[594] Stanley's Jewish Church (ed. 1906), vol. i. p.
398 foll.
[595] Hist. de divination dans l'antiquité, vol. i. p.
7 foll.; divination is "contemplative," magic "active."
But this learned author did not deal with divination
except as it existed in Greece and Italy; and in view of
our present extended knowledge this differentia is not
instructive.
[596] See Tylor's article in the last edition of the
Encyclopaedia Britannica, and his Gifford Lectures,
Pt. ii. ch. iv.; Haddon, Magic and Fetishism, p. 40.
Bouché-Leclercq, Hist. de divination dans l'antiquité,
vol. i. p. 7, distinguishes divination from magic; but
his knowledge of the subject was limited to civilised
races.
[597] Mr. Marett seems doubtful about it: see his
Threshold of Religion, pp. 42 and 83. In the latter
passage he says that it may or may not be treated as a
branch of magic, and may be "originally due to some dim
sort of theorising about causes, the theory engendering
the practice rather than the practice the theory." I
should doubt whether, when the facts have been fully
collected, this will be the conclusion to which they
point.
[598] Evolution of the Aryan, Drucker's translation,
p. 369.
[599] Ib. pp. 364, 374.
[600] A curious survival of divination from the
agricultural period, which was taken over by the State,
but not fixed to a day in the calendar, is the augurium
canarium. The exta of red puppies which had been
sacrificed were consulted, apparently with a view to
ascertain the probability of the corn ripening well
(Festus, p. 285, quoting Ateius Capito). See R.F. p.
90, and the references there given; also Cic. de
Legibus, ii. 20; Fest. 379; and Wissowa in
Pauly-Wissowa, p. 2328.
[601] See above, p. 102.
[602] See Dr. Jevons' account in Gardner and Jevons,
Manual of Greek Antiquities, ch. vii.
[603] Bouché-Leclercq in the introduction to his first
volume (p. 3) expresses a different opinion. He thinks
that the benefit conferred by divination in the conduct
of life was the most valuable part of religion. With
this I entirely disagree.
[604] Cic. de Divinatione, ii. 51.
[605] See Bouché-Leclercq, iv. 119 foll. In a recently
published essay, De antiquorum daemonismo, by J.
Tamburnino (Giessen, 1909), the only genuine Roman
evidence adduced of possession is Minucius Felix,
Octavius, ch. 27, i.e. it belongs to the late second
century A.D. In the so-called Italian oracles there is
no question of it: e.g. the lots at Praeneste were
worked by a boy (Cic. de Div. ii. 86).
[606] Livy i. 36; Cic. de Div. i. 17. It is Dion. Hal.
iii. 70 who says that his art was Etruscan.
[607] Bouché-Leclercq, iv. 120.
[608] For Carmenta see R.F. 167 and 291 foll. For
Fortuna, ib. 223 foll.; cp. 170 foll.
[609] Aug. de Civ. Dei, iv. 11; he uses the plural
Carmentes; see R.F. as above. Virgil, Aen. viii.
336.
[610] As "superstitiosi vates" in the passage of Ennius
quoted below. In his imaginary ius divinum Cicero uses
the word for "fatidici" authorised by the State (de
Legg. ii. 20). He is perhaps thinking of the
haruspices.
[611] Ribbeck, Fragm. tragicorum Romanorum, p. 55. For
hariolus outside the play-writers, Cic. de Nat. Deor.
i. 20. 55, where it is combined with haruspices,
augures, vates, and coniectores (interpreters of
dreams). Ad Att. viii. 11. 3.
[612] Cato, R.R. ch. 54; cp. Columella, i. 8 and xi.
1.
[613] See P. Regell, De augurum publicorum libris, p.
6 "Omnia illa auguria quae futurarum rerum aliquid
predicunt ... augurum publicorum disciplinae abroganda
sunt: aut privati sunt augurii, aut Tuscorum
disciplinae." Cp. Cic. de Har. Resp. 9. 18.
