---
type: article
status: Published
slug: "cicero-divination"
title: "On Divination"
author: "Marcus Tullius Cicero"
tradition: "roman"
language: "la"
genre: "philosophical dialogue"
period: "44 BCE"
source_url: "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/PerseusDL/canonical-latinLit/8b536bdf3ed1f43494055efe112433b4a58eab67/data/phi0474/phi053/phi0474.phi053.perseus-lat3.xml"
certainty: observed
source: "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/PerseusDL/canonical-latinLit/8b536bdf3ed1f43494055efe112433b4a58eab67/data/phi0474/phi053/phi0474.phi053.perseus-lat3.xml"
---
# On Divination

## Original

### Book 1, Chapter 1

[1]
Vetus opinio est iam usque ab heroicis ducta temporibus, eaque et populi Romani et omnium gentium firmata consensu, versari quandam inter homines divinationem, quam Graeci μαντικήν appellant, id est praesensionem et scientiam rerum futurarum. Magnifica quaedam res et salutaris, si modo est ulla, quaque proxime ad deorum vim natura mortalis possit accedere. Itaque ut alia nos melius multa quam Graeci, sic huic praestantissimae rei nomen nostri a divis, Graeci, ut Plato interpretatur, a furore duxerunt.

[2]
Gentem quidem nullam video neque tam humanam atque doctam neque tam inmanem tamque barbaram, quae non significari futura et a quibusdam intellegi praedicique posse censeat. Principio Assyrii, ut ab ultumis auctoritatem repetam, propter planitiam magnitudinemque regionum, quas incolebant, cum caelum ex omni parte patens atque apertum intuerentur, traiectiones motusque stellarum observitaverunt, quibus notatis, quid cuique significaretur, memoriae prodiderunt. Qua in natione Chaldaei non ex artis, sed ex gentis vocabulo nominati diuturna observatione siderum scientiam putantur effecisse, ut praedici posset, quid cuique eventurum et quo quisque fato natus esset. Eandem artem etiam Aegyptii longinquitate temporum innumerabilibus paene saeculis consecuti putantur. Cilicum autem et Pisidarum gens et his finituma Pamphylia, quibus nationibus praefuimus ipsi, volatibus avium cantibusque <ut> certissimis signis declarari res futuras putant.

### Book 1, Chapter 2

[3]
Quam vero Graecia coloniam misit in Aeoliam, Ioniam, Asiam, Siciliam, Italiam sine Pythio aut Dodonaeo aut Hammonis oraculo? aut quod bellum susceptum ab ea sine consilio deorum est? Nec unum genus est divinationis publice privatimque celebratum. Nam, ut omittam ceteros populos, noster quam multa genera conplexus est! Principio huius urbis parens Romulus non solum auspicato urbem condidisse, sed ipse etiam optumus augur fuisse traditur. Deinde auguribus et reliqui reges usi, et exactis regibus nihil publice sine auspiciis nec domi nec militiae gerebatur. Cumque magna vis videretur esse et inpetriendis consulendisque rebus et monstris interpretandis ac procurandis in haruspicum disciplina, omnem hanc ex Etruria scientiam adhibebant, ne genus esset ullum divinationis, quod neglectum ab iis videretur.

[4]
Et cum duobus modis animi sine ratione et scientia motu ipsi suo soluto et libero incitarentur, uno furente, altero somniante, furoris divinationem Sibyllinis maxime versibus contineri arbitrati eorum decem interpretes delectos e civitate esse voluerunt. Ex quo genere saepe hariolorum etiam et vatum furibundas praedictiones, ut Octaviano bello Cornelii Culleoli, audiendas putaverunt. Nec vero somnia graviora, si quae ad rem publicam pertinere visa sunt, a summo consilio neglecta sunt. Quin etiam memoria nostra templum Iunonis Sospitae L. Iulius, qui cum P. Rutilio consul fuit, de senatus sententia refecit ex Caeciliae, Baliarici filiae, somnio.

### Book 1, Chapter 3

[5]
Atque haec, ut ego arbitror, veteres rerum magis eventis moniti quam ratione docti probaverunt. Philosophorum vero exquisita quaedam argumenta, cur esset vera divinatio, collecta sunt; e quibus, ut de antiquissumis loquar, Colophonius Xenophanes unus, qui deos esse diceret, divinationem funditus sustulit; reliqui vero omnes praeter Epicurum balbutientem de natura deorum divinationem probaverunt, sed non uno modo. Nam cum Socrates omnesque Socratici Zenoque et ii, qui ab eo essent profecti, manerent in antiquorum philosophorum sententia vetere Academia et Peripateticis consentientibus, cumque huic rei magnam auctoritatem Pythagoras iam ante tribuisset, qui etiam ipse augur vellet esse, plurumisque locis gravis auctor Democritus praesensionem rerum futurarum conprobaret, Dicaearchus Peripateticus cetera divinationis genera sustulit, somniorum et furoris reliquit, Cratippusque, familiaris noster, quem ego parem summis Peripateticis iudico, isdem rebus fidem tribuit, reliqua divinationis genera reiecit.

[6]
Sed cum Stoici omnia fere illa defenderent, quod et Zeno in suis commentariis quasi semina quaedam sparsisset et ea Cleanthes paulo uberiora fecisset, accessit acerrumo vir ingenio, Chrysippus, qui totam de divinatione duobus libris explicavit sententiam, uno praeterea de oraclis, uno de somniis; quem subsequens unum librum Babylonius Diogenes edidit, eius auditor, duo Antipater, quinque noster Posidonius. Sed a Stoicis vel princeps eius disciplinae, Posidonii doctor, discipulus Antipatri, degeneravit, Panaetius, nec tamen ausus est negare vim esse divinandi, sed dubitare se dixit. Quod illi in aliqua re invitissumis Stoicis Stoico facere licuit, id nos ut in reliquis rebus faciamus, a Stoicis non concedetur? praesertim cum id, de quo Panaetio non liquet, reliquis eiusdem disciplinae solis luce videatur clarius.

### Book 1, Chapter 4

[7]
Sed haec quidem laus Academiae praestantissumi philosophi iudicio et testimonio conprobata est. Etenim nobismet ipsis quaerentibus, quid sit de divinatione iudicandum, quod a Carneade multa acute et copiose contra Stoicos disputata sint, verentibusque, ne temere vel falsae rei vel non satis cognitae adsentiamur, faciendum videtur, ut diligenter etiam atque etiam argumenta cum argumentis comparemus, ut fecimus in iis tribus libris, quos de natura deorum scripsimus. Nam cum omnibus in rebus temeritas in adsentiendo errorque turpis est, tum in eo loco maxime, in quo iudicandum est, quantum auspiciis rebusque divinis religionique tribuamus; est enim periculum, ne aut neglectis iis impia fraude aut susceptis anili superstitione obligemur.

### Book 1, Chapter 5

[8]
Quibus de rebus et alias saepe et paulo accuratius nuper, cum essem cum Q. fratre in Tusculano, disputatum est. Nam cum ambulandi causa in Lyceum venissemus (id enim superiori gymnasio nomen est), Perlegi, [ille] inquit, tuum paulo ante tertium de natura deorum, in quo disputatio Cottae quamquam labefactavit sententiam meam, non funditus tamen sustulit. Optime vero, inquam; etenim ipse Cotta sic disputat, ut Stoicorum magis argumenta confutet quam hominum deleat religionem. Tum Quintus: Dicitur quidem istuc, inquit, a Cotta, et vero saepius, credo, ne communia iura migrare videatur; sed studio contra Stoicos disserendi deos mihi videtur funditus tollere.

[9]
Eius rationi non sane desidero quid respondeam; satis enim defensa religio est in secundo libro a Lucilio, cuius disputatio tibi ipsi, ut in extremo tertio scribis, ad veritatem est visa propensior. Sed, quod praetermissum est in illis libris (credo, quia commodius arbitratus es separatim id quaeri deque eo disseri), id est de divinatione, quae est earum rerum, quae fortuitae putantur, praedictio atque praesensio, id, si placet, videamus quam habeat vim et quale sit. Ego enim sic existimo, si sint ea genera divinandi vera, de quibus accepimus quaeque colimus, esse deos, vicissimque, si di sint, esse qui divinent.

### Book 1, Chapter 6

[10]
Arcem tu quidem Stoicorum, inquam, Quinte, defendis, siquidem ista sic reciprocantur, ut et, si divinatio sit, di sint et, si di sint, sit divinatio. Quorum neutrum tam facile, quam tu arbitraris, conceditur. Nam et natura significari futura sine deo possunt et, ut sint di, potest fieri, ut nulla ab iis divinatio generi humano tributa sit. Atque ille: Mihi vero, inquit, satis est argumenti et esse deos et eos consulere rebus humanis, quod esse clara et perspicua divinationis genera iudico. De quibus quid ipse sentiam, si placet, exponam, ita tamen, si vacas animo neque habes aliquid, quod huic sermoni praevertendum putes.

[11]
Ego vero, inquam, philosophiae, Quinte, semper vaco; hoc autem tempore, cum sit nihil aliud, quod lubenter agere possim, multo magis aveo audire, de divinatione quid sentias.

Nihil, inquit, equidem novi, nec quod praeter ceteros ipse sentiam; nam cum antiquissimam sententiam, tum omnium populorum et gentium consensu conprobatam sequor. Duo sunt enim divinandi genera, quorum alterum artis est, alterum naturae.

### Book 1, Chapter 7

[12]
Quae est autem gens aut quae civitas, quae non aut extispicum aut monstra aut fulgora interpretantium aut augurum aut astrologorum aut sortium (ea enim fere artis sunt) aut somniorum aut vaticinationum (haec enim duo naturalia putantur) praedictione moveatur? Quarum quidem rerum eventa magis arbitror quam causas quaeri oportere. Est enim vis et natura quaedam, quae tum observatis longo tempore significationibus, tum aliquo instinctu inflatuque divino futura praenuntiat. Quare omittat urguere Carneades, quod faciebat etiam Panaetius requirens, Iuppiterne cornicem a laeva, corvum ab dextera canere iussisset. Observata sunt haec tempore inmenso et [in significatione] eventis animadversa et notata. Nihil est autem, quod non longinquitas temporum excipiente memoria prodendisque monumentis efficere atque adsequi possit.

### Book 1, Chapter 8

[13]
Mirari licet, quae sint animadversa a medicis herbarum genera, quae radicum ad morsus bestiarum, ad oculorum morbos, ad vulnera, quorum vim atque naturam ratio numquam explicavit, utilitate et ars est et inventor probatus. Age ea, quae quamquam ex alio genere sunt, tamen divinationi sunt similiora, videamus:

Atque etiam ventos praemonstrat saepe futuros
Inflatum mare, cum subito penitusque tumescit,
Saxaque cana salis niveo spumata liquore
Tristificas certant Neptuno reddere voces,
Aut densus stridor cum celso e vertice montis
Ortus adaugescit scopulorum saepe repulsus.

Atque his rerum praesensionibus Prognostica tua referta sunt. Quis igitur elicere causas praesensionum potest? etsi video Boëthum Stoicum esse conatum, qui hactenus aliquid egit, ut earum rationem rerum explicaret, quae in mari caelove fierent.

[14]
Illa vero cur eveniant, quis probabiliter dixerit?

Cana fulix itidem fugiens e gurgite ponti
Nuntiat horribilis clamans instare procellas
Haud modicos tremulo fundens e gutture cantus.
Saepe etiam pertriste canit de pectore carmen
Et matutinis acredula vocibus instat,
Vocibus instat et adsiduas iacit ore querellas,
Cum primum gelidos rores aurora remittit.
Fuscaque non numquam cursans per litora cornix
Demersit caput et fluctum cervice recepit.

### Book 1, Chapter 9

[15]
Videmus haec signa numquam fere mentientia nec tamen, cur ita fiat, videmus.

Vos quoque signa videtis, aquai dulcis alumnae,
Cum clamore paratis inanis fundere voces
Absurdoque sono fontis et stagna cietis.

Quis est, qui ranunculos hoc videre suspicari possit? sed inest in ranunculis vis et natura quaedam significans aliquid per se ipsa satis certa, cognitioni autem hominum obscurior.

Mollipedesque boves spectantes lumina caeli
Naribus umiferum duxere ex aëre sucum.

Non quaero, cur, quoniam, quid eveniat, intellego.

Iam vero semper viridis semperque gravata
Lentiscus triplici solita grandescere fetu
Ter fruges fundens tria tempora monstrat arandi.

### Book 1, Chapter 10

[16]
Ne hoc quidem quaero, cur haec arbor una ter floreat aut cur arandi maturitatem ad signum floris accommodet; hoc sum contentus, quod, etiamsi, cur quidque fiat, ignorem, quid fiat, intellego. Pro omni igitur divinatione idem, quod pro rebus iis, quas commemoravi, respondebo. Quid scammoneae radix ad purgandum, quid aristolochia ad morsus serpentium possit, quae nomen ex inventore repperit, rem ipsam inventor ex somnio, video, quod satis est; cur possit, nescio. Sic ventorum et imbrium signa, quae dixi, rationem quam habeant, non satis perspicio; vim et eventum agnosco, scio, adprobo. Similiter, quid fissum in extis, quid fibra valeat, accipio; quae causa sit, nescio. Atque horum quidem plena vita est; extis enim omnes fere utuntur. Quid? de fulgurum vi dubitare num possumus? Nonne cum multa alia mirabilia, tum illud in primis: Cum Summanus in fastigio Iovis optumi maxumi, qui tum erat fictilis, e caelo ictus esset nec usquam eius simulacri caput inveniretur, haruspices in Tiberim id depulsum esse dixerunt, idque inventum est eo loco, qui est ab haruspicibus demonstratus.

### Book 1, Chapter 11

[17]
Sed quo potius utar aut auctore aut teste quam te? cuius edidici etiam versus, et lubenter quidem, quos in secundo <de> consulatu Urania Musa pronuntiat:

Principio aetherio flammatus Iuppiter igni
Vertitur et totum conlustrat lumine mundum
Menteque divina caelum terrasque petessit,
Quae penitus sensus hominum vitasque retentat
Aetheris aeterni saepta atque inclusa cavernis.
Et, si stellarum motus cursusque vagantis
Nosse velis, quae sint signorum in sede locatae,
Quae verbo et falsis Graiorum vocibus erant,
Re vera certo lapsu spatioque feruntur,
Omnia iam cernes divina mente notata.

[18]
Nam primum astrorum volucris te consule motus
Concursusque gravis stellarum ardore micantis
Tu quoque, cum tumulos Albano in monte nivalis
Lustrasti et laeto mactasti lacte Latinas,
Vidisti et claro tremulos ardore cometas,
Multaque misceri nocturna strage putasti,
Quod ferme dirum in tempus cecidere Latinae,
Cum claram speciem concreto lumine luna
Abdidit et subito stellanti nocte perempta est.
Quid vero Phoebi fax, tristis nuntia belli,
Quae magnum ad columen flammato ardore volabat,
Praecipitis caeli partis obitusque petessens?
Aut cum terribili perculsus fulmine civis
Luce serenanti vitalia lumina liquit?
Aut cum se gravido tremefecit corpore tellus?
Iam vero variae nocturno tempore visae
Terribiles formae bellum motusque monebant,
Multaque per terras vates oracla furenti
Pectore fundebant tristis minitantia casus,

### Book 1, Chapter 12

[19]
Atque ea, quae lapsu tandem cecidere vetusto,
Haec fore perpetuis signis clarisque frequentans
Ipse deum genitor caelo terrisque canebat.
Nunc ea, Torquato quae quondam et consule Cotta
Lydius ediderat Tyrrhenae gentis haruspex,
Omnia fixa tuus glomerans determinat annus.
Nam pater altitonans stellanti nixus Olympo
Ipse suos quondam tumulos ac templa petivit
Et Capitolinis iniecit sedibus ignis.
Tum species ex aere vetus venerataque Nattae
Concidit, elapsaeque vetusto numine leges,
Et divom simulacra peremit fulminis ardor.

[20]
Hic silvestris erat Romani nominis altrix,
Martia, quae parvos Mavortis semine natos
Uberibus gravidis vitali rore rigabat;
Quae tum cum pueris flammato fulminis ictu
Concidit atque avolsa pedum vestigia liquit.
Tum quis non artis scripta ac monumenta volutans
Voces tristificas chartis promebat Etruscis?
Omnes civilem generosa <a> stirpe profectam
Vitare ingentem cladem pestemque monebant
Vel legum exitium constanti voce ferebant
Templa deumque adeo flammis urbemque iubebant
Eripere et stragem horribilem caedemque vereri;
Atque haec fixa gravi fato ac fundata teneri,
Ni prius excelsum ad columen formata decore
Sancta Iovis species claros spectaret in ortus.
Tum fore ut occultos populus sanctusque senatus
Cernere conatus posset, si solis ad ortum
Conversa inde patrum sedes populique videret.

### Book 1, Chapter 13

[21]
Haec tardata diu species multumque morata
Consule te tandem celsa est in sede locata,
Atque una fixi ac signati temporis hora
Iuppiter excelsa clarabat sceptra columna,
Et clades patriae flamma ferroque parata
Vocibus Allobrogum patribus populoque patebat.
Rite igitur veteres, quorum monumenta tenetis,
Qui populos urbisque modo ac virtute regebant,
Rite etiam vestri, quorum pietasque fidesque
Praestitit et longe vicit sapientia cunctos,
Praecipue coluere vigenti numine divos.
Haec adeo penitus cura videre sagaci,
Otia qui studiis laeti tenuere decoris,

[22]
Inque Academia umbrifera nitidoque Lyceo
Fuderunt claras fecundi pectoris artis.
E quibus ereptum primo iam a flore iuventae
Te patria in media virtutum mole locavit.
Tu tamen anxiferas curas requiete relaxans,
Quod patriae vacat, id studiis nobisque sacrasti.

Tu igitur animum poteris inducere contra ea, quae a me disputantur de divinatione, dicere, qui et gesseris ea, quae gessisti, et ea, quae pronuntiavi, accuratissume scripseris?

[23]
Quid? quaeris, Carneades, cur haec ita fiant aut qua arte perspici possint? Nescire me fateor, evenire autem te ipsum dico videre. Casu, inquis. Itane vero? quicquam potest casu esse factum, quod omnes habet in se numeros veritatis? Quattuor tali iacti casu Venerium efficiunt; num etiam centum Venerios, si quadringentos talos ieceris, casu futuros putas? Aspersa temere pigmenta in tabula oris liniamenta efficere possunt; num etiam Veneris Coae pulchritudinem effici posse aspersione fortuita putas? Sus rostro si humi A litteram inpresserit, num propterea suspicari poteris Andromacham Ennii ab ea posse describi? Fingebat Carneades in Chiorum lapicidinis saxo diffisso caput extitisse Panisci; credo, aliquam non dissimilem figuram, sed certe non talem, ut eam factam a Scopa diceres. Sic enim se profecto res habet, ut numquam perfecte veritatem casus imitetur.

### Book 1, Chapter 14

[24]
At non numquam ea, quae praedicta sunt, minus eveniunt. Quae tandem id ars non habet? earum dico artium, quae coniectura continentur et sunt opinabiles. An medicina ars non putanda est? quam tamen multa fallunt. Quid? gubernatores nonne falluntur? An Achivorum exercitus et tot navium rectores non ita profecti sunt ab Ilio, ut ‘profectione laeti piscium lasciviam intuerentur’, ut ait Pacuvius, ‘nec tuendi satietas capere posset?’

Ínterea prope iam óccidente sóle inhorrescít mare,
Ténebrae conduplicántur noctisque ét nimbum occaecát nigror.

Num igitur tot clarissimorum ducum regumque naufragium sustulit artem gubernandi? aut num imperatorum scientia nihil est, quia summus imperator nuper fugit amisso exercitu? aut num propterea nulla est rei publicae gerendae ratio atque prudentia, quia multa Cn. Pompeium, quaedam M. Catonem, non nulla etiam te ipsum fefellerunt? Similis est haruspicum responsio omnisque opinabilis divinatio; coniectura enim nititur, ultra quam progredi non potest.

### Book 1, Chapter 15

[25]
Ea fallit fortasse non numquam, sed tamen ad veritatem saepissime derigit; est enim ab omni aeternitate repetita, in qua cum paene innumerabiliter res eodem modo evenirent isdem signis antegressis, ars est effecta eadem saepe animadvertendo ac notando.

Auspicia vero vestra quam constant! quae quidem nunc a Romanis auguribus ignorantur (bona hoc tua venia dixerim), a Cilicibus, Pamphyliis, Pisidis, Lyciis tenentur.

[26]
Nam quid ego hospitem nostrum, clarissumum atque optumum virum, Deiotarum regem, commemorem? qui nihil umquam nisi auspicato gerit. Qui cum ex itinere quodam proposito et constituto revertisset aquilae admonitus volatu, conclave illud, ubi erat mansurus, si ire perrexisset, proxima nocte corruit.

[27]
Itaque, ut ex ipso audiebam, persaepe revertit ex itinere, cum iam progressus esset multorum dierum viam. Cuius quidem hoc praeclarissimum est, quod, posteaquam a Caesare tetrarchia et regno pecuniaque multatus est, negat se tamen eorum auspiciorum, quae sibi ad Pompeium proficiscenti secunda evenerint, paenitere; senatus enim auctoritatem et populi Romani libertatem atque imperii dignitatem suis armis esse defensam, sibique eas aves, quibus auctoribus officium et fidem secutus esset, bene consuluisse; antiquiorem enim sibi fuisse possessionibus suis gloriam. Ille mihi videtur igitur vere augurari. Nam nostri quidem magistratus auspiciis utuntur coactis; necesse est enim offa obiecta cadere frustum ex pulli ore, cum pascitur;

### Book 1, Chapter 16

[28]
quod autem scriptum habetis †aut tripudium fieri, si ex ea quid in solidum ceciderit, hoc quoque, quod dixi, coactum tripudium solistimum dicitis. Itaque multa auguria, multa auspicia, quod Cato ille sapiens queritur, neglegentia collegii amissa plane et deserta sunt.

Nihil fere quondam maioris rei nisi auspicato ne privatim quidem gerebatur, quod etiam nunc nuptiarum auspices declarant, qui re omissa nomen tantum tenent. Nam ut nunc extis (quamquam id ipsum aliquanto minus quam olim), sic tum avibus magnae res inpetriri solebant. Itaque, sinistra dum non exquirimus, in dira et in vitiosa incurrimus.

[29]
Ut P. Claudius, Appii Caeci filius, eiusque collega L. Iunius classis maxumas perdiderunt, cum vitio navigassent. Quod eodem modo evenit Agamemnoni; qui, cum Achivi coepissent

inter se strépere aperteque ártem obterere extíspicum,
Sólvere imperát secundo rúmore adversáque avi.

Sed quid vetera? M. Crasso quid acciderit, videmus, dirarum obnuntiatione neglecta. In quo Appius, collega tuus, bonus augur, ut ex te audire soleo, non satis scienter virum bonum et civem egregium censor C. Ateium notavit, quod ementitum auspicia subscriberet. Esto; fuerit hoc censoris, si iudicabat ementitum; at illud minime auguris, quod adscripsit ob eam causam populum Romanum calamitatem maximam cepisse. Si enim ea causa calamitatis fuit, non in eo est culpa, qui obnuntiavit, sed in eo, qui non paruit. Veram enim fuisse obnuntiationem, ut ait idem augur et censor, exitus adprobavit; quae si falsa fuisset, nullam adferre potuisset causam calamitatis. Etenim dirae, sicut cetera auspicia, ut omina, ut signa, non causas adferunt, cur quid eveniat, sed nuntiant eventura, nisi provideris.

### Book 1, Chapter 17

[30]
Non igitur obnuntiatio Ateii causam finxit calamitatis, sed signo obiecto monuit Crassum, quid eventurum esset, nisi cavisset. Ita aut illa obnuntiatio nihil valuit aut, si, ut Appius iudicat, valuit, id valuit, ut peccatum haereat non in eo, qui monuerit, sed in eo, qui non obtemperarit.

Quid? lituus iste vester, quod clarissumum est insigne auguratus, unde vobis est traditus? Nempe eo Romulus regiones direxit tum, cum urbem condidit. Qui quidem Romuli lituus, id est incurvum et leviter a summo inflexum bacillum, quod ab eius litui, quo canitur, similitudine nomen invenit, cum situs esset in curia Saliorum, quae est in Palatio, eaque deflagravisset, inventus est integer.

[31]
Quid? multis annis post Romulum Prisco regnante Tarquinio quis veterum scriptorum non loquitur, quae sit ab Atto Navio per lituum regionum facta discriptio? Qui cum propter paupertatem sues puer pasceret, una ex iis amissa vovisse dicitur, si recuperasset, uvam se deo daturum, quae maxima esset in vinea; itaque sue inventa ad meridiem spectans in vinea media dicitur constitisse, cumque in quattuor partis vineam divisisset trisque partis aves abdixissent, quarta parte, quae erat reliqua, in regiones distributa mirabili magnitudine uvam, ut scriptum videmus, invenit. Qua re celebrata cum vicini omnes ad eum de rebus suis referrent, erat in magno nomine et gloria.

[32]
Ex quo factum est, ut eum ad se rex Priscus arcesseret. Cuius cum temptaret scientiam auguratus, dixit ei cogitare se quiddam; id possetne fieri, consuluit. Ille augurio acto posse respondit. Tarquinius autem dixit se cogitasse cotem novacula posse praecidi. Tum Attum iussisse experiri. Ita cotem in comitium allatam inspectante et rege et populo novacula esse discissam. Ex eo evenit, ut et Tarquinius augure Atto Navio uteretur et populus de suis rebus ad eum referret.

[33]
Cotem autem illam et novaculam defossam in comitio supraque inpositum puteal accepimus. Negemus omnia, comburamus annales, ficta haec esse dicamus, quidvis denique potius quam deos res humanas curare fateamur; quid? quod scriptum apud te est de Ti. Graccho, nonne et augurum et haruspicum conprobat disciplinam? qui cum tabernaculum vitio cepisset inprudens, quod inauspicato pomerium transgressus esset, comitia consulibus rogandis habuit. Nota res est et a te ipso mandata monumentis. Sed et ipse augur Ti. Gracchus auspiciorum auctoritatem confessione errati sui conprobavit, et haruspicum disciplinae magna accessit auctoritas, qui recentibus comitiis in senatum introducti negaverunt iustum comitiorum rogatorem fuisse.

### Book 1, Chapter 18

[34]
Iis igitur adsentior, qui duo genera divinationum esse dixerunt, unum, quod particeps esset artis, alterum, quod arte careret. Est enim ars in iis, qui novas res coniectura persequuntur, veteres observatione didicerunt. Carent autem arte ii, qui non ratione aut coniectura observatis ac notatis signis, sed concitatione quadam animi aut soluto liberoque motu futura praesentiunt, quod et somniantibus saepe contingit et non numquam vaticinantibus per furorem, ut Bacis Boeotius, ut Epimenides Cres, ut Sibylla Erythraea. Cuius generis oracla etiam habenda sunt, non ea, quae aequatis sortibus ducuntur, sed illa, quae instinctu divino adflatuque funduntur; etsi ipsa sors contemnenda non est, si [et] auctoritatem habet vetustatis, ut eae sunt sortes, quas e terra editas accepimus; quae tamen ductae ut in rem apte cadant, fieri credo posse divinitus. Quorum omnium interpretes, ut grammatici poëtarum, proxime ad eorum, quos interpretantur, divinationem videntur accedere.

[35]
Quae est igitur ista calliditas res vetustate robustas calumniando velle pervertere? Non reperio causam. Latet fortasse obscuritate involuta naturae; non enim me deus ista scire, sed his tantum modo uti voluit. Utar igitur nec adducar aut in extis totam Etruriam delirare aut eandem gentem in fulgoribus errare aut fallaciter portenta interpretari, cum terrae saepe fremitus, saepe mugitus, saepe motus multa nostrae rei publicae, multa ceteris civitatibus gravia et vera praedixerint.

### Book 1, Chapter 19

[36]
Quid? qui inridetur, partus hic mulae nonne, quia fetus extitit in sterilitate naturae, praedictus est ab haruspicibus incredibilis partus malorum? Quid? Ti. Gracchus P. F., qui bis consul et censor fuit, idemque et summus augur et vir sapiens civisque praestans, nonne, ut C. Gracchus, filius eius, scriptum reliquit, duobus anguibus domi conprehensis haruspices convocavit? qui cum respondissent, si marem emisisset, uxori brevi tempore esse moriendum, si feminam, ipsi, aequius esse censuit se maturam oppetere mortem quam P. Africani filiam adulescentem; feminam emisit, ipse paucis post diebus est mortuus. Inrideamus haruspices, vanos, futtiles esse dicamus, quorumque disciplinam et sapientissimus vir et eventus ac res conprobavit, contemnamus, <condemnemus> etiam Babylonem et eos, qui e Caucaso caeli signa servantes numeris et modis stellarum cursus persequuntur, condemnemus, inquam, hos aut stultitiae aut vanitatis aut inpudentiae, qui quadringenta septuaginta milia annorum, ut ipsi dicunt, monumentis conprehensa continent, et mentiri iudicemus nec, saeculorum reliquorum iudicium quod de ipsis futurum sit, pertimescere.

[37]
Age, barbari vani atque fallaces; num etiam Graiorum historia mentita est? Quae Croeso Pythius Apollo, ut de naturali divinatione dicam, quae Atheniensibus, quae Lacedaemoniis, quae Tegeatis, quae Argivis, quae Corinthiis responderit, quis ignorat? Collegit innumerabilia oracula Chrysippus nec ullum sine locuplete auctore atque teste; quae, quia nota tibi sunt, relinquo; defendo unum hoc: Numquam illud oraclum Delphis tam celebre et tam clarum fuisset neque tantis donis refertum omnium populorum atque regum, nisi omnis aetas oraclorum illorum veritatem esset experta. Idem iam diu non facit.

[38]
Ut igitur nunc <in> minore gloria est, quia minus oraculorum veritas excellit, sic tum nisi summa veritate in tanta gloria non fuisset. Potest autem vis illa terrae, quae mentem Pythiae divino adflatu concitabat, evanuisse vetustate, ut quosdam evanuisse et exaruisse amnes aut in alium cursum contortos et deflexos videmus. Sed, ut vis, acciderit; magna enim quaestio est; modo maneat id, quod negari non potest, nisi omnem historiam perverterimus, multis saeclis verax fuisse id oraculum.

### Book 1, Chapter 20

[39]
Sed omittamus oracula; veniamus ad somnia. De quibus disputans Chrysippus multis et minutis somniis colligendis facit idem, quod Antipater ea conquirens, quae Antiphontis interpretatione explicata declarant illa quidem acumen interpretis, sed exemplis grandioribus decuit uti. Dionysii mater, eius qui Syracosiorum tyrannus fuit, ut scriptum apud Philistum est, et doctum hominem et diligentem et aequalem temporum illorum, cum praegnans hunc ipsum Dionysium alvo contineret, somniavit se peperisse Satyriscum. Huic interpretes portentorum, qui Galeotae tum in Sicilia nominabantur, responderunt, ut ait Philistus, eum, quem illa peperisset, clarissimum Graeciae diuturna cum fortuna fore.

[40]
Num te ad fabulas revoco vel nostrorum vel Graecorum poëtarum? Narrat enim et apud Ennium Vestalis illa:

Eccita cum tremulis anus attulit artubus lumen,
Talia tum memorat lacrimans exterrita somno:
“Eurydica prognata, pater quam noster amavit,
Vires vitaque corpus meum nunc deserit omne.
Nam me visus homo pulcher per amoena salicta
Et ripas raptare locosque novos; ita sola
Postilla, germana soror, errare videbar
Tardaque vestigare et quaerere te neque posse
Corde capessere; semita nulla pedem stabilibat.

[41]
Exin compellare pater me voce videtur
His verbis: "O gnata, tibi sunt ante gerendae
Aerumnae, post ex fluvio fortuna resistet."
Haec ecfatus pater, germana, repente recessit
Nec sese dedit in conspectum corde cupitus,
Quamquam multa manus ad caeli caerula templa
Tendebam lacrumans et blanda voce vocabam.
Vix aegro tum corde meo me somnus reliquit.”

### Book 1, Chapter 21

[42]
Haec, etiamsi ficta sunt a poëta, non absunt tamen a consuetudine somniorum. Sit sane etiam illud commenticium, quo Priamus est conturbatus, quia

. máter gravida párere <ex> se ardentém facem
Visást in somnis Hécuba; quo factó pater
Rex ípse Priamus sómnio mentís metu
Percúlsus curis súmptus suspirántibus
Exsácrificabat hóstiis balántibus.
Tum cóniecturam póstulat pacém petens,
Ut se édoceret, óbsecrans Apóllinem,
Quo sése vertant tántae sortes sómnium.
Ibi éx oraclo vóce divina édidit
Apóllo, puerum, prímus Priamo quí foret
Postílla natus, témperaret tóllere;
Eum ésse exitium Tróiae, pestem Pérgamo.

### Book 1, Chapter 22

[43]
Sint haec, ut dixi, somnia fabularum, hisque adiungatur etiam Aeneae somnium, quod in nostri Fabii Pictoris Graecis annalibus eius modi est, ut omnia, quae ab Aenea gesta sunt quaeque illi acciderunt, ea fuerint, quae ei secundum quietem visa sunt.

Sed propiora videamus. Cuiusnam modi est Superbi Tarquinii somnium, de quo in Bruto Accii loquitur ipse?

[44]
Quoniám quieti córpus nocturno ínpetu
Dedí sopore plácans artus lánguidos,
Visúst in somnis pástor ad me appéllere
Pecús lanigerum exímia puchritúdine;
Duós consanguineos árietes inde éligi
Praeclárioremque álterum immoláre me;
Deinde eíus germanum córnibus conítier,
In me árietare, eoque íctu me ad casúm dari;
Exín prostratum térra, graviter saúcium,
Resupínum in caelo cóntueri máximum ac
Mirifícum facinus: déxtrorsum orbem flámmeum
Radiátum solis líquier cursú novo.

[45]
Eius igitur somnii a coniectoribus quae sit interpretatio facta, videamus:

Réx, quae in vita usúrpant homines, cógitant, curánt, vident,
Quaéque agunt vigilántes agitantque, éa, cui in somno áccidunt,
Mínus mirandum est; dí rem tantam haud témere inproviso ófferunt.
Próin vide ne, quém tu esse hebetem députes aeque ác pecus,
Ís sapientiá munitum péctus egregié gerat
Téque regno expéllat; nam id, quod dé sole ostentúmst tibi,
Pópulo commutátionem rérum portendít fore
Pérpropinquam. Haec béne verruncent pópulo. Nam quod ad déxteram
Cépit cursum ab laéva signum praépotens, pulchérrume
Aúguratum est rém Romanam públicam summám fore.

### Book 1, Chapter 23

[46]
Age nunc ad externa redeamus. Matrem Phalaridis scribit Ponticus Heraclides, doctus vir, auditor et discipulus Platonis, visam esse videre in somnis simulacra deorum, quae ipsa domi consecravisset; ex iis Mercurium e patera, quam dextera manu teneret, sanguinem visum esse fundere; qui cum terram attigisset, refervescere videretur sic, ut tota domus sanguine redundaret. Quod matris somnium inmanis filii crudelitas conprobavit. Quid ego, quae magi Cyro illi principi interpretati sint, ex Dinonis Persicis proferam? Nam cum dormienti ei sol ad pedes visus esset, ter eum scribit frustra adpetivisse manibus, cum se convolvens sol elaberetur et abiret; ei magos dixisse, quod genus sapientium et doctorum habebatur in Persis, ex triplici adpetitione solis triginta annos Cyrum regnaturum esse portendi. Quod ita contigit; nam ad septuagesimum pervenit, cum quadraginta natus annos regnare coepisset.

[47]
Est profecto quiddam etiam in barbaris gentibus praesentiens atque divinans, siquidem ad mortem proficiscens Callanus Indus, cum inscenderet in rogum ardentem, ‘O praeclarum discessum’, inquit, ‘e vita, cum, ut Herculi contigit, mortali corpore cremato in lucem animus excesserit!’ Cumque Alexander eum rogaret, si quid vellet, ut diceret, ‘Optime’, inquit; ‘propediem te videbo’. Quod ita contigit; nam Babylone paucis post diebus Alexander est mortuus. Discedo parumper a somniis, ad quae mox revertar. Qua nocte templum Ephesiae Dianae deflagravit, eadem constat ex Olympiade natum esse Alexandrum, atque, ubi lucere coepisset, clamitasse magos pestem ac perniciem Asiae proxuma nocte natam. Haec de Indis et magis.

### Book 1, Chapter 24

[48]
Redeamus ad somnia. Hannibalem Coelius scribit, cum columnam auream, quae esset in fano Iunonis Laciniae, auferre vellet dubitaretque, utrum ea solida esset an extrinsecus inaurata, perterebravisse, cumque solidam invenisset, statuisse tollere; ei secundum quietem visam esse Iunonem praedicere, ne id faceret, minarique, si fecisset, se curaturam, ut eum quoque oculum, quo bene videret, amitteret, idque ab homine acuto non esse neglectum; itaque ex eo auro, quod exterebratum esset, buculam curasse faciendam et eam in summa columna conlocavisse.

[49]
Hoc item in Sileni, quem Coelius sequitur, Graeca historia est (is autem diligentissume res Hannibalis persecutus est): Hannibalem, cum cepisset Saguntum, visum esse in somnis a Iove in deorum concilium vocari; quo cum venisset, Iovem imperavisse, ut Italiae bellum inferret, ducemque ei unum e concilio datum, quo illum utentem cum exercitu progredi coepisse; tum ei ducem illum praecepisse, ne respiceret; illum autem id diutius facere non potuisse elatumque cupiditate respexisse; tum visam beluam vastam et immanem circumplicatam serpentibus, quacumque incederet, omnia arbusta, virgulta, tecta pervertere, et eum admiratum quaesisse de deo, quodnam illud esset tale monstrum; et deum respondisse vastitatem esse Italiae praecepisseque, ut pergeret protinus, quid retro atque a tergo fieret, ne laboraret.

[50]
Apud Agathoclem scriptum in historia est Hamilcarem Karthaginiensem, cum oppugnaret Syracusas, visum esse audire vocem, se postridie cenaturum Syracusis; cum autem is dies inluxisset, magnam seditionem in castris eius inter Poenos et Siculos milites esse factam; quod cum sensissent Syracusani, inproviso eos in castra inrupisse, Hamilcaremque ab iis vivum esse sublatum. Ita res somnium conprobavit. Plena exemplorum est historia, tum referta vita communis.

[51]
At vero P. Decius ille Q. F., qui primus e Deciis consul fuit, cum esset tribunus militum M. Valerio A. Cornelio consulibus a Samnitibusque premeretur noster exercitus, cum pericula proeliorum iniret audacius monereturque, ut cautior esset, dixit, quod extat in annalibus, <se> sibi in somnis visum esse, cum in mediis hostibus versaretur, occidere cum maxuma gloria. Et tum quidem incolumis exercitum obsidione liberavit; post triennium autem, cum consul esset, devovit se et in aciem Latinorum inrupit armatus. Quo eius facto superati sunt et deleti Latini. Cuius mors ita gloriosa fuit, ut eandem concupisceret filius.

### Book 1, Chapter 25

[52]
Sed veniamus nunc, si placet, ad somnia philosophorum.

Est apud Platonem Socrates, cum esset in custodia publica, dicens Critoni, suo familiari, sibi post tertium diem esse moriendum; vidisse se in somnis pulchritudine eximia feminam, quae se nomine appellans diceret Homericum quendam eius modi versum:

Tertia te Phthiae tempestas laeta locabit.

Quod, <ut> est dictum, sic scribitur contigisse. Xenophon Socraticus (qui vir et quantus!) in ea militia, qua cum Cyro minore perfunctus est, sua scribit somnia, quorum eventus mirabiles exstiterunt.

[53]
Mentiri Xenophontem an delirare dicemus? Quid? singulari vir ingenio Aristoteles et paene divino ipsene errat an alios vult errare, cum scribit Eudemum Cyprium, familiarem suum, iter in Macedoniam facientem Pheras venisse, quae erat urbs in Thessalia tum admodum nobilis, ab Alexandro autem tyranno crudeli dominatu tenebatur; in eo igitur oppido ita graviter aegrum Eudemum fuisse, ut omnes medici diffiderent; ei visum in quiete egregia facie iuvenem dicere fore ut perbrevi convalesceret, paucisque diebus interiturum Alexandrum tyrannum, ipsum autem Eudemum quinquennio post domum esse rediturum. Atque ita quidem prima statim scribit Aristoteles consecuta, et convaluisse Eudemum, et ab uxoris fratribus interfectum tyrannum; quinto autem anno exeunte, cum esset spes ex illo somnio in Cyprum illum ex Sicilia esse rediturum, proeliantem eum ad Syracusas occidisse; ex quo ita illud somnium esse interpretatum, ut, cum animus Eudemi e corpore excesserit, tum domum revertisse videatur.

[54]
Adiungamus philosophis doctissimum hominem, poëtam quidem divinum, Sophoclem; qui, cum ex aede Herculis patera aurea gravis subrepta esset, in somnis vidit ipsum deum dicentem, qui id fecisset. Quod semel ille iterumque neglexit. Ubi idem saepius, ascendit in Arium pagum, detulit rem; Areopagitae conprehendi iubent eum, qui a Sophocle erat nominatus; is quaestione adhibita confessus est pateramque rettulit. Quo facto fanum illud Indicis Herculis nominatum est.

### Book 1, Chapter 26

[55]
Sed quid ego Graecorum? nescio quo modo me magis nostra delectant. Omnes hoc historici, Fabii, Gellii, sed proxume Coelius: Cum bello Latino ludi votivi maxumi primum fierent, civitas ad arma repente est excitata, itaque ludis intermissis instaurativi constituti sunt. Qui ante quam fierent, cumque iam populus consedisset, servus per circum, cum virgis caederetur, furcam ferens ductus est. Exin cuidam rustico Romano dormienti visus est venire, qui diceret praesulem sibi non placuisse ludis, idque ab eodem iussum esse eum senatui nuntiare; illum non esse ausum. Iterum esse idem iussum et monitum, ne vim suam experiri vellet; ne tum quidem esse ausum. Exin filium eius esse mortuum, eandem in somnis admonitionem fuisse tertiam. Tum illum etiam debilem factum rem ad amicos detulisse, quorum de sententia lecticula in curiam esse delatum, cumque senatui somnium enarravisset, pedibus suis salvum domum revertisse. Itaque somnio comprobato a senatu ludos illos iterum instauratos memoriae proditum est.

### Book 1, Chapter 27

[56]
C. vero Gracchus multis dixit, ut scriptum apud eundem Coelium est, sibi in somnis quaesturam pete<re dubita>nti Ti. fratrem visum esse dicere, quam vellet cunctaretur, tamen eodem sibi leto, quo ipse interisset, esse pereundum. Hoc, ante quam tribunus plebi C. Gracchus factus esset, et se audisse scribit Coelius et dixisse <eum> multis. Quo somnio quid inveniri potest certius?

Quid? illa duo somnia, quae creberrume commemorantur a Stoicis, quis tandem potest contemnere? unum de Simonide: Qui cum ignotum quendam proiectum mortuum vidisset eumque humavisset haberetque in animo navem conscendere, moneri visus est, ne id faceret, ab eo, quem sepultura adfecerat; si navigavisset, eum naufragio esse periturum; itaque Simonidem redisse, perisse ceteros, qui tum navigassent.

[57]
Alterum ita traditum clarum admodum somnium: Cum duo quidam Arcades familiares iter una facerent et Megaram venissent, alterum ad cauponem devertisse, ad hospitem alterum. Qui ut cenati quiescerent, concubia nocte visum esse in somnis ei, qui erat in hospitio, illum alterum orare, ut subveniret, quod sibi a caupone interitus pararetur; eum primo perterritum somnio surrexisse; dein cum se conlegisset idque visum pro nihilo habendum esse duxisset, recubuisse; tum ei dormienti eundem illum visum esse rogare, ut, quoniam sibi vivo non subvenisset, mortem suam ne inultam esse pateretur; se interfectum in plaustrum a caupone esse coniectum et supra stercus iniectum; petere, ut mane ad portam adesset, prius quam plaustrum ex oppido exiret. Hoc vero eum somnio commotum mane bubulco praesto ad portam fuisse, quaesisse ex eo, quid esset in plaustro; illum perterritum fugisse, mortuum erutum esse, cauponem re patefacta poenas dedisse.

### Book 1, Chapter 28

[58]
Quid hoc somnio dici potest divinius? Sed quid aut plura aut vetera quaerimus? Saepe tibi meum narravi, saepe ex te audivi tuum somnium: me, cum Asiae pro cos. praeessem, vidisse in quiete, cum tu equo advectus ad quandam magni fluminis ripam provectus subito atque delapsus in flumen nusquam apparuisses, me contremuisse timore perterritum; tum te repente laetum exstitisse eodemque equo adversam ascendisse ripam, nosque inter nos esse conplexos. Facilis coniectura huius somnii, mihique a peritis in Asia praedictum est fore eos eventus rerum, qui acciderunt.

[59]
Venio nunc ad tuum. Audivi equidem ex te ipso, sed mihi saepius noster Sallustius narravit, cum in illa fuga nobis gloriosa, patriae calamitosa in villa quadam campi Atinatis maneres magnamque partem noctis vigilasses, ad lucem denique arte et graviter dormire te coepisse; itaque, quamquam iter instaret, tamen silentium fieri iussisse <se> neque esse passum te excitari; cum autem experrectus esses hora secunda fere, te sibi somnium narravisse: visum tibi esse, cum in locis solis maestus errares, C. Marium cum fascibus laureatis quaerere ex te, quid tristis esses, cumque tu te patria vi pulsum esse dixisses, prehendisse eum dextram tuam et bono animo te iussisse esse lictorique proxumo tradidisse, ut te in monumentum suum deduceret, et dixisse in eo tibi salutem fore. Tum et se exclamasse Sallustius narrat reditum tibi celerem et gloriosum paratum, et te ipsum visum somnio delectari. Nam illud mihi ipsi celeriter nuntiatum est, ut audivisses in monumento Marii de tuo reditu magnificentissumum illud senatus consultum esse factum referente optumo et clarissumo viro consule, idque frequentissimo theatro incredibili clamore et plausu comprobatum, dixisse te nihil illo Atinati somnio fieri posse divinius.

### Book 1, Chapter 29

[60]
At multa falsa. Immo obscura fortasse nobis. Sed sint falsa quaedam; contra vera quid dicimus? Quae quidem multo plura evenirent, si ad quietem integri iremus. Nunc onusti cibo et vino perturbata et confusa cernimus. Vide, quid Socrates in Platonis Politia loquatur. Dicit enim: “Cum dormientibus ea pars animi, quae mentis et rationis sit particeps, sopita langueat, illa autem, in qua feritas quaedam sit atque agrestis inmanitas, cum sit inmoderato obstupefacta potu atque pastu, exsultare eam in somno inmoderateque iactari. Itaque huic omnia visa obiciuntur a mente ac ratione vacua, ut aut cum matre corpus miscere videatur aut cum quovis alio vel homine vel deo, saepe belua, atque etiam trucidare aliquem et impie cruentari multaque facere inpure atque taetre cum temeritate et inpudentia.

[61]
At qui salubri et moderato cultu atque victu quieti se tradiderit ea parte animi, quae mentis et consilii est, agitata et erecta saturataque bonarum cogitationum epulis, eaque parte animi, quae voluptate alitur, nec inopia enecta nec satietate affluenti (quorum utrumque praestringere aciem mentis solet, sive deest naturae quippiam sive abundat atque affluit), illa etiam tertia parte animi, in qua irarum existit ardor, sedata atque restincta, tum eveniet duabus animi temerariis partibus compressis, ut illa tertia pars rationis et mentis eluceat et se vegetam ad somniandum acremque praebeat, tum ei visa quietis occurrent tranquilla atque veracia.” Haec verba ipsa Platonis expressi.

### Book 1, Chapter 30

[62]
Epicurum igitur audiemus potius? Namque Carneades concertationis studio modo hoc, modo illud ait; ille, quod sentit; sentit autem nihil umquam elegans, nihil decorum. Hunc ergo antepones Platoni et Socrati? qui ut rationem non redderent, auctoritate tamen hos minutos philosophos vincerent. Iubet igitur Plato sic ad somnum proficisci corporibus adfectis, ut nihil sit, quod errorem animis perturbationemque adferat. Ex quo etiam Pythagoriis interdictum putatur, ne faba vescerentur, quod habet inflationem magnam is cibus tranquillitati mentis quaerenti vera contrariam.

[63]
Cum ergo est somno sevocatus animus a societate et a contagione corporis, tum meminit praeteritorum, praesentia cernit, futura providet; iacet enim corpus dormientis ut mortui, viget autem et vivit animus. Quod multo magis faciet post mortem, cum omnino corpore excesserit. Itaque adpropinquante morte multo est divinior. Nam et id ipsum vident, qui sunt morbo gravi et mortifero adfecti, instare mortem; itaque iis occurrunt plerumque imagines mortuorum, tumque vel maxume laudi student, eosque, qui secus, quam decuit, vixerunt, peccatorum suorum tum maxume paenitet.

[64]
Divinare autem morientes illo etiam exemplo confirmat Posidonius, quod adfert, Rhodium quendam morientem sex aequales nominasse et dixisse, qui primus eorum, qui secundus, qui deinde deinceps moriturus esset. Sed tribus modis censet deorum adpulsu homines somniare, uno, quod provideat animus ipse per sese, quippe qui deorum cognatione teneatur, altero, quod plenus aër sit inmortalium animorum, in quibus tamquam insignitae notae veritatis appareant, tertio, quod ipsi di cum dormientibus conloquantur. Idque, ut modo dixi, facilius evenit adpropinquante morte, ut animi futura augurentur.

### Book 1, Chapter 31

[65]
Ex quo et illud est Callani, de quo ante dixi, et Homerici Hectoris, qui moriens propinquam Achilli mortem denuntiat. Neque enim illud verbum temere consuetudo adprobavisset, si ea res nulla esset omnino:

Praésagibat ánimus frustra me íre, cum exirém domo.

Sagire enim sentire acute est; ex quo sagae anus, quia multa scire volunt, et sagaces dicti canes. Is igitur, qui ante sagit, quam oblata res est, dicitur praesagire, id est futura ante sentire.

[66]
Inest igitur in animis praesagitio extrinsecus iniecta atque inclusa divinitus. Ea si exarsit acrius, furor appellatur, cum a corpore animus abstractus divino instinctu concitatur.

H. Séd quid oculis rábere visa es dérepente ardéntibus?
U/bi paulo ante sápiens illa vírginalis modéstia?
C. Máter, optumárum multo múlier melior múlierum,
Míssa sum supérstitiosis háriolatiónibus;
Námque Apollo fátis fandis démentem invitám ciet.
Vírgines vereór aequalis, pátris mei meum factúm pudet,
Óptumi virií; mea mater, túi me miseret, méi piget.
Óptumam progéniem Priamo péperisti extra me; hóc dolet.
Mén obesse, illós prodesse, me óbstare, illos óbsequi?

O poëma tenerum et moratum atque molle! Sed hoc minus ad rem;

[67]
illud, quod volumus, expressum est, ut vaticinari furor vera soleat.

A/dest, adest fax óbvoluta sánguine atque íncendio!
Múltos annos látuit; cives, férte opem et restínguite.

Deus inclusus corpore humano iam, non Cassandra loquitur.

Iámque mari magnó classis cita
Téxitur; exitium éxamen rapit;
A/dveniet, fera vélivolantibus
Návibus complebít manus litora.

### Book 1, Chapter 32

[68]
Tragoedias loqui videor et fabulas. At ex te ipso non commenticiam rem, sed factam eiusdem generis audivi: C. Coponium ad te venisse Dyrrhachium, cum praetorio imperio classi Rhodiae praeesset, cumprime hominem prudentem atque doctum, eumque dixisse remigem quendam e quinqueremi Rhodiorum vaticinatum madefactum iri minus xxx diebus Graeciam sanguine, rapinas Dyrrhachii et conscensionem in naves cum fuga fugientibusque miserabilem respectum incendiorum fore, sed Rhodiorum classi propinquum reditum ac domum itionem dari; tum neque te ipsum non esse commotum Marcumque Varronem et M. Catonem, qui tum ibi erant, doctos homines, vehementer esse perterritos; paucis sane post diebus ex Pharsalia fuga venisse Labienum; qui cum interitum exercitus nuntiavisset, reliqua vaticinationis brevi esse confecta.

[69]
Nam et ex horreis direptum effusumque frumentum vias omnis angiportusque constraverat, et naves subito perterriti metu conscendistis et noctu ad oppidum respicientes flagrantis onerarias, quas incenderant milites, quia sequi noluerant, videbatis; postremo a Rhodia classe deserti verum vatem fuisse sensistis.

[70]
Exposui quam brevissime potui somnii et furoris oracla, quae carere arte dixeram. Quorum amborum generum una ratio est, qua Cratippus noster uti solet, animos hominum quadam ex parte extrinsecus esse tractos et haustos (ex quo intellegitur esse extra divinum animum, humanus unde ducatur), humani autem animi eam partem, quae sensum, quae motum, quae adpetitum habeat, non esse ab actione corporis seiugatam; quae autem pars animi rationis atque intellegentiae sit particeps, eam tum maxume vigere, cum plurimum absit a corpore.

[71]
Itaque expositis exemplis verarum vaticinationum et somniorum Cratippus solet rationem concludere hoc modo: ‘Si sine oculis non potest exstare officium et munus oculorum, possunt autem aliquando oculi non fungi suo munere, qui vel semel ita est usus oculis, ut vera cerneret, is habet sensum oculorum vera cernentium. Item igitur, si sine divinatione non potest officium et munus divinationis exstare, potest autem quis, cum divinationem habeat, errare aliquando nec vera cernere, satis est ad confirmandam divinationem semel aliquid esse ita divinatum, ut nihil fortuito cecidisse videatur. Sunt autem eius generis innumerabilia; esse igitur divinationem confitendum est.’

### Book 1, Chapter 33

[72]
Quae vero aut coniectura explicantur aut eventis animadversa ac notata sunt, ea genera divinandi, ut supra dixi, non naturalia, sed artificiosa dicuntur; in quo haruspices, augures coniectoresque numerantur. Haec inprobantur a Peripateticis, a Stoicis defenduntur. Quorum alia sunt posita in monumentis et disciplina, quod Etruscorum declarant et haruspicini et fulgurales et rituales libri, vestri etiam augurales, alia autem subito ex tempore coniectura explicantur, ut apud Homerum Calchas, qui ex passerum numero belli Troiani annos auguratus est, et ut in Sullae scriptum historia videmus, quod te inspectante factum est, ut, cum ille in agro Nolano inmolaret ante praetorium, ab infima ara subito anguis emergeret, cum quidem C. Postumius haruspex oraret illum, ut in expeditionem exercitum educeret; id cum Sulla fecisset, tum ante oppidum Nolam florentissuma Samnitium castra cepit.

[73]
Facta coniectura etiam in Dionysio est, paulo ante quam regnare coepit; qui cum per agrum Leontinum iter faciens equum ipse demisisset in flumen, submersus equus voraginibus non exstitit; quem cum maxima contentione non potuisset extrahere, discessit, ut ait Philistus, aegre ferens. Cum autem aliquantum progressus esset, subito exaudivit hinnitum respexitque et equum alacrem laetus aspexit, cuius in iuba examen apium consederat. Quod ostentum habuit hanc vim, ut Dionysius paucis post diebus regnare coeperit.

### Book 1, Chapter 34

[74]
Quid? Lacedaemoniis paulo ante Leuctricam calamitatem quae significatio facta est, cum in Herculis fano arma sonuerunt Herculisque simulacrum multo sudore manavit! At eodem tempore Thebis, ut ait Callisthenes, in templo Herculis valvae clausae repagulis subito se ipsae aperuerunt, armaque, quae fixa in parietibus fuerant, ea sunt humi inventa. Cumque eodem tempore apud Lebadiam Trophonio res divina fieret, gallos gallinaceos in eo loco sic adsidue canere coepisse, ut nihil intermitterent; tum augures dixisse Boeotios Thebanorum esse victoriam, propterea quod avis illa victa silere soleret, canere, si vicisset.

[75]
Eademque tempestate multis signis Lacedaemoniis Leuctricae pugnae calamitas denuntiabatur. Namque et in Lysandri, qui Lacedaemoniorum clarissimus fuerat, statua, quae Delphis stabat, in capite corona subito exstitit ex asperis herbis et agrestibus, stellaeque aureae, quae Delphis erant a Lacedaemoniis positae post navalem illam victoriam Lysandri, qua Athenienses conciderunt, qua in pugna quia Castor et Pollux cum Lacedaemoniorum classe visi esse dicebantur, eorum insignia deorum, stellae aureae, quas dixi, Delphis positae paulo ante Leuctricam pugnam deciderunt neque repertae sunt.

[76]
Maximum vero illud portentum isdem Spartiatis fuit, quod, cum oraclum ab Iove Dodonaeo petivissent de victoria sciscitantes legatique <vas> illud, in quo inerant sortes, collocavissent, simia, quam rex Molossorum in deliciis habebat, et sortes ipsas et cetera, quae erant ad sortem parata, disturbavit et aliud alio dissupavit. Tum ea, quae praeposita erat oraclo, sacerdos dixisse dicitur de salute Lacedaemoniis esse, non de victoria cogitandum.

### Book 1, Chapter 35

[77]
Quid? bello Punico secundo nonne C. Flaminius consul iterum neglexit signa rerum futurarum magna cum clade rei publicae? Qui exercitu lustrato cum Arretium versus castra movisset et contra Hannibalem legiones duceret, et ipse et equus eius ante signum Iovis Statoris sine causa repente concidit nec eam rem habuit religioni obiecto signo, ut peritis videbatur, ne committeret proelium. Idem cum tripudio auspicaretur, pullarius diem proelii committendi differebat. Tum Flaminius ex eo quaesivit, si ne postea quidem pulli pascerentur, quid faciendum censeret. Cum ille quiescendum respondisset, Flaminius: ‘Praeclara vero auspicia, si esurientibus pullis res geri poterit, saturis nihil geretur!’ itaque signa convelli et se sequi iussit. Quo tempore cum signifer primi hastati signum non posset movere loco nec quicquam proficeretur, plures cum accederent, Flaminius re nuntiata suo more neglexit. Itaque tribus iis horis concisus exercitus atque ipse interfectus est.

### Book 1, Chapter 36

[78]
Magnum illud etiam, quod addidit Coelius, eo tempore ipso, cum hoc calamitosum proelium fieret, tantos terrae motus in Liguribus, Gallia compluribusque insulis totaque in Italia factos esse, ut multa oppida conruerint, multis locis labes factae sint terraeque desederint fluminaque in contrarias partes fluxerint atque in amnes mare influxerit.

Fiunt certae divinationum coniecturae a peritis. Midae illi Phrygi, cum puer esset, dormienti formicae in os tritici grana congesserunt. Divitissumum fore praedictum est; quod evenit. At Platoni cum in cunis parvulo dormienti apes in labellis consedissent, responsum est singulari illum suavitate orationis fore. Ita futura eloquentia provisa in infante est.

[79]
Quid? amores ac deliciae tuae, Roscius, num aut ipse aut pro eo Lanuvium totum mentiebatur? Qui cum esset in cunabulis educareturque in Solonio, qui est campus agri Lanuvini, noctu lumine apposito experrecta nutrix animadvertit puerum dormientem circumplicatum serpentis amplexu. Quo aspectu exterrita clamorem sustulit. Pater autem Roscii ad haruspices rettulit, qui responderunt nihil illo puero clarius, nihil nobilius fore. Atque hanc speciem Pasiteles caelavit argento et noster expressit Archias versibus. Quid igitur expectamus? an dum in foro nobiscum di immortales, dum in viis versentur, dum domi? qui quidem ipsi se nobis non offerunt, vim autem suam longe lateque diffundunt, quam tum terrae cavernis includunt, tum hominum naturis implicant. Nam terrae vis Pythiam Delphis incitabat, naturae Sibyllam. Quid enim? non videmus, quam sint varia terrarum genera? ex quibus et mortifera quaedam pars est, ut et Ampsancti in Hirpinis et in Asia Plutonia, quae vidimus, et sunt partes agrorum aliae pestilentes, aliae salubres, aliae, quae acuta ingenia gignant, aliae, quae retunsa; quae omnia fiunt et ex caeli varietate et ex disparili adspiratione terrarum.

### Book 1, Chapter 37

[80]
Fit etiam saepe specie quadam, saepe vocum gravitate et cantibus ut pellantur animi vehementius, saepe etiam cura et timore, qualis est illa

Flexánima tamquam lýmphata aut Bacchí sacris
Commóta in tumulis Teúcrum commemoráns suum.

Atque etiam illa concitatio declarat vim in animis esse divinam. Negat enim sine furore Democritus quemquam poëtam magnum esse posse, quod idem dicit Plato. Quem, si placet, appellet furorem, dum modo is furor ita laudetur, ut in Phaedro Platonis laudatus est. Quid? vestra oratio in causis, quid? ipsa actio potest esse vehemens et gravis et copiosa, nisi est animus ipse commotior? Equidem etiam in te saepe vidi et, ut ad leviora veniamus, in Aesopo, familiari tuo, tantum ardorem vultuum atque motuum, ut eum vis quaedam abstraxisse a sensu mentis videretur.

### Book 1, Chapter 38

[81]
Obiciuntur etiam saepe formae, quae reapse nullae sunt, speciem autem offerunt; quod contigisse Brenno dicitur eiusque Gallicis copiis, cum fano Apollinis Delphici nefarium bellum intulisset. Tum enim ferunt ex oraclo ecfatam esse Pythiam:

Ego próvidebo rem ístam et albae vírgines.

Ex quo factum, ut viderentur virgines ferre arma contra et nive Gallorum obrueretur exercitus.

Aristoteles quidem eos etiam, qui valetudinis vitio furerent et melancholici dicerentur, censebat habere aliquid in animis praesagiens atque divinum. Ego autem haud scio an nec cardiacis hoc tribuendum sit nec phreneticis; animi enim integri, non vitiosi est corporis divinatio.

[82]
Quam quidem esse re vera hac Stoicorum ratione concluditur: ‘Si sunt di neque ante declarant hominibus, quae futura sint, aut non diligunt homines aut, quid eventurum sit, ignorant aut existumant nihil interesse hominum scire, quid sit futurum, aut non censent esse suae maiestatis praesignificare hominibus, quae sunt futura, aut ea ne ipsi quidem di significare possunt; at neque non diligunt nos (sunt enim benefici generique hominum amici) neque ignorant ea, quae ab ipsis constituta et designata sunt, neque nostra nihil interest scire ea, quae eventura sunt, (erimus enim cautiores, si sciemus) neque hoc alienum ducunt maiestate sua (nihil est enim beneficentia praestantius) neque non possunt futura praenoscere;’

[83]
‘non igitur sunt di nec significant futura; sunt autem di; significant ergo; et non, si significant, nullas vias dant nobis ad significationis scientiam (frustra enim significarent), nec, si dant vias, non est divinatio; est igitur divinatio.’

### Book 1, Chapter 39

[84]
Hac ratione et Chrysippus et Diogenes et Antipater utitur. Quid est igitur, cur dubitandum sit, quin sint ea, quae disputavi, verissima, si ratio mecum facit, si eventa, si populi, si nationes, si Graeci, si barbari, si maiores etiam nostri, si denique hoc semper ita putatum est, si summi philosophi, si poë- tae, si sapientissimi viri, qui res publicas constituerunt, qui urbes condiderunt? An, dum bestiae loquantur, exspectamus, hominum consentiente auctoritate contenti non sumus?

[85]
Nec vero quicquam aliud adfertur, cur ea, quae dico, divinandi genera nulla sint, nisi quod difficile dictu videtur, quae cuiusque divinationis ratio, quae causa sit. Quid enim habet haruspex, cur pulmo incisus etiam in bonis extis dirimat tempus et proferat diem? quid augur, cur a dextra corvus, a sinistra cornix faciat ratum? quid astrologus, cur stella Iovis aut Veneris coniuncta cum luna ad ortus puerorum salutaris sit, Saturni Martisve contraria? Cur autem deus dormientes nos moneat, vigilantes neglegat? Quid deinde causae est, cur Cassandra furens futura prospiciat, Priamus sapiens hoc idem facere non queat?

[86]
Cur fiat quidque, quaeris. Recte omnino; sed non nunc id agitur; fiat necne fiat, id quaeritur. Ut, si magnetem lapidem esse dicam, qui ferrum ad se adliciat et attrahat, rationem, cur id fiat, adferre nequeam, fieri omnino neges. Quod idem facis in divinatione, quam et cernimus ipsi et audimus et legimus et a patribus accepimus. Neque ante philosophiam patefactam, quae nuper inventa est, hac de re communis vita dubitavit, et, posteaquam philosophia processit, nemo aliter philosophus sensit, in quo modo esset auctoritas.

### Book 1, Chapter 40

[87]
Dixi de Pythagora, de Democrito, de Socrate, excepi de antiquis praeter Xenophanem neminem, adiunxi veterem Academiam, Peripateticos, Stoicos; unus dissentit Epicurus. Quid vero hoc turpius, quam quod idem nullam censet gratuitam esse virtutem?

Quis est autem, quem non moveat clarissumis monumentis testata consignataque antiquitas? Calchantem augurem scribit Homerus longe optumum, eumque ducem classium fuisse ad Ilium, auspiciorum credo scientia, non locorum.

[88]
Amphilochus et Mopsus Argivorum reges fuerunt, sed iidem augures, iique urbis in ora marituma Ciliciae Graecas condiderunt; atque etiam ante hos Amphiaraus et Tiresias non humiles et obscuri neque eorum similes, ut apud Ennium est,

Quí sui quaestus caúsa fictas súscitant senténtias,

sed clari et praestantes viri, qui avibus et signis admoniti futura dicebant; quorum de altero etiam apud inferos Homerus ait ‘solum sapere, ceteros umbrarum vagari modo’; Amphiaraum autem sic honoravit fama Graeciae, deus ut haberetur, atque ut ab eius solo, in quo est humatus, oracla peterentur.

[89]
Quid? Asiae rex Priamus nonne et Helenum filium et Cassandram filiam divinantes habebat, alterum auguriis, alteram mentis incitatione et permotione divina? Quo in genere Marcios quosdam fratres, nobili loco natos, apud maiores nostros fuisse scriptum videmus. Quid? Polyidum Corinthium nonne Homerus et aliis multa et filio ad Troiam proficiscenti mortem praedixisse commemorat? Omnino apud veteres, qui rerum potiebantur, iidem auguria tenebant; ut enim sapere, sic divinare regale ducebant. Testis est nostra civitas, in qua et reges augures et postea privati eodem sacerdotio praediti rem publicam religionum auctoritate rexerunt.

### Book 1, Chapter 41

[90]
Eaque divinationum ratio ne in barbaris quidem gentibus neglecta est, siquidem et in Gallia Druidae sunt, e quibus ipse Divitiacum Haeduum, hospitem tuum laudatoremque, cognovi, qui et naturae rationem, quam φυσιολογίαν Graeci appellant, notam esse sibi profitebatur et partim auguriis, partim coniectura, quae essent futura, dicebat, et in Persis augurantur et divinant magi, qui congregantur in fano commentandi causa atque inter se conloquendi, quod etiam idem vos quondam facere Nonis solebatis;

[91]
nec quisquam rex Persarum potest esse, qui non ante magorum disciplinam scientiamque perceperit. Licet autem videre et genera quaedam et nationes huic scientiae deditas. Telmessus in Caria est, qua in urbe excellit haruspicum disciplina; itemque Elis in Peloponneso familias duas certas habet, Iamidarum unam, alteram Clutidarum, haruspicinae nobilitate praestantes. In Syria Chaldaei cognitione astrorum sollertiaque ingeniorum antecellunt.

[92]
Etruria autem de caelo tacta scientissume animadvertit eademque interpretatur, quid quibusque ostendatur monstris atque portentis. Quocirca bene apud maiores nostros senatus tum, cum florebat imperium, decrevit, ut de principum filiis x ex singulis Etruriae populis in disciplinam traderentur, ne ars tanta propter tenuitatem hominum a religionis auctoritate abduceretur ad mercedem atque quaestum. Phryges autem et Pisidae et Cilices et Arabum natio avium significationibus plurimum obtemperant, quod idem factitatum in Umbria accepimus.

### Book 1, Chapter 42

[93]
Ac mihi quidem videntur e locis quoque ipsis, qui a quibusque incolebantur, divinationum oportunitates esse ductae. Etenim Aegyptii et Babylonii in camporum patentium aequoribus habitantes, cum ex terra nihil emineret, quod contemplationi caeli officere posset, omnem curam in siderum cognitione posuerunt, Etrusci autem, quod religione inbuti studiosius et crebrius hostias immolabant, extorum cognitioni se maxume dediderunt, quodque propter aëris crassitudinem de caelo apud eos multa fiebant, et quod ob eandem causam multa invisitata partim e caelo, alia ex terra oriebantur, quaedam etiam ex hominum pecudumve conceptu et satu, ostentorum exercitatissimi interpretes exstiterunt. Quorum quidem vim, ut tu soles dicere, verba ipsa prudenter a maioribus posita declarant. Quia enim ostendunt, portendunt, monstrant, praedicunt, ostenta, portenta, monstra, prodigia dicuntur.

