[3]
And, indeed, what colony did Greece ever send
into Aeolia, Ionia, Asia, Sicily, or Italy without
consulting the Pythian or Dodonian oracle, or that
of Jupiter Hammon? Or what war did she ever
undertake without first seeking the counsel of the
gods?
2. Nor is it only one single mode of divination
that has been employed in public and in private.
For, to say nothing of other nations, how many
our own people have embraced! In the first place,
according to tradition, Romulus, the father of this
City, not only founded it in obedience to the auspices,
but was himself a most skilful augur. Next, the
other Roman kings employed augurs; and, again,
after the expulsion of the kings, no public business
was ever transacted at home or abroad without first
taking the auspices. Furthermore, since our fore-
[p. 227]
fathers believed that the soothsayers'1 art had
great efficacy in seeking for omens and advice,2 as
well as in cases where prodigies were to be interpreted and their effects averted, they gradually
introduced that art in its entirety from Etruria,
lest it should appear that any kind of divination had
been disregarded by them.
Cicero: De Senectute De Amicitia De Divinatione. With An English Translation. William Armistead Falconer. Cambridge. Harvard University Press; Cambridge, Mass., London, England. 1923.
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