c) And a certain senator, Nigidius Figulus, who was an astrologer, asked Octavius, the father of Augustus, why he was so slow in leaving his house. The latter replied that a son had been born to him. Nigidius thereupon exclaimed: "Ah, what hast thou done? Thou hast begotten a master for us!" The other believing it and being disturbed wished to make away with the child. But Nigidius said to him: "Thou hast not the power. For it hath not been granted thee to do this."] [Footnote 3: Suetonius in relating this anecdote (Life of Augustus, chapter 5) says that the senate-meeting in question was called to consider the conspiracy of Catiline. Since, however, Augustus is on all hands admitted to have been born a. d. IX. Kal. Octobr. and mention of Catiline's conspiracy was first made in the senate a. d. XII. Kal. Nov. (Cicero, Against Catiline, I, 3, 7), the claim of coincidence is evidently based on error.] [Footnote 4: Compare again the same Byzantine writer quoted in footnote to chapter 1,--two excerpts: d) Again, while he was growing up in the country, an eagle swooping down snatched from his hands the loaf of bread and again returning replaced it in his hands. e) Again, during his boyhood, Cicero saw in a dream Octavius himself fastened to a golden chain and wielding a whip being let down from the sky to the summit of the Capitol.] [Footnote 5: Compare Súetonius, Life of Augustus, chapter 94] [Footnote 6: See footnote to Book Forty-three, chapter 42.] [Footnote 7: The senate-house already mentioned in Book Forty, chapter 50.] [Footnote 8: This word is inserted by Boissevain on the authority of a symbol in the manuscript's margin, indicating a gap.] [Footnote 9: Inserting with Reimar [Greek: proihemenos], to complete the sense.] [Footnote 10: See Roscher I, col. 1458, on the Puperci Iulii. And compare Suetonius, Life of Caesar, chapter 76.] [Footnote 11: For further particulars about Sex. Clodius and the _ager Leontinus_ (held to be the best in Sicily, Cicero, Against Verres, III, 46) see Suetonius, On Rhetoric, 5; Arnobuis, V, 18; Cicero, Philippics, II, 4, 8; II, 17; II, 34, 84; II, 39, 101; III, 9, 22.] [Footnote 12: Compare here (and particularly with, reference to the plural _Spurii_) the passage in Cicero, Philippics, III, 44, 114: Quod si se ipsos illi nostri liberatores e conspectu nostro abstulerunt, at exemplum facti reliquerunt: illi, quod nemo fecerat, fecerunt: Tarquinium Brutus bello est persecutus, qui tum rex fuit, cum esse Romae licebat; Sp. Cassius, Sp. Maelius, M. Manlius propter suspitionem regni appetendi sunt necati; hi primum cum gladiis non in regnum appetentem, sed in regnum impetum fecerunt.] [Footnote 13: For the figure, compare Aristophanes, The Acharnians, vv. 380-381 (about Cleon): [Greek: dieballe chai pseudae chateglottise mou chachychloborei chaplunen.]]