[73]
35. "Then, how can there be anything divine
about an auspice so forced and so extorted? That
such a practice did not prevail with the augurs
of ancient times is proven by an old ruling of our
college which says,' Any bird may make a tripudium.'
There might be an auspice if the bird were free to
show itself outside its cage. In that case it might
be called 'the interpreter and satellite of Jove.'1
But now, when shut up inside a cage and tortured
by hunger, if it seizes greedily upon its morsel of
[p. 455]
pottage and something falls from its mouth, do you
consider that is an auspice? Or do you believe that
this was the way in which Romulus used to take
the auspices?
1 Cf. i. 47. 106; Horn. Od. xv. 525.
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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