de caelo, i.e. struck by lightning.
legum aera, the brazen tablets on which the laws were engraved.
tactus, etc. In the Capitoline Museum at Rome may be seen a bronze figure of a wolf giving suck to the twins Romulus and Remus. It is just possible that this may be the group alluded to here, as one of the legs shows an injury such as would be caused by lightning; but it is more probably a mediaeval copy of an ancient original.
Etruria, the original home of augury.
adpropinquare dixerunt nisi . . . flexissent. The soothsayers said 'adpropinquant, nisi flexerint,' the fut. perf. becoming plup. subj. in Oratio Obliqua, according to rule. Not adpropinquabunt, because futurity is sufficiently expressed by the word itself, = 'they are drawing near,' 'are upon you.'
suo numine, 'by their influence.' The gods are regarded as subject to Destiny, yet able to mitigate its decrees by their intercession. prope apologizes as it were for the boldness of the expression. Cf. [4. 3] ad fin.
ad orientem, etc. The Forum stretched S.E. from the Capitol, so that a statue on the latter facing E. would overlook it.
collocandum . . . locaverunt, 'gave a contract for its erection'; loco (lit. 'to place out') is used of the person for whom the work is done; conduco of the contractor.
superioribus consulibus, those of 64 b.c., L. Caesar and C. Figulus.