Our gracious Augusta, Poppaea, understands this to perfection." "Alas! such are the times," answered Aulus.

"I lack two front teeth, knocked out by a stone from the hand of a Briton, I speak with a hiss; still my happiest days were passed in Britain." "Because they were days of victory," added Vinicius.
But Petronius, alarmed lest the old general might begin a narrative of his former wars, changed the conversation.
"See," said he, "in the neighborhood of Praeneste country people found a dead wolf whelp with two heads; and during a storm about that time lightning struck off an angle of the temple of Luna,--a thing unparalleled, because of the late autumn.

A certain Cotta, too, who had told this, added, while telling it, that the priests of that temple prophesied the fall of the city or, at least, the ruin of a great house,--ruin to be averted only by uncommon sacrifices." Aulus, when he had heard the narrative, expressed the opinion that such signs should not be neglected; that the gods might be angered by an over-measure of wickedness.

In this there was nothing wonderful; and in such an event expiatory sacrifices were perfectly in order.
"Thy house, Plautius, is not too large," answered Petronius, "though a great man lives in it.

Mine is indeed too large for such a wretched owner, though equally small.