Book 2, Chapter 8
Original Latin
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.
Musean translation
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.
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.
Plain English translation
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.
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.
About this section
Book 2, Chapter 8 is part of On Divination by Marcus Tullius Cicero. This page sets the Latin original beside 2 direct-source translations, so any line can be checked against the source. It is chapter 66 of 130 in the work, which is kept in the Roman tradition.
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