[94]
Arabes autem et Phryges et Cilices, quod pastu pecudum maxume utuntur campos et montes hieme et aestate peragrantes, propterea facilius cantus avium et volatus notaverunt; eademque et Pisidiae causa fuit et huic nostrae Umbriae. Tum Caria tota praecipueque Telmesses, quos ante dixi, quod agros uberrumos maximeque fertiles incolunt, in quibus multa propter fecunditatem fingi gignique possunt, in ostentis animadvertendis diligentes fuerunt.

### Book 1, Chapter 43

[95]
Quis vero non videt in optuma quaque re publica plurimum auspicia et reliqua divinandi genera valuisse? Quis rex umquam fuit, quis populus, qui non uteretur praedictione divina? neque solum in pace, sed in bello multo etiam magis, quo maius erat certamen et discrimen salutis. Omitto nostros, qui nihil in bello sine extis agunt, nihil sine auspiciis domi [habent auspicia]; externa videamus: Namque et Athenienses omnibus semper publicis consiliis divinos quosdam sacerdotes, quos μάντεις vocant, adhibuerunt, et Lacedaemonii regibus suis augurem adsessorem dederunt, itemque senibus (sic enim consilium publicum appellant) augurem interesse voluerunt, iidemque de rebus maioribus semper aut Delphis oraclum aut ab Hammone aut a Dodona petebant.

[96]
Lycurgus quidem, qui Lacedaemoniorum rem publicam temperavit, leges suas auctoritate Apollinis Delphici confirmavit; quas cum vellet Lysander commutare, eadem est prohibitus religione. Atque etiam qui praeerant Lacedaemoniis, non contenti vigilantibus curis in Pasiphaae fano, quod est in agro propter urbem, somniandi causa excubabant, quia vera quietis oracla ducebant.

[97]
Ad nostra iam redeo. Quotiens senatus decemviros ad libros ire iussit! quantis in rebus quamque saepe responsis haruspicum paruit! Nam et cum duo visi soles sunt et cum tres lunae et cum faces, et cum sol nocte visus est, et cum e caelo fremitus auditus, et cum caelum discessisse visum est atque in eo animadversi globi, delata etiam ad senatum labe agri Privernatis, cum ad infinitam altitudinem terra desedisset Apuliaque maximis terrae motibus conquassata esset (quibus portentis magna populo Romano bella perniciosaeque seditiones denuntiabantur; inque his omnibus responsa haruspicum cum Sibyllae versibus congruebant);

[98]
quid? cum Cumis Apollo sudavit, Capuae Victoria? quid? ortus androgyni nonne fatale quoddam monstrum fuit? quid? cum fluvius Atratus sanguine fluxit? quid? cum saepe lapidum, sanguinis non numquam, terrae interdum, quondam etiam lactis imber defluxit? quid? cum in Capitolio ictus Centaurus e caelo est, in Aventino portae et homines, Tusculi aedes Castoris et Pollucis Romaeque Pietatis: nonne et haruspices ea responderunt, quae evenerunt, et in Sibyllae libris eaedem repertae praedictiones sunt?

### Book 1, Chapter 44

[99]
Caeciliae Q. filiae somnio modo Marsico bello templum est a senatu Iunoni Sospitae restitutum. Quod quidem somnium Sisenna cum disputavisset mirifice ad verbum cum re convenisse, tum insolenter, credo ab Epicureo aliquo inductus, disputat somniis credi non oportere. Idem contra ostenta nihil disputat exponitque initio belli Marsici et deorum simulacra sudavisse, et sanguinem fluxisse, et discessisse caelum, et ex occulto auditas esse voces, quae pericula belli nuntiarent, et Lanuvii clipeos, quod haruspicibus tristissumum visum esset, a muribus esse derosos.

[100]
Quid, quod in annalibus habemus Veienti bello, cum lacus Albanus praeter modum crevisset, Veientem quendam ad nos hominem nobilem perfugisse, eumque dixisse ex fatis, quae Veientes scripta haberent, Veios capi non posse, dum lacus is redundaret, et, si lacus emissus lapsu et cursu suo ad mare profluxisset, perniciosum populo Romano; sin autem ita esset eductus, ut ad mare pervenire non posset, tum salutare nostris fore? Ex quo illa admirabilis a maioribus Albanae aquae facta deductio est. Cum autem Veientes bello fessi legatos ad senatum misissent, tum ex iis quidam dixisse dicitur non omnia illum transfugam ausum esse senatui dicere; in isdem enim fatis scriptum Veientes habere fore ut brevi a Gallis Roma caperetur, quod quidem sexennio post Veios captos factum esse videmus.

### Book 1, Chapter 45

[101]
Saepe etiam et in proeliis Fauni auditi et in rebus turbidis veridicae voces ex occulto missae esse dicuntur; cuius generis duo sint ex multis exempla, sed maxuma: Nam non multo ante urbem captam exaudita vox est a luco Vestae, qui a Palatii radice in novam viam devexus est, ut muri et portae reficerentur; futurum esse, nisi provisum esset, ut Roma caperetur. Quod neglectum tum, cum caveri poterat, post acceptam illam maximam cladem expiatum est; ara enim Aio Loquenti, quam saeptam videmus, exadversus eum locum consecrata est. Atque etiam scriptum a multis est, cum terrae motus factus esset, ut sue plena procuratio fieret, vocem ab aede Iunonis ex arce extitisse; quocirca Iunonem illam appellatam Monetam. Haec igitur et a dis significata et a nostris maioribus iudicata contemnimus?

[102]
Neque solum deorum voces Pythagorei observitaverunt, sed etiam hominum, quae vocant omina. Quae maiores nostri quia valere censebant, idcirco omnibus rebus agendis ‘quod bonum, faustum, felix fortunatumque esset’ praefabantur, rebusque divinis, quae publice fierent, ut ‘faverent linguis’, imperabatur inque feriis imperandis, ut ‘litibus et iurgiis se abstinerent’. Itemque in lustranda colonia ab eo, qui eam deduceret, et cum imperator exercitum, censor populum lustraret, bonis nominibus, qui hostias ducerent, eligebantur. Quod idem in dilectu consules observant, ut primus miles fiat bono nomine.

### Book 1, Chapter 46

[103]
Quae quidem a te scis et consule et imperatore summa cum religione esse servata. Praerogativam etiam maiores omen iustorum comitiorum esse voluerunt. Atque ego exempla ominum nota proferam: L. Paulus consul iterum, cum ei bellum ut cum rege Perse gereret obtigisset, ut ea ipsa die domum ad vesperum rediit, filiolam suam Tertiam, quae tum erat admodum parva, osculans animum advertit tristiculam. ‘Quid est’, inquit, ‘mea Tertia? quid tristis es?’ ‘Mi pater’, inquit, ‘Persa periit.’ Tum ille artius puellam conplexus: ‘Accipio’, inquit, ‘mea filia, omen’. Erat autem mortuus catellus eo nomine.

[104]
L. Flaccum, flaminem Martialem, ego audivi, cum diceret Caeciliam Metelli, cum vellet sororis suae filiam in matrimonium conlocare, exisse in quoddam sacellum ominis capiendi causa, quod fieri more veterum solebat. Cum virgo staret et Caecilia in sella sederet neque diu ulla vox exstitisset, puellam defatigatam petisse a matertera, ut sibi concederet, paulisper ut in eius sella requiesceret; illam autem dixisse: ‘Vero, mea puella, tibi concedo meas sedes.’ Quod omen res consecuta est; ipsa enim brevi mortua est, virgo autem nupsit, cui Caecilia nupta fuerat. Haec posse contemni vel etiam rideri praeclare intellego, sed id ipsum est deos non putare, quae ab iis significantur, contemnere.

### Book 1, Chapter 47

[105]
Quid de auguribus loquar? Tuae partes sunt, tuum inquam, auspiciorum patrocinium debet esse. Tibi App. Claudius augur consuli nuntiavit addubitato Salutis augurio bellum domesticum triste ac turbulentum fore; quod paucis post mensibus exortum paucioribus a te est diebus oppressum. Cui quidem auguri vehementer adsentior; solus enim multorum annorum memoria non decantandi augurii, sed divinandi tenuit disciplinam. Quem inridebant collegae tui eumque tum Pisidam, tum Soranum augurem esse dicebant; quibus nulla videbatur in auguriis aut praesensio aut scientia veritatis futurae; sapienter aiebant ad opinionem imperitorum esse fictas religiones. Quod longe secus est; neque enim in pastoribus illis, quibus Romulus praefuit, nec in ipso Romulo haec calliditas esse potuit, ut ad errorem multitudinis religionis simulacra fingerent. Sed difficultas laborque discendi disertam neglegentiam reddidit; malunt enim disserere nihil esse in auspiciis quam, quid sit, ediscere.

[106]
Quid est illo auspicio divinius, quod apud te in Mario est? ut utar potissumum auctore te:

Hic Iovis altisoni subito pinnata satelles
Arboris e trunco serpentis saucia morsu
Subrigit ipsa feris transfigens unguibus anguem
Semianimum et varia graviter cervice micantem
Quem se intorquentem lanians rostroque cruentans
Iam satiata animos, iam duros ulta dolores
Abicit ecflantem et laceratum adfligit in unda
Seque obitu a solis nitidos convertit ad ortus.
Hanc ubi praepetibus pinnis lapsuque volantem
Conspexit Marius, divini numinis augur,
Faustaque signa suae laudis reditusque notavit,
Partibus intonuit caeli pater ipse sinistris.
Sic aquilae clarum firmavit Iuppiter omen.

### Book 1, Chapter 48

[107]
Atque ille Romuli auguratus pastoralis, non urbanus fuit nec fictus ad opiniones inperitorum, sed a certis acceptus et posteris traditus. Itaque Romulus augur, ut apud Ennium est, cum fratre item augure

Curantes magna cum cura tum cupientes
Regni dant operam simul auspicio augurioque.
†In monte Remus auspicio se devovet atque secundam
Solus avem servat. At Romulus pulcher in alto
Quaerit Aventino, servat genus altivolantum.
Certabant, urbem Romam Remoramne vocarent.
Omnibus cura viris, uter esset induperator.
Exspectant; veluti, consul quom mittere signum
Volt, omnes avidi spectant ad carceris oras,

[108]
Quam mox emittat pictis e faucibus currus,
Sic exspectabat populus atque ore timebat,
Rebus utri magni victoria sit data regni.
Interea sol albus recessit in infera noctis.
Exin candida se radiis dedit icta foras lux,
Et simul ex alto longe pulcherruma praepes
Laeva volavit avis. Simul aureus exoritur sol,
Cedunt de caelo ter quattuor corpora sancta
Avium, praepetibus sese pulchrisque locis dant.
Conspicit inde sibi data Romulus esse priora,
Auspicio regni stabilita scamna solumque.

### Book 1, Chapter 49

[109]
Sed ut, unde huc digressa est, eodem redeat oratio: si nihil queam disputare, quam ob rem quidque fiat, et tantum modo fieri ea, quae commemoravi, doceam, parumne Epicuro Carneadive respondeam? Quid, si etiam ratio exstat artificiosae praesensionis facilis, divinae autem paulo obscurior? Quae enim extis, quae fulgoribus, quae portentis, quae astris praesentiuntur, haec notata sunt observatione diuturna. Adfert autem vetustas omnibus in rebus longinqua observatione incredibilem scientiam; quae potest esse etiam sine motu atque inpulsu deorum, cum, quid ex quoque eveniat, et quid quamque rem significet, crebra animadversione perspectum est.

[110]
Altera divinatio est naturalis, ut ante dixi; quae physica disputandi subtilitate referenda est ad naturam deorum, a qua, ut doctissimis sapientissimisque placuit, haustos animos et libatos habemus; cumque omnia completa et referta sint aeterno sensu et mente divina, necesse est cognatione divinorum animorum animos humanos commoveri. Sed vigilantes animi vitae necessitatibus serviunt diiunguntque se a societate divina vinclis corporis inpediti.

[111]
Rarum est quoddam genus eorum, qui se a corpore avocent et ad divinarum rerum cognitionem cura omni studioque rapiantur. Horum sunt auguria non divini impetus, sed rationis humanae; nam et natura futura praesentiunt, ut aquarum eluviones et deflagrationem futuram aliquando caeli atque terrarum; alii autem in re publica exercitati, ut de Atheniensi Solone accepimus, orientem tyrannidem multo ante prospiciunt; quos prudentes possumus dicere, id est providentes, divinos nullo modo possumus, non plus quam Milesium Thalem, qui, ut obiurgatores suos convinceret ostenderetque etiam philosophum, si ei commodum esset, pecuniam facere posse, omnem oleam, ante quam florere coepisset, in agro Milesio coëmisse dicitur.

### Book 1, Chapter 50

[112]
Animadverterat fortasse quadam scientia olearum ubertatem fore. Et quidem idem primus defectionem solis, quae Astyage regnante facta est, praedixisse fertur.

Multa medici, multa gubernatores, agricolae etiam multa praesentiunt, sed nullam eorum divinationem voco, ne illam quidem, qua ab Anaximandro physico moniti Lacedaemonii sunt, ut urbem et tecta linquerent armatique in agro excubarent, quod terrae motus instaret, tum cum et urbs tota corruit et e monte Taygeto extrema montis quasi puppis avolsa est. Ne Pherecydes quidem, ille Pythagorae magister, potius divinus habebitur quam physicus, quod, cum vidisset haustam aquam de iugi puteo, terrae motus dixit instare.

[113]
Nec vero umquam animus hominis naturaliter divinat, nisi cum ita solutus est et vacuus, ut ei plane nihil sit cum corpore; quod aut vatibus contingit aut dormientibus. Itaque ea duo genera a Dicaearcho probantur et, ut dixi, a Cratippo nostro; si propterea, quod ea proficiscuntur a natura, sint summa sane, modo ne sola; sin autem nihil esse in observatione putant, multa tollunt, quibus vitae ratio continetur. Sed quoniam dant aliquid, idque non parvum[, vaticinationes cum somniis], nihil est, quod cum his magnopere pugnemus, praesertim cum sint, qui omnino nullam divinationem probent.

[114]
Ergo et ii, quorum animi spretis corporibus evolant atque excurrunt foras, ardore aliquo inflammati atque incitati cernunt illa profecto, quae vaticinantes pronuntiant, multisque rebus inflammantur tales animi, qui corporibus non inhaerent, ut ii, qui sono quodam vocum et Phrygiis cantibus incitantur. Multos nemora silvaeque, multos amnes aut maria commovent, quorum furibunda mens videt ante multo, quae sint futura. Quo de genere illa sunt:

Eheú videte!
Iúdicabit ínclitum iudícium inter deás tris aliquis,
Quó iudicio Lácedaemonia múlier, Furiarum úna, adveniet.

Eodem enim modo multa a vaticinantibus saepe praedicta sunt, neque solum verbis, sed etiam

Versibus, quos olim Fauni vatesque canebant.

### Book 1, Chapter 51

[115]
Similiter Marcius et Publicius vates cecinisse dicuntur; quo de genere Apollinis operta prolata sunt. Credo etiam anhelitus quosdam fuisse terrarum, quibus inflatae mentes oracla funderent.

Atque haec quidem vatium ratio est, nec dissimilis sane somniorum. Nam quae vigilantibus accidunt vatibus, eadem nobis dormientibus. Viget enim animus in somnis liber ab sensibus omnique inpeditione curarum iacente et mortuo paene corpore. Qui quia vixit ab omni aeternitate versatusque est cum innumerabilibus animis, omnia, quae in natura rerum sunt, videt, si modo temperatis escis modicisque potionibus ita est adfectus, ut sopito corpore ipse vigilet. Haec somniantis est divinatio.

[116]
Hic magna quaedam exoritur, neque ea naturalis, sed artificiosa somniorum [Antiphontis] interpretatio eodemque modo et oraculorum et vaticinationum [sunt enim explanatores, ut grammatici poëtarum]. Nam ut aurum et argentum, aes, ferrum frustra natura divina genuisset, nisi eadem docuisset, quem ad modum ad eorum venas perveniretur, nec fruges terrae bacasve arborum cum utilitate ulla generi humano dedisset, nisi earum cultus et conditiones tradidisset, materiave quicquam iuvaret, nisi consectionis eius fabricam haberemus, sic cum omni utilitate, quam di hominibus dederunt, ars aliqua coniuncta est, per quam illa utilitas percipi possit. Item igitur somniis, vaticinationibus, oraclis, quod erant multa obscura, multa ambigua, explanationes adhibitae sunt interpretum.

[117]
Quo modo autem aut vates aut somniantes ea videant, quae nusquam etiam tunc sint, magna quaestio est. Sed explorata si sint ea, quae ante quaeri debeant, sint haec, quae quaerimus, faciliora. Continet enim totam hanc quaestionem ea ratio, quae est de natura deorum, quae a te secundo libro est explicata dilucide. Quam si obtinemus, stabit illud, quod hunc locum continet, de quo agimus, esse deos, et eorum providentia mundum administrari, eosdemque consulere rebus humanis, nec solum universis, verum etiam singulis. Haec si tenemus, quae mihi quidem non videntur posse convelli, profecto hominibus a dis futura significari necesse est.

### Book 1, Chapter 52

[118]
Sed distinguendum videtur, quonam modo. Nam non placet Stoicis singulis iecorum fissis aut avium cantibus interesse deum; neque enim decorum est nec dis dignum nec fieri ullo pacto potest; sed ita a principio inchoatum esse mundum, ut certis rebus certa signa praecurrerent, alia in extis, alia in avibus, alia in fulgoribus, alia in ostentis, alia in stellis, alia in somniantium visis, alia in furentium vocibus. Ea quibus bene percepta sunt, ii non saepe falluntur; male coniecta maleque interpretata falsa sunt non rerum vitio, sed interpretum inscientia. Hoc autem posito atque concesso, esse quandam vim divinam hominum vitam continentem, non difficile est, quae fieri certe videmus, ea qua ratione fiant, suspicari. Nam et ad hostiam deligendam potest dux esse vis quaedam sentiens, quae est toto confusa mundo, et tum ipsum, cum immolare velis, extorum fieri mutatio potest, ut aut absit aliquid aut supersit; parvis enim momentis multa natura aut adfingit aut mutat aut detrahit.

[119]
Quod ne dubitare possimus, maximo est argumento, quod paulo ante interitum Caesaris contigit. Qui cum immolaret illo die, quo primum in sella aurea sedit et cum purpurea veste processit, in extis bovis opimi cor non fuit. Num igitur censes ullum animal, quod sanguinem habeat, sine corde esse posse? †Qua ille rei novitate perculsus, cum Spurinna diceret timendum esse, ne et consilium et vita deficeret; earum enim rerum utramque a corde proficisci. Postero die caput in iecore non fuit. Quae quidem illi portendebantur a dis immortalibus, ut videret interitum, non ut caveret. Cum igitur eae partes in extis non reperiuntur, sine quibus victuma illa vivere nequisset, intellegendum est in ipso immolationis tempore eas partes, quae absint, interisse.

### Book 1, Chapter 53

[120]
Eademque efficit in avibus divina mens, ut tum huc, tum illuc volent alites, tum in hac, tum in illa parte se occultent, tum a dextra, tum a sinistra parte canant oscines. Nam si animal omne, ut vult, ita utitur motu sui corporis, prono, obliquo, supino, membraque, quocumque vult, flectit, contorquet, porrigit, contrahit eaque ante efficit paene, quam cogitat, quanto id deo est facilius, cuius numini parent omnia!

[121]
Idemque mittit et signa nobis eius generis, qualia permulta historia tradidit, quale scriptum illud videmus: si luna paulo ante solis ortum defecisset in signo Leonis, fore ut [armis] Dareus et Persae ab Alexandro et Macedonibus proelio vincerentur Dareusque moreretur, et, si puella nata biceps esset, seditionem in populo fore, corruptelam et adulterium domi, et, si mulier leonem peperisse visa esset, fore ut ab exteris gentibus vinceretur ea res publica, in qua id contigisset. Eiusdem generis etiam illud est, quod scribit Herodotus, Croesi filium, cum esset infans, locutum; quo ostento regnum patris et domum funditus concidisse. Caput arsisse Servio Tullio dormienti quae historia non prodidit? Ut igitur, qui se tradidit quieti praeparato animo cum bonis cogitationibus, tum rebus ad tranquillitatem adcommodatis, certa et vera cernit in somnis, sic castus animus purusque vigilantis et ad astrorum et ad avium reliquorumque signorum et ad extorum veritatem est paratior.

### Book 1, Chapter 54

[122]
Hoc nimirum est illud, quod de Socrate accepimus, quodque ab ipso in libris Socraticorum saepe dicitur, esse divinum quiddam, quod δαιμόνιον appellat, cui semper ipse paruerit numquam impellenti, saepe revocanti. Et Socrates quidem (quo quem auctorem meliorem quaerimus?) Xenophonti consulenti, sequereturne Cyrum, posteaquam exposuit, quae ipsi videbantur: ‘Et nostrum quidem’, inquit, ‘humanum est consilium; sed de rebus et obscuris et incertis ad Apollinem censeo referundum’, ad quem etiam Athenienses publice de maioribus rebus semper rettulerunt.

[123]
Scriptum est item, cum Critonis, sui familiaris, oculum alligatum vidisset, quaesivisse, quid esset; cum autem ille respondisset in agro ambulanti ramulum adductum, ut remissus esset, in oculum suum recidisse, tum Socrates: ‘Non enim paruisti mihi revocanti, cum uterer, qua soleo, praesagitione divina.’ Idem etiam Socrates, cum apud Delium male pugnatum esset Lachete praetore fugeretque cum ipso Lachete, ut ventum est in trivium, eadem, qua ceteri, fugere noluit. Quibus quaerentibus, cur non eadem via pergeret, deterreri se a deo dixit; cum quidem ii, qui alia via fugerant, in hostium equitatum inciderunt. Permulta conlecta sunt ab Antipatro, quae mirabiliter a Socrate divinata sunt; quae praetermittam; tibi enim nota sunt, mihi ad commemorandum non necessaria.

### Book 1, Chapter 55

[124]
Illud tamen eius philosophi magnificum ac paene divinum, quod, cum impiis sententiis damnatus esset, aequissimo animo se dixit mori; neque enim domo egredienti neque illud suggestum, in quo causam dixerat, ascendenti signum sibi ullum, quod consuesset, a deo quasi mali alicuius inpendentis datum.

Equidem sic arbitror, etiamsi multa fallant eos, qui aut arte aut coniectura divinare videantur, esse tamen divinationem; homines autem, ut in ceteris artibus, sic in hac posse falli. Potest accidere, ut aliquod signum dubie datum pro certo sit acceptum, potest aliquod latuisse aut ipsum, aut quod esset illi contrarium. Mihi autem ad hoc, de quo disputo, probandum satis est non modo plura, sed etiam pauciora divine praesensa et praedicta reperiri.

[125]
Quin etiam hoc non dubitans dixerim, si unum aliquid ita sit praedictum praesensumque, ut, cum evenerit, ita cadat, ut praedictum sit, neque in eo quicquam casu et fortuito factum esse appareat, esse certe divinationem, idque esse omnibus confitendum.

Quocirca primum mihi videtur, ut Posidonius facit, a deo, de quo satis dictum est, deinde a fato, deinde a natura vis omnis divinandi ratioque repetenda. Fieri igitur omnia fato ratio cogit fateri. Fatum autem id appello, quod Graeci εἱμαρμένην, id est ordinem seriemque causarum, cum causae causa nexa rem ex se gignat. Ea est ex omni aeternitate fluens veritas sempiterna. Quod cum ita sit, nihil est factum, quod non futurum fuerit, eodemque modo nihil est futurum, cuius non causas id ipsum efficientes natura contineat.

[126]
Ex quo intellegitur, ut fatum sit non id, quod superstitiose, sed id, quod physice dicitur, causa aeterna rerum, cur et ea, quae praeterierunt, facta sint et, quae instant, fiant et, quae sequuntur, futura sint. Ita fit, ut et observatione notari possit, quae res quamque causam plerumque consequatur, etiamsi non semper (nam id quidem adfirmare difficile est), easdemque causas veri simile est rerum futurarum cerni ab iis, qui aut per furorem eas aut in quiete videant.

### Book 1, Chapter 56

[127]
Praeterea cum fato omnia fiant, id quod alio loco ostendetur, si quis mortalis possit esse, qui conligationem causarum omnium perspiciat animo, nihil eum profecto fallat. Qui enim teneat causas rerum futurarum, idem necesse est omnia teneat, quae futura sint. Quod cum nemo facere nisi deus possit, relinquendum est homini, ut signis quibusdam consequentia declarantibus futura praesentiat. Non enim illa, quae futura sunt, subito exsistunt, sed est quasi rudentis explicatio sic traductio temporis nihil novi efficientis et primum quidque replicantis. Quod et ii vident, quibus naturalis divinatio data est, et ii, quibus cursus rerum observando notatus est. Qui etsi causas ipsas non cernunt, signa tamen causarum et notas cernunt; ad quas adhibita memoria et diligentia et monumentis superiorum efficitur ea divinatio, quae artificiosa dicitur, extorum, fulgorum, ostentorum signorumque caelestium.

[128]
Non est igitur, ut mirandum sit ea praesentiri a divinantibus, quae nusquam sint; sunt enim omnia, sed tempore absunt. Atque ut in seminibus vis inest earum rerum, quae ex iis progignuntur, sic in causis conditae sunt res futurae, quas esse futuras aut concitata mens aut soluta somno cernit aut ratio aut coniectura praesentit. Atque ut ii, qui solis et lunae reliquorumque siderum ortus, obitus motusque cognorunt, quo quidque tempore eorum futurum sit, multo ante praedicunt, sic, qui cursum rerum eventorumque consequentiam diuturnitate pertractata notaverunt, aut semper aut, si id difficile est, plerumque, quodsi ne id quidem conceditur, non numquam certe, quid futurum sit, intellegunt. Atque haec quidem et quaedam eiusdem modi argumenta, cur sit divinatio, ducuntur a fato.

### Book 1, Chapter 57

[129]
A natura autem alia quaedam ratio est, quae docet, quanta sit animi vis seiuncta a corporis sensibus, quod maxime contingit aut dormientibus aut mente permotis. Ut enim deorum animi sine oculis, sine auribus, sine lingua sentiunt inter se, quid quisque sentiat, (ex quo fit, ut homines, etiam cum taciti optent quid aut voveant, non dubitent, quin di illud exaudiant) sic animi hominum, cum aut somno soluti vacant corpore aut mente permoti per se ipsi liberi incitati moventur, cernunt ea, quae permixti cum corpore animi videre non possunt.

[130]
Atque hanc quidem rationem naturae difficile est fortasse traducere ad id genus divinationis, quod ex arte profectum dicimus, sed tamen id quoque rimatur, quantum potest, Posidonius. Esse censet in natura signa quaedam rerum futurarum. Etenim Ceos accepimus ortum Caniculae diligenter quotannis solere servare coniecturamque capere, ut scribit Ponticus Heraclides, salubrisne an pestilens annus futurus sit. Nam si obscurior <et> quasi caliginosa stella extiterit, pingue et concretum esse caelum, ut eius adspiratio gravis et pestilens futura sit; sin inlustris et perlucida stella apparuerit, significari caelum esse tenue purumque et propterea salubre.

[131]
Democritus autem censet sapienter instituisse veteres, ut hostiarum immolatarum inspicerentur exta; quorum ex habitu atque ex colore tum salubritatis, tum pestilentiae signa percipi, non numquam etiam, quae sit vel sterilitas agrorum vel fertilitas futura. Quae si a natura profecta observatio atque usus agnovit, multa adferre potuit dies, quae animadvertendo notarentur, ut ille Pacuvianus, qui in Chryse physicus inducitur, minime naturam rerum cognosse videatur:

[…] nam isti quí linguam avium intéllegunt
Plusque éx alieno iécore sapiunt quam éx suo,
Magis aúdiendum quam aúscultandum cénseo.

Cur? quaeso, cum ipse paucis interpositis versibus dicas satis luculente:

Quídquid est hoc, ómnia animat, fórmat, alit, augét, creat,
Sépelit recipitque ín sese omnia ómniumque idémst pater,
Índidemque eadem aéque oriuntur de íntegro atque eodem óccidunt.

Quid est igitur, cur, cum domus sit omnium una, eaque communis, cumque animi hominum semper fuerint futurique sint, cur ii, quid ex quoque eveniat, et quid quamque rem significet, perspicere non possint? Haec habui, inquit, de divinatione quae dicerem.

### Book 1, Chapter 58

[132]
Nunc illa testabor, non me sortilegos neque eos, qui quaestus causa hariolentur, ne psychomantia quidem, quibus Appius, amicus tuus, uti solebat, agnoscere; non habeo denique nauci Marsum augurem, non vicanos haruspices, non de circo astrologos, non Isiacos coniectores, non interpretes somniorum; non enim sunt ii aut scientia aut arte divini,

Séd superstitiósi vates ínpudentesque hárioli
Aút inertes aút insani aut quíbus egestas ímperat,
Quí sibi semitám non sapiunt, álteri monstránt viam;
Quíbus divitias póllicentur, áb iis drachumam ipsí petunt.
De hís divitiis síbi deducant dráchumam, reddant cétera.

Atque haec quidem Ennius, qui paucis ante versibus esse deos censet, sed eos non curare opinatur, quid agat humanum genus. Ego autem, qui et curare arbitror et monere etiam ac multa praedicere, levitate, vanitate, malitia exclusa divinationem probo. Quae cum dixisset Quintus, Praeclare tu quidem, inquam, paratus […]

### Book 2, Chapter 1

[1]
Quaerenti mihi multumque et diu cogitanti, quanam re possem prodesse quam plurimis, ne quando intermitterem consulere rei publicae, nulla maior occurrebat, quam si optimarum artium vias traderem meis civibus; quod conpluribus iam libris me arbitror consecutum. Nam et cohortati sumus, ut maxime potuimus, ad philosophiae studium eo libro, qui est inscriptus Hortensius, et, quod genus philosophandi minime adrogans maximeque et constans et elegans arbitraremur, quattuor Academicis libris ostendimus.

[2]
Cumque fundamentum esset philosophiae positum in finibus bonorum et malorum, perpurgatus est is locus a nobis quinque libris, ut, quid a quoque, et quid contra quemque philosophum diceretur, intellegi posset. Totidem subsecuti libri Tusculanarum disputationum res ad beate vivendum maxime necessarias aperuerunt. Primus enim est de contemnenda morte, secundus de tolerando dolore, de aegritudine lenienda tertius, quartus de reliquis animi perturbationibus, quintus eum locum conplexus est, qui totam philosophiam maxime inlustrat; docet enim ad beate vivendum virtutem se ipsa esse contentam.

[3]
Quibus rebus editis tres libri perfecti sunt de natura deorum, in quibus omnis eius loci quaestio continetur. Quae ut plane esset cumulateque perfecta, de divinatione ingressi sumus his libris scribere; quibus, ut est in animo, de fato si adiunxerimus, erit abunde satis factum toti huic quaestioni. Atque his libris adnumerandi sunt sex de re publica, quos tum scripsimus, cum gubernacula rei publicae tenebamus. Magnus locus philosophiaeque proprius a Platone, Aristotele, Theophrasto totaque Peripateticorum familia tractatus uberrime. Nam quid ego de Consolatione dicam? quae mihi quidem ipsi sane aliquantum medetur, ceteris item multum illam profuturam puto. Interiectus est etiam nuper liber is, quem ad nostrum Atticum de senectute misimus; in primisque, quoniam philosophia vir bonus efficitur et fortis, Cato noster in horum librorum numero ponendus est.

### Book 2, Chapter 2

[4]
Cumque Aristoteles itemque Theophrastus, excellentes viri cum subtilitate, tum copia, cum philosophia dicendi etiam praecepta coniunxerint, nostri quoque oratorii libri in eundem librorum numerum referendi videntur. Ita tres erunt de oratore, quartus Brutus, quintus orator.

Adhuc haec erant; ad reliqua alacri tendebamus animo sic parati, ut, nisi quae causa gravior obstitisset, nullum philosophiae locum esse pateremur, qui non Latinis litteris inlustratus pateret. Quod enim munus rei publicae adferre maius meliusve possumus, quam si docemus atque erudimus iuventutem? his praesertim moribus atque temporibus, quibus ita prolapsa est, ut omnium opibus refrenanda atque coërcenda sit.

[5]
Nec vero id effici posse confido, quod ne postulandum quidem est, ut omnes adulescentes se ad haec studia convertant. Pauci utinam! quorum tamen in re publica late patere poterit industria. Equidem ex iis etiam fructum capio laboris mei, qui iam aetate provecti in nostris libris adquiescunt; quorum studio legendi meum scribendi studium vehementius in dies incitatur; quos quidem plures, quam rebar, esse cognovi. Magnificum illud etiam Romanisque hominibus gloriosum, ut Graecis de philosophia litteris non egeant;

[6]
quod adsequar profecto, si instituta perfecero. Ac mihi quidem explicandae philosophiae causam adtulit casus gravis civitatis, cum in armis civilibus nec tueri meo more rem publicam nec nihil agere poteram nec, quid potius, quod quidem me dignum esset, agerem, reperiebam. Dabunt igitur mihi veniam mei cives vel gratiam potius habebunt, quod, cum esset in unius potestate res publica, neque ego me abdidi neque deserui neque adflixi neque ita gessi, quasi homini aut temporibus iratus, neque porro ita aut adulatus aut admiratus fortunam sum alterius, ut me meae paeniteret. Id enim ipsum a Platone philosophiaque didiceram, naturales esse quasdam conversiones rerum publicarum, ut eae tum a principibus tenerentur, tum a populis, aliquando a singulis.

[7]
Quod cum accidisset nostrae rei publicae, tum pristinis orbati muneribus haec studia renovare coepimus, ut et animus molestiis hac potissimum re levaretur et prodessemus civibus nostris, qua re cumque possemus. In libris enim sententiam dicebamus, contionabamur, philosophiam nobis pro rei publicae procuratione substitutam putabamus. Nunc quoniam de re publica consuli coepti sumus, tribuenda est opera rei publicae, vel omnis potius in ea cogitatio et cura ponenda, tantum huic studio relinquendum, quantum vacabit a publico officio et munere. Sed haec alias pluribus; nunc ad institutam disputationem revertamur.

### Book 2, Chapter 3

[8]
Nam cum de divinatione Quintus frater ea disseruisset, quae superiore libro scripta sunt, satisque ambulatum videretur, tum in bibliotheca, quae in Lycio est, adsedimus. Atque ego: Adcurate tu quidem, inquam, Quinte, et Stoice Stoicorum sententiam defendisti, quodque me maxime delectat, plurimis nostris exemplis usus es, et iis quidem claris et inlustribus. Dicendum est mihi igitur ad ea, quae sunt a te dicta, sed ita, nihil ut adfirmem, quaeram omnia, dubitans plerumque et mihi ipse diffidens. Si enim aliquid certi haberem, quod dicerem, ego ipse divinarem, qui esse divinationem nego.

[9]
Etenim me movet illud, quod in primis Carneades quaerere solebat, quarumnam rerum divinatio esset, earumne, quae sensibus perciperentur. At eas quidem cernimus, audimus, gustamus, olfacimus, tangimus. Num quid ergo in his rebus est, quod provisione aut permotione mentis magis quam natura ipsa sentiamus? aut num nescio qui ille divinus, si oculis captus sit, ut Tiresias fuit, possit, quae alba sint, quae nigra, dicere aut, si surdus sit, varietates vocum aut modos noscere? Ad nullam igitur earum rerum, quae sensu accipiuntur, divinatio adhibetur. Atqui ne in iis quidem rebus, quae arte tractantur, divinatione opus est. Etenim ad aegros non vates aut hariolos, sed medicos solemus adducere, nec vero, qui fidibus aut tibiis uti volunt, ab haruspicibus accipiunt earum tractationem, sed a musicis.

### Book 2, Chapter 4

[10]
Eadem in litteris ratio est reliquisque rebus, quarum est disciplina. Num censes eos, qui divinare dicuntur, posse respondere, sol maiorne quam terra sit an tantus, quantus videatur? lunaque suo lumine an solis utatur? sol, luna quem motum habeat? quem quinque stellae, quae errare dicuntur? Nec haec, qui divini habentur, profitentur se esse dicturos, nec eorum, quae in geometria describuntur, quae vera, quae falsa sint; sunt enim ea mathematicorum, non hariolorum.

De illis vero rebus, quae in philosophia versantur, num quid est, quod quisquam divinorum aut respondere soleat aut consuli, quid bonum sit, quid malum, quid neutrum? sunt enim haec propria philosophorum.

[11]
Quid? de officio num quis haruspicem consulit, quem ad modum sit cum parentibus, cum fratribus, cum amicis vivendum? quem ad modum utendum pecunia, quem ad modum honore, quem ad modum imperio? Ad sapientes haec, non ad divinos referri solent. Quid? quae a dialecticis aut a physicis tractantur, num quid eorum divinari potest? unusne mundus sit an plures, quae sint initia rerum, ex quibus nascuntur omnia: physicorum est ista prudentia. Quo modo autem mentientem, quem ψευδόμενον vocant, dissolvas aut quem ad modum soriti resistas (quem, si necesse sit, Latino verbo liceat acervalem appellare; sed nihil opus est; ut enim ipsa philosophia et multa verba Graecorum, sic sorites satis Latino sermone tritus est): ergo haec quoque dialectici dicent, non divini. Quid? cum quaeritur, qui sit optimus rei publicae status, quae leges, qui mores aut utiles aut inutiles, haruspicesne ex Etruria arcessentur, an principes statuent et delecti viri periti rerum civilium?

### Book 2, Chapter 5

[12]
Quodsi nec earum rerum, quae subiectae sensibus sunt, ulla divinatio est nec earum, quae artibus continentur, nec earum, quae in philosophia disseruntur, nec earum, quae in re publica versantur, quarum rerum sit, nihil prorsus intellego; nam aut omnium debet esse, aut aliqua ei materia danda est, in qua versari possit. Sed nec omnium divinatio est, ut ratio docuit, nec locus nec materia invenitur, cui divinationem praeficere possimus. Vide igitur, ne nulla sit divinatio. Est quidam Graecus vulgaris in hanc sententiam versus:

Bene quí coniciet, vátem hunc perhibebo óptumum.

Num igitur aut, quae tempestas inpendeat, vates melius coniciet quam gubernator aut morbi naturam acutius quam medicus aut belli administrationem prudentius quam inperator coniectura adsequetur?

[13]
Sed animadverti, Quinte, te caute et ab iis coniecturis, quae haberent artem atque prudentiam, et ab iis rebus, quae sensibus aut artificiis perciperentur, abducere divinationem eamque ita definire: divinationem esse earum rerum praedictionem et praesensionem, quae essent fortuitae. Primum eodem revolveris. Nam et medici et gubernatoris et imperatoris praesensio est rerum fortuitarum. Num igitur aut haruspex aut augur aut vates quis aut somnians melius coniecerit aut e morbo evasurum aegrotum aut e periculo navem aut ex insidiis exercitum quam medicus, quam gubernator, quam imperator?

[14]
Atqui ne illa quidem divinantis esse dicebas, ventos aut imbres inpendentes quibusdam praesentire signis (in quo nostra quaedam Aratea memoriter a te pronuntiata sunt), etsi haec ipsa fortuita sunt; plerumque enim, non semper eveniunt. Quae est igitur aut ubi versatur fortuitarum rerum praesensio, quam divinationem vocas? Quae enim praesentiri aut arte aut ratione aut usu aut coniectura possunt, ea non divinis tribuenda putas, sed peritis. Ita relinquitur, ut ea fortuita divinari possint, quae nulla nec arte nec sapientia provideri possunt; ut, si quis M. Marcellum illum, qui ter consul fuit, multis annis ante dixisset naufragio esse periturum, divinasset profecto; nulla enim arte alia id nec sapientia scire potuisset. Talium ergo rerum, quae in fortuna positae sunt, praesensio divinatio est.

### Book 2, Chapter 6

[15]
Potestne igitur earum rerum, quae nihil habent rationis, quare futurae sint, esse ulla praesensio? Quid est enim aliud fors, quid fortuna, quid casus, quid eventus, nisi cum sic aliquid cecidit, sic evenit, ut vel aliter cadere atque evenire potuerit? Quo modo ergo id, quod temere fit caeco casu et volubilitate fortunae, praesentiri et praedici potest?

[16]
Medicus morbum ingravescentem ratione providet, insidias imperator, tempestates gubernator; et tamen ii ipsi saepe falluntur, qui nihil sine certa ratione opinantur; ut agricola, cum florem oleae videt, bacam quoque se visurum putat, non sine ratione ille quidem; sed non numquam tamen fallitur. Quodsi falluntur ii, qui nihil sine aliqua probabili coniectura ac ratione dicunt, quid existimandum est de coniectura eorum, qui extis aut avibus aut ostentis aut oraclis aut somniis futura praesentiunt? Nondum dico, quam haec signa nulla sint, fissum iecoris, corvi cantus, volatus aquilae, stellae traiectio, voces furentium, sortes, somnia; de quibus singulis dicam suo loco; nunc de universis.

[17]
Qui potest provideri quicquam futurum esse, quod neque causam habet ullam neque notam, cur futurum sit? Solis defectiones itemque lunae praedicuntur in multos annos ab iis, qui siderum motus numeris persequuntur; ea praedicunt enim, quae naturae necessitas perfectura est. Vident ex constantissimo motu lunae, quando illa e regione solis facta incurrat in umbram terrae, quae est meta noctis, ut eam obscurari necesse sit, quandoque eadem luna subiecta atque opposita soli nostris oculis eius lumen obscuret, quo in signo quaeque errantium stellarum quoque tempore futura sit, qui exortus quoque die signi alicuius aut qui occasus futurus sit. Haec qui ante dicunt, quam rationem sequantur, vides.

### Book 2, Chapter 7

[18]
Qui thesaurum inventum iri aut hereditatem venturam dicunt, quid sequuntur? aut in qua rerum natura inest id futurum? Quodsi haec eaque, quae sunt eiusdem generis, habent aliquam talem necessitatem, quid est tandem, quod casu fieri aut forte fortuna putemus? Nihil enim est tam contrarium rationi et constantiae quam fortuna, ut mihi ne in deum quidem cadere videatur, ut sciat, quid casu et fortuito futurum sit. Si enim scit, certe illud eveniet; sin certe eveniet, nulla fortuna est; est autem fortuna; rerum igitur fortuitarum nulla praesensio est.

[19]
Aut si negas esse fortunam et omnia, quae fiunt quaeque futura sunt, ex omni aeternitate definita dicis esse fataliter, muta definitionem divinationis, quam dicebas praesensionem esse rerum fortuitarum. Si enim nihil fieri potest, nihil accidere, nihil evenire, nisi quod ab omni aeternitate certum fuerit esse futurum rato tempore, quae potest esse fortuna? qua sublata qui locus est divinationi? quae a te fortuitarum rerum est dicta praesensio. Quamquam dicebas omnia, quae fierent futurave essent, fato contineri. Anile sane et plenum superstitionis fati nomen ipsum; sed tamen apud Stoicos de isto fato multa dicuntur; de quo alias; nunc quod necesse est.

### Book 2, Chapter 8

[20]
Si omnia fato, quid mihi divinatio prodest? Quod enim is, qui divinat, praedicit, id vero futurum est, ut ne illud quidem sciam quale sit, quod Deiotarum, necessarium nostrum, ex itinere aquila revocavit; qui nisi revertisset, in eo conclavi ei cubandum fuisset, quod proxuma nocte corruit; ruina igitur oppressus esset. At id neque, si fatum fuerat, effugisset nec, si non fuerat, in eum casum incidisset. Quid ergo adiuvat divinatio? aut quid est, quod me moneant aut sortes aut exta aut ulla praedictio? Si enim fatum fuit classes populi Romani bello Punico primo, alteram naufragio, alteram a Poenis depressam, interire, etiamsi tripudium solistumum pulli fecissent L. Iunio et P. Claudio consulibus, classes tamen interissent. Sin, cum auspiciis obtemperatum esset, interiturae classes non fuerunt, non interierunt fato; vultis autem omnia fato; nulla igitur est divinatio.

[21]
Quodsi fatum fuit bello Punico secundo exercitum populi Romani ad lacum Trasumennum interire, num id vitari potuit, si Flaminius consul iis signis iisque auspiciis, quibus pugnare prohibebatur, paruisset? [Certe potuit.] Aut igitur non fato interiit exercitus, aut, si fato (quod certe vobis ita dicendum est), etiamsi obtemperasset auspiciis, idem eventurum fuisset; mutari enim fata non possunt. Ubi est igitur ista divinatio Stoicorum? quae, si fato omnia fiunt, nihil nos admonere potest, ut cautiores simus; quoquo enim modo nos gesserimus, fiet tamen illud, quod futurum est; sin autem id potest flecti, nullum est fatum; ita ne divinatio quidem, quoniam ea rerum futurarum est. Nihil autem est pro certo futurum, quod potest aliqua procuratione accidere ne fiat.

### Book 2, Chapter 9

[22]
Atque ego ne utilem quidem arbitror esse nobis futurarum rerum scientiam. Quae enim vita fuisset Priamo, si ab adulescentia scisset, quos eventus senectutis esset habiturus? Abeamus a fabulis, propiora videamus. Clarissimorum hominum nostrae civitatis gravissimos exitus in Consolatione collegimus. Quid igitur? ut omittamus superiores, Marcone Crasso putas utile fuisse tum, cum maxumis opibus fortunisque florebat, scire sibi interfecto Publio filio exercituque deleto trans Euphratem cum ignominia et dedecore esse pereundum? An Cn. Pompeium censes tribus suis consulatibus, tribus triumphis, maximarum rerum gloria laetaturum fuisse, si sciret se in solitudine Aegyptiorum trucidatum iri amisso exercitu, post mortem vero ea consecutura, quae sine lacrimis non possumus dicere?

[23]
Quid vero Caesarem putamus, si divinasset fore ut in eo senatu, quem maiore ex parte ipse cooptasset, in curia Pompeia ante ipsius Pompeii simulacrum tot centurionibus suis inspectantibus a nobilissumis civibus, partim etiam a se omnibus rebus ornatis, trucidatus ita iaceret, ut ad eius corpus non modo amicorum, sed ne servorum quidem quisquam accederet, quo cruciatu animi vitam acturum fuisse? Certe igitur ignoratio futurorum malorum utilior est quam scientia.

[24]
Nam illud quidem dici, praesertim a Stoicis, nullo modo potest: Non isset ad arma Pompeius, non transisset Crassus Euphratem, non suscepisset bellum civile Caesar. Non igitur fatalis exitus habuerunt; vultis autem evenire omnia fato; nihil ergo illis profuisset divinare; atque etiam omnem fructum vitae superioris perdidissent; quid enim posset iis esse laetum exitus suos cogitantibus? Ita, quoquo sese verterint Stoici, iaceat necesse est omnis eorum sollertia. Si enim id, quod eventurum est, vel hoc vel illo modo potest evenire, fortuna valet plurimum; quae autem fortuita sunt, certa esse non possunt. Sin autem certum est, quid quaque de re quoque tempore futurum sit, quid est, quod me adiuvent haruspices? <qui> cum res tristissimas portendi dixerunt,

### Book 2, Chapter 10

[25]
addunt ad extremum omnia levius casura rebus divinis procuratis; si enim nihil fit extra fatum, nihil levari re divina potest. Hoc sentit Homerus, cum querentem Iovem inducit, quod Sarpedonem filium a morte contra fatum eripere non posset. Hoc idem significat Graecus ille in eam sententiam versus:

Quod fóre paratum est, íd summum exsuperát Iovem.

Totum omnino fatum etiam Atellanio versu iure mihi esse inrisum videtur; sed in rebus tam severis non est iocandi locus. Concludatur igitur ratio: Si enim provideri nihil potest futurum esse eorum, quae casu fiunt, quia esse certa non possunt, divinatio nulla est; sin autem idcirco possunt provideri, quia certa sunt et fatalia, rursus divinatio nulla est; eam enim tu fortuitarum rerum esse dicebas.

### Book 2, Chapter 11

[26]
Sed haec fuerit nobis tamquam levis armaturae prima orationis excursio; nunc comminus agamus experiamurque, si possimus cornua commovere disputationis tuae.

Duo enim genera divinandi esse dicebas, unum artificiosum, alterum naturale; artificiosum constare partim ex coniectura, partim ex observatione diuturna; naturale, quod animus arriperet aut exciperet extrinsecus ex divinitate, unde omnes animos haustos aut acceptos aut libatos haberemus. Artificiosa divinationis illa fere genera ponebas: extispicum eorumque, qui ex fulgoribus ostentisque praedicerent, tum augurum eorumque, qui signis aut ominibus uterentur, omneque genus coniecturale in hoc fere genere ponebas.

[27]
Illud autem naturale aut concitatione mentis edi et quasi fundi videbatur aut animo per somnum sensibus et curis vacuo provideri. Duxisti autem divinationem omnem a tribus rebus, a deo, a fato, a natura. Sed tamen cum explicare nihil posses, pugnasti commenticiorum exemplorum mirifica copia. De quo primum hoc libet dicere: Hoc ego philosophi non esse arbitror, testibus uti, qui aut casu veri aut malitia falsi fictique esse possunt; argumentis et rationibus oportet, quare quidque ita sit, docere, non eventis, iis praesertim, quibus mihi liceat non credere.

### Book 2, Chapter 12

[28]
Ut ordiar ab haruspicina, quam ego rei publicae causa communisque religionis colendam censeo. Sed soli sumus; licet verum exquirere sine invidia, mihi praesertim de plerisque dubitanti. Inspiciamus, si placet, exta primum. Persuaderi igitur cuiquam potest ea, quae significari dicuntur extis, cognita esse ab haruspicibus observatione diuturna? Quam diuturna ista fuit? aut quam longinquo tempore observari potuit? aut quo modo est conlatum inter ipsos, quae pars inimica, quae pars familiaris esset, quod fissum periculum, quod commodum aliquod ostenderet? An haec inter se haruspices Etrusci, Elii, Aegyptii, Poeni contulerunt? At id, praeterquam quod fieri non potuit, ne fingi quidem potest; alios enim alio more videmus exta interpretari, nec esse unam omnium disciplinam.

[29]
Et certe, si est in extis aliqua vis, quae declaret futura, necesse est eam aut cum rerum natura esse coniunctam aut conformari quodam modo numine deorum vique divina. Cum rerum natura tanta tamque praeclara in omnes partes motusque diffusa quid habere potest commune non dicam gallinaceum fel (sunt enim, qui vel argutissima haec exta esse dicant), sed tauri opimi iecur aut cor aut pulmo quid habet naturale, quod declarare possit, quid futurum sit?

### Book 2, Chapter 13

[30]
Democritus tamen non inscite nugatur, ut physicus, quo genere nihil adrogantius:

Quód est ante pedes, némo spectat, caéli scrutantúr plagas.

Verum is tamen habitu extorum et colore declarari censet haec dumtaxat: pabuli genus et earum rerum, quas terra procreet, vel ubertatem vel tenuitatem; salubritatem etiam aut pestilentiam extis significari putat. O mortalem beatum! cui certo scio ludum numquam defuisse; huncine hominem tantis delectatum esse nugis, ut non videret tum futurum id veri simile, si omnium pecudum exta eodem tempore in eundem habitum se coloremque converterent? Sed si eadem hora aliae pecudis iecur nitidum atque plenum est, aliae horridum et exile, quid est, quod declarari possit habitu extorum et colore?

[31]
an hoc eiusdem modi est, quale Pherecydeum illud, quod est a te dictum? qui cum aquam ex puteo vidisset haustam, terrae motum dixit futurum. Parum, credo, inpudenter, quod, cum factus est motus, dicere audent, quae vis id effecerit; etiamne futurum esse aquae iugis colore praesentiunt? Multa istius modi dicuntur in scholis, sed credere omnia vide ne non sit necesse.

[32]
Verum sint sane ista Democritea vera; quando ea nos extis exquirimus? aut quando aliquid eius modi ab haruspice inspectis extis audivimus? Ab aqua aut ab igni pericula monent; tum hereditates, tum damna denuntiant; fissum familiare et vitale tractant; caput iecoris ex omni parte diligentissime considerant; si vero id non est inventum, nihil putant accidere potuisse tristius.

### Book 2, Chapter 14

[33]
Haec observari certe non potuerunt, ut supra docui. Sunt igitur artis inventa, non vetustatis, si est ars ulla rerum incognitarum; cum rerum autem natura quam cognationem habent? quae ut uno consensu iuncta sit et continens, quod video placuisse physicis, eisque maxume, qui omne, quod esset, unum esse dixerunt, quid habere mundus potest cum thesauri inventione coniunctum? Si enim extis pecuniae mihi amplificatio ostenditur idque fit natura, primum exta sunt coniuncta mundo, deinde meum lucrum natura rerum continetur. Nonne pudet physicos haec dicere? Ut enim iam sit aliqua in natura rerum contagio, quam esse concedo (multa enim Stoici colligunt; nam et musculorum iecuscula bruma dicuntur augeri, et puleium aridum florescere brumali ipso die, et inflatas rumpi vesiculas, et semina malorum, quae in iis mediis inclusa sint, in contrarias partis se vertere, iam nervos in fidibus aliis pulsis resonare alios, ostreisque et conchyliis omnibus contingere, ut cum luna pariter crescant pariterque decrescant, arboresque ut hiemali tempore cum luna simul senescente, quia tum exsiccatae sint, tempestive caedi putentur.

### Book 2, Chapter 15

[34]
Quid de fretis aut de marinis aestibus plura dicam? quorum accessus et recessus lunae motu gubernantur. Sescenta licet eiusdem modi proferri, ut distantium rerum cognatio naturalis appareat)—demus hoc; nihil enim huic disputationi adversatur; num etiam, si fissum cuiusdam modi fuerit in iecore, lucrum ostenditur? qua ex coniunctione naturae et quasi concentu atque consensu, quam συμπάθειαν Graeci appellant, convenire potest aut fissum iecoris cum lucello meo aut meus quaesticulus cum caelo, terra rerumque natura? Concedam hoc ipsum, si vis, etsi magnam iacturam causae fecero, si ullam esse convenientiam naturae cum extis concessero;

[35]
sed tamen eo concesso qui evenit, ut is, qui impetrire velit, convenientem hostiam rebus suis immolet? Hoc erat, quod ego non rebar posse dissolvi. At quam festive dissolvitur! pudet me non tui quidem, cuius etiam memoriam admiror, sed Chrysippi, Antipatri, Posidonii, qui idem istuc quidem dicunt, quod est dictum a te, ad hostiam deligendam ducem esse vim quandam sentientem atque divinam, quae toto confusa mundo sit. Illud vero multo etiam melius, quod et a te usurpatum est et dicitur ab illis: cum immolare quispiam velit, tum fieri extorum mutationem, ut aut absit aliquid aut supersit; deorum enim numini parere omnia.

### Book 2, Chapter 16

[36]
Haec iam, mihi crede, ne aniculae quidem existimant. An censes, eundem vitulum si alius delegerit, sine capite iecur inventurum; si alius, cum capite? Haec decessio capitis aut accessio subitone fieri potest, ut se exta ad immolatoris fortunam accommodent? non perspicitis aleam quandam esse in hostiis deligendis, praesertim cum res ipsa doceat? Cum enim [tristissuma] exta sine capite fuerunt, quibus nihil videtur esse dirius, proxuma hostia litatur saepe pulcherrime. Ubi igitur illae minae superiorum extorum? aut quae tam subito facta est deorum tanta placatio?

Sed adfers in tauri opimi extis immolante Caesare cor non fuisse; id quia non potuerit accidere, ut sine corde victuma illa viveret, iudicandum esse tum interisse cor, cum immolaretur.

[37]
Qui fit, ut alterum intellegas, sine corde non potuisse bovem vivere, alterum non videas, cor subito non potuisse nescio quo avolare? Ego enim possum vel nescire, quae vis sit cordis ad vivendum, vel suspicari contractum aliquo morbo bovis exile et exiguum et vietum cor et dissimile cordis fuisse; tu vero quid habes, quare putes, si paulo ante cor fuerit in tauro opimo, subito id in ipsa immolatione interisse? an quod aspexit vestitu purpureo excordem Caesarem, ipse corde privatus est? Urbem philosophiae, mihi crede, proditis, dum castella defenditis; nam, dum haruspicinam veram esse vultis, physiologiam totam pervertitis. Caput est in iecore, cor in extis; iam abscedet, simul ac molam et vinum insperseris; deus id eripiet, vis aliqua conficiet aut exedet. Non ergo omnium ortus atque obitus natura conficiet, et erit aliquid, quod aut ex nihilo oriatur aut in nihilum subito occidat. Quis hoc physicus dixit umquam? haruspices dicunt; his igitur quam physicis credendum potius existumas?

### Book 2, Chapter 17

[38]
Quid? cum pluribus deis immolatur, qui tandem evenit, ut litetur aliis, aliis non litetur? quae autem inconstantia deorum est, ut primis minentur extis, bene promittant secundis? aut tanta inter eos dissensio, saepe etiam inter proxumos, ut Apollinis exta bona sint, Dianae non bona? Quid est tam perspicuum quam, cum fortuito hostiae adducantur, talia cuique exta esse, qualis cuique obtigerit hostia? At enim id ipsum habet aliquid divini, quae cuique hostia obtingat, tamquam in sortibus, quae cui ducatur. Mox de sortibus; quamquam tu quidem non hostiarum causam confirmas sortium similitudine, sed infirmas sortis conlatione hostiarum.

[39]
An, cum in Aequimaelium misimus, qui adferat agnum, quem immolemus, is mihi agnus adfertur, qui habet exta rebus accommodata, et ad eum agnum non casu, sed duce deo servus deducitur? Nam si casum in eo quoque dicis esse quasi sortem quandam cum deorum voluntate coniunctam, doleo tantam Stoicos nostros Epicureis inridendi sui facultatem dedisse; non enim ignoras, quam ista derideant.

[40]
Et quidem illi facilius facere possunt; deos enim ipsos iocandi causa induxit Epicurus perlucidos et perflabilis et habitantis tamquam inter duos lucos sic inter duos mundos propter metum ruinarum, eosque habere putat eadem membra, quae nos, nec usum ullum habere membrorum. Ergo hic circumitione quadam deos tollens recte non dubitat divinationem tollere; sed non, ut hic sibi constat, item Stoici. Illius enim deus nihil habens nec sui nec alieni negotii non potest hominibus divinationem inpertire; vester autem deus potest non inpertire, ut nihilo minus mundum regat et hominibus consulat.

[41]
Cur igitur vos induitis in eas captiones, quas numquam explicetis? Ita enim, cum magis properant, concludere solent: ‘Si di sunt, est divinatio; sunt autem di; est ergo divinatio.’ Multo est probabilius: ‘non est autem divinatio; non sunt ergo di.’ Vide, quam temere committant, ut, si nulla sit divinatio, nulli sint di. Divinatio enim perspicue tollitur, deos esse retinendum est.

### Book 2, Chapter 18

[42]
Atque hac extispicum divinatione sublata omnis haruspicina sublata est. Ostenta enim sequuntur et fulgura. Valet autem in fulguribus observatio diuturna, in ostentis ratio plerumque coniecturaque adhibetur. Quid est igitur, quod observatum sit in fulgure? Caelum in sedecim partis diviserunt Etrusci. Facile id quidem fuit, quattuor, quas nos habemus, duplicare, post idem iterum facere, ut ex eo dicerent, fulmen qua ex parte venisset. Primum id quid interest? deinde quid significat? Nonne perspicuum est ex prima admiratione hominum, quod tonitrua iactusque fulminum extimuissent, credidisse ea efficere rerum omnium praepotentem Iovem? Itaque in nostris commentariis scriptum habemus: ‘Iove tonante, fulgurante comitia populi habere nefas.’

### Book 2, Chapter 19

[43]
Hoc fortasse rei publicae causa constitutum est; comitiorum enim non habendorum causas esse voluerunt. Itaque comitiorum solum vitium est fulmen, quod idem omnibus rebus optumum auspicium habemus, si sinistrum fuit. Sed de auspiciis alio loco, nunc de fulgoribus.

Quid igitur minus a physicis dici debet quam quicquam certi significari rebus incertis? Non enim te puto esse eum, qui Iovi fulmen fabricatos esse Cyclopas in Aetna putes;

[44]
nam esset mirabile, quo modo id Iuppiter totiens iaceret, cum unum haberet; nec vero fulminibus homines, quid aut faciendum esset aut cavendum, moneret. Placet enim Stoicis eos anhelitus terrae, qui frigidi sint, cum fluere coeperint, ventos esse; cum autem se in nubem induerint eiusque tenuissimam quamque partem coeperint dividere atque disrumpere idque crebrius facere et vehementius, tum et fulgores et tonitrua existere; si autem nubium conflictu ardor expressus se emiserit, id esse fulmen. Quod igitur vi naturae, nulla constantia, nullo rato tempore videmus effici, ex eo significationem rerum consequentium quaerimus? Scilicet, si ista Iuppiter significaret, tam multa frustra fulmina emitteret!

### Book 2, Chapter 20

[45]
Quid enim proficit, cum in medium mare fulmen iecit? quid, cum in altissimos montis, quod plerumque fit? quid, cum in desertas solitudines? quid, cum in earum gentium oras, in quibus haec ne observantur quidem?

At inventum est caput in Tiberi. Quasi ego artem aliquam istorum esse negem! divinationem nego. Caeli enim distributio, quam ante dixi, et certarum rerum notatio docet, unde fulmen venerit, quo concesserit; quid significet autem, nulla ratio docet. Sed urges me meis versibus:

Nam pater altitonans stellanti nixus Olympo
Ipse suos quondam tumulos ac templa petivit
Et Capitolinis iniecit sedibus ignis.

Tum statua Nattae, tum simulacra deorum Romulusque et Remus cum altrice belua vi fulminis icti conciderunt, deque his rebus haruspicum extiterunt responsa verissuma.

[46]
Mirabile autem illud, quod eo ipso tempore, quo fieret indicium coniurationis in senatu, signum Iovis biennio post, quam erat locatum, in Capitolio conlocabatur.—Tu igitur animum induces (sic enim mecum agebas) causam istam et contra facta tua et contra scripta defendere?—Frater es; eo vereor. Verum quid tibi hic tandem nocet? resne, quae talis est, an ego, qui verum explicari volo? Itaque nihil contra dico, a te rationem totius haruspicinae peto. Sed te mirificam in latebram coniecisti; quod enim intellegeres fore ut premerere, cum ex te causas unius cuiusque divinationis exquirerem, multa verba fecisti te, cum res videres, rationem causamque non quaerere; quid fieret, non cur fieret, ad rem pertinere. Quasi ego aut fieri concederem aut esset philosophi causam,

### Book 2, Chapter 21

[47]
cur quidque fieret, non quaerere! Et eo quidem loco et Prognostica nostra pronuntiabas et genera herbarum, scammoniam aristolochiamque radicem, quarum causam ignorares, vim et effectum videres. Dissimile totum; nam et prognosticorum causas persecuti sunt et Boëthus Stoicus, qui est a te nominatus, et noster etiam Posidonius, et, si causae non reperiantur istarum rerum, res tamen ipsae observari animadvertique potuerunt. Nattae vero statua aut aera legum de caelo tacta quid habent observatum ac vetustum? Pinarii Nattae nobiles; a nobilitate igitur periculum. Hoc tam callide Iuppiter <ex>cogitavit! Romulus lactens fulmine ictus; urbi igitur periculum ostenditur, ei quam ille condidit. Quam scite per notas nos certiores facit Iuppiter! At eodem tempore signum Iovis conlocabatur, quo coniuratio indicabatur. Et tu scilicet mavis numine deorum id factum quam casu arbitrari, et redemptor, qui columnam illam de Cotta et de Torquato conduxerat faciendam, non inertia aut inopia tardior fuit, sed a deis inmortalibus ad istam horam reservatus est.

[48]
Non equidem plane despero ista esse vera, sed nescio et discere a te volo. Nam cum mihi quaedam casu viderentur sic evenire, ut praedicta essent a divinantibus, dixisti multa de casu, ut Venerium iaci posse casu quattuor talis iactis, sed quadringentis centum Venerios non posse casu consistere. Primum nescio, cur non possint, sed non pugno; abundas enim similibus. Habes et respersionem pigmentorum et rostrum suis et alia permulta. Idem Carneadem fingere dicis de capite Panisci; quasi non potuerit id evenire casu et non in omni marmore necesse sit inesse vel Praxitelia capita! Illa enim ipsa efficiuntur detractione, neque quicquam illuc adfertur a Praxitele; sed cum multa sunt detracta et ad liniamenta oris perventum est, tum intellegas illud, quod iam expolitum sit, intus fuisse.

### Book 2, Chapter 22

[49]
Potest igitur tale aliquid etiam sua sponte in lapicidinis Chiorum extitisse. Sed sit hoc fictum; quid? in nubibus numquam animadvertisti leonis formam aut hippocentauri? Potest igitur, quod modo negabas, veritatem casus imitari.

Sed quoniam de extis et de fulgoribus satis est disputatum, ostenta restant, ut tota haruspicina sit pertractata. Mulae partus prolatus est a te. Res mirabilis, propterea quia non saepe fit; sed si fieri non potuisset, facta non esset. Atque hoc contra omnia ostenta valeat, numquam, quod fieri non potuerit, esse factum; sin potuerit, non esse mirandum. Causarum enim ignoratio in re nova mirationem facit; eadem ignoratio si in rebus usitatis est, non miramur. Nam qui mulam peperisse miratur, is, quo modo equa pariat, aut omnino quae natura partum animantis faciat, ignorat. Sed quod crebro videt, non miratur, etiamsi, cur fiat, nescit; quod ante non vidit, id si evenit, ostentum esse censet. Utrum igitur cum concepit mula an cum peperit, ostentum est?

### Book 2, Chapter 23

[50]
conceptio contra naturam fortasse, sed partus prope necessarius.

Sed quid plura? ortum videamus haruspicinae; sic facillume, quid habeat auctoritatis, iudicabimus. Tages quidam dicitur in agro Tarquiniensi, cum terra araretur et sulcus altius esset impressus, extitisse repente et eum adfatus esse, qui arabat. Is autem Tages, ut in libris est Etruscorum, puerili specie dicitur visus, sed senili fuisse prudentia. Eius adspectu cum obstipuisset bubulcus clamoremque maiorem cum admiratione edidisset, concursum esse factum, totamque brevi tempore in eum locum Etruriam convenisse; tum illum plura locutum multis audientibus, qui omnia verba eius exceperint litterisque mandarint; omnem autem orationem fuisse eam, qua haruspicinae disciplina contineretur; eam postea crevisse rebus novis cognoscendis et ad eadem illa principia referendis. Haec accepimus ab ipsis, haec scripta conservant, hunc fontem habent disciplinae.

### Book 2, Chapter 24

[51]
Num ergo opus est ad haec refellenda Carneade? num Epicuro? estne quisquam ita desipiens, qui credat exaratum esse, deum dicam an hominem? Si deum, cur se contra naturam in terram abdiderat, ut patefactus aratro lucem aspiceret? quid? idem nonne poterat deus hominibus disciplinam superiore e loco tradere? Si autem homo ille Tages fuit, quonam modo potuit terra oppressus vivere? unde porro illa potuit, quae docebat alios, ipse didicisse? Sed ego insipientior quam illi ipsi, qui ista credunt, qui quidem contra eos tam diu disputem.

Vetus autem illud Catonis admodum scitum est, qui mirari se aiebat, quod non rideret haruspex, haruspicem cum vidisset.

[52]
Quota enim quaeque res evenit praedicta ab istis? aut, si evenit quippiam, quid adferri potest, cur non casu id evenerit? Rex Prusias, cum Hannibali apud eum exsulanti depugnari placeret, negabat se audere, quod exta prohiberent. ‘Ain tu?’ inquit, ‘carunculae vitulinae mavis quam imperatori veteri credere?’ Quid? ipse Caesar cum a summo haruspice moneretur, ne in Africam ante brumam transmitteret, nonne transmisit? quod ni fecisset, uno in loco omnes adversariorum copiae convenissent. Quid ego haruspicum responsa commemorem (possum equidem innumerabilia), quae aut nullos habuerint exitus aut contrarios?

[53]
Hoc civili bello, di inmortales! quam multa luserunt! quae nobis in Graeciam Roma responsa haruspicum missa sunt! quae dicta Pompeio! etenim ille admodum extis et ostentis movebatur. Non lubet commemorare, nec vero necesse est, tibi praesertim, qui interfuisti; vides tamen omnia fere contra, ac dicta sint, evenisse. Sed haec hactenus; nunc ad ostenta veniamus.

### Book 2, Chapter 25

[54]
Multa me consule a me ipso scripta recitasti, multa ante Marsicum bellum a Sisenna collecta attulisti, multa ante Lacedaemoniorum malam pugnam in Leuctricis a Callisthene commemorata dixisti; de quibus dicam equidem singulis, quoad videbitur; sed dicendum etiam est de universis. Quae est enim ista a deis profecta significatio et quasi denuntiatio calamitatum? quid autem volunt di inmortales primum ea significantes, quae sine interpretibus non possimus intellegere, deinde ea, quae cavere nequeamus? At hoc ne homines quidem probi faciunt, ut amicis inpendentis calamitates praedicant, quas illi effugere nullo modo possint, ut medici, quamquam intellegunt saepe, tamen numquam aegris dicunt illo morbo eos esse morituros; omnis enim praedictio mali tum probatur, cum ad praedictionem cautio adiungitur.

