[58]
27. "'Reports,' you say, 'were made to the
Senate that there was a shower of blood, that the
river Atratus actually flowed with blood and that
the statues of the gods dripped with sweat. ' You
do not think for a moment that Thales, Anaxagoras,
or any other natural philosopher would have believed
such reports? Sweat and blood you may be sure
do not come except from animate bodies. An effect
strikingly like blood is produced by the admixture
of water with certain kinds of soil; and the moisture
which forms on the outside of objects, as we see it
on our plastered walls when the south wind blows,
seems to resemble sweat. Such occurrences, which
in time of war appear to the timid to be most frequent
and most real, are scarcely noticed in times of peace.
Moreover, in periods of fear and of danger stories
of portents are not only more readily believed, but
they are invented with greater impunity.
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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