[614] Cic. de Div. i. 16. 28; Val. Max. ii. 1. 1.
[615] La Religione nella vita domestica, i. 153 foll.;
232 foll.
[616] Cic. de Div. i. 16, 28.
[617] This fragment is preserved in Gellius vii. 6. 10.
Nigidius may be responsible for many of Pliny's omens.
Regell, op. cit. p. 8.
[618] Hor. Odes, iii. 27. 1 foll.
[619] Exactly the same misfortune occurred in the middle
ages. The monks had abundant opportunity of observation,
but were occupied with other matters, and have left
behind them no works on natural history.
[620] See above, p. 169 foll.
[621] Livy vi. 12.
[622] See the fragment of Ennius' Annales in Cic. de
Div. i. 107.
[623] Wissowa, R.K. p. 450; Lex coloniae Genetivae,
66 and 67.
[624] Livy vi. 41.
[625] See a good account in the Dict. of Antiquities,
vol. i. 252 and 255; and Wissowa in Pauly-Wissowa,
s.v. "auspicia."
[626] Roman Public Life, p. 162.
[627] Wissowa, R.K. 451, note 2; Marq. 241.
[628] Mommsen, Staatsrecht, i. 86.
[629] Wissowa, R.K. 451, note 7; Plut. Quaest. Rom.
99; Pliny, Ep. 4. 8. Plutarch asks why an augur can
never be deprived of his office, and answers that the
secrecy of his art made it impossible. Cp. Paulus, 16.
[630] The latest authoritative account of the auspicia
is in Pauly-Wissowa, s.v., where the necessary
literature and material will be found for a study of an
extremely complicated subject.
[631] The technical term was templum minus, in
contradistinction to the templum maius, i.e. the
space in which he was to look for signs. See
Bouché-Leclercq, iv. 197; Fest. 157. The usual place was
the arx, where was the auguraculum, on which the
magistrate taking the auspices "pitched his tent"
(tabernaculum), looking to the east, with the north as
his left or lucky side. Von Jhering, op. cit. p. 364,
makes some ingenious use of this procedure to support
his theory that the origin of such institutions is to be
found in the period of migration.
[632] That the division of the templum into regiones
was necessary only for the auguria caelestia, and not
for the observation of birds, is the conclusion drawn by
Wissowa (R.K. 457, note 2) from the words of Cicero
(de Legibus, ii. 21) in his ius divinum: "caelique
fulgura regionibus ratis temperanto" (i.e. the
magistrates).
[633] Cicero expressly says that even old Cato
complained of the neglect of the auspicia by the
college: de Div. i. 15. 28; above, in sec. 25, he had
said the same thing of the augurs of his own day, i.e.
including himself. We know of a work on the auspicia
by M. Messalla, an augur, from which Gellius, xiii. 15,
quotes a lengthy extract (cp. ch. 14). This man was
consul in 53 B.C.; Schanz, Gesch. der röm. Lit., ii.
492. Just at the same time Appius Claudius, Cicero's
predecessor as governor of Cilicia, wrote libri
augurales, to which Cicero more than once alludes in
his correspondence with Appius: ad Fam. iii. 9. 3 and
11. 4. It is plain that the old augural lore is now
treated only as a curiosity, of which the secrecy need
no longer be respected.
[634] P. Regell, De augurum publicorum libris, whose
excellent little work has never been superseded, thinks
(p. 19) that the libri were the result of the neglect
of the art, i.e. that it was necessary to put it in
writing, because otherwise it would be forgotten. "Tota
eius vita," he says, "lenta est mors." The lore was
complete about the time of the decemvirate, but
decreta must have been continually added (p. 23). The
nucleus may be represented in Cicero, de Legibus, ii.
20. 21, and perhaps existed in Saturnian verse (Festus,
290). The additions in the way of decree or comment
would probably range over the fourth and third centuries
B.C. like those of the pontifices. No doubt the
Hannibalic war had the effect of diminishing the
importance of the lore, as the next lecture should show.