### Book 2, Chapter 26

[55]
Quid igitur aut ostenta aut eorum interpretes vel Lacedaemonios olim vel nuper nostros adiuverunt? quae si signa deorum putanda sunt, cur tam obscura fuerunt? si enim, ut intellegeremus, quid esset eventurum, aperte declarari oportebat, aut ne occulte quidem, si ea sciri nolebant.

Iam vero coniectura omnis, in qua nititur divinatio, ingeniis hominum in multas aut diversas aut etiam contrarias partis saepe diducitur. Ut enim in causis iudicialibus alia coniectura est accusatoris, alia defensoris et tamen utriusque credibilis, sic in omnibus iis rebus, quae coniectura investigari videntur, anceps reperitur oratio. Quas autem res tum natura, tum casus adfert, non numquam etiam errorem creat similitudo, magna stultitia est earum rerum deos facere effectores, causas rerum non quaerere.

[56]
Tu vates Boeotios credis Lebadiae vidisse ex gallorum gallinaceorum cantu victoriam esse Thebanorum, quia galli victi silere solerent, canere victores. Hoc igitur per gallinas Iuppiter tantae civitati signum dabat? An illae aves, nisi cum vicerunt, canere non solent? At tum canebant nec vicerant. Id enim est, inquies, ostentum. Magnum vero! quasi pisces, non galli cecinerint! Quod autem est tempus, quo illi non cantent, vel nocturnum vel diurnum? Quodsi victores alacritate et quasi laetitia ad canendum excitantur, potuit accidisse alia quoque laetitia, qua ad cantum moverentur.

[57]
Democritus quidem optumis verbis causam explicat, cur ante lucem galli canant; depulso enim de pectore et in omne corpus diviso et mitificato cibo cantus edere quiete satiatos; qui quidem ‘silentio noctis’, ut ait Ennius,

[…] favent faucíbus russis
Cantú plausuque premúnt alas.

Cum igitur hoc animal tam sit canorum sua sponte, quid in mentem venit Callistheni dicere deos gallis signum dedisse cantandi, cum id vel natura vel casus efficere potuisset?

### Book 2, Chapter 27

[58]
Sanguine pluisse senatui nuntiatum est, Atratum etiam fluvium fluxisse sanguine, deorum sudasse simulacra. Num censes his nuntiis Thalen aut Anaxagoran aut quemquam physicum crediturum fuisse? nec enim sanguis nec sudor nisi e corpore. Sed et decoloratio quaedam ex aliqua contagione terrena maxume potest sanguini similis esse, et umor adlapsus extrinsecus, ut in tectoriis videmus austro, sudorem videtur imitari. Atque haec in bello plura et maiora videntur timentibus, eadem non tam animadvertuntur in pace; accedit illud etiam, quod in metu et periculo cum creduntur facilius, tum finguntur inpunius.

[59]
Nos autem ita leves atque inconsiderati sumus, ut, si mures corroserint aliquid, quorum est opus hoc unum, monstrum putemus? Ante vero Marsicum bellum quod clipeos Lanuvii, ut a te dictum est, mures rosissent, maxumum id portentum haruspices esse dixerunt; quasi vero quicquam intersit, mures diem noctem aliquid rodentes scuta an cribra corroserint! Nam si ista sequimur, quod Platonis Politian nuper apud me mures corroserunt, de re publica debui pertimescere, aut, si Epicuri de voluptate liber rosus esset, putarem annonam in macello cariorem fore.

### Book 2, Chapter 28

[60]
An vero illa nos terrent, si quando aliqua portentosa aut ex pecude aut ex homine nata dicuntur? quorum omnium, ne sim longior, una ratio est. Quicquid enim oritur, qualecumque est, causam habeat a natura necesse est, ut, etiamsi praeter consuetudinem extiterit, praeter naturam tamen non possit existere. Causam igitur investigato in re nova atque admirabili, si poteris; si nullam reperies, illud tamen exploratum habeto, nihil fieri potuisse sine causa, eumque terrorem, quem tibi rei novitas attulerit, naturae ratione depellito. Ita te nec terrae fremitus nec caeli discessus nec lapideus aut sanguineus imber nec traiectio stellae nec faces visae terrebunt.

[61]
Quorum omnium causas si a Chrysippo quaeram, ipse ille divinationis auctor numquam illa dicet facta fortuito naturalemque rationem omnium reddet; nihil enim fieri sine causa potest; nec quicquam fit, quod fieri non potest; nec, si id factum est, quod potuit fieri, portentum debet videri; nulla igitur portenta sunt. Nam si, quod raro fit, id portentum putandum est, sapientem esse portentum est; saepius enim mulam peperisse arbitror quam sapientem fuisse. Illa igitur ratio concluditur: nec id, quod non potuerit fieri, factum umquam esse, nec, quod potuerit, id portentum esse; ita omnino nullum esse portentum.

### Book 2, Chapter 29

[62]
Quod etiam coniector quidam et interpres portentorum non inscite respondisse dicitur ei, qui quondam ad eum rettulisset quasi ostentum, quod anguis domi vectem circumiectus fuisset: ‘Tum esset’, inquit, ‘ostentum, si anguem vectis circumplicavisset.’ Hoc ille responso satis aperte declaravit nihil habendum esse, quod fieri posset, ostentum.

C. Gracchus ad M. Pomponium scripsit duobus anguibus domi conprehensis haruspices a patre convocatos. Qui magis anguibus quam lacertis, quam muribus? Quia sunt haec cotidiana, angues non item; quasi vero referat, quod fieri potest, quam id saepe fiat. Ego tamen miror, si emissio feminae anguis mortem adferebat Ti. Graccho, emissio autem maris anguis erat mortifera Corneliae, cur alteram utram emiserit; nihil enim scribit respondisse haruspices, si neuter anguis emissus esset, quid esset futurum. At mors insecuta Gracchum est. Causa quidem, credo, aliqua morbi gravioris, non emissione serpentis; neque enim tanta est infelicitas haruspicum, ut ne casu quidem umquam fiat, quod futurum illi esse dixerint.

### Book 2, Chapter 30

[63]
Nam illud mirarer, si crederem, quod apud Homerum Calchantem dixisti ex passerum numero belli Troiani annos auguratum; de cuius coniectura sic apud Homerum, ut nos otiosi convertimus, loquitur Agamemnon:

Ferte, viri, et duros animo tolerate labores,
Auguris ut nostri Calchantis fata queamus
Scire ratosne habeant an vanos pectoris orsus.
Namque omnes memori portentum mente retentant,
Qui non funestis liquerunt lumina fatis.
Argolicis primum ut vestita est classibus Aulis,
Quae Priamo cladem et Troiae pestemque ferebant,
Nos circum latices gelidos fumantibus aris
Aurigeris divom placantes numina tauris
Sub platano umbrifera, fons unde emanat aquai+,
Vidimus inmani specie tortuque draconem
Terribilem, Iovis ut pulsu penetraret ab ara;
Qui platani in ramo foliorum tegmine saeptos
Corripuit pullos; quos cum consumeret octo,
Nona super tremulo genetrix clangore volabat;
Cui ferus inmani laniavit viscera morsu.

[64]
Hunc, ubi tam teneros volucris matremque peremit,
Qui luci ediderat, genitor Saturnius idem
Abdidit et duro formavit tegmine saxi.
Nos autem timidi stantes mirabile monstrum
Vidimus in mediis divom versarier aris.
Tum Calchas haec est fidenti voce locutus:
‘Quidnam torpentes subito obstipuistis, Achivi?’
‘Nobis haec portenta deum dedit ipse creator’
‘Tarda et sera nimis, sed fama ac laude perenni.’
‘Nam quot avis taetro mactatas dente videtis,’
‘Tot nos ad Troiam belli exanclabimus annos;’
‘Quae decumo cadet et poena satiabit Achivos.’
Edidit haec Calchas; quae iam matura videtis.

[65]
Quae tandem ista auguratio est ex passeribus annorum potius quam aut mensuum aut dierum? Cur autem de passerculis coniecturam facit, in quibus nullum erat monstrum, de dracone silet, qui, id quod fieri non potuit, lapideus dicitur factus? postremo quid simile habet passer annis? Nam de angue illo, qui Sullae apparuit immolanti, utrumque memini, et Sullam, cum in expeditionem educturus esset, immolavisse, et anguem ab ara extitisse, eoque die rem praeclare esse gestam non haruspicis consilio, sed imperatoris.

### Book 2, Chapter 31

[66]
Atque haec ostentorum genera mirabile nihil habent; quae cum facta sunt, tum ad coniecturam aliqua interpretatione revocantur, ut illa tritici grana in os pueri Midae congesta aut apes, quas dixisti in labris Platonis consedisse pueri, non tam mirabilia sint quam coniecta belle; quae tamen vel ipsa falsa esse vel ea, quae praedicta sunt, fortuito cecidisse potuerunt. De ipso Roscio potest illud quidem esse falsum, ut circumligatus fuerit angui, sed ut in cunis fuerit anguis, non tam est mirum, in Solonio praesertim, ubi ad focum angues nundinari solent. Nam quod haruspices responderint nihil illo clarius, nihil nobilius fore, miror deos immortales histrioni futuro claritatem ostendisse, nullam ostendisse Africano.

[67]
Atque etiam a te Flaminiana ostenta collecta sunt: quod ipse et equus eius repente conciderit; non sane mirabile hoc quidem! quod evelli primi hastati signum non potuerit; timide fortasse signifer evellebat, quod fidenter infixerat. Nam Dionysii equus quid attulit admirationis, quod emersit e flumine quodque habuit apes in iuba? Sed quia brevi tempore regnare coepit, quod acciderat casu, vim habuit ostenti. At Lacedaemoniis in Herculis fano arma sonuerunt, eiusdemque dei Thebis valvae clausae subito se aperuerunt, eaque scuta, quae fuerant sublime fixa, sunt humi inventa. Horum cum fieri nihil potuerit sine aliquo motu, quid est, cur divinitus ea potius quam casu facta esse dicamus?

### Book 2, Chapter 32

[68]
At in Lysandri statuae capite Delphis extitit corona ex asperis herbis, et quidem subita. Itane? censes ante coronam herbae extitisse, quam conceptum esse semen? herbam autem asperam credo avium congestu, non humano satu; iam, quicquid in capite est, id coronae simile videri potest. Nam quod eodem tempore stellas aureas Castoris et Pollucis Delphis positas decidisse, neque eas usquam repertas esse dixisti, furum id magis factum quam deorum videtur.

[69]
Simiae vero Dodonaeae improbitatem historiis Graecis mandatam esse demiror. Quid minus mirum quam illam monstruosissumam bestiam urnam evertisse, sortes dissupavisse? Et negant historici Lacedaemoniis ullum ostentum hoc tristius accidisse! Nam illa praedicta Veientium, si lacus Albanus redundasset isque in mare fluxisset, Romam perituram; si repressus esset, Veios […] ita aqua Albana deducta ad utilitatem agri suburbani, non ad arcem urbemque retinendam. At paulo post audita vox est monentis, ut providerent, ne a Gallis Roma caperetur; ex eo Aio Loquenti aram in nova via consecratam. Quid ergo? Aius iste Loquens, cum eum nemo norat, et aiebat et loquebatur <et> ex eo nomen invenit; posteaquam et sedem et aram et nomen invenit, obmutuit? Quod idem dici de Moneta potest; a qua praeterquam de sue plena quid umquam moniti sumus?

### Book 2, Chapter 33

[70]
Satis multa de ostentis; auspicia restant et sortes eae, quae ducuntur, non illae, quae vaticinatione funduntur, quae oracla verius dicimus; de quibus tum dicemus, cum ad naturalem divinationem venerimus. Restat etiam de Chaldaeis; sed primum auspicia videamus. Difficilis auguri locus ad contra dicendum. Marso fortasse, sed Romano facillumus. Non enim sumus ii nos augures, qui avium reliquorumve signorum observatione futura dicamus. Et tamen credo Romulum, qui urbem auspicato condidit, habuisse opinionem esse in providendis rebus augurandi scientiam (errabat enim multis in rebus antiquitas), quam vel usu iam vel doctrina vel vetustate immutatam videmus; retinetur autem et ad opinionem vulgi et ad magnas utilitates rei publicae mos, religio, disciplina, ius augurium, collegii auctoritas.

### Book 2, Chapter 34

[71]
Nec vero non omni supplicio digni P. Claudius L. Iunius consules, qui contra auspicia navigaverunt; parendum enim religioni fuit nec patrius mos tam contumaciter repudiandus. Iure igitur alter populi iudicio damnatus est, alter mortem sibi ipse conscivit. Flaminius non paruit auspiciis, itaque periit cum exercitu. At anno post Paulus paruit; num minus cecidit in Cannensi pugna cum exercitu? Etenim, ut sint auspicia, quae nulla sunt, haec certe, quibus utimur, sive tripudio sive de caelo, simulacra sunt auspiciorum, auspicia nullo modo. ‘Q. Fabi, te mihi in auspicio esse volo;’ respondet: ‘audivi.’ Hic apud maiores nostros adhibebatur peritus, nunc quilubet. Peritum autem esse necesse est eum, qui, silentium quid sit, intellegat; id enim silentium dicimus in auspiciis, quod omni vitio caret.

[72]
Hoc intellegere perfecti auguris est; illi autem, qui in auspicium adhibetur, cum ita imperavit is, qui auspicatur: ‘dicito, <si> silentium esse videbitur’, nec suspicit nec circumspicit; statim respondet silentium esse videri. Tum ille: ‘dicito, si pascentur’.—‘Pascuntur’.— Quae aves? aut ubi? Attulit, inquit, in cavea pullos is, qui ex eo ipso nominatur pullarius. Haec sunt igitur aves internuntiae Iovis! quae pascantur necne, quid refert? Nihil ad auspicia; sed quia, cum pascuntur, necesse est aliquid ex ore cadere et terram pavire (terripavium primo, post terripudium dictum est; hoc quidem iam tripudium dicitur)—cum igitur offa cecidit ex ore pulli, tum auspicanti tripudium solistimum nuntiatur.

### Book 2, Chapter 35

[73]
Ergo hoc auspicium divini quicquam habere potest, quod tam sit coactum et expressum? Quo antiquissumos augures non esse usos argumento est, quod decretum collegii vetus habemus omnem avem tripudium facere posse. Tum igitur esset auspicium (si modo esset ei liberum) se ostendisse; tum avis illa videri posset interpres et satelles Iovis; nunc vero inclusa in cavea et fame enecta si in offam pultis invadit, et si aliquid ex eius ore cecidit, hoc tu auspicium aut hoc modo Romulum auspicari solitum putas?

[74]
Iam de caelo servare non ipsos censes solitos, qui auspicabantur? Nunc imperant pullario; ille renuntiat. Fulmen sinistrum auspicium optumum habemus ad omnis res praeterquam ad comitia; quod quidem institutum rei publicae causa est, ut comitiorum vel in iudiciis populi vel in iure legum vel in creandis magistratibus principes civitatis essent interpretes. At Ti. Gracchi litteris Scipio et Figulus consules, cum augures iudicassent eos vitio creatos esse, magistratu se abdicaverunt. Quis negat augurum disciplinam esse? divinationem nego. At haruspices divini; quos cum Ti. Gracchus propter mortem repentinam eius, qui in praerogativa referenda subito concidisset, in senatum introduxisset, non iustum rogatorem fuisse dixerunt.

[75]
Primum vide, ne in eum dixerint, qui rogator centuriae fuisset; is enim erat mortuus; id autem sine divinatione coniectura poterant dicere. Deinde fortasse casu, qui nullo modo est ex hoc genere tollendus. Quid enim scire Etrusci haruspices aut de tabernaculo recte capto aut de pomerii iure potuerunt? Equidem adsentior C. Marcello potius quam App. Claudio, qui ambo mei collegae fuerunt, existimoque ius augurum, etsi divinationis opinione principio constitutum sit, tamen postea rei publicae causa conservatum ac retentum.

### Book 2, Chapter 36

[76]
Sed de hoc loco plura in aliis, nunc hactenus. Externa enim auguria, quae sunt non tam artificiosa quam superstitiosa, videamus. Omnibus fere avibus utuntur, nos admodum paucis; alia illis sinistra sunt, alia nostris. Solebat ex me Deiotarus percontari nostri augurii disciplinam, ego ex illo sui. Di immortales! quantum differebat! ut quaedam essent etiam contraria. Atque ille iis semper utebatur, nos, nisi dum a populo auspicia accepta habemus, quam multum iis utimur? Bellicam rem administrari maiores nostri nisi auspicato noluerunt; quam multi anni sunt, cum bella a proconsulibus et a propraetoribus administrantur, qui auspicia non habent!

[77]
Itaque nec amnis transeunt auspicato nec tripudio auspicantur. Ubi ergo avium divinatio? quae, quoniam ab iis, qui auspicia nulla habent, bella administrantur, ad urbanas <res> retenta videtur, a bellicis esse sublata. Nam ex acuminibus quidem, quod totum auspicium militare est, iam M. Marcellus ille quinquiens consul totum omisit, idem imperator, idem augur optumus. Et quidem ille dicebat, si quando rem agere vellet, ne impediretur auspiciis, lectica operta facere iter se solere. Huic simile est, quod nos augures praecipimus, ne iuges auspicium obveniat, ut iumenta iubeant diiungere.

### Book 2, Chapter 37

[78]
Quid est aliud nolle moneri a Iove nisi efficere, ut aut ne fieri possit auspicium aut, si fiat, videri?

Nam illud admodum ridiculum, quod negas Deiotarum auspiciorum, quae sibi ad Pompeium proficiscenti facta sint, paenitere, quod fidem secutus amicitiamque populi Romani functus sit officio; antiquiorem enim sibi fuisse laudem et gloriam quam regnum et possessiones suas. Credo equidem, sed hoc nihil ad auspicia; nec enim ei cornix canere potuit recte eum facere, quod populi Romani libertatem defendere pararet; ipse hoc sentiebat, sicuti sensit.

[79]
Aves eventus significant aut adversos aut secundos; virtutis auspiciis video esse usum Deiotarum, quae vetat spectare fortunam, dum praestetur fides. Aves vero <si> prosperos eventus ostenderunt, certe fefellerunt. Fugit e proelio cum Pompeio; grave tempus! Discessit ab eo; luctuosa res! Caesarem eodem tempore hostem et hospitem vidit; quid hoc tristius? Is cum ei Trocmorum tetrarchian eripuisset et adseculae suo Pergameno nescio cui dedisset eidemque detraxisset Armeniam a senatu datam, cumque ab eo magnificentissumo hospitio acceptus esset, spoliatum reliquit et hospitem et regem. Sed labor longius; ad propositum revertar. Si eventa quaerimus, quae exquiruntur avibus, nullo modo prospera Deiotaro; sin officia, a virtute ipsius, non ab auspiciis petita sunt.

### Book 2, Chapter 38

[80]
Omitte igitur lituum Romuli, quem in maximo incendio negas potuisse comburi; contemne cotem Atti Navii. Nihil debet esse in philosophia commenticiis fabellis loci; illud erat philosophi potius, totius augurii primum naturam ipsam videre, deinde inventionem, deinde constantiam. Quae est igitur natura, quae volucris huc et illuc passim vagantis efficiat ut significent aliquid et tum vetent agere, tum iubeant aut cantu aut volatu? cur autem aliis a laeva, aliis a dextra datum est avibus ut ratum auspicium facere possint? Quo modo autem haec aut quando aut a quibus inventa dicemus? Etrusci tamen habent exaratum puerum auctorem disciplinae suae; nos quem? Attumne Navium? At aliquot annis antiquior Romulus et Remus, ambo augures, ut accepimus. An Pisidarum aut Cilicum aut Phrygum ista inventa dicemus? Placet igitur humanitatis expertis habere divinitatis auctores?

### Book 2, Chapter 39

[81]
At omnes reges, populi, nationes utuntur auspiciis. Quasi vero quicquam sit tam valde quam nihil sapere vulgare, aut quasi tibi ipsi in iudicando placeat multitudo! Quotus quisque est, qui voluptatem neget esse bonum? plerique etiam summum bonum dicunt. Num igitur eorum frequentia Stoici de sententia deterrentur? aut num plerisque in rebus sequitur eorum auctoritatem multitudo? Quid mirum igitur, si in auspiciis et in omni divinatione inbecilli animi superstitiosa ista concipiant, verum dispicere non possint?

[82]
Quae autem est inter augures conveniens et coniuncta constantia? Ad nostri augurii consuetudinem dixit Ennius:

Tum tonuit laevum bene tempestate serena.

At Homericus Aiax apud Achillem querens de ferocitate Troianorum nescio quid hoc modo nuntiat:

Prospera Iuppiter his dextris fulgoribus edit.

Ita nobis sinistra videntur, Graiis et barbaris dextra meliora. Quamquam haud ignoro, quae bona sint, sinistra nos dicere, etiamsi dextra sint; sed certe nostri sinistrum nominaverunt externique dextrum, quia plerumque id melius videbatur.

### Book 2, Chapter 40

[83]
Haec quanta dissensio est! Quid? quod aliis avibus utuntur, aliis signis, aliter observant, alia respondent, non necesse est fateri partim horum errore susceptum esse, partim superstitione, multa fallendo?

Atque his superstitionibus non dubitasti etiam omina adiungere. Aemilia Paulo Persam perisse, quod pater omen accepit; Caecilia se sororis filiae sedes suas tradere. Iam illa: Favete linguis et praerogativam, omen comitiorum. Hoc est ipsum esse contra se copiosum et disertum. Quando enim ista observans quieto et libero animo esse poteris, ut ad rem gerendam non superstitionem habeas, sed rationem ducem? Itane? si quis aliquid ex sua re atque ex suo sermone dixerit et eius verbum aliquod apte ceciderit ad id, quod ages aut cogitabis, ea res tibi aut timorem adferet aut alacritatem?

### Book 2, Chapter 41

[84]
Cum M. Crassus exercitum Brundisii inponeret, quidam in portu caricas Cauno advectas vendens Cauneas clamitabat. Dicamus, si placet, monitum ab eo Crassum, caveret ne iret; non fuisse periturum, si omini paruisset. Quae si suscipiamus, pedis offensio nobis et abruptio corrigiae et sternumenta erunt observanda.

Sortes restant et Chaldaei, ut ad vates veniamus et ad somnia.

[85]
Dicendum igitur putas de sortibus? Quid enim sors est? Idem prope modum, quod micare, quod talos iacere, quod tesseras, quibus in rebus temeritas et casus, non ratio nec consilium valet. Tota res est inventa fallaciis aut ad quaestum aut ad superstitionem aut ad errorem. Atque ut in haruspicina fecimus, sic videamus, clarissumarum sortium quae tradatur inventio. Numerium Suffustium Praenestinorum monumenta declarant, honestum hominem et nobilem, somniis crebris, ad extremum etiam minacibus cum iuberetur certo in loco silicem caedere, perterritum visis irridentibus suis civibus id agere coepisse; itaque perfracto saxo sortis erupisse in robore insculptas priscarum litterarum notis. Is est hodie locus saeptus religiose propter Iovis pueri, qui lactens cum Iunone Fortunae in gremio sedens mammam adpetens castissime colitur a matribus.

[86]
Eodemque tempore in eo loco, ubi Fortunae nunc est aedes, mel ex olea fluxisse dicunt, haruspicesque dixisse summa nobilitate illas sortis futuras, eorumque iussu ex illa olea arcam esse factam, eoque conditas sortis, quae hodie Fortunae monitu tolluntur. Quid igitur in his potest esse certi, quae Fortunae monitu pueri manu miscentur atque ducuntur? quo modo autem istae positae in illo loco? quis robur illud cecidit, dolavit, inscripsit? Nihil est, inquiunt, quod deus efficere non possit. Utinam sapientis Stoicos effecisset, ne omnia cum superstitiosa sollicitudine et miseria crederent! Sed hoc quidem genus divinationis vita iam communis explosit; fani pulchritudo et vetustas Praenestinarum etiam nunc retinet sortium nomen, atque id in volgus.

### Book 2, Chapter 42

[87]
Quis enim magistratus aut quis vir inlustrior utitur sortibus? ceteris vero in locis sortes plane refrixerunt. Quod Carneadem Clitomachus scribit dicere solitum, nusquam se fortunatiorem quam Praeneste vidisse Fortunam. Ergo hoc divinationis genus omittamus.

Ad Chaldaeorum monstra veniamus; de quibus Eudoxus, Platonis auditor, in astrologia iudicio doctissimorum hominum facile princeps, sic opinatur, id quod scriptum reliquit, Chaldaeis in praedictione et in notatione cuiusque vitae ex natali die minime esse credendum.

[88]
Nominat etiam Panaetius, qui unus e Stoicis astrologorum praedicta reiecit, Anchialum et Cassandrum, summos astrologos illius aetatis, qua erat ipse, cum in ceteris astrologiae partibus excellerent, hoc praedictionis genere non usos. Scylax Halicarnassius, familiaris Panaetii, excellens in astrologia idemque in regenda sua civitate princeps, totum hoc Chaldaicum praedicendi genus repudiavit.

[89]
Sed ut ratione utamur omissis testibus, sic isti disputant, qui haec Chaldaeorum natalicia praedicta defendunt: Vim quandam esse aiunt signifero in orbe, qui Graece ζωδιακός dicitur, talem, ut eius orbis una quaeque pars alia alio modo moveat inmutetque caelum, perinde ut quaeque stellae in his finitumisque partibus sint quoque tempore, eamque vim varie moveri ab iis sideribus, quae vocantur errantia; cum autem in eam ipsam partem orbis venerint, in qua sit ortus eius, qui nascatur, aut in eam, quae coniunctum aliquid habeat aut consentiens, ea triangula illi et quadrata nominant. Etenim cum †tempore anni tempestatumque caeli conversiones commutationesque tantae fiant accessu stellarum et recessu, cumque ea vi solis efficiantur, quae videmus, non veri simile solum, sed etiam verum esse censent perinde, utcumque temperatus sit aër, ita pueros orientis animari atque formari, ex eoque ingenia, mores, animum, corpus, actionem vitae, casus cuiusque eventusque fingi.

### Book 2, Chapter 43

[90]
O delirationem incredibilem! non enim omnis error stultitia dicenda est. Quibus etiam Diogenes Stoicus concedit aliquid, ut praedicere possint dumtaxat, qualis quisque natura et ad quam quisque maxume rem aptus futurus sit; cetera, quae profiteantur, negat ullo modo posse sciri; etenim geminorum formas esse similis, vitam atque fortunam plerumque disparem. Procles et Eurysthenes, Lacedaemoniorum reges, gemini fratres fuerunt.

[91]
At ii nec totidem annos vixerunt; anno enim Procli vita brevior fuit, multumque is fratri rerum gestarum gloria praestitit. At ego id ipsum, quod vir optumus, Diogenes, Chaldaeis quasi quadam praevaricatione concedit, nego posse intellegi. Etenim cum, ut ipsi dicunt, ortus nascentium luna moderetur, eaque animadvertant et notent sidera natalicia Chaldaei, quaecumque lunae iuncta videantur, oculorum fallacissimo sensu iudicant ea, quae ratione atque animo videre debebant. Docet enim ratio mathematicorum, quam istis notam esse oportebat, quanta humilitate luna feratur terram paene contingens, quantum absit a proxuma Mercurii stella, multo autem longius a Veneris, deinde alio intervallo distet a sole, cuius lumine conlustrari putatur; reliqua vero tria intervalla infinita et inmensa, a sole ad Martis, inde ad Iovis, ab eo ad Saturni stellam, inde ad caelum ipsum, quod extremum atque ultumum mundi est.

### Book 2, Chapter 44

[92]
Quae potest igitur contagio ex infinito paene intervallo pertinere ad lunam vel potius ad terram?

Quid? cum dicunt, id quod iis dicere necesse est, omnis omnium ortus, quicumque gignantur in omni terra, quae incolatur, eosdem esse, eademque omnibus, qui eodem statu caeli et stellarum nati sint, accidere necesse esse, nonne eius modi sunt, ut ne caeli quidem naturam interpretes istos caeli nosse appareat? Cum enim illi orbes, qui caelum quasi medium dividunt et aspectum nostrum definiunt, qui a Graecis ὁρίζοντες nominantur, a nobis finientes rectissume nominari possunt, varietatem maxumam habeant aliique in aliis locis sint, necesse est ortus occasusque siderum non fieri eodem tempore apud omnis.

[93]
Quodsi eorum vi caelum modo hoc, modo illo modo temperatur, qui potest eadem vis esse nascentium, cum caeli tanta sit dissimilitudo? In his locis, quae nos incolimus, post solstitium Canicula exoritur, et quidem aliquot diebus, at apud Troglodytas, ut scribitur, ante solstitium, ut, si iam concedamus aliquid vim caelestem ad eos, qui in terra gignuntur, pertinere, confitendum sit illis eos, qui nascuntur eodem tempore, posse in dissimilis incidere naturas propter caeli dissimilitudinem; quod minime illis placet; volunt enim illi omnis eodem tempore ortos, qui ubique sint nati, eadem condicione nasci.

### Book 2, Chapter 45

[94]
Sed quae tanta dementia est, ut in maxumis motibus mutationibusque caeli nihil intersit, qui ventus, qui imber, quae tempestas ubique sit? quarum rerum in proxumis locis tantae dissimilitudines saepe sunt, ut alia Tusculi, alia Romae eveniat saepe tempestas; quod, qui navigant, maxume animadvertunt, cum in flectendis promunturiis ventorum mutationes maxumas saepe sentiunt. Haec igitur cum sit tum serenitas, tum perturbatio caeli, estne sanorum hominum hoc ad nascentium ortus pertinere non dicere [quod non certe pertinet], illud nescio quid tenue, quod sentiri nullo modo, intellegi autem vix potest, quae a luna ceterisque sideribus caeli temperatio fiat, dicere ad puerorum ortus pertinere? Quid? quod non intellegunt seminum vim, quae ad gignendum procreandumque plurimum valeat, funditus tolli, mediocris erroris est? Quis enim non videt et formas et mores et plerosque status ac motus effingere a parentibus liberos? quod non contingeret, si haec non vis et natura gignentium efficeret, sed temperatio lunae caelique moderatio.

[95]
Quid? quod uno et eodem temporis puncto nati dissimilis et naturas et vitas et casus habent, parumne declarat nihil ad agendam vitam nascendi tempus pertinere? nisi forte putamus neminem eodem tempore ipso et conceptum et natum, quo Africanum. Num quis igitur talis fuit?

### Book 2, Chapter 46

[96]
Quid? illudne dubium est, quin multi, cum ita nati essent, ut quaedam contra naturam depravata haberent, restituerentur et corrigerentur ab natura, cum se ipsa revocasset, aut arte atque medicina? ut, quorum linguae sic inhaererent, ut loqui non possent, eae scalpello resectae liberarentur. Multi etiam naturae vitium meditatione atque exercitatione sustulerunt, ut Demosthenem scribit Phalereus, cum rho dicere nequiret, exercitatione fecisse, ut planissume diceret. Quodsi haec astro ingenerata et tradita essent, nulla res ea mutare posset. Quid? dissimilitudo locorum nonne dissimilis hominum procreationes habet? quas quidem percurrere oratione facile est, quid inter Indos et Persas, Aethiopas et Syros differat corporibus, animis, ut incredibilis varietas dissimilitudoque sit.

### Book 2, Chapter 47

[97]
Ex quo intellegitur plus terrarum situs quam lunae tactus ad nascendum valere. Nam quod aiunt quadringenta septuaginta milia annorum in periclitandis experiundisque pueris, quicumque essent nati, Babylonios posuisse, fallunt; si enim esset factitatum, non esset desitum; neminem autem habemus auctorem, qui id aut fieri dicat aut factum sciat. Videsne me non ea dicere, quae Carneades, sed ea, quae princeps Stoicorum Panaetius dixerit? Ego autem etiam haec requiro: omnesne, qui Cannensi pugna ceciderint, uno astro fuerint; exitus quidem omnium unus et idem fuit. Quid? qui ingenio atque animo singulares, num astro quoque uno? quod enim tempus, quo non innumerabiles nascantur? at certe similis nemo Homeri.

[98]
Et, si ad rem pertinet, quo modo caelo adfecto conpositisque sideribus quodque animal oriatur, valeat id necesse est non in hominibus solum, verum in bestiis etiam; quo quid potest dici absurdius? L. quidem Tarutius Firmanus, familiaris noster, in primis Chaldaicis rationibus eruditus, urbis etiam nostrae natalem diem repetebat ab iis Parilibus, quibus eam a Romulo conditam accepimus, Romamque, in iugo cum esset luna, natam esse dicebat nec eius fata canere dubitabat.

[99]
O vim maxumam erroris! Etiamne urbis natalis dies ad vim stellarum et lunae pertinebat? Fac in puero referre, ex qua adfectione caeli primum spiritum duxerit; num hoc in latere aut in caemento, ex quibus urbs effecta est, potuit valere? Sed quid plura? cotidie refelluntur. Quam multa ego Pompeio, quam multa Crasso, quam multa huic ipsi Caesari a Chaldaeis dicta memini, neminem eorum nisi senectute, nisi domi, nisi cum claritate esse moriturum! ut mihi permirum videatur quemquam exstare, qui etiam nunc credat iis, quorum praedicta cotidie videat re et eventis refelli.

### Book 2, Chapter 48

[100]
Restant duo divinandi genera, quae habere dicimur a natura, non ab arte, vaticinandi et somniandi; de quibus, Quinte, inquam, si placet, disseramus. Mihi vero, inquit, placet; his enim, quae adhuc disputasti, prorsus adsentior, et, vere ut loquar, quamquam tua me oratio confirmavit, tamen etiam mea sponte nimis superstitiosam de divinatione Stoicorum sententiam iudicabam; haec me Peripateticorum ratio magis movebat et veteris Dicaearchi et eius, qui nunc floret, Cratippi, qui censent esse in mentibus hominum tamquam oraclum aliquod, ex quo futura praesentiant, si aut furore divino incitatus animus aut somno relaxatus solute moveatur ac libere. His de generibus quid sentias et quibus ea rationibus infirmes, audire sane velim.

### Book 2, Chapter 49

[101]
Quae cum ille dixisset, tum ego rursus quasi ab alio principio sum exorsus dicere: Non ignoro, inquam, Quinte, te semper ita sensisse, ut de ceteris divinandi generibus dubitares, ista duo, furoris et somnii, quae a libera mente fluere viderentur, probares. Dicam igitur, de istis ipsis duobus generibus mihi quid videatur, si prius, et Stoicorum conclusio rationis et Cratippi nostri quid valeat, videro. Dixisti enim et Chrysippum et Diogenem et Antipatrum concludere hoc modo: ‘Si sunt di neque ante declarant hominibus, quae futura sint, aut non diligunt homines aut, quid eventurum sit, ignorant aut existumant nihil interesse hominum scire, quid sit futurum, aut non censent esse suae maiestatis praesignificare hominibus, quae sunt futura, aut ea ne ipsi quidem di significare possunt;’

[102]
‘at neque non diligunt nos (sunt enim benefici generique hominum amici) neque ignorant ea, quae ab ipsis constituta et designata sunt; neque nostra nihil interest scire ea, quae futura sunt, (erimus enim cautiores, si sciemus) neque hoc alienum ducunt maiestate sua (nihil est enim beneficentia praestantius) neque non possunt futura praenoscere; non igitur di sunt nec significant nobis futura; sunt autem di; significant ergo; et non, si significant futura, nullas dant vias nobis ad significationum scientiam (frustra enim significarent) nec, si dant vias, non est divinatio; est igitur divinatio.’

### Book 2, Chapter 50

[103]
O acutos homines! quam paucis verbis confectum negotium putant! ea sumunt ad concludendum, quorum iis nihil conceditur. Conclusio autem rationis ea probanda est, in qua ex rebus non dubiis id, quod dubitatur, efficitur.

Videsne Epicurum, quem hebetem et rudem dicere solent Stoici, quem ad modum, quod in natura rerum omne esse dicimus, id infinitum esse concluserit? ‘Quod finitum est’, inquit, ‘habet extremum.’ Quis hoc non dederit? ‘Quod autem habet extremum, id cernitur ex alio extrinsecus.’ Hoc quoque est concedendum. ‘At, quod omne est, id non cernitur ex alio extrinsecus.’ Ne hoc quidem negari potest. ‘Nihil igitur cum habeat extremum, infinitum sit necesse est.’

[104]
Videsne, ut ad rem dubiam <a> concessis rebus pervenerit? Hoc vos dialectici non facitis, nec solum ea non sumitis ad concludendum, quae ab omnibus concedantur, sed ea sumitis, quibus concessis nihilo magis efficiatur, quod velitis. Primum enim hoc sumitis: ‘Si sunt di, benefici in homines sunt.’ Quis hoc vobis dabit? Epicurusne? qui negat quicquam deos nec alieni curare nec sui; an noster Ennius? qui magno plausu loquitur adsentiente populo:

E/go deum genus ésse semper díxi et dicam caélitum,
Séd eos non curáre opinor, quíd agat humanúm genus.

Et quidem, cur sic opinetur, rationem subicit; sed nihil est necesse dicere, quae sequuntur; tantum sat est intellegi, id sumere istos pro certo, quod dubium controversumque sit.

### Book 2, Chapter 51

[105]
Sequitur porro, nihil deos ignorare, quod omnia sint ab iis constituta. Hic vero quanta pugna est doctissumorum hominum negantium esse haec a dis inmortalibus constituta! At nostra interest scire ea, quae eventura sunt. Magnus Dicaearchi liber est nescire ea melius esse quam scire. Negant id esse alienum maiestate deorum. Scilicet casas omnium introspicere, ut videant, quid cuique conducat.

[106]
‘Neque non possunt futura praenoscere.’ Negant posse ii, quibus non placet esse certum, quid futurum sit. Videsne igitur, quae dubia sint, ea sumi pro certis atque concessis? Deinde contorquent et ita concludunt: ‘Non igitur et sunt di nec significant futura’; id enim iam perfectum arbitrantur. Deinde adsumunt: ‘Sunt autem di’, quod ipsum non ab omnibus conceditur. ‘Significant ergo.’ Ne id quidem sequitur; possunt enim non significare et tamen esse di. ‘Nec, si significant, non dant vias aliquas ad scientiam significationis.’ At id quoque potest, ut non dent homini, ipsi habeant; cur enim Tuscis potius quam Romanis darent? ‘Nec, si dant vias, nulla est divinatio.’ Fac dare deos, quod absurdum est; quid refert, si accipere non possumus? Extremum <est>: ‘Est igitur divinatio.’ Sit extremum, effectum tamen non est; ex falsis enim, ut ab ipsis didicimus, verum effici non potest. Iacet igitur tota conclusio.

### Book 2, Chapter 52

[107]
Veniamus nunc ad optumum virum, familiarem nostrum, Cratippum. ‘Si sine oculis’, inquit, ‘non potest exstare officium et munus oculorum, possunt autem aliquando oculi non fungi suo munere, qui vel semel ita est usus oculis, ut vera cerneret, is habet sensum oculorum vera cernentium. Item igitur, si sine divinatione non potest officium et munus divinationis exstare, potest autem, cum quis divinationem habeat, errare aliquando nec vera cernere, satis est ad confirmandam divinationem semel aliquid ita esse divinatum, nihil ut fortuito cecidisse videatur; sunt autem eius generis innumerabilia; esse igitur divinationem confitendum est.’ Festive et breviter; sed cum bis sumpsit, quod voluit, etiamsi faciles nos ad concedendum habuerit, id tamen, quod adsumit, concedi nullo modo potest.

### Book 2, Chapter 53

[108]
‘Si’, inquit, ‘aliquando oculi peccent, tamen, quia recte aliquando viderunt, inest in iis vis videndi; item, si quis semel aliquid in divinatione dispexerit, is, etiam cum peccet, tamen existumandus sit habere vim divinandi.’ Vide, quaeso, Cratippe noster, quam sint ista similia; nam mihi non videntur. Oculi enim vera cernentes utuntur natura atque sensu, animi, si quando vel vaticinando vel somniando vera viderunt, usi sunt fortuna atque casu; nisi forte concessuros tibi existumas eos, qui somnia pro somniis habent, si quando aliquod somnium verum evaserit, non id fortuito accidisse. Sed demus tibi istas duas sumptiones (ea quae λήμματα appellant dialectici, sed nos Latine loqui malumus), adsumptio tamen (quam πρόσληψιν iidem vocant) non dabitur.

[109]
Adsumit autem Cratippus hoc modo: ‘Sunt autem innumerabiles praesensiones non fortuitae.’ At ego dico nullam (vide, quanta sit controversia); iam adsumptione non concessa nulla conclusio est. At impudentes sumus, qui, cum tam perspicuum sit, non concedamus. Quid est perspicuum? ‘Multa vera’, inquit ‘evadere.’ Quid, quod multo plura falsa? Nonne ipsa varietas, quae est propria fortunae, fortunam esse causam, non naturam esse docet? Deinde, si tua ista conclusio, Cratippe, vera est (tecum enim mihi res est), non intellegis eadem uti posse et haruspices et fulguratores et interpretes ostentorum et augures et sortilegos et Chaldaeos? quorum generum nullum est, ex quo non aliquid, sicut praedictum sit, evaserit. Ergo aut ea quoque genera divinandi sunt, quae tu rectissume inprobas, aut, si ea non sunt, non intellego, cur haec duo sint, quae relinquis. Qua ergo ratione haec inducis, eadem illa possunt esse, quae tollis.

### Book 2, Chapter 54

[110]
Quid vero habet auctoritatis furor iste, quem divinum vocatis, ut, quae sapiens non videat, ea videat insanus, et is, qui humanos sensus amiserit, divinos adsecutus sit? Sibyllae versus observamus, quos illa furens fudisse dicitur. Quorum interpres nuper falsa quadam hominum fama dicturus in senatu putabatur eum, quem re vera regem habebamus, appellandum quoque esse regem, si salvi esse vellemus. Hoc si est in libris, in quem hominem et in quod tempus est? callide enim, qui illa composuit, perfecit, ut, quodcumque accidisset, praedictum videretur hominum et temporum definitione sublata.

[111]
Adhibuit etiam latebram obscuritatis, ut iidem versus alias in aliam rem posse accommodari viderentur. Non esse autem illud carmen furentis cum ipsum poëma declarat (est enim magis artis et diligentiae quam incitationis et motus), tum vero ea, quae ἀκροστιχίς dicitur, cum deinceps ex primis <primi cuiusque> versus litteris aliquid conectitur, ut in quibusdam Ennianis: ‘Q. Ennius fecit’. Id certe magis est attenti animi quam furentis.

### Book 2, Chapter 55

[112]
Atque in Sibyllinis ex primo versu cuiusque sententiae primis litteris illius sententiae carmen omne praetexitur. Hoc scriptoris est, non furentis, adhibentis diligentiam, non insani. Quam ob rem Sibyllam quidem sepositam et conditam habeamus, ut, id quod proditum est a maioribus, iniussu senatus ne legantur quidem libri valeantque ad deponendas potius quam ad suscipiendas religiones; cum antistitibus agamus, ut quidvis potius ex illis libris quam regem proferant, quem Romae posthac nec di nec homines esse patientur.

At multi saepe vera vaticinati, ut Cassandra:
Iamque mari magno […]

eademque paulo post:

Eheu videte […]

[113]
Num igitur me cogis etiam fabulis credere? quae delectationis habeant, quantum voles, verbis sententiis, numeris cantibus adiuventur; auctoritatem quidem nullam debemus nec fidem commenticiis rebus adiungere. Eodemque modo nec ego Publicio nescio cui nec Marciis vatibus nec Apollinis opertis credendum existimo; quorum partim ficta aperte, partim effutita temere numquam ne mediocri quidem cuiquam, non modo prudenti probata sunt.

[114]
Quid? inquies, remex ille de classe Coponii nonne ea praedixit, quae facta sunt? Ille vero, et ea quidem, quae omnes eo tempore ne acciderent timebamus. Castra enim in Thessalia castris conlata audiebamus, videbaturque nobis exercitus Caesaris et audaciae plus habere, quippe qui patriae bellum intulisset, et roboris propter vetustatem; casum autem proelii nemo nostrum erat quin timeret, sed, ita ut constantibus hominibus par erat, non aperte. Ille autem Graecus, quid mirum, si magnitudine timoris, ut plerumque fit, a constantia atque a mente atque a se ipse discessit? qua perturbatione animi, quae, sanus cum esset, timebat ne evenirent, ea demens eventura esse dicebat. Utrum tandem, per deos atque homines! magis veri simile est vesanum remigem an aliquem nostrum, qui ibi tum eramus, me, Catonem, Varronem, Coponium ipsum, consilia deorum inmortalium perspicere potuisse?

### Book 2, Chapter 56

[115]
Sed iam ad te venio,

O/ sancte Apollo, qui úmbilicum cértum terrarum óbsides,
U/nde superstitiósa primum saéva evasit vóx fera.

Tuis enim oraculis Chrysippus totum volumen inplevit partim falsis, ut ego opinor, partim casu veris, ut fit in omni oratione saepissime, partim flexiloquis et obscuris, ut interpres egeat interprete et sors ipsa ad sortes referenda sit, partim ambiguis, et quae ad dialecticum deferendae sint. Nam cum illa sors edita est opulentissumo regi Asiae:

Croesus Halyn penetrans magnam pervertet opum vim,

hostium vim se perversurum putavit, pervertit autem suam.

[116]
Utrum igitur eorum accidisset, verum oraclum fuisset. Cur autem hoc credam umquam editum Croeso? aut Herodotum cur veraciorem ducam Ennio? Num minus ille potuit de Croeso quam de Pyrrho fingere Ennius? Quis enim est, qui credat Apollinis ex oraculo Pyrrho esse responsum:

Aio te, Aeacida, Romanos vincere posse?

Primum Latine Apollo numquam locutus est; deinde ista sors inaudita Graecis est; praeterea Pyrrhi temporibus iam Apollo versus facere desierat; postremo, quamquam semper fuit, ut apud Ennium est,

stolidum genus Aeacidarum,
Bellipotentes sunt magis quam sapientipotentes,

tamen hanc amphiboliam versus intellegere potuisset, ‘vincere te Romanos’ nihilo magis in se quam in Romanos valere; nam illa amphibolia, quae Croesum decepit, vel Chrysippum potuisset fallere, haec vero ne Epicurum quidem.

### Book 2, Chapter 57

[117]
Sed, quod caput est, cur isto modo iam oracla Delphis non eduntur non modo nostra aetate, sed iam diu, iam ut nihil possit esse contemptius? Hoc loco cum urguentur, evanuisse aiunt vetustate vim loci eius, unde anhelitus ille terrae fieret, quo Pythia mente incitata oracla ederet. De vino aut salsamento putes loqui, quae evanescunt vetustate; de vi loci agitur, neque solum naturali, sed etiam divina; quae quo tandem modo evanuit? Vetustate, inquies. Quae vetustas est, quae vim divinam conficere possit? quid tam divinum autem quam adflatus e terra mentem ita movens, ut eam providam rerum futurarum efficiat? ut ea non modo cernat multo ante, sed etiam numero versuque pronuntiet. Quando ista vis autem evanuit? an postquam homines minus creduli esse coeperunt?

[118]
Demosthenes quidem, qui abhinc annos prope trecentos fuit, iam tum φιλιππίζειν Pythiam dicebat, id est quasi cum Philippo facere. Hoc autem eo spectabat, ut eam a Philippo corruptam diceret; <ex> quo licet existumare in aliis quoque oraculis Delphicis aliquid non sinceri fuisse. Sed nescio quo modo isti philosophi superstitiosi et paene fanatici quidvis malle videntur quam se non ineptos. Evanuisse mavultis et extinctum esse id, quod si umquam fuisset, certe aeternum esset, quam ea, quae non sunt credenda, non credere.

### Book 2, Chapter 58

[119]
Similis est error in somniis; quorum quidem defensio repetita quam longe est! Divinos animos censent esse nostros, eosque esse tractos extrinsecus, animorumque consentientium multitudine conpletum esse mundum; hac igitur mentis et ipsius divinitate et coniunctione cum externis mentibus cerni, quae sint futura. Contrahi autem animum Zeno et quasi labi putat atque concidere, id ipsum esse dormire. Iam Pythagoras et Plato, locupletissimi auctores, quo in somnis certiora videamus, praeparatos quodam cultu atque victu proficisci ad dormiendum iubent; faba quidem Pythagorei utique abstinere, quasi vero eo cibo mens, non venter infletur. Sed nescio quo modo nihil tam absurde dici potest, quod non dicatur ab aliquo philosophorum.

[120]
Utrum igitur censemus dormientium animos per sene ipsos in somniando moveri an, ut Democritus censet, externa et adventicia visione pulsari? Sive enim sic est sive illo modo, videri possunt permulta somniantibus falsa pro veris. Nam et navigantibus moveri videntur ea, quae stant, et quodam obtutu oculorum duo pro uno lucernae lumina. Quid dicam, insanis, quid ebriis quam multa falsa videantur? Quodsi eius modi visis credendum non est, cur somniis credatur, nescio. Nam tam licet de his erroribus, si velis, quam de somniis disputare, ut ea, quae stant, <si> moveri videantur, terrae motum significare dicas aut repentinam aliquam fugam, gemino autem lucernae lumine declarari dissensionem ac seditionem [moveri].

### Book 2, Chapter 59

[121]
Iam ex insanorum aut ebriorum visis innumerabilia coniectura trahi possunt, quae futura videantur […] Quis est enim, qui totum diem iaculans non aliquando conliniet? Totas noctes somniamus, neque ulla est fere, qua non dormiamus, et miramur aliquando id, quod somniarimus, evadere? Quid est tam incertum quam talorum iactus? tamen nemo est, quin saepe iactans Venerium iaciat aliquando, non numquam etiam iterum ac tertium. Num igitur, ut inepti, Veneris id inpulsu fieri malumus quam casu dicere? Quodsi ceteris temporibus falsis visis credendum non est, non video, quid praecipui somnus habeat, in quo valeant falsa pro veris.

[122]
Quodsi ita natura paratum esset, ut ea dormientes agerent, quae somniarent, alligandi omnes essent, qui cubitum irent; maiores enim quam ulli insani efficerent motus somniantes. Quodsi insanorum visis fides non est habenda, quia falsa sunt, cur credatur somniantium visis, quae multo etiam perturbatiora sunt, non intellego; an quod insani sua visa coniectori non narrant, narrant, qui somniaverunt? Quaero etiam, si velim scribere quid aut legere aut canere vel voce vel fidibus aut geometricum quiddam aut physicum aut dialecticum explicare, somniumne exspectandum sit an ars adhibenda; sine qua nihil earum rerum nec fieri nec expediri potest. Atqui, ne si navigare quidem velim, ita gubernem, ut somniaverim; praesens enim poena sit.

[123]
Qui igitur convenit aegros a coniectore somniorum potius quam a medico petere medicinam? An Aesculapius, an Serapis potest nobis praescribere per somnum curationem valetudinis, Neptunus gubernantibus non potest? et si sine medico medicinam dabit Minerva, Musae scribendi, legendi, ceterarum artium scientiam somniantibus non dabunt? At si curatio daretur valetudinis, haec quoque, quae dixi, darentur; quae quoniam non dantur, medicina non datur; qua sublata tollitur omnis auctoritas somniorum.

### Book 2, Chapter 60

[124]
Sed haec [quoque] in promptu fuerint; nunc interiora videamus. Aut enim divina vis quaedam consulens nobis somniorum significationes facit, aut coniectores ex quadam convenientia et coniunctione naturae, quam vocant συμπάθειαν, quid cuique rei conveniat [ex somniis], et quid quamque rem sequatur, intellegunt, aut eorum neutrum est, sed quaedam observatio constans atque diuturna est, cum quid visum secundum quietem sit, quid evenire et quid sequi soleat. Primum igitur intellegendum est nullam vim esse divinam effectricem somniorum. Atque illud quidem perspicuum est, nulla visa somniorum proficisci a numine deorum; nostra enim causa di id facerent, ut providere futura possemus.

[125]
Quotus igitur est quisque, qui somniis pareat, qui intellegat, qui meminerit? quam multi vero, qui contemnant eamque superstitionem inbecilli animi atque anilis putent! Quid est igitur, cur his hominibus consulens deus somniis moneat eos, qui illa non modo cura, sed ne memoria quidem digna ducant? Nec enim ignorare deus potest, qua mente quisque sit, nec frustra ac sine causa quid facere dignum deo est, quod abhorret etiam ab hominis constantia. Ita, si pleraque somnia aut ignorantur aut negleguntur, aut nescit hoc deus aut frustra somniorum significatione utitur; et horum neutrum in deum cadit; nihil igitur a deo somniis significari fatendum est.

### Book 2, Chapter 61

[126]
Illud etiam requiro, cur, si deus ista visa nobis providendi causa dat, non vigilantibus potius det quam dormientibus. Sive enim externus et adventicius pulsus animos dormientium commovet, sive per se ipsi animi moventur, sive quae causa alia est, cur secundum quietem aliquid videre, audire, agere videamur, eadem causa vigilantibus esse poterat; idque si nostra causa di secundum quietem facerent, vigilantibus idem facerent, praesertim cum Chrysippus Academicos refellens permulto clariora et certiora esse dicat, quae vigilantibus videantur, quam quae somniantibus. Fuit igitur divina beneficentia dignius, cum consulerent nobis, clariora visa dare vigilanti quam obscuriora per somnum. Quod quoniam non fit, somnia divina putanda non sunt.

### Book 2, Chapter 62

[127]
Iam vero quid opus est circumitione et anfractu, ut sit utendum interpretibus somniorum potius, quam derecto deus, siquidem nobis consulebat, ‘Hoc facito, hoc ne feceris’ diceret idque visum vigilanti potius quam dormienti daret?

Iam vero quis dicere audeat vera omnia esse somnia? ‘Aliquot somnia vera’, inquit Ennius, ‘sed omnia noenum necesse est’. Quae est tandem ista distinctio? quae vera, quae falsa habet? et, si vera a deo mittuntur, falsa unde nascuntur? nam si ea quoque divina, quid inconstantius deo? quid inscitius autem est quam mentes mortalium falsis et mendacibus visis concitare? sin vera visa divina sunt, falsa autem et inania humana, quae est ista designandi licentia, ut hoc deus, hoc natura fecerit potius quam aut omnia deus, quod negatis, aut omnia natura? quodquoniam illud negatis, hoc necessario confitendum est.

[128]
Naturam autem eam dico, qua numquam animus insistens agitatione et motu esse vacuus potest. Is cum languore corporis nec membris uti nec sensibus potest, incidit in visa varia et incerta ex reliquiis, ut ait Aristoteles, inhaerentibus earum rerum, quas vigilans gesserit aut cogitaverit; quarum perturbatione mirabiles interdum existunt species somniorum; quae si alia falsa, alia vera, qua nota internoscantur, scire sane velim. Si nulla est, quid istos interpretes audiamus? sin quaepiam est, aveo audire, quae sit; sed haerebunt.

### Book 2, Chapter 63

[129]
Venit enim iam in contentionem, utrum sit probabilius, deosne inmortalis, rerum omnium praestantia excellentis, concursare <circum> omnium mortalium, qui ubique sunt, non modo lectos, verum etiam grabatos et, cum stertentem aliquem viderint, obicere iis visa quaedam tortuosa et obscura, quae illi exterriti somno ad coniectorem mane deferant, an natura fieri, ut mobiliter animus agitatus, quod vigilans viderit, dormiens videre videatur. Utrum philosophia dignius, sagarum superstitione ista interpretari an explicatione naturae? ut, si iam fieri possit vera coniectura somniorum, tamen isti, qui profitentur, eam facere non possint; ex levissimo enim et indoctissimo genere constant. Stoici autem tui negant quemquam nisi sapientem divinum esse posse.

[130]
Chrysippus quidem divinationem definit his verbis: vim cognoscentem et videntem et explicantem signa, quae a dis hominibus portendantur; officium autem esse eius praenoscere, dei erga homines mente qua sint quidque significent, quem ad modumque ea procurentur atque expientur. Idemque somniorum coniectionem definit hoc modo: esse vim cernentem et explanantem, quae a dis hominibus significentur in somnis. Quid ergo? ad haec mediocri opus est prudentia an et ingenio praestanti et eruditione perfecta? Talem autem cognovimus neminem.

### Book 2, Chapter 64

[131]
Vide igitur, ne, etiamsi divinationem tibi esse concessero, quod numquam faciam, neminem tamen divinum reperire possimus. Qualis autem ista mens est deorum, si neque ea nobis significant in somnis, quae ipsi per nos intellegamus, neque ea, quorum interpretes habere possimus? similes enim sunt dei, si ea nobis obiciunt, quorum nec scientiam neque explanatorem habeamus, tamquam si Poeni aut Hispani in senatu nostro loquerentur sine interprete.

[132]
Iam vero quo pertinent obscuritates et aenigmata somniorum? intellegi enim a nobis di velle debebant ea, quae nostra causa nos monerent. Quid? poëta nemo, nemo physicus obscurus? Ille vero nimis etiam obscurus Euphorion;

[133]
at non Homerus. Uter igitur melior? Valde Heraclitus obscurus, minime Democritus. Num igitur conferendi? Mea causa me mones, quod non intellegam? Quid me igitur mones? ut si quis medicus aegroto imperet, ut sumat

Terrigenam, herbigradam, domiportam, sanguine cassam,

potius quam hominum more cocleam diceret. Nam Pacuvianus Amphio

Quadrupés tardigrada, agréstis, humilis, áspera,
Capité brevi, cervice ánguina, aspectú truci,
Evíscerata, inánima, cum animalí sono

cum dixisset obscurius, tum Attici respondent:

Non íntellegimus, nísi si aperte díxeris.

At ille uno verbo: Testudo. Non potueras hoc igitur a principio, citharista, dicere?

### Book 2, Chapter 65

[134]
Defert ad coniectorem quidam somniasse se ovum pendere ex fascea lecti sui cubicularis (est hoc in Chrysippi libro somnium); respondit coniector thensaurum defossum esse sub lecto. Fodit, invenit auri aliquantum, idque circumdatum argento, misit coniectori, quantulum visum est de argento. Tum ille: ‘Nihilne’, inquit, ‘de vitello?’ id enim ei ex ovo videbatur aurum declarasse, reliquum argentum. Nemone igitur umquam alius ovum somniavit? cur ergo hic nescio qui thensaurum solus invenit? quam multi inopes digni praesidio deorum nullo somnio ad thensaurum reperiendum admonentur! Quam autem ob causam tam est obscure admonitus, ut ex ovo nasceretur thensauri similitudo, potius quam aperte thensaurum quaerere iuberetur, sicut aperte Simonides vetitus est navigare?

### Book 2, Chapter 66

[135]
Ergo obscura somnia minime consentanea maiestati deorum.

Ad aperta et clara veniamus, quale est de illo interfecto a caupone Megaris, quale de Simonide, qui ab eo, quem humarat, vetitus est navigare, quale etiam de Alexandro, quod a te praeteritum esse miror, Quinte. Cum Ptolomaeus, familiaris eius, in proelio telo venenato ictus esset eoque vulnere summo cum dolore moreretur, Alexander adsidens somno est consopitus. Tum secundum quietem visus ei dicitur draco is, quem mater Olympias alebat, radiculam ore ferre et simul dicere, quo illa loci nasceretur (neque is longe aberat ab eo loco), eius autem esse vim tantam, ut Ptolomaeum facile sanaret. Cum Alexander experrectus narrasset amicis somnium, emissi sunt, qui illam radiculam quaererent; qua inventa et Ptolomaeus sanatus dicitur et multi milites, qui erant eodem genere teli vulnerati.

### Book 2, Chapter 67

[136]
Multa etiam sunt a te ex historiis prolata somnia, matris Phalaridis, Cyri superioris, matris Dionysii, Poeni Hamilcaris, Hannibalis, P. Decii; pervulgatum iam illud de praesule, C. Gracchi etiam et recens Caeciliae, Baliarici filiae, somnium. Sed haec externa ob eamque causam ignota nobis sunt, non nulla etiam ficta fortasse. Quis enim auctor istorum? De nostris somniis quid habemus dicere? tu de emerso me et equo ad ripam, ego de Mario cum fascibus laureatis me in suum deduci iubente monumentum. Omnium somniorum, Quinte, una ratio est; quae, per deos inmortalis! videamus ne nostra superstitione et depravatione superetur.

[137]
Quem enim tu Marium visum a me putas? Speciem, credo, eius et imaginem, ut Democrito videtur. Unde profectam imaginem? a corporibus enim solidis et a certis figuris vult fluere imagines; quod igitur Marii corpus erat? Ex eo, inquit, quod fuerat. Ista igitur me imago Marii in campum Atinatem persequebatur?—Plena sunt imaginum omnia; nulla enim species cogitari potest nisi pulsu imaginum.

[138]
—Quid ergo? istae imagines ita nobis dicto audientes sunt, ut, simul atque velimus, accurrant? etiamne earum rerum, quae nullae sunt? quae est enim forma tam invisitata, tam nulla, quam non sibi ipse fingere animus possit? ut, quae numquam vidimus, ea tamen informata habeamus, oppidorum situs, hominum figuras.

[139]
Num igitur, cum aut muros Babylonis aut Homeri faciem cogito, imago illorum me aliqua pellit? Omnia igitur, quae volumus, nota nobis esse possunt; nihil est enim, de quo cogitare nequeamus; nullae ergo imagines obrepunt in animos dormientium extrinsecus, nec omnino fluunt ullae, nec cognovi quemquam, qui maiore auctoritate nihil diceret. Animorum est ea vis eaque natura, ut vigeant vigilantes nullo adventicio pulsu, sed suo motu incredibili quadam celeritate. Hi cum sustinentur membris et corpore et sensibus, omnia certiora cernunt, cogitant, sentiunt. Cum autem haec subtracta sunt desertusque animus languore corporis, tum agitatur ipse per sese. Itaque in eo et formae versantur et actiones, et multa audiri, multa dici videntur.

### Book 2, Chapter 68

[140]
Haec scilicet in inbecillo remissoque animo multa omnibus modis confusa et variata versantur, maxumeque reliquiae rerum earum moventur in animis et agitantur, de quibus vigilantes aut cogitavimus aut egimus, ut mihi temporibus illis multum in animo Marius versabatur recordanti, quam ille gravem suum casum magno animo, quam constanti tulisset. Hanc credo causam de illo somniandi fuisse. Tibi autem de me cum sollicitudine cogitanti subito sum visus emersus e flumine. Inerant enim in utriusque nostrum animis vigilantium cogitationum vestigia. At quaedam adiuncta sunt, ut mihi de monumento Marii, tibi, quod equus, in quo ego vehebar, mecum una demersus rursus apparuit.

[141]
An tu censes ullam anum tam deliram futuram fuisse, ut somniis crederet, nisi ista casu non numquam forte temere concurrerent? Alexandro draco loqui visus est. Potest omnino hoc esse falsum, potest verum; sed utrum est, non est mirabile; non enim audivit ille draconem loquentem, sed est visus audire, et quidem, quo maius sit, cum radicem ore teneret, locutus est. Sed nihil est magnum somnianti. Quaero autem, cur Alexandro tam inlustre somnium, tam certum, nec huic eidem alias, nec multa ceteris; mihi quidem praeter hoc Marianum nihil sane, quod meminerim. Frustra igitur consumptae tot noctes tam longa in aetate.

### Book 2, Chapter 69

[142]
Nunc quidem propter intermissionem forensis operae et lucubrationes detraxi et meridiationes addidi, quibus uti antea non solebam, nec tam multum dormiens ullo somnio sum admonitus, tantis praesertim de rebus, nec mihi magis umquam videor, quam cum aut in foro magistratus aut in curia senatum video, somniare.

Etenim (ex divisione hoc secundum est) quae est continuatio coniunctioque naturae, quam, ut dixi, vocant συμπάθειαν, eius modi, ut thensaurus ex ovo intellegi debeat? Nam medici ex quibusdam rebus et advenientis et crescentis morbos intellegunt, non nullas etiam valetudinis significationes, ut hoc ipsum, pleni enectine simus, ex quodam genere somniorum intellegi posse dicunt. Thensaurus vero et hereditas et honos et victoria et multa generis eiusdem qua cum somniis naturali cognatione iunguntur?

[143]
Dicitur quidam, cum in somnis complexu Venerio iungeretur, calculos eiecisse. Video sympathian; visum est enim tale obiectum dormienti, ut id, quod evenit, naturae vis, non opinio erroris effecerit. Quae igitur natura obtulit illam speciem Simonidi, a qua vetaretur navigare? aut quid naturae copulatum habuit Alcibiadis quod scribitur somnium? qui paulo ante interitum visus est in somnis amicae esse amictus amiculo. Is cum esset proiectus inhumatus ab omnibusque desertus iaceret, amica corpus eius texit suo pallio. Ergo hoc inerat in rebus futuris et causas naturalis habebat, an, et ut videretur et ut eveniret, casus effecit?

### Book 2, Chapter 70

[144]
Quid? ipsorum interpretum coniecturae nonne magis ingenia declarant eorum quam vim consensumque naturae? Cursor ad Olympia proficisci cogitans visus est in somnis curru quadrigarum vehi. Mane ad coniectorem. At ille: ‘Vinces’, inquit; ‘id enim celeritas significat et vis equorum.’ Post idem ad Antiphontem. Is autem: ‘Vincare’, inquit, ‘necesse est; an non intellegis quattuor ante te cucurrisse?’ Ecce alius cursor (atque horum somniorum et talium plenus est Chrysippi liber, plenus Antipatri) —sed ad cursorem redeo: Ad interpretem detulit aquilam se in somnis visum esse factum. At ille: ‘Vicisti; ista enim avi volat nulla vehementius.’ Huic eidem Antipho: ‘Baro’, inquit, ‘victum te esse non vides? ista enim avis insectans alias avis et agitans semper ipsa postrema est’.

[145]
Parere quaedam matrona cupiens dubitans, essetne praegnans, visa est in quiete obsignatam habere naturam. Rettulit. Negavit eam, quoniam obsignata fuisset, concipere potuisse. At alter praegnantem esse dixit; nam inane obsignari nihil solere. Quae est ars coniectoris eludentis ingenio? an ea, quae dixi, et innumerabilia, quae conlecta habent Stoici, quicquam significant nisi acumen hominum ex similitudine aliqua coniecturam modo huc, modo illuc ducentium? Medici signa quaedam habent ex venis et spiritu aegroti multisque ex aliis futura praesentiunt; gubernatores cum exsultantis lolligines viderunt aut delphinos se in portum conicientes, tempestatem significari putant. Haec ratione explicari et ad naturam revocari facile possunt, ea vero, quae paulo ante dixi, nullo modo.

### Book 2, Chapter 71

[146]
At enim observatio diuturna (haec enim pars una restat) notandis rebus fecit artem. Ain tandem? somnia observari possunt? quonam modo? sunt enim innumerabiles varietates. Nihil tam praepostere, tam incondite, tam monstruose cogitari potest, quod non possimus somniare; quo modo igitur haec infinita et semper nova aut memoria conplecti aut observando notare possumus? Astrologi motus errantium stellarum notaverunt; inventus est enim ordo in iis stellis, qui non putabatur. Cedo tandem, qui sit ordo aut quae concursatio somniorum; quo modo autem distingui possunt vera somnia a falsis? cum eadem et aliis aliter evadant et isdem non semper eodem modo; ut mihi mirum videatur, cum mendaci homini ne verum quidem dicenti credere soleamus, quo modo isti, si somnium verum evasit aliquod, non ex multis potius uni fidem derogent quam ex uno innumerabilia confirment.

[147]
Si igitur neque deus est effector somniorum neque naturae societas ulla cum somniis neque observatione inveniri potuit scientia, effectum est, ut nihil prorsus somniis tribuendum sit, praesertim cum illi ipsi, qui ea vident, nihil divinent, ii, qui interpretantur, coniecturam adhibeant, non naturam, casus autem innumerabilibus paene saeculis in omnibus plura mirabilia quam in somniorum visis effecerit, neque coniectura, quae in varias partis duci possit, non numquam etiam in contrarias, quicquam sit incertius.

### Book 2, Chapter 72

[148]
Explodatur <igitur> haec quoque somniorum divinatio pariter cum ceteris. Nam, ut vere loquamur, superstitio fusa per gentis oppressit omnium fere animos atque hominum inbecillitatem occupavit. Quod et in iis libris dictum est, qui sunt de natura deorum, et hac disputatione id maxume egimus. Multum enim et nobismet ipsis et nostris profuturi videbamur, si eam funditus sustulissemus. Nec vero (id enim diligenter intellegi volo) superstitione tollenda religio tollitur. Nam et maiorum instituta tueri sacris caerimoniisque retinendis sapientis est, et esse praestantem aliquam aeternamque naturam, et eam suspiciendam admirandamque hominum generi pulchritudo mundi ordoque rerum caelestium cogit confiteri.

[149]
Quam ob rem, ut religio propaganda etiam est, quae est iuncta cum cognitione naturae, sic superstitionis stirpes omnes eligendae. Instat enim et urget et, quo te cumque verteris, persequitur, sive tu vatem sive tu omen audieris, sive immolaris sive avem aspexeris, si Chaldaeum, si haruspicem videris, si fulserit, si tonuerit, si tactum aliquid erit de caelo, si ostenti simile natum factumve quippiam; quorum necesse est plerumque aliquid eveniat, ut numquam liceat quieta mente consistere.

