matter before them. On this, the judges issued an order for the arrest of the offender nominated by Sophocles.
_ Qn the application of the torture the criminal confessed his __— guilt, and restored the goblet; from which event this temple of Hercules was afterwards called the temple of Hercules the: Indicator., | XXVI. But why do I continue to cite the Greeks? when, somehow or other, I feel more interest in the examples of my fellow-countrymen. All our historians,—the Fabii, the Gellii, and, more recently, Ceelius, bear witness to similar facts. In the Latin war, when they first celebrated the votive games in honour of the gods, the city was suddenly roused to arms, and the games being thus interrupted, it was necessary to appoint new ones. Before their commencement, however, just as the people had taken their places in the circus, a slave who had been beaten with rods was led through the circus, 168 ON DIVINATION.
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bearing a gibbet. After this event, a certain Roman rustic had a dream, in which an apparition informed him that he had been displeased with the president of the games, and the rustic was ordered to apprise the senate of that fact. He, however, did not dare to do so; on which the apparition appeared a second time, and warned him not to provoke him to exert his power. Even then he could not summon courage to obey, and presently his son died. After this, the same admonition was repeated‘in his dreams for the third time. Then the peasant himself became extremely ill, and related the cause of his trouble to his friends, by whose advice he was carried on a litter to the senate-house; and as soon as he had related his dreams to the senate, he recovered his health and strength, and returned home on foot perfectly cured. Thereupon, the truth of his dreams being admitted by the senate, it is related that these games were repeated a second.
time. It is ecordell in the history of the same Coelius, that Caius Gracchus informed many persons that during the time: that he was soliciting the questorship, his brother Tiberius Gracchus appeared to him in a dream, and said to him, that he might delay as much as he pleased, but that nevertheless.
he was fated to die by the same death which he himself had suffered. Coelius asserts that he heard this fact, and relatedit to many persons, before Caius Gracchus had become tribune» of the people. And what can be more certain than such a dream as this?
XXVIT. Who, again, can despise those two dreams, which “are SO frequently dwelt upon by the Stoics!—one concerning Simonides, who, having found the dead body of a man who was a stranger to him lying in the road, buried it. Having performed this office, he was about to embark in a ship, when! the man whom he had buried appeared to him in a dream at night, and warned him not to undertake the voyage, for — that if he did he would perish by shipwreck. Therefore, he returned home again, but all the other people who sailed in that vessel were lost.
The other dream, which is a very celebrated one, is related in the following manner:—Two Arcadians, who were intimate friends, were travelling together, and arriving at.
Megara, one of them took up his quarters at an inn, the Se a. oe ON DIVINATION. 169 other at a friend’s house. After supper, when they had both gone to bed, the Arcadian, who was staying at his friend’s house, saw an apparition of his fellow-traveller at the inn, who prayed him to come to his assistance immediately, as the innkeeper was going to murder him. Alarmed at this intimation, he started from his sleep; but on recollection, thinking it nothing but an idle dream, he lay down again.. Presently, the apparition appeared to him again in his sleep, and entreated him, though he would not come to his as- sistance while yet alive, at least not to: leave his death unavenged. He told him further, that the innkeeper had first murdered him, and then cast him into a dungcart, where he lay covered with filth; and begged him to go early to the gate of the town, before any cart could leave the town. Much. excited by this second vision, he went early next morning to the gate of the town, and met with the driver of the cart, and asked him: what he had in his waggon.. The driver, upon this. question, ran away in a fright.. The dead body was then discovered, and the innkeeper, the evidence being clear against him, was brought to punishment.
XXVIII. What can be more akin to divination than such a dream as this?
But why do I.relate any more ancient instances of similar things, when such dreams have occurred to ourselves? for I ave often told you mine, and I have as often heard you ‘talk. of yours.
