[103]
You, of course, are aware that
you, both as consul at home and later as commander
in the field, employed the same precaution with
the most scrupulous care. In the case, too, of the
prerogative tribe or century, our forefathers determined that it should be the 'omen' of a proper
election.1
46. "Now let me give some well-known
examples of omens: When Lucius Paulus was
consul the second time, and had been chosen to wage
war against King Perses, upon returning home
on the evening of the day on which he had been
appointed, he noticed, as he kissed his little
daughter Tertia (at that time a very small child), that
she was rather sad. 'What is the matter, Tertia,
my dear? Why are you sad?' 'Oh! father,
Persa is dead.' Paulus clasped the child in a closer
embrace and said, 'Daughter, I accept that as an
omen.' Now ' Persa' was the name of a little dog
that had died.
1 Cf. Pro Murena 18. 38 omen praerogativae. “The order of voting being determined by lot, the vote of the first century was taken as an omen of the vote to follow.” —Heitland.
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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