7-6-9
his itaque auditis et creditis (talis quippe narraverat) omnis illa reluctatio mea resoluta concidit,
Upon hearing and believing these things related by so reliable a person all my resistance melted away.
et primo Firminum ipsum conatus sum ab illa curiositate revocare, cum dicerem,
First, I endeavored to reclaim Firminus himself from his superstition by telling him
constellationibus eius inspectis ut vera pronuntiarem, debuisse me utique videre ibi parentes inter suos esse primarios, nobilem familiam propriae civitatis, natales ingenuos, honestam educationem liberalesque doctrinas;
that after inspecting his horoscope, I ought, if I could foretell truly, to have seen in it parents eminent among their neighbors, a noble family in its own city, a good birth, a proper education, and liberal learning.
at si me ille servus ex eisdem constellationibus (quia et illius ipsae essent) consuluisset, ut eidem quoque vera proferrem, debuisse me rursus ibi videre abiectissimam familiam, conditionem servilem et cetera longe a prioribus aliena longeque distantia.
But if that servant had consulted me with the same horoscope, since he had the same one, I ought again to tell him likewise truly that I saw in it the lowliness of his origin, the abjectness of his condition, and everything else different and contrary to the former prediction.
unde autem fieret ut eadem inspiciens diversa dicerem, si vera dicerem, si autem eadem dicerem, falsa dicerem, inde certissime conlegi ea quae vera consideratis constellationibus dicerentur non arte dici sed sorte,
If, then, by casting up the same horoscopes I should, in order to speak the truth, make contrary analyses, or else speak falsely if I made identical readings, then surely it followed that whatever was truly foretold by the analysis of the horoscopes was not by art, but by chance.
quae autem falsa, non artis imperitia sed sortis mendacio.
And whatever was said falsely was not from incompetence in the art, but from the error of chance.