Minucius Felix — Octavius 7
VII. "Nor yet rashly (for I would dare meanwhile even myself to concede, and so to err better) did our ancestors work hard either in observing auguries or consulting entrails or instituting rites or dedicating shrines. Look at memory from the books; you will already catch them having initiated the rites of all religions, either that divine indulgence might be repaid, or that imminent wrath might be turned away, or wrath already swelling and raging be placated.
Witness is the Idaean Mother, who by her arrival both proved a matron's chastity and freed the city from enemy fear; witnesses are the statues of the equestrian brothers consecrated at the lake as they had shown themselves, who breathless with foaming and steaming horses announced victory over Perses on the same day they had made it; witness is the repetition of the games of offended Jupiter from a plebeian's dream; and the ratified devotion of the Decii is witness; witness also Curtius, who by the mass or honor of his horseman leveled the gap of the deep chasm.
More often even than we wished, despised auspices attested the gods' presence. So the Allia—"unlucky name"—so of Claudius and Junius not a battle against the Carthaginians but a funeral shipwreck, and that Trasimene might be both greater and stained with Roman blood, Flaminius scorned the auguries, and that we might reclaim the standards from the Parthians, Crassus both earned and mocked the imprecations of dire omens.
I omit old things which are many, and I neglect the poets' songs about the gods' birthdays, gifts, offices; I also skip fates foretold from oracles, lest antiquity seem to you too fabulous. Look to the temples and shrines of the gods by which the Roman city is both protected and adorned: they are more august by the numina inhabiting, present, dwelling in them than opulent by cult, insignia, and gifts. Hence indeed prophets filled and mixed with god pluck the future beforehand, give caution for dangers, remedy for diseases, hope to the afflicted, help to the wretched, comfort for calamities, relief for labors. Even through sleep we see, hear, recognize the gods whom by day we deny, refuse, and swear falsely against.
Latin
VII. "Nec tamen temere (ausim enim interim et ipse concedere et sic melius errare) maiores nostri aut observandis auguriis aut extis consulendis aut instituendis sacris aut delubris dedicandis operam navaverunt. Specta de libris memoriam; iam eos deprehendes initiasse ritus omnium religionum, vel ut remuneraretur divina indulgentia, vel ut averteretur imminens ira aut iam tumens et saeviens placaretur. Testis Mater Idaea, quae adventu suo et probavit matronae castitatem et urbem metu hostili liberavit; testes equestrium fratrum in lacu, sicut se ostenderant, statuae consecratae, qui anheli spumantibus equis atque fumantibus de Perse victoriam eadem die qua fecerant nuntiaverunt; testis ludorum offensi Iovis de somnio plebei hominis iteratio: et Deciorum devotio rata testis est; testis et Curtius, qui equitis sui vel mole vel honore hiatum profundae voraginis coaequavit. Frequentius etiam, quam volebamus, deorum praesentiam contempta auspicia contestata sunt. Sic Allia "nomen infaustum," sic Claudi et Iuni non proelium in Poenos, sed ferale naufragium est, et ut Trasimenus Romanorum sanguine et maior esset et decolor, sprevit auguria Flaminius, et ut Parthos signa repetamus, dirarum inprecationes Crassus et meruit et inrisit. Omitto vetera quae multa sunt, et de deorum natalibus, donis, muneribus neglego carmina poetarum, praedicta etiam de oraculis fata transilio, ne vobis antiquitas nimium fabulosa videatur. Intende templis ac delubris deorum, quibus Romana civitas et protegitur et ornatur: magis sunt augusta numinibus incolis, praesentibus, inquilinis quam cultu, insignibus et muneribus opulenta. Inde adeo pleni et mixti deo vates futura praecerpunt, dant cautelam periculis, morbis medellam, spem adflictis, opem miseris, solacium calamitatibus, laboribus levamentum. Etiam per quietem deos videmus, audimus, agnoscimus, quos impie per diem negamus, nolumus, peieramus.