Note 75 — SECTION III.
Thomas Taylor translation
The auspices were said to be pestiferous when there was no heart in the entrails, or when the head was wanting in the liver. This was the case with the animals that were sacrificed by Cæsar on the day in which he was slain. The same thing also happened to Caius Marius, when he was sacrificing at Utica. But when Pertinax was sacrificing, both the heart and the liver of the victim were wanting, whence his death was predicted, which happened shortly after. In the sacrifices, likewise, which Marcellus performed prior to the unfortunate battle with the Carthaginians, the liver was found to be without a head, as Plutarch and Livy, Pliny and Valerius Maximus relate.