[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.