The general rule that the auspices should be taken for an act on the very spot on which the magistrate intended to perform the act applied to the comitial auspices. For meetings on the Capitoline Hill they probably used the temple of Jupiter, dedicated for all time;[643] for assemblies in the comitium the rostra, also a templum;[644] and for the comitia centuriata the president’s platform in the Campus Martius.[645] Not only patrician magistrates but also tribunes of the plebs occupied templa in transacting business with the people.[646]
Between midnight and morning[647] on the day of assembly the magistrate repaired to the templum.[648] There, placing himself on a solid[649] seat at the door, usually facing eastward, he watched the heavens (spectio). Meanwhile he first asked the attendant, who always sat near,[650] whether there was silence.[651] If the answer was affirmative, he prayed Jupiter for a sign, which he described in a formula termed legum dictio,[652] whereupon the attendant declared he saw it.[653] In case of non-appearance of the sign or of a disturbance of the observation, the auspication was deferred to another morning.[654] Before the time of Cicero, however, the ceremony had been so reduced to a pretence as practically to eliminate the possibility of failure.[655]
Both curiate[656] and centuriate[657] assemblies were auspicated. Although for the tribal assemblies the question is more difficult, it seems reasonably certain that whereas a patrician magistrate took the auspices for the comitia tributa,[658] plebeian magistrates (tribunes and aediles of the plebs) did not.[659]
As to whether contiones were auspicated we are not clearly informed. The question concerns those only which were held by patrician magistrates. The auspication of comitia necessarily extended to the contio immediately preceding.[660] It is known, too, that the censors auspicated the lustral gathering of the centuries,[661] hence we may infer that magistrates and sacerdotes were accustomed to take auspices for formal religious assemblies.[662] With these exceptions contiones were doubtless held without auspices by patrician as well as by plebeian magistrates.
III. Auspicia Publica Oblativa
If Jupiter had approved the holding of an assembly, the magistrate was not for that reason necessarily done with auspices. Though the impetrativa may have favored, prohibitive oblativa were still possible, for circumstances might cause the god to change his mind so as to forbid what he had previously sanctioned; and the warning omen might come at any time before the act was completed. Sometimes the magistrate himself discovered, or for the accomplishment of his purpose pretended to discover, the evil omen. When for instance Pompey was holding an assembly for the election of praetors, and Cato, a political opponent, offered himself as a candidate, Pompey, seeing the assembly unanimous for this man, declared that he heard a clap of thunder, and thus by an adjournment succeeded in preventing the election.[663] Sometimes the magistrate was informed of the omen by (1) a private person, (2) an augur, or (3) another magistrate. In the first two cases the report was termed nuntiatio, in the third obnuntiatio.[664] Information received from a private citizen the president could credit or not as he saw fit, or he could declare it irrelevant;[665] but the law compelled him to accept the nuntiatio of an augur or the obnuntiatio of another magistrate.
Prohibitive auspicia oblativa included evil omens of all kinds. When in 310 the dictator called the curiae for passing the lex de imperio, it chanced that the Curia Faucia was the first to vote (principium). Now this curia was ill omened because on two earlier occasions it had happened to be principium at a time of great national disaster. The dictator accordingly adjourned the meeting till the following day, when he again summoned it after renewing the auspicia impetrativa.[666] A case of epilepsy, by vitiating the business of the assembly, required an adjournment; and for that reason the malady was called the comitial sickness.[667] In the later republic the chief oblativa had come to be caelestia; and it could happen that the auspicia impetrativa of any magistrate might as oblativa vitiate the comitia of another. For this reason when a higher magistrate was about to hold an assembly, he forbade the taking of auspices by all inferior to him, for fear they might annul his proceedings.[668]
Although the augurs had neither the auspicia impetrativa nor the right to watch the sky for unfavorable omens,[669] they were competent to report (nuntiatio) unexpected oblativa to the magistrates.[670] Their object in attending the comitia accordingly was not only to assist the president with their special knowledge,[671] but also to witness the religious legality of the proceeding. In the latter function the augur derived great influence[672] from the possibility of an investigation into such legality by the augural college and the senate, which might result in the annulment of the act.[673] For this reason witnessing augurs were granted the privilege of adjourning the assembly in case they perceived unfavorable omens.[674] Cicero[675] describes in detail such an adjournment of an electoral assembly of centuries: “Behold the day for the election of Dolabella! The prerogative century is drawn by lot, he (the augur) remains quiet. The vote is announced, he is silent. The first class is called and the announcement made. Then as usual the suffragia (of the equites?) were summoned; then the second class is called. All this happened more quickly than I have told it.
“When the business is over, that excellent augur says, ‘We adjourn to another day.’ O remarkable impudence! What (omen) had you seen? What had you felt? What had you heard?” Antony, who was both consul and augur, presiding over the electoral assembly, allowed the voting to continue till a majority was nearly reached in favor of Dolabella, when, making use of the augural formula, he adjourned the meeting. This procedure was in itself legal; but Antony had from the beginning of the year boasted of his intention to prevent through augury this man’s election. As only magistrates, through their right to the spectio, to be explained hereafter, could with certainty predict an evil omen,[676] it was evident that Antony, acting merely as augur, made a fictitious report.