[99]
44. "In recent times, during the Marsian
war,1 the temple of Juno Sospita was restored
because of a dream of Caecilia, the daughter of
Quintus Caecilius Metellus. This is the same dream
that Sisenna discussed as marvellous, in that its
prophecies were fulfilled to the letter, and yet later
[p. 331]
—influenced no doubt by some petty Epicureanhe goes on inconsistently to maintain that dreams
are not worthy of belief. This writer, however, has
nothing to say against prodigies; in fact he relates
that, at the outbreak of the Marsian War, the
statues of the gods dripped with sweat, rivers ran
with blood, the heavens opened, voices from unknown
sources were heard predicting dangerous wars, and
finally—the sign considered by the soothsayers the
most ominous of all—the shields at Lanuvium were
gnawed by mice.
1 91–89 B.C.
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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