

MEXTATI 



An;n:. 



T4B 



CM* in borin* bol through hard wood, t any angle with the fibre* ; 

 tit* hole, too.u mot* truly cylindrical, and U produced without tewing 

 or bruising the fibre. 



AUGMENTATION, in old mink, waa ui increaaing of the value of 

 the note* above their common and essential value. The term ha* long 

 barn known only to musical antiquaries. 



- lATli-XS. THK CoritT OF. wa established 

 Hen. V11I. c. 27, for "tmaging the revenue* and 

 monarterie* under 200/. a year (which by an act of the 

 had been given to the king), and for determining suits relating thereto. 

 It was called ' the Court of the Augmentation* of the Revenue! of the 

 King'* Crown,' and wa* a court of record with one great aeal and one 

 privy aaal ; the officer* being a chancellor, who had the great seal, a 

 trauurvr. a king'* attorney and solicitor, ten auditor*, aeventoen 

 receiver*, with clerk, uiher, Ac. All the dissolved monasteries un<ler 

 the above value, with aome exception*, were in survey of the court, the 

 chancellor of which wa* directed to make a yearly report of their 

 revenue* to the king. The record* of the Court are now at the Public 

 Record Office, in the keeping of the Matter of the Roll* (1 & 2 Viet. 

 c. 94), and may be Marched on payment of a fee. 



X OF. [COKFKMIONS.] 



AUGUR. The earliest inhabitant* of Italy, like all rude nation*, 

 imagined that they *aw in every unusual occurrence a manifestation of 

 the will of heaven. The power of interpreting the sign* thus f urninhed 

 by the god* wa* thought to depend upon a peculiar talent conferred 

 upon the favoured mortal from his birth, but a certain discipline wa* 

 neoaecuy to give to the talent ite full development A superstition BO 

 deeply Kniod in the mind* of the people wa* turned to account in the 

 political constitution of Rome, by the establishment of a college of 

 augurs, whose duty it was on all occasions of importance, whether of a 

 public or private nature, by certain arts to ascertain and report the 

 pleasure or displeasure of the gods. Romulus himself was said to have 

 oeen skilled in the art* of divination from his earliest youth, and at the 

 foundation of the city the claims of the rival brothers were decided by 

 augury. The story of Tanaquil, of Servius Tallinn, and still more the 

 contest between the elder Tarquin and Attus Navius, afford additional 

 evidence of the peculiar nature of this Roman superstition. 



The institution of the college of augurs may be referred to the very 

 earliest period of Roman history ; for the assertion of Livy (i. 18, and 

 iv. 4), that there were no augurs in the reign of Romulus is not merely 

 opposed to the general tenor of the history of Rome, but directly con- 

 tradicted by Cicero. (' De Republica,' ii. 9.) The original number of 

 augurs is again differently reported. Cicero, himself an augur, Bays 

 that Romulus associated three others with himself, and that Numa 

 added two. (Had. 14.) Livy reports that in the opinion of the augurs 

 of his time the number of the college was necessarily related to the 

 number of the ancient tribes, and that consequently there must have 

 been at the beginning either three or six ; so that each of the three 

 tribe* should have either one or two augurs. On the other hand, the 

 same author found it recorded in the annals of Rome that, prior to the 

 U^ulnun law, there were but four members of the college. In these 

 different account* Niebuhr has pointed out strong reasons for giving 

 the preference to the last. The notion of there having been three or 

 aix seems to have been a mere inference from the number of the tribes ; 

 and if all the tribe* had stood on an equal footing, the argument would 

 have had much weight. But the same writer has fully established the 

 fact that the first two tribes possessed higher privilege* than the third, 

 and thia in a more marked manner in the offices of a religious character, 

 so that the number four, two for each of the privileged tribes, seems 

 to point to a similar distinction in the highly-important powers of the 

 augurate. On the other hand, though Cicero's evidence is in favour of 

 the number six, his mode of accounting for that number is wholly at 

 variance with the reason* of the augurs a* reported by Livy. Again, 

 if, a* Cicero implies, Romulus wa* a member of the college, his successors 

 in the regal power must have succeeded likewise to the augural office; 

 a supposition in no respect confirmed by history, and scarcely com- 

 patible with what is reported of Tarquin'* dispute with Attux N.ivius. 

 Moreover, if such a power bad passed through the hands of the kings, 

 it remain* to be asked what course was pursued at the change ..f tin 

 government from the regal to the consular form. At that revolution 

 the political power* of the king devolved upon the consuls, or pnctora 

 as they were at first called, those of a religious character u|*>n tin 

 priest, called rtr ncriffulta ; but there is no trace of evidence to show 

 that the authority of the latter ever included the powers of the augurate. 

 Under thia view of the subject, Niebuhr is of opinion that originally 

 the Ramnensian tribe po**e**iug the chief powers of the state had its 

 two augur* ; that at a later period, when the Titiense* were admittec 

 to a share of these privileges, two others were added. This i* confirmee 

 by the statement of Cicero that Numa added two to the college, for 

 the name of that king i* always connected with the privileges of the 

 ccund tribe. Livy, in hi* wish to reconcile the different accounts, has 

 bean driven to the supposition that when the Ogulnian law was broughl 

 forward, there may have been two vacancies by death ; but it is not 

 probable that the patrician* would allow themselves to lose two seat* in 

 the college through such an accident, especially a* even after the law 

 was brought forward it wa* not too Lite for the remaining augurs to 

 fill up the supposed vacancies for in them the election resided. The 

 Ogulnian law, which was brought forward by Q. and Cn. Ogulniua, am 



in end in the year B.C. 807, opened the pontifical and the augural 



colleges to the plebeians. (Liv. x. 6, V.) In the Utter, five plebeian* 



were associated with the four patricians ; and this number remained to 



he time of Sulla, B.C. 81, who increased it to fifteen. (Liv. KpiC 89.) 



