[32]
The consequence was that King Priscus
summoned him to his presence. The king, wishing
to make trial of his skill as an augur, said to him:
'I am thinking of something; tell me whether
it can be done or not.' Attus, having taken the
auspices, replied that it could be done. Thereupon Tarquin said that what he had been thinking
of was the possibility of cutting a whetstone in two
with a razor, and ordered the trial to be made. So
the stone was brought into the comitium, and, while
the king and his people looked on, it was cut in two
with a razor. The result was that Tarquin employed
him as his augur, and the people consulted him about
their private concerns.
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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