But they here mean those birds which are used in augury: _alites_ are the birds whose flight was observed by the augurs, and _oscines_ the birds from whose voices they augured.
[241] As the Academics doubted everything, it was indifferent to them which side of a question they took.
[242] The keepers and interpreters of the Sibylline oracles were the Quindecimviri.
[243] The popular name of Jupiter in Rome, being looked upon as defender of the Capitol (in which he was placed), and stayer of the State.
[244] Some passages of the original are here wanting.

Cotta continues speaking against the doctrine of the Stoics.
[245] The word _sortes_ is often used for the answers of the oracles, or, rather, for the rolls in which the answers were written.
[246] Three of this eminent family sacrificed themselves for their country; the father in the Latin war, the son in the Tuscan war, and the grandson in the war with Pyrrhus.
[247] The Straits of Gibraltar.
[248] The common reading is, _ex quo anima dicitur;_ but Dr.Davis and M.Bouhier prefer _animal_, though they keep _anima_ in the text, because our author says elsewhere, _animum ex anima dictum_, Tusc.

I.
1.

Cicero is not here to be accused of contradictions, for we are to consider that he speaks in the characters of other persons; but there appears to be nothing in these two passages irreconcilable, and probably _anima_ is the right word here.
[249] He is said to have led a colony from Greece into Caria, in Asia, and to have built a town, and called it after his own name, for which his countrymen paid him divine honors after his death.
[250] Our great author is under a mistake here.

Homer does not say he met Hercules himself, but his [Greek: Eidolon], his "visionary likeness;" and adds that he himself [Greek: met' athanatoisi theoisi terpetai en thalies, kai echei kallisphyrou Heben, paida Dios megaloio kai Heres chrysopedilou.] which Pope translates-- A shadowy form, for high in heaven's abodes Himself resides, a God among the Gods; There, in the bright assemblies of the skies, He nectar quaffs, and Hebe crowns his joys.
[251] They are said to have been the first workers in iron.