The senate praised their public spirit, but
ordered the temple and shrine to be built at the public expense.
Nevertheless, the women with their own money provided a second image of
the goddess, which the Romans say, when it was placed in the temple was
heard to say,
"A pleasing gift have women placed me here."
XXXVIII. The legend says that this voice was twice heard, which seems
impossible and hard for us to believe. It is not impossible for statues
to sweat, to shed tears, or to be covered with spots of blood, because
wood and stone often when mouldering or decaying, collect moisture
within them, and not only send it forth with many colours derived from
their own substance, but also receive other colours from the air; and
there is nothing that forbids us to believe that by such appearances as
these heaven may foreshadow the future. It is also possible that statues
should make sounds like moaning or sighing, by the tearing asunder of
the particles of which they are composed; but that articulate human
speech should come from inanimate things is altogether impossible, for
neither the human soul, nor even a god can utter words without a body
fitted with the organs of speech. Whenever therefore we find many
credible witnesses who force us to believe something of this kind, we
must suppose that the imagination was influenced by some sensation which
appeared to resemble a real one, just as in dreams we seem to hear when
we hear not, and to see when we see not.
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