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26So these men died, but that did not bring quiet to Rome. On the contrary, many dreadful events took place, as, indeed, omens had indicated beforehand. Among other things that happened toward the end of that year bees settled on the Capitol beside the statue of Hercules. 2Sacrifices to Isis chanced to be going on there at the time, and the soothsayers gave their opinion to the effect that all precincts of that goddess and of Serapis should be razed to the ground once more. In the course of their demolition a shrine of Bellona was unwittingly destroyed and in it were found jars full of human flesh. 3The following year a violent earthquake occurred, an owl was seen, thunderbolts descended upon the Capitol and upon the temple of the Public Fortune, as it was called, and into the gardens of Caesar, where a horse of no small value was destroyed by them, 4and the temple of Fortune opened of its own accord. In addition to this, blood issued from a bake-shop and flowed to another temple of Fortune—that Fortune whose statue, on account of the fact that a man must needs observe and consider everything that lies before his eyes as well as behind him and must not forget from what beginnings he has become what he is, they had set up and named in a way not easy to describe to Greeks. 5Also some infants were born holding their left hands to their heads, so that while no good was looked for from the other signs, from this especially an uprising of inferiors against superiors was both foretold by the soothsayers and expected by the people.
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