Chap. 24.] THE DUNG-HILL COCK. 497 



kind, and, in every place where they are kept, hold the supreme 

 command. This, however, is only obtained after repeated 

 battles among themselves, as they are well aware that they 

 have weapons on their legs, produced for that very purpose, as 

 it were, and the contest often ends in the death of both the 

 combatants at the same moment. If, on the other hand, one 

 of them obtains the mastery, he instantly by his note proclaims 

 himself the conqueror, and testifies by his crowing that he has 

 been victorious ; while his conquered opponent silently slinks 

 away, and, though with a very bad grace, submits to servitude. 

 And with equal pride does the throng of the poultry yard strut 

 along, with head uplifted and crest erect. These, too, are the 

 only ones among the winged race that repeatedly look up to 

 the heavens, with the tail, which in its drooping shape re- 

 sembles that of a sickle, raised aloft : and so it is that these 

 birds inspire terror even in the lion, 75 the most courageous of 

 all animals. 



Some of these birds, too, are reared for nothing but warfare 

 and perpetual combats, and have even shed a lustre thereby 

 on their native places, Rhodes and Tanagra. The next rank 

 is considered to belong to those of Melos 76 and Chalcis. Hence, 

 it is not without very good reason that the consular purple of 

 Home pays these birds such singular honours. It is from the 

 feeding of these creatures that the omens 77 by fowls are de- 

 rived ; it is these that regulate 78 day by day the movements of 

 our magistrates, and open or shut to them their own houses, 

 as the case may be ; it is these that give an impulse to the 

 fasces of the Roman magistracy, or withhold them ; it is these 

 that command battles or forbid them, and furnish auspices for 

 victories to be gained in every part of the world. It is these 

 that hold supreme rule over those who are themselves the rulers 

 of the earth, and whose entrails and fibres are as pleasing to 

 the gods as the first spoils of victory. Their note, when heard 

 at an unusual hour or in the evening, has also its peculiar pre- 

 sages ; for, on one occasion, by crowing the whole night through 

 for several nights, they presaged to the Boeotians that famous 



75 See B. viii. c. 19. 



? 6 Possibly Media ; Varro says, " Medicos.'* 



77 u Tripudia solistima." An omen derived from the feeding of tbe 

 fowls, when they devoured their food with such avidity, that it fell from 

 their mouths and rebounded from the ground. 



78 By the auspices which they afforded. 



VOL. II. K K 



