ct that the precincts of that goddess and of Serapis
should be razed to the ground, as of yore. In the course of demolition a
small shrine of Bellona had unwittingly been taken down, and in it were
found jars full of human flesh.

[B.C. 47 (_a.u._ 707)]

The following year a violent earthquake occurred, an owl was seen,
thunderbolts descended upon the Capitol and upon the temple of the
so-called Public Fortune and into the gardens of Caesar, where a horse of
considerable value was destroyed by them, and the temple of Fortune
opened of its own accord. In addition to this, blood issuing from a
bake-shop flowed to another temple of Fortune, whose statue on account
of the fact that the goddess necessarily oversees and can fathom
everything that is before us as well as behind and does not forget from
what beginnings any great man came they had set up and named in a way
not easy for Greeks to describe.[77] Also some infants were born holding
their left hands to their heads, so that whereas no good was looked for
from the other signs, from this especially an uprising of inferiors
against superiors was both foretold by the soothsayers and accepted by
the people as true.

[-27-] These portents so revealed by supernatural power disturbed them;
and their fear was augmented by the very appearance of the city, which
had been strange and unaccustomed at the beginning of the month and
thereafter for a long time. There was as yet no consul or praetor, and
Antony, in so far as his costume went (which was the _toga laticlavia_)
and his lictors, of whom he had only six, and his convening the senate,
furnished some semblance of democracy: but the sword with which he was
girded, and the throng of soldiers that accompanied him, and his actions
themselves most of all indicated the existence of one sole ruler. Many
robberies, outrages, and murders took place. And not only were the
existing conditions most distressing to the Romans, but they dreaded a
far greater number of more terrible acts from Caesar. For when the master
of the horse never laid aside his sword even at the festivals, who would
not have been suspicious of the dictator himself? (At the most of these
festivals Antony presided at the orders of Caesar. Some few the tribunes
also had in charge.) It any persons stopped to think of his magnanimity,
which had led him to spare many that had opposed him in battle,
nevertheless seeing that men who had gained an office did not stick to