Ab urbe condita

As the thing seemed hardly credible, men were sent to inspect the prodigy, and whilst they were watching, a heavy shower of stones fell from the sky, just like hailstones heaped together by the wind.

They fancied, too, that they heard a very loud voice from the grove on the summit bidding the Albans celebrate their sacred rites after the manner of their fathers. These solemnities they had consigned to oblivion, as though they had abandoned their gods when they abandoned their country and had either adopted Roman rites or, as sometimes happens, embittered against Fortune, had given up the service of the gods.

In consequence of this prodigy, the Romans, too, kept up a public religious observance for nine days, either —as tradition asserts —owing to the voice from the Alban Mount, or because of the warning of the soothsayers.