XXXVII.  The Roman people, when the war was at an end, showed even more plainly than before what terror and despair they had been in.  As soon as they saw the Volscians retreating from their walls, all the temples were opened, and filled with worshippers crowned with garlands and sacrificing as if for a victory.  The joy of the senate and people was most conspicuously shown in their gratitude to the women, whom they spoke of as having beyond all doubt saved Rome.  The senate decreed that the magistrates should grant to the women any mark of respect and esteem which they themselves might choose.  The women decided on the building of the temple of Female Fortune, the expenses of which they themselves offered to subscribe, only asking the state to undertake the maintenance of the services in it.  The senate praised their public spirit, but ordered the temple and shrine to be built at the public expense.  Nevertheless, the women with their own money provided a second image of the goddess, which the Romans say, when it was placed in the temple was heard to say,

     “A pleasing gift have women placed me here.”

XXXVIII.  The legend says that this voice was twice heard, which seems impossible and hard for us to believe.  It is not impossible for statues to sweat, to shed tears, or to be covered with spots of blood, because wood and stone often when mouldering or decaying, collect moisture within them, and not only send it forth with many colours derived from their own substance, but also receive other colours from the air; and there is nothing that forbids us to believe that by such appearances as these heaven may foreshadow the future.  It is also possible that statues should make sounds like moaning or sighing, by the tearing asunder of the particles of which they are composed; but that articulate human speech should come from inanimate things is altogether impossible, for neither the human soul, nor even a god can utter words without a body fitted with the organs of speech.  Whenever therefore we find many credible witnesses who force us to believe something of this kind, we must suppose that the imagination was influenced by some sensation which appeared to resemble a real one, just as in dreams we seem to hear when we hear not, and to see when we see not.  Those persons, however, who are full of religious fervour and love of the gods, and who refuse to disbelieve or reject anything of this kind, find in its miraculous character, and in the fact that the ways of God are not as our ways, a great support to their faith.  For He resembles mankind in nothing, neither in nature, nor movement, nor learning, nor power, and so it is not to be wondered at if He does what seems to us impossible.  Nay, though He differs from us in every respect, it is in his works that He is most unlike us.  But, as Herakleitus says, our knowledge of things divine mostly fails for want of faith.