e nobility who were playing about
his altar, selected one, into whose bosom he put the public seal of the
commonwealth, which he held in his hand; but in his vision the next
night, he saw in the bosom of Jupiter Capitolinus, the same boy; whom he
ordered to be removed, but it was forbidden by the God, who declared that
it must be brought up to become the guardian of the state. The next day,
meeting Augustus, with whom till that hour he had not the least
acquaintance, and looking at him with admiration, he said he was
extremely like the boy he had seen in his dream. Some give a different
account of Catulus's first dream, namely, that Jupiter, upon several
noble lads requesting of him that they might have a guardian, had pointed
to one amongst them, to whom they were to prefer their requests; and
putting his fingers to the boy's mouth to kiss, he afterwards applied
them to his own.

Marcus Cicero, as he was attending Caius Caesar to the Capitol, happened
to be telling some of his friends a dream which he had the preceding
night, in which he saw a comely youth, let down from heaven by a golden
chain, who stood at the door of the Capitol, and had a whip put into his
hands by Jupiter. And immediately upon sight of Augustus, who had been
sent for by his uncle Caesar to the sacrifice, and was as yet perfectly
unknown to most of the company, he affirmed that it was the very boy he
had seen in his dream. When he assumed the manly toga, his senatorian
tunic becoming loose in the seam on each side, fell at his feet. Some
would have this to forbode, that the order, of which that was the badge
of distinction, would some time or other be subject to him.

Julius Caesar, in cutting down a wood to make room for his camp near
Munda [250], happened to light upon a palm-tree, and ordered it to be
preserved as an omen of victory. From the root of this tree there put
out immediately a sucker, which, in a few days, grew to such a height as
not only to equal, but overshadow it, and afford room for many nests of
wild pigeons which built in it, though that species of bird particularly
avoids a hard and rough leaf. It is likewise reported, that Caesar was
chiefly influenced by this prodigy, to prefer his sister's grandson
before all others for his successor.

(141) In his retirement at Apollonia, he went with his friend Agrippa to
visit Theogenes, the astrologer, in his gallery on the roof. Agrippa,
who first consulted the fates, having