[97]
Hence it is evident
that one's birth is more affected by local environment
than by the condition of the moon. Of course, the
[p. 481]
statement quoted by you that the Babylonians for
470,000 years1 had taken the horoscope of every child
and had tested it by the results, is untrue; for if this
had been their habit they would not have abandoned
it. Moreover we find no writer who says that the
practice exists or who knows that it ever did exist.
47. "You observe that I am not repeating
the arguments of Carneades, but those of Panaetius,
the head of the Stoic school. But now on my own
initiative I put the following questions: Did all the
Romans who fell at Cannae have the same horoscope? Yet all had one and the same end. Were
all the men eminent for intellect and genius born
under the same star? Was there ever a day when
countless numbers were not born?
1 Cf. i. 19. 36.
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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