[150]
Perfugium videtur omnium laborum et sollicitudinum esse somnus. At ex eo ipso plurumae curae metusque nascuntur; qui quidem ipsi per se minus valerent et magis contemnerentur, nisi somniorum patrocinium philosophi suscepissent, nec ii quidem contemptissimi, sed in primis acuti et consequentia et repugnantia videntes, qui prope iam absoluti et perfecti putantur. Quorum licentiae nisi Carneades restitisset, haud scio an soli iam philosophi iudicarentur. Cum quibus omnis fere nobis disceptatio contentioque est, non quod eos maxume contemnamus, sed quod videntur acutissime sententias suas prudentissimeque defendere. Cum autem proprium sit Academiae iudicium suum nullum interponere, ea probare, quae simillima veri videantur, conferre causas et, quid in quamque sententiam dici possit, expromere, nulla adhibita sua auctoritate iudicium audientium relinquere integrum ac liberum, tenebimus hanc consuetudinem a Socrate traditam eaque inter nos, si tibi, Quinte frater, placebit, quam saepissime utemur. Mihi vero, inquit ille, nihil potest esse iucundius. Quae cum essent dicta, surreximus.

## Translation — Mouseia

> Complete machine-assisted Musean translation, made directly from the Latin in separate source-only tasks and reviewed throughout against it. Both books, all 130 chapters and 282 numbered sections; no historical English translation used. Latin transcription credited to the Perseus Project under CC BY-SA 4.0, Müller’s 1915 Teubner edition.

### Book 1, Chapter 1

[1]
There is an ancient belief, reaching back to the age of heroes and upheld by the common consent of the Roman people and every nation, that a power of divination exists among human beings. The Greeks call it μαντικήν: a foreknowledge and understanding of things to come. A magnificent and saving power, if such a power exists, and the nearest mortal nature can approach the might of the gods! Just as we do many other things better than the Greeks, so our ancestors derived the name of this supreme gift from the gods, while the Greeks, as Plato explains, derived theirs from madness.

[2]
Indeed, I see no nation so civilized and learned, or so savage and barbarous, that it does not believe the future is signaled and that certain people can understand those signals and foretell events. To begin with the Assyrians, tracing the authority for this belief to its remotest source: because their country was vast and level, and the sky lay open and unobstructed on every side, they observed the passages and movements of the stars. They recorded these and handed down accounts of what each sign foretold for each person. Among this people the Chaldeans, whose name comes from their nation, not their profession, are thought to have established through long observation a knowledge of the stars that made it possible to predict what would happen to each person and under what destiny each was born. The Egyptians too are believed to have attained the same art over an immense stretch of time, through almost countless generations. The Cilicians and Pisidians, and their neighbors in Pamphylia—peoples whom I myself have governed—believe that the flights and cries of birds reveal the future as the surest of signs.

### Book 1, Chapter 2

[3]
What colony did Greece ever send to Aeolis, Ionia, Asia, Sicily, or Italy without consulting the oracle at Delphi, Dodona, or Ammon? What war did it undertake without the gods’ advice? Nor was only one kind of divination honored in public and private life. To pass over other peoples, how many kinds our own embraced! First, Romulus, the father of this city, is said not only to have founded it under the auspices but to have been himself a consummate augur. The other kings also employed augurs; and after the kings were expelled, no public business was conducted without auspices, whether at home or on campaign. The discipline of the haruspices seemed to possess great power both in seeking favorable signs and consulting the gods, and in interpreting prodigies and performing rites to avert their consequences. Accordingly, our ancestors brought this entire body of knowledge from Etruria into use, lest any branch of divination should seem neglected.

[4]
They also recognized two ways in which the mind, without reasoning or acquired knowledge, is stirred by its own unrestrained and liberated motion: frenzy and dreaming. Believing that divination through frenzy was chiefly contained in the Sibylline verses, they ordained that ten citizens should be chosen to interpret them. In this same category, they often thought the frenzied predictions of soothsayers and prophets deserved a hearing—for example, those of Cornelius Culleolus during the war with Octavius. Nor did the Senate neglect any particularly weighty dreams that seemed to concern the state. Indeed, within our own memory Lucius Julius, who was consul with Publius Rutilius, restored the temple of Juno Sospita by decree of the Senate, in response to a dream of Caecilia, the daughter of Balearicus.

### Book 1, Chapter 3

[5]
Our ancestors, I believe, accepted these practices less from the instruction of reason than from the lessons of events. Philosophers, however, have assembled some subtle arguments to show that divination is true. Among the most ancient—to begin with them—Xenophanes of Colophon alone rejected divination altogether, though he acknowledged the existence of gods. All the others approved it, except Epicurus with his stammering account of the gods’ nature, though they did not approve it in the same way. Socrates and all the Socratics, Zeno and his followers, held to the ancient philosophers’ position, with the agreement of the Old Academy and the Peripatetics. Pythagoras had already given the practice great authority, wishing to be an augur himself; and Democritus, an influential thinker, affirmed foreknowledge of the future in many passages. But the Peripatetic Dicaearchus rejected the other forms of divination, retaining dreams and frenzy. Our friend Cratippus, whom I rank with the greatest Peripatetics, likewise put his trust in these and rejected all the rest.

[6]
The Stoics defended nearly all those forms. Zeno had scattered what might be called their seeds in his writings, and Cleanthes had developed them somewhat further; then came Chrysippus, a man of penetrating intellect, who set out the entire theory of divination in two books, adding one on oracles and another on dreams. His pupil Diogenes of Babylon followed him with one book, Antipater with two, and our friend Posidonius with five. Yet Panaetius, the teacher of Posidonius and pupil of Antipater, departed from the Stoics, though he was himself a leading member of their school. Even he did not venture to deny the power of divination: he said he was in doubt. If a Stoic was allowed, much against the Stoics’ wishes, to do this on one question, will they not allow us to do so on the others? Especially when what remains uncertain to Panaetius seems clearer than sunlight to the rest of his school!

### Book 1, Chapter 4

[7]
Here, then, the Academy’s distinction has been confirmed by the judgment and testimony of a philosopher of the first rank. As we ourselves inquire what judgment to make about divination, remembering the many incisive and elaborate arguments Carneades directed against the Stoics, and fearing to assent rashly either to falsehood or to something insufficiently understood, we ought, it seems to me, to compare argument with argument, carefully and repeatedly, as we did in the three books I wrote on the nature of the gods. For although rash assent and error are disgraceful in every field, they are most disgraceful where we must decide how much weight to give to auspices, sacred observances, and religion. Here we risk binding ourselves, if we neglect them, to the guilt of impiety, and if we embrace them, to an old woman’s superstition.

### Book 1, Chapter 5

[8]
We have often discussed these questions, and recently, when I was at my Tusculan villa with my brother Quintus, we examined them somewhat more closely. We had gone for a walk in the Lyceum—the name of the upper gymnasium—when he said, “I finished your third book on the nature of the gods a little while ago. Cotta’s argument there has shaken my position, but has not altogether overthrown it.” “Excellent,” I said. “After all, Cotta himself argues in a way that refutes the Stoics’ reasoning rather than destroys people’s religion.” Then Quintus said, “Cotta does say that, and says it often, I believe, so as not to seem to overstep the bounds generally accepted. But in his eagerness to argue against the Stoics, he seems to me to abolish the gods altogether.

[9]
“I am at no great loss for an answer to his reasoning. Religion was defended well enough in the second book by Lucilius, whose argument, as you yourself write at the end of the third, seemed to you closer to the truth. But there is something those books passed over—I suppose because you judged it more convenient to examine and discuss it separately. I mean divination: the prediction and foreknowledge of events considered matters of chance. If you agree, let us examine the extent and nature of its power. My own view is this: if the forms of divination handed down to us and practiced among us are true, gods exist; and conversely, if gods exist, there are people who divine.”

### Book 1, Chapter 6

[10]
“You are defending the Stoics’ citadel, Quintus,” I said, “if those propositions really imply each other: if divination exists, gods exist; and if gods exist, divination exists. Neither proposition is so easily granted as you suppose. Nature might give signs of the future without a god; and even if gods exist, it is possible that they have bestowed no divination on the human race.” He replied, “For my part, the existence of clear and unmistakable forms of divination is sufficient proof that gods exist and concern themselves with human affairs. If you wish, I will explain my own views on these matters—provided your mind is free and you have nothing you think should take precedence over this conversation.”

[11]
“My mind is always free for philosophy, Quintus,” I said. “And now, when there is nothing else I can take pleasure in doing, I am all the more eager to hear what you think about divination.”

“I have no new doctrine,” he said, “nor any private opinion that sets me apart. I follow a belief of the greatest antiquity, confirmed by the consent of every people and nation. There are two kinds of divination: one belongs to art, the other to nature.

### Book 1, Chapter 7

[12]
“For what nation or city is unmoved by the predictions of interpreters of entrails, prodigies, and lightning, of augurs, astrologers, and those who cast lots—these are, broadly speaking, matters of art—or by dreams and prophecies, the two forms considered natural? In these matters I think we should look more to results than to causes. There is a certain power inherent in nature that foretells the future, sometimes through signs observed over a long period, sometimes through a divine impulse and inspiration. So let Carneades stop pressing the question that Panaetius also asked: whether Jupiter ordered the crow to call on the left and the raven on the right. These things have been observed over immeasurable time; their significance has been recognized in events and recorded. There is nothing the long passage of time cannot achieve and attain, when memory receives its findings and records hand them on.

### Book 1, Chapter 8

[13]
“We may well marvel at the kinds of herbs and roots physicians have discovered to treat animal bites, diseases of the eyes, and wounds. Reason has never explained their power and nature, yet their usefulness has vindicated both the art and its discoverer. Come, let us consider things that, though belonging to another field, bear a closer resemblance to divination:

“‘Often the swelling sea foretells the winds to come,
When suddenly it heaves and swells from deep within,
And rocks, white with the snowy foam of salt water,
Strive to send mournful voices back to Neptune;
Or when a thick, shrill sound, rising from a mountain’s
Lofty summit, grows, echoed again and again from the cliffs.’

“Your *Weather Signs* is full of such foreknowledge. Who, then, can draw out the causes of these intimations? I see that Boëthus the Stoic has tried, though his achievement went only so far as to explain the workings of events that occur in sea or sky.

[14]
“But who could give a plausible reason for the following?

“‘So too the gray coot, fleeing from the sea’s deep swell,
Cries out to warn that dreadful storms are near,
Pouring loud, abundant cries from its quivering throat.
Often a deeply mournful song rises from the breast
Of the acredula bird, pressing on with morning calls,
Presses on with calls, its mouth pouring complaint on complaint,
As soon as dawn releases the chill dew.
And sometimes the dark crow, running along the shore,
Has plunged its head and let the wave wash over its neck.’

### Book 1, Chapter 9

[15]
“We see that these signs almost never lie, yet we do not see why this is so.

“‘You too perceive the signs, children of fresh water,
When you prepare to pour your hollow cries aloud
And stir the springs and pools with your discordant sound.’

“Who could suspect that little frogs perceive this? Yet there is a certain inherent power in them, by itself quite reliable in giving a signal, though less accessible to human understanding.

“‘And soft-footed cattle, gazing at the lights of heaven,
Have drawn the moist breath from the air into their nostrils.’

“I do not ask why, since I understand what follows.

“‘Then the mastic, always green and always laden,
That habitually swells with a threefold crop,
Yields fruit three times, marking three seasons for the plow.’

### Book 1, Chapter 10

[16]
“Here too I do not ask why this tree alone flowers three times, or why it makes the right season for plowing coincide with the sign of its blossom. I am content that, even if I do not know why each thing happens, I understand what happens. I will therefore make the same answer for divination as a whole that I made for the things I have mentioned. I see the power of scammony root to purge, and of aristolochia against snakebites—a plant that took its name from its discoverer, while the discoverer learned its virtue from a dream. Seeing that is enough; I do not know why they have that power. In the same way, I do not fully grasp the explanation of the signs of wind and rain I described; I recognize, know, and accept their force and outcome. Likewise I accept the significance of a cleft or a lobe in the entrails; its cause I do not know. Life is full of such practices: nearly everyone consults entrails. And can we doubt the significance of lightning? Among its many marvels, is this not outstanding? When the statue of Summanus, then made of clay, was struck from heaven on the pediment of the temple of Jupiter Best and Greatest, and its head could nowhere be found, the haruspices declared that it had been hurled into the Tiber. It was found in the very place they indicated.

### Book 1, Chapter 11

[17]
“But whom should I use as an authority or witness rather than you? I have even learned, and gladly, the verses that the Muse Urania speaks in the second book of your poem *On My Consulship*:

“‘First Jupiter, ablaze with heaven’s fire,
Turns, flooding the whole world with light,
And with his divine mind seeks out sky and earth—
The mind that holds human senses and lives deep within,
Enclosed and sheltered in the eternal ether’s vaults.
And if you wish to know the movements and wandering courses
Of the stars set in the stations of the constellations,
Which wander only in the Greeks’ misleading words,
But in truth are borne along a measured path and span,
You will see that divine mind has ordered everything.

[18]
“‘For first, in your consulship, the stars’ swift movements
And their grave conjunctions, blazing with light,
You too saw, when you traversed the snow-clad heights
Of the Alban Mount and celebrated the Latin rites with rich milk;
You saw the comets trembling with bright flame,
And thought that much would be thrown into turmoil by slaughter at night,
For the Latin Festival had fallen at an ominous time,
When the moon hid her bright form in gathered shadow
And suddenly was quenched in the starry night.
And what of Phoebus’ torch, grim herald of war,
Which flew in blazing fire toward the great height,
Seeking the sky’s western regions and its setting?
Or when a citizen, struck by a dreadful thunderbolt,
Lost the living light of his eyes on a clear, bright day?
Or when the earth shook through its ponderous body?
Then, too, the many dreadful shapes seen in the night
Gave warning of war and upheaval,
And throughout the land prophets poured from frenzied
Hearts many oracles threatening bitter disasters,

### Book 1, Chapter 12

[19]
“‘And all those things that came to pass at last with the years,
The father of the gods himself foretold would come,
Repeating his clear, unceasing signs through earth and heaven.
Now all that the Lydian haruspex of the Tuscan people
Once proclaimed when Torquatus and Cotta were consuls,
Your year brings together and fulfills, fixed and certain.
For the father who thunders on high, enthroned on starry Olympus,
Once struck his own hills and temples
And hurled his fires upon the Capitol’s heights.
Then Natta’s ancient, venerated bronze image
Fell, and the laws slipped from their age-old sacred keeping,
And the lightning’s blaze destroyed the images of the gods.

[20]
“‘Here stood the woodland nurse of the Roman name,
The wolf of Mars, who with her swollen udders fed life’s dew
To the little sons sprung from the seed of Mavors.
Then she and the boys fell beneath the blazing thunderbolt,
Torn away, leaving the imprints of her feet.
Who then did not unroll the writings and records of the art,
And draw grim utterances from the Etruscan scrolls?
All warned against a vast disaster, a plague upon the state
Arising from noble stock;
Or with unchanging voice foretold the overthrow of laws,
And urged that the gods’ temples and the city itself be snatched from flames,
And dreadful slaughter and massacre be feared.
These things stood fixed and rooted in a heavy destiny,
Unless a holy image of Jupiter, beautifully fashioned
And raised on a lofty column, first looked toward the bright dawn.
Then the people and the sacred Senate would be able
To see the hidden plot, if, turned toward sunrise,
It looked from there upon the seat of Senate and people.

### Book 1, Chapter 13

[21]
“‘Long delayed and much held back, this image
Was at last set on its lofty pedestal in your consulship.
And at one and the same hour of the appointed, destined time,
Jupiter displayed his scepter from the towering column,
And the ruin prepared for our country with fire and sword
Was revealed by the Allobroges’ words to Senate and people.
Rightly, then, the ancients whose records you preserve,
Who governed peoples and cities with moderation and courage,
Rightly, too, your countrymen, whose reverence and fidelity
Excelled, whose wisdom far surpassed all others,
Above all honored the gods in their living power.
These things were searched to their depths with penetrating care
By those who gladly spent their leisure in noble studies,

[22]
“‘And in the shady Academy and radiant Lyceum
Poured forth the glorious learning of their fertile minds.
From these pursuits, in the first flowering of your youth,
Your country took you and set you amid great deeds of courage.
Yet, easing your anxious cares with rest,
You have devoted to study and to us the time your country leaves you.’

“Can you, then, bring yourself to argue against what I say about divination—you who have done what you have done and have written the verses I recited with such scrupulous care?

[23]
“What, Carneades? Do you ask why these things happen, or by what art they can be understood? I confess I do not know; but I say you yourself see that they happen. ‘By chance,’ you say. Really? Can anything happen by chance that bears every mark of truth? Four knucklebones may fall by chance in a Venus throw; but if you cast four hundred, do you think chance will give you a hundred Venus throws? Colors splashed at random on a panel can form the outlines of a face; but do you think a chance splashing could produce the beauty of the Venus of Cos? If a pig’s snout presses the letter A into the ground, could you therefore suppose that it might copy out Ennius’ *Andromache*? Carneades used to tell a story that a stone split open in the quarries of Chios disclosed the head of a little Pan. Some shape not unlike it, I suppose—but certainly not one you would say Scopas had made. For this much is certain: chance never imitates truth to perfection.

### Book 1, Chapter 14

[24]
“‘But sometimes predictions fail to come true.’ What art, I ask, is free of that? I mean the arts that depend on inference and deal in probabilities. Should medicine not count as an art? Yet how often it is mistaken! And do helmsmen never go wrong? Did not the Achaean army and the captains of all those ships leave Troy, as Pacuvius says, ‘rejoicing at their departure, gazing at the fishes’ play,’ so that ‘they could not tire of looking’?

“‘Meanwhile, with the sun now almost setting, the sea grows rough;
Darkness doubles, and the black of night and storm clouds blinds the sky.’

“Did the shipwreck of so many illustrious leaders and kings abolish the art of navigation? Is a general’s knowledge worthless because a supreme commander recently lost his army and fled? Is there no method or wisdom in governing a state because Gnaeus Pompey was wrong in many things, Marcus Cato in some, and even you yourself in a few? The response of the haruspices, and all divination based on probability, is of the same kind: it rests on inference and cannot go beyond it.

### Book 1, Chapter 15

[25]
“It may sometimes be mistaken, but most often it points toward the truth. For it reaches back through all eternity, in which the same events followed the same preceding signs almost countless times; an art arose from repeatedly observing and recording the same conjunctions.

“And how dependable your auspices are! Though nowadays—with your leave I say it—the Roman augurs know nothing of them, the Cilicians, Pamphylians, Pisidians, and Lycians preserve their knowledge.

[26]
“Need I mention our guest-friend King Deiotarus, a man of the highest distinction and integrity, who never does anything without taking the auspices? Once, warned by an eagle’s flight, he turned back from a journey he had planned and settled on. The room where he would have stayed, had he continued, collapsed the following night.

[27]
“And so, as he himself told me, he has very often turned back after already traveling a distance of many days. What is most admirable is that, even after Caesar deprived him of his tetrarchy, his kingdom, and his money, he says he does not regret the auspices that favored his departure to join Pompey. His arms, he says, defended the authority of the Senate, the freedom of the Roman people, and the dignity of their empire. Those birds had advised him well: on their counsel he had followed duty and kept faith, for glory had mattered more to him than his possessions. He, I think, truly practices augury. Our magistrates, by contrast, use forced auspices. When a piece of food is thrown down and a chicken feeds, a morsel must fall from its beak;

### Book 1, Chapter 16

[28]
“and your rules state that a *tripudium* occurs if any of it falls on solid ground. Yet even the forced feeding I described is what you call a *tripudium solistimum*, the most favorable feeding sign. Thus many auguries and auspices have been utterly lost and abandoned through the negligence of your college, as the wise Cato laments.

“Once, almost no important undertaking, even in private life, went ahead without auspices. The auspices-takers at weddings, who still retain the name though the practice has gone, bear witness to that even now. As we now commonly seek favorable signs in entrails—though even that is done rather less than formerly—so people then sought them in birds before great undertakings. And so, because we do not seek favorable signs on the left, we run into dire and defective ones.

[29]
“Thus Publius Claudius, the son of Appius the Blind, and his colleague Lucius Junius lost enormous fleets after sailing in defiance of the auspices. The same happened to Agamemnon. When the Achaeans began

“‘To clamor among themselves and openly trample on the art of entrail-readers,
He orders them to sail, with cheers of approval and birds of ill omen.’

“But why turn to ancient history? We see what happened to Marcus Crassus when he disregarded the announcement of dire omens. In this affair your colleague Appius—a good augur, as I often hear you say—showed too little understanding when, as censor, he censured Gaius Ateius, an honorable man and an excellent citizen, entering as the charge that he had fabricated auspices. Very well: that may have been a censor’s business, if he judged them fabricated. But what he added was certainly no augur’s business: that this was the reason the Roman people had suffered their greatest disaster. If that caused the disaster, the fault lies not with the man who announced the warning but with the man who disobeyed it. As this same augur and censor says, the outcome proved the warning true. Had it been false, it could not have supplied any cause of disaster. For dire omens, like other auspices, like spoken omens and signs, do not cause events to happen: they announce what will happen unless you take precautions.

### Book 1, Chapter 17

[30]
“Ateius’ announcement, then, did not manufacture the cause of the disaster; by bringing a sign to Crassus’ notice, it warned him what would happen unless he took care. Either that announcement meant nothing, or, if it meant something as Appius judges, its meaning was to fasten the guilt not on the man who gave the warning but on the man who refused to obey.

“And your *lituus*, the most celebrated emblem of the augurate—where did it come from? Surely it was the instrument with which Romulus marked out the regions of the sky when he founded the city. That very staff of Romulus, a little rod curved and slightly bent at the tip, named from its likeness to the trumpet called a *lituus*, was kept in the meeting hall of the Salii on the Palatine. When the hall burned down, it was found unharmed.

[31]
“And many years after Romulus, in the reign of Tarquinius Priscus, what ancient writer fails to tell of Attus Navius’ division of the sky into regions with his staff? As a boy, poverty had made him a swineherd. One of his pigs went missing, and he is said to have vowed that, if he found it, he would offer the god the largest bunch of grapes in the vineyard. When the pig was found, he stood, we are told, in the middle of the vineyard facing south and divided it into four parts. The birds rejected three. He then divided the remaining fourth part into regions and discovered, as the record tells us, a bunch of grapes of marvelous size. When this became known, all his neighbors brought their affairs to him for consultation, and he won great fame and honor.

[32]
“This led King Priscus to summon him. To test his knowledge of augury, the king said he had something in mind, and asked whether it could be done. Attus took the augury and replied that it could. Tarquinius then said he had been thinking that a whetstone could be cut through with a razor. Attus told him to try it. A whetstone was brought into the assembly place and cut through with a razor before the eyes of king and people. From then on, Tarquinius employed Attus Navius as his augur, and the people consulted him about their own affairs.

[33]
“We are told that the whetstone and razor were buried in the assembly place, and a wellhead set above them. Let us deny everything, burn the annals, call these stories inventions—anything, in short, rather than admit that the gods concern themselves with human affairs! But what of the account of Tiberius Gracchus in your own writings? Does it not confirm the discipline of both augurs and haruspices? He held the assembly to elect consuls after unknowingly pitching his augural tent in violation of the ritual: he had crossed the sacred city boundary without taking the auspices. The story is well known, and you yourself have put it on record. Tiberius Gracchus, himself an augur, confirmed the authority of the auspices by admitting his error; and great authority accrued to the discipline of the haruspices, who were brought before the Senate just after the elections and declared that the man who had presided over them was not ritually qualified to do so.

### Book 1, Chapter 18

[34]
“I agree, then, with those who have said that there are two kinds of divination, one involving art, the other without it. Art belongs to those who pursue new cases by inference, having learned the old through observation. Those without art foresee the future not by reasoning or inference from observed and recorded signs, but through an excitation of the mind, or its unrestrained and liberated motion. This often happens to dreamers and sometimes to those who prophesy in frenzy, such as Bacis of Boeotia, Epimenides of Crete, and the Erythraean Sibyl. Oracles too belong in this category—not those drawn from lots duly shuffled, but those poured forth through divine impulse and inspiration. Yet lots themselves are not to be despised if they carry the authority of antiquity, as do those we are told emerged from the earth. I believe divine power can bring it about that a lot drawn fits the matter at hand. The interpreters of all these revelations, like scholars interpreting poets, seem to come very close to the divinatory power of those they interpret.

[35]
“What cleverness is this, then, that seeks to overthrow, by caviling, things strengthened by antiquity? I cannot discover the cause. Perhaps it lies hidden, wrapped in nature’s darkness: the god wished me not to know these things, but only to use them. Use them I will, and I will not be persuaded that all Etruria is mad about entrails, or that this same people goes astray about lightning, or falsely interprets portents. The earth’s rumblings, bellowings, and tremors have often foretold grave events truly, both for our republic and for many other states.

### Book 1, Chapter 19

[36]
“And the much-ridiculed birth of a mule’s foal: because offspring had appeared in a creature barren by nature, did not the haruspices pronounce it a portent of an unbelievable birth of evils? And Tiberius Gracchus, son of Publius, twice consul and also censor, a foremost augur as well as a wise man and an outstanding citizen: did he not, as his son Gaius Gracchus left on record, summon the haruspices when two snakes were caught in his house? They replied that, if he released the male, his wife must shortly die, and if he released the female, he himself must die. He judged it fairer that he, with his years behind him, should meet death rather than the youthful daughter of Publius Africanus. He released the female and died a few days later. Let us laugh at the haruspices, call them worthless and empty-headed, and despise men whose discipline has been vindicated by a supremely wise man and by the outcome and facts themselves! Let us condemn Babylon too, and those who watch the signs of heaven from the Caucasus, tracing the stars’ courses through their calculations and measurements. Let us condemn them, I say, as foolish, fraudulent, or shameless—men who preserve in their records, by their own account, four hundred seventy thousand years! Let us decide they are lying, with no fear of the judgment future ages will pass on them.

[37]
“Very well: foreigners are worthless cheats. Has Greek history lied as well? To turn to natural divination, who does not know the responses Apollo at Delphi gave to Croesus, to the Athenians, Spartans, Tegeans, Argives, and Corinthians? Chrysippus collected countless oracles, none without a trustworthy authority and witness. Since you know them, I pass them over. This one point I maintain: the oracle at Delphi would never have become so renowned and illustrious, nor been filled with such rich gifts from all peoples and kings, had not every age experienced the truth of its responses. ‘But it has long since ceased to do so.’

[38]
“Then just as it is less honored now because its responses are less strikingly true, it would not have enjoyed such great honor then without the highest truthfulness. The power in the earth that stirred the Pythia’s mind with divine inspiration may have faded with time, just as we see some rivers vanish and dry up, or twist and turn into a different course. But let the explanation be what you will—the question is a large one—provided this remains, which we cannot deny without overturning all history: for many centuries that oracle spoke the truth.

### Book 1, Chapter 20

[39]
“But let us leave oracles and come to dreams. In discussing them, Chrysippus collects a multitude of trivial dreams, doing the same as Antipater, who hunts out instances in which Antiphon’s interpretations certainly show the interpreter’s ingenuity, though he ought to have used weightier examples. Philistus, a learned and painstaking man who lived in those times, records that the mother of Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse, dreamed while pregnant with that very Dionysius that she had given birth to a little satyr. The interpreters of portents, then known in Sicily as Galeotae, answered, according to Philistus, that the child she bore would be the most illustrious man in Greece, enjoying a long run of good fortune.

[40]
“Am I taking you back to the tales of our poets or the Greeks’? That Vestal in Ennius also tells her dream:

“‘When the old woman, startled awake, brought a light with trembling limbs,
Then, terrified by her dream, she spoke through tears:
“Daughter of Eurydice, whom our father loved,
All strength and life are now abandoning my body.
For a beautiful man seemed to carry me away through pleasant willow groves,
Along riverbanks and places strange to me; and then alone,
My own dear sister, I seemed to wander,
Slowly tracing your steps and seeking you, unable
To hold you in my heart; no path made my footing sure.

[41]
“‘“Then our father seemed to call me with these words:
‘My daughter, first you must endure
Great sorrows; afterward your fortune will rise from the river.’
With that, my sister, our father suddenly withdrew,
Nor showed himself again, though my heart longed for him,
Though with tears I stretched my hands again and again
Toward heaven’s blue vaults, calling in a pleading voice.
At last sleep scarcely released my troubled heart.”’

### Book 1, Chapter 21

[42]
“Even if a poet invented this, it is not far removed from the ordinary experience of dreams. Let the dream that troubled Priam also be an invention, because

“‘Hecuba the mother, heavy with child, seemed in sleep
To give birth to a burning torch. At this her husband,
King Priam himself, his mind struck with fear by the dream,
Consumed by cares and sighing,
Sought to avert the curse by sacrificing bleating victims.
Then, seeking peace, he begged an interpretation,
Imploring Apollo to instruct him
What such a portentous dream foretold.
Then from the oracle Apollo’s divine voice
Declared: the first boy born to Priam
Thereafter he must refrain from rearing;
That child would be Troy’s ruin, Pergamum’s destruction.’

### Book 1, Chapter 22

[43]
“Let these, as I said, be dreams from fables; and add to them the dream of Aeneas, which in the Greek annals of our own Fabius Pictor is such that everything Aeneas did, and everything that happened to him, had appeared to him in sleep.

“But let us look nearer home. What of the dream of Tarquinius the Proud, which he himself describes in Accius’ *Brutus*?

[44]
“‘When at nightfall I gave my body over
To rest, soothing my weary limbs with sleep,
I seemed to see a shepherd drive toward me
A flock of woolly sheep of surpassing beauty.
From it two rams, brothers by birth, were chosen,
And I sacrificed the finer of the two.
Then his brother charged at me with his horns,
Butted me, and with that blow brought me down.
Then, lying on the earth, sorely wounded,
Flat on my back, I beheld in the sky a vast
And wondrous sight: the sun’s flaming,
Radiant disk slipped to the right on a new course.’

[45]
“Let us see, then, how the dream-interpreters explained it:

“‘King, the things people deal with in life, think of, care for, see,
And do and busy themselves with while awake, should occasion
Less wonder when they come in sleep. The gods do not lightly send so great a vision unforeseen.
So beware: the man you judge as dull as a beast
May possess a heart nobly fortified with wisdom
And drive you from your kingdom. For the vision of the sun
Portends that a change in the people’s fortunes
Is very near. May these things turn out well for the people! For that mighty sign
Began its course from left to right: a most auspicious
Augury that Rome’s republic will be supreme.’

### Book 1, Chapter 23

[46]
“Now let us return to foreign lands. Heraclides of Pontus, a learned man who heard Plato and studied under him, writes that Phalaris’ mother dreamed she saw the images of the gods she herself had consecrated in her house. Among them Mercury seemed to pour blood from a bowl he held in his right hand. When it touched the earth, it seemed to seethe until the whole house overflowed with blood. Her son’s monstrous cruelty fulfilled his mother’s dream. Need I bring forward from Dinon’s *Persian History* the magi’s interpretation for the great Cyrus? Dinon writes that, when Cyrus slept, the sun appeared at his feet. Three times he reached for it in vain: the sun rolled away, slipping from his hands and departing. The magi, a class held wise and learned among the Persians, told him that his three attempts to grasp the sun foretold a reign of thirty years. And so it happened: he reached his seventieth year, having begun his reign at forty.

[47]
“Surely there is something that foreknows and divines even among foreign peoples. Consider the Indian Calanus. As he went to his death and mounted a burning pyre, he said, ‘What a glorious departure from life, when, as happened to Hercules, the mortal body burns away and the soul goes out into the light!’ Alexander asked him to say if he wanted anything. ‘All is well,’ he said. ‘I shall see you very soon.’ And so it happened: Alexander died at Babylon a few days later. I turn aside briefly from dreams, to which I shall soon return. It is an established fact that on the very night the temple of Diana at Ephesus burned down, Alexander was born to Olympias; and at daybreak the magi cried out that the night just past had brought forth Asia’s scourge and destruction. So much for the Indians and the magi.

### Book 1, Chapter 24

[48]
“Let us return to dreams. Coelius writes that Hannibal wanted to carry off the golden column in the shrine of Juno Lacinia. Unsure whether it was solid gold or merely gilded, he bored into it, and finding it solid, decided to remove it. In his sleep Juno appeared and warned him not to do so, threatening that, if he did, she would see to it that he lost the eye with which he could still see well. A shrewd man, he did not disregard her warning. Instead he had a little heifer made from the gold bored out of the column and set it on top.

[49]
“The following also appears in the Greek history of Silenus, whom Coelius follows, and who chronicled Hannibal’s deeds with the greatest care. After taking Saguntum, Hannibal dreamed he was summoned by Jupiter to the council of the gods. When he arrived, Jupiter ordered him to make war on Italy, and one of the council was appointed his guide. Following this guide, he began to advance with his army. Then the guide instructed him not to look back. Hannibal could not obey for long: overcome by curiosity, he looked. He saw a huge, monstrous beast entwined with snakes, overturning every tree, thicket, and building wherever it passed. In wonder he asked the god what kind of monster it was. The god replied that it was the devastation of Italy, and ordered him to press straight ahead without troubling himself over what was happening behind him, at his back.

[50]
“Agathocles records in his history that Hamilcar the Carthaginian, while besieging Syracuse, dreamed he heard a voice saying that the next day he would dine in Syracuse. When that day dawned, a great mutiny broke out in his camp between the Carthaginian and Sicilian soldiers. The Syracusans learned of it, burst into the camp unexpectedly, and captured Hamilcar alive. Thus events confirmed the dream. History is full of examples, and everyday life is crowded with them.

[51]
“But consider that Publius Decius, son of Quintus, who was the first of the Decii to become consul. While serving as a military tribune in the consulship of Marcus Valerius and Aulus Cornelius, when our army was hard pressed by the Samnites, he took the risks of battle too boldly and was warned to be more careful. He replied, as the annals record, that in a dream he had seen himself in the thick of the enemy, dying with the greatest glory. On that occasion he emerged unharmed and freed the army from encirclement. Three years later, however, as consul, he consecrated himself to death and charged in arms into the Latin battle line. By this act the Latins were defeated and destroyed. His death was so glorious that his son longed for the same.

### Book 1, Chapter 25

[52]
“But now, if you agree, let us come to philosophers’ dreams.

“In Plato, Socrates, while in public custody, tells his friend Crito that he must die three days later. He had dreamed of a woman of surpassing beauty who called him by name and spoke a verse of Homer along these lines:

“‘The third glad day will bring you to Phthia.’

“The account says it happened just as foretold. Xenophon the Socratic—what a man, and how great!—describes his own dreams during the campaign he served with Cyrus the Younger, and their remarkable fulfillment.

[53]
“Shall we say Xenophon lies or raves? And Aristotle, a man of singular, almost divine genius—is he mistaken himself, or does he wish to mislead others? He writes that his friend Eudemus of Cyprus, traveling to Macedonia, came to Pherae, then a highly distinguished city in Thessaly, but held in cruel subjection by the tyrant Alexander. There Eudemus fell so gravely ill that all the physicians despaired of him. In his sleep a young man of exceptional beauty appeared and told him that he would recover very soon, that the tyrant Alexander would die within a few days, and that Eudemus himself would return home five years later. Aristotle writes that the first predictions came true at once: Eudemus recovered and the tyrant was killed by his wife’s brothers. But at the end of the fifth year, when the dream had led people to expect his return from Sicily to Cyprus, he fell fighting at Syracuse. From this they interpreted the dream to mean that Eudemus’ soul had returned home when it left his body.

[54]
“To the philosophers let us add a man of the deepest learning, and indeed a divine poet: Sophocles. When a heavy golden bowl had been stolen from the temple of Hercules, he dreamed that the god himself told him who had done it. He ignored the dream once and a second time. When it recurred repeatedly, he went up to the Areopagus and reported the matter. The Areopagites ordered the arrest of the man Sophocles had named. Under torture he confessed and returned the bowl. From this event the shrine was named the temple of Hercules the Informer.

### Book 1, Chapter 26

[55]
“But why keep to Greek examples? Somehow our own give me greater pleasure. All our historians tell this story—the Fabii, the Gellii, and most recently Coelius. When the great votive games were first being held during the Latin War, the citizens were suddenly called to arms. The games were therefore interrupted and a repetition was scheduled. Before these renewed games began, when the people had already taken their seats, a slave was led through the circus under a forked yoke, being beaten with rods. Later, a figure appeared in a dream to a Roman countryman and said that the leading dancer at the games had displeased him; he ordered the man to report this to the Senate. The man did not dare. The same command was given a second time, with a warning not to put the speaker’s power to the test. Still he did not dare. Then his son died, and the same warning came a third time in a dream. Now himself disabled, he told his friends. On their advice he was carried to the Senate house on a litter, and after recounting his dream to the Senate, he walked home on his own feet, restored to health. And so, the tradition records, the Senate accepted the dream and had those games repeated once again.

### Book 1, Chapter 27

[56]
“Gaius Gracchus, as the same Coelius records, told many people that, when he was hesitating over standing for the quaestorship, his brother Tiberius appeared to him in a dream and said that he might delay as long as he wished, but he must nevertheless perish by the same death as Tiberius himself. Coelius writes that he heard this before Gaius Gracchus became tribune of the plebs, and that Gracchus told it to many people. What could be found more certain than this dream?

“And those two dreams the Stoics so often recount—who could possibly dismiss them? One concerns Simonides. He had found the body of an unknown man lying abandoned and buried it. When he was planning to board a ship, the man he had buried appeared to him in a dream, warning him not to do so: if he sailed, he would die in a shipwreck. Simonides therefore turned back; the others who sailed then were lost.

[57]
“The other, a very famous dream, is handed down in this form. Two Arcadian friends were traveling together and reached Megara. One lodged with an innkeeper, the other with a guest-friend. After supper they went to bed. In the dead of night, the man staying with his guest-friend dreamed that the other begged him to come to his aid: the innkeeper was plotting his death. At first he rose, terrified by the dream. Then, recovering himself and deciding that the vision should be disregarded, he lay down again. As he slept, the same man appeared and begged him, since he had not helped him while alive, not to let his death go unavenged. The innkeeper had murdered him and thrown him into a wagon, he said, then piled manure over him. He asked his friend to be at the city gate in the morning before the wagon left town. This dream truly moved him. In the morning he met the ox-driver at the gate and asked what was in the wagon. The man fled in terror, the body was uncovered, and the innkeeper’s crime was exposed and punished.

### Book 1, Chapter 28

[58]
“What could be called more divine than this dream? But why seek more examples, or ancient ones? I have often told you my dream, and often heard yours from you. When I was governing Asia as proconsul, I dreamed that you rode up to the bank of a great river, suddenly went too far forward, slipped into the water, and vanished. I trembled, stricken with fear. Then suddenly you emerged in high spirits, rode the same horse up the opposite bank, and we embraced. This dream was easy to interpret, and experts in Asia foretold to me the very course events took.

[59]
“Now I come to yours. I heard it from you yourself, but our friend Sallustius has told it to me more often. During that exile, glorious for us but disastrous for our country, you were staying at a villa on the plain of Atina. You had lain awake much of the night, and only toward dawn began to sleep soundly and deeply. Though your journey pressed, Sallustius ordered silence and would not allow you to be wakened. When you awoke at about the second hour, you told him your dream. You had seemed to be wandering sadly in lonely places when Gaius Marius, with laurel-wreathed fasces, asked you why you were downcast. You told him you had been driven by force from your country. He took your right hand, told you to be of good courage, and handed you over to his nearest lictor to be led to his monument, saying that there you would find deliverance. Sallustius says that he himself then cried out that a swift and glorious return awaited you, and that you too seemed delighted with the dream. As for what followed, I myself soon received the news. You had heard that the Senate’s magnificent decree for your return was passed in Marius’ monument, on the motion of the consul, a most honorable and distinguished man, and that an immense audience in the theater had endorsed it with extraordinary shouts and applause. You then said that nothing could be more divine than your dream at Atina.

### Book 1, Chapter 29

[60]
“‘But many dreams are false.’ Or perhaps obscure to us. Still, let some be false: what do we say in answer to the true ones? Far more would come true if we went to sleep with our faculties unimpaired. As it is, loaded with food and wine, we see confusion and disorder. Consider what Socrates says in Plato’s *Republic*: ‘When people sleep, the part of the soul that shares in intellect and reason lies dormant and slack. But the part containing a certain ferocity and savage brutality, stupefied by immoderate eating and drinking, leaps up in sleep and tosses about without restraint. So every kind of vision assails it, stripped of intellect and reason: it seems to couple with its mother, or with anyone else, human or god, often even a beast; to slaughter someone and stain itself with impious blood; and to commit many foul and loathsome acts with recklessness and shamelessness.

[61]
“‘But suppose a person gives himself to rest after a healthy, moderate way of living and eating, having roused and quickened the part of the soul that thinks and judges, and fed it with a feast of good thoughts. Suppose the part nourished by pleasure is neither starved by want nor overflowing with excess—both commonly blunt the mind’s vision, whether nature lacks something or has an overflowing abundance. Suppose also that the third part of the soul, where anger blazes up, has been soothed and quenched. Then, with the two unruly parts subdued, the third, the seat of reason and intellect, will shine out, showing itself vigorous and keen for dreaming; and the visions that meet it in sleep will be peaceful and true.’ I have rendered Plato’s very words.

### Book 1, Chapter 30

[62]
“Shall we listen to Epicurus instead? Carneades, in his eagerness for debate, says now one thing and now another; Epicurus says what he thinks, but never thinks anything refined or noble. Will you set him above Plato and Socrates, who, even if they offered no reasons, would outweigh these petty philosophers by their authority alone? Plato, then, bids us go to sleep with our bodies in such a state that nothing can bring error and disturbance to our minds. This is also thought to be why the Pythagoreans were forbidden to eat beans: that food produces great flatulence, which disturbs the tranquility of a mind seeking truth.

[63]
“When, therefore, sleep withdraws the soul from companionship and contact with the body, it remembers the past, perceives the present, and foresees the future. The sleeper’s body lies like a dead man’s, but the soul is vigorous and alive. Far more will it be so after death, when it has left the body altogether. Hence, as death draws near, its power of divination greatly increases. People afflicted by a grave and fatal illness perceive that death itself is near; images of the dead often appear to them, and at that time they are especially eager for praise, while those who have lived otherwise than they should are then most tormented by remorse for their sins.

[64]
“Posidonius offers further support for the divination of the dying with the example of a Rhodian who, as he lay dying, named six men of his own age and said which would die first, which second, and which would follow each in turn. He holds that people dream through the impulse of the gods in three ways: first, the soul foresees by its own power, bound as it is by kinship to the gods; second, the air is full of immortal souls in which the marks of truth appear as though imprinted; third, the gods themselves converse with sleepers. And, as I said just now, it is easier for souls to foretell the future when death is near.

### Book 1, Chapter 31

[65]
“From this come the words of Calanus, whom I mentioned earlier, and those of Homer's Hector, who, as he dies, foretells Achilles' approaching death. Nor would common usage have accepted this expression without reason, if there were no such thing at all:

‘My heart foresaw a fruitless journey as I left my home.’

“For the Latin sagire means to perceive keenly: hence old women are called sagae, because they want to know so much, and dogs sagaces, keen-scented. Someone who perceives a thing before it presents itself is therefore said to praesagire—to sense the future in advance.

[66]
“The soul, then, has a power of foreknowledge, imparted from outside and lodged within it by divine agency. When it flares more fiercely, it is called frenzy: the soul is drawn away from the body and stirred by a divine impulse.

H. ‘But why this sudden frenzy in your blazing eyes?
Where is the wise restraint you showed so recently, a modest girl?’
C. ‘Mother, a woman far better than the best of women,
I am driven by the ravings of superstitious prophetic visions;
For Apollo drives me mad against my will to speak fate’s decrees.
I shrink before the girls my age; I blush for what I do before my father,
That best of men; my mother, I pity you and loathe myself.
You bore Priam splendid children—all but me; that is my grief.
Must I harm while they help, I resist while they obey?’

“What tender poetry, how true to character, how moving! But this is less to the point;

[67]
“what we are looking for is expressed in the following lines: frenzy often speaks true prophecy.

‘It comes, it comes, a torch wrapped round with blood and fire!
For many years it lay concealed; citizens, bring help and quench it!’

“Now it is a god enclosed in a human body who speaks, not Cassandra.

‘And now upon the mighty sea a swift fleet
Is being built; a swarm sweeps ruin onward;
It will come: a savage host, in sail-winged
Ships, will crowd the shores.’

### Book 1, Chapter 32

[68]
“I seem to be talking of tragedies and fables. Yet from you yourself I heard an event of the same kind, not invented but real. Gaius Coponius, a man of exceptional judgment and learning, came to you at Dyrrhachium while commanding the Rhodian fleet with a praetor's authority. He said that a rower in one of the Rhodians’ quinqueremes had prophesied that in fewer than thirty days Greece would be drenched in blood; that there would be plundering at Dyrrhachium, a flight to the ships, and, for the fugitives, a pitiful backward view of fires; but that the Rhodian fleet was granted an early return and homecoming. You yourself were shaken, you said, and Marcus Varro and Marcus Cato, learned men who were there at the time, were profoundly alarmed. And indeed, only a few days later Labienus arrived, fleeing from Pharsalus. Once he had reported the army's destruction, the rest of the prophecy was soon fulfilled.

[69]
“For grain plundered and spilled from the storehouses had carpeted every street and alley. Suddenly stricken with terror, you boarded the ships, and at night, looking back toward the town, you saw cargo vessels blazing: the soldiers had set them on fire because their crews had refused to follow. Finally, when the Rhodian fleet deserted you, you realized that the man had been a true prophet.

[70]
“I have set out as briefly as I could the oracles of dreams and frenzy, which I said involved no art. Both kinds have a single explanation, the one our friend Cratippus commonly gives. Human souls have in some measure been drawn and taken from outside themselves; this implies the existence outside us of a divine soul from which the human soul is derived. The part of the human soul that possesses sensation, movement, and desire is not detached from the body's activity; but the part that shares in reason and understanding is most vigorous when it is furthest removed from the body.

[71]
“Accordingly, after giving examples of truthful prophecies and dreams, Cratippus generally concludes his argument in this way: ‘If the task and function of eyes cannot exist without eyes, while eyes may sometimes fail to perform their function, anyone who has used his eyes even once so as to see truly possesses the visual faculty that sees truly. In the same way, then, if the task and function of divination cannot exist without divination, while someone who possesses divination may sometimes go wrong and fail to see truly, a single instance of a prediction made in such a way that nothing seems to have happened by chance is enough to establish divination. There are, however, countless instances of this kind. We must therefore acknowledge that divination exists.’

### Book 1, Chapter 33

[72]
“But those forms of divination that are explained by interpretation, or have been observed and recorded through their outcomes, are called, as I said above, not natural but artificial. Among their practitioners are haruspices, augurs, and interpreters of signs. The Peripatetics reject these arts; the Stoics defend them. Some are established in records and systematic teaching, as the Etruscan books on haruspicy, lightning, and ritual show, along with your own books on augury. Other signs are interpreted on the spur of the moment: Homer has Calchas predict the number of years of the Trojan War from the number of sparrows. Again, we read in Sulla's history of something you witnessed. As he was sacrificing before his headquarters in the territory of Nola, a snake suddenly emerged from the foot of the altar. Gaius Postumius the haruspex begged him to lead his army out on an expedition. Sulla did so, and captured the Samnites' powerfully equipped camp outside the town of Nola.

[73]
“A sign was also interpreted in the case of Dionysius, shortly before he began to reign. Traveling through the territory of Leontini, he led his horse down into a river himself; the horse sank in the whirlpools and did not surface. Despite tremendous efforts he could not drag it out, and went away in distress, as Philistus relates. But when he had gone some distance, he suddenly heard a neigh. He looked back and was delighted to see his horse, full of life, with a swarm of bees settled in its mane. This portent meant that Dionysius would begin to reign a few days later, as he did.

### Book 1, Chapter 34

[74]
“And what a warning the Spartans received shortly before the disaster at Leuctra, when weapons clattered in Hercules' shrine and the statue of Hercules streamed with sweat! At the same time in Thebes, according to Callisthenes, the doors of Hercules' temple, though bolted shut, suddenly opened of their own accord, and the weapons that had been fastened to the walls were found on the ground. At that same time, too, when a sacrifice was being offered to Trophonius at Lebadea, the roosters there began crowing so persistently that they never stopped. The Boeotian augurs then declared that victory belonged to the Thebans, because that bird usually falls silent when defeated, but crows when victorious.

[75]
“In that same period many signs foretold to the Spartans the disaster of the battle at Leuctra. A crown of rough, wild plants suddenly appeared on the head of the statue at Delphi of Lysander, their most illustrious countryman. There were also golden stars at Delphi, dedicated by the Spartans after Lysander's naval victory that crushed the Athenians. Because Castor and Pollux were said to have appeared with the Spartan fleet in that battle, the golden stars I have mentioned were set up at Delphi as those gods' emblems. Shortly before the battle at Leuctra they fell down and could not be found.

[76]
“But the greatest portent for those same Spartans came when they sought an oracle from Jupiter at Dodona, inquiring about victory. Their envoys had set out the vessel containing the lots, when a pet monkey belonging to the king of the Molossians upset both the lots themselves and everything else prepared for the drawing, scattering them in all directions. The priestess in charge of the oracle is then said to have declared that the Spartans should be thinking of survival, not victory.

### Book 1, Chapter 35

[77]
“And in the Second Punic War, did not Gaius Flaminius, consul for the second time, neglect signs of the future, with terrible loss to the state? After purifying his army, he had broken camp for Arretium and was leading his legions against Hannibal, when both he and his horse suddenly fell for no reason before the statue of Jupiter Stator. Yet he felt no religious scruple at this, though the sign, as the experts understood it, had been put in his path to warn him not to join battle. Again, when he was taking the auspices from the chickens' feeding, their keeper tried to postpone the day of battle. Flaminius asked what he thought should be done if the chickens refused to eat even later. When the man replied that they must stay still, Flaminius said: ‘Splendid auspices indeed, if we can act when the chickens are hungry, but do nothing when they are full!’ He therefore ordered the standards pulled up and the troops to follow him. At that point the standard-bearer of the first company of spearmen could not move his standard from its place, and even when more men came to help they made no progress. On receiving the report, Flaminius ignored it, as usual. And so, within those three hours, his army was cut to pieces and he himself was killed.

### Book 1, Chapter 36

[78]
“Coelius adds another striking fact. At the very time this disastrous battle was being fought, earthquakes of such force struck Liguria, Gaul, several islands, and all of Italy that many towns collapsed; in many places landslides occurred and the earth subsided, rivers reversed their courses, and the sea poured into their channels.

“Experts can make reliable interpretations in divination. When the famous Phrygian Midas was a sleeping child, ants piled grains of wheat into his mouth. It was predicted that he would be immensely rich, and so he was. But when bees settled on the lips of the infant Plato as he slept in his cradle, the interpretation was that his speech would possess a singular sweetness. Thus his future eloquence was foreseen in infancy.

[79]
“And Roscius, your darling and delight—was he lying, or was the whole of Lanuvium lying on his behalf? When he was still in his cradle, being brought up at Solonium, a plain in the territory of Lanuvium, his nurse woke one night and, by the light beside her, noticed that the sleeping child was wrapped in a snake's coils. Terrified at the sight, she cried out. Roscius' father consulted the haruspices, who replied that no one would be more distinguished or more famous than that child. Pasiteles engraved this scene in silver, and our friend Archias gave it form in verse. What, then, are we waiting for? For the immortal gods to mingle with us in the Forum, in the streets, in our homes? They do not present themselves in person, but spread their power far and wide, sometimes confining it within the earth's caverns, sometimes weaving it into human natures. For the earth's power stirred the Pythia at Delphi, and the power of her own nature stirred the Sibyl. Why, do we not see how varied the different kinds of land are? Some places are deadly, such as Ampsanctus in the country of the Hirpini and the Plutonian sites in Asia, which we have seen. Other tracts are pestilential or healthy; some produce keen minds, others dull ones. All this results from differences in the climate and from the unequal exhalations of the earth.

### Book 1, Chapter 37

[80]
“Often, too, some vision, the solemn sound of voices, or song gives the soul a more powerful impulse; often anxiety and fear do so, as in the case of that woman,

‘Her heart distraught, as though possessed, or stirred by Bacchus' rites,
Remembering her Teucer among the burial mounds.’

“That very excitement also reveals a divine power within the soul. Democritus denies that anyone can be a great poet without frenzy, and Plato says the same. Let him call it frenzy if he pleases, provided he praises that frenzy as it is praised in Plato's Phaedrus. And what of your speeches in court, what of their very delivery? Can they be forceful, weighty, and abundant unless the soul itself is stirred more intensely? Indeed, I have often seen in you—and, to turn to lighter matters, in your friend Aesopus—such fire of expression and gesture that some power seemed to have carried him beyond conscious awareness.

### Book 1, Chapter 38

[81]
“Often, too, forms appear before us that have no real existence, but present themselves to sight. This is said to have happened to Brennus and his Gallic forces when he launched his sacrilegious attack on the shrine of Apollo at Delphi. Then, they say, the Pythia spoke from the oracle:

‘I will see to this, with the white maidens.’

“And so it happened that maidens were seen bearing arms against them, and the Gallic army was buried in snow.

“Aristotle indeed thought that even those who were maddened by illness and called melancholics had something prophetic and divine in their souls. But I am inclined to think that we should grant this neither to sufferers from heart disease nor to the delirious: divination belongs to a sound soul, not to a disordered body.

[82]
“That divination really exists is established by this Stoic argument: ‘If gods exist and do not declare the future to human beings in advance, either they do not love humanity, or they do not know what will happen, or they think it is of no concern to humanity to know the future, or they do not think it consistent with their majesty to foretell the future to human beings, or even the gods themselves cannot signify it. But they do not fail to love us, for they are beneficent and friendly to the human race; nor are they ignorant of what they themselves have ordained and determined; nor is it of no concern to us to know what will happen, for with knowledge we shall be more cautious; nor do they consider it beneath their majesty, for nothing surpasses beneficence; nor are they unable to foreknow the future;

[83]
“‘therefore it is not the case that gods exist and do not signify the future. But gods do exist; therefore they signify it. And if they signify it, they do not fail to give us ways of understanding their signs, for otherwise their signs would be pointless; nor, if they give us such ways, can divination fail to exist. Therefore divination exists.’

### Book 1, Chapter 39

[84]
“This is the argument used by Chrysippus, Diogenes, and Antipater. What reason, then, is there to doubt the absolute truth of what I have argued, if reason is on my side, if events are, if peoples and nations are, Greeks and foreigners alike, and even our own ancestors; if, in short, this has always been the accepted belief; if the greatest philosophers support it, and poets, and the wisest men who established states and founded cities? Are we waiting for the beasts to speak, dissatisfied with the unanimous authority of humanity?

[85]
“Indeed, the only objection offered to the existence of the kinds of divination I describe is that it seems difficult to explain the principle and cause of each. What reason can the haruspex give why a cleft in the lung, even when the other entrails are favorable, interrupts proceedings and postpones the day? What reason can the augur give why a raven on the right or a crow on the left confirms an undertaking? What can the astrologer say about why Jupiter or Venus in conjunction with the moon at a child's birth is beneficial, while Saturn or Mars has the opposite effect? Why does a god warn us when we sleep and neglect us when we are awake? And why can Cassandra foresee the future in her frenzy, while Priam in his wisdom cannot do the same?

[86]
“You ask why each thing happens. Quite right; but that is not the question now. The question is whether it happens or not. It is as if I said there was a magnetic stone that drew and pulled iron toward itself, and, because I could not explain why this happened, you denied that it happened at all. You do just the same with divination, which we ourselves witness, hear about, read of, and have inherited from our fathers. Before the revelation of philosophy, itself a recent discovery, ordinary life had no doubts on this subject; and after philosophy advanced, no philosopher of any standing held a different view.

### Book 1, Chapter 40

[87]
“I have spoken of Pythagoras, Democritus, and Socrates; among the ancients I excepted no one but Xenophanes, and I added the Old Academy, the Peripatetics, and the Stoics. Epicurus alone dissents. Yet what could be more disgraceful than his further belief that no virtue is practiced for its own sake?

“Who could fail to be moved by antiquity, attested and recorded in the most illustrious memorials? Homer writes that Calchas was by far the best augur, and that he guided the fleets to Troy—through his knowledge of auspices, I suppose, not of geography.

[88]
“Amphilochus and Mopsus were kings of the Argives, but also augurs, and they founded Greek cities on the coast of Cilicia. Earlier still, Amphiaraus and Tiresias were not lowly, obscure men, nor like those who, in Ennius' words,

‘For their own profit conjure up invented revelations,’

“but distinguished and eminent men who, warned by birds and signs, foretold the future. Of one of them Homer says that even among the dead ‘he alone has understanding, while the others flit about like shadows.’ As for Amphiaraus, Greek tradition has so honored him that he is regarded as a god, and oracles are sought from the ground in which he lies buried.

[89]
“And did not Priam, king of Asia, have both a son, Helenus, and a daughter, Cassandra, who practiced divination—the one through augury, the other through a divine stirring and agitation of the mind? We read that among our ancestors there were certain brothers of the Marcius family, men of noble birth, who belonged to this latter class. And does not Homer relate that Polyidus of Corinth made many predictions to others, and foretold death to his son as he left for Troy? In general, among the ancients, the men who held power also understood augury: they considered divination, like wisdom, a royal accomplishment. Our own state bears witness: here the kings were augurs, and afterward private citizens, invested with that same priesthood, guided the state through the authority of religion.

### Book 1, Chapter 41

[90]
“Nor has this practice of divination been neglected even among foreign peoples. In Gaul there are Druids, and I myself knew one of them, Divitiacus the Aeduan, your guest-friend and admirer. He professed a knowledge of nature's workings, what the Greeks call φυσιολογίαν, the study of nature, and foretold the future partly through augury and partly through interpretation. Among the Persians, too, the Magi practice augury and divination. They gather in a shrine to study and confer with one another, as you augurs yourselves once used to do on the Nones;

[91]
“and no one can become king of Persia without first mastering the teaching and knowledge of the Magi. We can also see particular families and nations devoted to this science. There is Telmessus in Caria, a city where the discipline of the haruspices excels. Elis in the Peloponnese likewise has two particular families, the Iamidae and the Clutidae, preeminent for their renown in haruspicy. In Syria the Chaldeans excel in knowledge of the stars and keenness of intellect.

[92]
“Etruria observes lightning strikes with consummate expertise, and also interprets what each marvel and portent signifies. Our ancestors' senate therefore acted wisely when, at the height of our power, it decreed that ten sons of leading families from each of the peoples of Etruria should be handed over for instruction. So great an art should not, through the poverty of its practitioners, be diverted from religious authority to paid employment and profit. The Phrygians, Pisidians, Cilicians, and the Arab people pay the closest heed to signs from birds; we have learned that the same practice was customary in Umbria.

### Book 1, Chapter 42

[93]
“Indeed, I think opportunities for divination also arose from the very places each people inhabited. The Egyptians and Babylonians lived on broad, level plains, where nothing rose from the earth to obstruct their contemplation of the heavens, and so devoted all their attention to knowledge of the stars. The Etruscans, steeped in religion, sacrificed victims more zealously and more often, and thus applied themselves above all to understanding the entrails. And because the density of their atmosphere brought many events from the sky, and for the same reason many strange things arose—some from the sky, others from the earth, and still others in the conception and birth of humans and livestock—they became highly practiced interpreters of portents. As you often say, the very words our ancestors wisely chose reveal the force of these signs: ostenta, portenta, monstra, and prodigia are so called because they display, foreshadow, show, and foretell.

[94]
“The Arabs, Phrygians, and Cilicians, however, live chiefly by tending livestock, roaming plains and mountains in winter and summer, and therefore more readily observed the calls and flights of birds. The same explanation applies to Pisidia and to our own Umbria. Then all Caria, and especially the people of Telmessus whom I mentioned before, were diligent observers of portents, because they inhabited exceptionally rich and fertile lands, whose fertility could shape and bring forth many unusual things.

### Book 1, Chapter 43

[95]
“Who does not see that auspices and the other forms of divination have carried the greatest weight in every well-ordered state? What king or people ever lived without using divine prediction? And not only in peace, but far more in war, where the struggle and the danger to survival were greater. I leave aside our own people, who consult entrails before every action in war and observe auspices before every action at home; let us look abroad. The Athenians always brought certain divining priests, whom they call μάντεις, seers, into all their public deliberations. The Spartans gave their kings an augur to sit beside them, and also required an augur to attend their elders, as they call their public council. On more important matters they always sought an oracle at Delphi, from Ammon, or from Dodona.

[96]
“Lycurgus, who framed the Spartan constitution, confirmed his laws by the authority of Apollo at Delphi; and when Lysander wished to alter them, that same religious authority prevented him. Nor were the Spartan magistrates content with the cares of their waking hours: they spent the night in Pasiphae's shrine, in the countryside near the city, for the purpose of dreaming, because they believed the oracles of sleep were true.

[97]
“Now I return to our own affairs. How often the senate has ordered the Board of Ten to consult the books! In what momentous matters, and how frequently, it has obeyed the responses of the haruspices! There were the appearances of two suns, of three moons, of blazing torches; the sun was seen at night, a roar was heard from the sky, the heavens seemed to split apart and globes were observed within them. The senate also received reports of a collapse in the territory of Privernum, where the earth had sunk to an unfathomable depth, and of tremendous earthquakes that had shaken Apulia. These portents foretold great wars and destructive civil strife for the Roman people; and in all these cases the responses of the haruspices agreed with the Sibyl's verses.

[98]
“And when Apollo at Cumae and Victory at Capua sweated? Was not the birth of a child with both sexes a portent of destiny? What of the river Atratus flowing with blood? What of the showers that so often rained stones, sometimes blood, at other times earth, and once even milk? And when lightning struck the Centaur on the Capitol, gates and people on the Aventine, the temple of Castor and Pollux at Tusculum, and that of Piety at Rome—did not the haruspices foretell what came to pass, and were not the same predictions found in the Sibyl's books?

### Book 1, Chapter 44

[99]
“Only recently, during the Marsic War, a dream of Caecilia, daughter of Quintus, led the senate to restore the temple of Juno Sospita, the Savior. Sisenna argues that this dream corresponded wonderfully, down to the very word, with what happened; then, perversely, and I suppose at some Epicurean's prompting, he argues that dreams should not be trusted. Yet he offers no argument against portents. He relates that at the beginning of the Marsic War statues of the gods sweated, blood flowed, the heavens split apart, and voices from unseen sources were heard announcing the dangers of war; at Lanuvium shields were gnawed by mice, which the haruspices considered a most ominous sign.

[100]
“And what of the account in our annals? During the war with Veii, when Lake Alban rose beyond its usual measure, a certain man of noble birth defected to us from Veii. He said that according to the prophecies the Veientines possessed in writing, Veii could not be captured as long as that lake overflowed; if its waters were released and ran down their natural course to the sea, it would bring ruin to the Roman people; but if they were drawn off in such a way that they could not reach the sea, it would bring salvation to our people. Hence that marvelous drainage channel our ancestors made for the Alban waters. But when the Veientines, exhausted by war, sent envoys to the senate, one of them is said to have declared that the defector had not dared tell the senate everything: the same written prophecies in the possession of Veii said that Rome would soon be taken by the Gauls. And that, as we know, happened six years after the capture of Veii.

### Book 1, Chapter 45

[101]
“Often, too, Fauns are said to have been heard in battle, and in troubled times truthful voices to have sounded from unseen sources. Of the many examples, let me give two, and those among the greatest. Not long before the capture of the city, a voice was heard from Vesta's grove, which slopes down from the foot of the Palatine to the New Street. It said that the walls and gates must be repaired; unless precautions were taken, Rome would be captured. Neglected when the danger could still have been averted, this warning was atoned for after that overwhelming disaster: an altar to Aius Loquens—the enclosed altar we can still see—was consecrated opposite the spot. Many writers also record that after an earthquake a voice came from Juno's temple on the citadel, ordering an expiatory sacrifice of a pregnant sow. For this reason that Juno was called Moneta, the Warner. Are we, then, to despise these signs, given by the gods and recognized by our ancestors?

[102]
“The Pythagoreans attended not only to the voices of gods, but also to those of human beings, which they call omens. Because our ancestors thought these had force, they prefaced every undertaking with the words ‘May this be good, auspicious, happy, and fortunate.’ At public religious rites people were commanded to ‘speak only favorable words,’ and when holidays were proclaimed, to ‘refrain from lawsuits and quarrels.’ Likewise, when the founder of a colony purified it, or a commander purified his army, or a censor the people, men with auspicious names were chosen to lead the sacrificial victims. The consuls observe the same rule in the levy, making sure that the first soldier enrolled has an auspicious name.

### Book 1, Chapter 46

[103]
“You know that you yourself observed these rules with the utmost religious care, both as consul and as commander. Our ancestors also intended the century chosen to vote first to furnish an omen for the formal election. Let me offer some familiar examples of omens. Lucius Paulus, consul for the second time, had been assigned the war against King Perseus. Returning home toward evening that very day, he kissed his little daughter Tertia, then still very young, and noticed that she was rather sad. ‘What is it, my Tertia?’ he asked. ‘Why are you sad?’ ‘Father,’ she said, ‘Persa is dead.’ Then he hugged the child more closely and said, ‘My daughter, I accept the omen.’ It was a puppy of that name that had died.

[104]
“I heard Lucius Flaccus, the priest of Mars, tell how Caecilia, Metellus' wife, wishing to arrange a marriage for her sister's daughter, went to a little shrine to take an omen, as was customary in the old days. The girl stood while Caecilia sat on a chair, and for a long time no voice was heard. At last the girl grew tired and asked her aunt to give her a place, so that she could rest a little in her chair. ‘Of course, my girl,’ she replied, ‘I give you my place.’ Events fulfilled the omen: Caecilia herself died shortly afterward, and the girl married the man who had been Caecilia's husband. I understand perfectly that these things can be despised or even laughed at. But to despise what the gods signify is itself to disbelieve in the gods.

### Book 1, Chapter 47

[105]
“Why should I speak of augurs? That is your part: yours, I insist, should be the defense of the auspices. When you were consul, the augur Appius Claudius reported to you, after a doubtful augury for the state's safety, that a grim and turbulent civil war would arise. It broke out a few months later, and you crushed it in even fewer days. I strongly agree with that augur: alone within the memory of many years, he preserved the discipline not of chanting augural formulas but of divination. Your colleagues mocked him, calling him now a Pisidian, now a Soran augur. They thought augury contained neither foreknowledge nor any true understanding of the future; in their wisdom, they said that religious observances had been invented to sway the ignorant. That is far from the truth. Neither those shepherds whom Romulus led nor Romulus himself could have possessed the cunning to fabricate the semblance of religion in order to deceive the multitude. But the difficulty and labor of learning have made their negligence eloquent: they would rather argue that auspices mean nothing than learn what they mean.

[106]
“What could be more divine than the auspice in your Marius? Let me choose you above all as my authority:

‘Here suddenly the winged attendant of high-thundering Jupiter,
Wounded by a serpent's bite, rises from a tree trunk,
Herself transfixing in her savage talons the snake,
Half-dead, its mottled neck still writhing heavily.
She tears it as it writhes and bloodies it with her beak,
Until her spirit sated, her bitter pain avenged,
She casts it out, gasping, and dashes it mangled into the water,
Then turns from the setting sun toward its radiant rising.
Her, gliding in flight on her swift wings,
Marius beheld, interpreter of the divine will;
And as he marked the happy signs of his own glory and return,
The Father himself thundered from the left quarter of the sky.
So Jupiter confirmed the eagle's glorious omen.’

### Book 1, Chapter 48

[107]
“And Romulus' augury belonged to shepherd life, not city life; it was not fabricated to influence the ignorant, but received from trustworthy men and handed down to posterity. Thus Romulus the augur, as Ennius tells it, together with his brother, also an augur,

‘Deeply intent, and each desiring
Kingship, devote themselves to auspice and augury together.
On the hill Remus gives himself to the auspice and, alone,
Watches for a favorable bird. But handsome Romulus on high
Seeks on the Aventine, watching the race of high-flying birds.
They vied: would the city be called Rome or Remora?
Every man was anxious: which would be the ruler?
They wait, as when the consul means to give the starting
Signal, and all watch eagerly the edges of the stalls,

[108]
How soon he will send chariots from the painted mouths:
So the people waited, their faces fearful,
To whom the victory of mighty kingship would be given.
Meanwhile the pale sun withdrew into the depths of night.
Then shining light came forth, struck through with rays,
And at once, far overhead, a bird of matchless beauty
Flew auspiciously on the left. At once the golden sun arose;
Three times four sacred shapes descend
From heaven—birds alighting in fair and favorable places.
Then Romulus sees that first place has been granted him,
The throne and ground of kingship made firm by the auspice.’

### Book 1, Chapter 49

[109]
“But to bring my argument back to the point from which it wandered: if I could give no explanation of why each thing happens, and merely showed that the things I have described do happen, would my answer to Epicurus or Carneades be inadequate? What if an explanation of artificial foreknowledge is actually easy to give, while that of divinely inspired foreknowledge is somewhat less clear? For predictions drawn from entrails, lightning, portents, and stars have been recorded through long observation. In every field, the long observation of ages brings astonishing knowledge. This may exist even without any movement or impulse from the gods, once repeated attention has revealed what follows from each thing and what signifies each event.

