June 22 | Fastorum Liber Sextus: Iunius
E C | X Kal. | VI.763-768, the anniversary of Gaius Flaminius' death at the Battle of Trasimene during the Second Punic War.
Non ego te, quamvis properabis vincere, Caesar,
si vetet auspicium, signa movere velim.
sint tibi Flaminius Trasimenaque litora testes 765
per volucres aequos multa monere deos.
tempora si veteris quaeris temeraria damni,
quintus ab extremo mense bis ille dies.
763 However great thy haste to conquer, O Caesar, I would not have thee march, if the auspices forbade. Be Flaminius and the Trasimenian shores thy witnesses that the kind gods give many warnings by means of birds. If you ask the date of that ancient disaster, incurred through recklessness, it was the tenth day from the end of the month.1
1
217 B.C. Flaminius set the omens at defiance.