| Keywords |
|
| ID |
2625 |
| Text |
De civitate Dei (413 - 427) Augustine of Hippo |
| Quotation |
miror sane, si ipsa peperit cynocephalum, qui longe postea uenit ex aegypto.
utrum etiam dea febris ex illa nata sit, uiderit aesculapius pronepos eius; sed undecumque nata sit,
non, opinor, audebunt eam dicere ignobilem dii peregrini deam ciuem romanam.
sub hoc tot deorum praesidio (quos numerare quis potest, indigenas et alienigenas, caelites terrestres,
infernos marinos, fontanos fluuiales, et, ut uarro dicit, certos atque incertos, in omnibusque generibus deorum, sicut in animalibus, mares et feminas?) - sub hoc ergo tot deorum praesidio constituta roma
non tam magnis et horrendis cladibus, quales ex multis paucas commemorabo, agitari adfligique
debuit. |
| Translation |
But I wonder if she herself gave birth to Cynocephalus, who long afterwards came from Egypt; and whether the goddess Fever was also born of her is a matter for her grandson Aesculapius to decide. Whatever the circumstances of her own birth may have been, however, no foreign gods will, I suppose, presume to call ignoble a goddess who is a Roman citizen.
Who, then, can count the many gods who thus protected Rome? Native gods and alien, celestial, terrestrial, gods of the infernal regions, of the seas, of fountains, of rivers, and, as Varro says, gods ‘certain and uncertain’; and, in every class, just as among the animals, male and female gods. Founded as she was under the tutelage of so many gods, Rome surely should not have been assailed and afflicted by such great and horrible calamities, of which I shall mention only a few out of the many. (Trans. Dyson) |
| Quotation source |
Lib. 3, Cap. 12 (lin. 12) |
| Associated use case(s) |
|
| Comment |
|
