12. But let them900    i.e., the predictions. be true, as you maintain, yet will you have us also believe901    Lit., “will you make the same belief.” that Mellonia, for example, introduces herself into the entrails, or Limentinus, and that they set themselves to make known902    Lit., “adapt themselves to the significations of the things which.” what you seek to learn? Did you ever see their face, their deportment, their countenance? or can even these be seen in lungs or livers? May it not happen, may it not come to pass, although you craftily conceal it, that the one should take the other’s place, deluding, mocking, deceiving, and presenting the appearance of the deity invoked? If the magi, who are so much akin to903    Lit., “brothers of.” soothsayers, relate that, in their incantations, pretended gods904    i.e., demons. steal in frequently instead of those invoked; that some of these, moreover, are spirits of grosser substance,905    Perhaps “abilities”—materiis. who pretend that they are gods, and delude the ignorant by their lies and deceit,—why906    The ms. reads cum—“with similar reason we may believe,” instead of cur, as above. should we not similarly believe that here, too, others substitute themselves for those who are not, that they may both strengthen your superstitious beliefs, and rejoice that victims are slain in sacrifice to them under names not their own?

XII. Sed sint, ut asseritis, vera, eamdem tamen facietis fidem Melloniam, verbi causa, vel Limentinum inserere se fibris, et ad rerum, quas quaeritis, significantias aptare? Numquid illorum aliquando vidistis os, habitum, faciem? aut eadem haec possunt in pulmonibus, aut jecusculis conspici? Nonne accidere, fieri, licet astu dissimiletis, potest, ut alter pro altero subeat, fallens, ludens, decipiens, atque invocati speciem praestans? Si magi haruspicum fratres suis in accitionibus memorant antitheos saepius obrepere pro accitis : esse autem hos quosdam 1025A materiis ex crassioribus spiritus, qui deos se fingant, nesciosque mendaciis et simulationibus ludant: cur ratione non pari credamus hic quoque subjicere se alios pro eis qui non sunt, ut et vestras opinationes firment, et sibi hostias caedi alienis sub nominibus gaudeant?