title of praetor.  At last, therefore, he approached the consul and obtained from him leave of absence, saying that he wished to proceed to Caesar.  The other, though he suspected his intention, still allowed him to do this, particularly because he was very insistent, invoking Caesar’s name and pretending that he was eager to submit his defence.  Servilius sent a tribune with him, so that if he should attempt any rebellious conduct he might be prevented.[25] When they got to Campania, and found that Milo after a defeat near Capua had taken refuge in the Tifatine mountain, and Caelius would go no farther, the tribune was alarmed and wished to bring him back home.  Servilius, learning of this in advance, declared war upon Milo in the senate and gave orders that Caelius (who must be prevented from stirring up any confusion) should remain in the suburbs.  However, he did not keep him under strict surveillance, because the man was a praetor.  Thus Clius made his escape and hastened to Milo:  and he would certainly have aroused some sedition, had he found him alive.  As it proved, Milo had been driven from Campania and had perished in Apulia:  Caelius therefore went to Bruttium, presumably to form some league in that district, and there he perished before doing anything important; for the persons who favored Caesar banded together and killed him.

[26-] So these men died, but that did not bring quiet to Rome.  On the contrary, many dreadful events took place, as, indeed, omens indicated beforehand.  Among other things that happened toward the end of that year bees settled on the Capitol beside the statue of Hercules.  At the time sacrifices to Isis chanced to be going on and the soothsayers gave their opinion to the effect that the precincts of that goddess and of Serapis should be razed to the ground, as of yore.  In the course of demolition a small shrine of Bellona had unwittingly been taken down, and in it were found jars full of human flesh.

[B.C. 47 (a.u. 707)]

The following year a violent earthquake occurred, an owl was seen, thunderbolts descended upon the Capitol and upon the temple of the so-called Public Fortune and into the gardens of Caesar, where a horse of considerable value was destroyed by them, and the temple of Fortune opened of its own accord.  In addition to this, blood issuing from a bake-shop flowed to another temple of Fortune, whose statue on account of the fact that the goddess necessarily oversees and can fathom everything that is before us as well as behind and does not forget from what beginnings any great man came they had set up and named in a way not easy for Greeks to describe.[77] Also some infants were born holding their left hands to their heads, so that whereas no good was looked for from the other signs, from this especially an uprising of inferiors against superiors was both foretold by the soothsayers and accepted by the people as true.