Res Gestae

Auguries and auspices are not gained from the will of the fowls of the air which have no knowledge of future events (for that not even a fool will maintain), but a god so directs the flight of birds that the sound of their bills or the passing flight of their wings in disturbed or in gentle passage foretells future events. For the goodness of the deity, either because men deserve it, or moved by his affection for them, loves by these arts also to reveal impending events.

Those, too, who give attention to the prophetic entrails of beasts, which are wont to assume innumerable forms, know of impending events. And the teacher of this branch of learning is one named Tages, who (as the story goes) was seen suddenly to spring from the earth in the regions of Etruria.[*](See xvii. 10, 2, note.)

Future events are further revealed when men’s hearts are in commotion, but speak divine words. For (as the natural philosophers say) the Sun, the soul of the universe, sending out our minds from himself after the manner of sparks, when he has fired men mightily, makes them aware of the future. And it is for this reason that the Sibyls often say that they are burning, since they are fired by the mighty power of the flames. Besides these, the loud sounds of voices give many signs, as well as the phenomena which meet our eyes, thunder even and lightning, and the gleam of a star’s train of light.

The faith in dreams, too, would be sure and indubitable, were it not that their interpreters are sometimes deceived in their conjectures. And dreams (as Aristotle declares) are certain and trustworthy, when the person is in a deep sleep and the pupil of his eye is inclined to neither side but looks directly forward.

And because the silly commons oftentimes object, ignorantly muttering such things as these: If there were a science of prophecy, why did one man not know that he would fall in battle, or another that he would suffer this or that: it will be enough to say, that a grammarian has sometimes spoken ungrammatically, a musician sung out of tune, and a physician been ignorant of a remedy, but for all that grammar, music, and the medical art have not come to a stop.

Wherefore Cicero has this fine saying, among others: The gods, says he, show signs of coming events. With regard to these if one err, it is not the nature of the gods that is at fault, but man’s interpretation.[*](Cic., De Nat. Deorum, ii. 4, 12; De Div. i. 52, 118.) Therefore, that my discourse may not run beyond the mark (as the saying is) and weary my future reader, let us return and unfold the events that were foreseen.

At Paris, when Julian, still a Caesar, was shaking his shield while engaged in various exercises

And when all who were present were terrified by what seemed a direful omen, he said: Let no man be afraid; I hold firmly what I was holding.[*](Cf. Suet., Jul. 59, teneo te, Africa. ) Again at Vienne at a later time, when he went to sleep with a clear head, at night’s dread mid a gleaming form appeared and recited to him plainly, as he lay almost awake, the following heroic verses, repeating them several times; and trusting to these, be believed that no difficulty remained to trouble him:

When Zeus the noble Aquarius’ bound shall reach, And Saturn come to Virgo’s twenty-fifth degree, Then shall Constantius, king of Asia, of this life So sweet the end attain with heaviness and grief.[*](The author of the verses is not known; they are quoted, with slight differences in the wording, by Zonaras, xiii. 11 c, and Zosimus, iii. 9.)