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[75] Now, in the first place, do not understand that by 'the president' they meant the president of the prerogative century, for he was dead; and, moreover, they could have told that by conjecture without the use of divination; or, in the second place, perhaps, they said so by accident which is in no wise to be left out of account [p. 457] in cases of this kind. For what could the Etruscan soothsayers have known, either as to whether the tabernaculum had been properly placed, or as to whether the regulations pertaining to the pomerium1 had been observed? For my part, I agree with Gaius Marcellus, rather than with Appius Claudius —both of whom were my colleagues—and I think that, although in the beginning augural law was established from a belief in divination, yet later it was maintained and preserved from considerations of political expediency.

1 As to tabernaculum and pomerium see i. 17. 33 and note

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