Seeing Lentulus, his son-in-law, a man of very small stature, walking up, with a long sword at his side, he called out, Who has tied my son-in-law to that sword?
One finding his shoes eaten with mice, in the morning when he rose, asked Cato, in great agitation, the meaning of the portent; who answered, It is no prodigy that mice should eat shoes! had the shoes eaten the mice, it would have been indeed a prodigy.
When Brutus was dissuaded from his last battle, as the jeopardy was great, he only said, To-day all will be well, or I shall not care.
A large bull being produced in the amphitheatre, the hunter struck ten times, and missed. Gallienus, the emperor, who was present, sent the hunter a wreath: and all wondering, he said, It is extremely difficult to miss such a mark so often.
One saying, that in Sicily he had bought a lamprey five feet long, for a trifle; Galba, the orator, to reprove the lye, said, No wonder. They are found there so long, that the fishers constantly use them for cables.
Scipio Nasica going to visit Ennius the poet, was told by his maid-servant, that he was not at home, though he knew he was. A few days after Ennius came to see Nasica, who hearing his voice, called out, that he was not within. Then said Ennius, “What! Do not I hear your voice?” To which Nasica replied, You are an impudent fellow. I believed your maid! and you will not believe myself.