<astly , among the many extraordinary power* conferred upon Augustus 



n B.C, 29 was the right of electing augurs at hi* pleasure, win tln-r 



here was a vacancy or not ; so that from that period the number of 



the college ceased to be definite. (Dion. xli. 20.) 



But a more important point than the number of the augurs was the 

 mode of election. At first, the augurs, like the other priests, were 

 elected by the patrician assembly of the Curie*, called the Camilla 

 Curiata: but no election was complete without the sanction ,.( the 

 augury ; so that the college possessed a virtual veto upon the admiasion 

 >f all members into it. (Dion. ii. 22.) This power was not unlikely to 

 ead to a gradual usurpation of the elective right ; and thus, as early a* 

 the year B.C. 452, we find it the practice of the college to fill up 

 vacancies by co-optation a* it waa called, that U, by the votes of the 

 existing augurs. (Lav. iii. 82.) This mode of election .ntin 

 the third consulship of Marina, B. c. 103, when the tribune Cn. Douiitius 

 Ahenobarbus carried a law, that in cue of any vacancy in any of the 

 sacred college*, aeventeen out of the thirty-five tribe* chosen 1>\ lot 

 should, by a majority of the votes of the said seventeen tribes, noniinato 

 a successor, whom the college should be bound to elect. (Cic. contra 

 Leg. Agrar.' ii 7, Ac.) The return of Sulla to power restored the 

 election to the colleges ; but in the consulship of Cicero (B. 

 T. Attius Labienus, with the support of Ctcsar, procured the reversal 

 of Sulla's law. (Dion, xxxvii. 37.) After the death of Caesar, A 

 restored the old law, at least in the election of the chief pontiff, a|ia 

 therefore, most probably, in that of the other priest*. (Dion, xli 

 We have already mentioned that the emperors had the privilege of 

 appointing augurs at their own discretion. 



The ceremonies and superstitions which constituted the supposed 

 science of the augurs would be tedious to enumerate ; but that which 

 especially characterised the augural office was the pretended pov. 

 ascertaining the divine will from the flights of birds. For this purpose 

 the augur selected gome elevated spot, on which he sat with his head 

 veiled and his face turned towards some particular quarter of the 

 heaven, varying perhaps according to the occasion ; for the account* 

 differ so much that, while Livy says it was the east, we have the 

 authority of Varro for the south, and Frontinus for the west. Then 

 the augur, with a bent wand or crook, free from knots, called a lituu.t, 

 marked off a certain portion of the heavens and of the earth, within 

 which his observations were to be mode, and again divided tin* i 

 into two parts the right and left. The space BO defined in the mind 

 of the augur was called a ttmplum, and the steadfast observation of the 

 augur directed upon it may probably account for the meaning of the 

 Latin word con-templa-ri , to contemplate, which has been adopted into 

 our own language. The gods then signified their approbation by the 

 appearance of birds on the left, and the augury was complete.* K- -r 

 some purposes the whole circumference of the heavens, together with 

 the corresponding parts of the earth, were divided, according to the 

 rules of the art, by lines directed to the cardinal points, and other* 

 parallel to these. (Liv. i. 18, Dion. ii. 70, and the appendix to the 

 translation of Niebuhr, vol. ii.) So prominent a place did the feathery 

 creation hold as the interpreters of the divine will, that au or OKI. the 

 Latin for bird, U the chief element in the term aat/ur, as it is alao in 

 the nearly equivalent word autptx. In the latter, the second syllable 

 is deduced from tpec, look, so that the word signifies bird-observer. 

 The second element of the word augur does not admit of satisfactory 

 explanation from any existing word in the Latin language. We have 

 called the terms nearly equivalent, and if Plutarch's authority hod been 

 sufficient (' Homaica,' c. 72), we might have dropped the qualifying 

 adverb. But a Roman antiquary would have pointed out many dis- 

 tinctions between them. The most important of these is, that tin- 

 leading magistrates of Rome possessed the auspices (Cic. ' De I .. .' iii. 3) 

 by virtue of their office, while the term augurium never refers to any 

 other than an augur. The name auspex does not appear to have been 

 in early times a technical word, and indeed was but rarely employed ; 

 but the derivatives from it were frequently used, and applied with 

 considerable latitude to the augurs a* well as to the magistrate*. The 

 object* of the auspices and auguries were nearly the same, and the 

 mean* employed of a similar nature. Moreover, all legal dispute* 

 about the auspices of the magistrates seem to have been referred to the 

 augurs. Under all these circumstances, we shall not attempt to draw 

 a very nice line between them. 



There were, as we have already stated, besides the movements of 

 birds, a variety of other occurrence* in the physical world which, a* 

 expressive of the will of heaven, came under the cognisance of the 

 .IIIKUI.-. \\'e shall not attempt to give a catalogue of all the forms 

 which the superstitions of man may take ; but absurd as these forma 

 may have been, the political power of the augurs was most subtanU:il. 

 The election of a king, a consul, a dictator, a praetor, a curule ! 

 the various priests, pontifex, augur, vestal, flamen, Ac., all wei 

 unless the auspices were favourable. A general could not t-nms the 

 pomoorium, or sacred boundary of Rome, the frontier of the state, or 

 even a river, without the mnctiun of his birds. To engage an en. -my 

 in defiance of these interpreters of the will of heaven was sure t< > 

 present or future defeat. In the assignment of jjul.hr l.-n-l. tin 



