Quaestiones Romanae

Why do they call one of the gates the Window, for this is what fenestra means: and why is the so-called Chamber of Fortune beside it?[*](Cf. 322 f, infra; Ovid, Fasti, vi. 569 ff.)

Is it because King Servius, the luckiest of mortals, was reputed to have converse with Fortune, who visited him through a window?

Or is this but a fable, and is the true reason that when King Tarquinius Priscus died, his wife Tanaquil, a sensible and a queenly woman, put her head out of a window and, addressing the citizens, persuaded them to appoint Servius king, and thus the place came to have this name?[*](Cf. 323 d, infra; Livy, i. 41.)

Why is it that of all the things dedicated to the gods it is the custom to allow only spoils of war to disintegrate with the passage of time, and not to move them beforehand[*](That is, to move them away before they fell to pieces; for the ancients used to clear out their temples periodically.) nor repair them?

Is it in order that men may believe that their repute deserts them at the same time with the obliteration of their early memorials, and may ever seek to bring in some fresh reminder of valour?

Or is it rather that, as time makes dim the memorials of their dissension with their enemies, it would be invidious and malicious to restore and renew them? Nor among the Greeks, either, do