[110]
“The other kind of divination is natural, as I said before. Through a subtle inquiry into nature, it must be traced to the nature of the gods, from which, according to the most learned and wisest thinkers, our souls have been drawn, each a small share. Since all things are filled and pervaded with eternal awareness and divine mind, human souls must be stirred by their kinship with divine souls. But while awake, souls serve life's necessities and, hampered by the body's bonds, sever themselves from fellowship with the divine.

[111]
“There is a rare class of people who withdraw from the body and are swept with all their care and zeal toward knowledge of divine things. Their predictions come not from divine impulse but from human reason: through nature they foresee future events, such as floods and the conflagration that will one day consume heaven and earth. Others, experienced in public affairs, foresee the rise of tyranny long beforehand, as we are told of Solon the Athenian. We may call such men prudent—that is, provident, seeing ahead—but we cannot possibly call them diviners, any more than Thales of Miletus. To refute his critics and show that even a philosopher could make money if he found it worthwhile, he is said to have bought up the whole olive crop in the territory of Miletus before it began to flower.

### Book 1, Chapter 50

[112]
“Perhaps some special knowledge had shown him that the olive harvest would be abundant. He is also said to have been the first to predict the eclipse of the sun that occurred in the reign of Astyages.

“Doctors foresee many things, as do pilots and farmers, but I call none of their predictions divination—not even the warning given to the Spartans by Anaximander, the natural philosopher, to leave their city and houses and spend the night armed in the countryside, because an earthquake was imminent. At that time the entire city collapsed, and the end of Mount Taygetus was torn away like a ship's stern. Nor should Pherecydes, the famous teacher of Pythagoras, be considered a diviner rather than a natural philosopher because, on seeing water drawn from a never-failing well, he declared that an earthquake was imminent.

[113]
“Indeed, the human soul never divines naturally unless it is so unbound and free that it has absolutely no dealings with the body. This happens either to prophets or to sleepers. Dicaearchus therefore accepts these two kinds, as does our friend Cratippus, as I said. If it is because they arise from nature, let them certainly rank highest, provided they are not the only ones. But if these men think observation has no value, they abolish much that sustains the conduct of life. Still, since they grant something, and no small thing—prophecy together with dreams—we have no reason to fight them very hard, especially when some people accept no divination at all.

[114]
“Those, then, whose souls spurn their bodies, take wing, and range abroad, fired and stirred by some ardor, surely see the things they proclaim in prophecy. Many things kindle such souls, no longer fastened to their bodies: some are stirred by a particular sound of voices and by Phrygian songs. Groves and forests move many, rivers or seas many others, whose frenzied minds see far in advance what will happen. Of this kind are these lines:

‘Alas, look!
Someone will give a famous judgment among three goddesses;
Through that judgment a Spartan woman, one of the Furies, will come.’

“For in the same way prophets have often foretold many things, not only in words but also in

‘Verses such as Fauns and prophets sang of old.’

### Book 1, Chapter 51

[115]
“The prophets Marcius and Publicius are said to have sung in the same way; of this kind, too, were the revelations of Apollo's mysteries. I also believe that certain exhalations rose from the earth, filling minds with inspiration so that they poured forth oracles.

“This, then, explains prophets, and the explanation of dreams is certainly not unlike it. What happens to prophets while awake happens to us in sleep. For in dreams the soul is vigorous, freed from the senses and from every hindrance of care, while the body lies almost dead. Since it has lived from all eternity and mingled with innumerable souls, it sees everything that exists in the nature of things—provided that moderation in food and drink has put it in a condition to remain awake itself while the body sleeps. Such is the divination of the dreamer.

[116]
“Here arises a great field of interpretation, not natural but artificial: Antiphon's interpretation of dreams, and likewise that of oracles and prophecies. For there are interpreters of these, just as scholars interpret poets. Divine nature would have produced gold and silver, bronze and iron in vain, had she not also taught us how to reach their veins; nor would she have given the earth's crops or the trees' berries with any benefit to humanity, had she not passed on their cultivation and preservation; nor would timber help us at all if we lacked the craft of working it. In the same way, every benefit the gods have given humanity is accompanied by some art through which that benefit can be enjoyed. Accordingly, because dreams, prophecies, and oracles contained much that was obscure and much that was ambiguous, interpreters supplied explanations.

[117]
“But how prophets or dreamers see things that do not yet exist anywhere is a great question. If, however, we establish what ought to be investigated first, our present inquiries will be easier. For this whole question rests on the account of the nature of the gods that you explained so clearly in your second book. If we maintain that account, the foundation of our present subject will stand: gods exist, the universe is governed by their providence, and they care for human affairs, not only in the whole but in each particular case. If we hold to these principles, which seem to me unassailable, the gods must surely give human beings signs of the future.

### Book 1, Chapter 52

[118]
“But we should distinguish how they do so. The Stoics do not hold that a god is present at every cleft in a liver or every birdcall: that is neither fitting nor worthy of the gods, nor in any way possible. Rather, the universe was so constituted from its beginning that certain signs should precede certain events—some in entrails, some in birds, some in lightning, some in portents, some in stars, some in the visions of dreamers, and some in the voices of the frenzied. Those who have grasped these signs well are not often deceived. Mistaken inferences and interpretations prove false not through any fault in the things themselves, but through the interpreters' ignorance. Once we establish and grant that some divine power encompasses human life, it is not difficult to conceive how the things we certainly see happening come about. For a conscious power diffused throughout the universe may guide the choice of a sacrificial victim; and at the very moment you intend to sacrifice, a change in the entrails may occur, so that something is missing or something is added. With slight impulses nature fashions, alters, or removes many things.

[119]
“A most powerful proof, leaving no room for doubt, is what happened shortly before Caesar's death. He was sacrificing on the day when he first sat in a golden chair and appeared in a purple robe, and among the entrails of a fat ox there was no heart. Do you suppose, then, that any creature possessing blood can live without a heart? He was shaken by this strange occurrence, and Spurinna said there was reason to fear that both judgment and life might fail him, since both had their source in the heart. The following day the liver's head-lobe was missing. These things were portended to him by the immortal gods so that he might see his destruction, not escape it. When, therefore, parts are not found among the entrails without which the victim could not have lived, we must understand that those missing parts perished at the very moment of sacrifice.

### Book 1, Chapter 53

[120]
“The same divine mind causes birds to do the same: birds whose flight gives omens fly now this way, now that, or hide themselves now in one quarter, now in another, while birds whose calls give omens sing now on the right, now on the left. For every animal moves its body as it wishes—face down, sideways, or face up—and bends, twists, extends, and draws in its limbs wherever it wishes, doing these things almost before it thinks. How much easier, then, for a god, whose will all things obey!

[121]
“He also sends us signs of the kind history has handed down in such abundance. For instance, we find it written that if the moon were eclipsed in the sign of Leo shortly before sunrise, Darius and the Persians would be defeated in battle by Alexander and the Macedonians, and Darius would die; that if a girl were born with two heads, there would be sedition among the people, corruption and adultery in the home; and that if a woman were seen to have given birth to a lion, the state in which it happened would be conquered by foreign nations. The same kind of sign appears in Herodotus' account of Croesus' son, who had been unable to speak, speaking: the portent foretold the utter collapse of his father's kingdom and household. What history has failed to relate that the head of Servius Tullius blazed as he slept? Just as someone who goes to rest with his mind prepared by good thoughts and his circumstances arranged for tranquility sees certain and truthful things in dreams, so a chaste and pure soul when awake is better prepared to perceive the truth in stars, birds, other signs, and entrails.

### Book 1, Chapter 54

[122]
“This is surely what we have learned about Socrates, and what he himself often says in the writings of the Socratics: there was something divine, which he calls his δαιμόνιον, his divine sign, that he always obeyed. It never urged him on, but often called him back. And Socrates—what better authority could we ask for?—when Xenophon consulted him about whether to join Cyrus, first explained his own view, then said: ‘Our counsel, however, is only human; on obscure and uncertain matters I think we should refer the question to Apollo.’ The Athenians, too, always consulted Apollo publicly on their more important affairs.

[123]
“It is also recorded that on seeing his friend Crito with a bandage over his eye, Socrates asked what was wrong. Crito replied that while he was walking in the country a bent twig had been released and sprung back into his eye. Socrates then said: ‘You did not obey me when I called you back, using my usual divine foreknowledge.’ Again, after the defeat at Delium, where Laches was in command, Socrates was fleeing with Laches himself. When they reached a place where three roads met, he refused to flee the same way as the others. They asked why he would not go along their road, and he replied that the god was warning him away. Those who fled by the other route did indeed fall in with the enemy cavalry. Antipater has collected a vast number of remarkable predictions made by Socrates. I shall pass over them, since you know them and I have no need to recount them.

### Book 1, Chapter 55

[124]
“Yet there is something magnificent, almost divine, in that philosopher's declaration, after his condemnation by impious votes, that he faced death with complete serenity. Neither when leaving home nor when mounting the platform where he had pleaded his case had he received from the god any of his customary signs warning of impending evil.

“For my part, I believe that even if those who seem to divine through art or interpretation are often mistaken, divination still exists; human beings can make mistakes in this art as in all others. A sign given ambiguously may have been taken as certain; a sign itself may have gone unnoticed, or one that contradicted it. To establish my argument, it is enough for me to find instances of things divinely foreknown and predicted—not necessarily many, but even a few.

[125]
“Indeed, I would go further and say without hesitation: if even one thing has been predicted and foreknown in such a way that, when it occurs, it happens as predicted, and nothing in it appears to have come about by accident or chance, then divination certainly exists, and everyone must acknowledge it.

“Accordingly, I think, as Posidonius does, that the whole power and principle of divination must be traced first to god, of whom enough has been said, then to fate, and then to nature. Reason compels us to admit, then, that everything happens by fate. By fate I mean what the Greeks call εἱμαρμένην: the order and sequence of causes, in which one cause, linked to another, brings an event into being. This is the everlasting truth flowing from all eternity. Since this is so, nothing has happened that was not going to happen, and likewise nothing will happen whose effective causes are not already contained in nature.

[126]
“From this we understand that fate is not what superstition calls it, but what natural philosophy describes: the eternal cause of things, explaining why past events happened, present events happen, and future events will happen. Thus observation can record which event usually follows each cause, even if not always—for that would indeed be difficult to maintain. It is also likely that these same causes of future events are perceived by those who see them either in frenzy or in sleep.

### Book 1, Chapter 56

[127]
“Moreover, since everything happens by fate, as will be shown elsewhere, if any mortal could survey in his mind the interconnection of all causes, surely nothing would escape him. Anyone who grasped the causes of future events would necessarily grasp everything that was going to happen. Since no one but a god can do this, human beings must be left to foresee the future through certain signs that reveal what follows. For future things do not spring into existence suddenly: the passage of time is like the uncoiling of a rope, producing nothing new and unfolding each thing in its turn. This is seen both by those granted natural divination and by those who have recorded the course of events through observation. Though they do not perceive the causes themselves, they do perceive their signs and marks. By applying memory, diligence, and the records of earlier generations to these, they produce what is called artificial divination, drawn from entrails, lightning, portents, and celestial signs.

[128]
“There is therefore no reason to marvel that diviners foresee things that exist nowhere: everything does exist, but at a distance in time. Just as seeds contain the power of the things that grow from them, so future events lie hidden in their causes. The mind, either stirred to frenzy or released in sleep, sees that these events will happen; reason or interpretation foresees them. Those who understand the risings, settings, and movements of the sun, moon, and other stars predict far in advance when each will occur. In the same way, those who have studied over a long period and recorded the course of things and the sequence of events understand what will happen—always, or, if that is difficult, usually; and if even that is not conceded, certainly sometimes. These arguments, then, and others of the same kind for the existence of divination are drawn from fate.

### Book 1, Chapter 57

[129]
“Nature offers another line of reasoning, revealing how great the soul's power is when separated from the bodily senses, as happens above all in sleep or in states of mental exaltation. For the souls of the gods perceive one another's thoughts without eyes, ears, or tongue; hence human beings, even when silently making a wish or vow, do not doubt that the gods hear it. In the same way, human souls, either released in sleep and free of the body, or stirred to exaltation and moving freely and ardently on their own, perceive things they cannot see while mingled with the body.

[130]
“It may perhaps be difficult to extend this account of nature to the kind of divination we call artificial; nonetheless Posidonius investigates even this as far as he can. He thinks nature contains certain signs of future events. We have learned, for instance, that every year the people of Ceos carefully observe the rising of the Dog Star and infer, as Heraclides of Pontus writes, whether the year will be healthy or pestilential. If the star appears dim and, as it were, shrouded in mist, the atmosphere is thick and dense, so that its breath will be oppressive and pestilential. But if the star appears bright and clear, it signifies that the atmosphere is light and pure, and therefore healthy.

[131]
“Democritus, however, thinks the ancients wisely instituted the inspection of sacrificial victims' entrails: their condition and color reveal signs now of health, now of pestilence, and sometimes even of the future barrenness or fertility of the fields. If observation and experience recognized these signs arising from nature, time could have brought many more to be noticed and recorded. Thus the natural philosopher introduced in Pacuvius' Chryses seems to have understood very little of the nature of things:

‘[…] for those who understand the language of birds,
And learn more from another's liver than their own,
Should, I think, be heard rather than heeded.’

“Why, I ask, when a few lines later you yourself say quite clearly:

‘Whatever this is, it gives all things life and form, nourishes, increases, creates them,
Buries and receives all things back into itself, and is the father of all;
From that same source the same things rise anew, and there they also perish.’

“Why, then, if we all have one shared home, and if human souls have always existed and always will, should they not be able to discern what follows from each thing and what signifies each event? That,” he said, “is what I had to say about divination.”

### Book 1, Chapter 58

[132]
“Now let me declare this: I do not recognize people who cast lots, or those who prophesy for profit, or even those consultations with the dead that your friend Appius used to employ. In short, I put no value at all on a Marsian augur, village haruspices, astrologers from the Circus, interpreters serving Isis, or interpreters of dreams. These are diviners neither by knowledge nor by art,

‘But superstitious prophets, shameless fortune-tellers,
Either lazy or insane, or driven by their poverty,
Who cannot find a footpath for themselves, yet show another the road;
They promise people riches, then beg a drachma from those very people.
Let them deduct their drachma from those riches, and hand over the rest.’

“These are Ennius' words: a few lines earlier he holds that gods exist, but thinks they do not care what the human race does. I, however, believe that they do care, that they warn us, and that they foretell many things; and so, once frivolity, falsehood, and fraud are excluded, I accept divination.” When Quintus had finished, I said, “You certainly came splendidly prepared […]”

### Book 2, Chapter 1

[1]
As I searched, thinking long and deeply about how I might serve the greatest number of people without ever abandoning my concern for the republic, no greater service occurred to me than to open for my fellow citizens the paths to the highest learning. I believe I have already accomplished this in several books. In the book entitled Hortensius I urged the study of philosophy as strongly as I could; and in the four books of the Academics I showed what approach to philosophy I considered least presumptuous, most consistent, and most refined.

[2]
Since philosophy rests on the question of the ultimate ends of good and evil, I thoroughly examined that subject in five books, making it possible to understand what each philosopher maintains and what can be said against each. Five more books followed, the Tusculan Disputations, which set out what is most essential to a happy life. The first concerns contempt for death, the second endurance of pain, the third the easing of grief, and the fourth the other disturbances of the mind. The fifth embraces the principle that casts the strongest light on all philosophy: it teaches that virtue is sufficient in itself for a happy life.

[3]
After publishing these works, I completed three books On the Nature of the Gods, containing the whole inquiry into that subject. To make that inquiry full and complete, I began these books on divination. If, as I intend, I add a work on fate, this entire question will have received more than adequate treatment. With these works should be counted the six books On the Republic, which I wrote when I held the helm of government. This is a great subject, belonging properly to philosophy, and treated in the fullest detail by Plato, Aristotle, Theophrastus, and the whole Peripatetic school. And what shall I say of my Consolation? It certainly brings me some measure of healing, and I think it will be of great service to others too. Recently I also brought out the book On Old Age, addressed to our friend Atticus. And since philosophy makes a man good and courageous, my Cato deserves a foremost place among these works.

### Book 2, Chapter 2

[4]
Since Aristotle and Theophrastus, men outstanding alike in subtlety and abundance of thought, joined instruction in speaking to philosophy, my books on oratory should, I think, be included in the same company: the three books On the Orator, the Brutus as a fourth, and the Orator as a fifth.

Such was my work so far. I was pressing eagerly toward what remained, resolved that, unless some graver cause intervened, no province of philosophy should remain closed, unilluminated by Latin writing. What greater or better gift can we bring the republic than to teach and educate its young people? Especially in an age, and amid moral conditions, in which they have slipped so far that everyone's strength must be enlisted to check and restrain them.

[5]
I do not, of course, expect to achieve what we ought not even to demand—that all young men turn to these studies. If only a few would! Even their efforts could have a wide influence in public life. Indeed, my labor brings me a reward even from those who, already advanced in years, find rest in my books. Their eagerness to read daily gives fresh impetus to my eagerness to write; and I have discovered that they are more numerous than I supposed. This too is a splendid achievement, and a glory for Romans: to have no need of Greek writings on philosophy.

[6]
I shall certainly achieve it if I complete what I have begun. It was the grievous downfall of our state that gave me occasion to expound philosophy. During the civil war I could neither defend the republic in my accustomed way nor remain idle, and I could discover no better occupation worthy of me. My fellow citizens will therefore pardon me—or rather thank me—that when the republic lay in one man's power, I neither hid myself away nor abandoned or crushed my spirit. I did not behave like someone angry with a man or with the times; nor, on the other hand, did I so flatter or admire another's fortune as to regret my own. Plato and philosophy had taught me this very lesson: states undergo certain natural revolutions, passing now into the hands of leading citizens, now into those of the people, and sometimes into those of a single man.

[7]
When this happened to our own republic, deprived of my former duties, I began to renew these studies, chiefly to lighten my mind's distress, and to serve my fellow citizens in whatever way I could. In my books I delivered opinions and addressed the people; I regarded philosophy as my substitute for the conduct of public business. Now that I have begun to be consulted about the republic again, my efforts must be devoted to it—or rather all my thought and care must be placed there, leaving for this pursuit only such time as public duty and service allow. But more of this another time; now let us return to the discussion we began.

### Book 2, Chapter 3

[8]
After my brother Quintus had delivered the argument on divination recorded in the preceding book, and we thought we had walked enough, we sat down in the library in the Lyceum. Then I said: “Quintus, you have defended the Stoic position with precision and in true Stoic style. And what especially delights me is your use of so many examples from our own history, striking and distinguished examples too. I must therefore answer what you have said, but in such a way that I assert nothing and question everything, generally doubting and mistrusting even myself. If I had anything certain to pronounce, I should myself be practicing divination—I who deny that divination exists.

[9]
“For I am troubled by the question Carneades was particularly fond of asking: what is divination about? Is it about things we perceive through our senses? But those are things we see, hear, taste, smell, and touch. Is there anything in them that foreknowledge or some agitation of the mind enables us to perceive better than our natural faculties do? Could your supposed diviner, if he were blind as Tiresias was, tell what is white and what is black? Or, if deaf, recognize differences of voices or musical modes? Divination, then, has no application to anything apprehended by the senses. Nor is it needed in matters governed by skill. When people are ill, we generally bring them doctors, not prophets or soothsayers; and those who wish to play the lyre or pipes learn to handle them from musicians, not from haruspices.

### Book 2, Chapter 4

[10]
“The same holds for literature and all the other subjects that can be taught. Do you think those said to divine can tell us whether the sun is larger than the earth or merely as large as it appears? Whether the moon shines by its own light or the sun's? What motions belong to the sun and moon, or to the five stars called wanderers? Those regarded as diviners do not profess to answer these questions, or to distinguish truth from falsehood in geometrical demonstrations. Such matters belong to mathematicians, not soothsayers.

“And among the questions philosophy debates, is there any that a diviner habitually answers or is asked—what is good, what evil, what neither? These are the particular concerns of philosophers.

[11]
“Again, does anyone consult a haruspex about duty: how to live with parents, brothers, or friends; how to use money, public office, or command? Such questions are generally referred to the wise, not to diviners. And can any of the subjects treated by logicians or natural philosophers be divined? Whether there is one universe or more than one, what the first principles of things are from which everything arises—knowledge of this belongs to natural philosophers. How to resolve the Liar, which they call the ψευδόμενον, or how to resist the sorites—we could, if necessary, call it the ‘heap argument’ in Latin, but there is no need: like ‘philosophy’ itself and many Greek words, ‘sorites’ is familiar enough in Latin speech—these questions too will be answered by logicians, not diviners. And when the inquiry concerns the best form of government, or which laws and customs are useful and which harmful, shall we summon haruspices from Etruria, or will our leading citizens and chosen men experienced in public affairs decide?

### Book 2, Chapter 5

[12]
“If divination has nothing to do with things subject to the senses, or things contained within the arts, or the subjects debated in philosophy, or the business of government, I cannot for the life of me understand what it does concern. It must either embrace everything or be given some subject matter within which to operate. But reason has shown that it does not embrace everything, and we can find no sphere or subject to put under its authority. Consider, then, whether there is no divination at all. There is a familiar Greek verse to this effect:

“‘Who guesses well is the best prophet, I declare.’

“Will a prophet, then, make a better guess at an approaching storm than a helmsman, discern the character of a disease more acutely than a doctor, or judge the conduct of a war more intelligently than a commander?

[13]
“But I noticed, Quintus, how carefully you separated divination both from conjectures based on skill and practical knowledge and from things apprehended through the senses or technical arts. You defined it as the prediction and foreknowledge of events that depend on chance. First, you are brought back to the same point. Doctors, helmsmen, and commanders also foresee events dependent on chance. Will a haruspex, an augur, a prophet, or a dreamer make a better guess that a sick man will escape his illness, a ship its danger, or an army an ambush, than a doctor, a helmsman, or a commander?

[14]
“Yet you said that even foreseeing approaching winds or rain from certain signs did not belong to the diviner—and here you recited some of my Aratea from memory—although these events too depend on chance: they happen generally, not always. What, then, is this foreknowledge of chance events that you call divination, and where does it operate? Whatever can be foreseen through skill, reasoning, experience, or conjecture, you assign not to diviners but to experts. It follows that the chance events open to divination are those no skill or wisdom can foresee. If, for example, someone had said many years in advance that the famous Marcus Marcellus, three times consul, would die in a shipwreck, he would certainly have divined the future: no other skill or wisdom could have given him that knowledge. Divination, then, is foreknowledge of events of this kind, which lie in the hands of fortune.

### Book 2, Chapter 6

[15]
“Can there be foreknowledge, then, of events for whose occurrence there is no reason? What else do we mean by chance, fortune, accident, or contingency, except that something has happened or turned out in a way that might equally have been different? How, then, can what occurs at random, through blind accident and the shifting course of fortune, be foreseen and foretold?

[16]
“A doctor foresees the worsening of a disease by reasoning; a commander foresees an ambush, a helmsman storms. Yet even these men, who form no opinion without a definite reason, are often mistaken. A farmer sees the olive blossom and expects to see the fruit as well, and not without reason; yet sometimes he too is mistaken. If those who say nothing without some plausible inference and reasoning are mistaken, what are we to think of the guesses of those who foresee the future from entrails, birds, portents, oracles, or dreams? I am not yet saying how worthless these signs are—a fissure in a liver, a raven's cry, an eagle's flight, a shooting star, the utterances of the frenzied, lots, dreams. I shall discuss each in its own place; for now I am discussing them all together.

[17]
“How can anything be foreseen when there is neither a cause nor a sign of its future occurrence? Eclipses of the sun and moon are predicted many years ahead by those who calculate the movements of the heavenly bodies. What they predict is what nature's necessity will bring about. From the moon's unvarying movement they see when, opposite the sun, it will enter the earth's shadow—the cone of night—and must therefore be darkened; and when that same moon, passing beneath and in front of the sun, will hide its light from our eyes. They see in what constellation and at what time each wandering star will appear, and on what day a given constellation will rise or set. You can see the reasoning followed by those who predict these things.

### Book 2, Chapter 7

[18]
“What reasoning guides those who say that treasure will be found or an inheritance received? Where in the nature of things is that future lodged? If these events and others of their kind possess any such necessity, what on earth can we suppose happens by accident or sheer good luck? Nothing is so opposed to reason and regularity as fortune. It seems to me that not even a god can know what will happen by chance and accident. If he knows, it will certainly happen; if it will certainly happen, there is no chance. But chance exists; therefore there is no foreknowledge of chance events.

[19]
“Or if you deny that chance exists and say that everything happening now or in the future has been determined by fate from all eternity, change your definition of divination, which you said was foreknowledge of chance events. If nothing can happen, occur, or come about except what has been certain from all eternity to happen at its appointed time, how can chance exist? And once it is abolished, what room is there for divination, which you defined as foreknowledge of chance events? Yet you also said that everything happening now or in the future is encompassed by fate. The very word ‘fate’ smacks of old wives' tales and superstition; nevertheless, the Stoics have a great deal to say about this fate of theirs. More of that another time; for now, only what is necessary.

### Book 2, Chapter 8

[20]
“If everything happens by fate, what use is divination to me? What the diviner predicts really will happen. So I do not even understand the point of the story that an eagle called our close friend Deiotarus back from his journey. Had he not returned, he would have had to sleep in the room that collapsed the following night, and would therefore have been crushed in its ruins. But if that was fated, he could not have escaped it; if not, he could not have met with that disaster. What help, then, is divination? What warning can lots or entrails or any prediction give me? If it was fated that the Roman people's two fleets should perish in the First Punic War, one by shipwreck and the other sunk by the Carthaginians, then even if the sacred chickens had given the fullest favorable sign by feeding when Lucius Junius and Publius Claudius were consuls, the fleets would still have perished. But if the fleets would not have perished had the auspices been obeyed, they did not perish by fate. Yet you insist that everything happens by fate. There is therefore no divination.

[21]
“If it was fated that the Roman people's army should perish at Lake Trasimene in the Second Punic War, could this have been avoided if the consul Flaminius had obeyed the signs and auspices that forbade him to fight? Certainly it could. Either, then, the army did not perish by fate, or, if it did—as you must certainly maintain—the same thing would have happened even if he had obeyed the auspices, since fate cannot be changed. Where, then, is this Stoic divination? If everything happens by fate, it can give us no warning to be more cautious: however we behave, what is going to happen will happen nonetheless. But if it can be diverted, there is no fate, and therefore no divination either, since divination concerns things that will happen. Nothing that some act of propitiation may prevent is certain to happen.

### Book 2, Chapter 9

[22]
“Indeed, I do not even think knowledge of the future is useful to us. What would Priam's life have been if he had known from youth the fate awaiting his old age? But let us leave mythology and look nearer home. In my Consolation I collected the most grievous deaths of our country's most illustrious men. Well then, to pass over earlier examples, do you think it would have helped Marcus Crassus, at the height of his wealth and prosperity, to know that after his son Publius was killed and his army destroyed, he himself must perish beyond the Euphrates in shame and disgrace? Or do you think Gnaeus Pompey would have rejoiced in his three consulships, his three triumphs, and the glory of his immense achievements if he had known that, after losing his army, he would be butchered in a lonely place in Egypt, and that after his death things would follow that we cannot recount without tears?

[23]
“And Caesar: if he had divined that in the very Senate whose membership he had himself largely chosen, in Pompey's senate house, before Pompey's own statue, with so many of his own centurions looking on, he would be butchered by citizens of the highest rank, some of whom he had heaped with every distinction, and lie there with no one—not merely no friend, but not even a slave—approaching his body, in what anguish of mind do we think he would have passed his life? Surely ignorance of future evils is more useful than knowledge.

[24]
“For this can certainly not be said, especially by Stoics: ‘Pompey would not have taken up arms; Crassus would not have crossed the Euphrates; Caesar would not have undertaken civil war.’ Then their deaths were not fated; yet you insist that everything happens by fate. Divination would therefore have helped them not at all; indeed, it would have robbed their earlier lives of every delight. What joy could they have found in anything with their deaths before their minds? Whichever way the Stoics turn, all their ingenuity must collapse. If a future event can happen either this way or that, fortune has enormous power; and chance events cannot be certain. But if what will happen in every matter and at every time is certain, how can the haruspices help me? After declaring that the most terrible things are portended,

### Book 2, Chapter 10

[25]
“they add at the end that the outcome will be less severe if the proper rites are performed. Yet if nothing happens outside fate, no religious rite can lighten anything. Homer understands this when he presents Jupiter lamenting that he cannot rescue his son Sarpedon from death against fate. A Greek verse conveys the same thought:

“‘What stands ordained surpasses highest Jupiter.’

“I think the whole notion of fate is rightly mocked even in a line of Atellan farce; but in matters so serious there is no room for jokes. Let us therefore close the argument. If no chance event can be foreseen because such events cannot be certain, divination does not exist. But if they can be foreseen because they are certain and fated, again divination does not exist: you said it concerned events dependent on chance.

### Book 2, Chapter 11

[26]
“But let that serve as the first skirmish of my argument, a sortie by light-armed troops. Now let us come to close quarters and see whether we can shake the wings of your battle line.

“You said there were two kinds of divination, one artificial, the other natural. Artificial divination rested partly on conjecture, partly on long observation; natural divination was something the mind seized or received from outside, from the divine source out of which all our souls have been drawn, received, or poured. Among the artificial forms you placed chiefly the work of those who inspect entrails or predict from lightning and portents, then that of augurs and those who use signs or omens; broadly speaking, you placed every conjectural form in this class.

[27]
“Natural divination, on the other hand, seemed to you either to emerge and pour forth, as it were, from an excited mind, or to arise as foresight in a sleeping mind free of sensations and cares. You derived all divination from three sources: god, fate, and nature. Yet, unable to explain anything, you fought your case with an astonishing abundance of fabricated examples. My first comment on this is that I do not consider it a philosopher's business to rely on witnesses whose truth may be accidental or whose falsehood may be maliciously invented. Arguments and reasoning should establish why each thing is so, not reported events, especially events I am entitled not to believe.

### Book 2, Chapter 12

[28]
“Let me begin with haruspicy, which I think should be maintained for the sake of the republic and our shared religion. But we are alone; we may search for truth without provoking ill will, especially I, who doubt so much. Let us first examine entrails, if you please. Can anyone be persuaded that the haruspices learned by long observation the things entrails are said to signify? How long was that observation? Over what span of time could it have been made? How did they compare their findings to establish which part was hostile and which favorable, which fissure pointed to danger and which to some advantage? Did Etruscan, Elean, Egyptian, and Carthaginian haruspices exchange these observations? Apart from being impossible, it is scarcely even conceivable: we see different peoples interpreting entrails in different ways, with no single discipline common to all.

[29]
“And certainly, if entrails possess some power to reveal the future, that power must either be bound up with the nature of things or be somehow shaped by the will and divine force of the gods. What can the nature of things, so vast and splendid, extending through every region and movement, have in common—I will not say with a chicken's gall, although some call these the most revealing entrails of all—but with the liver, heart, or lung of a fattened bull? What natural property do these possess that can reveal what is going to happen?

### Book 2, Chapter 13

[30]
“Democritus, however, talks nonsense with some ingenuity, as befits a natural philosopher—a breed unsurpassed in arrogance:

“‘No one looks at what lies at his feet; they search the tracts of heaven.’

“Still, he thinks the condition and color of entrails reveal only this: the kind of pasture, and the abundance or scarcity of what the earth produces. He also thinks entrails indicate healthy conditions or pestilence. Happy mortal! I am quite sure he never lacked amusement. Could this man have delighted so deeply in such nonsense that he failed to see it would become plausible only if the entrails of all animals changed at the same time to the same condition and color? But if at the very same hour one animal's liver is smooth and full and another's rough and shriveled, what can the condition and color of entrails reveal?

[31]
“Or is this like the story you told about Pherecydes, who saw water drawn from a well and said an earthquake was coming? It is not shameless enough, I suppose, for these men to venture an explanation of the force that caused an earthquake after it has happened: must they also foresee one from the color of spring water? Many such things are said in the schools; but consider whether you really need to believe them all.

[32]
“Yet let these notions of Democritus be true. When do we inquire into such things through entrails? When have we ever heard anything of the kind from a haruspex after he inspected them? They warn of dangers from water or fire; they announce inheritances or losses. They discuss the favorable fissure and the vital fissure; they scrutinize the liver's head-lobe most carefully from every side. And if it cannot be found, they think nothing more dreadful could have happened.

### Book 2, Chapter 14

[33]
“Certainly these things could not have been established by observation, as I showed above. They are therefore inventions of a system, not discoveries of antiquity—if there can be a system concerning things unknown. But what kinship do they have with the nature of things? Grant that nature is bound together in a single harmony and forms a continuous whole, as I see natural philosophers believe, especially those who have declared that everything that exists is one: what connection can the universe have with the discovery of treasure? If entrails show that my money will increase, and nature brings this about, then first the entrails are linked to the universe, and next my gain is contained in the nature of things. Are natural philosophers not ashamed to say this? Let there indeed be some interaction within nature—I grant that there is. The Stoics collect many instances: the little livers of mice are said to grow at the winter solstice; dried pennyroyal to bloom on the very day of that solstice; inflated bladders to burst; and the seeds enclosed in the centers of apples to turn in opposite directions. Again, when some strings of a lyre are struck, others resonate; oysters and all shellfish increase and diminish with the moon; and trees are thought best felled in winter when the moon is also waning, because they are then dry.

### Book 2, Chapter 15

[34]
“Why say more about straits or the ocean tides, whose ebb and flow are governed by the moon's movement? Six hundred examples of this sort could be produced to show the natural kinship of things far apart. Let us grant this; it does not conflict with the present argument. But does a fissure of a particular kind in a liver also signify profit? By what bond of nature, by what harmony and accord, which the Greeks call συμπάθειαν, can a fissure in a liver agree with my little gain, or my petty profit with heaven, earth, and the nature of things? I will grant even this, if you wish, although I shall have surrendered a great part of my case by allowing any correspondence between nature and entrails.

[35]
“But even granted that, how does someone seeking favorable signs come to sacrifice a victim suited to his own circumstances? This was what I thought could not be answered. Yet how prettily it is answered! I am ashamed—not for you, whose powers of memory I admire, but for Chrysippus, Antipater, and Posidonius. They say just what you said: some conscious, divine power, diffused throughout the universe, guides the choice of the victim. Better still is that other claim, used by you and made by them: when someone intends to sacrifice, the entrails change, so that something is missing or something is added. Everything, they say, obeys the will of the gods.

### Book 2, Chapter 16

[36]
“Believe me, not even little old women believe this anymore. Do you think that if one man chooses a particular calf he will find a liver without a head-lobe, but if another chooses it, the head-lobe will be there? Can this lobe suddenly disappear or appear so that the entrails adapt themselves to the sacrificer's fortune? Do you not see that choosing victims is a kind of gamble, especially when experience itself proves it? For after entrails have been found without a head-lobe—the most dreadful sign imaginable—the very next victim often yields the most splendidly favorable sacrifice. Where, then, are the threats of the earlier entrails? How were the gods so thoroughly appeased so suddenly?

“But you report that when Caesar sacrificed a fattened bull, no heart was found among its entrails. Since the victim could not have lived without a heart, you conclude that the heart perished at the moment of sacrifice.

[37]
“How is it that you understand one thing—that an ox could not have lived without a heart—but fail to see the other—that its heart could not suddenly have flown off somewhere? I might either be ignorant of the heart's importance to life, or suspect that some disease had shrunk the ox's heart, leaving it thin, tiny, withered, and unlike a heart. But what ground have you for thinking that, if a heart had been present in the fattened bull a moment before, it suddenly vanished in the very act of sacrifice? Did the bull lose its heart because it caught sight of the witless Caesar in his purple robes? Believe me, you betray the city of philosophy while defending its outposts. In insisting on the truth of haruspicy you overthrow the whole science of nature. There is a head-lobe in the liver, a heart among the entrails: the instant you sprinkle the sacrificial meal and wine, it will disappear. A god will snatch it away; some force will destroy or devour it. Nature, then, will not govern the birth and death of everything; something will arise from nothing or suddenly perish into nothing. What natural philosopher ever said that? The haruspices say it. Do you therefore think them more worthy of belief than natural philosophers?

### Book 2, Chapter 17

[38]
“And when sacrifices are made to several gods, how does it happen that some accept them and others do not? What fickleness is this in the gods, threatening through the first entrails and promising well through the second? Or what great discord is there among them, often even among the closest relatives, that Apollo's entrails are favorable and Diana's unfavorable? What could be clearer than that, since victims are brought forward at random, each man's entrails will match whatever victim he happens to receive? ‘But,’ you say, ‘there is something divine in the very choice of the victim that falls to each man, just as in the lot each man draws.’ More about lots shortly. You do not strengthen the case for victims by comparing them to lots; you weaken the case for lots by comparing them to victims.

[39]
“When we send someone to the Aequimaelium to bring a lamb for sacrifice, is the lamb brought to me one whose entrails fit my circumstances? Is the slave led to that lamb not by chance but by a god? If you say that chance here too is a kind of lot joined to the gods' will, I am sorry that our Stoic friends have given the Epicureans so much opportunity to laugh at them. You know very well how they ridicule these notions.

[40]
“And they can do so all the more easily. Epicurus introduced his very gods as a joke: transparent, open to every breeze, dwelling between two worlds as though between two groves, for fear of falling ruins. He thinks they have the same limbs as we do but make no use of them. Thus, abolishing the gods by this roundabout route, he quite consistently has no hesitation about abolishing divination. But the Stoics do not share his consistency. His god, having no business either of his own or anyone else's, cannot bestow divination on human beings. Your god, however, can withhold it and still govern the universe and care for humanity no less.

[41]
“Why, then, do you entangle yourselves in snares you can never undo? When in a particular hurry, they habitually conclude like this: ‘If there are gods, there is divination; but there are gods; therefore there is divination.’ Much more plausible is: ‘But there is no divination; therefore there are no gods.’ See how rashly they risk the consequence that, if divination does not exist, neither do the gods. Divination is plainly refuted; the existence of the gods must be upheld.

### Book 2, Chapter 18

[42]
“Once this divination from entrails is abolished, all haruspicy is abolished. Portents and lightning come next. Long observation is said to carry weight in the case of lightning; for portents, reasoning and conjecture are generally employed. What, then, has been observed about lightning? The Etruscans divided the sky into sixteen regions. That was easy enough: double our four divisions, then double them again, so as to say from which region a thunderbolt had come. First, what difference does that make? Next, what does it signify? Is it not clear that people's first astonishment, their terror at thunder and thunderbolts, made them believe these were the work of Jupiter, the supreme ruler of all things? That is why our records contain the rule: ‘When Jupiter thunders or lightens, it is forbidden to hold an assembly of the people.’

### Book 2, Chapter 19

[43]
“This rule may have been established for political reasons: they wanted grounds for not holding assemblies. Accordingly, a thunderbolt invalidates only assemblies, whereas in all other matters we regard it as the best possible auspice if it comes from the left. But auspices belong elsewhere; for now, lightning.

“What could be less appropriate for natural philosophers than to say that uncertain things signify anything certain? I do not suppose you are a man who believes the Cyclopes forged Jupiter's thunderbolt on Etna.

[44]
“For then it would be astonishing how Jupiter could throw it so often when he had only one. Nor would he use thunderbolts to warn people what to do or avoid. The Stoics hold that cold exhalations from the earth become winds when they begin to flow; when they enter a cloud and start splitting and tearing its thinnest parts, and do this more frequently and violently, flashes and thunder arise. If heat forced out by the collision of clouds bursts forth, that is a thunderbolt. Do we seek a sign of coming events in something we see produced by natural force, without regularity or any fixed time? Of course, if Jupiter were giving these signs, he would send so many thunderbolts to no purpose!

### Book 2, Chapter 20

[45]
“What does he accomplish by hurling a thunderbolt into the open sea? Or onto the highest mountains, as usually happens? Or into deserted wildernesses? Or onto the shores of peoples who do not even observe these things?

“‘But the head was found in the Tiber.’ As though I denied these men had a system of some kind! What I deny is divination. The division of the sky I mentioned earlier, and the recording of particular observations, tell us where the thunderbolt came from and where it went. No reasoning tells us what it signifies. But you press me with my own verses:

“‘For the Father, thundering high, enthroned on starry Olympus,
Himself once struck his own hills and temples,
And hurled his fires upon the Capitol's shrines.’

“Then Natta's statue, then images of the gods, and Romulus and Remus with the beast that nursed them, were struck by a thunderbolt and fell; and the haruspices gave responses about these things that proved entirely true.

[46]
“‘What is astonishing is that at the very time when evidence of the conspiracy was being given in the Senate, the statue of Jupiter was being set up on the Capitol, two years after it had been commissioned. Will you really bring yourself’—this was how you pressed me—‘to defend that case against your own actions and writings?’ You are my brother; that makes me hesitate. Yet what is really troubling you here? The nature of the case, or my desire to uncover the truth? I make no counterclaim; I ask you for an explanation of the whole art of haruspicy. But you have slipped into a marvelous hiding place. You understood that you would be hard pressed when I demanded the causes of each form of divination, and so you spent many words insisting that, since you saw the facts, you did not ask for a reason or a cause: what happened was relevant, not why. As though I conceded that these things happened, or as though it were a philosopher's business not to inquire into the cause

### Book 2, Chapter 21

[47]
“of each occurrence! At that point you also recited my Prognostics and mentioned kinds of plants, scammony and aristolochia root, whose causes you did not know but whose power and effect you could see. The cases are wholly different. Both Boethus the Stoic, whom you named, and our friend Posidonius have investigated the causes of weather signs; and even if the causes of those phenomena were not discovered, the phenomena themselves could still have been observed and noted. But what long-standing observation concerns Natta's statue or the bronze tablets of the laws being struck from heaven? The Pinarii Nattae are nobles; therefore danger threatens from the nobility. How cunningly Jupiter thought that out! The infant Romulus was struck by lightning; therefore danger is indicated for the city he founded. How skillfully Jupiter informs us through signs! ‘But Jupiter's statue was being set up at the very time the conspiracy was being disclosed.’ Naturally, you prefer to think this happened through the will of the gods rather than by chance. And the contractor who took the contract for that column from Cotta and Torquatus was delayed not by laziness or lack of funds, but was held back until that very hour by the immortal gods.

[48]
“I do not entirely abandon the possibility that these things are true; but I do not know, and I wish to learn from you. When I suggested that some events seemed to turn out by chance as diviners had foretold, you said much about chance: a Venus throw could occur by chance in a cast of four knucklebones, but a hundred Venus throws could not occur by chance with four hundred knucklebones. First, I do not see why not; but I will not dispute it, since you have analogies in abundance. You have your splashing of pigments, your pig's snout, and a great many others. You also say Carneades invented the story of the little Pan's head, as though it could not have occurred by chance, and as though every block of marble did not necessarily contain even heads worthy of Praxiteles! Those very heads are made by removing material; Praxiteles brings nothing into the stone. But when much has been removed and the features of the face have been reached, you recognize that what now stands polished was inside all along.

### Book 2, Chapter 22

[49]
“Something of that kind, then, could have appeared spontaneously in the quarries of Chios. But suppose the story invented. Have you never noticed the shape of a lion or a centaur in the clouds? Chance, then, can imitate reality, as you were just denying.

“But since we have discussed entrails and lightning enough, portents remain if we are to cover the whole of haruspicy. You brought forward a mule giving birth. An astonishing event, because it happens seldom; but if it could not happen, it would not have happened. Let this principle apply to every portent: nothing that could not happen has ever happened; and if it could happen, there is no need for wonder. Ignorance of causes produces wonder at an unfamiliar event. The same ignorance in familiar matters causes no wonder. Someone who marvels at a mule giving birth does not know how a mare gives birth, or indeed what natural process brings about the birth of any living creature. What he sees often he does not marvel at, even if he does not know why it happens; what he has never seen before, if it happens, he considers a portent. At which point, then, is there a portent: when the mule conceives, or when it gives birth?

### Book 2, Chapter 23

[50]
“Conception may be contrary to nature, but birth is almost inevitable.

“But why say more? Let us look at the origin of haruspicy; that will be the easiest way to judge its authority. A certain Tages is said to have suddenly emerged in the territory of Tarquinii when a field was being plowed and the furrow had been cut unusually deep, and to have spoken to the plowman. According to the Etruscan books, this Tages appeared in the form of a child but possessed the wisdom of an old man. The ox-driver, stunned by the sight, gave a loud cry of astonishment. A crowd gathered, and soon all Etruria had assembled on the spot. Tages then spoke at length before many listeners, who took down all his words and committed them to writing. His entire discourse contained the discipline of haruspicy. This was later expanded as new facts were learned and referred back to those same principles. This is the account we have received from the Etruscans themselves; this is what their writings preserve; this is the wellspring of their discipline.

### Book 2, Chapter 24

[51]
“Do we need Carneades to refute this? Or Epicurus? Is anyone so foolish as to believe that someone was plowed up—shall I call him god or man? If a god, why had he hidden himself underground, contrary to nature, to see daylight only when a plow uncovered him? Could this same god not have taught his discipline to human beings from a higher station? But if Tages was a man, how could he live buried under the earth? And where could he himself have learned what he taught others? Yet I am more foolish than the believers themselves, spending so long arguing against them.

“That old remark of Cato's is very shrewd: he used to say he wondered how one haruspex could see another without laughing.

[52]
“How few of their predictions ever come true! And if something does come true, what reason can be offered why it should not have happened by chance? When Hannibal, then an exile at his court, urged a decisive battle, King Prusias said he dared not fight because the entrails forbade it. ‘What is that you say?’ Hannibal asked. ‘Would you rather trust a little piece of veal than a veteran commander?’ And Caesar himself: when a leading haruspex warned him not to cross to Africa before the winter solstice, did he not cross? Had he not done so, all his enemies' forces would have gathered in one place. Why should I list the responses of haruspices—I could give countless examples—that either went unfulfilled or had the opposite outcome?

[53]
“In this civil war, immortal gods, how often they deceived us! What responses of the haruspices were sent from Rome to us in Greece! What predictions were made to Pompey! He was deeply influenced by entrails and portents. I have no wish to recall them, nor is it necessary, especially for you, who were there. Yet you see that almost everything turned out contrary to their pronouncements. But enough of this; let us now turn to portents.

### Book 2, Chapter 25

[54]
“You recited many events I myself recorded during my consulship. You brought forward many events collected by Sisenna from before the Marsic War, and many recorded by Callisthenes before the Spartans' disastrous battle at Leuctra. I shall discuss these individually as far as seems appropriate; but we must also speak of them as a whole. What is this signaling from the gods, this announcement, as it were, of calamities? What do the immortal gods intend, first by giving signs we cannot understand without interpreters, and then by giving signs of things we cannot avoid? Even decent human beings do not do this: they do not foretell to friends impending disasters from which those friends have no possible escape. Doctors, for example, though they often understand the truth, never tell the sick that their illness will kill them. A prediction of evil is approved only when it is accompanied by a means of avoiding it.

### Book 2, Chapter 26

[55]
“What help, then, did portents or their interpreters bring either the Spartans long ago or our own people recently? If these are to be considered signs from the gods, why were they so obscure? If the gods meant us to understand what would happen, they should have declared it plainly; if they did not want it known, they should not have declared it even obscurely.

“Moreover, all the conjecture on which divination rests is often pulled by human ingenuity in many different, even opposite directions. In trials, the prosecutor makes one conjecture and the defense another, yet both are credible. So too in all matters that seem to be investigated by conjecture, arguments can be found on either side. Events are brought about sometimes by nature, sometimes by chance; sometimes resemblance itself produces an illusion. It is great folly to make the gods responsible for these things instead of seeking their causes.

[56]
“You believe that the Boeotian prophets at Lebadea saw in the crowing of roosters that victory would belong to Thebes, because defeated cocks generally fall silent and victorious ones crow. Was Jupiter giving so great a city its sign through barnyard fowl? Do those birds never crow unless they have won? ‘But then they were crowing without having won. That,’ you will say, ‘is the portent.’ A mighty one indeed! As though fish had crowed, not roosters! What hour of night or day is there when they do not crow? If victory rouses them to crow through excitement and a kind of joy, some other joy could also have arisen to prompt their crowing.

[57]
“Democritus explains in excellent language why roosters crow before dawn: once food has passed from the breast, been distributed through the whole body, and softened, they give voice, satisfied with their rest. As Ennius says, ‘in the silence of night’ they

“‘[…] cheer with ruddy throats,
And beat their wings with crowing and clapping.’

“Since this creature is naturally so vocal, what possessed Callisthenes to say the gods gave the roosters a signal to crow, when either nature or chance could have brought it about?

### Book 2, Chapter 27

[58]
“The Senate was told that it had rained blood, that even the River Atratus had run with blood, and that statues of the gods had sweated. Do you think Thales, Anaxagoras, or any natural philosopher would have believed those reports? Neither blood nor sweat can come from anything but a body. But some discoloration caused by a substance from the earth can closely resemble blood; and moisture settling from outside, as we see on plaster walls when the south wind blows, appears to imitate sweat. In wartime frightened people see these things more often and on a greater scale; in peace the same things attract less notice. There is this further point: amid fear and danger, such stories are both more readily believed and more safely invented.

[59]
“Are we so frivolous and thoughtless that if mice gnaw something—the one occupation of their lives—we think it a prodigy? You said that before the Marsic War mice had gnawed shields at Lanuvium, and the haruspices pronounced it an immense portent. As though it mattered whether mice, gnawing something day and night, chewed shields or sieves! If we follow that reasoning, when mice recently gnawed Plato's Republic in my house, I should have trembled for the republic. Or if they had gnawed Epicurus's book On Pleasure, I should have thought food prices at the market were going to rise.

### Book 2, Chapter 28

[60]
“Should we really be frightened when some monstrous birth is reported among animals or human beings? To avoid going on too long, one explanation covers them all. Whatever comes into being, whatever its form, must have a natural cause. Even if it arises outside the customary course, it cannot arise outside nature. Seek the cause, then, of an unfamiliar and astonishing event, if you can. If you find none, still hold this for certain: nothing could have happened without a cause. Use reasoned understanding of nature to dispel the terror that the event's strangeness has brought you. Then neither the earth's rumbling nor the splitting of the sky, neither a rain of stones or blood, nor a shooting star or torchlike lights in the sky, will frighten you.

[61]
“If I ask Chrysippus the causes of all these things, that very champion of divination will never say they happened by accident; he will give a natural explanation of them all. Nothing can happen without a cause; nothing happens that cannot happen; and if something has happened that could happen, it ought not to be considered a portent. There are therefore no portents. If what happens rarely is to count as a portent, a wise man is a portent: I believe a mule has given birth more often than a wise man has existed. The argument therefore reaches this conclusion: nothing that could not happen has ever happened, and nothing that could happen is a portent. Thus there is no portent at all.

### Book 2, Chapter 29

[62]
“A certain interpreter and expounder of portents is also said to have given a shrewd answer to a man who reported, as a portent, that a snake had coiled around a bar in his house. ‘It would be a portent,’ he said, ‘if the bar had coiled around the snake.’ By this reply he made it clear enough that nothing capable of happening should be regarded as a portent.

“Gaius Gracchus wrote to Marcus Pomponius that his father summoned the haruspices when two snakes were caught in his house. Why snakes rather than lizards or mice? Because the latter are everyday creatures and snakes are not—as though, when something can happen, it mattered how often it happens. Still, I wonder: if releasing the female snake meant death for Tiberius Gracchus, while releasing the male was fatal to Cornelia, why did he release either? Gaius never writes what the haruspices said would happen if neither snake was released. ‘But death did follow for Gracchus.’ Through some rather serious illness, I imagine, not through the release of a snake. The haruspices are not so unlucky that even by chance nothing they predict ever happens.

### Book 2, Chapter 30

[63]
“I should marvel at the story you told from Homer, if I believed it: that Calchas divined the years of the Trojan War from the number of sparrows. About his conjecture Agamemnon speaks as follows in Homer, in a version I made at leisure:

“‘Endure, men, and bear hard labors in your hearts,
So we may learn whether the prophecies of Calchas,
Our augur, prove his heart's intuitions true or empty.
For all retain that portent in their memory
Who have not left the light through deadly fate.
When first Aulis was clothed in Argive fleets
That bore destruction to Priam and ruin to Troy,
Beside cool waters, at the smoking altars,
We soothed the gods with bulls whose horns were gold,
Beneath a shading plane tree, where a spring flowed out.
We saw a serpent, huge in form and coils,
Terrible, dart from the altar at Jupiter's urging.
It seized the fledglings on a plane-tree bough,
Sheltered beneath the leaves; as it devoured the eight,
Their mother, ninth, flew overhead with trembling cries.
The savage tore her entrails with its monstrous bite.

[64]
“‘When it had killed those tender birds and their mother,
The selfsame Father, Saturn's son, who brought it to the light,
Concealed it, shaping it in a hard sheath of stone.
We stood in fear and watched that marvelous prodigy
Unfold amid the altars of the gods.
Then Calchas spoke these words in a confident voice:
“Why, Achaeans, are you suddenly numb with wonder?
The father of the gods himself has given us these signs,
Slow, far too late in fulfillment, but of everlasting fame and praise.
For as many birds as you see slaughtered by those foul teeth,
So many years of war shall we endure at Troy.
In the tenth it will fall and sate the Achaeans with vengeance.”
So Calchas spoke; and now you see those things fulfilled.’

[65]
“What sort of augury is this, taking sparrows to signify years rather than months or days? Why does he base his conjecture on little sparrows, in which there was no prodigy, and say nothing of the serpent, which is said to have turned to stone—something that could not happen? Finally, what resemblance does a sparrow bear to years? As for the snake that appeared to Sulla while he was sacrificing, I remember both things: that Sulla sacrificed when about to lead out his army, and that a snake emerged from the altar. That day's success was due not to the haruspex's counsel but to the commander's.

### Book 2, Chapter 31

[66]
“These sorts of portents contain nothing astonishing. After they occur, some interpretation is applied to turn them into a conjecture. Thus the grains of wheat heaped into the infant Midas's mouth, or the bees you said settled on Plato's lips as a child, are less remarkable as events than as prettily interpreted stories. Yet the stories themselves may be false, or the things predicted may have come about by chance. In Roscius's own case it may be false that a snake was wound around him; but that a snake was in his cradle is not so astonishing, especially at Solonium, where snakes regularly hold their markets by the hearth. As for the haruspices' response that no one would be more famous or distinguished than he, I wonder that the immortal gods foretold glory for a future actor, but none for Africanus.

[67]
“You also collected the portents concerning Flaminius: that he and his horse suddenly fell—surely nothing astonishing in that!—and that the standard of the first company of spearmen could not be pulled out. Perhaps the standard-bearer was timidly pulling at what he had firmly planted. And what was so astonishing about Dionysius's horse emerging from the river with bees in its mane? But because he began his reign soon afterward, a chance occurrence acquired the force of a portent. ‘But at Sparta weapons rang out in Hercules' sanctuary; at Thebes the closed doors of the same god's temple suddenly opened, and shields fixed high up were found on the ground.’ Since none of these things could have happened without some movement, why should we say they were caused by divine power rather than chance?

### Book 2, Chapter 32

[68]
“‘But on the head of Lysander's statue at Delphi a wreath of rough weeds appeared, and suddenly too.’ Really? Do you think the wreath appeared before the seeds had taken root? The rough weeds, I suppose, came from seeds carried by birds, not planted by people. Besides, anything on a head can look like a wreath. As for your story that the golden stars dedicated to Castor and Pollux at Delphi fell at the same time and could never be found, that looks more like the work of thieves than gods.

[69]
“I am truly amazed that the mischief of the monkey at Dodona has been committed to Greek histories. What could be less astonishing than that this hideous beast overturned an urn and scattered the lots? Yet the historians declare that no more dreadful portent ever befell the Spartans! Then there were the predictions made at Veii: if Lake Alban overflowed and its water reached the sea, Rome would perish; if it was held back, Veii […] Thus the Alban water was diverted for the benefit of farmland near the city, not to preserve its citadel and the city itself. ‘But a little later a voice was heard warning them to take precautions against Rome's capture by the Gauls. Hence an altar was dedicated on the New Street to Aius Loquens, the Speaker.’ What then? When no one knew him, this Aius Loquens spoke and talked, earning his name thereby; but after acquiring a shrine, an altar, and a name, did he fall silent? The same may be said of Moneta, the Warner: apart from the pregnant sow, what has she ever warned us about?

### Book 2, Chapter 33

[70]
“Enough about portents. Auspices remain, and those lots that are drawn—not the pronouncements poured forth in prophecy, which we more properly call oracles. We shall discuss those when we reach natural divination. The Chaldeans also remain; but first let us examine auspices. A difficult subject for an augur to argue against! For a Marsian augur, perhaps, but for a Roman a very easy one. We Roman augurs are not men who predict the future by observing birds and other signs. Still, I believe that Romulus, who founded the city under auspices, thought augury offered knowledge for foreseeing events. Antiquity was mistaken in many things. That belief, we see, has now been changed by experience, learning, or the passage of time. Yet custom, religious observance, discipline, augural law, and the authority of our college are maintained both out of regard for popular opinion and for the great advantages they bring the republic.

### Book 2, Chapter 34

[71]
“Indeed, the consuls Publius Claudius and Lucius Junius, who sailed against the auspices, deserved every punishment. Religious observance should have been obeyed; ancestral custom should not have been rejected with such defiance. Rightly, then, one was condemned by the people's judgment, while the other took his own life. Flaminius disobeyed the auspices, and so perished with his army. But the following year Paulus obeyed them: did that keep him from falling with his army in the battle of Cannae? Even if auspices existed—and they do not—those we use, whether from the sacred birds' feeding or from the sky, are certainly imitations of auspices, not auspices at all. ‘Quintus Fabius, I wish you to assist me in taking the auspices.’ He answers: ‘I have heard.’ In our ancestors' time an expert was employed for this; now anyone will do. Yet an expert is needed, someone who understands what ‘silence’ means. In taking auspices, we call a condition free of every flaw ‘silence.’

[72]
“Understanding this requires a fully trained augur. But when the man taking the auspices orders his assistant, ‘Tell me if there appears to be silence,’ the assistant neither looks up nor looks around; he immediately replies that there appears to be silence. Then the other says: ‘Tell me if they are feeding.’ ‘They are feeding.’ What birds? Where? ‘The man called the chicken-keeper from that very duty has brought chickens in a cage.’ These, then, are Jupiter's winged messengers! What does it matter whether they feed or not? Nothing, so far as auspices go. But when they feed, something must fall from their mouths and strike the earth—first called terripavium, then terripudium, and now tripudium. So when a morsel falls from a chicken's mouth, the person taking the auspices is informed of a tripudium solistimum, a fully favorable feeding sign.

### Book 2, Chapter 35

[73]
“Can an auspice so forced and wrung out contain anything divine? That the earliest augurs did not use it is shown by an ancient decree of our college, which states that any bird can give the tripudium. Then it would be an auspice if the bird revealed itself—provided it were free to do so. Then that bird might seem Jupiter's interpreter and attendant. But now, caged and starved, it rushes at a lump of porridge, and if something drops from its mouth, do you think this an auspice, or imagine Romulus used to take auspices in this way?

[74]
“And do you not think that those taking the auspices used to watch the sky themselves? Now they give orders to the chicken-keeper, and he makes the report. We regard a thunderbolt on the left as the best auspice for everything except assemblies. This exception was established for political reasons, so that the state's leading men should have authority to interpret the conditions for assemblies, whether for trials before the people, the passage of laws, or the election of magistrates. ‘But on receipt of Tiberius Gracchus's letter, the consuls Scipio and Figulus resigned their office when the augurs ruled that their election was flawed.’ Who denies that augury has a discipline? I deny its power of divination. ‘But the haruspices are diviners. When Tiberius Gracchus brought them into the Senate because of the sudden death of the man who collapsed while reporting the vote of the first voting century, they said the officer conducting the vote was not duly appointed.’

[75]
“First consider whether they meant the man who had been polling the century: he was the one who died, and they could have said that by conjecture without divination. Next, perhaps they spoke by chance, which can never be excluded from this kind of matter. What could Etruscan haruspices know about the proper taking of an augur's observation post or the law of the city's sacred boundary? I agree with Gaius Marcellus rather than Appius Claudius—both were my colleagues—and think that although augural law was originally established through belief in divination, it was afterward preserved and maintained for the republic's sake.

### Book 2, Chapter 36

[76]
“But I have said more on this subject elsewhere; for now, enough. Let us examine foreign auguries, which are less a matter of skill than of superstition. They use almost every bird; we use very few. Different signs are favorable for them and for our augurs. Deiotarus used to ask me about our system of augury, and I would ask him about his. Immortal gods, what a difference there was! Some points were even contradictory. He always used his system; how much do we use ours, except while holding the auspices received from the people? Our ancestors would not allow warfare to be conducted without taking auspices; yet for how many years have wars been conducted by proconsuls and propraetors, who do not possess the auspices!

[77]
“Accordingly, they neither cross rivers under auspices nor take auspices from the birds' feeding. Where, then, is divination from birds? Since wars are conducted by those who have no auspices, it seems to have been retained for civil affairs and removed from military ones. As for signs from spearheads, an entirely military form of auspice, the famous Marcus Marcellus, five times consul, abandoned it altogether—a man outstanding both as commander and as augur. Indeed, he used to say that whenever he wanted to undertake some business without being hindered by the auspices, he would travel in a covered litter. Similar is the instruction we augurs give: to prevent an adverse sign from yoked animals, order the beasts to be unyoked.

### Book 2, Chapter 37

[78]
“What does refusing Jupiter’s warning amount to, except arranging either that an auspice cannot occur or that, if it does, it cannot be seen?

“Then there is your utterly ridiculous claim that Deiotarus feels no regret for the auspices he received when he was setting out to join Pompey, because he followed his allegiance and friendship with the Roman people and did his duty: honor and glory, he said, came before his kingdom and possessions. I readily believe it; but it has nothing to do with auspices. A crow could not have sung to him that he was acting rightly in preparing to defend the liberty of the Roman people. That was his own conviction, as indeed it proved to be.

[79]
“Birds signify favorable or unfavorable outcomes. Deiotarus, I see, took his auspices from virtue, which forbids us to look to fortune so long as we remain faithful. But if the birds promised favorable outcomes, they certainly deceived him. He fled the battlefield with Pompey: a bitter hour! He parted from him: a sorrowful business! He saw Caesar as enemy and guest at once: what could be more painful? Caesar stripped him of the tetrarchy of the Trocmi and gave it to some Pergamene hanger-on of his, and took from him as well the Armenia the senate had granted him. After receiving the most magnificent hospitality at his hands, Caesar left his host, a king, despoiled. But I am straying too far; let me return to the point. If we ask about outcomes, which is what we consult birds for, Deiotarus’s were in no way favorable; if we ask about duties, he learned them from his own virtue, not from auspices.

### Book 2, Chapter 38

[80]
“Set aside, then, Romulus’s augural staff, which you say could not be burned even in a tremendous fire; dismiss Attus Navius’s whetstone. Invented fables should have no place in philosophy. A philosopher should instead have examined, first, the very nature of the whole practice of augury, then its discovery, then its consistency. What natural power makes birds wandering at random here and there signify anything, now forbidding action and now commanding it by their song or flight? Why were some birds empowered to make an auspice valid from the left, others from the right? How, when, and by whom shall we say these things were discovered? The Etruscans, at least, have a boy plowed up from the earth as the founder of their discipline. Whom have we? Attus Navius? But Romulus and Remus lived some years earlier, both augurs, as we are told. Or shall we call these discoveries Pisidian, Cilician, or Phrygian? Are we content, then, to take as our authorities on the divine people untouched by civilization?

### Book 2, Chapter 39

[81]
“‘But all kings, peoples, and nations use auspices.’ As though anything were so widespread as foolishness! As though you yourself accepted the multitude’s judgment! How few deny that pleasure is a good! Most even call it the highest good. Do their numbers drive the Stoics from their position? Or does the multitude follow Stoic authority in most matters? What wonder, then, if feeble minds take in these superstitions about auspices and divination of every kind, but cannot discern the truth?

[82]
“And where is the agreement, the united consistency, among augurs? Ennius, following our own augural practice, wrote:

“‘Then thunder sounded favorably on the left, in a clear sky.’

“But Homer’s Ajax, complaining to Achilles of the Trojans’ ferocity, says something like this:

“‘Jupiter shows them favor with his lightning on the right.’

“So we regard the left as better, the Greeks and foreign peoples the right. I am well aware that we call favorable signs ‘left-hand’ even when they come from the right. Still, our people chose the name ‘left,’ and foreigners ‘right,’ because that side generally seemed the better one.

### Book 2, Chapter 40

[83]
“What an immense disagreement! And when they use different birds and different signs, observe them differently and give different answers, must we not admit that some of these practices were adopted in error, some through superstition, and many through fraud?

“To these superstitions you did not hesitate to add spoken omens: Aemilia telling Paullus that Persa was dead, which her father accepted as an omen; Caecilia surrendering her seat to her sister’s daughter. Then those familiar instances: ‘Speak only favorable words,’ and the voting century chosen to vote first, the omen for the election. This is precisely what it means to plead eloquently and at length against yourself. When will you ever have a peaceful, unfettered mind if you attend to such things, taking superstition rather than reason as your guide to action? Really? If someone, speaking about his own affairs, happens to use a word that fits something you are doing or thinking about, is that to fill you with fear or lift your spirits?

### Book 2, Chapter 41

[84]
“When Marcus Crassus was embarking his army at Brundisium, a man in the harbor selling dried figs imported from Caunus kept shouting, ‘Cauneas—Caunian figs!’ Let us say, if you like, that he was warning Crassus, ‘Cave ne eas—beware of going!’ and that Crassus would not have perished had he obeyed the omen. If we accept such things, we shall have to watch for a stubbed toe, a broken sandal strap, and sneezes.

“Lots and the Chaldeans remain, before we come to inspired prophets and dreams.

[85]
“Do you really think we need to discuss lots? What is drawing a lot, after all? Almost the same as playing the finger-guessing game, throwing knucklebones, or casting dice: in these things rash chance, not reason or deliberation, holds sway. The whole business was invented for deception, whether for profit, superstition, or delusion. As we did with divination from entrails, let us examine the traditional origin of the most celebrated lots. The records of Praeneste tell us that Numerius Suffustius, a respectable man of noble birth, was repeatedly commanded in dreams—finally with threats—to split a flint rock in a particular place. Terrified by these visions, he set about it despite his fellow citizens’ ridicule. When the rock was broken open, lots burst out, carved in oak in the characters of an ancient script. Today the place is enclosed as sacred ground, near the shrine of the boy Jupiter, who, still a nursling, sits with Juno in Fortune’s lap reaching for her breast, and is worshiped with the deepest reverence by mothers.

[86]
“At the same time, they say, honey flowed from an olive tree on the site where Fortune’s temple now stands. The haruspices declared that these lots would achieve the highest renown, and on their instructions a chest was made from that olive tree. In it they stored the lots that are drawn today at Fortune’s prompting. What certainty can there be in things shuffled and drawn by a boy’s hand at Fortune’s prompting? And how were they deposited in that place? Who felled that oak, shaped it, and carved the writing? ‘There is nothing,’ they say, ‘that a god cannot accomplish.’ If only he had made the Stoics wise, so that they would not believe everything in such superstitious anxiety and misery! But ordinary life has already driven this kind of divination off the stage. The beauty and antiquity of the shrine still preserve the reputation of the Praenestine lots, and that only among the common people.

### Book 2, Chapter 42

[87]
“For what magistrate or man of any distinction consults lots? Elsewhere, indeed, lots have quite lost their following. Clitomachus writes that Carneades used to say he had never seen Fortune more fortunate than at Praeneste. Let us dismiss this kind of divination, then.

“Let us come to the Chaldeans’ monstrous claims. Eudoxus, a pupil of Plato and, in the judgment of the most learned men, easily foremost in astronomy, held—and left his opinion in writing—that the Chaldeans deserve no belief whatever when they predict and chart a person’s life from his birthday.

[88]
“Panaetius, the only Stoic to reject the astrologers’ predictions, also names Anchialus and Cassander, the greatest astronomers of his own time: distinguished though they were in the other branches of astronomy, they did not practice this kind of prediction. Scylax of Halicarnassus, a friend of Panaetius, eminent in astronomy and a leading statesman in his own city, rejected this entire Chaldean method of prediction.

[89]
“But let us set witnesses aside and use reason. Those who defend these Chaldean predictions from birthdays argue as follows. There is, they say, a certain power in the belt of constellations called ζωδιακός in Greek, the ‘zodiac,’ such that each part of this belt acts upon and changes the atmosphere in a different way, according to the stars occupying that part and the neighboring regions at any given time. This power is variously affected by the heavenly bodies called ‘wanderers.’ When these enter the very part of the belt that was rising at someone’s birth, or a part related or in harmony with it, they speak of ‘trines’ and ‘squares.’ Since the advance and retreat of heavenly bodies bring such great revolutions and changes in the sky with the seasons of the year and their weather, and since we see what effects the sun’s power produces, they consider it not merely plausible but true that newborn children receive life and take shape according to the state of the air. From this, they say, come each person’s talents, character, mind, body, course of life, chances, and outcomes.