When I was proconsul in Asia, it appeared to me as 1: slept, that I saw you riding on horseback till you reached the banks of a great river, and that you were suddenly thrown. off and precipitated into the waters, and so disappeared. At this I trembled exceedingly, being overcome with fear and: apprehension. But suddenly you reappeared before me with a joyful countenance, and, with the same horse, ascended the opposite bank, and then we embraced each other. It is easy to conjecture the signification of such a dream as this; and hence the learned interpreters of Asia predicted to me that: those events would take place which afterwards did come - to pass. - I now come to your own dream, which I have sometimes heard from yourself, but more often from our friend Sallust.: He used to say, that in that flight and exile of yours, which was 170 ON DIVINATION.
so glorious for you, so calamitous for our country, you stayed awhile in a certain villa of the territory of Atina, when, _ having sat up a great part of the night, you fell into a deep and heavy slumber towards the morning. And from this slumber your attendants would not awake you, as you had given orders that you were not to be disturbed, though your journey was sufficiently urgent.
When at length you awoke about the second hour of the day, you related to Sallust the following dream:—That it had seemed to you that, as you were wandering sorrowfully through some solitary district, Caius Marius appeared to you with his fasces covered with laurel, and that he asked you why you were afflicted. And when you informed him‘that you had been driven from your country by the violence of the disaffected, he seized your right hand, and urged you to be of good cheer, and ordered the lictor nearest to him to lead you to his monument, saying, that there you should find security. Sallust told me, that upon hearing this dream, he himself exclaimed at once that your return would be speedy and glorious; and that you also appeared to be de- lighted with your dream. A short time afterwards I was informed, as you well know, that it was in the monument of Marius that, on the instance of that excellent and famous consul Lentulus, that most honourable decree of the senate was passed for your recal, which was applauded with shouts of incredible exultation in a very full assembly; so that, as you yourself observed, no dream could have a higher character of divination than this which occurred to you at Atina. m XXIX.* But you will say that there are likewise many false dreams. No doubt there are some which are perhaps obscure to us; but, even allow that there are some which are actually false, what argument is that against those which are true!—of: which, indeed, there would be a great many more if we went to bed in perfect health; but as it is, from our being over-.
charged with wine and luxuries, all our perceptions become troubled and confused. Consider what Socrates, in the Republic of Plato, says on this subject..
- “When,” says he, “that part of the soul which is capable of intelligence and reason is subdued and reduced to languor, then that part in which there is a species of ferocity and.
Sa nc i) ON DIVINATION. 17kz uncivilized savageness being excited by immoderate eating and drinking, exults in our sleep and wantons about unre- strainedly; and therefore all kinds of visions present them- selves to it, such as are destitute of all sense or reason, in which we appear to be giving ourselves up to incest and all kinds of bestiality, or to be committing bloody murders, and massacres, and all kinds of execrable deeds, with a triumphant defiance of all prudence and decency. But — in the case of a man who is accustomed to a sober and regular life, when he commits himself to sleep, then that part of his soul which is the seat of intellect and reason is still active and awake, being replenished with a banquet of virtuous thoughts; and that portion which is nourished by pleasure, is neither destroyed by exhaustion nor swollen by satiety, either of which is accustomed to impair the vigour of the soul, whether nature is deficient in anything, or super- abundant or overstocked; and that third division also, in which the vehemence of anger is situated, is lulled and restrained; so, consequently, it happens, that owing to the due regulation of the two more violent portions of the soul, the third, or intellectual part, shines forth conspicuously, and is fresh and active for the admission of dreams; and therefore the visions of sleep: which present themselves before it are tranquil and true.”
XXX. Such are the very words of Plato. Shall we, then,. prefer listening to the doctrine of Epicurus on this point? As for Carneades, he sometimes says one thing and sometimes another, from his mere fondness for discussion. And yet, what are the sentiments which he utters? At all events, they are never expressed either with elegance or propriety. And will you prefer such a man as this to Plato and Socrates? men who, even if they were to give no reason for their tenets, should, by the mere authority of their names, outweigh these minute philosophers, Plato then asserts that we should bring our bodies into such a disposition before we go to sleep as to leave nothing which may occasion error or perturbation in our dreams. For this reason, perhaps, Pythagoras laid it down as a rule, that his disciples should not eat beans, because this food is very flatulent, and contrary to that tranquillity of mind which a truth-seeking spirit should.possess.
