M. Tullius Cicero, Divination
William Armistead Falconer, Ed.

[5] 3. Now my opinion is that, in sanctioning such usages, the ancients were influenced more by actual results than convinced by reason.¹ However certain very subtle arguments to prove the trustworthiness of divination have been gathered by philosophers. Of these—to mention the most ancient—Xenophanes of Colophon, while asserting [p. 229] the existence of gods, was the only one who repudiated divination in its entirety; but all the others, with the exception of Epicurus, who babbled about the nature of the gods, approved of divination, though not in the same degree. For example, Socrates and all of the Socratic School, and Zeno and his followers, continued in the faith of the ancient philosophers and in agreement with the Old Academy and with the Peripatetics. Their predecessor, Pythagoras, who even wished to be considered an augur himself, gave the weight of his great name to the same practice; and that eminent author, Democritus, in many passages, strongly affirmed his belief in a presentiment of things to come. Moreover, Dicaearchus, the Peripatetic, though he accepted divination by dreams and frenzy, cast away all other kinds; and my intimate friend, Cratippus, whom I consider the peer of the greatest of the Peripatetics, also gave credence to the same kinds of divination but rejected the rest.