Roman Religion and Roman Augury

1.The Nature of Roman Religion

Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods 3.5

‘The religion of the Roman people comprises ritual (sacra), auspices and the third additional division consisting of all such prophetic warning as the interpreters of the Sibyl or the haruspices have derived from portents and prodigies. I have always thought that none of these departments of religion ought to be despised, and I have held the conviction that Romulus by his auspices and Numa by his establishment of our ritual laid the foundations of our state, which could never have been as great as it is had not the fullest support been received from the gods.’

2.Roman Priests

•Pontifices (pontiffs)

In charge of the sacra

Pontifex Maximus (from 12 BC = the Emperor)

•Augures (augurs)

Bird signs

•Quindecimviri Sacris Faciundis (Fifteen in Charge of the Sibylline Books)

Prodigies

•Haruspices (Etruscan Soothsayers)

Prodigies

Extispicy (entrail inspection)

3.Sacrifice and Divination

•Principle of do ut des– ‘I give so that you may give’

•Divination – a way to find out the will or meaning of the gods

4.The Importance of augury and the taking of the auspices

Livy, 6.14

‘Who is there who does not know that this city was founded on auspices and that everything that is done in war and peace, at home and abroad is done under the auspices?’

Romulus and Remus

Livy, 1.6-7

‘Because they were twins no distinction could be made between them on the basis of age. In order that the gods who presided over the area might choose by augury who should give his name to the new city and rule it once it was founded, Romulus occupied the Palatine and Remus the Aventine to mark out the sacred areas where they would first look for heaven’s will. To Remus augury came first, legend says: six vultures. After this had been reported to the people, double the number appeared for Romulus. Accordingly, the supporters of each man hailed their candidate as king, the one side claiming Remus as King because he had seen the birds first, the other side claiming Romulus as King because of the number of birds. From a war of words anger turned them to bloodshed. In the heat of the ensuing fight Remus met his death. The more common story is that in mockery of his borther’s claim Remus jumped over the half-built walls, whereupon the enraged Romulus struck him down, crying ‘So be it for anyone who leaps over my walls!’ Romulus therefore became sole ruler and gave his name to the city so founded.’

Attus Navius, a legendary augur

Livy 1.36

King Tarquin decided to add new centuries to the existing tribes at Rome which had been founded by Romulus. But because Romulus’ action had come only after taking the auspices, Attus Navius, a famous augur of that time, said that a change should not be made nor a new action taken unless the birds gave their consent. This made Tarquin mad. The story goes that he mocked his skill by saying, ‘Well now, gifted diviner, determine by augury whether what I am now thinking of is capable of accomplishment.’ Attus then took the auspices and said that what the king contemplated could certainly be done. Tarquin responded, ‘Ah but what I have in mind is for you to slice this sharpening stone in two with a razor. Here take them, and do what your birds say can be done.’ According to the legend Attus sliced the sharpening stone in two without hesitation. His statue, with head covered, stood on the spot where this took place, on the steps of the Comitium, or place of assembly, to the left of the Senate House. Tradition says that the sharpening stone too was deposited in this location as a memorial of the miracle for later generations.

5.What did Republican augurs do?

a) The Importance of Inauguratio

Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus (Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods 2.10-12)

‘The disciplines of both of our own augures and of the Etruscan haruspices were historically confirmed in 160s BC. Tiberius Gracchus was creating these two new consuls when the first returning officer on the very point of announcing the names, suddenly died on the spot. Gracchus completed the elections all the same; but since he realized that the incident raised religious issues for the people, referred it to the senate. The senate referred it to the priests as was their usual practice; so the haruspices were brought into the senate and responded that it had been the officer of the assembly who had acted improperly. At this point, Gracchus completely lost his temper: ‘What do you say? That I was the one who acted improperly, while holding the assembly as consul? I, an augur, having taken the auspices myself? Do you barbarian Etruscans claim the right to judge the right to judge the auspices of the Roman people? Are you able to interpret the conduct of our assembly?’ So he had them thrown out. Later on, however, he wrote a letter to the college of augures from his province, to say that while reading some books, he had realized that his observation-post (tabernaculum) had been compromised, because after setting it up he had gone back across the city boundary to hold the senate, but forgot to take the auspices again when recrossing the same boundary on his way out. So the consuls had been created improperly. The augures referred the matter to the senate; the senate asked the consuls to resign; they did so. What better example could we seek? A most wise Roman, perhaps the greatest of all, preferred to reveal a mistake he could have concealed, rather than let a religious error stand in public life; the consuls laid down supreme power rather than hold on to it for a moment against religious rule. Great is the authority of the augures.’

b) Five Types of Sign

  1. Ex caelo (thunder and lightning);
  2. Ex avibus (alites) (birds);
  3. Ex tripudiis (the sacred chickens);
  4. Ex quadrupedibus (four-footed creatures);
  5. Ex diris signis (prodigies and portents)

Obnuntiatio

‘It was sufficient, according to the Roman system, for a consul or a tribune to announce that he was watching the heavens; anyone watching usually saw bad signs, and that announcement regularly called off the assembly. Bibulus, Caesar’s colleague in the consulship, shut himself up in his house and declared that he was watching. But Caesar and the tribunes went ahead with the assemblies and passed the laws anyway’ (Lily Ross Taylor).

