Chapter LVII, Section 1b

So the wife of Cicero foretold that he would be consul the next year because, when a certain man, after the sacrifice was ended, would look in the ashes, there suddenly broke forth a flame. Of this kind are those that Pliny speaks of—that terrene, pale and buzzing fires presage tempests, circles about the snuffs of candles betoken rain, and if the flame fly, turning and winding, it portends wind. Also torches, when they strike the fire before them and are not kindled. Also when a coal sticks to a pot taken off from the fire, and when the fire casts off the ashes and sparkles; or when ashes are hard grown together on the hearth, and when a coal is very bright. To these is also added Capnomancy, so called from smoke, because it searcheth into the flame and smoke; and thin colors, sounds and motions when they are carried upright, or on one side, or round, which we read of in these verses in Statius. Let Piety be bound, and on the Altar laid, Let us implore the Gods for divine aid. She makes acute, red, towering flames, and bright, Increas’d by th’ aire, the middle being white; And then she makes the flames without all bound For to wind in and out, and to run round Like a Serpent—— Also in the Æthnean Caves and Fields of the Nymphs in Apollonia, auguries were taken from fires and flames—joyful, if they did receive what was cast into them, and sad, if they did reject them. But of these things we shall speak of in the following chapters, amongst the answers of the Oracles.