hose which had been established by ancient
custom; but others he held in no esteem. For, having been initiated at
Athens, and coming afterwards to hear a cause at Rome, relative to the
privileges of the priests of the Attic Ceres, when some of the mysteries
of their sacred rites were to be introduced in the pleadings, he
dismissed those who sat upon the bench as judges with him, as well as the
by-standers, and beard the argument upon those points himself. But, on
the other hand, he not only declined, in his progress through Egypt, to
go out of his way to pay a visit to Apis, but he likewise commended his
grandson Caius (138) for not paying his devotions at Jerusalem in his
passage through Judaea. [247]

XCIV. Since we are upon this subject, it may not be improper to give an
account of the omens, before and at his birth, as well as afterwards,
which gave hopes of his future greatness, and the good fortune that
constantly attended him. A part of the wall of Velletri having in former
times been struck with thunder, the response of the soothsayers was, that
a native of that town would some time or other arrive at supreme power;
relying on which prediction, the Velletrians both then, and several times
afterwards, made war upon the Roman people, to their own ruin. At last
it appeared by the event, that the omen had portended the elevation of
Augustus.

Julius Marathus informs us, that a few months before his birth, there
happened at Rome a prodigy, by which was signified that Nature was in
travail with a king for the Roman people; and that the senate, in alarm,
came to the resolution that no child born that year should be brought up;
but that those amongst them, whose wives were pregnant, to secure to
themselves a chance of that dignity, took care that the decree of the
senate should not be registered in the treasury.

I find in the theological books of Asclepiades the Mendesian [248], that
Atia, upon attending at midnight a religious solemnity in honour of
Apollo, when the rest of the matrons retired home, fell asleep on her
couch in the temple, and that a serpent immediately crept to her, and
soon after withdrew. She awaking upon it, purified herself, as usual
after the embraces of her husband; and instantly there appeared upon her
body a mark in the form of a serpent, which she never after could efface,
and which obliged her, during the subsequent part of her life, to decline
the use of the public baths. Augustus,