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8. "Of what advantage to me is divination if
everything is ruled by Fate? On that hypothesis
what the diviner predicts is bound to happen. Hence
I do not know what to make of the fact that an
eagle recalled our intimate friend Deiotarus from
his journey1 ; for if he had not turned back he must
have been sleeping in the room when it was destroyed
the following night, and, therefore, have been
crushed in the ruins. And yet, if Fate had willed
it, he would not have escaped that calamity; and
vice versa. Hence, I repeat, what is the good of
divination? Or what is it that lots, entrails, or any
[p. 393]
other means of prophecy warn me to avoid? For,
if it was the will of Fate that the Roman fleets in
the First Punic War should perish—the one by
shipwreck and the other at the hands of the Carthaginians—they would have perished just the same
even if the sacred chickens had made a tripudium
solistimum in the consulship of Lucius Junius and
Publius Claudius!2 On the other hand, if obedience
to the auspices would have prevented the destruction of the fleets, then they did not perish in accordance with Fate. But you insist that all things happen
by Fate; therefore there is no such thing as divination.
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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