onstantly recorded, and which frequently filled the
people with the most dreadful apprehensions. It must be confessed, that
some of these seem altogether supernatural; while much the greater part
only consist of some of the uncommon productions of nature, which
superstition always attributed to a superior cause, and represented as
the prognostication of some impending misfortunes. Of this class may be
reckoned the appearance of two suns, the nights illuminated by rays of
light, the views of fighting armies, swords, and spears, darting through
the air; showers of milk, of blood, of stones, of ashes, of frogs,
beasts with two heads, or infants who had some feature resembling those
of the brute creation. These were all dreadful prodigies, which filled
the people with inexpressible astonishment, and the Roman Empire with an
extreme perplexity; and whatever unhappy circumstance followed upon
these, was sure to be either caused or predicted by them.[15]

FOOTNOTES:

[9] Homer gives the same account of those ceremonies, when Ulysses
raised the soul of Tiresias; and the same usages are found in the poem
of Silius Italicus. And to these ceremonies the scriptures frequently
allude, when the Israelites are forbid to assemble upon high places.

[10] The magical slumbers produced in the cave of Trophonius are justly
ascribed to medicated beverages. Here, the votary if he escaped with
life, had his health irreparably injured, and the whole class of
artificial dreams and visions, the effect of some powerful narcotic
acting upon the body after the mind had been predisposed for a certain
train of ideas.

[11] The _sortes praenestinae_ were famous among the Greeks. The method
by which these lots were conducted was to put so many letters or even
whole words, into an urn; to shake them together, and throw them out;
and whatever should chance to be made out in the arrangement of these
letters or words, composed the answer of the oracle. The ancients also
made use of dice, drawing tickets, etc., in casting or deciding results.
In the Old Testament we meet with many standing and perpetual laws, and
a number of particular commands, prescribing and regulating the use of
them. We are informed by the Scripture that when a successor to Judas in
the apostolate was to be chosen, the lot fell on St. Mathias. And the
garment or coat without a seam of our Saviour was lotted for by the
Jews. In Cicero's time this mode of divination was at a very lo