least in other writings than the _De divinatione_, for in the _Dream of Scipio_ he speaks of Jupiter as a star wholesome and favorable to the human race, of Mars as most unfavorable. He further calls seven and eight perfect numbers and speaks of their product, fifty-six, as signifying the fatal year in Scipio’s life. Incidentally, as another instance that Cicero was not always sceptical, it may be recalled that it was in Cicero that Pliny read of a man who could see one hundred and thirty-five miles.[1275] [Sidenote: His crude historical criticism.] Such apparent inconsistency is perhaps a sign of somewhat indiscriminating eclecticism on Cicero’s part. We experience something of a shock, although perhaps we should not be surprised, to find him in his _Republic_[1276] arguing as seriously in favor of the ascension or apotheosis of Romulus as a historic fact as a professor of natural science in a denominational college might argue in favor of the historicity of the resurrection of Christ. Although in the _De divinatione_ he impatiently brushed aside the testimony of so great a cloud of witnesses and of most philosophers in favor of divination, he now argues that the opinion that Romulus had become a god “could not have prevailed so universally unless there had been some extraordinary manifestation of power,” and that “this is the more remarkable because other men, said to have become gods, lived in less learned times when the mind was prone to invent and the inexperienced were easily led to believe,” whereas Romulus lived only six centuries ago when literature and learning had already made great progress in removing error, when “Greece was already full of poets and musicians, and little faith was placed in legends unless they concerned remote antiquity.” Yet a few chapters later Cicero notes that Numa could not have been a pupil of Pythagoras, since the latter did not come to Italy until 140 years after his death;[1277] and in a third chapter[1278] when Laelius remarks, “That king is indeed praised but Roman History is obscure, for although we know the mother of this king, we are ignorant of his father,” Scipio replies, “That is so; but in those times it was almost enough if only the names of the kings were recorded.” We can only add, “Consistency, thou art a jewel!” [Sidenote: Favorinus against astrologers.]