12. But let them 4138 be true, as you maintain, yet will you have us also believe 4139 that Mellonia, for example, introduces herself into the entrails, or Limentinus, and that they set themselves to make known 4140 what you seek to learn? Did you ever see their face, their deportment, their countenance? or can even these be seen in lungs or livers? May it not happen, may it not come to pass, although you craftily conceal it, that the one should take the other’s place, deluding, mocking, deceiving, and presenting the appearance of the deity invoked? If the magi, who are so much akin to 4141 soothsayers, relate that, in their incantations, pretended gods 4142 steal in frequently instead of those invoked; that some of these, moreover, are spirits of grosser substance, 4143 who pretend that they are gods, and delude the ignorant by their lies and deceit,—why 4144 should we not similarly believe that here, too, others substitute themselves for those who are not, that they may both strengthen your superstitious beliefs, and rejoice that victims are slain in sacrifice to them under names not their own? 4138     i.e., the predictions. 4139     Lit., “will you make the same belief.” 4140     Lit., “adapt themselves to the significations of the things which.” 4141     Lit., “brothers of.” 4142     i.e., demons. 4143     Perhaps “abilities”— materiis. 4144     The ms. reads cum —“with similar reason we may believe,” instead of cur , as above.