Thus, in a fragment of Book xi. of the Annals, the fears excited by the prophets and diviners at the commencement of the war with Antiochus are encountered with the pertinent question—
Satin' vates verant aetate in agenda?
Thus too the pretensions and the ignorance of astrologers are exposed in a line of one of the dramas—
Quod est ante pedes nemo spectat: caeli scrutantur plagas.
And the following passage may be quoted as applicable to charlatans of every kind, in every age and country—
Sed superstitiosi vates, impudentesque arioli,
Aut inertes aut insani, aut quibus egestas imperat,
Qui sibi semitam non sapiunt, alteri monstrant viam,
Quibus divitias pollicentur, ab eis drachmam ipsi petunt.[117]
There are passages of the same spirit to be found among the fragments of Pacuvius and Accius.