[85]
And pray what is the need, do you think,
to talk about the casting of lots? It is much like
playing at morra, dice, or knuckle-bones, in which
recklessness and luck prevail rather than reflection
and judgement. The whole scheme of divination by
lots was fraudulently contrived from mercenary
motives, or as a means of encouraging superstition
and error. But let us follow the method used in
the discussion of soothsaying and consider the
traditional origin of the most famous lots. According
to the annals of Praeneste Numerius Suffustius, who
was a distinguished man of noble birth, was admonished by dreams, often repeated, and finally even
by threats, to split open a flint rock which was lying
in a designated place. Frightened by the visions
and disregarding the jeers of his fellow-townsmen
he set about doing as he had been directed. And
so when he had broken open the stone, the lots
sprang forth carved on oak, in ancient characters.
The site where the stone was found is religiously
guarded to this day. It is hard by the statue of
the infant Jupiter, who is represented as sitting
with Juno in the lap of Fortune and reaching for her
breast, and it is held in the highest reverence by
mothers.
[p. 469]
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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