[47]
"It certainly must be true that even barbarians
have some power of foreknowledge and of prophecy,
if the following story of Callanus of India be true:
As he was about to die and was ascending his
funeral pyre, he said: 'What a glorious death!
[p. 277]
The fate of Hercules is mine. For when this mortal
frame is burned the soul will find the light.' When
Alexander directed him to speak if he wished to
say anything to him, he answered: 'Thank you,
nothing, except that I shall see you very soon.
So it turned out, for Alexander died in Babylon a
few days later. I am getting slightly away from
dreams, but I shall return to them in a moment.
Everybody knows that on the same night in which
Olympias was delivered of Alexander the temple
of Diana at Ephesus was burned, and that the magi
began to cry out as the day was breaking: 'Asia's
deadly curse was born last night.' But enough of
Indians and magi.
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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