Book 29
1.31
Then a man clad in linen garments, shod also in linen sandals and having a fillet wound about his head, carrying twigs from a tree of good omen, after propitiating in a set formula the divine power from whom predictions come, having full knowledge of the ceremonial, stood over the tripod as priest and set swinging a hanging ring fitted to a very fine linenValesius read carbasio, which would correspond to the linen garments and sandals; the Thes. Ling. Lat. reads carpathio = linteo. thread and consecrated with mystic arts. This ring, passing over the designated intervals in a series of jumps, and falling upon this and that letter which detained it, made hexameters corresponding with the questions and completely finished in feet and rhythm, like the Pythian verses which we read, or those given out from the oracles of the Branchidae.The descendants of a certain Branchus, a favourite of Apollo, who were at first in charge of the oracle at Branchidae, later called oraculum Apollinis Didymei (Mela, i. 17, 86), in the Milesian territory; cf. Hdt. i. 1 57. The rings had magic powers, cf. Cic., De Off. iii. 9, 38; Pliny, N. H. xxxiii. 8. Some writers give a different account of the method of divination used by the conspirators.
