Excerpt from Dio's Rome, Vol. 5: An Historical Narrative Originally Composed in Greek During the Reigns of Septimius Severus, Geta and Caracalla, Macrinus, Elagabalus and Alexander Severus; Extant Books 61 76, A. D. 54 211 The following signs of dominion had been observed in his Career. At his birth just before dawn rays not cast by any beam of sunlight yet visible surrounded his form. And a certain astrologer from this and from the motion of the stars at that time and their relation to one another divined two things in regard to him, that he would rule and that he would murder his mother. Agrippina on hearing this became for the moment so beside herself as actually to cry out: Let him kill me, if only he shall rule. Later she was destined to repent bitterly of her prayer. Some people become so steeped in folly that if they expect to obtain' some blessing mingled with evil, they at once through their anxiety for the advantage pay no heed to the detriment. When the time for the latter also comes, they are cast down and would choose not to have se. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.