[79]
Birds indicate that results will be unfavourable or favourable. In my view of the case
Deiotarus employed the auspices of virtue, and
virtue bids us not to look to fortune until the claims
of honour are discharged. However, if the birds
indicated that the issue would be favourable to
Deiotarus they certainly deceived him. He fled
[p. 461]
from the battle with Pompey—a serious situation!
He separated from Pompey—an occasion of sorrow!
He beheld Caesar at once his enemy and his guest
—what could have been more distressing than that?
Caesar wrested from him the tetrarchy over the
Trocmi and conferred it upon some obscure sycophant of his own from Pergamus; deprived him of
Armenia, a gift from the Senate; accepted a most
lavish hospitality at the hands of his royal host
and left him utterly despoiled. But I wander too
far: I must return to the point at issue. If we
examine this matter from the standpoint of the
results—and that was the question submitted to
the determination of the birds—the issue was in
no sense favourable to Deiotarus; but if we examine
it from the standpoint of duty, he sought information
on that score not from the auspices, but from his
own conscience.
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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