[687] Liv. xxiii. 31 (215 B.C., Marcellus) “cui ineunti consulatum cum tonuisset, vocati augures vitio creatum videri pronunciaverunt.”
[688] Cic. de Div. ii. 35, 74 “Fulmen sinistrum auspicium optimum habemus ad omnes res, praeterquam ad comitia.”
[689] ib. i. 15, 27 “nam nostri quidem magistratus auspiciis utuntur coactis. Necesse est enim, offa objecta, cadere frustum ex pulli ore, cum pascitur. (28) Quod autem scriptum habetis, tripudium fieri, si ex ea quid in solidum ceciderit: hoc quoque, quod dixi, coactum, tripudium solistimum dicitis.” Cf. ii. 34, 72; 35, 73. For their use in camp see Cic. de Div. i. 35, 77; Val. Max. i. 4, 3. In the last passage the incident connected with P. Claudius Pulcher (249 B.C.) is described.
[690] Messala ap. Gell. xiii. 15 “Patriciorum auspicia in duas sunt divisa potestates. Maxima sunt consulum, praetorum censorum.... Reliquorum magistratuum minora sunt auspicia.”
[691] Gell. iii. 2.
[692] “Oriens de nocte silentio” (Liv. viii. 23).
[693] That in the camp, by means of the sacred chickens, had naturally to be exempted from these formalities.
[694] Cic. de Nat. Deor. ii. 4, 11; these tents were called minora templa (Festus p. 157).
[695] The manipulation of auspices at the end of the Republic had caused the skilled assistant to be neglected (Cic. de Div. ii. 34, 71 “apud majores nostros adhibebatur peritus, nunc quilibet”).
[696] Liv. ix. 39, etc.