[140]
It was then reported to you, O priests, and after that it became a common
topic of conversation, how he, with preposterous language with ill-omened
auspices, at times interrupting himself,
doubting, fearing, hesitating, pronounced and did everything in
a manner wholly different from that which you have recorded as proper in
your books. It is, indeed, not very strange that in doing an act of such
wickedness and such insanity, even his audacity could not wholly repress his
fear. In truth, if no robber was ever so savage and inhuman, as, when he had
plundered temples, and then, having been excited by dreams or some
superstitious feelings, consecrated some altar on a desert shore, not to
shudder in his mind when compelled to propitiate with his prayers the deity
whom he has insulted by his wickedness; what do you suppose must have been
the agitation of mind of that plunderer of every temple, and of every house,
and of the whole city, when he was consecrating one single altar to avert
the vengeance due to his numberless acts of wickedness?
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