ad said to him, gave these eight sols to the poor, adding a
large sum of his own, and caused masses and prayers to be said for the
soul of the defunct. Peter was then in the world and married; but when
he related this to Peter the Venerable, he was a monk of Clugni.

St. Augustine relates that Sylla,[484] on arriving at Tarentum,
offered there sacrifices to the gods, that is to say, to the demons;
and having observed on the upper part of the liver of the victim a
sort of crown of gold, the aruspice assured him that this crown was
the presage of a certain victory, and told him to eat alone that liver
whereon he had seen the crown.

Almost at the same moment, a servitor of Lucius Pontius came to him
and said, "Sylla, I am come from the goddess Bellona. The victory is
yours; and as a proof of my prediction, I announce to you that, ere
long, the capitol will be reduced to ashes." At the same time, this
man left the camp in great haste, and on the morrow he returned with
still more eagerness, and affirmed that the capitol had been burnt,
which was found to be true.

St. Augustine had no doubt but that the demon who had caused the crown
of gold to appear on the liver of the victim had inspired this
diviner, and that the same bad spirit having foreseen the
conflagration of the capitol had announced it after the event by that
same man.

The same holy doctor relates,[485] after Julius Obsequens, in his Book
of Prodigies, that in the open country of Campania, where some time
after the Roman armies fought with such animosity during the civil
war, they heard at first loud noises like soldiers fighting; and
afterwards several persons affirmed that they had seen for some days
two armies, who joined battle; after which they remarked in the same
part as it were vestiges of the combatants, and the marks of horses'
feet, as if the combat had really taken place there. St. Augustine
doubts not that all this was the work of the devil, who wished to
reassure mankind against the horrors of civil warfare, by making them
believe that their gods being at war amongst themselves, mankind need
not be more moderate, nor more touched by the evils which war brings
with it.

The abbot of Ursperg, in his Chronicle, year 1123, says that in the
territory of Worms they saw during many days a multitude of armed men,
on foot and on horseback, going and coming with great noise, like
people who are going to a solemn assembly. Every day they marched,
tow