Marcus Tullius Cicero

“ For men are fallible in all arts, and we cannot suppose they are infallible here. It may happen that some sign, which has an ambiguous signification, is received in a certain one. It may happen that some particular has escaped the notice of the inquirer, or is purposely concealed by him, because opposed to his interest.
I should, however, consider my plea for divination sufficiently established, if only a few well-authenticated cases of presentiment and prophesies could be discovered; whereas, in truth, there are many. ”

“ It appears to me, moreover, that we should refer all the virtue and power of divination to the Divinity, as Posidonius has done, as before observed; in the next place to Fate, and afterwards to the nature of things. For reason compels us to admit that by Fate all things take place. By Fate I mean that which the Greeks call είμαρμένη, that is, a certain order and series of causes—for cause linked to cause produces all things: and in this connexion of cause consists the constant truth which flows through all eternity. ”

“ Now of these philosophers, to go back to the most ancient ones, Xenophanes the Colophonian appears to have been the only one who admitted the existence of Gods, and yet utterly denied the efficacy of divination. But every other philosopher except Epicurus, who talks so childishly about the nature of the Gods, has sanctioned a belief in divination; though they have not all spoken in the same manner. For, though Socrates, and all his followers, and Zeno, and all those of his school, adhered to the opinion of the ancient philosophers, and the Old Academy and the Peripatetics agreed with them ”

“ For the discussion about the Nature of the Gods, which you have so clearly explained in your second book on that subject, embraces the whole question; for if we grant that there are Gods, and that their providence governs the universe, and that they consult for the best management of human affairs, and that not only in general, but in particular,—if we grant this, which indeed appears to me to be undeniable, then we must hold it as a necessary consequence that these Gods have bestowed on men the signs and indications of futurity. ”

“ They affirm that such interference is altogether indecorous—unworthy of the majesty of the Gods, and an incredible impossibility. They maintain that from the beginning of the world it has been ordained that certain signs must needs precede certain events, some of which are drawn from the entrails of animals, some from the note and flight of birds, some from the sight of lightning, some from prodigies, some from stars, some from visions of dreamers, and some from exclamations of men in frenzy: and those who have a clear perception of these things are not often deceived. ”

“ And will you prefer such a man as this to Plato or Socrates? men who, even if they were to give no reason for their tenets, should, by the mere authority of their names, outweight these minute philiosophers. ”

“ Such is the style in which Ennius speaks of those pretenders of divination; and a few verses before, he has affirmed that though the Gods exist, they take no care of the human race. I am of a contrary opinion, and approve of divination, because I believe that the Gods do watch over men, and admonish them, and personify many things to them, all levity, vanity, and malice being excluded. ”

“ The statue in its present state is beautifully described by Byron:— LXXXVIII. And thou the thunder-stricken nurse of Rome, She-wolf! whose brazen imaged dugs impart The milk of conquest yet within the dome, Where, as a monument of antique art, Thou standest, mother of the mighty heart, Which the great founder suck'd from thy wild teat, Scorch'd by the Roman Jove's etheral dart, And thy limbs black with lightning,—dost thou yet Guard thy immortal cubs, nor thy fond charge forget! ”

“ And by diligently investigating and committing to memory all such signs, and the traditions of our ancestors concerning them, they produce an elaborate system of that divination which is termed technical respecting the entrails of victims, thunder and lightning, prodigies, and celestial phenomena.
We must not therefore, be astonished that those who addict themselves to divination foresee many events which have no place of existence. For all things do even now exist, though they are removed in point of time. ”

“ For there are two methods of divining; one dependent on art, the other on nature. But what nation is there, or what state, which is not influenced by the omens derived from the entrails of victims, or by the predictions of those who interpret prodigies, or strange lights, or of augurs, or astrologers, or by those who expound lots (for these are about to come under the head of art) ; or, again, by the prophesies derived from dreams, or soothsayers (for these two are considered natural kinds of divination) ? ”

“ If both reason and fact are on my side,—if whole nations and peoples, Greeks and barbarians, and our own ancestors also, confirm all my assertions,—if also it has always been maintained by the greatest philosophers and poets, and by the wisest legislators who have framed constitutions and founded cities, must we wait till the very animals give their verdict? and may not we be content with the unanimous authority of all mankind? ”

“ Aristotle thinks that those who become ecstatic or furious through some disease, especially melancholy persons, possess a divine gift or presentiment in their minds. (Latin)
38 But I know not whether it is right to attribute anything of this kind to men with diseases of the stomach, or to persons in a frenzy, for true divination rather appertains to a sound mind than to a sick body.
The Stoics attempt to prove the reality of divination in this way:—If there are Gods, and they do not intimate future events to men, they either do not love men, or they are ignorant of the future ”

“ However, since they grant us some, and those not insignificant things, namely, prophesies and dreams, there is no reason why we should consider there as very formidable antagonists, especially when there are some who deny the existence of divination altogether.
Those, therefore, whose minds, as it were, despising their bodies, fly forth, and wander freely through the universe, being inspired and influenced by a certain divine ardour, doubtless perceive those things which those who prophesy predict. ”

“ There exists, therefore, in the mind a presentiment, which strikes the soul from without, and which is enclosed in the soul by divine operation. If this becomes very vivid, it is termed frenzy, as happens when the soul, being abstracted from the body, is stirred up by a divine inspiriation. ”

“ And you treat the subject of divination in the same way, though we see it, and hear of it, and read of it, and have received it as a tradition from our ancestors. Nor did the world in general ever doubt of it before the introduction of that philosophy which has recently been invented, and even since the appearance of philosophy, no philosopher who was of any authority at all has been of a contrary opinion. I have already quoted in its favour Pythagoras, Democritus, and Socrates. There is no exception but Xenophanes among the ancients. ”

