XLIX CAECINAS AND ATTALUS DIVISIONS 95 



Jupiter to share a sacrificial feast with us. If he 

 happen to be angry with his host when he is 

 invited, then his coming, Caecina says, is fraught 

 with danger to his entertainers. Auxiliary come by 

 summons too, but bring good to the summoner. 



BUT how much simpler is the division employed i 

 by our distinguished Stoic, Attalus, who combined 

 skill in the Etruscan lore with all the subtlety of 

 Greek thought ! Of the different kinds of lightning, 

 he says, one gives intimation of something that 

 concerns us, another kind intimates either a thing 

 of no importance or something whose meaning 

 does not reach us. Of the significant lightning 

 there are several varieties one is favourable, one 

 unfavourable, a third neither one nor other. Of 2 

 the unfavourable there are all these forms the evils 

 portended may be either unavoidable or avoidable, 

 or such as may be mitigated, or such as may 

 be delayed. Again, the benefits foretold by the 

 favourable may be either abiding or transient. 

 The mixture of favourable and unfavourable 

 may either consist of half and half, good and 

 ill ; or ill may be turned by them into good, or 

 good into ill. The lightning that is neither un 

 favourable nor favourable gives us intimation of 

 some action by which we need neither be terrified 

 nor elated, for example, a journey abroad from 

 which there is nothing either to fear or hope. 



LI 



LET me revert for a moment to the lightning that 

 portends something, but a something that does not 



