Gesta Romanorum Vol. II (1871)/Of Death
TALE XVII.
OF DEATH.
We read in the Roman chronicles, that about the twenty-second year from the building of the city, the people erected in the forum a marble column, and on the top of it placed an image of Julius Cæsar. (6) Upon the head they inscribed his name, because it was erected in his honour. The same Julius Cæsar received three signs which were to happen at his death, or just before he was to die. On the hundredth day preceding this event, the effigy in the forum was struck by lightning, and the first letter of his name erased. The very night before his death, the windows of his bed-chamber burst open with such a tremendous noise that he thought the whole building had been overturned. And on the same day that he died, when about to go into the Capitol, letters were given him, declaring the danger in which he stood. If he had read them, he would have been saved.
APPLICATION.
My beloved, God does thus with mankind. We receive many warnings, but not attending to them, are eternally destroyed.
Note 6.Page 55.
A very singular anachronism; but for what reason (save that of ignorance!) chronology has been so much violated, it is not easy to conceive. There does not appear any necessity for fixing the date.