The tripudium solistimum (Cicero, On Divination 2.71-2)

  • Feeding the sacred chickens
  • Looked after by the pullarius (chicken keeper)
  • Need to eat in order for a good omen to be achieved – a trpudium solistimum
  • If they don’t eat it was bad

P. Claudius Pulcher (consul 249 BC) (Valerius Maximus 1.4.3)

P. Claudius, during the First Punic War, when he wanted to join battle at sea and had taken the auspices after ancestral custom, and the keeper of the chickens had announced that the chickens would not leave the cage, ordered them to be thrown into the sea, saying ‘if they do not want to eat, let them drink instead.’

Claudius lost the battle that followed.

Assignment

How to perform an Inauguratio

Below there is a passage from the Roman historian Livy, who wrote at the end of the first century BC. His work is an important source for information about Roman religion in the Republic. In the following passage Livy tells you how to perform the ceremony of inauguratio. Here he describes it in relation to one of the legendary Kings of Rome, King Numa, but the ceremony itself is the same as that used to inaugurate Republican magistrates and priests.

Here are your instructions:

1.Read the passage very carefully.

2.Appoint one person as augur; one as magistrate; and one as helper.

3.Construct a lituus from the materials provided.

4.Practice the ceremony that Livy describes. REMEMBER if you get any of the words or actions wrong then the ceremony will be regarded as null and void and you will have to repeat it again, and again until you get it right. OR if you decide that you have performed it correctly but got some of it wrong the gods maybe angered and the consequences for your group maybe dreadful!

5.Be prepared to perform the ceremony in front of everyone else when you are ready.

‘After Numa was summoned he ordered that, as Romulus had received the kingship by augury when founding the city, so the gods should be consulted about himself as well. He was then escorted to the citadel by an augur, who held a sacred office that, as a mark of honour, afterwards became public and permanent. Numa was seated on a stone, facing the south, while the augur sat to his left, his head covered and holding in his right hand a curved staff with knots which they called a lituus. Then, looking out over the city and the countryside, he prayed to the gods and marked out an area in the sky from east to west, designating the areas to the south ‘the right’, those to the north ‘the left’. He fixed in his mind a landmark opposite him far off on the horizon; then, shifting the staff to his left hand and placing his right hand on Numa’s head, he prayed as follows: ‘Father Jupiter, if it is heaven’s will that Numa Pompilius whose head I am now touching be king at Rome, I ask you to grant it by sending us favourable and clear signs within those boundaries that I have fixed.’ He then enumerated the auspices that he wished to be sent. And sent they were: Numa was declared King and descended from the sacred area of augury.’ (Livy, 1.36)

Test Your Augural Knowledge

Use the words and phrases on your handouts to fill in the missing blanks.

The Roman priests who observed bird signs were known as ______. They were one of four main groups of priests (sacerdotes). The others included experts from Etruria known as ______, and the most important priests at Rome who were in charge of sacred ritual the ______.

Roman authors such as Livy and Cicero claimed that nothing was done either at home or abroad without the taking of the ______. All magistrates at Rome had to be inaugurated by the augurs and prior to military campaigns they would call on the ______to see whether the sacred chickens allowed the campaign to proceed. This was known as the ______. The augurs would look up into the sky for bird or celestial signs. There were two main types of these signs those that either happened when someone looked for them, the so-called ______and those that occurred spontaneously, the ______. If the latter sign occurred during the course of an Assembly no more business would take place for an entire day. Sometimes a magistrate could claim to be searching the sky for signs, a process known as ______, in order to prevent any business happening. Interestingly, however, the augurs also had responsibility for signs involving thunder and lightning (______), four-footed creatures (______), and also certain prodigies (______). Certain birds carried more importance than others such as eagles (the sign of regal power) or ravens (often a bird bringing deadly news). The higher quality birds were known as the ______, the others ______. The penalties for ignoring the signs announced by the augurs could be terrible. The gods might destroy of your army, or even yourself.