A GOOD OMEN. 
27 
“ And often, to our comfort, shall we find 
The sharded beetle in a safer hold 
Than is the full-wing’d eagle.” 
Cymbeline , Act iii. Sc. 3. 
With the Romans, the eagle was a bird of good omen. 
Josephus, the Jewish historian, says the eagle was selected 
for the Roman legionary standard, because he is the king 
of all birds, and the most powerful of them all, whence he 
has become the emblem of empire, and the omen of 
victory.* 
Accordingly, we read in Julius Ccesar, Act v. Sc. 1 :— 
“ Coming from Sardis, on our former ensign 
Two mighty eagles fell ; and there they perch’d, 
Gorging and feeding from our soldiers’ hands.” 
This incident is more fully detailed in North’s “ Plu¬ 
tarch,” as follows:—“When they raised their campe, 
there came two eagles, that flying with a marvellous force, 
lighted upon two of the foremost ensigns, and alwaies fol¬ 
lowed the souldiers, which gave them rneate and fed them, 
untill they came neare to the citie of Phillipes ; and there 
one day onely before the battell, they both flew away.” 
The ensign of the eagle' was not peculiar, however, to 
the Romans. The golden eagle, with extended wings, 
was borne by the Persian monarchs,-)* and it is not impro- 
* “ De Bello Judico,” iii. 5. t Xenophon, “ Cyropaedia, ” vii. 