### Book 2, Chapter 43

[90]
“What incredible delirium! Not every error deserves the name of folly. Even Diogenes the Stoic concedes something to these men: that they can predict at least what a person’s natural disposition will be and what he will be best suited to do. The rest of what they profess to know, he says, cannot possibly be known. Twins, after all, are alike in appearance, but generally unlike in life and fortune. Procles and Eurysthenes, the Spartan kings, were twin brothers.

[91]
“Yet they did not even live the same number of years: Procles’s life was a year shorter, and he far surpassed his brother in the glory of his achievements. But even what that excellent man Diogenes concedes to the Chaldeans—as though betraying his own case—I deny can be ascertained. Since, as they themselves say, the moon governs births, and the Chaldeans observe and record as birth stars whatever heavenly bodies appear in conjunction with the moon, they use the most deceptive sense of sight to judge things they ought to see by reason and the mind. Mathematical reasoning, which these people ought to have mastered, teaches how low the moon travels, almost touching the earth; how far it lies from the nearest planet, Mercury, and how much farther from Venus; then how another interval separates it from the sun, whose light is believed to illuminate it. The remaining three distances are boundless and immeasurable: from the sun to Mars, from Mars to Jupiter, from Jupiter to Saturn, and beyond that to the heavens themselves, the universe’s outermost and final boundary.

### Book 2, Chapter 44

[92]
“What influence, then, could reach the moon—or rather the earth—across an almost infinite distance?

“Again, when they say, as they must, that all those born at a given moment anywhere on the inhabited earth have the same ascendant, and that the same things must happen to all who are born under the same configuration of sky and stars, do they not reveal that these interpreters of the heavens do not even understand the heavens’ nature? The circles that seem to divide the sky in half and set the limits of our vision, called ὁρίζοντες, ‘horizons,’ by the Greeks and quite properly ‘bounding circles’ in our language, differ enormously from place to place. The stars therefore cannot rise and set at the same time for everyone.

[93]
“If the stars’ power gives the atmosphere now one condition, now another, how can the influence on newborn children be the same when the heavens differ so greatly? Where we live, the Dog Star rises after the solstice, several days after it in fact; but among the Troglodytes, we are told, it rises before the solstice. Even if we now concede that heavenly power has some effect on creatures born on earth, they must admit that children born at the same time can have different natures because their skies differ. But that is precisely what they refuse to accept: they insist that everyone born at the same time, wherever the birth takes place, is born under the same conditions.

### Book 2, Chapter 45

[94]
“What madness, though, to hold that amid the greatest movements and changes in the heavens it makes no difference what wind, rain, or weather prevails in a place! Such conditions often differ so greatly in neighboring places that Tusculum has one sort of weather and Rome another. Sailors notice this especially, often feeling the greatest shifts of wind as they round a headland. When the sky is now so clear and now so stormy, is it sane to deny that this affects a child’s birth—though it certainly has no such effect—and yet to assert that births are affected by some elusive, subtle thing, wholly imperceptible and scarcely comprehensible, the atmospheric balance produced by the moon and other heavenly bodies? And is it a trifling error not to see that this entirely abolishes the power of the seed, which has the greatest force in generation and reproduction? Who fails to see that children reproduce their parents’ features, characters, and most of their postures and movements? That would not happen if these effects came not from the power and nature of the parents but from the moon’s conditioning influence and the heavens’ control.

[95]
“And when people born at one and the same instant differ in nature, life, and fortune, does that not show plainly enough that the time of birth has no bearing on the conduct of life? Unless, perhaps, we suppose no one was conceived and born at precisely the same times as Africanus. Was anyone else, then, like him?

### Book 2, Chapter 46

[96]
“Again, is there any doubt that many people born with some unnatural deformity have been restored and set right either by nature, recovering its proper course, or by medical skill? People whose tongues were so tightly bound that they could not speak, for instance, have had them freed by a surgeon’s knife. Many have also overcome a natural defect by practice and exercise. Demetrius of Phalerum writes that Demosthenes, who could not pronounce the letter rho, practiced until he could pronounce it perfectly clearly. If these defects had been implanted and bestowed by a star, nothing could alter them. And do not different regions produce different kinds of people? It is easy enough to survey in words the differences in body and mind between Indians and Persians, Ethiopians and Syrians: their variety and unlikeness are astonishing.

### Book 2, Chapter 47

[97]
“From this we can see that a country’s position has more influence on birth than the moon’s touch. As for the claim that the Babylonians spent 470,000 years observing and testing every child that was born, it is false. Had such a practice existed, it would not have been abandoned; yet we have no authority who either says it is still done or knows that it ever was. Do you see that I am not repeating Carneades’s arguments, but those of Panaetius, a leader of the Stoics? I have these further questions. Were all who fell at the battle of Cannae born under one star? Their end, certainly, was one and the same. And were men of singular genius and spirit also born under one star? What moment passes without countless births? Yet surely no one resembles Homer.

[98]
“And if the condition of the sky and arrangement of the stars at the birth of any living creature matter, their influence must extend not only to human beings but to animals too. What could be more absurd? Indeed, our friend Lucius Tarutius of Firmum, a man exceptionally learned in Chaldean methods, even traced our city’s birthday back to the festival of the Parilia at which, according to tradition, Romulus founded it. He said Rome was born with the moon in Libra, and did not hesitate to prophesy its destiny.

[99]
“What extraordinary power delusion has! Did even a city’s birthday fall under the influence of the stars and moon? Grant that for a child the condition of the heavens at his first breath matters: could it have any effect on the bricks or rubble from which a city is built? But why say more? Every day disproves these men. How many predictions I remember the Chaldeans making to Pompey, how many to Crassus, how many to Caesar himself: none of them would die except in old age, at home, and in glory! I find it astonishing that anyone still believes people whose predictions he sees refuted every day by facts and events.”

### Book 2, Chapter 48

[100]
“Two kinds of divination remain,” I said, “which we are said to possess by nature, not through a learned art: inspired prophecy and dreaming. Let us discuss them, Quintus, if you agree.” “I certainly agree,” he said. “I entirely accept the arguments you have made so far. Indeed, to speak frankly, although your account has strengthened my conviction, I had already come on my own to think the Stoic view of divination excessively superstitious. I was more drawn to the Peripatetic account, both that of Dicaearchus in earlier times and that of Cratippus, who flourishes today. They hold that the human mind contains something like an oracle, from which it gains a foreknowledge of the future when the spirit moves freely and without restraint, either stirred by divine frenzy or released in sleep. I should very much like to hear what you think of these kinds, and by what arguments you undermine them.”

### Book 2, Chapter 49

[101]
When he had said this, I began again, as though starting from a new point. “I know, Quintus,” I said, “that you have always doubted the other kinds of divination, but accepted these two, frenzy and dreams, which seem to flow from a mind set free. I shall therefore say what I think about these two themselves, after first examining the force of the Stoics’ reasoning and that of our friend Cratippus. For you said that Chrysippus, Diogenes, and Antipater reason as follows: ‘If gods exist and do not reveal the future to human beings beforehand, either they do not love human beings, or they do not know what will happen, or they think it makes no difference to us to know the future, or they consider it beneath their majesty to give human beings advance signs of what is to come, or even the gods themselves cannot signify it.

[102]
“‘But they do not fail to love us, for they are beneficent and friendly to the human race; nor are they ignorant of what they themselves have established and ordained. Nor is knowing the future a matter of indifference to us, for knowledge will make us more careful. Nor do they consider this beneath their majesty, for nothing surpasses beneficence; nor are they unable to know the future in advance. It is therefore not the case that gods exist and yet do not signify the future to us. But gods do exist; therefore they give signs. And if they give signs of the future, they cannot fail to give us ways of understanding those signs, for otherwise their signs would be in vain. Nor, if they give us such ways, can divination fail to exist. Therefore divination exists.’

### Book 2, Chapter 50

[103]
“What penetrating minds! How few words they think it takes to settle the business! They base their conclusion on assumptions not one of which is granted them. But sound reasoning reaches its disputed conclusion from things beyond dispute.

“Consider Epicurus, whom the Stoics commonly call dull and uncultivated. See how he proved that what we call the whole of reality is infinite. ‘Whatever is finite,’ he says, ‘has a boundary.’ Who would not grant that? ‘Whatever has a boundary is viewed from something else outside it.’ That too must be granted. ‘But the whole of reality is not viewed from something else outside it.’ That cannot be denied either. ‘Since, then, it has no boundary, it must be infinite.’

[104]
“Do you see how he reached a disputed point from things already granted? You dialecticians do not do that. Not only do you fail to base your conclusions on what everyone grants; you use assumptions which, even if granted, bring you no closer to proving what you want. Your first assumption is this: ‘If gods exist, they are beneficent toward human beings.’ Who will grant you that? Epicurus, who denies that the gods concern themselves at all with anyone else’s affairs or even their own? Or our own Ennius, who says, to great applause and with the people’s assent:

“‘I have always said, and always shall, that a race of gods lives in heaven;
But I believe they do not care what the human race may do.’

“He goes on to give the reason for his view; but there is no need to quote what follows. It is enough to recognize that these men take as certain what is doubtful and disputed.

### Book 2, Chapter 51

[105]
“Next comes the assertion that the gods are ignorant of nothing, since they have ordained everything. Yet how fiercely the most learned men dispute this, denying that these things were ordained by the immortal gods! ‘But it is in our interest to know what will happen.’ Dicaearchus wrote a substantial book arguing that it is better not to know than to know. They deny that giving signs is beneath the gods’ majesty. No doubt it is majestic to peer into everyone’s cottage to see what would be to each person’s advantage!

[106]
“‘Nor are they unable to know the future in advance.’ Those who do not believe the future is fixed deny that they can. Do you see, then, how doubtful claims are taken as certain and conceded? Then they twist the argument into this conclusion: ‘It is therefore not the case both that gods exist and that they do not signify the future.’ They think they have now proved that. Next they add, ‘But gods exist’—which itself is not granted by everyone. ‘Therefore they give signs.’ Even that does not follow: they may give no signs and still be gods. ‘Nor, if they give signs, do they fail to give some means of understanding their meaning.’ But that too is possible: they might keep the knowledge themselves and not give it to human beings. Why give it to Etruscans rather than Romans? ‘Nor, if they give us means, can divination be nonexistent.’ Suppose the gods give them, absurd though that is: what does it matter if we cannot receive them? The final step is, ‘Therefore divination exists.’ Final it may be, but it is not proved: from false premises, as we have learned from these very men, truth cannot be established. So the entire argument collapses.

### Book 2, Chapter 52

[107]
“Let us turn now to our friend Cratippus, that excellent man. ‘If,’ he says, ‘the office and function of eyes cannot exist without eyes, yet eyes can sometimes fail to perform their function, anyone who has even once used his eyes to perceive things truly possesses the faculty of sight that perceives things truly. Similarly, then, if the office and function of divination cannot exist without divination, but someone who possesses divination can nevertheless sometimes err and fail to perceive the truth, it is enough to establish divination that something has even once been divined in such a way that nothing in it appears to have happened by chance. There are countless cases of this kind; therefore we must admit that divination exists.’ Neat and concise; but even if we generously grant the two assumptions he makes to suit himself, the further premise he adds cannot possibly be granted.

### Book 2, Chapter 53

[108]
“‘If,’ he says, ‘the eyes sometimes err, they still possess the power of sight, because at other times they have seen correctly. Similarly, if someone has even once perceived something through divination, we must believe that he possesses the power of divination, even when he errs.’ Consider, my dear Cratippus, how close this likeness is: to me it seems no likeness at all. Eyes that see truly employ nature and sensation; minds that have at any time seen truly through inspired prophecy or dreams have employed fortune and chance. Unless perhaps you think those who regard dreams as dreams will grant you that, whenever a dream comes true, it has not happened by chance! But let us grant your two premises—what dialecticians call λήμματα, though I prefer our Latin terms. The additional premise, which they call πρόσληψις, will still not be granted.

[109]
“Cratippus adds it in this form: ‘But there are countless forebodings that are not due to chance.’ I say there is not one: see how great our disagreement is! Once that additional premise is refused, there is no conclusion. ‘But it is shameless of us not to concede something so obvious.’ What is obvious? ‘That many predictions come true,’ he says. What about the far greater number that prove false? Does not the very variation, which is characteristic of chance, teach us that chance, not nature, is the cause? Besides, Cratippus—for it is with you that I am arguing—if this argument of yours is valid, do you not see that haruspices, interpreters of lightning and portents, augurs, diviners by lots, and Chaldeans can all use it too? There is no one of these kinds in which something has not happened as predicted. So either those kinds of divination that you quite rightly reject also exist, or, if they do not, I cannot see why these two you retain should exist. The very reasoning by which you establish these can establish those you abolish.

### Book 2, Chapter 54

[110]
“What authority, really, has this frenzy you call divine? Is a madman to see what a wise man cannot, and someone who has lost his human senses to have gained divine ones? We revere the Sibyl’s verses, which she is said to have poured out in a frenzy. A false rumor recently spread that their interpreter would tell the senate that the man we already had as king in fact must also be called king if we wished to survive. If that is in the books, to what man and what time does it refer? Their composer cleverly omitted all definite persons and dates, ensuring that whatever happened would look like a prediction fulfilled.

[111]
“He also took refuge in obscurity, so that the same verses could be applied to different events at different times. That this is not the song of a frenzied mind is plain from the poetry itself, which shows more art and care than inspiration and excitement, but especially from what is called an ἀκροστιχίς, an acrostic: the initial letters of successive verses are linked to spell something, as in certain verses of Ennius, ‘Quintus Ennius made this.’ That surely belongs to an attentive mind, not a frenzied one.

### Book 2, Chapter 55

[112]
“In the Sibylline verses, the initial letters of each passage’s lines weave the whole opening line of that passage into the text. This is the work of a writer, not a person in a frenzy, of someone taking pains, not someone out of his mind. So let us keep the Sibyl apart and under lock and key: as our ancestors handed down, let the books not even be read without the senate’s order, and let them serve to lay religious fears to rest rather than raise them. Let us appeal to their guardians to bring anything at all out of those books rather than a king, whom neither gods nor human beings will ever again tolerate at Rome.

“But many people have often spoken true prophecies, like Cassandra:
‘And now on the great sea […]’

“And the same woman a little later:

“‘Ah, look […]’

[113]
“Must you make me believe in plays too? Let them give as much pleasure as you like; let language and thought, rhythm and song enhance them. We owe no authority or credence to inventions. In the same way, I think we should put no trust in some fellow called Publicius, in the Marcii prophets, or in Apollo’s mysteries. Some of their pronouncements are obvious fabrications, others reckless outbursts, and they have never won the approval of anyone of even ordinary sense, much less a thoughtful person.

[114]
“‘What?’ you will say. ‘Did not that oarsman in Coponius’s fleet predict what came to pass?’ Indeed he did—and precisely what all of us at the time feared would happen. We heard that the two camps faced each other in Thessaly. Caesar’s army seemed to us both bolder, since it had brought war upon its own country, and stronger through its long service. Not one of us was free from fear about the battle’s outcome, though, as befitted resolute men, we did not show it openly. As for that Greek, what wonder if the enormity of his fear, as so often happens, robbed him of his steadiness, his reason, his very self? In that mental upheaval he madly declared that the things he had feared while sane were going to happen. In the name of gods and human beings, which is more plausible: that a deranged oarsman could discern the immortal gods’ plans, or that one of us there at the time could—I, Cato, Varro, or Coponius himself?

### Book 2, Chapter 56

[115]
“But now I come to you,

“‘Holy Apollo, who hold the earth’s true navel,
From which first burst the savage, monstrous voice of superstition.’

“For Chrysippus filled an entire volume with your oracles. Some, I think, are false; some came true by chance, as happens constantly in speech of every kind; some are so devious and obscure that the interpreter needs an interpreter, and the oracle itself must be referred to an oracle; some are ambiguous and need to be submitted to a dialectician. When this oracle was delivered to the wealthiest king in Asia,

“‘Croesus, crossing the Halys, will overthrow a mighty power,’

“he thought he would overthrow his enemies’ power, but overthrew his own.

[116]
“So whichever outcome occurred, the oracle would have been true. But why believe that it was ever delivered to Croesus? Why consider Herodotus more truthful than Ennius? Could he not have invented a story about Croesus just as Ennius did about Pyrrhus? Who believes that Apollo’s oracle gave Pyrrhus this answer:

“‘I say, descendant of Aeacus: you and the Romans—one can defeat the other’?

“First, Apollo never spoke Latin. Second, the Greeks have never heard of that oracle. Besides, by Pyrrhus’s time Apollo had already stopped composing verses. Finally, although it has always been as Ennius says,

“‘The witless breed of Aeacus’s descendants—
Mighty in war rather than mighty in wisdom,’

“Pyrrhus could still have grasped the verse’s ambiguity: ‘you’ and ‘the Romans’ could make it point to his own victory no more than to a Roman one. The ambiguity that deceived Croesus could have deceived even Chrysippus; this one would not have deceived even Epicurus.

### Book 2, Chapter 57

[117]
“But the main point is this: why are oracles of that kind no longer delivered at Delphi—not merely in our day, but for a long time now, until nothing could be held in greater contempt? Pressed on this point, they say that time has exhausted the power of the place from which rose that breath of earth that stirred the Pythia’s mind to deliver oracles. You would think they were talking about wine or salted fish, which lose their strength with age! We are discussing the power of a place, a power not merely natural but divine. How, then, did it fade away? ‘With age,’ you will say. What age can wear out divine power? And what could be more divine than an exhalation from the earth that moves the mind so as to give it foresight of things to come—not merely discerning them far in advance, but declaring them in meter and verse? When did this power fade away? Was it after people began to be less credulous?

[118]
“Demosthenes, who lived nearly three hundred years ago, was already saying then that the Pythia was φιλιππίζειν, ‘taking Philip’s side.’ His meaning was that Philip had bribed her. From that we may infer that other Delphic oracles too were less than honest. Yet somehow these superstitious, almost fanatical philosophers seem to prefer anything to being sensible. You would rather have something fade away and die out—something that, had it ever existed, would surely have been eternal—than disbelieve what ought not to be believed.

### Book 2, Chapter 58

[119]
“There is a similar error about dreams. And how far back they reach to defend them! Our souls, they hold, are divine and drawn from outside us; the universe is filled with a multitude of souls in harmony with one another. Through the mind’s own divinity, then, and its connection with minds outside it, the future is perceived. Zeno, however, thinks the soul contracts, as though slipping and sinking down, and that this itself is sleep. Pythagoras and Plato, authorities of the greatest weight, bid us prepare for bed with a certain regimen and diet, so that we may see more truly in dreams. The Pythagoreans insist above all on abstaining from beans—as though that food swelled the mind rather than the belly! Somehow there is nothing so absurd that some philosopher has not said it.

[120]
“Do we think, then, that sleepers’ minds move of themselves in dreams, or that, as Democritus holds, they are struck by visions arriving from outside? Whichever way it happens, dreamers can see a great many false things as true. To people sailing past, things standing still appear to move; fix your gaze in a certain way and one lamp flame looks like two. Need I mention how many false things the mad and the drunken see? If we must not trust visions of that sort, I do not know why we should trust dreams. If you like, you may argue about these delusions just as well as about dreams: you may say that stationary things appearing to move signify an earthquake or some sudden flight, while a doubled lamp flame foretells dissension and sedition breaking out.

### Book 2, Chapter 59

[121]
“From the visions of madmen or drunkards, too, countless conjectures can be drawn about apparent future events […] For who can throw a javelin all day without sometimes hitting the mark? We dream all night, and scarcely a night passes without our sleeping; yet we wonder that something we dreamed should sometimes come to pass! What is more uncertain than a throw of knucklebones? Still, no one throws them repeatedly without at some point making the Venus throw, sometimes even a second and third time. Are we so foolish that we would rather say Venus prompted it than that chance produced it? If false visions are not to be trusted at other times, I cannot see what special privilege sleep possesses, that in it falsehood should have the force of truth.

[122]
“If nature had arranged for sleepers to act out their dreams, everyone going to bed would have to be tied down: dreamers would cause greater disturbances than any madmen. If we must put no faith in madmen’s visions because they are false, I cannot see why we should believe dreamers’ visions, which are even more disordered. Is it because madmen do not recount their visions to an interpreter, while people who have dreamed do? I ask this too: if I want to write or read something, sing or play the lyre, or explain a point of geometry, physics, or dialectic, should I wait for a dream or employ an art? Without such an art, none of these things can be done or worked out. Indeed, if I wanted to sail, I would not steer as I had dreamed: the penalty would be immediate.

[123]
“How can it make sense, then, for the sick to seek treatment from an interpreter of dreams rather than a doctor? Can Aesculapius or Serapis prescribe us a cure in sleep, while Neptune cannot give helmsmen instructions for their craft? And if Minerva gives medical treatment without a doctor, will the Muses not give dreamers knowledge of writing, reading, and the other arts? If a cure for illness were given in dreams, these other gifts I have mentioned would be given too. Since they are not given, neither is medical treatment. Remove that, and all the authority of dreams is gone.

### Book 2, Chapter 60

[124]
“But grant that these points, too, are obvious; let us now look deeper. Either some divine power, concerned for our welfare, makes dreams convey signs; or interpreters understand from a certain harmony and interconnection in nature, which they call συμπάθεια, ‘sympathy,’ what corresponds to each thing in dreams and what follows from it; or neither is true, but there is a body of steady, long-continued observation of what generally happens and follows after a particular vision in sleep. First, then, we must understand that no divine power produces dreams. Indeed, it is plain that no dream visions proceed from the gods’ will: the gods would send them for our sake, so that we could foresee the future.

[125]
“How few people, then, obey dreams, understand them, or remember them! How many despise them, thinking such superstition a sign of a feeble, old woman’s mind! Why, then, would a god, concerned for these people, warn them in dreams they regard as unworthy not merely of attention but even of remembrance? A god cannot be ignorant of anyone’s state of mind, nor is it worthy of a god to do anything vainly and without purpose—something inconsistent even with human steadfastness. So if most dreams go unnoticed or unheeded, either the god does not know it, or he uses dream signs in vain. Neither possibility is compatible with divinity. We must therefore admit that a god signifies nothing through dreams.

### Book 2, Chapter 61

[126]
“I ask this as well: if a god gives us these visions to enable foresight, why does he not give them to us awake rather than asleep? Whether an impulse arriving from outside stirs sleepers’ minds, or the minds move of themselves, or some other cause makes us seem to see, hear, and act during sleep, the same cause could operate while we are awake. If the gods did this in sleep for our sake, they would do the same while we are awake—especially since Chrysippus, arguing against the Academics, says that waking impressions are far clearer and more certain than those of dreamers. It would therefore have been more worthy of divine beneficence, in caring for us, to give us clearer visions awake rather than more obscure ones in sleep. Since this does not happen, dreams should not be considered divine.

### Book 2, Chapter 62

[127]
“Again, what need is there of circuitous paths and twists, forcing us to employ interpreters of dreams? If the god was concerned for us, why not say directly, ‘Do this; do not do that,’ and give the vision to someone awake rather than asleep?

“And who would dare say that all dreams are true? ‘Some dreams are true,’ says Ennius, ‘but not all need be.’ What, then, is the distinction? Which does he regard as true, which as false? If the true ones are sent by a god, where do the false ones come from? If those too are divine, what could be more inconsistent than a god? And what could be more foolish than to agitate mortal minds with false, lying visions? But if true visions are divine while false and empty ones are human, what license is this to declare that the god produced one and nature the other, rather than that the god produced them all—which you deny—or nature produced them all? Since you deny the former, you must admit the latter.

[128]
“By nature I mean that condition in which the mind never stands still and can never be free of activity and movement. When the body’s weariness prevents it from using the limbs or senses, it falls into varied, uncertain visions, arising, as Aristotle says, from lingering traces of things it did or thought about while awake. Their confusion sometimes produces marvelous dream images. If some of these are false and others true, I should very much like to know by what mark they can be distinguished. If there is none, why should we listen to these interpreters? If there is one, I am eager to hear what it is; but they will be at a loss.

### Book 2, Chapter 63

[129]
“For the question now is which is more plausible: that the immortal gods, surpassing all things in excellence, run about the beds—and even the meanest pallets—of every mortal everywhere, and, when they see someone snoring, put before him twisted, obscure visions that frighten him out of sleep and send him to an interpreter in the morning; or that nature makes the restlessly active mind seem to see in sleep what it saw awake. Which is worthier of philosophy: explaining these things through the superstition of witches, or through an account of nature? Even if true interpretation of dreams were possible, those who profess it would still be incapable of it: they belong to the most frivolous and ignorant class. Yet your Stoics deny that anyone but a wise man can be a diviner.

[130]
“Chrysippus, indeed, defines divination in these words: ‘The faculty of recognizing, seeing, and explaining signs sent by the gods to human beings.’ Its office, he says, is to know beforehand the gods’ disposition toward us, what they signify, and how those signs should be dealt with and expiated. He likewise defines the interpretation of dreams as ‘the faculty of discerning and explaining what the gods signify to human beings in dreams.’ Well, then, does this require ordinary understanding, or exceptional talent and complete learning? Yet we have known no one of that kind.

### Book 2, Chapter 64

[131]
“Consider, then, whether, even if I granted you that divination exists—which I never shall—we might still be unable to find a single diviner. And what sort of intention do the gods have if in dreams they give us neither signs we can understand for ourselves nor signs for which we can find interpreters? If the gods confront us with things for which we have neither knowledge nor an expounder, they are like Carthaginians or Spaniards speaking in our senate without an interpreter.

[132]
“And what purpose do the obscurities and riddles of dreams serve? The gods ought to want us to understand the warnings they send for our sake. ‘What? Is no poet obscure, no natural philosopher?’ Certainly: Euphorion is even excessively obscure;

[133]
“but Homer is not. Which, then, is the better poet? Heraclitus is very obscure, Democritus not at all. Are the two even comparable? You warn me for my own sake about something I cannot understand? Why warn me at all, then? It is as though a doctor told a patient to take

“‘An earthborn, grass-crawling, house-carrying, bloodless creature,’

“instead of saying ‘a snail’ like a human being. In Pacuvius, Amphion says, rather obscurely,

“‘A slow-footed four-legged creature, wild, low to the ground, rough,
With a short head, a snaking neck, a fearsome look,
Gutted, lifeless, yet with a living creature’s voice.’

“Then the Athenians reply:

“‘We do not understand, unless you tell us plainly.’

“And he answers in one word: ‘Tortoise.’ Could you not have said that at the beginning, you lyre-player?

### Book 2, Chapter 65

[134]
“A man reports to an interpreter that he dreamed of an egg hanging from a strap on his bedroom couch—this dream is in Chrysippus’s book. The interpreter replies that a treasure is buried beneath the couch. The man digs and finds some gold surrounded by silver. He sends the interpreter a little of the silver, as much as he thinks fit. ‘Nothing from the yolk?’ the interpreter asks. He thought the egg had indicated gold by its yolk and silver by the rest. Has no one else ever dreamed of an egg, then? Why did this obscure fellow alone find treasure? How many poor people deserving the gods’ protection receive no dream to guide them to a treasure! And why was his warning so obscure, with an egg made into an image of treasure, instead of an open command to look for treasure, just as Simonides was openly forbidden to sail?

### Book 2, Chapter 66

[135]
“Obscure dreams, then, are wholly incompatible with the gods’ majesty.

“Let us turn to plain, clear dreams: the one about the man murdered by the innkeeper at Megara; the one about Simonides, who was forbidden to sail by the man he had buried; and the one about Alexander, which I am surprised you passed over, Quintus. When his friend Ptolemy was struck in battle by a poisoned missile and lay dying in great agony from the wound, Alexander sat beside him and fell asleep. In his sleep, they say, he saw the serpent his mother Olympias kept, carrying a little root in its mouth and telling him where it grew—not far from where they were. Its power, the serpent said, was such that it would readily cure Ptolemy. Alexander woke and told his friends the dream. Men were sent to seek the little root; when it was found, Ptolemy is said to have been cured, along with many soldiers wounded by the same kind of missile.

### Book 2, Chapter 67

[136]
“You also produced many dreams from historical accounts: those of Phalaris’s mother, Cyrus the Elder, Dionysius’s mother, Hamilcar the Carthaginian, Hannibal, and Publius Decius; then the now familiar dream about the leader of the dance, Gaius Gracchus’s dream, and the recent one of Caecilia, daughter of Balearicus. But these are other people’s experiences and therefore unknown to us; some may even be inventions. Who vouches for them? What have we to say about our own dreams? Yours concerned my emerging from the river and reaching the bank on horseback; mine concerned Marius with his laurel-wreathed fasces, ordering that I be taken to his monument. There is one explanation for all dreams, Quintus. By the immortal gods, let us take care that superstition and distorted thinking do not overwhelm it!

[137]
“What Marius do you think I saw? His likeness and image, I suppose, as Democritus holds. Where did that image come from? He maintains that images stream from solid bodies and definite shapes. What body of Marius was there, then? ‘The body that once existed,’ he says. So this image of Marius was pursuing me onto the plain of Atina? ‘Everything is full of images: no form can be conceived except through an impact of images.’

[138]
“Well, then, are these images so obedient to us that the moment we wish it they come running—even images of things that do not exist? What shape is so unheard-of, so nonexistent, that the mind cannot fashion it for itself? Thus we have mental pictures even of things we have never seen: the layouts of towns, human forms.

[139]
“When I think of the walls of Babylon or Homer’s face, does some image of them strike me? In that case we could know anything we pleased, for there is nothing we cannot think about. No images, then, steal into sleepers’ minds from outside; none stream off at all. Nor have I known anyone who said nothing with greater authority. The mind’s power and nature are such that in waking life it is active, not through any impulse from outside, but by its own movement, with an astonishing swiftness. Supported by limbs, body, and senses, it perceives, thinks, and feels everything more surely. But when these supports are withdrawn and the body’s weariness leaves the mind on its own, it moves by itself. Shapes and actions pass through it, and many things seem to be heard and spoken.

### Book 2, Chapter 68

[140]
“In a weakened, relaxed mind these many things naturally appear confused and varied in every way. Above all, the traces of things we thought about or did while awake stir and move within us. At that time Marius was much in my thoughts, as I recalled the courage and constancy with which he had borne his own grave misfortune. That, I believe, was why I dreamed of him. You, thinking anxiously about me, suddenly saw me in a dream emerging from a river. In each of our minds there remained traces of our waking thoughts. But some details were added: in my case, Marius’s monument; in yours, the horse I was riding, which sank with me and reappeared.

[141]
“Do you think any old woman would have been so delirious as to believe in dreams if such things did not sometimes coincide by sheer random chance? Alexander seemed to hear a serpent speak. The story may be false or it may be true; either way, there is nothing remarkable about it. He did not hear a serpent speaking; he seemed to hear it—and, to make it more impressive, it spoke while holding a root in its mouth. But nothing is too extraordinary for a dreamer. I ask, though, why Alexander had so vivid and definite a dream, yet did not have others at other times, and why other people do not have many. Apart from this dream of Marius, I myself have had none worth mentioning that I remember. All those nights in so long a life have been wasted, then!

### Book 2, Chapter 69

[142]
“Now, indeed, with my work in the courts interrupted, I have curtailed my late-night studies and added midday naps, which I did not formerly take. Yet with all this sleep I have received no warning in a dream, especially about matters of such consequence. Nor do I ever feel more as though I am dreaming than when I see the magistrates in the Forum or the senate in its chamber.

“For—and this is the second branch of our division—what continuity and interconnection in nature, which, as I said, they call συμπάθεια, ‘sympathy,’ could require us to infer treasure from an egg? Doctors do recognize approaching or developing illnesses from certain symptoms. They also say that some signs of health, such as whether we are overfull or famished, can be understood from certain kinds of dreams. But what natural affinity links dreams to treasure, an inheritance, public office, victory, and many other things of that kind?

[143]
“A man is said to have passed stones while dreaming of sexual intercourse. I see the sympathetic connection: a vision was presented to the sleeper such that natural force, not a deluded belief, produced what happened. But what natural force presented Simonides with the apparition that forbade him to sail? And what connection with nature had that recorded dream of Alcibiades? Shortly before his death, he dreamed that he was wrapped in his mistress’s little cloak. When he lay cast out, unburied and abandoned by everyone, his mistress covered his body with her mantle. Was this, then, inherent in future events, with natural causes? Or did chance bring about both the vision and its fulfillment?

### Book 2, Chapter 70

[144]
“And do not the interpreters’ own conjectures reveal their ingenuity rather than nature’s power and harmony? A runner planning to go to Olympia dreamed he was riding in a four-horse chariot. In the morning, off he went to an interpreter. ‘You will win,’ the man said: ‘that is what the horses’ speed and strength signify.’ Afterward he went to Antiphon. ‘You must lose,’ Antiphon said. ‘Do you not see that four ran ahead of you?’ Here is another runner—and Chrysippus’s book is full of dreams of this sort, as is Antipater’s—but to return to the runner: he reported to an interpreter that he had dreamed of becoming an eagle. ‘Victory is yours,’ the interpreter said. ‘No bird flies with greater force.’ To the same man Antiphon said, ‘You fool, do you not see that you have lost? That bird is always last itself as it pursues and chases other birds.’

[145]
“A married woman who longed to give birth but was unsure whether she was pregnant dreamed that her genitals were sealed shut. She reported it. The interpreter said she could not have conceived, since she had been sealed. Another, however, said she was pregnant, since people do not generally put a seal on anything empty. What art is there in an interpreter’s clever trickery? Do the examples I have given, and the countless others the Stoics have collected, signify anything beyond the ingenuity of men who take some resemblance and turn their conjecture now this way, now that? Doctors have certain signs in a patient’s pulse and breathing, and from many other things they foresee what is to come. Helmsmen, seeing squid leap or dolphins dart into harbor, think a storm is foretold. These signs can readily be explained by reason and traced to nature; the things I mentioned a moment ago cannot possibly be.

### Book 2, Chapter 71

[146]
“‘But long observation’—this is the one branch still left—‘has created an art by recording events.’ Really? Can dreams be observed? How? Their variations are countless. Nothing can be imagined so topsy-turvy, so incoherent, so monstrous, that we cannot dream it. How, then, can we embrace in memory or record through observation these endless, ever-new visions? Astronomers have recorded the movements of the wandering stars: an order was discovered in those bodies where none had been suspected. Show me, then, what order dreams have, what pattern of recurrence. And how can true dreams be distinguished from false ones, when the same dreams have different outcomes for different people, and not always the same outcome even for the same person? We do not generally believe a liar even when he tells the truth. I therefore find it astonishing that, when some dream comes true, these men do not let the many discredit the one, but let the one confirm countless others.

[147]
“If, then, a god does not produce dreams, if nature has no such connection with them, and if observation has been unable to establish knowledge of them, it follows that we should assign dreams no authority whatever. Especially so, since those who see them do not themselves divine anything, while their interpreters employ conjecture, not nature; since chance, over almost countless ages, has produced more wonders in every sphere than in dream visions; and since nothing is more uncertain than a conjecture that can be turned in different, sometimes even opposite, directions.

### Book 2, Chapter 72

[148]
“Let this divination through dreams, then, be driven off the stage along with the rest. To speak the truth, superstition has spread among the nations, crushing almost every mind and taking possession of human weakness. This has been said in the books on the nature of the gods, and making this clear has been our chief purpose in the present discussion. We thought we would greatly benefit both ourselves and our countrymen if we could uproot it altogether. Yet—and I want this clearly understood—abolishing superstition does not abolish religion. It is wise to uphold our ancestors’ institutions by preserving their rites and ceremonies; and the beauty of the universe and the order of the heavenly bodies compel us to acknowledge some surpassing, eternal being that the human race should look up to and admire.

[149]
“So, just as religion joined with knowledge of nature should even be extended, every root of superstition must be plucked out. It presses upon you, bears down on you, pursues you wherever you turn: if you hear a prophet or an ominous word, offer a sacrifice or catch sight of a bird, see a Chaldean or a haruspex; if lightning flashes, thunder sounds, something is struck from heaven, or anything resembling a portent is born or comes to pass. Some such thing is bound to happen much of the time, so that the mind is never allowed to rest in peace.

[150]
“Sleep seems a refuge from every hardship and anxiety. Yet from sleep itself arise a host of cares and fears. These would have less force in themselves, and would be more readily dismissed, had philosophers not taken up the defense of dreams—not the most contemptible philosophers, either, but men exceptionally acute, able to perceive what follows and what conflicts, already thought almost complete and perfect in wisdom. Had Carneades not opposed their license, I suspect they would by now be considered the only philosophers. Nearly all our argument and contention is with them, not because we hold them in the greatest contempt, but because they seem to defend their views with the greatest subtlety and judgment. Since it is the Academy’s distinctive practice to impose no judgment of its own, to approve what seems most like the truth, to compare arguments and bring out what can be said for each position, and, without lending its own authority, to leave the hearer’s judgment independent and free, we shall hold to this practice handed down from Socrates. If you agree, my brother Quintus, we shall employ it between ourselves as often as possible.” “Nothing,” he said, “could give me greater pleasure.” With these words, we rose.

## Translation — Mouseia

> Complete machine-assisted Plain English translation, made independently and directly from the Latin, never from the Musean edition. Both books and every numbered section; a separate Latin-source model review covered the entire text. No human specialist review is claimed.

### Book 1, Chapter 1

[1]
There is an old belief, going back to the age of heroes and supported by the agreement of the Roman people and every nation. It is that people have a power of divination, which the Greeks call mantikē: a feeling for, and knowledge of, things to come. If this power really exists, it is a wonderful and helpful thing. Through it, human nature can come closer to the power of the gods than in any other way. In this, as in many other cases, our people have done better than the Greeks. We named this outstanding power after the gods. The Greeks, as Plato explains, named it after madness.

[2]
I can see no nation so civilized and educated, or so wild and uncivilized, that it does not believe future events give signs of themselves, and that some people can understand and predict them. To begin with the most ancient authorities, the Assyrians lived in vast, flat regions. With an open, clear view of the sky in every direction, they regularly watched the stars move across it. They recorded those movements and passed down what each sign meant for each person. One group within that nation was called the Chaldeans: this was a people's name, not the name of a profession. They are thought to have built up, by long observation of the stars, a body of knowledge that allowed them to predict what would happen to each person and the fate under which each was born. The Egyptians too are thought to have acquired this same skill over an almost countless number of centuries. The Cilicians, the Pisidians, and their neighbors in Pamphylia—peoples I myself governed—believe the flights and calls of birds are completely reliable signs of what will happen.

### Book 1, Chapter 2

[3]
Whenever Greece sent colonists to Aeolis, Ionia, Asia, Sicily, or Italy, did it not consult an oracle—at Delphi or Dodona, or that of Ammon? What war did it start without asking the gods for advice? And there was not just one kind of divination practiced in public and private. To leave other peoples aside, how many kinds our own people adopted! The first example is Romulus, who founded this city: tradition credits him both with consulting the auspices for its foundation and with being an excellent augur himself. The other kings then used augurs too. Once the kings had been driven out, no public business, at home or in war, was done without taking the auspices. The methods of the haruspices also seemed very effective in obtaining and consulting signs, and in interpreting and dealing with supernatural warnings. So the Romans brought in this whole body of knowledge from Etruria. They did not want to seem to have neglected any kind of divination.

[4]
There are also two ways in which the mind, released from restraint and moving freely on its own, is stirred without reasoning or learned knowledge: madness and dreams. The Romans believed that divination through madness was found above all in the Sibylline verses. They therefore decided to choose ten citizens to interpret them. They often thought the frenzied predictions of fortune-tellers and inspired prophets deserved a hearing too. Cornelius Culleolus' predictions in the war with Octavius were one such example. The senate likewise took serious dreams into account if these seemed relevant to public affairs. Indeed, within living memory the senate ordered Juno Sospita's temple restored after a dream of Balearicus' daughter Caecilia. The work was done by Lucius Julius, whose fellow consul was Publius Rutilius.

### Book 1, Chapter 3

[5]
In my view, people in the past accepted these things more because events had taught them than because reasoning had persuaded them. Philosophers, however, have gathered some carefully worked-out arguments for the truth of divination. To speak of the earliest, Xenophanes of Colophon was the only one who accepted the existence of gods but rejected divination altogether. All the others accepted it, except Epicurus, who stammers out his account of the gods' nature. But they did not all accept it in the same way. Socrates, all his followers, Zeno, and Zeno's followers held to the view of the ancient philosophers. This was also the position taken by the Old Academy and the Peripatetics. Even earlier, Pythagoras had given divination great authority and wished to be an augur himself. Democritus, an important authority, also supported foreknowledge of the future in many passages. But Dicaearchus the Peripatetic rejected every form of divination except dreams and madness. The same two forms are accepted by our friend Cratippus; I consider him a match for the best Peripatetic thinkers. He rejects all the others.

[6]
The Stoics stood up for nearly every one of these forms. Zeno's writings had, so to speak, sown the seeds, and Cleanthes had made them grow a little more. Then came Chrysippus, a man of very sharp intelligence. He devoted two books to explaining the entire theory of divination, plus a separate book to oracles and one to dreams. After him came a single book by his student Diogenes of Babylon; Antipater wrote two, and our friend Posidonius five. But Panaetius broke with the Stoics on this point, though he was perhaps the leading member of that school, the teacher of Posidonius and the pupil of Antipater. Even he did not dare deny the power of divination. He said he was uncertain about it. If a Stoic was allowed to do that on one subject, however unwilling the other Stoics were, will they not allow us to do it on other subjects too? Especially when the very thing Panaetius finds unclear seems clearer than sunlight to the rest of his school?

### Book 1, Chapter 4

[7]
But such a distinguished philosopher's judgment and testimony support this point in the Academy's favor. We ourselves are asking what to think about divination. Carneades argued against the Stoics on this subject at length and with great insight, and we are afraid of rashly agreeing to something false or not properly understood. So it seems we must carefully compare the arguments on both sides, again and again. That was also our approach in my three books about the nature of the gods. Rash agreement and error are shameful in any subject. They are especially so in judging what authority auspices, sacred practices, and religion should have for us. If we neglect them, we risk becoming guilty of an offense against the gods. If we accept them, we risk becoming trapped in the superstitions of old women.

### Book 1, Chapter 5

[8]
We have often discussed these matters, and did so in more detail recently when I was with my brother Quintus at my Tusculan villa. Our walk had brought us to the Lyceum, as we call the upper exercise ground. He said, “A little while ago I read through the third of your books about the nature of the gods. Cotta's argument shook my belief, but it did not destroy it.” “That's very good,” I said. “Cotta himself argues in a way meant to refute the Stoics' reasoning rather than to wipe out people's religion.” Quintus replied, “Yes, Cotta says that—quite often, in fact. I think he wants to avoid seeming to violate the rules everyone shares. Yet as I see it, his drive to challenge the Stoics ends up removing the gods entirely.

[9]
“I have no real trouble finding an answer to his reasoning. Lucilius defended religion well enough in the second book. You yourself say at the end of the third that his argument seemed to you closer to the truth. But those books left out divination. I suppose you thought it could be examined and discussed more conveniently on its own. Divination is the prediction and foreknowledge of things regarded as chance events. If you agree, let's look at its power and character. My own view is this: if the kinds of divination we have inherited and practice are true, there are gods. And, conversely, if there are gods, there are people who can divine.”

### Book 1, Chapter 6

[10]
“Quintus,” I said, “you are defending the Stoics' stronghold, if the two claims really work both ways: if there is divination, there are gods, and if there are gods, there is divination. Neither claim is as easy to accept as you think. Nature may give signs of the future without a god. And gods may exist without giving the human race any power of divination.” He answered, “For me, the clear and unmistakable forms of divination are enough to prove both that gods exist and that they care about human affairs. If you like, I will explain my own views on them. But only if you can give this your full attention and see no other business as more important than our discussion.”

[11]
“I always have time for philosophy, Quintus,” I said. “And now that there is nothing else I can gladly do, I am much more eager to hear your views on divination.”

“I have nothing new to offer,” he said, “and no special opinion of my own. I follow a very ancient belief, supported by the agreement of all peoples and nations. There are two kinds of divination. One depends on a learned skill; the other comes from nature.

### Book 1, Chapter 7

[12]
“What nation or community is not influenced by predictions from people who examine sacrificial organs, interpret wonders or lightning, take auspices, study the stars, or draw lots? These methods mostly depend on learned skill. Or by predictions from dreams and inspired prophecy? Those two are regarded as natural. I think we should ask about the results of these things rather than their causes. A natural power lets us foresee events, at times from signs studied across many years, at times from a divine prompting and inspiration. So Carneades should stop pressing his question, as Panaetius also did: was it Jupiter who told the crow to make its cry to our left, and the raven to our right? These signs have been observed for an immense time. People have noticed and recorded the results. There is nothing that long ages cannot achieve and work out, when memory preserves the findings and records pass them on.

### Book 1, Chapter 8

[13]
“We may wonder at the kinds of plants and roots doctors have discovered for animal bites, eye diseases, and wounds. Reason has never explained their natural power. But their usefulness has proved the worth of the skill and of its discoverer. Now let's look at things which belong to another category but are more like divination:

“‘The swelling sea often gives advance warning of winds,
When it suddenly rises in a deep surge,
And rocks, white with salt and foaming with snowy spray,
Compete to send Neptune their sounds of sorrow;
Or a loud whistling starts high on a mountain peak
And grows as it echoes again and again from the cliffs.’

“Your Weather Signs is full of forecasts like these. Who can work out the causes of such foreknowledge? I know that Boëthus the Stoic tried. But he got only as far as explaining the causes of things that happen in the sea or sky.

[14]
“But who could give a likely explanation for the following?

“‘The gray coot too, fleeing the sea's swirling depths,
Cries out to announce the approach of terrible storms,
Pouring loud calls from its trembling throat.
Often the acredula sings a very sad song from its breast
And keeps up its cries in the early morning,
Keeps up its cries, and pours endless complaints from its beak,
As soon as dawn releases the cold dew.
And sometimes a dark crow, running along the shore,
Dips its head and takes the waves over its neck.’

### Book 1, Chapter 9

[15]
“We see that these signs almost never mislead us. Yet we do not see why this happens.

“‘You too, creatures raised in fresh water, recognize the signs,
As you get ready to pour out loud cries that mean nothing
And stir the springs and pools with your harsh noise.’

“Who could imagine that little frogs see this coming? Yet frogs have a certain natural power to give a sign. The power is quite reliable in itself, though rather hard for human beings to understand.

“‘And soft-footed cattle, looking toward the lights of the sky,
Have drawn wet moisture from the air through their nostrils.’

“I do not ask why, since I understand what will happen.

“‘Then the mastic tree, always green and always heavily laden,
Which normally grows large with a threefold crop,
Bears fruit three times and shows three times for plowing.’

### Book 1, Chapter 10

[16]
“Why this tree alone blooms three times, and why it uses its flowers to mark the right plowing season, are questions I leave aside too. It is enough for me to know what happens, even if I do not know why each thing happens. So I will give the same answer in defense of every kind of divination as I gave about the things I have mentioned. I see what scammony root can do as a purgative, and what aristolochia, or birthwort, can do for snakebites. The latter got its name from its discoverer, who discovered the remedy itself through a dream. Seeing what they do is enough. I do not know why they can do it. Likewise, I do not fully understand the reason for the signs of wind and rain I mentioned. But I recognize, know, and accept their power and their results. In the same way, I accept what a cleft in a sacrificial organ or a lobe of the liver means. I do not know the cause. Life is full of such things. Almost everyone uses sacrificial organs for divination. And can we doubt the power of lightning? Among many other amazing cases, isn't this one especially striking? When the terracotta statue of Summanus on the roof of the temple of Jupiter Best and Greatest was struck from the sky, its head could not be found anywhere. The haruspices said it had been knocked into the Tiber. It was found at the very place they pointed out.

### Book 1, Chapter 11

[17]
“But what better authority or witness could I use than you? I even learned by heart—and gladly—the lines spoken by Urania the Muse in the second book of your On My Consulship:

“‘First Jupiter, blazing with heavenly fire,
Turns and lights up the whole universe,
And with his divine mind reaches through heaven and earth.
That mind holds human thoughts and lives deep within it,
While itself enclosed within the vaults of the eternal heavens.
And if you want to know the movements and wandering paths
Of stars occupying their places among the constellations,
Whose wandering exists only in the Greeks' misleading language,
But really move along a fixed track and in a fixed orbit,
You will see that a divine mind has marked out everything.

[18]
“‘For first, during your consulship, the swift movements of stars
And the serious meetings of stars flashing with fire
Were seen by you too, when you visited the snow-covered heights
On the Alban Mount and celebrated the Latin Festival with rich milk;
You also saw the comets quivering with bright flames,
And thought much confusion was coming from destruction in the night.
For the Latin Festival fell at an ominous time,
When the moon hid its bright shape in darkened light
And suddenly vanished in a starry night.
And what of Phoebus' torch, the grim messenger of war,
Which flew toward its great height in a blaze of fire,
Seeking the plunging regions of the sky and the setting sun?
Or when a citizen was hit by terrible lightning,
And the light of life left his eyes on a clear day?
Or when the earth shook its pregnant body?
Then terrible shapes of different kinds, seen at night,
Warned of war and unrest.
Across the land prophets, their hearts in a frenzy,
Poured out many oracles threatening grim disasters,

### Book 1, Chapter 12

[19]
“‘And those things which at last came about with the passage of time,
The father of the gods himself repeatedly foretold
With constant, clear signs in heaven and on earth.
Now all those warnings which the Lydian haruspex
Of the Etruscan people gave when Torquatus and Cotta were consuls
Are being brought together and settled by your year in office.
For once the father who thunders on high, resting on starry Olympus,
Struck his own hills and temples
And hurled fire at his home on the Capitol.
Then the ancient, honored bronze statue of Natta
Fell, and the laws dropped down, their age-old sacred force gone,
And the blaze of lightning destroyed the images of the gods.

[20]
“‘In this place stood the forest nurse who raised the Roman people,
The wolf of Mars, feeding the small sons of Mars
From her full breasts with the nourishing dew of life.
Then she fell with the boys, struck by the blazing thunderbolt,
Torn away from the footprints her feet left behind.
Who then did not search the writings and records of the craft,
And draw words of sorrow from Etruscan books?
All warned against a huge disaster and destruction for the citizens,
Arising from a noble family.
Or they steadily declared that the laws would fall.
They ordered us to save the temples of the gods and the city itself
From the flames, and to fear terrible slaughter and bloodshed.
They said this was fixed and firmly rooted in a dreadful fate,
Unless first a sacred statue of Jupiter, beautifully made,
Was set on a high column, facing the bright sunrise.
Then the people and the revered senate would be able
To see the hidden plots, if, turned toward the rising sun,
The statue looked from there upon the home of the senate and people.

### Book 1, Chapter 13

[21]
“‘After long delays and much postponement, this statue
Was finally set on its high base when you were consul.
And at one and the same hour of the fixed, appointed time,
Jupiter made his scepter shine from the tall column,
And the disaster planned for our country by fire and sword
Was exposed to senate and people by the statements of the Allobroges.
So those ancient men whose records you keep were right,
Those who ruled peoples and cities with moderation and courage.
Your own ancestors too were right, whose piety and loyalty
Were outstanding, whose wisdom far surpassed all others,
To give special worship to the gods in their active power.
These truths were seen deeply, with keen and careful thought,
By men who gladly spent their leisure in honorable studies,

[22]
“‘And in the shady Academy and the bright Lyceum
Poured out great teachings from their fertile minds.
As your youth first began to flower, your country took you from those men
And put you in the midst of a great task demanding courage.
Yet you ease your anxious concerns with rest,
And dedicate to study and to us whatever time your country leaves free.’

“Can you then bring yourself to argue against what I say about divination? You have done what you have done, and you wrote those lines I recited with such great care!

[23]
“Tell me, Carneades: is your question why this happens, or what method gives us a way to foresee it? I admit I do not know. But I say that you yourself see them happen. ‘By chance,’ you say. Really? Can something that has every feature of truth come about by chance? A throw of four knucklebones can give a Venus by chance. But if you threw four hundred knucklebones, do you think you could get a hundred Venuses by chance too? Paint splashed at random on a board can make the outline of a face. But could splashing paint by accident give us something as beautiful as the Venus of Cos? If a pig presses the letter A into the earth with its snout, could you therefore suspect that it might write out Ennius' Andromache? Carneades invented an account of a rock that broke open in the Chios quarries and exposed a little Pan's head. I can believe it was a shape with some resemblance to him. But certainly not one you would say Scopas had made. The fact is that chance never produces a perfect copy of the truth.

### Book 1, Chapter 14

[24]
“But sometimes predictions fail to come true. What skill does not have that problem? I mean skills that depend on inference and judgment. Should medicine not count as a skill? Yet it makes many mistakes. What about ships' pilots? Don't they make mistakes? When the Greek army and the commanders of all those ships left Troy, weren't they, as Pacuvius says, ‘happy to be leaving, watching the playful fish,’ and ‘unable to get enough of looking’?

“‘Meanwhile, as the sun is nearly setting, the sea grows rough;
Darkness doubles, and the blackness of night and storm clouds blinds them.’

“Did the shipwreck of so many famous leaders and kings do away with the skill of navigation? Or is there no such thing as military knowledge because a great commander recently lost his army and fled? Or is there no method or practical wisdom in governing a state because Gnaeus Pompey made many mistakes, Marcus Cato a few, and even you yourself some? The answers of the haruspices and all divination based on judgment are like this. They rest on inference and cannot go any further.

### Book 1, Chapter 15

[25]
“This kind of divination may sometimes be mistaken, but it still points to the truth very often. It reaches back through all past time. During that time, the same events followed the same signs on almost countless occasions. A skill was built up by repeatedly noticing and recording the same things.

“And how reliable your auspices are! With your permission, I will say that Roman augurs no longer understand them. The Cilicians, Pamphylians, Pisidians, and Lycians do.

[26]
“Need I mention our friend and host, King Deiotarus, a very distinguished and excellent man? He never does anything without taking the auspices. He once abandoned a journey he had planned and firmly decided on, turning back because of a warning from an eagle's flight. The room he would have stayed in if he had gone on collapsed the very next night.

[27]
“He told me himself that he had very often turned back from journeys after already traveling for many days. This is especially admirable about him. Caesar punished him by taking away his tetrarchy, kingdom, and money. Even so, he has no regrets, he says, about the favorable auspices he received before setting out to join Pompey. He had used his troops to defend the senate's authority and the Roman people's freedom, as well as the dignity of their empire. The birds on whose advice he had followed duty and loyalty had served him well. His honor mattered more to him than his possessions. I would call his way of reading signs true augury. Our magistrates make their auspices happen by force. Give a chicken a lump of food: as it eats, a piece has to fall out of its beak;

### Book 1, Chapter 16

[28]
“and your rules say that a tripudium occurs if any of it falls onto solid ground. You call even this forced sign that I have described a fully favorable tripudium. As Cato the Wise complains, many auguries and auspices have therefore been completely lost and abandoned through the college's neglect.

“Once, hardly any important action, even in private life, was taken without auspices. The auspice-takers at weddings still show this today, although they keep only the name and have given up the practice. Just as we now usually seek signs about important matters from sacrificial organs—though even that happens rather less often than it used to—people then sought them from birds. So, by not looking for favorable signs on the left, we run into ominous and defective ones.

[29]
“When Publius Claudius, son of Appius the Blind, and his colleague Lucius Junius sailed under faulty auspices, they lost enormous fleets. Agamemnon suffered the same fate. When the Greeks began

“‘To grumble among themselves and openly trample on the skill of the organ-readers,
He orders the ships to sail, with cheers of approval but an unfavorable bird.’

“But why go back to ancient times? We see what happened to Marcus Crassus when he ignored the announcement of ominous signs. In dealing with this, Appius, your colleague, did not apply his knowledge properly, despite being a capable augur by your often-repeated account. As censor he marked down Gaius Ateius, a good man and an excellent citizen, stating that he had invented the auspices. Granted: that could be a censor's business, if he judged them invented. But what was certainly not an augur's business was his added statement that this had caused the Roman people a very great disaster. If this was the cause of the disaster, the blame lies not with the man who announced the warning, but with the man who disobeyed it. The result confirmed that the warning was genuine, according to this very augur and censor. If it had been false, it could not have provided any cause of disaster. Ominous signs, like other auspices, spoken omens, and signs generally, do not cause events. They announce what will happen unless you take precautions.

### Book 1, Chapter 17

[30]
“So Ateius' announcement did not create a cause of disaster. The sign it presented told Crassus what to expect if he failed to take precautions. Either the announcement was powerless, or, if it had force as Appius thinks, its force places the fault on the man who disobeyed, not the man who gave the warning.

“And where did you get that curved staff of yours, the most famous badge of the augur's office? At the founding of the city, Romulus used it to divide the sky into regions, did he not? Romulus' staff was a small stick, curved and slightly bent at the top. It took its name, lituus, from its resemblance to the trumpet of that name. The Salii had it in their council hall on the Palatine; after fire destroyed the hall, people found the staff intact.

[31]
“What ancient author fails to describe how Attus Navius used his staff to divide up regions long after Romulus, while Tarquinius Priscus was king? As a boy he was poor and kept pigs. He is said to have lost one and vowed that, if he recovered it, his gift to the god would be whichever bunch of grapes was biggest in the vineyard. After finding the pig, he is said to have stood in the middle of the vineyard facing south. He divided the vineyard into four parts. The birds ruled out three of them. He divided the remaining fourth into regions and, as we read in the record, found a bunch of grapes of amazing size. When this became known, all his neighbors consulted him about their affairs, and he became very famous and highly respected.

[32]
“As a result, King Priscus sent for him. The king tested his knowledge of augury by asking if an idea he had in mind was possible. After taking the auspices, Attus said yes. Tarquinius explained that his idea was to slice a whetstone in two with a razor. Attus told him to try it. So a whetstone was brought to the assembly ground and cut in two with a razor, while the king and people watched. After that, Attus Navius served as augur to Tarquinius, while people brought their own concerns to him for advice.

[33]
“The account says they buried the whetstone together with the razor in the assembly ground and covered the spot with a wellhead. Let's deny everything! Let's burn the records and say these things are inventions! Anything at all, rather than admit that the gods care about human affairs! But doesn't the story you yourself recorded about Tiberius Gracchus support the methods of both augurs and haruspices? He unknowingly chose a site for his augural tent incorrectly, because he had crossed the city's sacred boundary without taking the auspices. He then held the assembly to elect consuls. The story is well known, and you yourself put it on record. Gracchus was himself an augur, and by admitting his mistake he confirmed the authority of the auspices. The methods of the haruspices also gained great authority. Brought before the senate just after the election, they declared that the man who had presided over it had not been properly qualified.

### Book 1, Chapter 18

[34]
“So I agree with those who say there are two kinds of divination: one that involves learned skill and one that does not. There is skill in those who use inference to investigate new cases, after learning about old ones by observation. But there is no learned skill in those who sense the future, not by reasoning or by drawing conclusions from signs they have observed and recorded, but through some excitement of the mind, or through its free and unrestrained movement. This often happens to people dreaming, and sometimes to people prophesying in a frenzy, like Bacis of Boeotia, Epimenides of Crete, and the Sibyl of Erythrae. Oracles belong to this kind too: not those drawn by lots made alike, but those poured out through divine impulse and inspiration. Yet lots themselves should not be looked down on if they have the authority of age, like those we are told came out of the earth. I believe divine power can make the lots, when drawn, fit the case exactly. The interpreters of all these things seem to come close to the divining power of those they interpret, just as scholars do to the poets they explain.

[35]
“What sort of cleverness is it, then, to try to undermine things firmly established by age through quibbling? ‘I cannot find the cause.’ Perhaps it lies hidden, wrapped in nature's darkness. The god did not want me to understand these things, only to use them. So I will use them. I will not be persuaded that all Etruria is crazy about sacrificial organs, or that this same people is mistaken about lightning, or interprets portents falsely. After all, rumblings, groanings, and movements of the earth have often truly predicted many serious events for our state and for other communities.

### Book 1, Chapter 19

[36]
“What about this birth by a mule, which people laugh at? Because an animal naturally unable to breed had produced a young one, didn't the haruspices predict an unbelievable crop of evils? And what about Tiberius Gracchus, the son of Publius, who was twice consul and also censor, an eminent augur, a wise man, and an outstanding citizen? His son Gaius Gracchus wrote that, when two snakes were caught in his house, he called in the haruspices. They replied that if he let the male go, his wife would soon die; if he let the female go, he would die himself. He thought it fairer that he should meet death in his mature years than that the young daughter of Publius Africanus should die. He let the female go and died himself a few days later. Let's laugh at the haruspices and call them empty-headed frauds! Let's despise men whose methods were supported both by a very wise man and by the actual outcome! Let's also condemn Babylon and the people who watch the signs in the sky from the Caucasus and follow the paths of the stars by calculation and measurement. Let's condemn them, I say, for stupidity, falsehood, or shamelessness. They say they have records covering four hundred seventy thousand years. Let's judge that they are lying and have no fear of what all future generations will think of them!

[37]
“Very well: foreigners are foolish and dishonest. But has Greek history lied too? To speak now of natural divination, who does not know the answers Apollo at Delphi gave to Croesus, the Athenians, the Spartans, the Tegeans, the Argives, and the Corinthians? Chrysippus collected countless oracles, each backed by a substantial authority and witness. I will leave them aside because you know them. I defend just this one point. The oracle at Delphi would never have been so famous and renowned, or filled with such great gifts from every people and king, unless every age had experienced the truth of its answers. ‘It has not done that for a long time now.’

[38]
“Well, just as it is less famous now because its answers are less outstandingly true, so it would not have been so famous then without the highest degree of truth. The power in the earth that stirred the Pythia's mind with divine inspiration may have faded with age. We see that some rivers have disappeared and dried up, or twisted and turned into another course. But let that have happened however you like. It is a large question. Just let this stand: that oracle spoke the truth for many centuries. We cannot deny it without overturning all history.

### Book 1, Chapter 20

[39]
“But let's leave oracles aside and turn to dreams. In discussing them, Chrysippus collects a great many trivial dreams. Antipater does the same by searching out dreams explained through Antiphon's interpretations. These certainly show the interpreter's cleverness, but he should have used more important examples. Philistus, an educated, careful writer who lived at the time, tells this story about the mother of Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse. While she was pregnant with this very Dionysius, she dreamed that she gave birth to a little satyr. The interpreters of portents, who were then called Galeotae in Sicily, answered that the child she bore would be the most famous man in Greece and enjoy lasting good fortune. That is Philistus' account.

[40]
“Am I taking you back to the stories of our poets or the Greek poets? That Vestal Virgin in Ennius tells a dream too:

“‘When the old woman, hurriedly roused, brought a lamp with trembling limbs,
The girl, terrified by her dream, spoke these words through tears:
“Daughter of Eurydice, loved by our father,
My body's life and strength are all draining away.
A handsome man seemed to drag me through pleasant willow groves,
Along riverbanks and through unfamiliar places. Then I seemed
To wander alone, my own sister,
Slowly to follow your tracks and search for you, yet could not
Find my way to you in my heart; no path gave my foot a firm hold.

[41]
“‘“Then my father seemed to speak to me
In these words: ‘Daughter, you must first endure
Hardships; afterward your fortune will rise again from the river.’
After saying this, sister, my father suddenly withdrew.
He did not show himself again, though my heart longed for him,
Though in tears I often stretched my hands toward the blue vaults
Of heaven, and called him in a pleading voice.
Only with difficulty did sleep leave me, with my heart in pain.”’

### Book 1, Chapter 21

[42]
“Even if a poet invented these things, they still fit the way dreams usually work. Let's also allow that the dream which disturbed Priam was made up, because

“‘Hecuba, the pregnant mother, seemed in her dreams
To give birth to a burning torch. At this the father,
King Priam himself, terrified at heart
By the dream, worn out with anxious sighs,
Offered up bleating animals in sacrifice.
Then, seeking peace with the god, he asked for an interpretation,
Begging Apollo to explain
What such great warnings in the dream were leading to.
Then from the oracle Apollo spoke with a divine voice:
The first boy born to Priam after this
Must not be allowed to be raised.
He would be the destruction of Troy, the ruin of Pergamum.’

### Book 1, Chapter 22

[43]
“Let these be dreams from stories, as I said. Add to them the dream of Aeneas. In the Greek history of our own Fabius Pictor it is described in such a way that everything Aeneas did and everything that happened to him was what he had seen in his sleep.

“But let's look at things closer to home. How did Tarquinius the Proud describe his own dream in Accius' Brutus?

[44]
“‘When I gave my body over to sleep at night's arrival,
Soothing my tired limbs with slumber,
I dreamed a shepherd drove up to me
A flock of woolly sheep of outstanding beauty.
Two rams, brothers, were chosen from them,
I killed the finer one as a sacrifice.
His brother then drove his horns against me,
And rammed me; the blow sent me falling to the ground.
Then, lying flat on the ground, badly wounded,
I looked up at an immense and amazing event
In the sky: the sun's flaming, radiant disk
Slipped away to the right on a new course.’

[45]
“Now let's see how the dream-interpreters explained this dream:

“‘King, when the things people use in life, think about, worry over, see,
And do and work at while awake come to someone in sleep,
It is less surprising. The gods do not suddenly send so great a warning without a purpose.
So beware: a man you think as dull as a sheep
May have an exceptional mind, well armed with wisdom,
And drive you from your kingdom. For what was shown to you about the sun
Foretells a change in the people's affairs
Very soon. May this turn out well for the people! And because the mighty sign
Began its journey from the left toward the right, it gave a splendid
Augury that the Roman state would become supreme.’

### Book 1, Chapter 23

[46]
“Now let's return to examples from other countries. Heraclides of Pontus, an educated man who heard Plato teach and became his pupil, writes about Phalaris' mother. In a dream she seemed to see the statues of the gods which she herself had dedicated in her home. Of these gods, she saw Mercury pouring blood out of the bowl in his right hand. On reaching the ground, it seemed to bubble up until the whole house was overflowing with blood. Her son's monstrous cruelty confirmed his mother's dream. Need I quote from Dinon's Persian History the interpretation the Magi gave the famous King Cyrus? According to Dinon, Cyrus dreamed of the sun at his feet. He reached out with his hands three times to catch it, always in vain: the sun rolled away, slipping out of reach and disappearing. The Magi, who were regarded among the Persians as a class of wise and educated men, told him that his three attempts to seize the sun foretold a reign of thirty years. That is what happened. He reached seventy, having begun to reign at forty.

[47]
“Clearly even foreign nations have some power to foresee and divine. Calanus the Indian spoke as he went to his death, stepping onto a pyre already alight: ‘How splendid leaving life will be, once my mortal body is burned away and my soul has gone out into the light, as it was for Hercules!’ Alexander asked him to say if he wanted anything. ‘Very good,’ he said. ‘I will see you soon.’ That came true: Alexander died at Babylon a few days later. I am leaving dreams for a little while, but I will soon return to them. Everyone agrees that the fire which destroyed Diana's temple at Ephesus occurred on the night Olympias gave birth to Alexander. At daybreak the Magi cried out that the plague and destroyer of Asia had been born during the night just past. So much for Indians and Magi.

### Book 1, Chapter 24

[48]
“Back to dreams. In Coelius' account, Hannibal wished to take away a golden column from Juno's shrine at Lacinium. Unsure whether it was solid gold or merely gilded on the outside, he drilled into it. When he found it was solid, he decided to take it away. While he slept, he saw Juno telling him to leave it alone. She threatened that, if he took the column away, she would make sure he lost the eye he could still see well with. Being a clever man, he did not ignore the warning. So he had a small cow made from the gold drilled out of the column, and placed it on top of the column.

[49]
“This next story is also in the Greek history of Silenus, whom Coelius follows. Silenus gave a very careful account of Hannibal's career. After taking Saguntum, Hannibal dreamed of a summons from Jupiter to join the gods in council. There he received Jupiter's command to attack Italy. One member of the council was given him as a guide, and with this guide he began to advance with his army. The guide then told him not to look behind him. But he could not keep this up for long. Overcome by curiosity, he looked back. He saw a huge, monstrous beast wrapped in snakes. Wherever it went, it overturned every tree, bush, and house. In astonishment he asked the god to explain the monster. The god identified it as Italy's devastation. He told him to keep going straight ahead and not worry about what was happening behind his back.

[50]
“Agathocles writes in his history that Hamilcar the Carthaginian, while attacking Syracuse, dreamed he heard a voice saying that he would dine in Syracuse the next day. At dawn that day, a major mutiny divided his camp's Carthaginian and Sicilian soldiers. The Syracusans found out, broke into the camp by surprise, and took Hamilcar alive. The outcome thus bore out what he had dreamed. Such cases fill both the historical record and ordinary life.

[51]
“Take Publius Decius, the son of Quintus, the first of the Decii to become consul. He was a military tribune when Marcus Valerius and Aulus Cornelius were consuls and our army was under pressure from the Samnites. He took risks in battle rather boldly and was warned to be more careful. He said, as the histories record, that he had dreamed of dying with the greatest glory in the thick of the enemy. On that occasion he survived and freed the army from being trapped. But three years later, as consul, he formally vowed his own life to the gods and charged, fully armed, into the Latin battle line. By his action the Latins were defeated and wiped out. The glory of that death made his son wish to die in the same way.

### Book 1, Chapter 25

[52]
“But now, if you agree, let's turn to philosophers' dreams.

“In Plato, Socrates, while held in the public prison, tells his friend Crito that he must die in three days. He has dreamed of an extraordinarily beautiful woman who called him by name and spoke a line of Homer something like this:

“‘The third day will bring you happily to Phthia.’

