Institutio Oratoria

On the other hand there are indications which may be made to serve either party, such as livid spots, swellings which may be regarded as symptoms either of poisoning or of bad health, or a wound in the breast which may be treated as a proof of murder or of suicide. The force of such indications depends on the amount of extraneous support which they receive.

Hermagoras would include among such indications as do not involve a necessary conclusion, an

Atalanta cannot be a virgin, as she has been roaming the woods in the company of young men.

Nor do the Areopagites, when they condemned a boy for plucking out the eyes of quails, seem to have had anything else in their mind than the consideration that such conduct was an indication of a perverted character which might prove hurtful to many, if he had been allowed to grow up. So, too, the popularity of Spurius Maelius and Marcus Manlius was regarded as an indication that they were aiming at supreme power.

However, I fear that this line of reasoning will carry us too far. For if it is an indication of adultery that a woman bathes with men, the fact that she revels with young men or even an intimate friendship will also be indications of the same offence. Again depilation, a voluptuous gait, or womanish attire may be regarded as indications of effeminacy and unmanliness by anyone who thinks that such symptoms are the result of an immoral character, just as blood is the result of a wound: for anything, that springs from the matter under investigation and comes to our notice, may properly be called an indication.

Similarly it is also usual to give the names of signs to frequently observed phenomena, such as prognostics of the weather which we may illustrate by the Vergilian

1. For wind turns Phoebe's face to ruddy gold

Verg. G. i. 431.

1. The crow
2. With full voice, good-for-naught, invites the rain.

ib. i. 388.