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Auguries
Power of the Augur
The ceremony and function
of the augur was extremely important to the Romans and the
powerful augurs would be consulted prior to any major
undertaking in Roman society, both public and private,
including matters relating to war, commerce, and religion.
The augurs were to tell whether any action should be
fortunate or prejudicial to any particular persons, or to
the whole commonwealth.
Definition of Augury
The word augury was
directly related to interpreting the behaviour of birds.
Interpretations of divinations achieved by augury was taken
from the the flight of birds which were called the auspices.
Auguries
There were five kinds of auguries
which were used in Ancient Rome:
From the appearances in heaven
such as thunder, lightning, comets and other meteors; as, for
instance, whether the thunder came from the right or left, whether
the number of strokes was even or odd ***
From birds (hence the name of auspices).
Some birds furnished them with observations
from their chattering and singing in birds such as such as crows
and owls. Other birds from their flying such as as eagles and
vultures ***
From chickens kept in a coop for this purpose. The
manner of divining from chickens were that early in
the morning the augur, commanding a general silence,
ordered the coop to be opened, and threw down a handful of
crumbs or corn. If the chickens did not immediately run to
the food, if they scattered it with their wings, if they
went by without taking notice of it, or if they flew away,
the omen was believed to be unfortunate indicating danger or misfortune.
But if the chickens leaped directly from
the pen, and eat voraciously there was great assurance of
happiness and success ***
From animals such as foxes, wolves, goats, heifers
etc. The general observations about the animals were whether they
appeared in a strange place, or crossed the way, or whether they ran
to the right or the left etc. ***
The last kind of divination was from unusual accidents, such
as sneezing, stumbling, seeing apparitions, hearing strange
voices, the falling of salt upon the table etc.
Taking the Auspices
To take the auguries
relating to birds or observing the heavens, the augur stood upon
a tower with his head covered in a gown, peculiar to his
office, and turning his face towards the east, marked out
the heavens into four quarters, with a short, straight rod,
with a little turning at one end. After completing this
ceremony he stood
waiting for the omen, which never signified anything, unless
confirmed by another of the same sort. The right of taking
auspices was long the peculiar privilege of the patricians
and frequently afforded them pretexts for evading the
demands of the plebeians. When a law was to be proposed
which would aid the Plebs it was easy to discover some
unfavourable omen which prohibited discussion. When a
patrician privilege was to be annulled the augurs
readily saw or heard some signal of divine wrath which
prevented the vote from being completed.
Aruspices
The definition of the
Aruspices (aka Aruspex or Haruspex plural Haruspices) was a
man trained to practice a form of divination called
haruspicy, hepatoscopy or hepatomancy. The role of the
Aruspices was to examine the animals offered in sacrifices
on the altars of the gods, and by them to divine the success
of any enterprise. They took their observations from: The animals before they were
cut up *** The entrails of those animals
after they were cut up *** The flame that used to rise
when they were burning *** The flour of bran, from the
frankincense, wine and water, which they used in the sacrifice
Auguries
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