at Atella also that a wall and gate, had been struck by lightning.
The people of Minturnae added what was more alarming, that a stream of
blood had flowed at their gate. At Capua, a wolf, which had entered at
the gate by night, had torn a watchman. These prodigies were expiated
with victims of the larger kind, and a supplication for one day was
made, according to a decree of the pontiffs. The nine days' sacred
rite was then performed again, because a shower of stones had been
seen to fall in the armilustrum. After the people's minds had
been freed from superstitious fears, they were again disturbed by
intelligence that an infant had been born at Frusino as large as a
child of four years old, and not so much an object of wonder from
its size, as that it was born without any certain mark of distinction
whether it was male or female, which was the case two years before
at Sinuessa. Aruspices, called in from Etruria, declared this to be
indeed a foul and ill-omened prodigy, which ought to be removed out of
the Roman territory, and, being kept far from coming in contact with
the earth, to be plunged into the deep. They shut it up alive in a
chest, and carrying it away, threw it into the sea. The pontiffs also
decreed, that thrice nine virgins should go through the city singing
a hymn. While in the temple of Jupiter Stator they were learning
this hymn, which was composed by the poet Livius, the temple of Juno
Regina, on the Aventine, was struck by lightning; and the aruspices,
on being consulted, having replied that that prodigy appertained to
the matrons, and that the goddess must be appeased by a present, such
of the matrons as dwelt within the city and within the tenth milestone
from it, were summoned to the Capitol by an edict of the curule
aediles; when they themselves chose twenty-five out of their own body,
to whom they paid a contribution out of their dowries, from which
a golden basin was made, as a present, and carried to the Aventine,
where a sacrifice was performed by the matrons in a pure and chaste