[p. 223] done, the name of the god in whose honour the holy day was to be observed; for fear that by naming one god instead of another they might involve the people in a false observance. If anyone had desecrated that festival, and expiation was therefore necessary, they used to offer a victim βto either the god or goddess,β and Marcus Varro tells us 1 that this usage was established by a decree of the pontiffs, since it was uncertain what force, and which of the gods or goddesses, had caused the earthquake. But in the case of eclipses of the sun or moon they concerned themselves no less with trying to discover the causes of that phenomenon. However, Marcus Cato, although a man with a great interest in investigation, nevertheless on this point expressed himself indecisively and superficially. His words in the fourth book of his Origins are as follows: 2 βI do not care to write what appears on the tablet of the high priest: how often grain was dear, how often darkness, or something else, obscured the light 3 of sun or moon.β Of so little importance did he consider it either to know or to tell the true causes of eclipses of the sun and moon.
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[29arg] A fable of the Phrygian Aesop, which is well worth telling.AESOP, the well-known fabulist from Phrygia, has justly been regarded as a wise man, since he taught what it was salutary to call to mind and to recommend, not in an austere and dictatorial manner, as is the way of philosophers, but by inventing witty and
