Cippus

In Riley's 1889 English rendering of Ovid's Metamorphoses, Cippus returns from victory and sees horns reflected in a stream. Touch confirms what the water shows. He asks the gods to let a favourable sign benefit Rome, or to turn an ill one against him. At turf altars, he burns fragrant offerings, pours wine, and sacrifices sheep. An Etruscan augur studies the entrails, then reads Cippus's horns as a sign of future rule: if he enters the open city, he will become king.

Cippus refuses the predicted rule. He turns away from the walls and says he would rather live outside Rome than rule there. He summons the people and Senate, hides his horns beneath laurel, and warns them that a horned man will enslave the city if allowed in. When the crowd asks who he means, he removes the wreath and displays the horns. The people groan and place the laurel back on his head, but the nobles still forbid his entry. They grant him a plot of land as wide as a pair of oxen can encircle between sunrise and sunset. The horns are carved on the city's bronze-edged doorposts.