Kitap 27
37
Prior to the departure of the consuls religious observances were kept up for nine days owing to the fall of a shower of stones at Veii. As usual, no sooner was one portent announced than reports were brought in of others. At Menturnae the temple of Jupiter and the sacred grove of Marica were struck with lightning, as were also the wall of Atella and one of the gates. The people of Menturnae reported a second and more appalling portent; a stream of blood had flowed in at their gate. At Capua a wolf had entered the gate by night and mauled one of the watch. These portents were expiated by the sacrifice of full-grown victims, and special intercessions for the whole of one day were ordered by the pontiffs. Subsequently a second nine days' observance was ordered in consequence of a shower of stones which fell in the Armilustrum. No sooner were men's fears allayed by these expiatory rites than a fresh report came, this time from Frusino, to the effect that a child had been born there in size and appearance equal to one four years old, and what was still more startling, like the case at Sinuessa two years previously, it was impossible to say whether it was male or female. The diviners who had been summoned from Etruria said that this was a dreadful portent, and the thing must be banished from Roman soil, kept from any contact with the earth, and buried in the sea. They enclosed it alive in a box, took it out to sea, and dropped it overboard.
