AUGURIES and AUSPICES. These terms are familiar to every reader of Roman history, and are, besides, so frequently employed in English in a secondary and meta phorical sense. that a vague notion of their original meaning is caught up even by those who know nothing of classical antiquities. As. however. the entire religious and political life of the early Romans was deeply penetrated by the influence of their sacred super stitions, and as amongst these auguries and auspices held a prominent place, a clear conception of what they were is a matter of considerable moment. The following statements exhibit, in a condensed form, the substance of what is known on the subject.
Like almost all primitive nations, the Romans believed that every unusual occurrence had a supernatural significance, and contained, hidden in it, the will of heaven regard ing men. To reveal or interpret this hidden will, vas the exclusive privilege of the augur, who apparently derived his official designation, in part at least, from ads, a bird; while Roman history- abundantly proves that the observation of the flight of birds was a principal means adopted for discovering the purpose of the moods. It was not, how ever, any one who could be appointed an augur. The gods selected their own inter preters—that is to say, they conferred the divine gift upon them from their very birth; but an educational discipline was also considered necessary, and hence a "college of augurs" figures in the very dawn of Roman history. Romulus, it is almost certain, was au augur himself. lie is said to have been skilled in the art of divination from his youth; and by "divination" we must specially understand augury; for the "Romans, with patriotic piety, held all the forms of divination practiced in other countries to ho useless and profane. Previous to the OgnHan law, passed in the year ;307 n.c., there Were only four augurs, who were selected front the patricians. By this law, however, the plebeians became eligible for the pontifical or augural offices, and live were immedi ately created. For more than 200 years, the number continued the same, till Saila, in 81 n.c., increased it to fifteen. Finally, in the first days of the empire, when all parties, sick of the long civil wars, hurried to throw their privileges at the feet of time monarch ti ho had brought peace into their homes, the right of electing augurs at his pleasure was conferred on Augustus, after which the number became indefinite.
At first the augurs were elected by the militia curiata; but as the sanction of the former was necessary to give validity to the acts of the latter, they could always " veto" any elections which were obnoxious to them; so that the power of electing members to fill up vacancies naturally fell into the hands of the college itself, and so continued till 103 n.c., when a tribune of the people named Ahenobarbus carried a law by which it was enacted that for the future, vacancies in the augural and pontifical oftices should not be filled up by those religious corporations themselves, but by a majority of certain picked tribes. This new law was occasionally repealed and re-enacted during the civil wars which lasted till the time of Augustus. The scramble for power, however, during these political vicissitudes, as well as the general advance of knowledge, bad rendered its prophetic pretensions ridiculous in time eyes of educated people. By Cicero's time, it had lost its religious character altogether, but was s;i11 regarded as one of the highest political dignities, and coveted for the power it conferred.
The modes of divination employed by the augurs were five in number—augurium ex ctelo, ex (trams, ex hipudit:4. ex quadrupedibus, ex diris. The first, related to the interpre tation of the celestial phenomena, such as thunder and lightning, was apparently of !Etruscan origin, and held to be of supreme significance. Time record related to the interpretation of the noise and flight of birds. It was not every bird, however, that could be a sure messenger of the gods. Generally speaking, those " consulted," as it was called, were the eagle, vulture, crow, raven, owl, and hen. The first two belonged to the class of utiles, or birds whose flight revealed the will of the gods; the last four to the class of oscines, whose voice divulged the same. These two modes of augury were the oldest and most important. Of the other three, the auguries ex tripudie:v were taken from the feeding of chickens; the auguries ex from four-footed animals —as, for iiistance, if a dog, or wolf, or hare ran across the path of is Roman, and startled him by any unusual motion, he mentioned it to an augur, who was expected to be able to advise bini what to do; the auguries ex diri4 (a vague kind of augury), from any trifling accidents or occurrences not included in the previous four—such as sneezing, stumbling, spilling salt on the table, etc.