Roman auspices, oracles, and the demons behind them
Octavius is answering Caecilius's defense of Roman religion by showing that augury and oracles have failed, and that whatever truth they sometimes touch comes from demons.
Now I come to those Roman auspices and auguries which you said were gathered with enormous effort, regretfully abandoned, and happily observed. Clodius, Flaminius, and one army lost for this reason: they did not think they should wait for the most favorable sacred-chicken omen. What about Regulus? Did he not keep the auguries, and was captured? Mancinus held to religion, and he was sent under the yoke and handed over. Paulus had greedy chickens, and at Cannae he was laid low along with the greater part of the Roman people. Gaius Caesar scorned auguries and auspices that resisted his sending ships to Africa before the winter solstice; thus he both sailed and conquered.
What should I say about oracles, and how much? After his death Amphiaraus answered what was to come, though he did not know he would be betrayed by his wife for a necklace. Tiresias, blind, saw the future, though he could not see the present. Ennius invented the responses of Pythian Apollo for Pyrrhus, since Apollo had by then stopped making verses; that cautious and ambiguous oracle failed when people became more refined and less credulous. Demosthenes too, because he knew the responses were faked, complained that the Pythia was speaking for Philip.
But sometimes, however, auspices or oracles have touched the truth. Although among many lies it may seem that chance imitated diligence, I will still approach the very source of error and depravity, from which all this darkness has flowed, and dig it out more deeply and reveal it more clearly. They are deceitful spirits, wandering, weighed down from heavenly vigor by earthly stains and desires. These spirits, then, burdened and immersed in vices, having lost the simplicity of their substance, though already ruined, do not cease to ruin others, as comfort for their calamity; already depraved, they pour in the error of their depravity and, alienated from God, they separate people from God by introducing depraved religions.
The poets know that these spirits are demons; the philosophers discuss them; Socrates knew them, who at the nod and judgment of the demon attending him would either decline undertakings or seek them. The magi too not only know demons, but whatever miracle they perform, they do it through demons: with those spirits inspiring and pouring in, they produce illusions, either making things that are not appear to be, or making things that are appear not to be. Hostanes, first among those magi in both eloquence and practice, honors the true God with the majesty He deserves, and knows that angels, that is, ministers and messengers of the true God, stand in attendance on His worship, so that at the very nod and face of the Lord they tremble with terror. He also exposed demons as earthly, wandering, enemies of humanity.
What about Plato, who thought finding God was a task? Does he not easily speak of angels and demons too? And in his Symposium does he not try to express the nature of demons? He wants there to be a substance midway between mortal and immortal, that is, between body and spirit, compounded by the mixture of earthly weight and heavenly lightness. From this, he warns, comes even for us the desire of love; and says it is formed and slips into human hearts, moves the senses, fashions emotions, and pours in the ardor of desire.
Latin
Iam enim nenio ad illa auspicia et auguria Romana, quae summo : labore collecta testatus es et paenitenter omissa. et obseruata feliciter.
Clodius scilicet et Flaminius et unus ideo exercitus perdiderunt, quod pullorum solistimum tripudium exspectandum non putauerunt. quid Regulus?
nonne auguria seruauit et captus est? Mancinus religionem tenuit, et sub iugum missus est et deditus. pullos edaces habuit et Paulus, apud Cannas tamen cum maiore populi Romani parte prostratus est.
Gaius Caesar, ne ante brumam in Africam nauigia transmitteret, auguriis et auspiciis renitentibus, spreuit: eo acus et nauigauit et uicit.
quae uero et quanta de oraculis prosequar? post mortem Amphiaraus uentura respondit, qui proditum iri se ob monile ab uxore nesciuit. Tiresias caecus futura uidebat, qui praesentia non uidebat.
de Pyrro Ennius Apollinis Pythi responsa confinxit, cum iam Apollo uersus facere desisset: cuius tunc cautum illud et ambiguum defecit oraculum, cum et politiores homines et minus creduli esse coeperunt. et Demosthenes, quod sciret responsa simulata, φιλιππίζειν Pythiam querebatur.
At nonnumquam tamen ueritatem uel auspicia uel oracula tetigerunt. quamquam inter multa mendacia uideri possit industriam casus imitatus, adgrediar tamen fontem ipsum erroris et prauitatis, unde omnis caligo ista manauit, et altius eruere aperire manifestius. spiritus sunt insinceri, uagi, a caelesti uigore terrenis labibus et cupiditatibus degrauati.
isti igitur spiritus, posteaquam simplicitatem substantiae suae onusti et inmersi uitiis perdiderunt, ad solacium calamitatis suae non desinunt perditi iam perdere et deprauati errorem prauitatis infundere et alienati a Deo inductis prauis religionibus a Deo segregare.
eos spiritus daemonas esse poetae sciunt, philosophi disserunt, Socrates nouit, qui ad nutum et arbitrium adsidentis sibi daemonis uel declinabat negotia uel petebat.
magi quoque non tantum sciunt daemonas, sed etiam quicquid miraculi ludunt, per daemonas faciunt: illis adspirantibus et infundentibus praestigias edunt, uel quae non sunt uideri, uel quae sunt non uideri.
eorum magorum et eloquio et negotio primus Hostanes et uerum Deum merita maiestate prosequitur et angelos, id est ministros et nuntios Dei sed ueri, eius uenerationi nouit adsistere, ut et nutu ipso et uultu domini territi contremescant. idem etiam daemonas prodidit terrenos, uagos, humanitatis inimicos.
quid Plato, qui inuenire Deum negotium credidit, nonne et angelos sine negotio narrat et daemonas? et in Symposio etiam suo naturam daemonum exprimere conititur? uult enim esse substantiam inter mortalem inmortalemque, id est inter corpus et spiritum mediam, terreni ponderis et caelestis leuitatis admixtione concretam, ex qua monet etiam t nos procupidinem amoris, et dicit informari et inlabi pectoribus. humanis et sensum mouere et adfectus fingere et ardorem cupiditatis infundere.