Book 41
15
While this business was being transacted in the senate, Cnaeus Cornelius was called out by an apparitor, and left the House. On his return he was visibly perturbed, and explained that the liver of the ox which he had sacrificed had disappeared. When the victimarius reported this to him he did not believe it, and he ordered the water in which the entrails were being boiled to be poured out from the cauldron. He saw every other portion of the victim complete, but in some unaccountable way the liver had been consumed. The senators were much alarmed at this ominous incident, and their alarm was intensified by the other consul's statement that after the appearance of the defective liver he had sacrificed three oxen in succession without getting any favourable indication. The senate ordered them both to go on sacrificing until the omens were favourable. It is said that favourable omens were at last observed in the case of all the other deities, but not in the case of Salus, to whom Petilius was sacrificing.
