Memorable Deeds and Sayings

On Midas.

For Midas, under whose rule Phrygia was subject, ants piled grains of wheat into his mouth while he was a sleeping boy. When his parents then sought to discover what this prodigy original: "prodigium." A supernatural event or omen signifying divine intervention. portended, the Augurs Priests who interpreted omens by observing the flight of birds or other natural signs. responded: that he would become the wealthiest of all mortals. This was no empty prediction. For Midas surpassed the riches of nearly all kings in his abundance of money, and the cradle of his infancy, having been gifted by the useful bounty of the gods, he eventually weighed down with treasures of gold and silver.

Another marvel concerning Plato.

I would rightly and deservedly prefer the bees of Plato to the ants of Midas. For the latter were indicators of fleeting and fragile prosperity, but the former indicated a solid and eternal happiness. This was shown by bees dropping honey upon the lips of the tiny child as he slept in his cradle. When this was heard, the interpreters of prodigies declared that a singular sweetness of eloquence would flow from his mouth. But to me, it seems those bees did not graze upon Mount Hymettus A mountain range near Athens famous in antiquity for its marble and its thyme-scented honey. smelling of thyme blossoms, but rather, by the instinct of the goddesses, they grazed upon the Heliconian hills of the Muses Mount Helicon was the mythological home of the Muses, the patron goddesses of the arts and sciences.—which are green with every kind of learning—and instilled the sweetest nourishment of the highest eloquence into his magnificent genius.

ON DREAMS. Chapter V.

But since I have touched upon the riches of Midas and the eloquent sleep of Plato, I shall now relate how the rest of many men was foreshadowed by the most certain of visions. From what place should I better begin this topic than from the most sacred memory of the Divine Augustus? Referring to the first Roman Emperor, Octavian Augustus. While his physician Artorius was taking his sleep on the night preceding the day when the Roman armies clashed with one another on the plains of Philippi The Battle of Philippi (42 BCE), where the forces of Octavian and Mark Antony defeated the assassins of Julius Caesar, Brutus and Cassius., the goddess Minerva... The text cuts off here, likely describing a dream-warning given to the physician to ensure Augustus's safety during the battle.