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When, therefore, the mind is thus separated from the society and contagion of the body, it recollects things past, examines things present, and anticipates things to come. For the body of one who is asleep lies like that of one who is dead, while the spirit is full of vitality and vigour. And it will be yet more so after death, when it will have got rid of the body altogether; and therefore we ‘see that even on the approach of death it becomes much more divine. For it often happens that those who are attacked by a severe and mortal malady, foresee that their death is at-hand. And in this state they often behold ghosts and phantoms of the dead. Then they are more than ever anxious about their reputations; and they who have lived otherwise than as they - ought, then most especially repent of their sins.
And that the dying are often’ possessed of the gift of divi- nation, Posidonius confirms by that notorious example of a certain Rhodian who, being on his death-bed, named six of his contemporaries, saying which of them would die first, which second, which next to him, and so on.
There are, he imagines, besides this, three ways in which men dream under the immediate impulse of the Gods: one, when the mind intuitively perceives things by the relation which it bears to the Gods; the second, arising from the fact of the air being full of immortal spirits, in whom all the signs of truth are, as it were, stamped and visible; the third, when the Gods themselves converse with sleepers,—and that, as I have said before, takes place more especially at the approach of death, enabling the minds of the dying to anti- cipate future events. An instance of this is the prediction of Calanus, of whom I have already spoken. Another is that of Hector, in Homer, who, when dying:himself, foretels the approaching death of Achilles.
XXXI. If there were no such thing as divination, Plautus- would not have been so much applauded for the following line:— | My mind presaged (presagibat), when I first went out, Wk That I was going on a fruitless journey:— for the verb sagio means, to feel shrewdly. Hence old women are sometimes called sage (witches), because they are ambi- tious of knowing many things; and dogs are called sagacious. Whoever, therefore, sagit (knows) before the event has come ON DIVINATION. 173 to pass, is said presagire (to have the power of knowing the future beforehand).:; There exists, therefore, in the mind a presentiment, which strikes the soul from without, and which is enclosed in the soul by divine operation. If this becomes very vivid, it is termed frenzy, as happens when the soul, being abstracted from the body, is stirred up by a divine inspiration.
What sudden transport fires my virgin soul!
My mother, oh, my mother!—dearest name Of all dear names! But oh, my breast is full Of divination and impending fates, While dread Apollo with his mighty impulse Urges me onward. Sisters, my sweet sisters!
I grieve to anticipate the coming fate Of our most royal parents. You are all More filial and more dutiful than I.
I only am enjoin’d this cruel task, To utter imminent ruin. You do serve them; I injure them; and your obedience Shines well, set-off by my disloyal rage.! O what a tender, moral, and delicate poem! though the beauty of it does not affect the question. What I wish to prove is, that that frenzy often predicts what is true and real, I see the blazing torch of Troy’s last doom, Fire, and massacre, and death. Arm, citizens!
Bring aid and quench the flames.
In the following lines, it is not so much Cassandra who speaks, as the Deity enclosed in human form:— Already is the fleet prepared to sail; It bears destruction—rapidly it speeds: A dreadful army traverses the shores, Destined to slaughter.
{ seem to be doing nothing but quoting tragedies and . fables.
XXXII. I would mention a story I have heard from your- self, and that not an imaginary, but a real circumstance, and closely related to our present discussion. Caius Coponius, a skilful general, and a man of the highest character for learn- ing and wisdom, who commanded the fleet of the Rhodians, with the appointment of preetor, came to you at Dyrrha- chium, and informed you that a certain sailor in a Rhodian galley had predicted that, in less than a month, Greece would ? This is a quotation from Pacuyius’s play of Hercules; the speaker is Cassandra, 174 ON DIVINATION.
be deluged with blood, that Dyrrhachium would be pillaged, and that the people would flee and take to their ships; that, looking back in their flight, they would see a terrible con- flagration. He added, moreover, that the fleet of the Rhodians would soon return, and retire to Rhodes. You told me that you yourself were surprised at this intelligence, and that Marcus Varro and Marcus Cato, both men of great learning, who were with you, were exceedingly alarmed. A few days afterwards, Labienus, having escaped from the battle of Phar- salia, arrived and brought an account of the defeat of the army: and the rest of the prediction was soon accomplished; for the corn was dragged out of the granaries, and strewed about all the streets and alleys, and destroyed. You all embarked on board the ships in haste and alarm; and at night, when you looked back towards the town, you beheld the barges on fire, which were burned by the soldiers because they would not follow. At last you were deserted by the fleet of the Rhodians, and then you found that the prophet had been a true one.