“The account says it happened just as predicted. Xenophon, the follower of Socrates—and what a great man he was!—writes about his own dreams during the campaign he served on with Cyrus the Younger. Their outcomes were amazing.

[53]
“Will we say Xenophon is lying or out of his mind? And Aristotle, a man of exceptional, almost divine intelligence—is he mistaken himself, or is he trying to make others mistaken? His account follows his friend Eudemus of Cyprus on a journey to Macedonia: he arrived at Pherae, then a very famous town in Thessaly, held under the cruel rule of the tyrant Alexander. In that town Eudemus became so seriously ill that all the doctors gave up hope. As he slept, a very handsome young man appeared and promised him a speedy recovery. Alexander the tyrant, he said, had only a few days left to live; Eudemus himself would be home again in five years. Aristotle says the first predictions were fulfilled immediately: Eudemus got well; the tyrant's killers were his wife's brothers. The fifth year was drawing to its close. On the strength of that dream, people expected him to go back to Cyprus from Sicily; instead, he died in battle at Syracuse. So the dream was interpreted to mean that when Eudemus' soul left his body, it had returned home.

[54]
“To the philosophers let's add Sophocles, a very learned man and a truly divine poet. A heavy golden bowl had been stolen from Hercules' temple. In a dream he saw the god himself telling him who had done it. He ignored this the first and second time. When it happened several more times, he went up to the Areopagus and reported it. The members of the court ordered the arrest of the man Sophocles named. Questioned under torture, the man confessed and brought back the bowl. Because of this, the shrine was named after Hercules the Informer.

### Book 1, Chapter 26

[55]
“But why am I using Greek examples? Somehow I enjoy our own more. All the historians tell this story—the Fabii, the Gellii, and, most recently, Coelius. During the Latin War, the first celebration of the great games promised in a vow was interrupted by a sudden call to arms for the citizens. The games therefore had to be staged again. Before it began, when the people were already seated, a slave was led through the circus, carrying a forked yoke and being beaten with rods. A Roman man from the countryside later dreamed that someone came to him complaining that the games' lead dancer had displeased him. The same figure ordered the man to tell the senate. He did not dare. A second command brought a warning: he must not make the speaker demonstrate his power. Even that did not give him courage to act. His son then died, and in a third dream the warning returned. Now disabled himself, he brought the matter to his friends; they recommended taking him by litter to the senate house, and this was done. After telling his dream to the senate, he returned home on his own feet, restored to health. The story handed down is that the senate accepted the dream as genuine, and those games were repeated once more.

### Book 1, Chapter 27

[56]
“Gaius Gracchus told many people, as the same Coelius records, that when he was hesitating about running for quaestor, his brother Tiberius appeared in a dream. He said Gaius could delay as long as he liked, but he would still die the same violent death that he himself had suffered. According to Coelius, he himself heard the story, and Gracchus shared it widely, before Gaius Gracchus ever became tribune of the people. What could be found more reliable than this dream?

“And who can really dismiss those two dreams the Stoics mention so often? One is about Simonides. He saw the dead body of a stranger lying abandoned and buried it. When he later intended to sail, he dreamed that the dead man he had buried was telling him to stay ashore: the voyage would end in his death by shipwreck. So Simonides turned back, and all the others who sailed then died.

[57]
“The second is a very famous dream, handed down like this. Two friends from Arcadia were traveling together and arrived at Megara. One stayed with an innkeeper; the other went to a friend's house. After dinner they went to bed. Late in the night, the friend lodging in the house had a dream: his companion was pleading for help, saying the innkeeper meant to murder him. At first, frightened by the dream, he got up. Once he had calmed down, he dismissed the dream and returned to bed. In sleep he again saw his companion, now begging him to avenge his death, since he had given no help before the murder. The innkeeper had killed him and thrown him into a cart, then piled dung on top. He asked his friend to be at the gate in the morning, before the cart left the town. This dream really moved him. At the gate that morning, he was there to meet the man driving the oxen and questioned him about the cart's contents. The driver fled in terror, the dead man was dug out, and the innkeeper's crime was exposed and punished.

### Book 1, Chapter 28

[58]
“Could any dream show divine power more clearly? Why search for further examples, or ones from long ago? You have repeatedly heard my dream from me, and I have heard yours from you just as often. As proconsul in charge of Asia, I dreamed of you riding to the edge of a great river. Suddenly you were carried forward, slipped into the river, and disappeared. I shook with terror. Suddenly you reappeared, looking happy. Still on the same horse, you climbed the far bank; we hugged one another. This dream was easy to interpret. Experts in Asia predicted for me the very course of events that followed.

[59]
“Now I come to your dream. You told me about it yourself, though Sallustius, our friend, has repeated the account to me more often. During that flight of yours, which brought us honor but brought our country disaster, your lodging was a villa in Atina's plain. After lying awake for much of the night, you finally fell into sound, deep sleep as daylight approached. So, although you had to resume your journey, Sallustius ordered silence and would not let you be woken. On waking at roughly the day's second hour, you described your dream to him: you had seen yourself roaming in sadness through deserted places. Gaius Marius appeared with laurel-decorated rods of office and asked why you were sad. You said you had been driven from your country by force. He took your right hand, told you to be brave, and handed you over to the nearest lictor to take you to his monument. He said you would find safety there. Sallustius says he then cried out that a quick and glorious return was in store for you, and that you yourself seemed delighted by the dream. I myself soon received word of what you said when you heard about that splendid senate decree for your return. It had been passed at Marius' monument, on the motion of the consul, a very good and distinguished man, and endorsed by an unbelievably loud outburst of cheers and applause in a packed theater. You said nothing could be more divine than that dream at Atina.

### Book 1, Chapter 29

[60]
“‘But many dreams are false.’ Or perhaps they are obscure to us. Still, let some be false. What do we say, on the other side, about the true ones? We would have far more of these if we went to bed in a sound state. As it is, weighed down with food and wine, we see confused and jumbled things. Look at what Socrates says in Plato's Republic. He says, ‘When we are asleep, the part of the soul that shares in thought and reason grows numb and weak. But the part with a wild and savage fierceness, stupefied by too much drink and food, leaps up in sleep and throws itself about without restraint. Every sort of vision, empty of thought and reason, is put before it. It may dream of sex with its own mother, with any other human being or a god, often even with an animal. It may even slaughter someone and stain itself with sinful blood, or do many filthy and disgusting things, recklessly and shamelessly.

[61]
“‘But suppose someone goes to sleep after living and eating in a healthy, moderate way. He has roused and stirred up the part of his soul that thinks and plans, and has fed it with a feast of good thoughts. He has neither starved the part fed by pleasure nor filled it to overflowing. Either extreme tends to dull the mind's sharp vision, whether nature is deprived of something or has too much and overflows. He has also calmed and quenched that third part of the soul, where anger burns. Then, with the soul's two reckless parts held down, the remaining part, which thinks and reasons, will shine out and show itself lively and sharp for dreaming. The visions that come to him in sleep will then be calm and true.’ I have translated Plato's own words.

### Book 1, Chapter 30

[62]
“Are we to listen to Epicurus instead, then? Carneades says first one thing and then another because he enjoys debate. Epicurus says what he thinks, but he never thinks anything fine or worthy. Will you rank him above Plato and Socrates? Even if they gave no reasons, their authority would outweigh these small-time philosophers. Plato's advice, then, is to prepare the body for sleep so that the mind is not led into confusion or mistakes. The ban on beans among Pythagoreans is also explained this way. That food causes a great deal of gas, which works against the calm the mind needs when searching for truth.

[63]
“So when sleep draws the soul away from partnership and contact with the body, it remembers the past, sees the present, and foresees the future. The sleeper's body lies like a corpse, but the soul is active and alive. It will do this much more after death, when it has left the body altogether. That is why it has far greater powers of divination as death approaches. People suffering from a serious, fatal illness see this very thing: that death is near. So images of the dead generally appear to them. At that time they are especially eager for a good name, and those who have lived wrongly feel the deepest regret for their sins.

[64]
“Posidonius also supports the claim that the dying can divine with this example. As he lay dying, a man from Rhodes listed six people as old as himself and predicted the sequence of their deaths, naming the first, the second, and each one after that. Posidonius thinks people dream under the influence of the gods in three ways. First, the soul foresees things by itself, because it is linked by kinship to the gods. Second, the air is full of immortal souls, in which signs of truth appear as if clearly stamped. Third, the gods themselves speak with people as they sleep. As I just said, the soul more easily foretells the future as death approaches.

### Book 1, Chapter 31

[65]
“So this explains the case of Calanus, whom I mentioned before. It also explains Homer's Hector, who tells Achilles as he dies that Achilles' own death is near. Common usage would never have accepted the following expression for no reason, if there were nothing at all behind it:

“‘My mind sensed in advance, as I left home, that my trip would be wasted.’

“The Latin verb sagire means to sense something sharply. That is why old women who are eager to know a great deal are called sagae, and dogs with a keen nose are called sagaces. So someone who senses a thing before it actually appears is said to praesagire: to sense future events beforehand.

[66]
“So our minds contain a power of foreseeing, put into them from outside and lodged there by a god. When it flares up more fiercely, it is called frenzy. The mind withdraws from the body and is stirred by a divine impulse.

“‘Hecuba: But why have you suddenly gone wild, with your eyes blazing?
Where is the sensible, modest girl you were a moment ago?
Cassandra: Mother, even the finest women fall far short of you,
I have been driven to superstitious prophecies.
Apollo forces me, unwilling and out of my mind, to speak fate's words.
I am ashamed before girls my own age. I am ashamed before my father,
That excellent man, of what I do. Mother, I pity you and hate my plight.
You gave Priam the finest children, except for me. This hurts:
Must I harm him while they help, obstruct him while they obey?’

“What a tender, sensitive, gentle poem! But that is less to the point.

[67]
“What we are looking for is clearly stated: frenzy often makes true predictions.

“‘Here it is, here it is, the torch wrapped in blood and fire!
It lay hidden for many years. Citizens, help! Put it out!’

“Now it is not Cassandra speaking, but the god lodged in a human body.

“‘Already on the great sea a swift fleet
Is being built. A swarm carries destruction.
It will come: a savage force in ships speeding
Under sail will fill the shores.’

### Book 1, Chapter 32

[68]
“I seem to be talking about tragedies and stories. But I heard from you yourself about an actual event of the same kind, not an invention. Gaius Coponius came to you at Dyrrhachium. He commanded the Rhodian fleet with the authority of a praetor, and was an exceptionally sensible and learned man. He said that a rower from a Rhodian quinquereme had prophesied that in less than thirty days Greece would be soaked in blood. There would be looting at Dyrrhachium, a rush to board the ships and escape, and a heartbreaking sight of fires as the fugitives looked back. But the Rhodian fleet was granted an early return and a journey home. You told me that you yourself were disturbed, while the two learned men present there, Marcus Varro and Marcus Cato, were terrified. Sure enough, a few days later Labienus arrived, fleeing from Pharsalus. He reported the army's destruction, and the rest of the prophecy soon came true.

[69]
“Grain looted and spilled from the storehouses covered every street and alley. You suddenly boarded the ships in panic. In the darkness you could see burning cargo ships as you looked back at the town; soldiers had burned them because the crews would not follow. Finally the Rhodian fleet deserted you, and you realized that the prophet had spoken the truth.

[70]
“I have described as briefly as I could the revelations that come through dreams and frenzy. As I said, these do not depend on a learned skill. Both kinds have a single explanation, which our friend Cratippus often uses. Some part of the human mind is drawn and taken from outside us. This implies that there is a divine mind outside us from which the human mind comes. The part of the human mind that has sensation, movement, and desire is not separate from the body's activity. But the mind's reasoning, understanding part is at its strongest when it is most distant from the body.

[71]
“So, after giving examples of true prophecies and dreams, Cratippus usually finishes his argument like this: ‘The eyes cannot perform their proper work and function without eyes existing. But eyes may sometimes fail to do their work. Anyone who has used his eyes even once to see things as they really are has the power of true sight. The same applies to divination. Its proper work and function cannot exist without divination existing. But someone who has the power of divination may sometimes make a mistake and fail to see the truth. So one prediction that comes true in a way that seems to rule out chance is enough to establish divination. There are countless cases of that kind. We must therefore admit that divination exists.’

### Book 1, Chapter 33

[72]
“But the kinds of divination explained by interpretation, or observed and recorded from their results, are called artificial rather than natural, as I said above. This category covers the haruspex's work, augury, and the interpretation of signs. The Stoics support it; the Peripatetics do not. Some depend on records and systematic teaching. The Etruscan books on inspecting entrails, on lightning, and on rituals show this, as do your own books on augury. Others involve an interpretation made on the spot. For example, Homer's Calchas used the sparrow count to predict how many years the war at Troy would last. There is also an incident recorded in Sulla's history which happened while you were watching. While he was sacrificing in the territory of Nola, in front of his headquarters, a snake suddenly came out from the bottom of the altar. The haruspex Gaius Postumius begged Sulla to take the army on campaign. Following this advice, Sulla captured the heavily manned Samnite camp outside the town of Nola.

[73]
“An interpretation was also made in the case of Dionysius, shortly before he became ruler. On a journey across Leontini's territory, he himself took his horse down into the river. The horse sank in the swirling water and did not come up. Despite his greatest efforts he could not pull it out. He went away distressed, as Philistus tells us. Some way farther on, a sudden neigh reached him. Turning around, he joyfully found the horse lively again; bees had gathered in a swarm on its mane. The sign meant that Dionysius would become ruler a few days later, as he did.

### Book 1, Chapter 34

[74]
“And what about the warning given to the Spartans shortly before the disaster at Leuctra? Weapons rattled in Hercules' shrine, and his statue ran with sweat. Callisthenes reports that at this same time in Thebes, Hercules' temple doors suddenly swung open by themselves despite their bars, and the weapons previously attached to its walls lay on the ground. Meanwhile at Lebadea a sacrifice was being offered to Trophonius when the local roosters started to crow without a pause. Then the Boeotian augurs said the Thebans would win, because that bird normally falls silent when beaten and crows when it wins.

[75]
“At that time many signs warned the Spartans of their coming disaster in the battle at Leuctra. On the head of the statue of Lysander, their most famous man, which stood at Delphi, a crown of rough wild plants suddenly appeared. There were also the gold stars that the Spartans had set up at Delphi after Lysander's naval victory, in which the Athenians were crushed. During that naval battle, people reportedly saw Castor and Pollux accompanying the Spartans' fleet. So the gold stars I mentioned were set up at Delphi as emblems of those gods. No one could find them after they fell, shortly before the fighting at Leuctra.

[76]
“But the greatest warning for those same Spartans was this. They had consulted Jupiter's oracle at Dodona to ask about victory. Their envoys had set out the container holding the lots. The Molossian king's pet monkey scattered not only the lots but all the equipment for drawing them, sending things in every direction. According to the account, the oracle's presiding priestess then warned the Spartans that survival, rather than victory, should concern them.

### Book 1, Chapter 35

[77]
“And in the Second Punic War, didn't Gaius Flaminius, consul for the second time, ignore signs of the future, with terrible losses for the state? He had purified his army and moved camp toward Arretium, leading his legions against Hannibal. In front of the image of Jupiter, who stops retreat, he and his horse suddenly fell for no apparent reason. He felt no religious concern about it, although the experts thought a sign had been put in his way to stop him from fighting. When he also took the auspices by observing the sacred chickens' feeding, their keeper kept putting off the day for battle. Flaminius asked him what he thought they should do if the chickens still refused to eat later. The man answered that they should stay put. ‘Wonderful auspices!’ said Flaminius. ‘We can act if the chickens are hungry, but if they're full we can do nothing!’ He therefore gave the order to uproot the standards and march behind him. But when the standard-bearer for the first company of spearmen tried to move his standard, it would not budge. Even when more men came to help, they made no progress. Flaminius was told of this, and ignored it as usual. Within those three hours his troops were slaughtered, and Flaminius was killed along with them.

### Book 1, Chapter 36

[78]
“There is another striking detail added by Coelius. At the very moment of this disastrous battle there were earthquakes in Liguria, Gaul, several islands, and throughout Italy. They were so strong that many towns collapsed. In many places there were landslides, the ground sank, rivers reversed their flow, and the sea poured into riverbeds.

“Experts make reliable predictions by interpreting signs. Ants heaped wheat grains into the mouth of the famous Phrygian Midas as he slept in childhood. He was predicted to become very rich, and he did. When Plato was a little baby asleep in his cradle, bees settled on his lips. The interpretation was that his speech would be uniquely sweet. So his future eloquence was foreseen when he was an infant.

[79]
“And what about Roscius, your darling and favorite? Are we to call him a liar, or accuse everyone in Lanuvium of lying for him? He was being raised in the Lanuvian territory, on the plain of Solonium, and was still in his cradle. One night the nurse awoke. In the light of a nearby lamp she noticed a snake coiled around the sleeping child, and cried out in fright. When his father took the matter to the haruspices, their answer was that the boy would surpass everyone in fame and distinction. Pasiteles worked this scene in silver; our friend Archias put it into verse. What more do we want—to have the immortal gods themselves join us in the forum, the streets, and our homes? They do not present themselves to us in person. But they spread their power far and wide, sometimes lodging it in caves in the earth, sometimes weaving it into human natures. The power of the earth inspired the Pythian priestess at Delphi; the power of her own nature inspired the Sibyl. Don't we see how varied different lands are? Some places are deadly, like Ampsanctus in Hirpinian territory and the Plutonia in Asia, which we have seen. Some stretches of country cause disease, others promote health. Some produce sharp minds, others dull ones. All this comes from differences in climate and in the vapors that rise from the ground.

### Book 1, Chapter 37

[80]
“Often a certain sight, often deep voices and songs, give the mind a powerful push. Often worry and fear do too, as in these lines:

“‘Her heart unsettled, like someone driven mad or stirred
By Bacchus' rites, she remembers her Teucer among the tombs.’

“That excitement too shows that a divine power exists in our minds. Democritus says no one can be a great poet without frenzy. Plato says the same. Let him call it frenzy, if he likes, as long as it is praised as it is in Plato's Phaedrus. And what about your speeches in court? Can the delivery itself be powerful, weighty, and fluent unless your mind is deeply stirred? I have often seen this in you. And, to turn to a less serious subject, I have seen such fire in the face and movements of your friend Aesopus that some force seemed to have carried him beyond conscious thought.

### Book 1, Chapter 38

[81]
“People are also often confronted with shapes that do not really exist, but appear to them. Brennus and the Gallic army are said to have seen such appearances during his unholy assault on Apollo's sanctuary at Delphi. They say that the Pythian priestess then declared from the oracle:

“‘The white maidens and I will take care of this.’

“As a result, maidens seemed to take up arms against the Gauls, and their army was buried in snow.

“Aristotle thought that even people who were mad through illness, and were called melancholics, had something prophetic and divine in their minds. But I am inclined to think we should attribute this neither to people with heart disease nor to the delirious. Divination belongs to a healthy mind, not to a sick body.

[82]
“The Stoics establish that it really exists by the following argument: ‘If there are gods and they do not tell people beforehand what will happen, then either they do not love people, or future events are unknown to them, or in their view people gain nothing by knowing what lies ahead, or they think it beneath their dignity to give people advance warning, or even the gods themselves cannot give these signs. But it is not true that they do not love us: they are generous and friendly to the human race. Nor are they ignorant of events they have themselves decided and arranged. Nor does it make no difference to us to know what will happen: knowing will make us more careful. Nor do they think it beneath their dignity: nothing is finer than doing good. Nor are they unable to know the future beforehand.

[83]
“‘So it cannot be that there are gods but they do not give signs of the future. There are gods. Therefore they give signs. And if they give signs, they must give us ways to understand them; otherwise their signs would be pointless. If they give us such ways, divination must exist. So divination exists.’

### Book 1, Chapter 39

[84]
“Chrysippus, Diogenes, and Antipater all use this argument. Why, then, should we doubt the absolute truth of what I have argued? Reason supports me, and so do events, peoples, nations, Greeks, non-Greeks, and our own ancestors. This has always been the accepted view. The greatest philosophers support it, as do poets and those very wise men who established governments and founded cities. Or are we waiting for animals to speak? Isn't the united testimony of humanity enough for us?

[85]
“The only reason offered for denying the kinds of divination I have described is that it seems hard to explain the process and cause behind each of them. How can a haruspex explain why a cleft in a lung stops a proceeding and postpones the day, even when the other entrails are favorable? What grounds does an augur have for treating a raven to the right or a crow to the left as making an omen valid? What explanation can an astrologer give for this: a birth under a conjunction of the moon with Jupiter or Venus is favorable, but with Saturn or Mars it is unfavorable? And why should warnings from a god come to us in sleep, while we get none when awake? And why does Cassandra in her frenzy foresee the future, while sensible Priam cannot do the same?

[86]
“You ask why each thing happens. A perfectly proper question, but that is not our subject now. The question is whether it happens at all. Suppose I said there is a magnetic stone that draws iron toward itself and attracts it, but could not give the reason why. Would you deny that it happens at all? That is just what you do with divination. Yet we see it ourselves, hear about it, read about it, and have inherited it from our fathers. Before philosophy was made known—a fairly recent discovery—ordinary people had no doubts about it. And after philosophy developed, no philosopher of any standing held a different view.

### Book 1, Chapter 40

[87]
“I have spoken of Pythagoras, Democritus, and Socrates. Among the early thinkers, Xenophanes was the only exception I made. The Old Academy, along with the Peripatetics and Stoics, also figures in my account. Only Epicurus takes the other side. And isn't it utterly shameful that he also denies virtue can be pursued without a reward?

“Who could fail to be moved by the distant past, attested and recorded in the most famous accounts? Homer writes that Calchas was by far the best augur and guided the fleets to Troy. I suppose this was through his knowledge of auspices, not geography.

[88]
“The Argive kings Amphilochus and Mopsus also practiced augury. They founded Greek cities on the coast of Cilicia. Even before them there were Amphiaraus and Tiresias, not lowly, obscure men, not like those people in Ennius

“‘Who stir up invented prophecies for their own profit,’

“but famous, outstanding men. Guided by birds and signs, they foretold the future. Homer says of one of them that even in the underworld ‘he alone has understanding; the others wander like shadows.’ As for Amphiaraus, Greek tradition honored him so highly that he was considered a god, and people sought oracles from the ground where he lay buried.

[89]
“And didn't Priam, king of Asia, have two children who practiced divination: his son Helenus through augury, and his daughter Cassandra through divine excitement and disturbance of the mind? We read that in our ancestors' day there were brothers called Marcius, men of noble birth, who practiced the same kind. And doesn't Homer mention that Polyidus of Corinth made many predictions for other people, and foretold his son's death as the boy was leaving for Troy? In general, among the ancients the same men held political power and understood augury. They thought divination, like wisdom, belonged to a king. Our own state is evidence: our kings were augurs, and later private citizens who held the same priesthood guided the state through the authority of religion.

### Book 1, Chapter 41

[90]
“Even non-Greek nations have not neglected this method of divination. There are Druids in Gaul. I personally knew one of them, Divitiacus of the Aedui, your guest-friend and admirer. He professed to understand the workings of nature, what the Greeks call φυσιολογίαν, and predicted the future partly through augury and partly through interpretation. In Persia too, the Magi practice augury and divination. They meet in a shrine to discuss and compare ideas, just as you yourselves once used to do on the Nones.

[91]
“No one can become king of Persia without first learning the Magi's teaching and knowledge. Some families, and even whole nations, visibly devote themselves to this field of knowledge. In the Carian city of Telmessus, the art of the haruspices is especially well developed. Elis in the Peloponnese also has two particular families, the Iamidae and the Clutidae, famous for their outstanding skill in inspecting entrails. In Syria the Chaldeans excel in their knowledge of the stars and the keenness of their minds.

[92]
“Etruria studies lightning strikes with great expertise, and also interprets what each strange occurrence and unnatural sign means. So our ancestors' senate made a good decision, when our power was at its height. Ten sons of leading families from each Etruscan people were to be handed over for instruction. That would prevent so important an art from being turned, through the poverty of its practitioners, from an authoritative religious practice into a paid, money-making trade. The Phrygians, Pisidians, Cilicians, and the Arab nation pay very close attention to signs from birds. We are told that this was also a regular practice in Umbria.

### Book 1, Chapter 42

[93]
“I think the places where people lived also gave them their opportunities for divination. The Egyptians and Babylonians lived on broad, level plains. Nothing rose above the ground to obstruct their view of the sky, so they devoted all their attention to understanding the stars. The Etruscans were deeply religious and sacrificed animals more eagerly and more often. So they concentrated on understanding entrails. Their thick atmosphere also brought them many occurrences of lightning. For the same reason, many unusual things appeared, some from the sky, others from the earth, and some through the conception and birth of people or livestock. So they became highly experienced interpreters of strange signs. Our ancestors' carefully chosen names tell us what these signs mean—you often make that point. They are called ostenta, portenta, monstra, and prodigia because they display, foreshadow, point out, and predict.

[94]
“The Arabs, Phrygians, and Cilicians live mainly by grazing livestock. As they roam the plains and mountains in winter and summer, they have found it easier to observe birds' calls and flights. This explains Pisidia's practice too, and that of our own Umbria. As for Caria, people there have carefully studied unusual signs; the inhabitants of Telmessus I mentioned earlier have been especially attentive. They live on very rich and fertile land, whose productivity allows many unusual forms to develop and be born.

### Book 1, Chapter 43

[95]
“Who cannot see that auspices and the other kinds of divination have had enormous influence in every well-run state? Was there ever a king or a people who did not use divine predictions? They used them not only in peace, but even more in war, when the struggle and the danger to their survival were greater. I will pass over our own people, who do nothing in war without inspecting entrails, and nothing at home without taking auspices. Let us look abroad. Whenever Athens considered public policy, it called in prophetic priests known as μάντεις, or seers. In Sparta an augur served as an adviser beside the kings, and an augur also had to attend the public council, which they call the Elders. For any major question, Sparta always consulted Delphi, Ammon, or Dodona for an oracular answer.

[96]
“Lycurgus, who organized the Spartan state, secured the authority of Apollo at Delphi for his laws. When Lysander wanted to change them, the same religious authority stopped him. The Spartan leaders were not satisfied with their efforts while awake. They would stay overnight to dream in the shrine of Pasiphae, outside the city in the surrounding countryside: they regarded oracles received in sleep as truthful.

[97]
“Now I return to our own people. How often the senate ordered the Board of Ten to consult the books! How often, and in what important matters, it obeyed the answers of the haruspices! There were sightings of two suns, three moons, and fiery torches; the sun was seen at night; a roar was heard from the sky; the heavens seemed to split open, with balls of fire visible inside. News also reached the senate that land in Privernum's territory had collapsed, leaving the ground sunken to an immense depth, and that enormous earthquakes had rocked Apulia. These signs warned the Roman people of major wars and destructive civil strife. In all these cases the answers of the haruspices agreed with the Sibyl's verses.

[98]
“And what about the sweating of Apollo's statue at Cumae, or Victory's at Capua? Wasn't the birth of a child with both sexes a sign of some fated event? What about the river Atratus flowing with blood? What about the frequent showers of stones, the occasional showers of blood or earth, and once even of milk? And what of the Centaur on the Capitol being hit by lightning? Gates and people on the Aventine were hit too, as were Castor and Pollux's temple at Tusculum and Piety's at Rome. Didn't the haruspices predict what actually happened? And weren't the same predictions found in the Sibyl's books?

### Book 1, Chapter 44

[99]
“Recently, during the Marsic War, the senate restored the temple of Juno Sospita, the Savior because of a dream of Caecilia, daughter of Quintus. Sisenna argued that the dream matched the event word for word in a remarkable way. Then, quite out of keeping with this, he argued that dreams should not be trusted. I suppose some Epicurean had persuaded him. Yet he offers no argument against strange signs. He describes how, at the start of the Marsic War, statues of the gods sweated, blood flowed, the sky split open, and voices from unseen sources announced the dangers of war. At Lanuvium mice gnawed the shields, which the haruspices considered a very grim sign.

[100]
“Consider also what our annals record about the war against Veii: the water in Lake Alban had risen beyond its usual level. A nobleman from Veii deserted to us and said that, according to prophecies the people of Veii had in writing, Veii could not be captured while that lake overflowed. If the lake were drained so that its waters ran downhill along their course into the sea, it would mean disaster for the Roman people. But if it were drained in such a way that its water could not reach the sea, it would mean safety for our people. That is why our ancestors built that remarkable drainage channel for Lake Alban. Later the people of Veii, worn out by war, sent envoys to the senate. One envoy reportedly said that the deserter had lacked the courage to give the senate the full account. The same written prophecies at Veii also said that Rome would soon be captured by the Gauls. As we know, that happened six years after the capture of Veii.

### Book 1, Chapter 45

[101]
“Fauns are also said to have been heard often in battles, and truthful voices to have come from unseen sources in troubled times. Out of many examples, I will give two very important ones. Not long before Rome was captured, people heard a voice from Vesta's grove. The grove runs downhill from the Palatine's base to the New Street. The voice ordered repairs to the walls and gates. Without precautions, Rome would be captured. This warning was ignored when the danger could still have been prevented. After that terrible disaster, amends were made: an altar was dedicated to Aius Loquens, the Speaker opposite that spot. We can still see its enclosure. According to many written accounts, an earthquake was followed by a voice from the citadel's temple of Juno: it ordered a ritual offering of a pregnant sow to atone for the earthquake. That Juno therefore received the name Moneta, the Warner. Should we dismiss these signs sent by the gods and accepted as such by our ancestors?

[102]
“The Pythagoreans paid close attention not only to the gods' voices, but also to human utterances, which they call omens. Our ancestors thought these had force. So before any undertaking they said, ‘May it be good, favorable, happy, and fortunate.’ At public religious ceremonies people were ordered to ‘speak only favorable words.’ When holidays were proclaimed, they were told to ‘keep clear of lawsuits and quarrels.’ When the founder of a colony performed its purification, or a commander purified his army, or a censor purified the people, men with lucky names were chosen to lead the sacrificial animals. The consuls observe the same rule when enrolling troops: the first soldier enrolled must have a lucky name.

### Book 1, Chapter 46

[103]
“You know how scrupulously you yourself observed these practices, both as consul and as commander. Our ancestors also wanted the vote of the first voting unit to be an omen of a regular election. Here are some familiar cases of words taken as omens. During Lucius Paulus' second consulship, the war with King Perseus fell to him. On that very day, when he returned home toward evening, he kissed his little daughter Tertia, who was very young then, and saw that she was a little unhappy. He asked, ‘My Tertia, what is wrong? Why so unhappy?’ ‘My father, Persa has died,’ she answered. He hugged the girl more tightly and said, ‘I accept the omen, my daughter.’ A puppy with that name had died.

[104]
“Lucius Flaccus, who served as priest of Mars, once told this story in my hearing. Caecilia, Metellus' wife, wanted to arrange a marriage for her sister's daughter. Following the old custom, she went out to a little shrine to look for an omen. The girl stood while Caecilia sat on a chair. A long time passed without a word being heard. Tired out, the girl asked her aunt to give up her place so she could rest a little in her chair. ‘My girl, of course: my place is yours,’ was her answer. What happened next bore out that omen. Caecilia herself died soon afterward, and the girl married the man Caecilia had been married to. I understand perfectly well that these things can be scorned or even laughed at. But scorning the signs the gods give is the same as denying that there are gods.

### Book 1, Chapter 47

[105]
“Why should I speak about augurs? That is your role. It is you, I say, who ought to speak for the auspices. During your consulship you received a report from Appius Claudius the augur: the augury for the people's safety had given a doubtful result, and that there would be a grim and turbulent conflict at home. It broke out a few months later, and you put it down in even fewer days. I strongly agree with that augur. He was the only man in many years who kept hold of the discipline of divination, instead of merely chanting the formulas of augury. Your colleagues mocked him, calling him sometimes a Pisidian, sometimes an augur from Sora. They thought augury contained no foreknowledge or understanding of the future. In their wisdom, they said religious practices had been invented to influence the beliefs of the ignorant. That is completely wrong. Neither the shepherds Romulus led nor Romulus himself could have been cunning enough to invent sham religious observances to deceive the crowd. But the difficulty and effort of learning have produced an eloquent defense of neglect. They prefer to declare the auspices worthless instead of doing the work of learning their meaning.

[106]
“Where could we find a more divine bird sign than the one in your Marius? I would rather use you yourself as my authority:

“‘Here suddenly the winged attendant of Jupiter, whose thunder sounds on high,
Rises from a tree trunk, wounded by a snake's bite,
Herself piercing the snake with her fierce claws.
Half alive, it moves its mottled neck with difficulty.
As it twists about, she tears it and bloodies it with her beak.
Now her anger is satisfied, now her bitter pain avenged.
She drops it as it breathes its last, hurling its torn body into the water,
And turns from the sunset toward the bright sunrise.
Seeing her flying on swift wings and gliding,
Marius, who read the will of heaven,
Recognized happy signs of his own glory and return.
The Father himself thundered from the left side of the sky.
So Jupiter confirmed the eagle's clear omen.’

### Book 1, Chapter 48

[107]
“Romulus' augury belonged to a shepherd's world, not a sophisticated city. It was not invented to influence the beliefs of the ignorant. It was received from trustworthy people and handed down to later generations. So Romulus the augur and his brother, also an augur, as Ennius writes,

“‘Anxious with great concern, and eager
For kingship, both gave their attention to auspices and augury.
On the hill Remus devoted himself to the auspices, and alone
Watched for a favorable bird. But handsome Romulus, high
On the Aventine, looked out, watching the race of high-flying birds.
They competed over whether to call the city Rome or Remora.
Every man was anxious to know which would be ruler.
They waited. Just as, when the consul is about to give the signal,
Everyone eagerly watches the edges of the starting stalls,

[108]
“‘To see how soon he will send the chariots out through their painted openings,
So the people waited, their faces showing fear,
To learn which man's cause had won the prize of mighty kingship.
Meanwhile the pale sun had sunk into the depths of night.
Then bright light, struck by rays, broke out,
And at once, far on high, a supremely beautiful bird of the finest omen
Flew on the left. At the same time the golden sun rose.
Three times four sacred birds came down from the sky,
And settled in favorable, beautiful places.
Then Romulus saw that he had been given first place,
That the auspices had secured the throne and ground of his kingship.’

### Book 1, Chapter 49

[109]
“But let my argument return to the point from which it wandered. Suppose I could offer no explanation of why any of these things happens, and could only show that the events I have mentioned do happen. Wouldn't that be enough of an answer to Epicurus or Carneades? And what if there is an easy explanation for artificial foresight, though a somewhat less clear one for divinely inspired foresight? Long years of watching have established what entrails, lightning, unusual events, and stars foretell. In every field, centuries of such observation yield astonishing knowledge. Such knowledge can exist even without any action or impulse from the gods. Repeated observation has shown what follows from each thing and what gives a sign of each event.

[110]
“The second form, as I explained earlier, is natural divination. A careful discussion of natural philosophy must trace it back to the nature of the gods. As the most learned and wisest thinkers have held, our minds are small portions drawn from that nature. Everything is filled to overflowing with everlasting awareness and divine intelligence. So human minds must be stirred by their kinship with divine minds. But when we are awake, our minds serve life's needs. Hampered by the body's bonds, they cut themselves off from their connection with the divine.

[111]
“In rare cases people draw themselves away from bodily concerns, devoting all their energy and attention to understanding divine matters. Human reasoning, not divine inspiration, accounts for their forecasts. For example, their knowledge of nature lets them foresee floods and the eventual burning of the heavens and the earth. Political experience likewise enables others to predict a tyranny's rise far in advance. This is what we are told of Solon of Athens. We can call them prudent—that is, able to see ahead—but certainly not diviners. No more so than Thales of Miletus, who is said to have bought the whole olive crop in Milesian territory before it began to flower. He wanted to refute his critics and show that a philosopher too could make money if it suited him.

### Book 1, Chapter 50

[112]
“He may have known enough to recognize in advance that a rich olive harvest was coming. We are also told that he was the first person to forecast a solar eclipse—the one during Astyages' reign.

“Doctors foresee many things, and so do ship pilots and farmers. But I call none of this divination. Not even the warning that Anaximander, the natural philosopher, gave the Spartans: an earthquake was near, so they were to abandon both town and homes and keep an armed night watch in the open country. It was then that the whole city fell down, and the far end of Mount Taygetus broke off like a ship's stern. Pherecydes, Pythagoras' teacher, likewise belongs more among students of nature than among diviners: he announced an approaching earthquake after inspecting water drawn from a well that never ran dry.

[113]
“The human mind never practices natural divination unless it is so free and unoccupied that it has absolutely nothing to do with the body. This happens either to inspired prophets or to people asleep. These are the two forms Dicaearchus approves, along with our friend Cratippus, whom I mentioned earlier. If they consider them the highest forms because they arise from nature, by all means let them be the highest, as long as they are not the only ones. But if they think observation has no value, they remove much that keeps life running. Still, since they grant something, and something substantial—prophecies and dreams—we have no reason to fight hard against them, especially when some people reject divination entirely.

[114]
“So when people's minds disregard their bodies, fly away, and range outside them, some kind of fire excites and stirs them. They really do see the things they announce in prophecy. Such minds, no longer attached to their bodies, are set on fire by many things. Some respond, for instance, to particular vocal sounds and Phrygian songs. Many are stirred by groves or forests; others by rivers or seas. Their frenzied minds see the future far in advance. These lines are of that kind:

“‘Oh, look!
Someone will judge a famous contest between three goddesses.
That decision will bring a woman from Sparta, one of the Furies.’

“In the same way, inspired prophets have often predicted many things, not only in ordinary words but also

“‘In verses which Fauns and prophets sang long ago.’

### Book 1, Chapter 51

[115]
“Marcius and Publicius, too, reportedly gave their prophecies in verse. Apollo's hidden messages were revealed in this form. I also believe there were certain vapors from the earth that filled people's minds and made them pour out oracles.

“This is the explanation of inspired prophecy, and the explanation of dreams is not very different. What happens to waking prophets happens to us in sleep. The mind is active in dreams, free of the senses and all the interference of worries, while the body lies almost dead. The mind has lived from all eternity and has associated with countless other minds. So it sees everything in the natural world, provided that moderate food and drink have put it in a state to stay awake while the body sleeps. This is the divination of the dreamer.

[116]
“Here there arises an important method, not natural but artificial: Antiphon's interpretation of dreams, and, in the same way, of oracles and inspired prophecies. These have interpreters, just as poets have scholars to explain them. Unless divine nature had taught us how to reach the veins, its creation of gold, silver, bronze, and iron would have served no purpose. It would have given humanity no benefit from the earth's crops or the fruits of trees unless it had taught us how to grow and store them. Wood would be of no use unless we knew the craft of cutting it up. Every useful gift from the gods likewise comes with a skill that enables people to benefit from it. So interpreters' explanations have been applied to dreams, prophecies, and oracles, since much in them was obscure and much was ambiguous.

[117]
“A serious question remains: how can prophets and people dreaming see things when those things do not yet exist anywhere? If we settle the points that need to be considered first, our present questions will be easier. This whole inquiry depends on the account of the gods' nature, which you explained clearly in your second book. If we establish that, the principle underlying our present discussion will stand: there are gods; their foresight governs the world; and they care for human affairs, not only as a whole, but also in each individual case. If we maintain these principles, which seem to me impossible to overturn, then the gods must give people signs of the future.

### Book 1, Chapter 52

[118]
“But the way this happens needs to be distinguished. For the Stoics, a god does not personally attend each separate split in a liver or each call of a bird. That would not be fitting or worthy of gods, and it is quite impossible. Rather, the world was set up from the beginning so that particular signs would come before particular events. They can be found in entrails and in birds, in lightning and in unusual events, in stars, in what sleepers see, and in what people cry out in a frenzy. Those who understand these well are not often wrong. When signs are wrongly explained and interpreted, the failure comes not from the things themselves but from the interpreters' ignorance. Once we have established and accepted that a divine power sustains human life, it is not hard to suggest how the things we certainly see happening come about. A conscious power spread throughout the whole world can guide the choice of a sacrificial animal. And at the very moment you intend to sacrifice it, the entrails can change so that something is missing or something extra is there. In very brief moments nature adds, changes, or removes many things.

[119]
“What occurred not long before Caesar died gives us the strongest reason not to doubt this. On the day he first took his seat in a golden chair and went out wearing a purple robe, Caesar was offering a sacrifice. Among the entrails of the fat ox there was no heart. Can any creature that has blood, in your view, survive with no heart? This strange event shocked Caesar. Spurinna told him to fear that both his judgment and his life might fail, since both came from the heart. The next day the liver was missing the part called its head. The immortal gods gave him these warnings so that he would see his death coming, not escape it. So if the sacrificial animal's entrails lack parts it needed in order to live, we must conclude that they vanished just as it was being sacrificed.

### Book 1, Chapter 53

[120]
“The same divine mind acts on birds. It makes birds whose flight gives signs fly now here, now there, or hide on one side or another. It makes birds whose calls give signs sing now on the right, now on the left. Every animal moves its body as it wishes—bending forward, sideways, or backward. It bends, twists, stretches, and draws in its limbs wherever it wants, doing so almost before it thinks. How much easier this is for a god, whose will everything obeys!

[121]
“The god also sends signs of the kind recorded so often in history. For example, we find this prediction written down: if a lunar eclipse occurred in Leo just before sunrise, Alexander and the Macedonians would defeat Darius and the Persians in battle; Darius himself would die. The birth of a two-headed girl would mean civil unrest, with corruption and adultery within the home. If a woman were seen to give birth to a lion, the state where this happened would be defeated by foreign nations. Another case of the same kind is Herodotus' account of Croesus' son, previously unable to speak, finding his voice. This omen meant utter ruin for his father's kingdom and household. Does any history leave out the story of Servius Tullius' head burning as he slept? Someone who goes to sleep with a prepared mind—with good thoughts and with circumstances suited to peace of mind—sees reliable and true things in dreams. In the same way, an innocent, pure mind is better prepared when awake to recognize the truth conveyed by stars, birds, other signs, and entrails.

### Book 1, Chapter 54

[122]
“This is surely what we have heard about Socrates, and what he himself often says in his followers' books. There was something divine, which he called his δαιμόνιον, his divine sign. He always obeyed it. It never urged him on, but often held him back. Socrates—and what better authority could we want?—was consulted by Xenophon about whether he should follow Cyrus. After explaining his own views, he said, ‘My advice is only human. On matters that are obscure and uncertain, I think Apollo should be consulted.’ The Athenians too always consulted him officially about important matters.

[123]
“It is also recorded that he saw his close friend Crito with a bandage over his eye and asked what was wrong. Crito answered that, as he walked in the countryside, a twig that had been pulled back sprang loose and hit his eye. Socrates then said, ‘You did not obey me when I tried to call you back, using my usual divine foresight.’ This same Socrates was fleeing with Laches after the defeat at Delium, where Laches had been in command. When they reached a three-way junction, he refused to escape along the same road as the rest. When they asked why he would not go their way, he said the god was warning him off. Those who fled by the other road ran into the enemy cavalry. Antipater has collected a great many remarkable predictions made by Socrates. I will pass them over: you know them, and I have no need to list them.

### Book 1, Chapter 55

[124]
“But there is one splendid and almost divine statement by that philosopher. After the wicked votes that condemned him, he said he faced death with complete peace of mind. Neither when he left home nor when he mounted the platform on which he had defended himself had the god given him any of his usual signs to warn of some approaching evil.

“For my part, I think divination exists even if people who seem to practice it by learned skill or interpretation are often mistaken. People can make mistakes in this field just as in other arts. An ambiguous sign may have been taken as certain. A sign, or another sign contradicting it, may have gone unnoticed. But to prove my argument I only need to find some things foreseen and predicted by divination, whether there are many or only a few.

[125]
“I would go further without any doubt: suppose even a single event has been foreseen and predicted, then happens just as predicted, with nothing apparently due to chance or accident. That is enough to establish divination, and everybody has to acknowledge it.

“So I think we should follow Posidonius and trace the whole power and explanation of divination first to god, about whom enough has been said; next to fate; and then to nature. Reason leaves us no choice: fate governs every event. What I call fate—the Greeks' εἱμαρμένην—is a chain of causes in a fixed order, with one cause joined to another and giving rise to an effect. Here is an eternal truth, running on from an infinite past. It follows that every past event was already going to happen. In the same way, nothing will happen unless nature contains the causes that will bring that very thing about.

[126]
“So fate, as understood not by superstition but by natural philosophy, is the everlasting cause of events: why past events happened, present events are happening, and future events will happen. This makes it possible to observe and record what effect generally follows each cause, even if it does not always do so—it is hard to claim that much. And it is likely that these same causes of future events are seen by people who see them either in frenzy or in sleep.

### Book 1, Chapter 56

[127]
“Moreover, everything happens by fate, as will be shown elsewhere. So imagine a mortal able to take in mentally how every cause connects with every other: such a person could miss nothing. Knowing the causes behind what is to come would mean knowing every coming event. Since only a god can do that, what remains for human beings is to read the future from signs indicating what comes next. Future events do not spring up suddenly. Time moves forward like the unwinding of a rope: it brings nothing new into being, but unfolds each thing in its turn. Both those who have the gift of natural divination and those who have observed and recorded the course of events see this. Though they do not see the causes themselves, they see signs and indications of those causes. Applying memory, care, and the records of earlier generations to these signs produces what is called artificial divination: divination from entrails, lightning, strange occurrences, and heavenly signs.

[128]
“So we should not be surprised that diviners foresee things that do not yet exist anywhere. Everything does exist, but it is distant in time. Seeds contain the power to produce the things that grow from them. In the same way, future events are stored within their causes. A mind excited by frenzy or released in sleep sees that these events will happen, or reason or interpretation foresees them. Knowing how the sun, moon, and other stars rise, set, and move lets people announce far ahead the time of each coming event involving them. In the same way, people who have studied over a long time and recorded the course of events and how one follows another understand what will happen. They do so always—or, if that is too much to claim, generally; or, if even that is not granted, certainly sometimes. These and some similar arguments for the existence of divination are drawn from fate.

### Book 1, Chapter 57

[129]
“Nature supplies another line of argument. It shows how great the mind's power is when separated from the body's senses. This happens especially during sleep or in a state of mental excitement. The minds of the gods perceive what each other thinks without eyes, ears, or tongues. That is why people do not doubt that the gods hear them even when they make a wish or vow in silence. In the same way, human minds see things that minds mixed up with the body cannot see, when sleep releases them and frees them from the body, or when mental excitement lets them move freely, stirred into action on their own.

[130]
“It may be difficult to extend this explanation drawn from nature to artificial divination. Posidonius nevertheless investigates that connection to the best of his ability. In his view, the natural world provides signs of coming events. We are told that the people of Ceos carefully watch the rising of the Dog Star every year. As Heraclides of Pontus writes, they use it to judge whether the coming year will be healthy or full of disease. If the star appears rather dim and misty, the air is thick and dense, so that breathing it will be oppressive and cause disease. But if the star appears bright and clear, it means the air is thin and pure, and therefore healthy.

[131]
“Democritus thinks the ancients were wise to establish the practice of inspecting the entrails of sacrificed animals. Their condition and color give signs of health or disease, and sometimes also of whether the fields will be barren or fertile. If observation and experience have recognized that these signs come from nature, time could have brought many more things to be observed and recorded. So the character whom Pacuvius presents as a natural philosopher in his Chryses seems to have understood very little about nature:

“‘[…] For those who understand the language of birds
And know more from another creature's liver than from their own—
I think we should hear them, rather than listen to them.’

“Why, I ask? A few lines later you yourself say quite clearly:

“‘Whatever this is, it gives everything life, shape, nourishment, growth, and birth.
It buries everything and takes it back into itself, and is also the father of all.
From it the same things all arise afresh, and to it they return in death.’

“Why, then, if there is one home shared by everything, and human minds have always existed and always will, should those minds be unable to see what follows from each thing, and which signs point to which events? That,” he said, “is all I have to offer on divination.”

### Book 1, Chapter 58

[132]
“Now I will state this plainly. I do not accept people who cast lots or those who prophesy for money, or even the ceremonies for calling up the dead that your friend Appius used to practice. In short, to me a Marsian augur is worth nothing; neither are village haruspices, the Circus astrologers, Isis' interpreters of signs, or people who interpret dreams. These people are not diviners through knowledge or skill,

“‘But superstitious prophets and shameless fortune-tellers,
Either lazy or mad or driven by poverty,
Who do not know their own path but show another person the way.
They promise people riches, then ask those same people for a drachma.
Let them take their drachma from those riches and give back the rest.’

“That is Ennius. A few lines before this, he acknowledges the gods' existence while denying that humanity's actions concern them. But I think they do care, and also warn us and predict many things. I support divination once frivolity, falsehood, and fraud have been excluded.” Quintus stopped there, and I replied, “You have certainly prepared your case well […]”

### Book 2, Chapter 1

[1]
I spent a long time asking myself and thinking hard about how I could help as many people as possible, so that I would never stop serving the state. No greater service came to mind than to show my fellow citizens the paths to the best fields of learning. I think I have already done that in quite a few books. In the book called Hortensius, I urged people to study philosophy as forcefully as I could. In the four books of the Academics, I showed which way of doing philosophy I thought made the fewest claims for itself and was the most consistent and refined.

[2]
The foundation of philosophy lies in the ultimate ends of good and evil. I examined that subject fully in five books, so readers could understand what each philosopher said and what arguments were made against each one. Five more books followed, the Tusculan Disputations. They explained the things most essential to a happy life. The first deals with disregarding death, the second with enduring pain, the third with easing grief, and the fourth with the other disturbances of the mind. The fifth covers the subject that sheds the most light on all philosophy. It teaches that goodness is enough, by itself, to make life happy.

[3]
Once those works were out, my next completed work was On the Nature of the Gods, in three books. They contain the whole discussion of that subject. To make that discussion full and complete, I began writing these books on divination. If I add a work on fate, as I intend, I will have done more than enough to cover this entire question. These works should also include my six books On the Republic, written when I held the state’s steering wheel. This is a great subject, properly belonging to philosophy. Plato, Aristotle, Theophrastus, and the whole Peripatetic school have treated it at great length. And what should I say about my Consolation? It certainly gives me some relief, and I think it will do others a great deal of good too. Recently I also fitted in the book On Old Age that I sent to our friend Atticus. Above all, since philosophy makes a man good and brave, my Cato belongs among these books.

### Book 2, Chapter 2

[4]
Aristotle and Theophrastus, men outstanding for both their precise thought and their rich expression, joined rules for speaking to philosophy. So my books about speaking seem to belong in this same group. That gives us the three books On the Orator, a fourth, Brutus, and a fifth, The Orator.

That was what I had done so far. I was pressing eagerly on with the rest. I was ready, unless some more serious cause stopped me, to leave no area of philosophy without a clear treatment in Latin literature. What greater or better gift can I offer the state than to teach and educate the young? Especially with today’s behavior and in these times, when young people have gone so far astray that everyone must use all their resources to check and restrain them.

[5]
I do not expect to achieve something we should not even ask for: that all young people turn to these studies. If only a few would! Their work could still have a far-reaching effect in public life. I also find a reward for my work in the older people who take comfort in my books. Their eagerness to read makes me more eager to write every day. I have found that there are more of them than I thought. Another great achievement, and a source of honor for Romans, would be to make them independent of Greek books on philosophy.

[6]
I will certainly achieve that if I finish what I have begun. It was our country’s terrible misfortune that gave me a reason to explain philosophy. During the civil war, I could neither defend the state in my usual way nor remain idle. And I could find no other activity that better suited my standing. So my fellow citizens will forgive me—or rather thank me. When the state was under one man’s control, I did not hide myself away, abandon myself, or give way to despair. I did not act as though I were angry with the man or with the times. Nor did I flatter or admire another man’s good fortune so much that I regretted my own. I had learned this very lesson from Plato and philosophy: states go through certain natural changes, so that sometimes leading men control them, sometimes the people, and sometimes a single man.

[7]
When that happened to our state, and I had lost my former duties, I began these studies again. I hoped that this, more than anything else, would ease my troubles, and that I could help my fellow citizens in whatever way I could. My books served as my speeches in the senate and at public meetings. I thought philosophy had taken the place of managing public affairs for me. Now that people have begun to consult me about the state again, I must devote my efforts to it—or rather put all my thought and care into it. Only the time left free from public duties and responsibilities should go to this study. But I will say more about that another time. Let us now return to the discussion we began.

### Book 2, Chapter 3

[8]
My brother Quintus had finished the discussion of divination recorded in the previous book. After what seemed a sufficient walk, we took seats in the Lyceum’s library. I then said, “Quintus, you have defended the Stoic position carefully, and in true Stoic style. What pleases me most is that you have used so many examples from our own history, and famous, striking examples at that. Now I must answer what you have said. But I will assert nothing and question everything, often uncertain and doubtful of my own judgment. If I had anything certain to say, I would be practicing divination myself, though I deny that divination exists.

[9]
“What troubles me is a question Carneades used to press above all: what things does divination deal with? Things we perceive through our senses? Yet sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch already tell us about those things. Is there anything in this field that we perceive through foresight or mental excitement rather than through our natural senses? Could some supposed diviner, if he were blind like Tiresias, tell us what was white and what was black? Or, if he were deaf, could he recognize different voices or musical tunes? So divination has no use in anything we learn through our senses. Nor do we need it in things dealt with by trained skills. We normally bring doctors to the sick, not prophets or fortune-tellers. A musician, not a haruspex, teaches anyone wishing to play the pipes or a stringed instrument how to use it.

### Book 2, Chapter 4

[10]
“The same applies to literature and other subjects that require study. Do you think the people said to practice divination can answer whether the sun is bigger than the earth or only as big as it looks? Whether the moon has its own light or uses the sun’s? How the sun and moon move? How the five stars called wandering stars move? These supposed diviners do not claim they can answer these questions, or say which propositions in geometry are true and which are false. These are matters for mathematicians, not fortune-tellers.

“And what about the subjects philosophy deals with? Does any diviner normally give answers, or get consulted, about what is good, what is bad, and what is neither? These subjects belong to philosophers.

[11]
“Does anyone consult a haruspex about duty: how to behave toward parents, brothers, or friends? How to use money, public office, or power? People normally take these questions to wise men, not diviners. And can anyone use divination on any subject studied by logicians or students of nature? Whether there is one universe or more than one, and what the basic elements are from which everything comes—knowledge of these things belongs to students of nature. How to solve the liar argument, which the Greeks call pseudomenon, or how to resist the sorites argument—these too will be explained by logicians, not diviners. We could call the sorites a ‘heap argument’ in Latin if we had to, but there is no need. Like ‘philosophy’ itself and many other Greek words, ‘sorites’ is familiar enough in Latin. And when the question is what form of government is best, or which laws and customs help and which harm, will we send for haruspices from Etruria? Or will leading men and chosen experts in public affairs decide?

### Book 2, Chapter 5

[12]
“If divination does not deal with things we sense, things covered by trained skills, things discussed in philosophy, or things involved in public affairs, I simply cannot understand what it does deal with. It must either cover everything or be given some subject of its own. But reasoning has shown that it does not cover everything. And no field or subject can be found to put under its control. So consider whether there may be no such thing as divination. A familiar Greek verse makes this point:

“‘The one who guesses well is the best prophet, I say.’

“Will a prophet guess an approaching storm better than a ship’s pilot? Will he make a sharper judgment about the nature of an illness than a doctor? Will he work out how to run a war more wisely than a general?

[13]
“Quintus, I did see the care you took to exclude two things from divination: judgments made with skill and knowledge, and matters grasped by sense or practical technique. You defined it this way: divination is the prediction and foreknowledge of things that happen by chance. First of all, that takes you back to the same point. A doctor, a pilot, and a general also foresee things that happen by chance. Can a haruspex, augur, prophet, or dreamer judge a sick person’s chances of recovery better than a doctor can? Can any of them judge a ship’s escape from danger better than its pilot, or an army’s escape from ambush better than its general?

[14]
“You even said it was not the diviner’s business to foresee approaching winds or rain from certain signs. In that connection you recited from memory some of my translation of Aratus. Yet these things too depend on chance: they usually happen, but not always. Then tell me what you mean by divination, this advance awareness of chance events. What does it cover? You think things that can be foreseen through skill, reasoning, experience, or inference should be credited to experts, not diviners. That leaves only chance events which no skill or wisdom can foresee as things that can be divined. For example, if someone had said many years ahead that the Marcus Marcellus who was consul three times would die in a shipwreck, he would certainly have practiced divination. No other skill or wisdom could have told him that. So divination is foreknowledge of events like these, which depend on chance.

### Book 2, Chapter 6

[15]
“Can there be any foreknowledge of things that have no reason why they will happen? What else do we mean by chance, luck, accident, or happenstance, except that something has happened in a way in which it might have happened differently? How can anyone foresee and predict what happens at random through blind accident and shifting luck?

[16]
“A doctor uses reasoning to foresee an illness getting worse, a general to foresee an ambush, and a pilot to foresee storms. Yet even these people, who base every judgment on solid reasoning, often make mistakes. A farmer sees an olive tree in flower and expects to see olives on it too. He has a reason for thinking so, but sometimes he is wrong. If people who never speak without some reasonable inference and argument make mistakes, what should we think of the guesses of people who foresee the future through internal organs, birds, portents, oracles, or dreams? I am not yet discussing how worthless these signs are: a split in a liver, a raven’s cry, an eagle’s flight, a shooting star, the cries of people in a frenzy, lots, and dreams. I will discuss each in its place. For now I am discussing them all together.

[17]
“How can anyone foresee an event when it has no cause or sign to show why it will happen? People who calculate the movements of the stars predict eclipses of the sun and moon many years ahead. They predict things that nature is bound to bring about. From the moon’s completely regular movement they see when it will face the sun and enter the earth’s shadow, the cone of night, so that it must go dark. They see when that same moon will pass below and in front of the sun and hide its light from our eyes. They see which constellation each wandering star will occupy at any given time, and on which day a constellation will rise or set. You see the reasoning used by people who predict these things.

### Book 2, Chapter 7

[18]
“What reasoning do people follow when they say that treasure will be found or an inheritance will arrive? What part of the natural world contains that future event? If these and similar things are governed by that kind of necessity, what is left that we can think of as happening by accident or sheer chance? Nothing is more opposed to reason and regularity than chance. So I think not even a god can know what will happen accidentally and by chance. If he knows, the event is certain to happen. If it is certain to happen, there is no chance. But chance exists. So there is no foreknowledge of chance events.

[19]
“Or if you deny that chance exists, and say that everything that happens or will happen has been fixed by fate from all eternity, change your definition of divination. You said it was foreknowledge of chance events. If nothing can take place, occur, or happen unless it has been certain from all eternity to happen at a fixed time, how can there be chance? Once chance is removed, what room is there for divination, which you called foreknowledge of chance events? Yet you did say that everything that happens or will happen is governed by fate. The very word ‘fate’ belongs to old women’s tales and is full of superstition. Even so, this fate is a subject the Stoics discuss at length. I will discuss that another time. For now I will say what is needed.

### Book 2, Chapter 8

[20]
“What benefit can I get from divination if fate determines everything? Whatever the diviner predicts really will happen. That leaves me unable to understand even our close friend Deiotarus' case: an eagle's warning made him turn around on a journey. Continuing would have meant sleeping in the very room that collapsed the following night. So he would have been crushed in the wreckage. Fate would have made escape impossible if it had marked him out for that end. If it had not, that disaster could not have befallen him. How, then, does divination help? Why should lots, internal organs, or any prediction give me a warning? If it was fated that the Roman people’s two fleets should be lost in the First Punic War, one in a shipwreck and the other sunk by the Carthaginians, they would still have been lost even if the chickens had given the full favorable sign by dropping food from their beaks in the consulship of Lucius Junius and Publius Claudius. But if obeying the auspices would have saved the fleets, fate did not destroy them. You, however, hold fate responsible for every event. So there is no divination.

[21]
“If it was fated that the Roman people’s army should be destroyed at Lake Trasimene in the Second Punic War, would Flaminius, the consul, have prevented this by respecting the signs and auspices that told him not to fight? He certainly could have. So either the army was not destroyed by fate, or, if it was—and that is certainly what you must say—obedience to the auspices would still have led to just that outcome. No one can alter what fate has fixed. What is left of the Stoics’ divination, then? When fate controls every event, divination can give us no warning that helps us act more cautiously. No matter what course we take, the destined outcome will come about. But if the outcome can be changed, there is no fate. And then there is no divination either, since divination concerns future events. Nothing is certain to happen if some ritual action can prevent it from happening.

### Book 2, Chapter 9

[22]
“Nor am I convinced that knowing what lies ahead does us any good. What kind of life would Priam have had if he had known from his youth what would happen to him in old age? Let us leave the myths and look at events nearer to us. In my Consolation I collected accounts of the terrible deaths of our country’s most famous men. Well then, to leave aside the earlier ones, do you think it would have helped Marcus Crassus, when he was at the height of his wealth and power, to know that his son Publius would be killed, his army destroyed, and he himself would die beyond the Euphrates in disgrace and dishonor? Or do you think Gnaeus Pompey would have enjoyed his three consulships, his three triumphs, and the fame of his great achievements, if he had known that after losing his army he would be butchered in an Egyptian wilderness? And would he have enjoyed them knowing that what came after his death would be too painful for us to describe without crying?

[23]
“And what of Caesar? Suppose he had known in advance that leading citizens would murder him—some of them men he had given every kind of honor. This would happen in the senate he had mostly appointed himself, in Pompey’s senate house, in front of Pompey’s own statue, as so many of Caesar’s centurions watched. Suppose he had known that he would lie there and not one of his friends, not even one of his slaves, would come near his body. What agony of mind would he have lived in? Surely, then, not knowing future troubles is better than knowing them.

[24]
“For no one, especially no Stoic, can possibly say, ‘Pompey would have stayed out of the fighting; Crassus would have stopped short of crossing the Euphrates; Caesar would never have started the civil war.’ In that case their deaths were not fated. But you insist that everything happens by fate. So foreseeing the future would have done them no good. They would even have lost all enjoyment of their earlier lives. What could have made them happy while they thought about their deaths? Whichever way the Stoics turn, all their cleverness must come to nothing. If a future event can turn out one way or another, chance has enormous power. And chance events cannot be certain. But if it is certain what will happen in every matter at every time, how can haruspices help me? After they say that the most terrible things are foretold,

### Book 2, Chapter 10

[25]
“they add at the end that everything will turn out less badly if the proper religious rites are performed. But if nothing happens outside fate, no religious rite can make anything less bad. Homer understands this when he has Jupiter complain that he cannot save his son Sarpedon from death against fate. The same point is made in a Greek verse that means:

“‘What is destined to happen overpowers even highest Jupiter.’

“I think an Atellan farce verse was also quite right to make fun of the whole idea of fate. But such serious matters are no place for joking. So let us finish the argument. If no chance event can be foreseen, because chance events cannot be certain, there is no divination. Alternatively, suppose we can foresee events precisely because fate has made them certain. That still leaves no divination. You said it concerned chance events.

### Book 2, Chapter 11

[26]
“Let that be the first skirmish of my argument, like an attack by light-armed troops. Now we must move in for hand-to-hand fighting and try to unsettle the flanks of your argument.

“You said there were two kinds of divination, one artificial and the other natural. Artificial divination depends partly on inference and partly on long observation. Natural divination is something the mind seizes or receives from outside, from the divine source from which all our minds have been drawn, received, or poured out. You put roughly these practices under artificial divination: reading internal organs; making predictions from lightning and portents; then the work of augurs and of people who use signs or omens. You put practically every kind of divination based on inference into this category.

[27]
“The natural kind, you thought, was either produced and, as it were, poured out through mental excitement, or involved the mind foreseeing things in sleep, when it is free from the senses and cares. You traced all divination to three sources: god, fate, and nature. Yet you could explain nothing, and fought your case with an astonishing supply of made-up examples. Here is the first thing I want to say about that. I do not think a philosopher should use witnesses whose statements might be true by chance or false and invented through dishonesty. He should show why each thing is so by arguments and reasoning, not by stories of events—especially stories I am free to disbelieve.

### Book 2, Chapter 12

[28]
“Let me begin with the practice of the haruspices. I think we should maintain it for the sake of the state and our common religion. But we are alone. We can search for the truth without causing offense, especially since I doubt most things. Let us look first at internal organs, if you agree. Can anyone be persuaded that the haruspices learned through long observation what these organs are said to signify? How long did that observation last? Across how many years could they have watched? How did they work together to establish which part stood for the enemy and which for themselves, or which split warned of danger and which promised a benefit? Did Etruscan, Elean, Egyptian, and Carthaginian haruspices compare their results? Not only could that not have happened; it cannot even be imagined. We see different peoples interpret internal organs differently. There is no single system shared by all.

[29]
“If these organs really can disclose future events, there are only two possibilities: nature is linked to that power, or the gods’ will and divine force somehow give it its shape. What can such a vast and splendid natural world, extending through every region and movement, have in common with a chicken’s gallbladder? Some people even say these organs give the clearest signs. But never mind a chicken: what natural quality does a fat bull’s liver, heart, or lung have that could reveal what will happen?

### Book 2, Chapter 13

[30]
“Democritus, though, talks nonsense with some skill, as a student of nature would. No class of people makes greater claims for itself:

“‘No one looks at what is at their feet; they search the reaches of the sky.’

“Still, he thinks the condition and color of internal organs reveal only these things: the kind of pasture, and whether the earth’s produce is plentiful or scarce. He also thinks internal organs indicate healthy conditions or disease. What a happy man! I am sure he never ran out of amusement. Could he have enjoyed such nonsense so much that he failed to see the problem? His idea would be plausible only if the internal organs of all livestock changed to the same condition and color at the same time. But if, at the very same hour, one animal has a smooth, full liver and another a rough, shrunken one, what can the condition and color of their organs reveal?

[31]
“Does this belong with your account of Pherecydes? He saw water drawn from a well and said there would be an earthquake. It is not bold enough, I suppose, that they dare to explain what force caused an earthquake after it has happened. Must they even foresee a future one from the color of spring water? Many things like that are said in the schools. But consider whether you really have to believe them all.

[32]
“Still, let us grant that Democritus’ claims are true. When do we ask internal organs about these things? When have we ever heard anything of this kind from a haruspex who has inspected them? They warn of dangers from water or fire. They announce inheritances or losses. They discuss the split belonging to oneself and the one concerning life. They examine the head of the liver very carefully from every side. If it is missing, they think nothing worse could have happened.

### Book 2, Chapter 14

[33]
“As I showed above, these things certainly could not have been learned by observation. So they are inventions of a technique, not the product of long experience—if there can be a technique for things we know nothing about. But what connection do they have with the natural world? Suppose nature is joined in one continuous, harmonious whole. I see that students of nature have held this view, especially those who said that everything that exists is one. Even so, what connection can the universe have with finding treasure? If internal organs show that my money will increase, and that happens by nature, then first the organs are connected with the universe, and second my profit is contained in the natural order. Aren’t students of nature ashamed to say such things? Let us grant that there is some connection between things in nature. I admit that there is. The Stoics collect many examples. They say the little livers of mice grow at the winter solstice; dried pennyroyal flowers on the very day of the winter solstice; inflated bladders burst; and seeds enclosed in the centers of apples turn in opposite directions. Again, when some strings on an instrument are struck, other strings sound in response. Oysters and all shellfish grow and shrink along with the moon. And winter, when the moon is waning too, is thought the right time to cut trees, because they are then dry.

### Book 2, Chapter 15

[34]
“Why should I say more about sea channels or tides, whose rise and fall are governed by the moon’s movement? Six hundred things of the same kind could be brought forward to show the natural connection between things far apart. Let us grant all this. Nothing in that concession counts against the argument we are making. But does a split of a certain kind in a liver also indicate profit? Through what natural connection, through what harmony and agreement—the Greeks call it sympatheia—can a split in a liver fit with my little profit? Or my small gain with the sky, the earth, and the natural world? I will grant even this if you like, though I will have badly damaged my case by admitting any natural agreement with internal organs.

[35]
“But even after that is granted, how does someone seeking favorable signs happen to sacrifice an animal that fits his situation? This was the problem I thought could not be solved. But how neatly it is solved! I feel ashamed, not of you—I even admire your memory—but of Chrysippus, Antipater, and Posidonius. In their account, which you repeated, the choice of sacrificial animal is directed by a conscious, divine force that pervades the universe. Even better is something else you used and they say too: when someone is about to sacrifice, the internal organs change, so that something is missing or there is something extra. Everything obeys the will of the gods.

### Book 2, Chapter 16

[36]
“Believe me, not even old women think that. Do you think that if one person chooses a particular calf, he will find its liver without a head, but if someone else chooses the very same calf, he will find it with a head? Can the head vanish or appear in an instant, so that the organs adjust to the fortunes of the person making the sacrifice? Can’t you see that choosing sacrificial animals is a kind of gamble, especially when the facts themselves show it? When the dreadful organs have no head, which is thought the worst possible sign, the very next victim often gives wonderfully favorable signs. Where, then, are the threats from the first set of organs? What has suddenly made the gods so thoroughly pleased?

“But you say that when Caesar sacrificed a fat bull, there was no heart among its organs. You reason that the heart must have disappeared during the killing, because the animal being sacrificed could not have stayed alive without one.

