5
The River Tiber, in its course over the Forum, opened a huge cavity in the ground, so that a great many houses were buried in it. This was looked upon as a judgment upon the place, from Jupiter Tarsius; who, as the oracle told them, was not to be appeased without throwing into it what they held most valuable. So they threw a quantity of gold and silver into it. But Curtius, one of the bravest young men they had, gave a better guess at the mind of the oracle; and reflecting upon it, that the life of a man was much more excellent than treasure, took his horse and plunged himself into the gulf, and so redeemed his country.—Aristides, in the Fortieth Book of his Italian History.
6
As several great captains were making merry with Polynices, an eagle passing by made a stoop, and carried up into the air the lance of Amphiaraus, who was one of the company; and then falling down, it stuck in the ground, and was turned into a laurel. The next day, when the armies were in action, the earth opened and swallowed up Amphiaraus with his chariot, in that very place where at present the city Harma stands, so called from that chariot.—This is in Trisimachus’s Third Book of the Foundations of Cities.
6
When the Romans made war upon Pyrrhus, the king of the Epirots, the oracle promised Aemilius Paulus the victory in case he should erect an altar in that place where he should see an eminent man with his chariot swallowed up into the ground. Some three days after, Valerius Conatus, a man skilled in divining, was commanded in a dream to take the pontifical habit upon him. He did so, and led his men into the battle, where, after a prodigious slaughter of the enemy, the earth opened and swallowed him up. Aemilius built an altar here, obtained a great victory, and sent a hundred and sixty castle-bearing elephants to Rome. This altar delivers oracles about that season of the year in which Pyrrhus was overcome.—Critolaus has this in his Third Book of the History of the Epirots.
