Page:Loeb Classical Library L205N (1958).djvu/489
civil rights I have no more doubt than I remember you had of mine. For when those who imagined that the Republic could not fall while I was on my feet had driven me into exile, I remember being told by several visitors who came to see me on their way from Asia, where you then were, that you spoke confidently of my early and glorious return.
3 If you have not been misled by a certain scientific system of Etruscan lore[1] bequeathed you by your illustrious and excellent father, neither shall I be misled by my own skill in divination, which I have acquired not only from the writings and precepts of the greatest philosophers and my extensive study, as you yourself know, of their teaching, but also from a wide experience in dealing with public affairs, and the many vicissitudes of my political life.
4 And I have the more confidence in this divination because, difficult to interpret and distracted as these times have been, it has never once in the slightest particular misled me. I should tell you what I had previously predicted, were I not afraid of your thinking that I am making things up after they have happened. But anyhow there are a large number of people who can testify that though at the beginning I warned Pompey against a coalition with Caesar, I afterwards warned him not to break with him. I saw that the coalition meant the crushing of the Senate's power, and a rupture the stirring up of a civil war. Moreover, I was on the most intimate terms with Caesar, while I had the highest esteem for Pompey; but my advice, without being disloyal to the latter, was beneficial to both.
5 Of other instances of my foresight I say nothing; for I should be sorry that Caesar, who has deserved
- ↑ It was from the Etruscans that the Romans borrowed most of their arts of divination, and young Roman nobles used to attend the schools of the Lucumones in Etruria.