[66]
31. "There is nothing remarkable about the
so-called portents of the kind just mentioned; but
after they have happened they are brought within
the field of prophecy by some interpretation. Take,
for example, your stories of the grains of wheat
heaped into the mouth of Midas when a boy,1 and of
the bees which settled on the lips of Plato,2 when he
was a child—they are more remarkable as guesses
than as real prophecies. Besides, the incidents may
have been fictitious; if not, then the fulfilment of
the prophecy may have been accidental. As to that
incident about Roscius it may, of course, be untrue
that a snake coiled itself around him;3 but it is not
so surprising that a snake was in his cradle—especially in Solonium where snakes are attracted in
large numbers by the heat of the fireplaces. As to
your statement that the soothsayers prophesied a
career of unrivalled brilliancy for Roscius, it is a
strange thing to me that the immortal gods foretold
[p. 447]
the glory of a future actor and did not foretell that
of Africanus!
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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