assembled to deliberate on the imminent danger that threatened the Republic, and the whole world, of having to receive a king. Nigidius Figulus (an intimate friend of Cicero, at that time Consul), having heard Octavius excuse himself for coming so late, on account of his wife having been seized with the pains of childbirth, exclaimed: "You have then been bringing into the world a lord and master for us."
Nigidius enjoyed a high reputation at Rome, as one of the most learned men of the Republic; indeed, his proficiency in the mathematical and other sciences based upon them, was such that he was supposed to be an adept in magic. This exclamation from him threw the Conscript Fathers into such alarm, that for months afterwards they kept repeating that "Nature was about to bring forth, and to place a king on the throne of the world." They added, that the same thing had been announced in the verses of the Sibyl, and that, moreover, from all parts of the world, even the most distant, there had arrived numerous oracles which repeated the same prediction. The Senate, terrified by these rumours, and by the prodigies which were reported to have taken place in Rome, issued a decree, forbidding fathers of families to bring up any child that should be born for a year, or to adopt any that should be found exposed. Those Conscript Fathers, however, whose wives were then in a state of pregnancy, contrived to prevent the registration of this decree, in the hope that this king-child might be one of theirs.[1]
- ↑ Auctor est Julius Marathus, ante paucos quam (Augustus) nasceretur menses, prodigium Romæ factum publice, quo denuntiabatur regent Populo Romano naturam parturire; senatum exterritum sensuisse, ne quis illo anno genitus educaretur; eos qui gravidas
