ry: _alites_ are the birds whose flight was observed by the
augurs, and _oscines_ the birds from whose voices they augured.

[241] As the Academics doubted everything, it was indifferent to them
which side of a question they took.

[242] The keepers and interpreters of the Sibylline oracles were the
Quindecimviri.

[243] The popular name of Jupiter in Rome, being looked upon as
defender of the Capitol (in which he was placed), and stayer of the
State.

[244] Some passages of the original are here wanting. Cotta continues
speaking against the doctrine of the Stoics.

[245] The word _sortes_ is often used for the answers of the oracles,
or, rather, for the rolls in which the answers were written.

[246] Three of this eminent family sacrificed themselves for their
country; the father in the Latin war, the son in the Tuscan war, and
the grandson in the war with Pyrrhus.

[247] The Straits of Gibraltar.

[248] The common reading is, _ex quo anima dicitur;_ but Dr. Davis and
M. Bouhier prefer _animal_, though they keep _anima_ in the text,
because our author says elsewhere, _animum ex anima dictum_, Tusc. I.
1. Cicero is not here to be accused of contradictions, for we are to
consider that he speaks in the characters of other persons; but there
appears to be nothing in these two passages irreconcilable, and
probably _anima_ is the right word here.

[249] He is said to have led a colony from Greece into Caria, in Asia,
and to have built a town, and called it after his own name, for which
his countrymen paid him divine honors after his death.

[250] Our great author is under a mistake here. Homer does not say he
met Hercules himself, but his [Greek: Eidolon], his "visionary
likeness;" and adds that he himself

[Greek: met' athanatoisi theoisi
terpetai en thalies, kai echei kallisphyrou Heben,
paida Dios megaloio kai Heres chrysopedilou.]

which Pope translates--

A shadowy form, for high in heaven's abodes
Himself resides, a God among the Gods;
There, in the bright assemblies of the skies,
He nectar quaffs, and Hebe crowns his joys.

[251] They are said to have been the first workers in iron. They were
called Idaei, because they inhabited about Mount Ida in Crete, and
Dactyli, from [Greek: daktyloi] (the fingers), their number being five.

[252] From whom, some say, the city of that name was called.

[253] Capedunculae seem to have been bowls or cups, with handles