Roman Public Life

by A. H. J. Greenidge

(1) Dirae.—These were a heterogeneous collection of signs of ill omen. Anything that broke the silence (silentium)[676] when the auspices were being taken was of this character, such as the fall of anything in a temple (caducum auspicium),[677] or a sudden noise, such as the squeak of a mouse.[678] Such too was any sudden event that seemed to warn back from a course once taken—the flight of ravens towards the walker or round his head, and the stumbling of his foot on the threshold;[679] the struggle of birds in the air ending in the defeat of those that had flown from the direction of the general’s camp;[680] the seizing of the boundary stones of a newly laid-out city by wolves,[681] and countless others. A peculiarly dreadful omen was a fit of epilepsy, called, from its power of suspending the assemblies, morbus comitialis. Such signs, to be effective hindrances, must have an obvious connexion in time and place with the act they impede, and must, besides, be noticed by the agent. Hence a flash of lightning was the most effective of auspicia oblativa. Less potent signs could be ignored by veiling the senses. The augur, who is asked by the officiating magistrate if there is silence, does not look round him, but straightway answers “yes”;[682] in sacrifice flutes are blown to drown all other sounds,[683] and the general bent on fighting takes the precaution of travelling in a closed litter.[684] If another person forced the omen on the magistrate’s notice, he was bound to attend to it. This announcement (nuntiatio or obnuntiatio) we shall speak of elsewhere; it belongs to the history of the conflict between the authorities of the different magistrates.

The four other classes of omens belong to the category of auspicia impetrativa. These were—

(2) Signs from the flight of birds (signa ex avibus), the oldest form of augural discipline, as the very words augures and auspicium prove, and one that in the early Republic was used in all solemn acts of state, such as the summons of the comitia or the appointment of a dictator.[685]

(3) Closely akin to this was the augury from the motions and sounds of four-footed beasts (signa ex quadrupedibus); but by the close of the Republic these forms of divination, which required study and research, had given place to the two remaining classes, which were more easily interpreted, or more readily manipulated for political purposes. These were the coelestia auspicia and the auspicia ex tripudiis.[686]

(4) Chief of the heavenly signs (celestia auspicia), and the surest expression of Jupiter’s will, were thunder and lightning. Thunder seems sometimes to have been regarded as a wholly evil omen;[687] but the course taken by the lightning determined its significance—if on the watcher’s left, it was lucky; if on the right, unlucky.[688]

(5) The auspicia ex tripudiis were signs given by the feeding of tame birds (aves internuntii Jovis)—generally domestic fowls. If, while they ate, something fell from their mouths (tripudium solistimum), still more if the falling object made a ringing noise (sonivium), the sign was taken as an assent of the gods to the business in hand. This mode of augury was convenient for two reasons. It was always available; the birds could be taken about in cages under the custody of their keepers and interpreters of their acts, the pullarii. Hence it was the mode of augury specially favoured in the camp, and the sacred chickens were the invariable attendants of a Roman army. Again, the favourable sign might be so easily gained. The irate Roman admiral, who threw his chickens that would not eat into the sea, lacked the patience to wring the wished-for omen from them by protracted hunger, or by feeding them with porridge which they could not swallow with sufficient rapidity.[689]

The auspices were at first an accompaniment of the imperium; later, when they became an attribute of the whole patrician magistracy, their importance varied with the potestas of the magistrate. Officials with imperium were said to possess maxima auspicia, and the pro-magistrates were naturally included in this list, for the auspices were as necessary in war as in peace; those of the censors, on account of the importance of this office, were reckoned maxima, although the occasions on which they were taken were so unique that they were not brought into the same category as those of the consuls and praetors; those of the lower magistrates, aediles and quaestors, were called minora.[690] This was little more than a formal difference, had reference merely to the importance of the respective spheres of operation, for which observations were made, and did not determine the kinds of auspices that might be taken by each magistrate.

The occasions of the magistrate’s auspication embraced every public act of any importance. In three cases above all was it regarded as essential; these were the nomination of a magistrate, the holding of the comitia, and the departure of a general for war. The chief rule of observance was that the auspices must be taken on the same day and in the same place in which the act was to be performed. The fact that the Roman civil day (dies civilis) began at midnight[691] was convenient for procuring the requisite silentium; and sometimes, to prevent any flaw (vitium), the act itself was performed before daybreak. Thus the consul, when he nominates a dictator, “rises in the stillness of the night”[692] to do so. The ceremonial for all public auspication[693] was as follows. A sacred enclosure (templum) was marked out on the required spot—within or without the pomerium, according to the purpose in view—within which the magistrate pitched his tent (tabernaculum capere),[694] which had one side open for observation. After midnight he rose, and, seated on the floor, performed the rite. Its validity depended on his personal observation alone; but he might invite skilled assistants to his aid.[695] The consequence of inability to get a favourable omen was necessarily the non-performance of the contemplated act; the only course open was to wait for another day, and to seek the auspices over again (repetere auspicia).[696] If the act had been performed in spite of ill omens, or if subsequent reflection showed a flaw in the ceremonial, the act was said to be subject to a vitium which rendered it invalid; the law passed did not hold good, and the magistrate thus faultily elected (vitio creatus) had to resign his functions.[697] In the case of the election of the consuls being thus vitiated the consequences might be serious; for if the flaw was discovered after their entrance on office, a renewal of the auspices (renovatio auspiciorum)[698] could only be effected through an interregnum. It was in this connexion that the power of the augurs came into play, for they were the interpreters of the heaven-sent signs. It was no wonder that membership of the augural college was the highest ambition of the Roman statesman, when its decree could upset a law, stave off a capital charge, or force a consul to abdicate. It is true that the augurs could give their advice only on the request of a magistrate or of the Senate; but, as a measure or election not favoured by the government would readily be challenged in this way, the decision as to the future of the state often rested wholly with the college of augurs. Their power of interpretation extended to the far more frequent auspicia oblativa, and in reporting these even the initiative might, as we shall see, be taken by an augur.