AUGURY 



103 



Augury, spectedthe victims ? We are rather disposed, how- 



> -_ i ever, to derive the word augury from another source, 



which has been overlooked' by all the authors whom 

 we have consulted, viz. the Hebrew -pjy (ogur), 

 signifying a sxvalloiu or crane ; a name which might 

 be formed by onomatopeea, from their peculiar cry ; 

 but which we rather think is a derivative of the verb 

 ~IJ, to sojourn ; or ~)JJf, to return home. These birds 

 of passage appear to have been among the first to 

 impress mankind with a conviction of their supe- 

 rior sagacity, befimse, at intervals wisely chosen and 

 accurately measured, they disappear from their tem- 

 porary habitations, and revisit them when the genial 

 spring puts forth its buds, and awakes the voice of 

 the turtle. It was remarked by ./Elian, that they 

 recognise their former nests as readily as men know 

 their accustomed dwellings, (t iavTwv Ikccgtm xxXizv 

 uvceyvapi^uv, as rw iixiccv x&^axoi. ) And the prophet 

 Jeremiah, ( viii. 7. ) indignantly lamenting the insen- 

 sibility of his countrymen, says, " The stork in the 

 heaven knoweth her appointed times ; and the turtle, 

 and the crane, and the swallow, observe the time of 

 their coming ; but my people know not the judgment 

 of the Lord." This circumstance, as well as the 

 mournful twittering of these timorous and perpetual- 

 ly agitated birds, might inspire a belief that their de- 

 parture was portentous of desolation, their approach 

 the harbinger of gladness, and their agonising scream 

 the sure prognostic of woe. And might not the 

 name of these ominous creatures be readily transfer- 

 red to the diviner, who ventured occasionally to visit 

 the unseen regions of Erebus, and who, in accents 

 more dismal than the horrific note of the owl, or the 

 ear-piercing shriek of the bittern, muttered out his 

 pretended expositions of the mysteries of fate ? 



We do not pretend to know where the art of au- 

 gury took its rise. It was held in the highest esti- 

 mation by the Phrygians, the Arabians, the Lycians, 

 and all the Asiatics. The Cilicians, Pisidians, and 

 Pamphilians in particular, (as we are told by Cicero,) 

 regarded it as the surest mode of predicting the 

 things to come. It was cultivated also by the Athe- 

 nians, the Lacedemonians, and other Grecian states ; 

 and even the schools of philosophy, with scarcely an 

 exception, gave implicit credit to its rules. The 

 Romans borrowed it from the Etrurians, who said 

 that it was revealed to them by Tages, a supernatu- 

 ral being of earthly extraction, who sprung out of a 

 furrow, and instructed the astonished rustics in the 

 profound arcana of the invisible world. By an an- 

 cient law of the Roman senate, it was decreed, that 

 no measure of importance should be undertaken with- 



t consulting the Tuscan augurs ; and whenever any 

 prodigy occurred, it was customary to send a mission 

 into Etruria, to obtain a solution of the phenomenon. 

 These embassies, however, equally hazardous and in- 

 convenient, were very far from giving satisfaction. 

 It was therefore thought expedient to send six, or, 

 according to other accounts, ten of the noble youth to 

 Fesuls, to be initiated in the principles of the art at 

 the seminary of augurs. 



Romulus and Remus were practitioners of augury. 

 The former established the college of augurs, origi- 

 nally consisting of three members, to whom a fourth 

 was added by Servius Tullius. These four were all 



1 



of patrician rank. Five plebeians were afterwards Augury, 

 added to the number ; and, in the dictatorship of ' v 

 Sylla, a farther addition of six was made ; after 

 which period there was no addition or reduction of 

 the numbers. These fifteen augurs were next in 

 dignity to the college of pontijices ; and, though 

 their authority was merely negative, they had it in 

 their power to controul the highest officers of the 

 state, and either to aid or obstruct the functions of 

 government. Their office was held for life, and 

 could not be forfeited by the commission of the most 

 flagrant crimes. The robe of an augur was a mix- 

 ture of purple and scarlet, named the trabca. He 

 wore a conical cap ; and, when exercising the duties 

 of his mystical function, he held in his hand the li- 

 tuus, a staff neatly incurvated at the top. Equipped 

 in these peculiar badges of his office, he was prepa- 

 red for the solemnity of taking the auspices from the 

 meteors of the atmosphere, and from the winged 

 messengers of Phoebus or of Jove. He walked out 

 of the city at midnight, pitched a tent on an emi- 

 nence, lay till the dawn began to brighten, and then, 

 after offering up prayers and sacrifices, sat down 

 with his face directed to the east, or, as others tell 

 us, to the south. With his crooked rod he circum- 

 scribed a space in the sky, beyond which he suffered 

 not his eyes to wander. This imaginary space, on 

 which his attention was ri vetted, was named templum; 

 and hence arose the word contemplation, in the same 

 manner as the term consideration originated from the 

 eagerness with which the astrologer gazed on the 

 stars. Omens on the left were generally accounted 

 propitious by the Romans ; but the Greeks thought 

 omens on the right more favourable. The reason 

 commonly assigned for this apparent discrepancy, is, 

 that the former looked towards the south, and the 

 latter to the north, when they expected signs from 

 the heavens ; so that the east, the quarter whence they 

 looked for happy omens, was to the right of the one, 

 and to the left of the other. There were, however, 

 no general principles followed-by any set of augurs ; 

 and what, on one occasion was hailed as the most 

 joyful omen, was, on others, deplored as the presage 

 of inevitable misfortune. Cicero informs us, that 

 the rules observed by him were, in many respects, 

 diametrically opposite to those of his friend King 

 Deiotarus ; and that the particulars, accounted the 

 most essential by the Pamphilians and Cilicians, were 

 unknown, or disregarded by the professors of the 

 art at Rome. 



The Roman augurs did not confine their attention 

 to birds. There were five classes of phenomena from 

 which they sought information : appearances in the 

 sky ; the singing or the flight of birds ; the feeding 

 of the sacred chickens ; the motions of particular 

 quadrupeds ; and the accidents called (lira. Light- 

 ning from the left to the right was one of the most 

 favourable appearances which could visit them from 

 the sky, except when it was proposed to hold the 

 comitia. The birds from whose voice omens were 

 taken were called oscines ; such as the cock, the 

 owl, and the raven : creatures whose never-ceasing 

 volubility furnished the interpreters of their inarticu- 

 late speech with inexhaustible stores of imposture. 

 The prcepetes were the fowls of boldest wing, in 