“ Those who assert that neither auguries nor auspices can give us any insight into or foreknowledge of the future, say that they are mere superstitious practices, wisely invented to impose on the ingnorant; which, however, is far from being the case: for our pastoral ancestors under Romulus were not, nor indeed was Romulus himself, so craft and cunning as to invent religious impositions for the purpose of deceiving the multitude. ”

“ But in the case of a man who is accustomed to a sober and regular life, when he commits himself to sleep, then that part of his soul which is the seat of intellect and reason is still active and awake, being replenished with a banquet of virtuous thoughts; and that portion which is nourished by pleasure, is neither destroyed by exhaustion nor swollen by satiety, either of which is accustomed to impair the vigour of the soul, whether nature is deficient in anything, or superabundant or overstocked ”

“ It being, therefore, granted and conceded that there exists a certain divine energy, by which human life is supported and surrounded, it is not hard to conceive how all that happens to men may happen by the direction of heaven; for this divine and sentient energy, which expands throughout the universe, may select a victim for sacrifice, and may, by exterior agency, effect any change in the condition of its entrails at the period of its immolation: so that any given characteristic may be found excessive or defective in the animal's body. ”

“ The same rule applies to the answers of soothsayers, and to all divination which rests on opinion: for it depends wholly on conjecture, and has no means of advancing further. And that perhaps sometimes deceives us, but still it more frequently directs us to the truth. For it is traced back to all eternity. And as in the infinite duration of time, things have happened in an almost countless number of ways with the self-same indications preceding each occurrence, an art has been concocted and reduced to rules from a frequent observation and notice of the same circumstances. ”

“ Nor do they think it beneath their dignity to give such intimations, for nothing is more excellent than benificence. And lastly, the Gods cannot be ignorant of future events. Therefore there are no Gods, and they do not give intimations of the future. But there are Gods: so therefore they do give such intimations; and if they do give such intimations, they must have given us the means of understanding them, or else they would give their information to no purpose. And if they do give us such means, divination must needs exist; therefore divination does exist. ”

“ To the philosophers we may add the testimony of Sophocles, a most learned man, and as a poet quite divine, who, when a golden goblet of great weight had been stolen from the temple of Hercules, was in a dream the god himself appearing to him, and declaring who was the robber. ”

“ I have often beheld in yourself, and, to descend to a less dignified example, even in your friend Aesop, such fire and splendour of expression and action, that it seemed as if some potent inspiration had altogether abstracted him from all present sensation and thought. ”

“ For, by very trifling exertions nature can alter, or new-model, or diminish many things. And the prodigies which happened a little before Caesar's death are of great weight in preventing us from doubting this,—when on that very day on which he first sat on the golden throne and went forth clad in a purple robe, when he was sacrificing, no heart was found in the intestines of the fat ox. Do you then suppose that any warm-blooded animal, unless by divine interference, can live an instant without a heart? ”

“ From which it must be understood that fate is not a mere superstitious imagination, but is what is called, in the language of natural philosophy, the eternal cause of things; the cause why past things have happened, why present things do happen, and why future things will happen. ”

“ At last you were deserted by the fleet of the Rhodians, and then you found that the prophet had been a true one.
I have explained as concisely as possible the forewarnings of dreams and frenzy, with which I said that art had nothing to do; for both these kinds of prediction arise from the same cause, which our friend Cratippus adopts as the true explanation—namely, that the souls of men are partly inspired and agitated from without. By which he meant to say, that there is in the exterior world a sort of divine soul, whence the human soul is derived ”

“ Therefore, as I have said before, Dicaearchus and our friend Cratippus approve of these two sorts of divination, as long as it is understood that, inasmuch as they proceed from nature, though they may be the highest, they are not the only kind. But if they deny that there is any force in observation, then by such denial they exclude many things which are connected with the common experience and institutions of mankind. ”

“ Can anything be done by chance which has in itself all the features of reality? Four dice when thrown may by chance come up sixes. Do you think that if you were to throw four hundred dice it would be possible for them all to come up sixes by any chance in the world? Paints scattered at random on a canvass may by chance represent the features of a human face ”

“ But when we are not asleep, our faculties are employed on the necessary affairs of life, and so are hindered from communication with the Deity by the bondage of the body.
There are, however, a small number of persons, who, as it were, detach their souls from the body, and addict themselves, with the utmost anxiety and diligence, to the study of the nature of the Gods. The presentiments of men like these are derived not from divine inspiration, but from human reason ”

“ Why may I not admit, that though it may be easy to find principles in which to explain artificial presages, the subject of divine intimations is more obscure? for the presages which we deduce from an examination of a victim's entrails, from thunder and lightning, from prodigies, and from the stars, are founded on the accurate observation of many centuries. ”

“ And as the vital embryo of all vegetation exists in seeds, from which they afterwards germinate, so are all things even now hidden in their causes, and perceived as hereafter to happen by the mind when it is thrown into an ecstasy, or relaxed in sleep, and cool reason and calculation is often granted a presentiment of them. And as the astrologers who watch the risings, settings, and various courses of the sun, moon, and other stars, can predict long before all their revolutions and phenomena ”

“ For, as in every discussion, rashness in assenting to propositions of others, and error in asserting such ourselves, is very discreditable, so above all is it in a discussion where the question for our decision is how much weight we are to attribute to auspices, and to divine ceremonies, and to religion. ”