[100]
"And what do you say of the following story
which we find in our annals? During the Veientian
War,1 when Lake Albanus had overflowed its banks, a
certain nobleman of Veii deserted to us and said
that, according to the prophecies of the Veientian
books, their city could not be taken while the lake
was at flood, and that if its waters were permitted
to overflow and take their own course to the sea
the result would be disastrous to the Roman people;
on the other hand, if the waters were drained off
in such a way that they did not reach the sea the
result would be to our advantage. In consequence
of this announcement our forefathers dug that
marvellous canal to drain off the waters from the
Alban lake.2 Later when the Veientians had grown
weary of war and had sent ambassadors to the
Senate to treat for peace, one of them is reported
to have said that the deserter had not dared to
tell the whole of the prophecy contained in the
Veientian books, for those books, he said, also foretold the early capture of Rome by the Gauls. And
this, as we know, did occur six years after the fall
of Veii.
[p. 333]
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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