Some signs and omens he regarded as infallible. If in the morning his shoe was put on wrong, the left instead of the right, that boded some disaster. If when he commenced a long journey, by sea or land, there happened to fall a mizzling rain, he held it to be a good sign of a speedy and happy return. He was much affected likewise with any thing out of the common course of nature. A palm-tree
1
which chanced to grow up between some stones in the court of his house, he transplanted into a court where the images of the Household Gods were placed, and took all possible care to make it thrive. In the island of
Capri
, some decayed branches of an old ilex, which hung drooping to the ground, recovered themselves upon his arrival; at which he was so delighted, that he made an exchange with the Republic
2
of
Naples
, of the island of OEnaria [
Ischia
], for that of
Capri
. He likewise observed certain days; as never to go from home the day after the Nundinae,
3
nor to begin any serious business upon the nones;
4
avoiding nothing else in it, as he writes to Tiberius, than its unlucky name.
Divus Augustus. Suetonius. ed. J. Eugene Reed, Alexander Thomson (Translator). Philadelphia. 1883.
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