Res Gestae

O most honoured judges, we constructed from laurel twigs under dire auspices this unlucky little table which you see, in the likeness of the Delphic tripod, and having duly consecrated it by

It was placed in the middle of a house purified thoroughly with Arabic perfumes; on it was placed a perfectly round plate made of various metallic substances. Around its outer rim the written forms of the twenty-four letters of the alphabet were skilfully engraved, separated from one another by carefully measured spaces.

Then a man clad in linen garments, shod also in linen sandals and having a fillet wound about his head, carrying twigs from a tree of good omen, after propitiating in a set formula the divine power from whom predictions come, having full knowledge of the ceremonial, stood over the tripod as priest and set swinging a hanging ring fitted to a very fine linen[*](Valesius read carbasio, which would correspond to the linen garments and sandals; the Thes. Ling. Lat. reads carpathio = linteo. ) thread and consecrated with mystic arts. This ring, passing over the designated intervals in a series of jumps, and falling upon this and that letter which detained it, made hexameters corresponding with the questions and completely finished in feet and rhythm, like the Pythian verses which we read, or those given out from the oracles of the Branchidae.[*](The descendants of a certain Branchus, a favourite of Apollo, who were at first in charge of the oracle at Branchidae, later called oraculum Apollinis Didymei (Mela, i. 17, 86), in the Milesian territory; cf. Hdt. i. 1 57. The rings had magic powers, cf. Cic., De Off. iii. 9, 38; Pliny, N. H. xxxiii. 8. Some writers give a different account of the method of divination used by the conspirators.)

When we then and there inquired, what man will succeed the present emperor?, since it was said that he would be perfect in every particular,