I have explained as concisely as possible the forewarnings of dreams and frenzy, with which I said that art had nothing to do; for both these kinds of prediction arise from the same cause, which our friend Cratippus adopts as the true explana- tion—namely, that the souls of men are partly inspired and agitated from without. By which he meant to say, that there is in the exterior world a sort of divine soul, whence the human soul is derived; and that that portion of the human soul which is the fountain of sensation, motion, and appetite, is not separate from the action of the body; but that portion which partakes of reason and intelligence is then most ener-. getic, when it is most completely abstracted from the body.
Therefore, after having recounted veritable instances of presentiments and dreams, Cratippus used to sum up his conclusions in this manner:—“ If,” he would say, “the exist- ence of the eyes is necessary to the existence and operation of' the function of sight, though the eyes may not be always exercising that function, still he who has once made use of his eyes so as to see correctly, is possessed of eyes capable of the sensation of correct sight: just so if the function and gift of divination cannot exist without the exercise of divination, and yet a man who has this gift may sometimes err in its SR ne re ON DIVINATION. 175 exercise, and not foresee correctly; then dt is sufficient to prove the existence of divination, that some event should have been once so correctly divined that none of its circum- stances appear to have happened fortuitously. And as a multitude of such events have occurred, the existence of divination ought not to be doubted.
-XXXIII. But as to those divinations which are explained by conjecture, or by the observation of events; these, as 1 have said before, are not of the natural, but artificial order; in which artificial class are the haruspices, and augurs, and. interpreters. These are discredited by the Peripatetics, and. defended by the Stoics. ‘Some of them are established by certain monuments and systems, as is evident from the ritual books of the ancient Etruscans respecting electrical interpre- tation of the omens conveyed by the entrails of victims and by lightning, and by our own books on the discipline of the augurs. Other divinations are explained at once by con- jecture, without reference to any written authorities; such as. the prophecy of Calchas in Homer, who, by a certain num- ber of flying sparrows, predicted the number of years which would be occupied in the siege of Troy; and as an event which we read recorded in the history of Sylla, which hap- pened under your own eyes. For when Sylla was in the territory of Nola, and was sacrificing in front of his tent, a serpent suddenly glided out from beneath the altar; and when, upon this, the soothsayer Posthumius exhorted him to give orders for the immediate march of the army, Sylla obeyed the injunction, and entirely defeated the Samnites, who lay before Nola, and took possession of their richly- provided camp.
It was by this kind of conjectural divination that the fortune of the tyrant Dionysius was announced a, little before the commencement of his reign; for when he was travelling through the territory of Leontini, he dismounted and drove his horse into a river; but the horse was carried away by the current, and Dionysius, not being able with all his efforts to extricate him, departed, as Philistus reports, lamenting his loss. Some time afterwards, as he was journeying further down the river, he suddenly heard a neighing, and to his great joy found his horse in very comfortable condition, with aswarm of bees hanging on his-mane. And this prodigy 176 ON DIVINATION, intimated the event which took place a few days after this, when Dionysius was called to the throne.
XXXIV. Need I say more? How many intimations were given to the Lacedzemonians a short time before the disaster of Leuctra, when arms rattled in the temple of Hercules, and his statue streamed with profuse sweat! At the same time, at Thebes (as Callisthenes relates), the folding-doors in the temple of Hercules, which were closed with bars, opened _ of their own accord, and the armour which was suspended on the walls was found fallen to the ground. And at the same period, at Lebadia, where divine rites were being performed in honour of Trophonius, all the cocks in the neighbourhood began to crow so incessantly as never to leave off at all; and the Boeotian augurs affirmed that this was a sign of victory to the Thebans, because these birds crow only on occasions of victory, and maintain silence in case of defeat.
