3. But let us admit that, as
is said, Jupiter has himself appointed against himself ways and means
by which his own declared purposes might fittingly be opposed:
are we also to believe that a deity of so great majesty was dragged
down to earth, and, standing on a petty hillock with a mannikin,
entered into a wrangling dispute? And what, I ask, was the charm
which forced Jupiter to leave the all-important4296
direction of the universe, and appear
at the bidding of
mortals? the sacrificial meal,
incense,
blood, the
scent of burning laurel-boughs,
4297
| 4297
Lit., “the fumigation of verbenæ,” i.e., of
boughs of the laurel, olive, or myrtle. |
and muttering of spells? And
were all these more
powerful than
Jupiter, so that they compelled him
to do unwillingly what was enjoined, or to give himself up of his own
accord to their
crafty tricks? What! will what follows be
believed, that the son of Saturn had so little foresight, that he
either proposed terms by the ambiguity of which he was himself
ensnared, or did not know what was going to happen, how the
craft and
cunning of a
mortal would overreach him? You shall make
expiation, he says, with a head when thunderbolts have fallen.
The phrase is still incomplete, and the meaning is not fully expressed
and defined; for it was necessarily right to know whether Diespiter
ordains that this expiation be effected with the head of a wether, a
sow, an ox, or any other animal. Now, as he had not yet fixed
this specifically, and his decision was still uncertain and not yet
determined, how could Numa know that Jupiter would say the head of a
man, so as to
4298
anticipate
and prevent
him, and turn his uncertain and ambiguous
words
4299
| 4299
Lit., “the uncertain things of that
ambiguity.” |
into
“an onion’s head?”
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