refulgent heaven above,
Which all men call, unanimously, Jove;

intimating that we should invoke that as Jupiter, rather than our
Capitoline Jove[243], or that it is evident to the whole world that
those bodies are Gods which Velleius and many others do not place even
in the rank of animated beings.

Another strong proof, in your opinion, was that the belief of the
existence of the Gods was universal, and that mankind was daily more
and more convinced of it. What! should an affair of such importance be
left to the decision of fools, who, by your sect especially, are called
madmen?

V. But the Gods have appeared to us, as to Posthumius at the Lake
Regillus, and to Vatienus in the Salarian Way: something you mentioned,
too, I know not what, of a battle of the Locrians at Sagra. Do you
believe that the Tyndaridae, as you called them; that is, men sprung
from men, and who were buried in Lacedaemon, as we learn from Homer, who
lived in the next age--do you believe, I say, that they appeared to
Vatienus on the road mounted on white horses, without any servant to
attend them, to tell the victory of the Romans to a country fellow
rather than to M. Cato, who was at that time the chief person of the
senate? Do you take that print of a horse's hoof which is now to be
seen on a stone at Regillus to be made by Castor's horse? Should you
not believe, what is probable, that the souls of eminent men, such as
the Tyndaridae, are divine and immortal, rather than that those bodies
which had been reduced to ashes should mount on horses, and fight in an
army? If you say that was possible, you ought to show how it is so, and
not amuse us with fabulous old women's stories.

Do you take these for fabulous stories? says Balbus. Is not the temple,
built by Posthumius in honor of Castor and Pollux, to be seen in the
Forum? Is not the decree of the senate concerning Vatienus still
subsisting? As to the affair of Sagra, it is a common proverb among the
Greeks; when they would affirm anything strongly, they say "It is as
certain as what passed at Sagra." Ought not such authorities to move
you? You oppose me, replies Cotta, with stories, but I ask reasons of
you[244]. * * *

VI. We are now to speak of predictions. No one can avoid what is to
come, and, indeed, it is commonly useless to know it; for it is a
miserable case to be afflicted to no purpose, and not to have even the
last, the common comfort, hope, which, according to your principl