“Julius Capitolinus”, Pertinax 14.1-2

Another excerpt from the dubious set of emperors’ biographies know as the Historia Augusta, this time on Pertinax, who ruled for only a few months in 193.

signa interitus haec fuerunt: ipse ante triduum quam occideretur in piscina sibi visus est videre hominem cum gladio infestantem, et ea die qua occisus est negabant in oculis eius pupulas cum imaginibus, quas reddunt, spectantibus visas.

These were the omens of his death: on the third day before he was killed, he looked into a pool of water and thought he saw a man attacking him with a sword. And on that very day when he was killed they said that the pupils of his eyes, and the pictures which they reflect, were invisible to anyone who looked at him.