Augurs, auguria and Auspices
In ancient Rome the auguria were considered to be in equilibrium with the sacra ("sacred things" or "rites") and were not the only way by which the gods made their will known. The augures publici (public augurs) concerned themselves only with matters related to the state.
According to Varro they used to distinguish five kinds of territory: ager Romanus, ager Gabinus, ager peregrinus, ager hosticus, ager incertus: these distinctions clearly point to the times of the prehistory of Latium and testify the archaic quality of the art of augury.
The jus augurale (augural law) was rigorously secret, therefore very little about the technical aspects of ceremonies and rituals has been recorded. We have only the names of some auguria (augural rites): e.g. the augurium salutis which took place once a year before the magistrates and the people, in which the gods were asked whether it was auspicious to ask to for the welfare of the Romans, the augurium canarium and the vernisera auguria. The first one required the sacrifice of red dogs and took place before wheat grains were shelled but not before they had formed. Of the second we know only the name that implies a ritual related to the harvest.
Augurium and auspicium are terms used indifferently by the ancient. Modern scholars have debated the issue at length but have failed to find a distinctive definition that may hold for all the known cases. By such considerations Dumezil thinks that the two terms refer in fact to two aspects of the same religious act: auspicium would design the technical process of the operation, i.e. aves spicere, looking at the birds. His result would be the augurium, i.e. the determination, acknowledgement of the presence of the *auges, the favour of the god(s), the intention and the final result of the whole operation. In Varro's words "Agere augurium, aves specit", "to conduct the augurium, he observed the birds". Since auguria publica and inaugurations of magistrates are strictly connected to political life this brought about the deterioration and abuses that condemned augury to progressive and inarrestable debasement, stripping it of all religious value.
The role of the augur was that of consulting and interpreting the will of gods about some course of action such as accession of kings to the throne, of magistrates and major sacerdotes to their functions (inauguration) and all public enterprises.
The prototype of the ritual of inauguration of people is described in Livy's relation of the inauguration of king Numa Pompilius. The augur asks Jupiter (signa belong to Jupiter): "Si fas est (i.e. if it is divine justice to do this)... send me a certain signum (sign)", then the augur listed the auspicia he wanted to see coming. When they appeared Numa was declared king.
Technically the sky was divided into four sections or regions: dextera, sinistra, antica and postica (right, left, anterior and posterior).
Before taking the auspicia impetrativa ("requested" or "sought" auspices; see below) the templum, or sacred space within which the operation would take place had to be established and delimited (it should be square and have only one entrance) and purified (effari, liberare).
The auspicia were divided into two categories: requested by man (impetrativa) and offered spontaneously by the gods (oblativa). During a ceremony the enunciation of the requested auspicia was technically called legum dictio. Magistrates endowed by the law with the right of spectio (observation of auspices) would establish the requested the auspicium. To the augur was reserved the nuntiatio i.e. announcing the appearance of auspicia oblativa that would require the interruption of the operation.
The science of interpretation of signs was vast and complex.
Only some species of birds (aves augurales) could yield valid signs whose meaning would vary according to the species. Among them were ravens, woodpeckers, owls, oxifragae, eagles.
Signs from birds were divided into alites, from the flight, and oscines, from the voice. The alites included region of the sky, height and type of flight, behaviour of the bird and place where it would rest.
The oscines included the pitch and direction of the sound.
Since the observation was complex conflict among signs was not uncommon.
A hierarchy among signs was devised: e.g. a sign from the eagle would prevail on that from the woodpecker and the oxifraga (parra).
Observation conditions were rigorous and required absolute silence for validity of the operation.
Both impetrativa and oblativa auspices could be divided into five classes: ex caelo (thunder,lightning), ex avibus, ex tripudiis (attitude to food and feeding manner of the sacred chickens), ex quadrupedibus (dog, horse, wolf, fox), ex diris (ominous events).
During the last centuries of the republic the auspices ex caelo and ex tripudiis supplanted other types, as they could be easily used in a fraudulent way, i.e. bent to suit the desire of the asking person. It sufficed to say that the augur or magistrate had heard a clap of thunder to suspend the convocation of the comitia.
Cicero condemned the fraudulent use and denounced the decline in the level of knowledge of the doctrine by the augurs of his time.
In fact the abuse developed from the protective tricks devised to avoid being paralysed by negative signs. For an instance see the conversation between king Numa and Jupiter in Ovid, Fasti III, 339-344.
Against the negative auspicia oblativa the admitted procedures included:
1. actively avoiding to see them.
2. repudiare refuse them through an interpretative sleight of hands.
3. non observare by assuming one had not paid attention to them.
4. naming something that in fact had not appeared.
5. choosing the time of the observation (tempestas) at one's will.
6. making a distinction between observation and formulation (renunciatiatio).
7. resorting to acknowledging the presence of mistakes (vitia).
8. repeating the whole procedure.
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