They were reported to the pontifices from the places where they were supposed to have occurred, and if thought worthy of expiation were entered in the pontifical books.

We may suppose that they were sent in chiefly by the uneducated.

But among men of education we have many examples of this same nervousness, of which two or three must suffice.

Sulla, as we know from his own Memoirs, which were used directly or indirectly by Plutarch, had a strong vein of superstition in his nature, and made no attempt to control it.

In dedicating his Memoirs to Lucullus he advised him "to think no course so safe as that which is enjoined by the [Greek: daimon] (perhaps his genius) in the night";[572] and Plutarch tells us several tales of portents on which he acted, evidently drawn from this same autobiography.