M. Tullius Cicero, Divination
William Armistead Falconer, Ed.

[80] 38. "Then dismiss Romulus's augural staff,¹ which you say the hottest of fires was powerless to burn, and attach slight importance to the whetstone of Attus Navius.² Myths should have no place in philosophy. It would have been more in keeping with your rôle as a philosopher to consider, first, the nature of divination generally, second, its origin, and third, its consistency. What, then, is the nature of an art which makes prophets out of birds that wander aimlessly about—now here, now there—and makes the action or inaction of men depend upon the song or flight of birds? and why was the power granted to some birds to give a favourable omen when on the left side and to others when on the right? Again, how, when, and by whom, shall we say that the system was invented? [p. 463] The Etruscans, it is true, find the author of their system in the boy who was ploughed up out of the ground; but whom have we? Attus Navius? But Romulus and Remus, both of whom, by tradition, were augurs, lived many years earlier. Are we to say that it was invented by the Pisidians, Cilicians, or Phrygians? It is your judgement, then, that those devoid of human learning are the authors of a divine science!³