Text #828
. Roman History. Vol. 3[DioCass. 40.47. Translated by Earnest Cary. Harvard University Press. 1914. (9 Vols.) p. 477]
HTML URL: http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Rom...
No good came of all this (Post Sulla internal quarrel), and among other things the market that was held every ninth day, came on the first day of January. 2 This seemed to the Romans to be no mere coincidence but rather in the nature of a portent, and it accordingly caused them trepidation. The same feeling was increased when an owl was both seen and caught in the city, A statue exuded perspiration for three days, a meteor darted from the south to the east, and many thunderbolts, many clods, stones, shards and blood went flying through the air. But it seems to me that that decree passed the previous year, near its close, with regard to Serapis and Isis, was a portent equal to any; for the senate had decided to tear down their temples, which some individuals had built on their own account. Indeed, for a long time they did not believe in these gods, and even when the rendering of public worship to them gained the day, they settled them outside the pomerium.