Res Gestae

However, the Etruscan soothsayers, who accompanied the other adepts in interpreting prodigies, since they were not believed when they often tried to prevent this campaign, now brought out their books on war, and showed that this sign was adverse and prohibitory to a prince invading another’s territory, even though he was in the right.

But they were spurned by the opposition of the philosophers, whose authority was then highly valued, but who were sometimes in error and very persistent in matters with which they had little acquaintance. They, indeed, advanced as a specious argument for establishing belief in their knowledge,

Likewise, on the following day, which was the seventh of April, as the sun was already sloping towards its setting, starting with a little cloud thick darkness suddenly filled the air and daylight was removed; and after much menacing thunder and lightning a soldier named Jovian, with two horses which he was bringing back after watering them at the river, was struck dead by a bolt from the sky.

Upon seeing this, Julian again called in the interpreters of omens, and on being questioned they declared emphatically that this sign also forbade the expedition, pointing out that the thunderbolt was of the advisory kind;[*](On this kind of thunderbolt see Seneca, Nat. Quaest. ii. 39, 1 ff.) for so those are called which either recommend or dissuade any act. And so much the more was it necessary to guard against this one. because it killed a soldier of lofty name[*](Since Jovianus is connected with Jupiter.) as well as war-horses, and because places which were struck in that manner—so the books on lightning[*](These prescribed the rites and taboos connected with thunderbolts. The expression libri fulgurales seems to occur only here and in Cic., Div. i. 33, 72, where we have haruspicini et fulgurales et rituales libri. ) declare— must neither be looked upon nor trodden.