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[72] 33. "But those methods of divination which are dependent on conjecture, or on deductions from events previously observed and recorded, are, as I have said before,1 not natural, but artificial, and include the inspection of entrails, augury, and the interpretation of dreams. These are disapproved of by the Peripatetics and defended by the Stoics. Some are based upon records and usage, as is evident from the Etruscan books on divination by means of inspection of entrails and by means of thunder and lightning, and as is also evident from the books of your augural college; while others are dependent on conjecture made suddenly and on the spur of the moment. An instance of the latter kind is that of Calchas in Homer, prophesying the number of years of the Trojan War from the number of sparrows.2 We find another illustration of conjectural divination in the history of Sulla in an occurrence which you witnessed. While he was offering sacrifices in front of his head-quarters in the Nolan district3 a snake suddenly came out from [p. 305] beneath the altar. The soothsayer, Gaius Postumius, begged Sulla to proceed with his march at once. Sulla did so and captured the strongly fortified camp of the Samnites which lay in front of the town of Nola.

1 See 6. 12.

2 Cf. Homer's Il. ii. 301–329; and below ii. 30. 63, where the verses from Homer are quoted.

3 Nola is in Campania and still bears the same name. This campaign was in 91–88 B.C.

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load focus Introduction (William Armistead Falconer, 1923)
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