What do predictions and foreknowledge of future events indicate, but that such future events are shown, pointed out, portended, and foretold to men?
From whence they are called omens, signs, portents, prodigies.

But though we should esteem fabulous what is said of Mopsus,[107] Tiresias,[108] Amphiaraus,[109] Calchas,[110] and Helenus[111] (who would not have been delivered down to us as augurs even in fable if their art had been despised), may we not be sufficiently apprised of the power of the Gods by domestic examples?
Will not the temerity of P.Claudius, in the first Punic war, affect us?
who, when the poultry were let out of the coop and would not feed, ordered them to be thrown into the water, and, joking even upon the Gods, said, with a sneer, "Let them drink, since they will not eat;" which piece of ridicule, being followed by a victory over his fleet, cost him many tears, and brought great calamity on the Roman people.
Did not his colleague Junius, in the same war, lose his fleet in a tempest by disregarding the auspices?
Claudius, therefore, was condemned by the people, and Junius killed himself.

Coelius says that P.Flaminius, from his neglect of religion, fell at Thrasimenus; a loss which the public severely felt.

By these instances of calamity we may be assured that Rome owes her grandeur and success to the conduct of those who were tenacious of their religious duties; and if we compare ourselves to our neighbors, we shall find that we are infinitely distinguished above foreign nations by our zeal for religious ceremonies, though in other things we may be only equal to them, and in other respects even inferior to them.
Ought we to contemn Attius Navius's staff, with which he divided the regions of the vine to find his sow ?[112] I should despise it, if I were not aware that King Hostilius had carried on most important wars in deference to his auguries; but by the negligence of our nobility the discipline of the augury is now omitted, the truth of the auspices despised, and only a mere form observed; so that the most important affairs of the commonwealth, even the wars, on which the public safety depends, are conducted without any auspices; the Peremnia[113] are discussed; no part of the Acumina[114] performed; no select men are called to witness to the military testaments;[115] our generals now begin their wars as soon as they have arranged the Auspicia.

The force of religion was so great among our ancestors that some of their commanders have, with their faces veiled, and with the solemn, formal expressions of religion, sacrificed themselves to the immortal Gods to save their country.[116] I could mention many of the Sibylline prophecies, and many answers of the haruspices, to confirm those things, which ought not to be doubted.
IV.