[37]
“How can you understand one point, that an ox could not live without a heart, and fail to see the other, that its heart could not suddenly fly off somewhere? I may not know how important the heart is to life. Or perhaps disease had so shrunk the ox’s heart that it was thin, very small, and withered, no longer looking like a heart at all. But what grounds do you have for thinking that if the fat bull had a heart a little earlier, it suddenly vanished during the sacrifice itself? Or did it lose its heart because it saw that brainless Caesar in purple robes, a man with no heart himself? Believe me, you are betraying the city of philosophy while defending its outlying forts. In trying to prove the practice of haruspices true, you turn the whole study of nature upside down. There is a head on the liver, a heart among the organs. Now it will disappear as soon as you sprinkle on the sacrificial meal and wine. Who will make it disappear? A god, by pulling it out; or some force, by destroying or eating it. So nature will not govern the birth and death of everything. Something will either come from nothing or suddenly vanish into nothing. What student of nature ever said that? Haruspices say it. Do you think we should believe them rather than students of nature?

### Book 2, Chapter 17

[38]
“And when sacrifices are offered to several gods, how does it happen that the signs are favorable for some and not for others? How can the gods be so inconsistent that they threaten us through the first organs and promise good things through the second? Or how can there be such disagreement among them, often even among close relatives, that the organs offered to Apollo are good and those offered to Diana are not? What could be clearer? The victims are brought up by chance, and the organs each person gets depend on the animal that happens to fall to him. ‘But there is something divine in which victim falls to each person, just as in which lot each person draws.’ We will discuss lots shortly. Though in fact, comparing victims to lots does not strengthen your case for victims. Comparing lots to victims weakens your case for lots.

[39]
“Suppose we send to the Aequimaelium for a lamb to sacrifice. Are we really brought an animal with organs suited to my circumstances? Does a god guide the slave to that particular lamb, rather than chance taking him there? If you say that chance in this case too is like a drawing of lots connected with the gods’ will, I am sorry our Stoic friends have given the Epicureans such a good opportunity to laugh at them. You know how they ridicule these things.

[40]
“And they can do it more easily. Epicurus introduced the gods themselves as a joke: transparent, with the wind blowing through them, living between two worlds as if between two groves, for fear the worlds might collapse. He thinks they have the same limbs as we do, but no use for those limbs. So this man, who does away with the gods in a roundabout way, is right not to hesitate about doing away with divination. But the Stoics are not as consistent as he is. His god, who has no business of his own or anyone else’s, cannot give people divination. Your god, however, could go on running the universe and looking after people even without giving them divination.

[41]
“Why, then, do you trap yourselves in arguments you can never escape? When they are in more of a hurry, they usually reason like this: ‘If gods exist, divination exists. But gods exist. Therefore divination exists.’ Much more plausible is: ‘But divination does not exist. Therefore gods do not exist.’ See how recklessly they risk this result: if there is no divination, there are no gods. For divination can clearly be disproved, while belief in the gods’ existence must be kept.

### Book 2, Chapter 18

[42]
“Once this divination by reading organs is removed, the whole practice of the haruspices is removed. Portents and lightning come next. Long observation is supposed to count in the case of lightning; reasoning and inference are generally used for portents. What have people actually learned from watching lightning? It was the Etruscans who marked out sixteen regions in the sky. That was easy enough: double our four divisions, then do it again, so they could say which part a thunderbolt had come from. First, what difference does that make? Second, what does it signify? Isn’t it obvious how the belief began? People were amazed at first, and terrified by the thunder and the thunderbolts striking. They thought Jupiter, who rules over everything, was causing them. So our records contain this rule: ‘When Jupiter thunders or sends lightning, it is a religious offense to hold assemblies of the people.’

### Book 2, Chapter 19

[43]
“Perhaps this rule was established for political reasons. They wanted grounds for not holding assemblies. So a thunderbolt invalidates an assembly, but nothing else. In all other matters, a bolt on the left counts for us as the most favorable sign of all. But I will discuss auspices elsewhere. Now I am discussing lightning.

“What could be less appropriate for students of nature than to say that uncertain things indicate anything certain? I do not think you are someone who believes the Cyclopes made Jupiter’s thunderbolt in Etna.

[44]
“With just one thunderbolt, how could Jupiter throw it so many times? Nor would thunderbolts really be his way of telling people what actions to take or what dangers to watch for. On the Stoic account, wind is cold vapor from the earth that has begun to move. When they enter a cloud and begin to split and tear apart its thinnest parts, and do so more often and more violently, flashes and thunder result. But if heat squeezed out by the collision of clouds shoots out, that is a thunderbolt. We see this happen through natural forces, with no regularity and at no fixed time. Do we look to it for signs of what will follow? Of course, if Jupiter were using it to give signs, he would send out so many thunderbolts to no purpose!

### Book 2, Chapter 20

[45]
“What does he achieve by throwing a thunderbolt into the middle of the sea? Or onto the highest mountains, as he very often does? Or into empty wildernesses? Or onto the coasts of peoples who do not even watch for these signs?

“‘But the head was found in the Tiber.’ As if I were denying that these men have any skilled method! I reject the claim to predict the future. By dividing up the sky as I described and keeping records of particular facts, they can establish a thunderbolt’s starting point and destination. But no reasoning teaches what it means. You press me with my own verses:

“‘For the Father whose thunder sounds above, supported by star-filled Olympus,
Once took aim himself at his own hills and temples
And hurled fire onto the buildings of the Capitol.’

“Then a thunderbolt struck with such force that down fell Natta’s statue, the gods’ images, and Romulus and Remus together with their animal nurse. And the haruspices’ predictions about these events proved completely true.

[46]
“‘But the amazing thing is that the installation of Jupiter’s statue on the Capitol coincided exactly with the disclosure of the conspiracy to the senate; the contract had been awarded two years earlier. Can you really bring yourself’—this is how you argued with me—‘to defend a case that goes against your own actions and writings?’ You are my brother, and that makes me hesitate. But what is working against you here? The facts, which are what they are? Or me, because I want the truth explained? So I am not contradicting you. I am asking you for a reasoned account of the whole practice of the haruspices. But you have found an extraordinary hiding place. You knew you would be pressed hard when I asked you for the causes of each kind of divination. So you spoke at length about not asking for reasons and causes when you saw the facts: what happened mattered, not why it happened. As if I either agreed that it happened, or it were a philosopher’s business not to ask the cause

### Book 2, Chapter 21

[47]
“of each event! On that point you recited my Weather Signs and mentioned kinds of plants, scammony and birthwort root. You said you did not know their causes but could see their power and effect. The cases are completely different. The weather signs have had their causes studied by the Stoic Boethus—you mentioned him—and also by our friend Posidonius. Even without discovering their causes, people could have watched and recorded those events. Where is the ancient record of observations to explain lightning hitting Natta’s statue or the bronze tablets carrying the laws? ‘The Pinarii Nattae are nobles. So danger comes from the nobility.’ How cleverly Jupiter thought that out! ‘The infant Romulus was struck by lightning. So danger threatens the city he founded.’ How expertly Jupiter uses signs to inform us! ‘But Jupiter’s statue was being set up at the same moment the conspiracy was being reported.’ And you would rather think, of course, that the gods’ will did this, rather than chance. The contractor who had contracted with Cotta and Torquatus to make that column was not delayed by laziness or lack of money. The immortal gods kept him waiting for that very hour.

[48]
“I do not entirely rule out the truth of these claims. But I do not know, and I want to learn from you. When I thought some things happened by chance just as diviners had predicted, you said a great deal about chance. You said that a Venus throw could occur by chance when four knucklebones were thrown, but that with four hundred knucklebones, chance could not produce a hundred Venus throws. To begin with, why should that be impossible? I cannot see, but I will not argue. You have plenty of comparisons: splashes of paint, a pig’s snout, and very many others. You also say Carneades made up his story about the little Pan’s head. As if that could not have happened by chance, and as if even heads worthy of Praxiteles must not exist inside every block of marble! Those heads themselves are made by taking material away. Praxiteles adds nothing to the block. But when a great deal has been removed and the lines of a face have been reached, you realize that the finished piece was inside all along.

### Book 2, Chapter 22

[49]
“So something like that could have appeared all by itself in the quarries of Chios. But suppose the story is made up. Surely you have seen clouds shaped like lions or centaurs? So chance can imitate reality, something you were just denying.

“We have discussed internal organs and lightning enough. Portents remain, if we are to cover the whole practice of the haruspices. You brought up a mule giving birth. It is amazing because it does not happen often. But if it could not have happened, it would not have happened. Let that apply to all portents: nothing has ever happened that could not happen. If it could happen, it is no cause for amazement. When something new occurs, not knowing its cause makes us wonder. If we are equally ignorant about familiar things, we do not wonder. Someone who marvels at a mule’s giving birth is ignorant of how birth works in mares, or, for that matter, of nature’s way of producing young in any animal. But what he sees often does not amaze him, even if he does not know why it happens. If something he has not seen before occurs, he thinks it is a portent. So is it a portent when the mule conceives or when she gives birth?

### Book 2, Chapter 23

[50]
“Conception may be against nature, but birth is almost inevitable.

“Enough talk: where did the haruspices’ practice begin? By examining that, we can most easily decide how much weight it deserves. They say that while land near Tarquinii was being plowed and a furrow had been cut deeper than usual, a certain Tages suddenly appeared and spoke to the plowman. According to the Etruscans’ books, this Tages looked like a child but had an old man’s wisdom. The ox driver was stunned at the sight and gave a loud cry of amazement. People came running, and before long all Etruria gathered at that spot. Then Tages spoke at length, with many people listening. They took down all his words and put them into writing. His whole speech contained the system of the haruspices. Later this system grew as new facts were learned and brought under the same original principles. This is what we have learned from the Etruscans themselves. They preserve it in writing. This is the source of their teaching.

### Book 2, Chapter 24

[51]
“Must we call on Carneades to disprove such claims? Must we call on Epicurus? Who could be stupid enough to believe a plow dug up a being—whether god or human? If a god, why had he hidden himself in the earth against nature, to see the light when a plow uncovered him? Couldn’t the same god have taught people this system from somewhere above? But suppose Tages was human. How did he survive with earth piled over him? Where did his own knowledge come from, before he passed it on? But I am more foolish than the people who believe these things, since I spend so long arguing against them.

“Cato’s old remark is very clever. He said he was surprised that one haruspex did not laugh when he saw another.

[52]
“For how many of their predictions ever come true? And if something does happen, what reason can be given why it did not happen by chance? Hannibal, then living in exile at King Prusias’ court, wanted to fight a decisive battle. Prusias said he did not dare, because the internal organs forbade it. ‘Really?’ Hannibal said. ‘Would you rather trust a bit of calf’s flesh than an experienced general?’ And when a leading haruspex warned Caesar himself not to cross to Africa before the winter solstice, didn’t he cross anyway? Without that crossing, the enemy would have concentrated all their troops at one spot. What need is there to go through the haruspices’ forecasts—I could give countless examples—that either never came true or turned out the other way?

[53]
“Immortal gods! Think how often they made fools of us during this civil war! What predictions of haruspices were sent to us in Greece from Rome! What things they told Pompey! He was very much influenced by internal organs and portents. I do not care to recall them. Nor is it necessary: you in particular were present. You can see, though, that the outcome contradicted their predictions in almost every case. But enough of this. Now let us turn to portents.

### Book 2, Chapter 25

[54]
“You recited many things from my own account of my consulship. You cited Sisenna’s many reports from the time before the Marsic War, as well as Callisthenes’ many accounts from before the Spartans’ defeat on the battlefield at Leuctra. I will discuss individual examples as far as seems worthwhile, but we must also discuss them as a whole. What is this supposed message from the gods, this warning, as it were, of disasters? What do the immortal gods mean by giving signs, first, that we cannot understand without interpreters, and second, that concern events we have no way of avoiding? Not even an honest person would foretell disaster to friends who could do nothing to escape it. Doctors, for example, often know, but never tell their patients that they will die of their illness. A prediction of harm is welcome only when the prediction comes with a way to guard against it.

### Book 2, Chapter 26

[55]
“How did portents or their interpreters help the Spartans long ago, or our people recently? Why such obscurity, if we must take these as divine signs? If the gods intended us to know the outcome, a clear statement was needed. If they meant to keep us ignorant, even a veiled disclosure was out of place.

“Besides, all the inference that divination relies on is often pulled by people’s imaginations in many different, even opposite directions. In court cases, the prosecutor draws one inference and the defense another, yet both are believable. In the same way, two sides can be argued in all matters that seem to call for investigation by inference. Sometimes nature produces events, sometimes chance; sometimes resemblance even creates a mistaken impression. How foolish to stop searching for causes and attribute such events to the gods!

[56]
“Do you trust the prophets of Boeotia who, at Lebadea, took the roosters’ cries to mean victory for Thebes? Defeated roosters, they said, are usually silent, while victorious ones crow. Was Jupiter giving a sign to such a great state through chickens? Do these birds normally crow only after a victory? But on that occasion they were crowing without having won. ‘That is the portent,’ you will say. A great portent indeed! As if fish had crowed instead of roosters! What time of night or day is there when roosters do not crow? If victory makes them lively and, so to speak, happy enough to crow, some other happiness could also have occurred and prompted them to crow.

[57]
“For the roosters’ cries before daybreak, Democritus gives a beautifully worded explanation. Their food has left their chest, spread through their whole body, and softened. Refreshed by rest, they give their cries. In ‘the silence of the night,’ as Ennius says,

“‘[…] they give voice through their red throats
And beat their wings with crowing and clapping.’

“Since this animal is so noisy of its own accord, why did it occur to Callisthenes to claim a divine command made the roosters crow? Either nature or chance could have brought it about.

### Book 2, Chapter 27

[58]
“Reports reached the senate of a rain of blood, of blood flowing down the River Atratus, and of divine statues sweating. Would Thales have accepted this? Would Anaxagoras, or any other investigator of nature? Blood and sweat can only come from a body. But discoloration caused by some mixture from the earth can look very much like blood. Moisture that comes from outside can also resemble sweat: look at plastered walls in a south wind. During war, frightened people see more of these things and think them more important. In peace they pay less attention to the same things. Besides, in times of fear and danger people believe them more easily, and invent them with less risk of being challenged.

[59]
“Are we so thoughtless and careless that we think it a monstrous sign if mice gnaw something, when that is their one occupation? As you said, before the Marsic War mice gnawed shields at Lanuvium, and the haruspices declared it a very great portent. As if it mattered whether mice, gnawing something day and night, had chewed shields or sieves! If we follow this reasoning, I should have been terrified for the state because mice recently gnawed my copy of Plato’s Republic. Or if they had gnawed Epicurus’ book On Pleasure, I should have thought food prices would rise in the market.

### Book 2, Chapter 28

[60]
“Should we really be frightened when we hear that some monstrous creature has been born to an animal or a human being? To avoid going on too long, there is one explanation for all such cases. Whatever comes into being, of whatever kind, must have a natural cause. So even if it is unusual, it cannot come into being outside nature. When you meet something new and amazing, investigate its cause if you can. If you find none, still be sure of this: it could not have happened without a cause. Use an understanding of nature to drive away the fear its strangeness has caused you. Then no rumbling of the earth, no splitting of the sky, no rain of stones or blood, no shooting star or sight of torchlike lights will frighten you.

[61]
“Suppose I ask what causes these events. Even Chrysippus, divination’s champion, will never answer that chance produced them. He will give a natural explanation for all of them. Nothing can happen without a cause. Nothing happens that cannot happen. And if something that could happen has happened, it should not be regarded as a portent. So there are no portents. If a rare event must be thought a portent, a wise man is a portent. I suspect there have been more births to mules than there have been wise men. So the argument ends like this: no event has ever occurred unless it was possible, and being possible rules it out as a portent. Therefore there is no such thing as a portent.

### Book 2, Chapter 29

[62]
“A certain predictor and interpreter of portents is said to have made a clever reply on this point. Someone once reported to him, as a portent, that a bar in his house had a snake wrapped around it. His reply was, ‘For a portent, you would need the bar to have wrapped itself around the snake.’ This reply made his meaning clear enough: nothing that can happen should be regarded as a portent.

“Gaius Gracchus wrote to Marcus Pomponius that his father called in the haruspices after two snakes were caught in his house. Why for snakes rather than lizards or mice? Because those are everyday things, and snakes are not. As if it mattered how often something happened, when it can happen! But here is what puzzles me. Why let either snake go, if letting the female go would kill Tiberius Gracchus and letting the male go would kill Cornelia? Gaius does not write that the haruspices gave any answer about what would happen if neither snake was released. ‘But Gracchus died afterward.’ From some serious illness, I suppose, not from releasing a snake. Haruspices are not so unlucky that what they predict never happens even by chance.

### Book 2, Chapter 30

[63]
“I would be amazed, if I believed it, by your account of Calchas in Homer, who counted the sparrows and so predicted how many years the Trojan War would last. Agamemnon speaks about his prediction in Homer like this, in a translation I made in my spare time:

“‘Endure, men, and bear the hard work in your hearts,
So that we may learn whether our prophet Calchas’ predictions
Rest on sound thoughts or empty ones.
For everyone remembers the portent well,
All whose eyes deadly fate has not closed.
When Aulis was first covered with the Argive ships
That carried ruin to Priam and destruction to Troy,
We stood around cool streams and smoking altars,
Seeking the gods’ favor with bulls whose horns were gilded,
Under a shady plane tree from which a spring flowed.
We saw a twisting snake of monstrous appearance,
Terrible, come out from the altar at Jupiter’s prompting.
In the plane tree’s branch, hidden by leaves,
It seized the chicks; as it ate the eight,
The mother, the ninth, flew above with trembling cries.
The savage creature tore her insides with its monstrous bite.

[64]
“‘After the snake destroyed the delicate young birds and their mother,
The same Father, Saturn’s son, who had brought it to light,
Hid it away and shaped it in a hard covering of stone.
We stood frightened and saw the amazing monster
There, surrounded by the gods’ altars.
Calchas then declared with assurance:
“Why have you Achaeans suddenly frozen in amazement?
The creator of the gods himself has given us these portents,
Slow and far too late to come true, but winning lasting praise and fame.
Count the birds you see slaughtered by those hideous teeth:
So many years of war we shall struggle through at Troy.
It will fall in the tenth and satisfy the Achaeans’ demand for punishment.”
That was Calchas’ prediction, which you now see coming to fulfillment.’

[65]
“What kind of divination is this, counting years from sparrows rather than months or days? Why does he draw an inference from the little sparrows, which were not monstrous at all, and leave out the snake? It supposedly became stone, which is impossible. And after all, how are sparrows anything like years? I recall two things about the snake Sulla saw during a sacrifice: Sulla sacrificed when he was about to lead out his army, and a snake appeared from the altar. And that day’s great success came from the general’s plan, not the haruspex’s advice.

### Book 2, Chapter 31

[66]
“There is nothing amazing in these kinds of portents. After they happen, some interpretation turns them into a basis for prediction. So the grains of wheat piled into the child Midas’ mouth, or the bees you said settled on Plato’s lips when he was a child, are not so amazing in themselves as cleverly interpreted. Yet the stories themselves may be false, or the predicted events may have happened by chance. With Roscius himself, the story that a snake coiled around him may be false. But a snake in his cradle is not so amazing, especially at Solonium, where snakes regularly crowd around the hearth as if at a market. The haruspices declared he would surpass everyone in fame and distinction; I am surprised that the immortal gods foretold fame for a future actor but none for Africanus.

[67]
“Your list also included Flaminius’ portents: a sudden fall for him and his horse. That is certainly not amazing! And the first company of spearmen had a standard that could not be lifted from the ground. Perhaps the standard-bearer pulled timidly at what he had planted firmly. And what was amazing about Dionysius’ horse coming out of the river and having bees in its mane? But because he became king shortly afterward, something that had happened by chance acquired the force of a portent. ‘But the Spartans’ weapons rattled in Hercules’ temple. At Thebes the closed doors of the same god’s temple suddenly opened, and shields that had been fastened high up were found on the ground.’ None of these things could have happened without some movement. Why should we say they happened by divine action rather than chance?

### Book 2, Chapter 32

[68]
“‘But a crown of rough weeds appeared on the head of Lysander’s statue at Delphi, and appeared suddenly.’ Really? Do you think the crown of plants appeared before any seed took root? I imagine the rough weeds came from something birds dropped, not from human planting. Besides, anything on a head can look like a crown. You said that at the same time the gold stars of Castor and Pollux at Delphi fell and could not be found anywhere. That looks more like the work of thieves than of gods.

[69]
“I am amazed that the mischief of the monkey at Dodona was recorded in Greek histories. What could be less amazing than that very ugly beast overturning an urn and scattering lots? Yet historians say no more dreadful portent ever happened to the Spartans! Then there were the predictions of the people of Veii: if Lake Alban overflowed and ran into the sea, Rome would perish; if its waters were held back, Veii would […] So the Alban water was drained to benefit the land near the city, not to preserve the citadel and the city. ‘But soon afterward they heard a voice telling them to guard against the Gauls’ capture of Rome. That was why they consecrated an altar to Aius Loquens on the New Street.’ Well then, this Aius Loquens, this ‘Sayer and Speaker,’ said and spoke when no one knew him, and got his name from it. Did getting his home, altar, and name leave him speechless? We could ask the same question about Moneta, the Warner: has she warned us of anything at all except the pregnant sow?

### Book 2, Chapter 33

[70]
“Enough about portents. We still have auspices and the drawing of lots to discuss—not the responses poured out in prophecy, which we more properly call oracles. I will discuss those when we come to natural divination. The Chaldeans remain too. First, though, consider auspices. How can an augur easily speak against those? Perhaps for a Marsian augur, but very easy for a Roman one. We Roman augurs are not people who predict the future by watching birds and other signs. Still, I believe Romulus, who founded the city after taking the auspices, thought augury included knowledge of the future. Ancient people were mistaken about many things. We see that this belief has now changed through experience, learning, or the passage of time. But the custom, religious practice, teaching, and law of augury, and the authority of the college, are kept both out of regard for popular opinion and because they are very useful to the state.

### Book 2, Chapter 34

[71]
“Still, the consuls Publius Claudius and Lucius Junius deserved every punishment for sailing against the auspices. They should have obeyed religious practice and not rejected ancestral custom so stubbornly. The people were therefore right to convict one; the other killed himself. Flaminius ignored the auspices and perished along with his army as a result. But the following year Paulus obeyed them. Yet he too died with his army at the battle of Cannae, didn’t he? Even if auspices existed—and they do not—our current signs, whether a chicken’s falling food or something in the sky, would still be mere copies, not genuine auspices. ‘Quintus Fabius, I want you to assist me in taking the auspices.’ He answers, ‘I hear you.’ Our ancestors employed an expert for this; now they use anyone at all. But the job requires skill: he needs to know the meaning of ‘silence.’ That is our augural term for the absence of any ritual defect.

[72]
“Understanding that takes a fully trained augur. But the person brought in to assist with the auspices does not look up or around when the man taking them gives this order: ‘Tell me if there appears to be silence.’ He immediately answers that there appears to be silence. Next comes the order: ‘Report whether they are eating.’ The reply: ‘Yes, they are.’ Which birds are these, and where are they? ‘The keeper brought chickens in a cage; that is why he is called a pullarius,’ he says. So these are Jupiter’s messenger birds! Does their eating or refusing to eat make any difference to the auspices? None at all. But when they feed, something is bound to fall from their beaks and strike the ground. This was first called terripavium, then terripudium, and is now called tripudium. So when a lump of food falls from a chicken’s beak, the person taking the auspices is told that there is a fully favorable feeding sign.

### Book 2, Chapter 35

[73]
“Can an auspice so forced and squeezed out have anything divine in it? We have evidence that the earliest augurs did not use it: an old decree of the college says that any bird can produce the food-dropping sign. It would then be an auspice if a bird showed itself—provided it was free to do so. Then that bird might seem Jupiter’s interpreter and attendant. But now, if a bird shut in a cage and half dead from hunger rushes at a lump of porridge, and something falls from its beak, do you think that is an auspice? Or that Romulus used to take auspices that way?

[74]
“Surely in the past those seeking auspices kept their own watch on the sky? Today the chicken keeper gets the order, and they get his report. Except at assemblies, no sign ranks higher with us than lightning on the left. That exception was established for political reasons, so the leading men of the state could interpret the signs for assemblies, whether the people were acting as a court, passing laws, or choosing magistrates. ‘But after Tiberius Gracchus wrote to them and the augurs judged their election faulty, the consuls Scipio and Figulus resigned their offices.’ Who denies that augurs have a system of rules? I deny divination. ‘But haruspices are diviners. When the man announcing the first century’s vote suddenly collapsed and died, Tiberius Gracchus took the haruspices before the senate. They said the officer taking the vote had not been lawfully authorized.’

[75]
“First, consider whether they meant the officer who had taken the century’s vote. He was the man who had died. They could have inferred that without divination. Second, perhaps they spoke by chance, which must never be ruled out in this kind of case. What could Etruscan haruspices know about whether an augural tent had been properly placed, or about the law of the city’s sacred boundary? Of my two colleagues, Gaius Marcellus and Appius Claudius, it is Marcellus whose view I share. I think the law of the augurs, though originally established because people believed in divination, was later kept and maintained for the sake of the state.

### Book 2, Chapter 36

[76]
“I have said more about this subject elsewhere. Enough for now. Let us look at foreign auguries, which involve less trained skill than superstition. Foreign augurs use almost all birds; we use very few. They and our augurs count different things as favorable, ‘left-hand’ signs. Deiotarus and I would question each other: he wanted to know our rules for augury, and I wanted to know his. Immortal gods, what a difference! Some practices were even opposite. He used them all the time. Apart from the period when we hold the right to take auspices received from the people, how much do we use them? Our ancestors would not allow a war to be conducted without first taking auspices. Yet proconsuls and propraetors have been running wars for years now, without holding the right to take auspices!

[77]
“So they neither cross rivers after taking auspices nor take auspices through the food-dropping sign. Where, then, is divination by birds? Since wars are conducted by men who have no right to take auspices, this divination seems to have been kept for city affairs and removed from warfare. As for signs from spearheads, an entirely military kind of auspice, the Marcus Marcellus who was consul five times abandoned them completely. He was both an excellent commander and an excellent augur. He used to say that whenever he wanted to take action, he traveled in a covered litter so that auspices would not get in his way. This is like our instruction as augurs: to prevent an omen from yoked animals, order the draft animals to be unyoked.

### Book 2, Chapter 37

[78]
“What does refusing a warning from Jupiter mean, except making sure that an auspice either cannot occur or, if it does, cannot be seen?

“You say something quite laughable about Deiotarus. He does not regret the auspices he received when setting out to join Pompey, you say. He did his duty by staying loyal to his friendship with the Roman people. Praise and glory mattered more to him than his kingdom and property. I certainly believe that. That has no bearing on auspices: no crow's call could have told him that he was right to prepare to defend the Roman people's freedom. That was his own judgment, and it was right.

[79]
“Birds indicate outcomes, either bad or good. I see that Deiotarus followed the auspices of courage and goodness. These tell us not to look at our luck, as long as we keep our word. But if the birds showed him a good outcome, they certainly lied. He fled the battlefield with Pompey—a terrible time! He left Pompey—a painful parting! He saw Caesar as both his enemy and his guest. What could be sadder? Caesar took away his rule as tetrarch over the Trocmi and gave it to some follower of his from Pergamum. He also stripped him of the Armenia the senate had given him. Though Deiotarus had entertained him with the greatest generosity, Caesar left the man who was both his host and a king robbed of his possessions. But I am straying too far. Let me get back to my subject. Judged by results, which are what we seek from birds, Deiotarus did not fare well at all. If we ask about duties, he learned those from his own goodness, not from auspices.

### Book 2, Chapter 38

[80]
“So leave out Romulus' curved augur's staff, which you say could not be burned in a huge fire. Disregard Attus Navius' whetstone. Philosophy has no room for invented tales. The more philosophical approach was to ask first what augury itself is, next how it began, and then whether it is consistent. So what natural force makes birds flying here and there at random indicate anything? How do their calls or flights sometimes forbid action and sometimes order it? Why were some birds assigned the power to confirm an auspice on the left, but others on the right? And what account can we give of who discovered these practices, at what time, and by what means? The Etruscans, at any rate, trace their teaching to a boy turned up by a plow. Whom do we have? Attus Navius? But Romulus and Remus lived quite a few years earlier, and both were augurs, as we have been told. Or shall we call these discoveries the work of Pisidians, Cilicians, or Phrygians? So we are happy to get our knowledge of the gods from people without civilized culture?

### Book 2, Chapter 39

[81]
“‘Yet auspices are used by every king, people, and nation.’ Well, nothing is more common than a lack of sense! As if you yourself followed the crowd when forming a judgment! How few people deny that pleasure is a good thing! Most even call it the greatest good. Do their numbers make the Stoics abandon their position? Or does the crowd follow the Stoics' authority on most questions? Then why be surprised if weak minds absorb these superstitions about auspices and every kind of divination, but cannot see the truth?

[82]
“And where is this shared, consistent agreement among augurs? Ennius followed our practice in augury when he said:

“‘Then, though the sky was clear, thunder on the left gave a good sign.’

“But Homer's Ajax, complaining to Achilles about the Trojans' boldness, reports something like this:

“‘Jupiter gives them good signs with these lightning flashes on the right.’

“So we think the left is better, while Greeks and non-Greeks prefer the right. I know very well that we call favorable signs ‘left’ even when they are on the right. Still, our people chose the word ‘left’ and foreigners chose ‘right’ because that side usually seemed better.

### Book 2, Chapter 40

[83]
“What a huge disagreement! And they use different birds and different signs, observe them differently, and give different answers. Mustn't we admit that some of these practices arose from mistakes, some from superstition, and many from fraud?

“You did not hesitate to add spoken omens to these superstitions. Aemilia told Paullus that Persa was dead, and her father accepted that as an omen. Caecilia said she was handing her place over to her sister's daughter. Then there are ‘Keep a respectful silence’ and the first voting unit, the omen of the election. This is exactly what it means to speak fully and eloquently against yourself. If you watch for these things, when will your mind ever be peaceful and free? When will reason, not superstition, guide your actions? Really! Suppose someone says something about his own business in his own conversation. If one of his words happens to fit something you are doing or thinking, will that make you afraid or hopeful?

### Book 2, Chapter 41

[84]
“When Marcus Crassus was putting his army aboard ship at Brundisium, a man at the harbor was selling dried figs imported from Caunus. He kept shouting ‘Cauneas!’—‘Caunian figs!’ This sounds like the Latin for ‘Don't go!’ Let us say, if you like, that he warned Crassus not to go, and that Crassus would not have died if he had obeyed the omen. Accept that, and we must treat tripping, a snapped sandal strap, or a sneeze as things to watch for too.

“Lots and the Chaldeans remain, before we get to inspired prophets and dreams.

[85]
“Do lots really call for discussion? Drawing one amounts to little more than a finger-guessing game or a throw of knucklebones or dice. In these, random chance counts, not reason or planning. The whole practice was invented through fraud, for profit, superstition, or deception. As we did with the art of inspecting entrails, let us look at the story told about the discovery of the most famous lots. The records at Praeneste say that Numerius Suffustius, an honorable man of noble birth, repeatedly dreamed that he was ordered to break open a flint rock in a certain place. In the end the dreams even threatened him. Frightened by these visions, he began the work, while his fellow citizens laughed at him. When the rock broke open, lots carved from oak and inscribed in ancient letters burst out. That spot is now enclosed as sacred ground near the shrine of the infant Jupiter. Mothers worship him there with the deepest devotion, as he sits with Juno in Fortune's lap, reaching for her breast to nurse.

[86]
“The story also says that honey ran from an olive tree then, at the place now occupied by Fortune's temple. The haruspices said those lots would become very famous. On their orders a chest was made from that olive tree. The lots were stored in it, and today they are drawn out at Fortune's prompting. What certainty can there be in lots shuffled and drawn by a child's hand at Fortune's prompting? How were they put in that spot? Who cut down that oak, shaped it, and carved the letters? ‘There is nothing a god cannot do,’ they say. If only he had given the Stoics some sense! Then they would not swallow everything in such anxious, wretched superstition! But ordinary life has already rejected this kind of divination. The beauty and age of the shrine still keep the lots of Praeneste famous, and even that is only among the common people.

### Book 2, Chapter 42

[87]
“What magistrate, or what man of any distinction, uses lots? In other places lots have fallen completely out of use. According to Clitomachus, Carneades often remarked, ‘Nowhere have I seen Fortune enjoy better fortune than at Praeneste.’ So let us leave this kind of divination aside.

“Let us turn to the monstrous claims of the Chaldeans. Eudoxus, a student of Plato and easily the leading astronomer in the judgment of the most learned men, left his view of them in writing. He thought we should put no trust at all in the Chaldeans when they predict and describe someone's life from his date of birth.

[88]
“Panaetius was the only Stoic to reject astrologers' predictions. He also names Anchialus and Cassander, the foremost astronomers of his own time. Despite their distinction in other areas of astronomy, they made no predictions of this sort. Panaetius' friend Scylax of Halicarnassus combined outstanding knowledge of astronomy with a leading role in governing his own city. He rejected this whole Chaldean method of prediction.

[89]
“Enough of witnesses; let us reason it through. Here is the argument made in defense of the Chaldeans' birth-based predictions. They say a certain force exists in the belt of constellations called the zodiac in Greek. Each part of this circle affects and changes the sky differently, depending on which stars are in that part and the neighboring parts at any given time. The stars called wandering stars affect this force in different ways. When they enter the very part of the circle where the newborn's rising sign lies, or a part connected or in harmony with it, they call those positions triangles and squares. The approach and retreat of the stars cause such great changes and shifts in the sky over the year and its seasons. And the sun's force produces the effects we see. For these reasons, they think it not just likely but true that children receive their life and form at birth according to the condition of the air. This, they say, shapes each person's abilities, habits, mind, body, way of life, accidents, and outcomes.

### Book 2, Chapter 43

[90]
“What unbelievable madness! Not every mistake, after all, deserves to be called stupidity. Even Diogenes the Stoic allows them something. He says they can predict only what someone's natural character will be and what he will be best suited for. But he denies that the other things they claim can possibly be known. Twins look alike, he says, but usually have different lives and fortunes. Procles and Eurysthenes, the Spartan kings, were twin brothers.

[91]
“Yet even the lengths of their lives differed. Procles' life was a year shorter, and he far outshone his brother in the fame of his achievements. Diogenes is an excellent man, but I deny that we can know even what he allows the Chaldeans, as if he were betraying our case. They themselves say that the moon controls births. The Chaldeans watch and record as birth stars any stars that seem close to the moon. So they judge by sight, the most misleading of senses, what they should grasp with thought and reason. Mathematical reasoning, which they ought to know, teaches us how low the moon travels, almost touching the earth. We learn that even Mercury, the closest planet, lies far from the moon, and Venus farther still. The sun, believed to supply its light, is yet another distance away. After that come three immeasurably vast gaps: from the sun to Mars, from there to Jupiter, from Jupiter to Saturn, and from there to the sky itself, the farthest, outermost boundary of the universe.

### Book 2, Chapter 44

[92]
“So what influence can reach the moon, or rather the earth, from a distance that is almost infinite?

“They say, as their theory forces them to, that everyone born at the same time anywhere on the inhabited earth has the same rising sign. Everyone born under the same arrangement of the sky and stars must have the same experiences. Doesn't this show that these interpreters of the sky do not even understand how the sky works? What we can see is bounded by circles that, as it were, cut the sky in two; these vary enormously with location. The Greeks call them ‘horizons,’ and we could very properly call them ‘boundaries’ in Latin. With these boundaries changing from place to place, the stars must rise and set at different times for different observers.

[93]
“If the stars' force produces different conditions in the sky, how can that force have the same effect on newborns when their skies differ so much? Where we live, the Dog Star rises after the summer solstice, several days after it in fact. But among the Troglodytes, according to the accounts, it rises before the solstice. Even if we allow that the force of the heavens has some effect on creatures born on earth, the astrologers must admit that people born at the same time can receive different natures because of differences in the sky. That is just what they will not accept. They insist that everyone born at the same time is born under the same conditions, wherever the birth takes place.

### Book 2, Chapter 45

[94]
“But what madness it is to say that, amid the sky's great movements and changes, the wind, rain, and weather in each place make no difference! These things often vary so much even between nearby places that the weather at Tusculum is often different from the weather at Rome. Sailors notice this especially: as they round headlands they often feel huge changes in the wind. The sky is sometimes clear and sometimes stormy in this way. Is it sane to deny that this affects children at birth—which certainly it does not—yet say their births are affected by some vague, subtle thing we cannot sense at all and can hardly understand: the condition of the sky produced by the moon and the other stars? And is it a small mistake not to see that they completely wipe out the power of the seed, which is so important in conception and reproduction? Everyone can see that children take after their parents in appearance and character, and in most of the ways they hold themselves and move. If the moon's influence and the arrangement of the heavens controlled these things rather than the parents' own nature and power, no such resemblance would occur.

[95]
“And people born at exactly the same instant have different characters, lives, and experiences. Isn't that clear enough proof that the time of birth makes no difference to the course of a life? Unless perhaps we think no one was conceived and born at the very same times as Africanus. Was anyone else like him?

### Book 2, Chapter 46

[96]
“Surely no one doubts that many people have had defects present at birth put right, either as nature restored itself or through skilled medical treatment. For example, some people's tongues were so tightly attached that they could not speak, but an incision with a scalpel freed them. Many have also overcome a natural defect through practice and exercise. Demetrius of Phalerum writes that Demosthenes could not pronounce the Greek letter rho, but practiced until he could say it perfectly clearly. If a star had implanted and imposed these defects, nothing could change them. And don't different places produce different kinds of people? We can easily describe how Indians differ from Persians, and Ethiopians from Syrians, in body and mind: the variety is astonishing.

### Book 2, Chapter 47

[97]
“This shows that geographical location matters more at birth than the moon's touch. It is false to claim that for 470,000 years the Babylonians monitored and tested all children as they were born. If this had been a regular practice, it would not have stopped. Yet we have no witness who says it is being done or knows it was done. Do you see that I am not repeating Carneades' arguments, but those of Panaetius, a leading Stoic? I also ask this: were all those killed in the battle of Cannae born under one star? Their end was certainly one and the same. And were people with exceptional talents and minds also born under a single star? At what time are countless people not being born? Yet certainly no one else is like Homer.

[98]
“If the condition of the sky and the arrangement of the stars at a creature's birth matter, this must apply not just to humans but to animals too. What could be more absurd? Our friend Lucius Tarutius of Firmum, who is especially learned in Chaldean calculations, even worked back to our city's birthday. He began with the festival of the Parilia on which, we are told, Romulus founded it. He said Rome was born when the moon was in the Balance, and he did not hesitate to predict its fate.

[99]
“What enormous power error has! Were the stars and the moon powerful even over the date a city was founded? Suppose it matters under what condition of the sky a child first takes a breath. Could that matter to the bricks or rubble from which the city was built? But why say more? They are disproved every day. I remember so many things the Chaldeans told Pompey, so many they told Crassus, and so many they told this very Caesar. They said all three would live to old age and die at home in glory! How can anyone still trust them when he sees actual events disprove their forecasts day after day?

### Book 2, Chapter 48

[100]
“We still have inspired prophecy and dreams to consider,” I said. “These two forms of divination supposedly come naturally to us, rather than through training. Shall we talk about them, Quintus, if you agree?” “I would like that very much,” he said. “I agree completely with what you have argued so far. To tell the truth, your speech has strengthened my view, but I already thought on my own that the Stoics' view of divination was too superstitious. I was more impressed by the Peripatetics' account, both that of Dicaearchus long ago and that of Cratippus, who is prominent today. They think human minds contain something like an oracle, through which they sense the future. It can do this if divine frenzy rouses it or sleep loosens it, leaving it free to move without restriction. I would very much like to hear what you think about these kinds, and the reasons you have for rejecting them.”

### Book 2, Chapter 49

[101]
When he had said this, I began speaking again, as if making a fresh start. “Quintus,” I said, “I know your view has always been to question the remaining forms of divination while accepting frenzy and dreams, since these two seemed to spring from the unrestricted mind. So I will tell you what I think about these very two kinds, after first examining the strength of the arguments offered by the Stoics and by our friend Cratippus. As you reported it, this is the reasoning of Chrysippus, Diogenes, and Antipater: ‘If gods exist but do not tell people the future in advance, then one of these must be true: they have no love for humans; they are ignorant of coming events; they regard our knowing the future as unimportant to us; they judge such warnings beneath their divine dignity; or they themselves lack the power to give them.

[102]
“‘But they do love us: they are generous and friendly to the human race. They do know the things they themselves have arranged and planned. Knowing the future does make a difference to us: we will be more careful if we know. They do not think it beneath their dignity: nothing is finer than generosity. And they can know the future in advance. So it cannot be the case that gods exist but do not give us signs of the future. But the gods exist, so they must signal the future. Such signals must come with a way for us to understand them; without one, sending them would be pointless. If they give us those ways, divination cannot fail to exist. Therefore divination exists.’

### Book 2, Chapter 50

[103]
“What sharp minds! They think they have settled the matter in so few words! They base their conclusion on claims not one of which has been granted to them. We should accept a logical argument only when it proves a disputed point from facts that are not in doubt.

“Look at Epicurus, whom the Stoics regularly call dull and uneducated. Consider his proof that the totality of nature, as we call it, has no limit. ‘Whatever is finite,’ he says, ‘has an outer edge.’ Who would not grant that? ‘Whatever has an outer edge can be viewed from something else outside it.’ We must grant that too. ‘Yet there is no outside standpoint from which to see the whole.’ Again, we cannot deny this. ‘So, since the whole has no outer edge, it must be infinite.’

[104]
“Notice how agreed facts have brought him to a conclusion that was in doubt. Your practice as logicians is different. Your starting claims are not accepted by everyone; worse, granting them would leave you no closer to proving what you want. First you assume this: ‘If gods exist, they are generous to humans.’ Who will grant you that? Epicurus? He denies that the gods concern themselves with anyone's affairs, their own or others'. Or our own Ennius? He says this to great applause, with the people's agreement:

“‘I have always said, and always will, that a race of heavenly gods exists,
But I think they do not care what the human race does.’

“He goes on to give a reason for this view. We need not repeat the rest. All we need to see is that they treat a disputed, doubtful claim as settled.

### Book 2, Chapter 51

[105]
“Next comes the claim that the gods know everything because they arranged everything. Here there is a huge battle, with highly learned men denying that these things were arranged by the immortal gods! ‘But knowing what will happen is in our interest.’ Dicaearchus devotes a long book to showing we are better off not knowing the future. They also claim that giving signs does not diminish the gods' dignity. Of course: peering into everyone's little house to see what is good for each person!

[106]
“‘And they can know the future in advance.’ Those who reject a fixed future deny that they can. Do you see, then, that doubtful claims are taken as certain and accepted? Next they twist things around and conclude: ‘So it cannot be the case that gods exist but do not give signs of the future.’ They think they have proved that by now. Then they add: ‘But gods exist.’ There is no universal agreement even on that. ‘So they signal the future.’ But this conclusion still does not follow. They could give no signs and still be gods. ‘And if they give signs, they also give some way to understand those signs.’ But they could keep that knowledge themselves and not give it to humans. Why, after all, would they give it to Etruscans rather than Romans? ‘And if they give ways to understand, divination must exist.’ Suppose the gods give them, absurd as that is. What difference does it make if we cannot receive them? Their last point is: ‘Therefore divination exists.’ It may be their last point, but it is not proved. As we have learned from these men themselves, you cannot get a true conclusion from false premises. So their entire argument collapses.

### Book 2, Chapter 52

[107]
“Now let us turn to our friend Cratippus, an excellent man. He says: ‘Suppose the eyes' work and function cannot exist without eyes. Yet eyes can sometimes fail to do their work. Then anyone who has used his eyes to see things truly even once has the visual sense that sees things truly. Similarly, suppose the work and function of divination cannot exist without divination. Yet someone who has divination can sometimes make mistakes and fail to see the truth. So divination is established if even one prediction comes true in a way that seems to leave no room for chance. There are more such cases than we can count. Therefore we must admit that divination exists.’ Neat and brief! But he has assumed what he wanted twice. Even if we were easygoing enough to grant those points, we could not possibly grant the additional claim he makes.

### Book 2, Chapter 53

[108]
“‘Even if the eyes sometimes make mistakes,’ he says, ‘they still have the power of sight, because they have sometimes seen correctly. Likewise, if someone has once seen something clearly through divination, we should think he has the power of divination even when he makes mistakes.’ Please consider, dear Cratippus, how similar these cases are. They do not look similar to me. When eyes see truly, they use nature and a sense. If minds have ever seen truly in inspired prophecy or dreams, they have used luck and chance. Unless perhaps you expect people who regard dreams as just dreams to grant you that, when a dream comes true, it did not happen by chance. But let us grant your two premises—what logicians call λήμματα, though we prefer to speak Latin. Still, we will not grant your additional premise, which the same men call πρόσληψιν.

[109]
“Cratippus adds this premise: ‘There are countless predictions that are not due to chance.’ But I say there is not one. See how great our disagreement is! Reject the extra premise, and the argument proves nothing. Yet apparently we are shameless for not agreeing when the matter is so clear. What is clear? He answers, ‘Many predictions turn out right.’ But aren't far more of them wrong? Doesn't this very unevenness, which is typical of chance, show that chance is the cause, not nature? Besides, Cratippus, if your argument is sound—and it is with you that I am arguing—don't you see that the same argument could be used by haruspices, lightning diviners, interpreters of portents, augurs, people who draw lots, and Chaldeans? In every one of those groups, something has turned out as predicted. So the practices you rightly dismiss must count as divination too; otherwise I see no reason to accept the two you retain. The same reasoning you use to bring these in can establish the ones you rule out.

### Book 2, Chapter 54

[110]
“What authority does this frenzy you call divine really have? Why should a madman see what a wise man cannot, or a man who has lost his human senses have gained divine ones? We heed the Sibyl's verses, said to be the outpouring of her madness. Recently a false report led people to expect her interpreter to tell the senate that our safety required giving the title of king to the man who was already our king in practice. If this is in the books, what man and what time does it refer to? The writer cleverly left out any definite person or time, making it seem that whatever happened had been predicted.

[111]
“He also used obscurity as a hiding place, so the same verses could seem to fit different events at different times. The poetry itself shows that this is not the work of someone in a frenzy. It shows more craft and care than excitement and passion. Still more telling is the device called an acrostic: the initial letters of successive lines spell out something, as in some verses of Ennius, ‘Quintus Ennius wrote this.’ That certainly belongs to an attentive mind rather than a frenzied one.

### Book 2, Chapter 55

[112]
“In the Sibylline books, the first line of each passage is woven through the whole poem of that passage in the initial letters. That is the work of a writer, not someone in a frenzy; someone using care, not a mad person. So let us keep the Sibyl put away and locked up. Let us follow our ancestors' tradition: the books must not even be read without the senate's order, and should help put religious fears to rest rather than stir them up. Let us ask their keepers to bring anything out of those books rather than a king. Neither gods nor humans will allow a king at Rome ever again.

“But many people have often prophesied truly. Cassandra, for example:
‘And now on the great sea […]’

“And the same woman says a little later:

“‘Oh, look […]’

[113]
“So are you forcing me to believe stories too? Let them give as much pleasure as you like. Let words, ideas, rhythms, and songs make them more attractive. But we should give made-up things no authority or belief. In the same way, I do not think we should believe some fellow called Publicius, or the prophets called the Marcii, or Apollo's mysterious sayings. Some of these are plainly invented, others recklessly blurted out. They have never won the approval of even anyone of average intelligence, let alone a wise person.

[114]
“‘What?’ you will say. ‘Didn't that oarsman in Coponius' fleet predict what actually happened?’ Certainly, and what he predicted was just what we all feared might happen then. We heard that the armies were camped opposite each other in Thessaly. Caesar's army seemed to us to be bolder, since it had brought war against its own country, and stronger because of its long service. Every one of us feared the outcome of battle, though we did not show it openly, as was fitting for men of steady character. So why be surprised if that Greek lost his steadiness, his reason, and control of himself through great fear, as people often do? Now out of his mind with distress, he said those events would happen—the very ones he had feared might happen while still sane. In the name of gods and humans, which is more likely? Could a mad oarsman understand the immortal gods' plans better than any of us there at the time—me, Cato, Varro, or Coponius himself?

### Book 2, Chapter 56

[115]
“But now I turn to you,

“‘Holy Apollo, who occupy the earth's true navel,
From where a savage, wild voice first emerged, spreading superstition.’

“Chrysippus filled a whole volume with your oracles. Some, I think, are false. Some are true by chance, as happens very often in any kind of talk. Some speak in obscure, roundabout ways: you need a second interpreter to explain the first, and other oracles to explain the oracle itself. Others are ambiguous and should be taken to a logician. For when this oracle was given to the richest king in Asia:

“‘Croesus, crossing the Halys, will destroy a great power,’

“he thought he would destroy his enemies' power. Instead he destroyed his own.

[116]
“So whichever outcome had occurred, the oracle would have been true. But why should I believe this was ever given to Croesus? Why should I consider Herodotus more truthful than Ennius? Wasn't Herodotus just as capable of making up the Croesus story as Ennius was of inventing the one about Pyrrhus? Who could believe that Apollo's oracle gave Pyrrhus this answer:

“‘I say, heir of Aeacus, you can defeat the Romans—or the Romans you’?

“For a start, Latin was never a language Apollo spoke. Then there is the fact that this oracle is unknown to the Greeks. Besides, by Pyrrhus' time Apollo had stopped composing verses. Finally, though the family was always, as Ennius says,

“‘The stupid race of Aeacus:
Stronger in war than in wisdom,’

“Pyrrhus could still have understood the verse's ambiguity: the words about defeating the Romans applied no more to him than to the Romans. The ambiguity that deceived Croesus could have fooled even Chrysippus. This one could not have fooled even Epicurus.

### Book 2, Chapter 57

[117]
“But here is the main point. Why are oracles of that kind no longer given at Delphi—not just in our time, but for a long while now, until nothing could be held in lower regard? When pressed on this, they say the force of the place has faded with age. This force produced that breath from the earth which stirred the Pythia's mind to deliver oracles. That sounds like talk about wine or salted fish losing their strength as they get old! We are discussing the force of a place, and a force not just natural but divine. How exactly did it fade? ‘With age,’ you will say. What sort of age can wear out a divine force? What could be more divine than a breath rising out of the ground and stirring the mind until it can foresee events? It not only sees things far in advance, but speaks them in rhythm and verse. And when did this force fade? After people began to be less gullible?

[118]
“Nearly three hundred years ago, Demosthenes was already accusing the Pythia of ‘siding with Philip.’ His point was that Philip had bribed her. That gives us reason to think there was something dishonest in other Delphic oracles too. Somehow these superstitious, almost fanatical philosophers seem willing to be anything but sensible. You prefer to think something faded and died out—something that, if it had ever existed, would surely have been eternal—rather than stop believing things that should not be believed.

### Book 2, Chapter 58

[119]
“The error about dreams is similar. How far back they go to defend them! They hold that our souls have a divine nature and come into us from outside. On their account, many souls fill the universe, all in tune with one another. The mind therefore sees the future through its own divinity and its connection with minds outside it. Zeno, however, thinks the soul contracts, and in a sense slips down and collapses. That is what sleeping is. Then Pythagoras and Plato, authorities of the greatest weight, tell us to prepare for bed with a certain way of life and diet, so that we may see more reliable things in dreams. The Pythagoreans tell us above all to avoid beans—as if that food made the mind, rather than the stomach, swell! Somehow nothing is too absurd for some philosopher to say it.

[120]
“Do we think sleepers' minds move by themselves when dreaming? Or, as Democritus thinks, are they struck by visions coming in from outside? On either account, people asleep may take all sorts of unreal sights for reality. People on ships see stationary objects as moving, and a certain way of looking makes one lamp flame appear as two. Why mention how many false things mad people and drunk people see? When such sights deserve no belief, what grounds are there for believing dreams? I cannot say. If you like, we can make arguments about these mistakes just as well as about dreams. When stationary things seem to move, you could say this means an earthquake or some sudden flight. The doubled lamp flame could indicate an outbreak of disagreement and rebellion.

### Book 2, Chapter 59

[121]
“And from what mad or drunk people see we could draw countless guesses about apparent future events […] After all, who could throw spears all day without sometimes hitting the target? We dream all night, and there is hardly a night we do not sleep. Yet we are surprised that something we have dreamed sometimes happens! Can anything be less predictable than the way knucklebones fall? Still, anyone who throws them often will sometimes get a Venus throw, and sometimes get it a second and a third time. Shall we foolishly prefer to say that Venus made this happen, rather than chance? If we should not believe false visions at other times, I cannot see what special quality sleep has that lets false visions count as true.

[122]
“Suppose nature made us perform in our sleep whatever we dreamed of doing. We would have to tie up everyone who lay down to sleep. Dreamers would cause more disturbance than any mad people. We should not trust mad people's visions because they are false. Why, then, should we trust sleepers' visions, which are even more confused? I do not understand. Is it because mad people do not tell an interpreter what they saw, but dreamers do? Here is another question. If I want to write or read something, sing, play a stringed instrument, or explain a point in geometry, physics, or logic, must I wait for a dream, or use a learned skill? Without skill, none of those things can be done or worked out. Even if I decided to go sailing, I would refuse to let a dream tell me how to steer. The penalty would be immediate.

[123]
“So how does it make sense for sick people to seek treatment from a dream interpreter rather than a doctor? Can Aesculapius or Serapis prescribe treatment for our health in a dream, but Neptune cannot give helmsmen instructions about sailing? And if a dream lets Minerva treat us with no doctor involved, why would the Muses withhold from sleepers the ability to write, read, and practice the remaining arts? If treatment for health were given, the other things I mentioned would be given too. Since they are not, medical treatment is not given. Take that away, and all the authority of dreams disappears.

### Book 2, Chapter 60

[124]
“But these points too have been readily available. Now let us look deeper. Either some divine power, looking after us, gives dreams their meanings; or interpreters understand from dreams what fits with what, and what follows what, through a certain harmony and connection in nature that they call ‘sympathy’; or neither is true, but there is a fixed, long-running record of observation: when something is seen in sleep, what normally happens and follows it. First, then, we must understand that no divine force produces dreams. It is certainly clear that no dream visions come from the gods' will. If the gods did send these, their purpose would be to help us see events before they happen.

[125]
“How few people follow dreams, understand them, or remember them! How many scorn them and think this superstition shows a weak, old woman's mind! Why would a god, looking after these people, warn them through dreams which they consider unworthy not only of attention, but even of memory? A god cannot be unaware of each person's state of mind. And doing something pointless, with no reason for it, is beneath a god's dignity. That is inconsistent even with a steady human character. So, if most dreams are either unknown or ignored, either the god does not know this, or he uses the signs in dreams for nothing. Neither can apply to a god. We must therefore admit that a god gives no signs through dreams.

### Book 2, Chapter 61

[126]
“Here is another question. If a god gives us these visions so we can foresee things, why not give them while we are awake rather than asleep? Perhaps an impact from outside stirs sleepers' minds, perhaps the minds move by themselves, or perhaps there is some other reason why we seem to see, hear, and act while asleep. Whatever the cause, it could work when we are awake too. If the gods did this for our benefit while we slept, they would do the same when we were awake. This is especially so since Chrysippus, arguing against the Academics, says that what we see awake is far clearer and more certain than what we see in dreams. So if the gods were looking after us, divine generosity called for clearer visions awake, rather than dimmer ones in sleep. Since this does not happen, we should not think dreams divine.

### Book 2, Chapter 62

[127]
“And why do we need such a roundabout, winding path that we have to use dream interpreters? If a god cared for us, wouldn't he simply tell us, ‘Do this; don't do that,’ and show it to us when we were awake, not in our sleep?

“Who would venture to claim that every dream tells the truth? Ennius says, ‘A few dreams are true; that doesn't mean they all must be.’ Then what is the basis for that distinction? Which dreams belong in the true group, and which in the false? If a god sends the true dreams, what produces the false ones? If those are divine too, who could be less consistent than this god? What could show worse judgment than stirring human minds with false, lying visions? But suppose true visions are divine and false, empty ones human. What right have you to divide things up like that, saying a god made this and nature made that? Why not say either that a god made all of them, which you deny, or that nature made all of them? Since you deny the first, you must admit the second.

[128]
“By nature I mean the mind's inability ever to stop and be free from activity and movement. When the body is tired and the mind cannot use its limbs or senses, it falls into shifting, uncertain visions. As Aristotle says, these come from lingering traces of what it did or thought while awake. The confusion of these traces sometimes produces strange dream images. If some are false and others true, I would very much like to know what mark distinguishes them. Without any such mark, what makes these interpreters worth hearing? If they have one, I want very much to hear them identify it. But they will get stuck.

### Book 2, Chapter 63

[129]
“Here is what we now have to decide. Which is more likely? Do the immortal gods, who surpass everything in excellence, run around the beds—even the cheap cots—of every human everywhere? When they see someone snoring, do they place before him twisted, obscure visions, so that he wakes in terror and takes them to an interpreter in the morning? Or does nature cause the restless, active mind to seem to see in sleep what it saw awake? Which is more worthy of philosophy: explaining these things through witches' superstition, or through an account of nature? Even if a true interpretation of dreams were possible, those who claim to provide it could not do so. They belong to the most frivolous and uneducated class. Your Stoics, however, deny that anyone but a wise person can be a diviner.

[130]
“Chrysippus defines divination in these words: ‘The power to recognize, see, and explain the signs the gods present to humans.’ Its function is to know in advance how the gods feel toward humans, what they are indicating, and how these signs should be dealt with and their ill effects removed by religious rites. He also defines dream interpretation as follows: ‘The power to see and explain what the gods indicate to humans in dreams.’ Well then, does this take ordinary intelligence, or exceptional ability and complete learning? Yet we have known no one like that.

### Book 2, Chapter 64

[131]
“So take care: suppose I admitted the existence of divination, something I will never do. We might still find no one who could divine. And what can the gods be thinking if their dreams communicate neither anything we can grasp on our own nor anything we can get someone else to interpret? If the gods set before us things for which we have neither understanding nor an explanation from anyone else, it is as though Carthaginians or Spaniards addressed our senate with nobody there to translate.

[132]
“And what is the point of obscure, puzzling dreams? The gods ought to want us to understand warnings they give for our benefit. ‘What? Are no poets or natural philosophers obscure?’ Certainly—Euphorion is even excessively obscure.

[133]
“But Homer is not. Which of the two is better? Heraclitus is extremely hard to understand; Democritus is perfectly clear. Can they even be compared? You give me a warning for my own good that I cannot understand? Then why warn me? It is as if a doctor ordered a patient to take

“‘An earth-born, grass-walking, house-carrying creature without blood,’

“Instead of saying ‘a snail,’ like an ordinary person. In Pacuvius, Amphion says in rather obscure terms:

“‘A rough, low creature of the wild, walking slowly on four feet,
Its head is short, its neck like a snake's, its look fierce,
Gutted, lifeless, with a living creature's sound.’

“Then the people of Attica answer:

“‘We don't understand unless you speak plainly.’

“He replies with one word: ‘Tortoise.’ Couldn't you have said that at the start, lyre player?

### Book 2, Chapter 65

[134]
“Someone tells an interpreter that he dreamed an egg was hanging from the frame of his bedroom bed. This dream is in Chrysippus' book. The interpreter replied that treasure was buried under the bed. The man dug and found some gold surrounded by silver. From the silver he sent a small share to the interpreter, choosing the amount himself. Then the interpreter said, ‘Nothing from the yolk?’ He thought the yolk of the egg had indicated gold, and the rest of it silver. Has no one else ever dreamed about an egg? Then why did this unknown fellow alone find treasure? How many poor people deserve the gods' help but get no dream telling them how to find treasure! And why was the warning so obscure, with an egg standing for treasure, rather than a plain order to look for treasure, just as Simonides was plainly forbidden to sail?

### Book 2, Chapter 66

[135]
“So obscure dreams are entirely out of keeping with the gods' dignity.

“Let us turn to open, clear ones. There is the dream about the man killed by the innkeeper at Megara, and the dream of Simonides, whom the man he had buried forbade to sail. There is also Alexander's dream. I am surprised you left it out, Quintus. His friend Ptolemy had been hit in battle by a poisoned weapon and was dying in great pain from the wound. Alexander sat beside him and fell asleep. Then, the story goes, he dreamed that the snake his mother Olympias kept brought a little root in its mouth. It also told him where the root grew, not far from where he was, and said it had such power that it would easily cure Ptolemy. Once awake, Alexander described his dream to his friends, and men were sent out in search of that little root. With the root found, the story says, both Ptolemy and many soldiers hit by weapons of the same kind were cured.

### Book 2, Chapter 67

[136]
“You also brought up many dreams from histories: those of Phalaris' mother, Cyrus the Elder, Dionysius' mother, Hamilcar the Carthaginian, Hannibal, and Publius Decius. Then there is the now well-known dream about the leader of the dancers, Gaius Gracchus' dream, and the recent dream of Caecilia, daughter of Balearicus. But these are other people's experiences, and for that reason unknown to us. Perhaps some were even invented. Who vouches for them? What can we say about our own dreams? You dreamed that I emerged from a river on a horse and reached the bank. I dreamed of Marius with laurel-wreathed rods of office, ordering that I be led into his memorial. There is one explanation for all dreams, Quintus. In the name of the immortal gods, let us take care that our superstition and distorted thinking do not defeat it!

[137]
“What Marius do you think I saw? ‘His appearance and image, I suppose,’ as Democritus thinks. Where did that image come from? He holds that images flow from solid bodies and definite shapes. So what body of Marius was there? ‘From the body that had existed,’ he says. So this image of Marius followed me into the countryside around Atina?—‘Everything is full of images. No appearance can be thought of except through the impact of images.’

[138]
“—Well then? Do these images obey our orders so readily that they rush up as soon as we want them? Do they even show up for things that don't exist? Surely the mind can invent any shape for itself, however strange or unreal. We can picture a town's layout or a person's appearance without ever having seen them.

[139]
“So when I think of the walls of Babylon or Homer's face, does some image of them strike me? Then we can know anything we want to, since there is nothing we cannot think about! No images, then, creep into sleepers' minds from outside. In fact, no images flow off things at all. I have never known anyone talk nonsense with greater authority. The mind's power and nature are such that, when awake, it is active without any impact from outside. It moves by itself with an incredible speed. Supported by the limbs, body, and senses, minds see, think, and feel everything more reliably. But once those supports are gone and bodily tiredness leaves the mind unaided, the mind moves under its own power. So shapes and actions pass through it, and it seems to hear many things and say many things.

### Book 2, Chapter 68

[140]
“Of course, in the mind's weakened, relaxed state, many such things pass through it, mixed up and altered in every way. What moves and stirs in our minds above all are the remains of things we thought or did while awake. At that time Marius was often in my thoughts. I remembered how bravely and steadily he had borne his own terrible fall. That, I think, was why I dreamed about him. You were thinking anxiously about me, and suddenly saw me emerge from a river. Both our minds held traces of our waking thoughts. But some things were added: in my case, Marius' memorial; in yours, the horse I was riding, which went under with me and then reappeared.

[141]
“Would any old woman have been crazy enough to trust dreams without these occasional, purely accidental coincidences? Alexander seemed to see a snake speak. The story may be entirely false, or it may be true. Either way, it is not remarkable. He did not hear a snake speak; he seemed to hear it. More astonishing still, its mouth was holding a root as it talked! But nothing is extraordinary to a dreamer. My question is why Alexander had so vivid and definite a dream, but did not have others, and why other people do not have many. I certainly remember none apart from this one about Marius. So I have wasted all those nights in such a long life!

### Book 2, Chapter 69

[142]
“Now, because I have stopped working in the courts, I have cut back on working late at night and added afternoon naps, which I never used to take. Yet with all this sleep, no dream has warned me of anything, especially in such serious matters. I never feel more as if I am dreaming than when I see magistrates in the forum or the senate in its meeting house.

“And now for the second part of our division. What continuous connection in nature—what they call ‘sympathy,’ as I said—could require treasure to be understood from an egg? Doctors recognize the approach and growth of diseases from certain signs. They also say certain kinds of dream can reveal signs of health, for instance whether we are overfed or starving. But what natural relationship connects dreams with treasure, an inheritance, public office, victory, and many other such things?

[143]
“Someone is said to have passed small stones while dreaming of sexual intercourse. I see the sympathy there. A vision of that kind appeared to the sleeper because nature's force, not a mistaken belief, produced what happened. So what natural force presented Simonides with the figure that forbade him to sail? And what natural connection was there in the dream recorded about Alcibiades? Shortly before his death, he seemed in a dream to be wrapped in his mistress' cloak. His body was thrown out, left unburied, and deserted by everyone. His mistress then laid her own cloak over it. Was this, then, already present in the future and based on natural causes? Or did chance bring about both the dream and the event?

### Book 2, Chapter 70

[144]
“And don't the interpreters' guesses reveal their own cleverness more than the force and harmony of nature? A runner planning to go to Olympia dreamed that he was riding in a four-horse chariot. Next morning he consulted an interpreter, who told him, ‘You are going to win.’ ‘That is what the horses' speed and strength mean.’ Then he went to Antiphon. ‘You must lose,’ he said. ‘Don't you understand that four ran ahead of you?’ Here is another runner—Chrysippus' book is full of dreams like these, and so is Antipater's. But back to the runner. He told an interpreter that he had dreamed he had become an eagle. ‘You have won,’ the man said. ‘No bird flies more powerfully than that one.’ Antiphon told the same man, ‘You fool, don't you see that you have lost? That bird hunts and chases other birds, so it is always last itself.’

[145]
“A married woman wanted to have a child but was unsure whether she was pregnant. She dreamed that her genitals were sealed shut and reported it to an interpreter. The interpreter ruled out conception on the grounds that her genitals were sealed. But another said she was pregnant, since people do not normally seal anything empty. What kind of art is this, when an interpreter uses his cleverness to deceive? Do the examples I have given, and the countless ones the Stoics have collected, show anything except the ingenuity of people who use some resemblance to draw a guess now one way, now another? Doctors have certain signs from a patient's pulse and breathing, and foresee what will happen from many other things. When helmsmen see squid leaping or dolphins rushing into harbor, they think this signals a storm. These things can easily be explained by reason and traced back to nature. The examples I gave a little earlier cannot be, at all.

### Book 2, Chapter 71

[146]
“‘But long observation has built an art by recording events.’ That is the one part still left. Is that so? How could anyone keep a record of dreams? There is no end to the forms they take. Nothing we can imagine is too backward, too disorderly, or too monstrous for us to dream it. How, then, can we hold these endless, always new things in our memory, or record them through observation? Astronomers have recorded the movements of the planets. Order has been discovered in those stars where none was thought to exist. Now tell me what order or pattern of encounters exists in dreams. And how can true dreams be distinguished from false ones? The same dreams turn out differently for different people, and not always in the same way even for the same people. We normally do not believe a liar even when he tells the truth. So I find it strange that, if one dream comes true, these men use the one to confirm countless others, rather than let the many discredit the one.

[147]
“So if no god produces dreams, if nature has no connection with them, and if observation has not been able to establish knowledge of them, we have proved that dreams deserve no weight at all. This is especially so since the people who see them do not themselves divine anything; their interpreters use guesswork, not nature; over an almost endless span of ages, chance has worked more wonders in every field than those seen in dreams; and nothing is more uncertain than a guess that can be pulled in different directions, sometimes even opposite ones.

### Book 2, Chapter 72

[148]
“So let this divination through dreams be rejected along with all the rest. To tell the truth, superstition has spread through the nations, weighed down almost everyone's mind, and taken hold of human weakness. The books called The Nature of the Gods made this point; in this debate too, getting rid of superstition has been our chief concern. We thought we would greatly benefit ourselves and our people if we pulled it out by the roots. But I want this clearly understood: removing superstition does not remove religion. It is wise to protect our ancestors' institutions by keeping their sacred rites and ceremonies. And we cannot deny what the universe's beauty and the ordered heavens show us: a supreme, eternal being exists, and humanity ought to look up to it with admiration.

[149]
“So just as religion connected with the knowledge of nature should even be spread, every root of superstition must be pulled out. It crowds in and gives you no relief, following you whichever way you go: if someone prophesies within your hearing or you catch words taken as an omen, if you sacrifice or see a bird, if you see a Chaldean or a haruspex, if lightning flashes or thunder sounds, if something is struck from the sky, or if something resembling a portent is born or happens. One of these things is bound to happen often, so you can never settle down with a peaceful mind.

[150]
“Sleep seems to be a refuge from all our troubles and anxieties. Yet that very thing produces a great many worries and fears. These would matter less in themselves and be more readily dismissed if philosophers had not taken up the defense of dreams. And these are not the most worthless philosophers. They are among the sharpest, able to see what follows from an argument and what contradicts it, and are now considered close to perfect in every way. If Carneades had not opposed their reckless claims, I am not sure they would not by now be judged the only philosophers. Nearly all our argument and debate is with them, not because we despise them most, but because, when they argue for their own views, no one seems sharper or more careful. The Academy has its own way of working: it commits to no judgment, accepts whatever looks closest to the truth, sets arguments side by side, and lays out what can be said for each position. It adds no authority of its own, but leaves listeners completely free to make their own judgment. We will keep this practice handed down from Socrates. If it pleases you, my brother Quintus, we will use it between ourselves as often as possible.” “Nothing could please me more,” he said. With that, we got up.