If a woman gives birth to a lion (1)

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In the story about the fall of the Lydian capital of Sardis to the Persian King Cyrus, Herodotus (1.84) reports that Meles, a former king, had secured the walls of the city by carrying around a lion that had been born to his concubine. One spot, however, had been left out, where the height on which the acropolis stood seemed to steep to be climbed, and it was through there that the Persians finally managed to enter Sardis. Similarly, there is a dream omen in Cicero’s De Divinatione (1.121), which says that, if someone has dreamed of a woman who gives birth to a lion, the state in which this took place will perish. This finds a parallel in a line from the Babylonian birth-omens collection Šumma izbu: “If a woman has given birth to a lion, that [sc. where it happened] city will be taken, that king will be enchained.”

Sources (list of abbreviations) (source links will open in a new browser window)
Cicero, De Divinatione 1.121
Šumma izbu 1.5
Herodotus 1.84

Bibliography

Erik van Dongen

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