Many other signs, at this time, announced to the Spartans the calamities of the battle of Leuctra; for, at Delphi, on the head of the statue of Lysander, who was the most famous of the Lacedemonians, there suddenly appeared a garland of" wild prickly herbs. And the golden stars which the Lacedee- monians -had set up as symbols of Castor and Pollux, in the temple of Delphi, after the famous naval victory of Lysander, in which the power of Athens was broken, because those divinities were reported to have appeared in the Lacede- monian fleet during that engagement, fell down, and were seen no more.
And the greatest of all the prodigies which were sent as warnings to those same Lacedeemonians, happened when they sent to consult the oracle of Jupiter at Dodona on the success — of the combat; and when the ambassadors had cast their questions into the urn from which the responses were to be drawn, an ape, whom the king of Molossus kept as a pet, dis- turbed and confounded all the lots, and everything else which had been prepared for the purpose of giving a reply in due form. Upon which the priestess who presided at the oracular rites, declared that the Lacedeemonians must rather look to their safety than expect a victory. i XXXV. Must Isay more? In the second Punic war, when Flaminius, being consul for the second time, despised the signs of future events, did he not by such conduct occasicn ON DIVINATION. 177 ON DIVINATION. 177 great disasters to the state? For when, after having reviewed the troops, he was moving his camp towards Arezzo, and leading his legions against Hannibal, his horse suddenly fell with him before the statue of Jupiter Stator, without any apparent cause. But though those who were skilful in divina- tion declared it was an evident sign from the Gods that he should not engage in battle, he paid no attention to it, After- wards, when it was proposed to consult the auspices by the consecrated chickens, the augur indicated the propriety of deferring the battle. Flaminius asked him what was to be done the next day, if the chickens still refused to feed? He replied that in that case he must still rest quiet. “ Fine auspices, indeed,” replied Flaminius, “if we may only fight when the chickens are hungry, but must do nothing if they are full.” And so he commanded the standards to be moved forward, and the army to follow him; on which occasion, the standard-bearer of the first battalion could not extricate his standard from the ground in which it was pitched, and several soldiers who endeavoured to assist him were foiled in the attempt. Flaminius, to whom they related this incident, despised the warning, as was usual with him; and in the course of three hours from that time, the whole of his army — was routed, and he himself slain.
And it is a wonderful story, too, that is told by Coelius, as having happened at this very time, that such great earth- quakes took place in Liguria, Gallia, and many of the islands, and throughout all Italy, that many cities were destroyed, and the earth was broken into chasms in many places, and rivers rolled backwards, while the waters of the sea rushed into their channels.
XXXVI. Skilful diviners can certainly derive correct pre- sentiments from slight circumstances. When Midas, who be- came king of Phrygia, was yet an infant, some ants crammed some grains of wheat into his mouth while he was sleep- ing. On this the diviners predicted that he would become exceedingly rich, as indeed afterwards happened. While Plato was an infant in his cradle, a swarm of bees settled on _ his lips during his slumbers; and the diviners answered that he would become extremely eloquent; and this prediction of his future eloquence was made before he even knew how to ‘speak, DE NAT. ETC, 3 N 178. ON DIVINATION.: Why should I speak of your dear and delightful friend, Roscius? Did he tell lies himself, or did the whole city of Lanuvium tell lies for him? » When he was in his cradle at Solonium, where he was being brought up,—(a place which belongs to the Lanuvian territory,)—the story goes, that one night, there being a light in the room, his nurse arose and found a serpent coiled around him, and in her alarm at this sight she made a great outcry. The father of Roscius related the circumstance to the soothsayers, and they answered that the child would become preeminently distinguished and illus- trious. This adventure was afterwards engraved by Praxiteles in silver, and our friend Archias celebrated it in verse.
What, then, are we waiting for? Are we to wait till the |