13.
I am not unaware that, as a result of the same disregard1 that leads men generally to suppose nowadays that the gods foretell nothing, no portents at all are reported officially, or recorded in our histories.
[2]
However, not only does my own mind, as I write of old-time matters, become in some way or other old-fashioned, but also a certain conscientious scruple keeps me from regarding what those very sagacious men of former times thought worthy of public concern as something unworthy to be reported in my history.
[3]
At Anagnia, two portents were announced in that year, a fiery meteor seen in [p. 47]the sky, and a cow which spoke; this animal, the2 report stated, was being kept at public expense. At Minturnae also during these very days the sky presented the appearance of being on fire. At Reate there was a rain of stones.
[4]
At Cumae the Apollo on the citadel shed tears for three days and three nights. In the city of Rome two temple-attendants announced portents; one, that a crested snake had been seen by many people in the temple of Fortune;
[5]
the other announced two different portents in the temple of Fortune the First-Born which is on the hill,3 that a palm had sprung up in the courtyard and that during the day blood had rained down.
[6]
Two portents were not treated as public matters, the one because it took place in a privately-owned spot-Titus Marcius Figulus reported that a palm had sprung up in his catch-basin4 —the other because it occurred in a non- Roman place5 —at Fregellae, in the house of Lucius Atreus, a spear which he had bought for his son's service in the army was said to have blazed during the day for more than two hours in such a way that the fire consumed none of it.
[7]
Because of the public portents the books were approached by the Board of Ten; they proclaimed the gods to whom the consuls were to offer forty full-grown victims, and also that a day of prayer should be observed, that all the magistrates should sacrifice full-grown victims at all the [p. 49]principal temples and that the people should wear6 wreaths.7
[8]
Everything was carried out as the Board of Ten prescribed.
1 On the decline of religion and scruple, cf. III. xx. 5 and X. xl. 10, and the note; restoration of former religious observances was one of the objectives of Augustus, and he served on several priestly boards. Prodigies were noted in later times (cf. e.g., Tacitus, Annals XIII. lviii; XIV. xii; Suetonius, Gaius lvii) if not officially reported.
2 B.C. 169
3 I.e., the Quirinal, as distinguished from another temple on the Capitol.
4 This was an ornamental basin in the floor at the centre of the atrium, or principal room, which caught rain entering through the central opening of the roof (compluvium).
5 Fregellae was a Latin colony, therefore legally autonomous, and its territory not Roman; Minturnae was a Roman colony, hence part of Rome; Anagnia was either subject territory, or its inhabitants had been granted Roman citizenship; Cumae and Reate were “allied states” (civitates foederatae), but their territory was evidently regarded as part of the Roman domain (ager publicus).
6 B.C. 169
7 Probably of laurel; wreath-wearing was a mark of especially earnest supplication in time of emergency, cf. XXXIV. Iv. 4, XXXVI. xxxvii. 5, XL. xxxvii. 3.
Livy. Books XLIII-XLV With An English Translation. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1951: published without copyright notice.
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