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LIBER VIII · CAPUT 28

PROGNOSTICS OF DANGER DERIVED FROM ANIMALS

PROGNOSTICS OF DANGER DERIVED FROM ANIMALS. Complete modern editorial illustration created specifically for this chapter.
PROGNOSTICS OF DANGER DERIVED FROM ANIMALS · EDITORIAL PLATE VIII.28 · modern editorial plate
PROGNOSTICS OF DANGER DERIVED FROM ANIMALS. Complete modern editorial illustration created specifically for this chapter.

Latine · Mayhoff 1906

Milia praeterea, utpote cum plurimis animalibus eadem natura rerum caeli quoque observationem et ventorum, imbrium, tempestatum praesagia alia alio modo dederit, quod persequi inmensum est, aeque scilicet quam reliquam cum singulis hominum societatem. siquidem et pericula praemonent non fibris modo extisque, circa quod magna mortalium portio haeret, sed alia quadam significatione. ruinis inminentibus musculi praemigrant, aranei cum telis primi cadunt. auguria quidem artem fecere apud Romanos et sacerdotum collegium vel maxime sollemne. est inter ea locis rigentibus et volpes, animal alioqui sollertia dirum. amnes gelatos lacusque non nisi ad eius itum reditumque transeunt. observatum eam aure ad glacier adposita coniectare crassitudinem gelus.

English · Bostock & Riley 1855–57

There are a thousand other facts of this kind: and the same Nature has also bestowed upon many animals as well, the faculty of observing the heavens, and of presaging the winds, rains, and tempests, each in its own peculiar way. It would be an endless labour to enumerate them all; just as much as it would be to point out the relation of each to man. For, in fact, they warn us of danger, not only by their fibres and their entrails, to which a large portion of mankind attach the greatest faith, but by other kinds of warnings as well. When a building is about to fall down, all the mice desert it before-hand, and the spiders with their webs are the first to drop. Divination from birds has been made a science among the Romans, and the college of its priests is looked upon as peculiarly sacred. In Thrace, when all parts are covered with ice, the foxes are consulted, an animal which, in other respects, is baneful from its craftiness. It has been observed, that this animal applies its ear to the ice, for the purpose of testing its thickness; hence it is, that the inhabitants will never cross frozen rivers and lakes until the foxes have passed over them and returned.