[30]
Therefore Ateius, by
his announcement, did not create the cause of the
disaster; but having observed the sign he simply
advised Crassus what the result would be if the
warning was ignored. It follows, then, that the
announcement by Ateius of the unfavourable
augury had no effect; or if it did, as Appius thinks,
then the sin is not in him who gave the warning,
but in him who disregarded it.
17. "And whence, pray, did you augurs derive
that staff, which is the most conspicuous mark of
your priestly office? It is the very one, indeed,
with which Romulus marked out1 the quarter for
taking observations when he founded the city.
Now this staff is a crooked wand, slightly curved at
the top, and, because of its resemblance to a trumpet,
derives its name from the Latin word meaning
'the trumpet with which the battle-charge is sounded.'
It was placed in the temple of the Salii on the
Palatine hill and, though the temple was burned,
the staff was found uninjured.2
1 i.e. marked out with his staff a certain quarter (templum） where he would take his augury. In Livy i. 6 Romulus takes the Palatine as his templum, Remus the Aventine; but usually templum=a quarter in the sky.
2 This temple was burned 390 B.C. by the Gauls when they sacked the city, and everything in the temple, except this staff, was burned. Cf. Val. Max. i. 1; Livy v. 41; Plut. Camil. 32.
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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