[110]
54. "But what weight is to be given to that
frenzy of yours, which you term ' divine' and which
enables the crazy man to see what the wise man does
not see, and invests the man who has lost human
intelligence with the intelligence of gods? We
Romans venerate the verses of the Sibyl who is said
to have uttered them while in a frenzy. Recently
there was a rumour, which was believed at the time,
but turned out to be false, that one of the interpreters1 of those verses was going to declare in the
Senate that, for our safety, the man whom we had as
king in fact should be made king also in name. If
this is in the books, to what man and to what time
does it refer? For it was clever in the author to take
care that whatever happened should appear foretold
because all reference to persons or time had been
[p. 497]
omitted.
1 Lucius Cotta, one of the quindecimviri who had charge of the verses. This story is told by Suetonius in his lul. Caesar, ch. 79. It was said that according to the Sibylline verses the Parthians could only be conquered by a king and therefore that Caesar should be called king. Plutarch, Caesar, ch. 60 and 64.
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