ns of divine power,
were sure signs that the State was passing into a new phase. In the next
two centuries Rome gained the world and lost her own soul.

NOTES TO LECTURE XIV

[655] The story is told in Livy x. 40 and 41, and must
have been taken by him from the records of the
pontifices, which had almost certainly begun by this
date (see above, p. 283). While on these chapters the
reader may also note the curious vow of this Papirius to
Jupiter Victor at the end of ch. xlii.; and the
description of the religious horrors of the Samnites
witnessed by the army, and especially the words
"respersae fando infandoque sanguine arae" (see above,
p. 196), which clearly indicate a practice abhorrent to
Romans.

[656] Val. Max. i. 5. 3 and 4; Cic. _de Div._ i. 16. 29;
Livy, _Epit._ xix.

[657] The _locus classicus_ is Livy xxi. 63.

[658] Cic. _de Div._ ii. 36. 77. I find an illustration
of this effect of lightning in Major Bruce's _Twenty
Years in the Himalaya_, p. 130: "Directly the ice-axes
begin to hum (in a storm) they should be put away."

[659] He notices it in connection with the war only in
iii. 112. 6, after the battle of Cannae: a striking
passage, but cast in general language.

[660] Livy xxi. 62 foll. Wissowa comments on this
passage in _R.K._ p. 223.

[661] See the author's _Social Life at Rome in the Age
of Cicero_, p. 28 foll.

[662] The rule seems to have been that no _prodigia_
were accepted, and _procurata_ by the authorities, which
were announced from beyond the ager Romanus. See Mommsen
in O. Jahn's edition of the _Periochae_ of Livy's books,
and of Iulius Obsequens, preface, p. xviii. But this
does not appear from the records of this war; and, at
any rate, the religious panic was Italian as well as
Roman.

[663] Red sand still occasionally falls in Italy,
brought by a sirocco from the Sahara, and this accounts
for the _prodigium_, "_pluit sanguine_," which is often
met with. I have a record of it in the _Daily Mail_ of
March 11, 1901. But the _lapides_ were probably of
volcanic origin.

[664] Wissowa, _R.K._ p. 328.

[665] This must have been a special performance of the
yearly Amburbium, of which unluckily we known hardly
anything (Wissowa, _R.K._ 130).

[666] _R.F._ p. 56, where unfortunately the word is