On the whole we may put the great period of the college
between the decemvirate and the war with Hannibal.
[635] This is the opinion of Bouché-Leclercq, op. cit.
vol. iv. p. 205 foll.; cp. Wissowa, R.K. p. 457.
Cicero calls the augurs "interpretes Iovis Optimi
maximi" (de Legibus, ii. 20), and herein could hardly
have made a mistake, as he was himself an augur. As the
great deity was of Etruscan origin in this form, I
should conjecture that the college took new ground and
gained new influence under the Etruscan dynasty.
[636] Cp. also Müller-Deecke, Die Etrusker, ii. 165
foll. Our knowledge comes chiefly from the learned but
obscure writer Martianus Capella (ed. Eyssenhardt), who
wrote under the later Empire.
[637] For these meetings see Cic. de Div. i. 41. 90;
Regell, p. 23. They were obsolete in Cicero's time, but
seem to have still existed in the time of Scipio
Aemilianus: Cic. Lael. 2. 7.
[638] Staatsrecht, i. 73 foll.; Greenidge, Roman
Public Life, p. 172 foll.
[639] The best account of the constitutional power of
the augurs is in Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encyclopädie,
s.v. "augur," vol. i. p. 2334 foll.; cp. Wissowa,
R.K. 457-8.
[640] De Legibus, ii. 21.
[641] The outward form of co-optatio was still
preserved, like our "election" of a bishop by a chapter.
Cicero was co-opted by Hortensius after nomination by
two other augurs. See his interesting account of this in
his Brutus, ch. i. The survival may be taken as
throwing light on the original secrecy and closeness of
the collegium.
[642] For the leges Aelia et Fufia, cf. Greenidge,
op. cit. p. 173. The Stoics of the last century B.C.
were divided on this point. See below, p. 399. In the
second book of his de Divinatione, following the
Academic or agnostic school, he himself confutes his
brother Quintus' argument for divination contained in
Bk. I.
[643] This is the view of Thulin, Die Götter des
Martianus Capella und der Bronzeleber von Piacenza
(Giessen, 1906), p. 7 foll., and it seems at present to
hold the field: see Gruppe, Die mythologische Literatur
aus den Jahren 1898-1905, p. 336.
[644] Müller-Deecke, vol. ii. p. 7 foll.
[645] See Deecke's note on p. 12 of Müller-Deecke, vol.
ii. It is possibly connected with hariolus.
[646] Wissowa, R.K. p. 470, and Müller-Deecke, vol.
ii. 165 foll.
[647] See above, note 50.
[648] References to Livy will be found in Wissowa,
R.K. p. 473, note 11. One of these, to Livy xxvii. 16.
14, is worth quoting as suggesting that a haruspex
might give useful advice in spite of his art: "Hostia
quoque caesa consulenti (Fabio) deos haruspex, cavendum
a fraude hostili et ab insidiis, praedixit."
[649] They were not sacerdotes publici Romani, nor is
a collegium mentioned till the reign of Claudius: Tac.
Ann. xi. 15. The proper term seems to have been
ordo, which occurs in inscriptions of the Empire:
Marq. p. 415.
[650] typo fixed: 54: See the oration De haruspicum
responsis (especially 5. 9), the genuineness of which
is now generally acknowledged. Asconius quotes it as
Cicero's (ed. Clark, p. 70): so also Quintilian, v. 11.
42.
[651] Tac. Ann. 11. 15.
[652] The haruspices mentioned in inscriptions (above,
note 56) were not the genuine article; they were Romans
and equites. Probably this was only one of the many
ways of finding dignity or employment for persons of
good birth under the Empire.
[653] Cod. Theod. xvi. 10. 1 (of the year 321 A.D.),
quoted by Wissowa, R.K. p. 475, note 1. In ix. 16. 3.
5, however, the practice of consulting such experts is
strictly prohibited.
[654] The story is told in Prof. Dill's Roman Society
in the Last Century of the Western Empire, ed. 1, p.
41.